Poor, College Thanksgiving

I waited a little too long to book a flight home this year and they got a little too expensive. So I opted to stay in Boston, seeing as how I'll be home for good next month anyway. I also have a decent amount of work to do, but I will likely designate a few days to do absolutely nothing. See below, my plans for today: leftover Bon Chon, play Skyrim, catch up on non-school reading, and I just downloaded 50/50 and Warrior. I am also going to do my laundry. Tomorrow, while everyone is shopping, I think I will go see The Muppets and/or Hugo.



I'm thankful for whatever it is in me that hopes beyond hope that someday I might do something of worth for the good of the world. As contradictory as my life is, it's been a subtle, but galvanizing and self-correcting force in my life and I don't think I'd like where I'd be without it. Friends and family too, probably.

Four more weeks of school and I'm done forever.

Happy Thanksgiving, friends.

October Frost

I spent the majority of this past weekend at the library writing a paper. Saturday evening, I took a break to grab a slice of pizza across the street with a friend. It was a warm evening, unseasonably so for this time of year, and the air smelled sweetly of decaying leaves. It was dark as we were walking back to the library and our work. On the way, there was a small group huddled around a dark mound wedged in between the curb and a car. As we got closer, we noticed a concerned, elderly woman standing just outside the group with her hands clasped tightly in front of her chest. Her husband had fallen into the small space at the base of the curb and a number of passers-by were attempting to help him out and up.

Our pace slowed, watching to see if we could offer our assistance. After some doing, the gentleman was on his feet, so we continued back across Comm. Ave. to the library. Comm. Ave. is a large, busy two way road divided by the T tracks. When we got to the median, I looked back to see that the elderly couple were beginning to cross. We waited for them to reach the median safely and continued ahead by a few steps, just in case. Once they were across safely, the woman approached us to ask if we knew where a particular conference hall was, where an Amnesty International event was being held. We did and we escorted them to the building in question, which was just a couple of blocks down. While walking, we learned that they had been married for over 50 years. The wife was born October Callum, but goes by Toby. Her husband is Wesley Frost. That makes her October Frost and that is just the prettiest name.

She told us about the time she drove from Boston to Alaska and how she'd like, one day, to drive across America and write about the names of places. I told her about my cross-country trips and we shared stories from the road. Before too long, we saw them back to their car and we parted ways as they effused thank-yous. My friend and I made our way back to the library and I sunk my evening in one of my last assignments ever, hopefully. It was a pleasant diversion and I imagined what it would be like not only to have lived such a long life as happily as they have, but to have gone the majority of it with someone you love.

Winter In A Hurry

It seemed like we only had a couple of weeks of pleasant Fall weather. Winter showed up mighty early this year. I had to unwrap my peacoat from the plastic, baby suffocating garment bag today, but any excuse to break out The Hill-side gear is fine with me.

Batman, Snow, & Mint

As is usually the case, I'm not very active on here in the middle of the semester. Once I get into the school groove, it's just week after week of trying to keep my brain alive without anything interesting going on. This weekend is Halloween weekend, so presumably the entire contingent of able-bodied college partiers should be out in force tonight. It's also snowing. Winter showed up in a hurry and I don't think all the sexy-"something" costumed coeds are going to appreciate that tonight. I, on the other hand, have opted to stay inside today, rather than venture out. I've done nothing today except apply to jobs and play Batman: Arkham City (which is fantastic). I'm getting to the point where I care very little about school work and can only think about the unsettling prospect of long-term unemployment as I'm on the brink of reentering the job market. So, if you are in a position to get or help me get a job, now's your chance to be my best friend.

On a similar note, I was looking at my finances earlier and it's really nothing except horribly depressing and each time I look is even more depressing. I'm a Mint.com user so I have my data neatly arranged for the couple of years since I started using it. Here's a chart of my net worth for about two years. It starts close to a year after I started working and shows a basically symmetric rise and fall of my savings on either side of the start of grad school. For privacy's sake, I left out the actual values.

...

I NEED A JOB.



* - The chart does not include my student loans. If it did, it would be even more depressing.

Oak Street Bootmakers

I recently picked up a pair of Trail Oxfords from Oat Street Bootmakers in Chicago. In somewhat of a recent development, I've begun to be drawn to the appeal of high quality, American made goods. Denim, leather goods, shoes. The Hill-side, Tellason, Tanner Goods. This is in part thanks to guys like Ryan over at his Simple Threads blog. I've been on the lookout for a go-to, durable pair of shoes I can wear with anything and is not a sneaker. I stumbled on Oak Street and was immediately sold. Since I received them, they've rarely left my feet (except when Boston is being Boston and the weather is gross, which, admittedly, is fairly often). They're exceedingly comfortable and the Horween leather is like butter.

I'm not going to be attempting to break in to the fashion blogosphere, but I just thought I'd share in case any of you guys are looking for a handsome, comfortable shoe that can be dressed up or down. Definitely check out Oak Street. As an added bonus, before I pulled the trigger, I had a nice, extended email conversation with the owner/cobbler himself, George Vlagos. George answers all emails personally and is the kind of person you always want to speak with at a business.

Nova Scotia (v): Halifax, Cape Breton, & Irene

From Peggys Cove, Halifax is less than an hour drive away. While following the coastal route was straightforward and more or less devoid of any opportunities to get lost, making my way into the city was a little trickier. Without my phone or a detailed map, I aimed myself toward Halifax and hoped for the best. I took a couple of wrong turns, but I made it to downtown Halifax before too long. Halifax is pretty small and actually not that interesting. I've been to cooler cities. I checked out a few major tourist sites, including a large fort-topped hill in the center of the town. I then went down to the boardwalk to grab something to eat. You can see the two snack shacks: beaver tails (?!) and fish and chips. Silly Canadians. I had previously considered spending more time in Halifax, but I didn't feel compelled to. After lunch, I got back in my car and headed out for Cape Breton.



Up until then I had been on the coastal route, but the road to Cape Breton crossed the interior of Nova Scotia. Most of the population seemed concentrated in the outer edges of Nova Scotia and the interior was mostly empty and pock marked by lakes. I didn't make any stops and got to the island a little before sunset. I got on the Cabot Trail, which is the road that loops around the park, and headed counter-clockwise. It was too late to attempt any hikes, so the next series is just views of the winding, cliff-top coastal roads and the sky and ocean in different stages of the sunset.



At the northern tip of the park, there is a small town with a couple of restaurants and an inn. I ate dinner there, which consisted of fish that had been caught that day, and then doubled back to where the trail hit some of the highest points in the park. I attempted to do some astrophotography, but my poor 40D is showing its age. It doesn't seem up to super long exposures anymore and was never really able to handle very high ISOs. I got a handful of too-noisy shots of the Milky Way and a couple of star trails, but they're not really usable. If you want to contribute to the "Buy Brian A New Camera" fund, please let me know.

After a couple of hours of wandering around in the dark, I made my way back to the mini-town and parked my car and slept until just before sunrise. I woke up and immediately made my way to the eastern coast to catch the sunrise. After a little while of making my way down the eastern loop, I turned off into a small fishing village that was just beginning to stir and the fishermen were preparing their boats for the day. At this point I'd accumulated more than enough pictures of lighthouses, but at the of the road was another lighthouse atop a low headland overlooking the water. The clouds and morning sun created a backdrop I couldn't leave unphotographed.

I continued south from the village for a bit and turned off again to follow a beach trail on foot. It led to a rocky outcropping that jutted out into the water. I went up onto the rocks and stood at the edge as the waves crashed violently on the darkened stones below me. The sun was climbing steadily in the sky and the clouds broke the fledgling sun-rays into light and dark, blue and red. The coast arced forward on either side of me and I wondered at what motivates me to drive thousands of miles just to be alone, surrounded by rocks, trees, and water.



From there I made my way to the trailhead of a hike I had planned on doing. Unfortunately, as soon as I parked my car, Irene crashed the party. The rain began lightly - a light mist that was almost imperceptible enough for me to still consider doing the hike - but Irene soon extinguished the clean light of the new day and cast it into the murky darkness of late evening. Storm clouds rolled in thick and unforgiving and the rain became hard and pelting. I had originally planned on staying the entire day in the park, but knowing that the rain wouldn't stop until Irene had passed, I decided to just start the drive back to Boston. There wouldn't be any point in staying. So, I dialed in and drove the 15 hours back to Boston straight, passing through the entirety of Hurricane Irene.

The return journey was pretty uninteresting - nothing but black skies, wiper blades, and the barely visible tail lights of the cars ahead of me. Just as I made it back into the city, the sky cleared. I got back to my apartment, plugged myself back into the internet and found out what had happened in the world in the previous five days, and passed out. Another road trip over, but as a bonus, here's a shot of what my passenger seat looks like during these things:

Ten Years Ago Today

I was in my tenth grade history class. Our room didn't have a TV and no one had come in to to tell us what had happened. My teacher finished his lecture and when we filed out into the hallway, it was eerily quiet and deserted. There was always an odd feeling of having done something wrong or being somewhere I wasn't supposed to be when I found myself in an empty hallway. Puzzling at the absence of the usual inter-period cacophony and gridlock, my classmates and I sidled down the hall, peering into the adjacent classrooms. It wasn't long before the solemn expressions and images of plumes of smoke told us what we had been so blithely ignorant of moments before. While we were engrossed in European history, other classes had been interrupted by news of events that would come to dominate the tone of the following ten years.

The next hours were spent silently watching coverage of the attacks in chemistry. The silence was broken periodically by parents nervously plucking their child out of class, someone quietly sobbing into their desk, or a cellphone ringing louder than any phone had ever rung before. School was eventually dismissed early and I went home knowing everyone I knew was safe, but not how profoundly the world had just changed.

Nova Scotia (iv): Lunenburg, Mahone Bay, & Peggys Cove

I woke up in my car in Lunenburg right before sunrise. I rubbed the grogginess out of my eyes and the stiffness out of my neck and made my way down to the docks. Lunenburg is an historic port town and is known for its jewel-toned buildings. The brightly colored homes, sailboats, and the warm, yellow light of dawn made for a very painterly scene.



Before the sun rose too far above the horizon, I got back into my car and continued along the coast. Just down the road was Mahone Bay. Another small historic town, Mahone Bay is mostly known for its three prominent churches from the 1800's: Trinity United, Saint John's Lutheran, and Saint James Anglican. The churches are often seen on postcards and travel ads for Nova Scotia.



The third in this succession of Nova Scotia landmarks was Peggys Cove. A small fishing village, with a population of less than 50, that is home to the "most photographed lighthouse in North America." After you turn into the village and pass the small wooden houses, stacks of lobster cages, and grounded rowboats, the road ends in a small gravel turn off. Over a small grassy hill is an expansive rocky plateau that leads to the ocean. At the edge of the plateau overlooking the powerful, crashing waves is Peggys Point Lighthouse. As I approached it, the fog was still dense and I could only make out the dark outline of the monolith. The mist began to dissipate and the lighthouse and shore began to resolve and flush with color. It's easy to see why it's so prolifically photographed. Peggys Point is as iconic as a lighthouse can get.



I passed through these three scenes in only a couple of hours. In the remainder of the day I passed through Halifax and drove north to Cape Breton. I'll get to those next time.

On another note: I've completed my first week of the semester. It's been rainy and cold all week and I've been somewhat distracted for various reasons. Fortunately, it's supposed to clear up tomorrow and, hopefully, so will my disposition. I will use the weekend to recharge and brace myself for the prospect of doing school work again.

Nova Scotia (iii): South Shore

Upon arriving at the ferry at Saint John, I found it suspiciously empty. It was then that I learned that Canada is actually one hour ahead of the United States. I thought I had made it to the ferry an hour early, but I actually arrived five minutes late and watched as the Princess of Acadia sailed out into the Bay of Fundy in the murky, overcast dusk. So that evening I found a hotel room and grabbed dinner at a local bar and got my last full night's rest and shower for the rest of the trip.

As it turns out, it was fortunate that I missed the ferry the previous evening. The clouds had dissipated and the next morning was clear and sunny. I arrived at the ferry extra early to avoid any complications and boarded the Princess at 11am and sailed at noon.



After making landfall in Digby, I set off along the coastal road going counter clockwise. The coast is peppered with countless turnoff loops, tracing the contours of the shoreline, that weave in and out of fishing villages and tourist watering holes. I made my way through many of them, but the more interesting ones weren't until the next day closer to Halifax. I did find a nice secluded lighthouse over a rock strewn beach covered in wildflowers. It was near sunset and the beach was shrouded in mist and the light was diffuse and ghostly. If you look closely, you can see the light refracting in the mist and creating a small, faint rainbow around the lighthouse in the first shot. As I explored the beach the lighthouse let out a deafening blast every 30 seconds. It took me several minutes to stop flinching at it.



As night fell, I drove for as long as I could without falling asleep. I made it all the way to Lunenburg, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and parked my car on a secluded side street and got a few hours of sleep. I'll pick up here in the next post, but now I have to go to my last first day of class. For now, here are some shots of the sunset over the bay:

Nova Scotia (ii): Precipice Trail

The Precipice Trail is actually in Acadia National Park in Maine not Nova Scotia. I read about this particular trail while looking into Acadia National Park and was drawn by the descriptions of ascending the sheer, vertical face of Champlain Mountain. It's billed as a "non-technical climb" and ominous signs warned off the height-phobic.

The trail begins with a straightforward rock scramble, but once it reaches the base of the mountain it becomes extremely vertical. While normal trails ascend in switchbacks of more forgiving grades, Precipice immediately launches into a series of climbs and ladder-like portions that zig-zag up the 1,000 foot cliff. The trail itself is only a little over a mile long, but it was pretty strenuous. Not having worked out much this summer, I reached the summit with quivering quads and calves on the verge of cramping.



I left Boston a little before Hurricane Irene arrived and essentially raced it up the coast. I beat it to Nova Scotia by a few days, but I'll talk about that later. In Maine, I think I got the very tip of it. There was partial cloud cover that got heavier as the day wore on, but, while on the hike, the sun came in and out. The summit was, at regular intervals, enveloped by passing clouds - the thin sliver of the forested shoreline and ocean intermittently obscured like different stages of a Hiroshi Sugimoto seascape series. The ocean, of course, is also what made this hike so different from the others I've been on. It's quite a difference to see an endless expanse of water from height instead of mountains and forests. Descending was considerably more unnerving. Lowering yourself over a rock ledge trying to find the first foothold then looking down to see 1,000 feet of nothing below you is not something you can quite get used to.

I had to hurry down, against the protests of my worn out legs, because I had scheduled my visit to Acadia to leave me enough time to get to Saint John, New Brunswick in time for the last ferry of the day to Digby, Nova Scotia. I returned to my car exactly on schedule and the drive to Saint John went smoothly, but I missed the ferry for a very stupid reason. I'll explain why in the next post. In the meantime, I'm driving home tomorrow to drop off the car and will be hanging out for a few days before flying back to Boston to begin my last semester of school, hopefully ever.

Nova Scotia (i): 2,641, 750, 37, 512*

I got back from Nova Scotia a couple of hours ago. I headed home a day early because Hurricane Irene decided to make her appearance. The numbers in the title are thus: 2,641 miles driven (that's from MD->Boston->NS->Boston), 750 pictures taken, 37 episodes of This American Life listened to, and what seems like 512 bug bites (maybe an exaggeration). I just took my first shower since Thursday and am now going to go sleep in a bed for the first time in three nights.

Stay tuned for more. For now, enjoy this super posed shot of a sunset over the Atlantic from Cape Breton.

Yukon Ho!

Well, I'm going to the opposite end of Canada from the Yukon. Tomorrow I'll be packing the car and heading up to Nova Scotia. I'll be making a stop in Boston to drop off my stuff at my apartment and then continuing north. I'm going to try to fit in the Precipice Trail in Acadia National Park if I have time before making the 8pm ferry from Saint John, New Brunswick to Digby, Nova Scotia. From Digby I'll be looping around the southern tip of NS and making my way to Halifax and then to Cape Breton Highlands National Park. I'm looking forward to the open road, ocean, horizon, forests, and hours of This American Life.

Stay tuned for pictures/stories.

Pig Racing, 80 Pound Pumpkins, & Demolition Derbies

I went by the Montgomery County Agricultural Fair today. In addition to the titular attractions, it was full of novel things like a bunny barn, amateur dog shows, tractor pulls, camels, and all the usual rides and fried foods you'd expect. It was kind of alarming to see how overweight (and white) the majority of the people there were. Although, it probably shouldn't have come as a surprise considering the words "FRIED DOUGH" are prominently displayed in flashing lights everywhere.

While taking a picture of a cooking demonstration, the instructor looks at me and suggests I should send the picture to his mother. After a brief pause and a chuckle he adds, "Oh, never mind. She's dead." What kind of joke is that?!

Summer's End

Summer's coming to an end. I finished my internship last week. I've had a week to do absolutely nothing except sleep and eat. I'll be going back up to Boston for my last semester in a couple of weeks. Before that, I'll be taking a week long road trip to Nova Scotia to check out the coast, Halifax, and Cape Breton National Park. It'll be nice to be out in the open air again. For all those that haven't visited me in Boston yet, I'll only be there until Christmas!

It's been a good summer. It'll be my last summer vacation ever. To commemorate, here's some gratuitous puppy action:

Bancroft, Brandywine, Black & White

A friend and I went by the abandoned Bancroft Mills factory complex on the banks of Brandywine Creek in Wilmington, DE. It's a row of 100+ year old textile facilities and are just begging to be explored. If I'd had more time, I'd have tried to find a way inside them. Unfortunately, they're currently in the process of being renovated into upscale condos. The cost of progress.

Spain (v): Barcelona

My train pulled in to Barcelona at around 9:30 in the evening. Thanks to the efficient and immediately comprehensible metro system, I was able to find my way into the city to join the others easily. When I arrived at the apartment, it had been over 24 hours since I'd been doused in Sangria in the madness that was Pamplona. I dropped my bags and ran for the shower to scrub away the now hard shell of sugar, sweat, and dirt that encased every inch of exposed skin. Afterward, I'd never felt so clean in my life.

Barcelona is the most normal city I visited in Spain. Certainly very different from any city I've been to in America, but it seemed the most real. There was still beautiful architecture and sun-soaked beaches, but it also had contrast. It had dirt. There was poverty. There were areas that weren't absurdly pristine. It felt more lived in.

That evening, the group decided to go to a club. Having traveled all day and not having had any real rest for two days, I opted to roam the city on my own for a while and get some sleep. I walked to a street known as La Rambla, which is a major tourist area. It extends into the city from the harbor and is lined with tourist shops, street vendors, and restaurants. It was brightly lit and even at 1am it was densely packed. As I headed back to the apartment around 2am, all the cafes and restaurants I passed were still filled with customers. Nothing showed any signs of slowing down.



After a few hours of sleep, I woke up to go catch the sunrise at the beach while everyone else was recovering from their adventures that evening. I left the apartment at around 5:30am and, as I made my way to the beach, the clubs and bars were just emptying out. Young people stumbled out of dark, now silent halls of soon to be forgotten bacchanalian revelry. They emerged in various states of disarray and disheveled-ness and hobbled haltingly, supported by each other, down sidewalks in the half-light of predawn. When I arrived at the beach, a 20 minute walk away, I discovered a mass of spent and happily exhausted partiers sprawled on the sand. I overheard multiple guys breathlessly and emphatically avowing to their friends that that was, in fact, the best night of his life.

On my way back from the beach, the city had almost emptied of its evening denizens. Streets and squares I had just passed through that were crowded and filled with slurred speech and uninhibited laughter were deserted and blanketed in silence. It was almost unsettling - I felt almost like I was the victim of some kind of reverse flashmob.



After returning to the apartment and waiting for the others to wake up, we took the metro to the Gaudi cathedral. I don't know enough about it to say anything meaningful about its history or Antoni Gaudi himself, you can look that up easily yourself, but it was a pretty imposing structure. Still unfinished, it kind of reminded me of the undersea palace in "The Little Mermaid's" Atlantis. The exterior has an organic mass of figures and details. The interior was cavernous and extravagant. It was teeming with tourists and hardly felt like it could ever serve as a place of worship.



After some other general sightseeing, that evening we went to Montjuïc - translated in medieval Catalan as "Hill of the Jews." It's a large hill on the south side of Barcelona with gardens and a large castle at its summit. Unfortunately, I had only brought my 50mm because I was tired of carrying around my camera bag. I was not expecting the spectacular views from the top of the hill, but I did what I could. I was also so focused on the panorama from there and the sun setting (as seen in the shot at the top of the post) that I neglected to take any picture of the castle. 



After we finished being awed by the view of Barcelona, we set out to find the cafe that someone had read was supposed to be located behind the castle on the opposite side of the hill. We walked along a dirt path that stretched out along the eastern hill face overlooking the Mediterranean. Not really knowing what we were looking for and with the light fading quickly, the walk around the hill seemed to stretch on. When we finally made it there, we were relieved and pleasantly surprised to find a charming open air cafe with another fantastic view, this time of the Mediterranean. It's called "La Caseta del Migdia" and I definitely recommend trying to make your way out here if you're in Barcelona. It's off the beaten path and it was a refreshing change from the tourist heavy sites we'd been to that day. We sat in canvas chairs at wooden picnic tables sipping whiskey, wine, Coke, and vodka Fantas.



Soon after we arrived and began enjoying drinks and plates of meat, cheese, and bread (which seemed to be all we ate in Spain), a Flamenco band and dancers began performing. I went to take some shots of the small stage where the dancers spun and stomped along with a guitarist and an older woman who sang/spoke rhythmic phrases and shouts (like a caller at a square dance...?). I moved around to the rear of the stage to get some shots with a rim light, but the older woman turned around, pointed at me, and yelled "El paparazzi!" She pulled me on stage and made me take pictures of all of them. It was pretty awesome and only reinforced the theory that everyone in Spain loves me. After that incident, they continued to perform. The main pair, if I had to describe them, were probably as stereotypically Spanish and sexy as you could be. I don't really know how else to say it. The rest of the time there I sat sipping whiskey out of a plastic cup, watching the dancers move hypnotically, and just soaking in the warmth and other-ness of that experience. It was a great evening.



We made our way back down the hill in the dark and back to the apartment. After a short rest, we went to a club by the beach for a little while. There wasn't anything particularly memorable about that. I left early to shower, pack, and go to the airport to catch my 8am flight. I successfully navigated more trains, shuttles, and confusing Spanish airports and made it back to America (not without spending the rest of my euros to buy crispy M&Ms at Duty Free) after eight great, mostly memorable days.

As good a time as I had in Spain, the first thing I did when I landed in Philly for a short layover was eat Chik-fil-a and it was glorious.

"The world was not wheeling any more. It was just very clear and bright, and inclined to blur at the edges."

The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway

Spain (iv): Pamplona

"Then we crossed a wide plain, and there was a big river off on the right shining in the sun from between the line of trees, and away off you could see the plateau of Pamplona rising out of the plain, and the walls of the city, and the great brown cathedral, and the broken skyline of the other churches. In back of the plateau were the mountains, and every way you looked there were other mountains, and ahead the road stretched out white across the plain going toward Pamplona."

Of course, modern day Pamplona bears little resemblance to the one described in "The Sun Also Rises" (few things do resemble their Hemingway counterpart). As we arrived in Pamplona after the hour-long bus ride from San Sebastian, we passed first through a modern downtown urban center. High rises, office buildings, a modern bus station. If not for the sea of white clothes dotted by red bandanas like flecks of blood, Pamplona seemed terribly ordinary (that is, for Spain). As we made our way out of the bus station and to the historic district, the crowds grew thicker and the tall, utilitarian architecture gave way to the elaborate and detailed. Throughout the town, I noticed that a blue cartoon bull cutout watched down from certain balconies. This is the mascot of the company kukuxmusu, ostensibly the official souvenir purveyor for the Festival of San Fermin. Their t-shirts and other paraphernalia depict cartoon bulls (with giant balls) in the running, often in surprisingly violent circumstances. I somehow neglected to pick anything up at one of their kiosks. I also wonder how their sales do the other 51 weeks in the year.



We weren't planning on finding lodging for the night (nor could we have given how many people were there), instead we checked our bags at a municipal luggage storage service, targeted at tourists like us, and gave ourselves into the mercy of the festival crowd. The Festival of San Fermin is a week long celebration of Spanish folklore and centers around the running of the bulls and bullfights. It attracts over a million people a year and it is absolutely ridiculous. Partying begins in the late afternoon and lasts until the bull run at 8am the next day. The city cleans the apocalypse of a mess each day until it happens again. When we first began wandering the town it was pleasant and seemed well maintained. Little did we know of the disaster that would befall this place in a matter of hours.



Like I mentioned before, every where I went in Spain, people would grab me and talk to me and then ask me to take their picture. You'll notice the guys in the second picture from the bottom and how they are casually lugging around bottles of sangria. That would come into play in a big way at the bullfight.

We made our way to the arena and did a lap getting a feel for how much the scalpers were asking for tickets to that afternoon's bullfight. We found an old man seated under a tree that offered a reasonable price and bought our tickets. We headed inside while the air hummed with anticipation as before a college football game between rivals. We found our seats among the concrete steps that filled the circular tiers above the dirt stage at the center and waited for the fight to begin, happily oblivious to what we had just gotten ourselves into.



As people steadily packed themselves into the arena, the stands turned albino with chicken pox. I started to feel something dripping on me. My first thought was to look up to see if it were raining or if there were a leak. It was sunny and there was no roof over me. The dripping continued sporadically, but more and more frequently. Having given up trying to locate the source of the drip, I ignored it. That is, until a group took their seats in the row above ours carrying a giant bucket with its lid taped on with clear masking tape. My curiosity was promptly satisfied when the tape was ripped off and the reservoir of sangria inside began filling the plastic cups that were dunked vigorously into its murky, purple depths. It was then that I recalled the pink and purple stained people we saw in San Sebastian. I finally located the source of the dripping. It was a squirt gun. Filled with sangria. A portly bearded man several rows back in the adjacent section was joyously spraying his fruity, fuchsia payload indiscriminately around his general area. As revelers filed in, so too did the number of similar sangria buckets increase. More squirt guns appeared. Spray bottles, toilet brushes (dipped in buckets and waved), or just hurled cups fueled a sustained deluge of sangria for the entire two-hour duration of the bullfight. Needless to say, I have almost no pictures of this lest my camera get a cup of sangria in the face.

My seat neighbors, two guys named Innaki and Innaru, knew we were tourists and as an apology for pouring cups of sangria down my back, offered us cups of it out of their own personal bucket. I passed the first batch of it down the line to the group, but throughout the rest of the fight I think I consumed enough sangria to last me a lifetime.

"Outside the ring, after the bull-fight was over, you could not move in the crowd. We could not make our way through but had to be moved with the whole thing, slowly, as a glacier, back to town. We had that disturbed emotional feeling that always comes after a bull-fight, and the feeling of elation that comes after a good bull-fight. The fiesta was going on."

As memorable as it was to endure the storm of sangria and celebrate with my newfound Spanish friends, the bullfight itself was a little upsetting. Like the city itself, the fight conveyed little of the bravery or romance I envisioned. It was not the spectacle of honor or physical artistry I had hoped for, instead I felt repulsed by the slow, ritualistic slaughter of a strong, proud animal by the small, fearful men in flamboyant outfits. Each bull (of six) reduced to fatigued, confused shells of themselves until they are put out of their misery by the matador and unceremoniously dragged out of the arena by a pair of yoked horses.

"There was much wine, an ignored tension, and a feeling of things coming that you could not prevent happening. Under the wine I lost the disgusted feeling and was happy. It seemed they were all such nice people."

The remainder of the evening passed in a happy, sangria induced haze among the crowds in the now riot of a city that bore little resemblance to itself only hours before. We passed the night in a quiet corner of the town away from the still raging festivities and rested for a few hours before attempting to find somewhere to watch the running of the bulls. As we made our way there, we waded through throngs of still energetic partiers at 6am. I should note that every open cup of sangria I saw made me flinch as if it were about to be emptied over my head. We arrived at the route for the run, but underestimated how early to arrive. Without any clear vantage points, I pushed and squeezed my way to the barrier. I waited there the remaining hour while being pressed against the wooden planks of the fence by the undulating tides of the ocean of the now drunk and dingy, pink stained whites, all wanting to catch a glimpse of the bulls.



When it actually happened, it was silent and over before I knew it started. If you look closely in the last shot you can see the black coat of the bull, but that's as much as I saw. It was somewhat anticlimactic, but damned if the preceding 16 hours weren't some of the most memorable of my life.

"In the morning it was all over. The fiesta was finished... The square was empty and there were no people on the streets. A few children were picking up rocket-sticks in the square. The cafes were just opening and the waiters were carrying out the comfortable white wicker chairs and arranging them around the marble-topped tables in the shade of the arcade. They were sweeping the streets and sprinkling them with a hose."

The streets weren't so much being sprinkled with a hose that morning as being pressure blasted by fire hoses mounted on street sweepers. We had to jump over literal rivers of runoff and garbage. We retrieved our luggage and the rest of the group made their way to the Avis to take a car to Barcelona. Having joined the trip later in the planning process, I was to take a train. Delirious from the chaos of the festival and lack of sleep, I tried to hail a cab to the train station that lay just outside the town. Failing to do so, I decided to walk the two miles there. Not exactly sure how to get there, I blearily followed signs and walkways in what I hoped was the general direction of the Renfe station. Thankfully I found myself there after an hour or so. It was small and quaint. There was a little cafe and a sunbathed courtyard. I regret not taking any pictures of it, but I spent the following 4-5 hours passed out in a chair until my train to Barcelona arrived.

Spain (iii): San Sebastian

"Even on a hot day San Sebastian has a certain early-morning quality. The trees seem as though their leaves had just been sprinkled. It is always cool and shady on certain streets on the hottest day."

When we arrived in San Sebastian, it was overcast and much cooler than it had been in Madrid. We wore light jackets as we crossed the town to our hostel by the beach. San Sebastian, like Madrid, is almost unbelievably picturesque. The streets are lined with Parisian apartments dotted with intricate wrought iron balconies. The atmosphere had the tranquility of a place perpetually on holiday. As we emerged on the other side of the town from the train station the street opened up to the small, crescent shaped enclosed beach. An inlet from the Bay of Biscay bottlenecked by two large hills, one topped by a castle and the other by a large statue of Jesus. Even under the clouds, the beauty of this place was almost hypnotic in its ability to make the outside world seem very far away.

"I looked around at the bay, the old town, the casino, the line of trees along the promenade, and the big hotels with their white porches and gold-lettered names. Off on the right, almost closing the harbor, was a green hill with a castle... On the other side of the narrow gap that led into the open sea was another high headland."

We strolled along the harbor for a while admiring the place until dinner. We made our way to the back alleys at the east end of town for our first pintxos crawl (pronounced pinchos - the Basque variation of Spanish uses a lot of X's). Pintxos is tapas, more or less. The main difference is that, unlike tapas, pintxos are traditionally skewered to a piece of bread. The cultural intricacies are beyond me, but pinxtos bars are a lot of fun. Both nights there we made our way to several different pintxos bars and procured a smattering of small dishes accompanied by wine. If you ask me, I couldn't tell you the name of any of the dishes, but most ranged from very good to delicious. Everything is very casual and the crowd usually spills out into the street. The quarters are close and conversations blend into one another. The nightlife ends much earlier than it did in Madrid (12-1am as opposed to 3-4am), but it's a thoroughly enjoyable way to spend an evening.



We began the following day by hiking up the eastern hill to the Jesus statue. It didn't take as long as I had thought it would, but the view from the summit was breathtaking. After taking in the view and taking pictures, we made our way down and stopped at a small hillside cafe overlooking the bay. It was run out of a small hut by a middle aged man and his 3 or 4 dogs. The dogs were calm and socially aloof in the way that only dogs that aren't doted upon and are simply treated as members of a social group can be. Not pleading or unctuous, they regarded us indifferently as we maneuvered about them. As I stopped to take a few shots of them, the owner of the cafe handed me a strip of paper with his email address. He motioned to my camera and then his dogs and, through one of the spanish speaking members of our group, asked me to email him some of the pictures of them. I nodded vigorously, happy to oblige such a genuine request for a simple service that I hope will brighten his day.

While we were enjoying some ice-cold Cokes and Fantas (made with real sugar, as I mentioned before - I drank so much soda on this trip to take advantage of this as much as possible) enjoying another fantastic view of the town and bay, the sun made its first appearance. As the clouds burned off and pillars of light filtered through, color slowly began to creep back into San Sebastian. The sky and water regained their azure clarity. The green in the hills grew lush and verdant. The clay tiled rooftops burned fire red. As we watched the sun warm the town, we grew eager to return to the beach that was so lukewarm the day before. We rushed down the rest of the way and back to the hostel to change. The next few hours were spent sunbathing out on the sand and getting pummeled by powerful, 10 foot waves.



One thing I always hope for is to catch the edge of a weather system during sunrise/sunset. This results in solid cloud cover or empty, featureless skies more often than not, but with the clouds rolling out of San Sebastian, I knew that the sunset would be spectacular. That evening after the beach, we walked around the town for a bit. We found ourselves at a church atop a small hill overlooking the rooftops. From there I could see the water and the clouds that had parted just enough to provide room for the light to play off of them at different elevations producing a wide range of reds and oranges. We made our way down back to the beach, admittedly at my insistence so I could capture the sunset over the water, and I spent the hour there taking it in while the others went to a shop and returned just as the sun dipped below the horizon.



The following morning we caught a bus to Pamplona, this time making sure to leave enough room so as not to repeat the harrowing dash to the train in Madrid. I was sad to leave San Sebastian. It was tranquil and rejuvenating. I don't think I could stay there for longer than a brief time, but it's certainly a place where I'd like to vacation again. At the bus station, we encountered numerous groups of people arriving from Pamplona. Many wore the all-white garb of San Fermin and many of those were covered in splashes of red and pink - an ominous signal of what we could expect in Pamplona. I fully expected Pamplona to be a very different experience than it was in San Sebastian - not relaxing so much as frenetic and chaotic. It turned out to be a bit crazier than I had imagined, for reasons that will become clear in the next installment.

"We drove out along the coast road. There was the green of the headlands, the white, red-roofed villas, patches of forest, and the ocean very blue with the tide out and the water curling far out along the beach... Back of the rolling country we were going through we saw the mountains we had come over from Pamplona."

Spain (ii): Madrid

The first city of the trip was Madrid. I'll begin this by saying that Madrid was the least interesting of the four cities. Not that it was unenjoyable, but Madrid is surreally pristine and uniformly beautiful as to render it almost boring. Of course, it wasn't boring. Walking around the city was like a crash course in European architecture. A good portion of my pictures is comprised of bottom-up, street level views of stunning buildings and monuments that were littered generously across the city.

Our first meal was lunch in an open air courtyard at the Plaza de Santa Ana. We sat under a canvas shade and I had a pork shoulder and chorizo sandwich while we drank wine and basked in the warmth of the Spanish afternoon. As we lingered there, my mind couldn't help but find itself envisioning Hemingway's characters idling their days away in the same manner. While the setting may have evoked the imagery, I knew in my heart that there's no real connection with the tragic-romance of Hemingway's tortured protagonists. I was a tourist, not only in place but in literary spirit. My generation's listlessness holds little of the gravity of his. And I knew it. In the same way that my friends will sometimes debate which "Friend" we are (am I Ross, Chandler, or Joey?), our conversation turned to facetiously determining which of us was Jake Barnes or Robert Cohn or Lady Ashley. I don't think I honestly want to identify with a wounded, impotent bullfighting aficionado, but the allure of the romance of that era still instills a subtle ache of nostalgia, but, being there, it was enough to exist in the vestigial illusion of common experience, if but for a moment - slumming in the footsteps and suffering of a lonely Jake Barnes.



I say that Madrid was the least interesting because most of our time there was spent doing conventionally tourist activities. Walking around, looking at things, eating and drinking. While this is ostensibly what we did in the other cities, there were moments that definitely stood out as unique to those places that Madrid seemed to lack. Nevertheless, Madrid is still beautiful. The Plaza Mayor was unlike any place I've been to before (which isn't saying a whole hell of a lot). The Main Post Office was the coolest post office I've ever seen. We also caught a cable car to the outskirts of the city. This took us across an arid plains that resembled something you'd find in Africa. It was interesting to see how concentrated Madrid really is and how empty the surrounding area is. We visited the Prado Museum. It's collection was impressive, especially the Goya exhibit. Not a whole lot of pictures from inside this place, what with the old Spanish lady guards running and throwing themselves bodily infront of my camera to prevent me from taking a picture of Goya's "The Drowning Dog." Which is just as well, since I've never really understood the purpose of taking pictures of art. Like pretending to be a Hemingway character, it's a facsimile simply representing a further decay in meaning.



Our last night there we got drinks at a rooftop penthouse back at the Plaza de Santa Ana. We were there at about sunset (which is at around 10pm in Spain) and there was a cool breeze. I stood leaning on the railing with a glass of Macallan and watched as the city lights blinked on one by one and the evening glow enveloped the square below. Conversations, laughter, and soft music from the restaurants drifted upwards unintelligibly cutting through the quiet on the roof. We lingered there for a while enjoying the calm and warmth of wine and the evening.



The following morning consisted of a mad rush to the train station and just barely making the Renfe to San Sebastian. We made it, literally, with seconds to spare. And, as I've mentioned, with Madrid being my least favorite city of the week, I'm looking forward to revisiting the rest of the week. San Sebastian is next and among the most beautiful places I've ever been.

Spain (i): the fiesta was finished

"In the morning it was all over. The fiesta was finished."

I'm back from Spain. Seven days, 1900 pictures, a ruined pair of shoes and hat, and four cities later and I'm home. It was a whirlwind week and I don't think I'll be making a dent in any of the pictures or thoughts I have about it tonight. I have to preempt the jetlag and get some sleep so I can go into the internship tomorrow and not die. Spain was great, but I'm always happy to come back to America. I'll be following this up in the coming week with more stories and images (including a copious use of Hemingway quotes), but I'll leave this off with some general anecdotes and observations:

When I try to speak Spanish it comes out French and in an Italian accent. If you're Asian and have a big camera, everyone wants to talk to you or have you take their picture. The Spanish metro system is reliable and consistent, but their airports suck. Spanish cities are drastically different at night than during the day. One of my favorite travel accessories is my Washington Nationals hat - a great conversation starter for other Americans. For the locals, I find it much easier to be friendly when I don't speak their language. I can also get away with things by pretending to be a dumb, monolingual tourist (which is what I am). The vending machines in Spain are refrigerated and their Kit-Kat bars are amazing. Soda with real sugar available everywhere is amazing. Nobody drinks water in Spain. Pamplona is insane.

Spain!: A Prelude

In a bit of a spontaneous decision, I decided to accompany a group of friends on their trip to Spain. I'll be there from July 3rd to the 11th (they're going on to France and the Netherlands afterward, but I can't swing that much time off of the internship). We will be hitting Madrid, San Sebastian, Pamplona, and Barcelona. We will be in Pamplona during the Running of the Bulls and I'm going to do my best to participate without getting gored or trampled. The dilemma, though, is: how will I take pictures if I'm busy trying not to die?

Anyway, here is a look at what I'll have on my person at all times during the trip:



Of note: Of course "The Sun Also Rises" and a Moleskine so I can do my best Hemingway impression. A spare camera for places that aren't ultra-tourist friendly. Perhaps most importantly, chemical-free zinc-oxide based sunscreen because I am allergic to everything else.

This is also the first time I'll be leaving the country that's not going to Korea with my family. I'm very happy to finally have something stamped in my passport. Hopefully this will be the first of many. If you want a souvenir, shoot me an email!

the nature of magic

"It was at these times that he began to understand, after all those years of study and performance, of feats and wonders and surprises, the nature of magic. The magician seemed to promise that something torn to bits might be mended without a seam, that what had vanished might reappear, that a scattered handful of doves or dust might be reunited by a word, that a paper rose consumed by fire could be made to bloom from a pile of ash. But everyone knew that it was only an illusion. The true magic of this broken world lay in the ability of the things it contained to vanish, to become so throughly lost, that they might never have existed in the first place."

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Michael Chabon

Home

I've been home for a few weeks now. It's been quiet. Seen some friends here and there. Started an internship. Slept a lot. Read a lot. Have had a lot of time for rest and reflection. No exciting plans yet for the remainder of the summer, but hopefully something memorable will materialize. I want to see stars. The horizon. Mountains.

all of these are in me

"I get out of bed, go over to the window, and look at the night sky. And think about time that can never be regained. I think of rivers, of tides. Forests and water gushing out. Rain and lightning. Rocks and shadows. All of these are in me."

Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami

you'll be grown before that tree is tall

I saw Terrence Malick's new film, "The Tree of Life," today. It was one of the most stirring movies I've seen in a long time. I may, though, have been in the minority in the particular theater I was in. Most everyone else in the theater was old and white and I suspect were there simply because "Midnight in Paris" was sold out. The elderly couple next to me were especially vocal about this. The husband repeatedly asked whether "fish was OK for dinner" and if his wife had "had enough yet?" There were a handful of walkouts and a general sense of incredulity at how anyone could be enjoying the film.

I thought it was beautiful, elegiacally profound, and heart breaking. The premise is simple, but timeless in the true sense of the word. It's about a boy, Jack, and his family. A harsh and severe father. A kind and gentle mother. How our parents can shape our affections and hatreds. As an adult, Jack remembers his past after learning of the death of a brother and meditates on life and death in the universe since the beginning of time. Scenes of a family in the midwest and the boy as a grown man are intercut with breathtaking images of cosmic events, prehistoric Earth, and the oceans. The creation of the universe and star-birthing supernovae. The rise and fall of the dinosaurs. The life-giving and destructive force of water. All images of natural phenomena that both destroy and create life. The natural cycle of life is unchanging and the film explores how the human struggle to control nature creates conflicts within ourselves. It's not until Jack is able to accept the immutable nature of life and death that he is able to forgive his father and shed a lifetime of burden. Malick writes - "When he sees all that has gone into our world’s preparation, each thing appears a miracle—precious, incomparable."

The film resonated with me. It was somewhat apropos of what has been on my mind recently. I'm struggling to reach a place where I can be mindful of things without needing to control them. A place where I can be happy without needing to know that happiness is attained.