Weird Moments

As I'm starting to process my long trip I've been thinking about the top weird moments - this is in no particular order and I haven't included the donkey wine story - and I know I'll think of others.

When the Kuwait Airlines flight (my first long flight of the trip) touched down in Kuwait City they began to play the theme song from Twin Peaks.

At the Dublin Airport men's room the same machine on the wall dispenses both condoms and mints.

Running into three university students from Indiana (one from IU) and Illinois in the Budapest train station.

Walking through the traditional market in Kasgar and seeing all these amazing things you could buy, including dried snakes (for snake wine, another aphrodesiac in the tradition of donkey wine).

Being pickpocketed not once but twice by the remarkably facile and persistent Barcelona pickpockets.

Sleeping on the tarmac of the Kasgar Airport.

Seeing the world's biggest vending machines in some Barcelona metro stations - they are around eight feet high by twelve feet wide.

Eating my first meal of a six week, seven country trip at the Applebee's in Kuwait City.

Having my friends Janka, Katarina and Nora surprise me by taking the long way around on a foggy, rainy trip to a train station in Slovakia so that we passed through Poland so that I could add it to my list of countries visited.

Eating such delicacies as tripe, chicken feet, donkey and blood sausage (and the casing was made from intestines).

Being told at Best Food Burger in Urumqi that they didn't have burgers and had never had burgers, ever, and then getting a burger at another Best Food Burger the next night.

Urumqi

Watching the news coming out (or sort of coming out) of Urumqi, China really has me thinking about my recent trip there. First off, here is just another example of one of life's truisms: never travel any place right after I've been there. It's OK to travel with me, but never after me. Whether it's sleeping on the floor of a terminal in Charles de Gaulle Airport a week before the roof collapsed, or leaving Amman, Jordan or Mumbai, India shortly before bombings, or leaving Eldoret, Kenya days before a sharp upturn in tribal violence, the pattern is pretty clear - in short, I am a calming influence.
Urumqi is one of over one hundred Chinese cities with a population of over a million souls, and is located in Xinjiang province in western China. It is ethnically very diverse - most of the major signs are in four languages, Chinese, Arabic, Russian and English - and has a fascinating and complex history. It is one of the provinces where the Han, the main Chinese ethnic group, are in the minority. The Uighurs, who speak a Turkish language and who are Islamic, outnumber them, but do not constitute a majority. There has been growing tension between the two groups for some time - the Uighurs have felt culturally and econically oppressed by the Han for a long time, and the Han have their own issues with the Uighurs (for instance, they are concerned about the Islamic faith of the Uighurs, and some Han don't like the fact that while they are limited to one child the Uighurs, like the other ethnic monorities, have greater freedom to have more children). I picked up subtle signs of this tension - for instance, if you go to the museum in Urumqi, and you definitely should because it is great, and has some fascinating mummies (which, by the way, are caucasian, which also speaks to the long-term ethnic complexity of the region), but I thought there was more propaganda featured in that museum than in any one I ever visited in China. For example, one sign discussed the conquest of Xinjiang by the Chinese centuries ago and how it had made the region an "inalienable part of the great motherland.". Fortunately, I never saw any signs of outright tension when I was there, but the recent loss of life is a terribly sad sign that things are never as calm as they seem.

Eating in China

I spent three weeks in China and there is no way that I can begin to talk about each individual place and also do justice to all the food I ate. Most of the food was fantastic, and a few things were a little more challening (donkey, tripe, chicken feet, etc.). When I was in Beijing I saw the Chow Yun Fat movie The Corruptor - and in the movie his character says, "When you're Chinese you have to each some nasty shit.". I repeated that line at dinner one night and my Chinese friend (and donkey wine brother) Yanfeng just laughed and said, "That is so true.". The Chinese love meat on the bone and believe that the meat that "works" - that is, is located around a joint - is the best. This is why they like chicken feet, which I tried to eat, although I never quite figured out how to do it. I just popped it in my mouth, hoping that the "meat" would just dissolve in my mouth - and eventually I just discreetly took it out of my mouth and hid it behind my plate. For meals I spent everywhere between $70 (first night in Beijing - my friend Craig picked the restaurant - a posh hot pot restaurant - and I paid, and we swapped the next night, when I picked a great working class restaurant, for which it cost around $12 and he paid - this is what happens when you go out to eat with graduates from Duke) and 6¥ (less than a dollar - for a big order of pork noodles and a plate full of dumplings - at a little hole in the wall in Xi'an - it was about the dodgiest looking place I ever tried, but it was great). I think the best meal I had was a little place outside the Lama Temple in Beijing - I think it was called the Terra Cotta Warrior Restaurant - and I had a big plate of pork noodles and essentially a pulled pork sandwich (it looked like a pork egg mcmuffin) and a coke for around $3. It was fantastic and the owner of the redtaurant turned down a tip.

Rambling on La Rambla

I've made it to Barcelona, Spain and it is my first visit here. On my previous visits to Spain I had spent time in Madrid and Toledo (and loved both of them) but, except for passing through the airport I had never been in Barcelona. So far is has been a good stay. My presentation at the EDULearn conference was well-received and I have new GM contacts in Russia, China, Austria and Serbia - and reestablished contacts with a Spanish university. The town itself is lovely - La Rambla, the main pedestrian street, runs right down to the ocean, and sitting along La Rambla at a cafe, eating tapas and drinking sangria, is one of life's great pleasures - a real New Orleans feel. I'd love to show you some pictures but, unfortunately, my camera was stolen last night at the Cafe Tomas, a great little working class tapas bar far off the torpurist path. It was a fantastic place and is supppsed to have the best tapas in Barcelona - and is so authentic they don't have sangria - and the waiter was a guy who looks like a character actor from a 1940's Hollywood movie was great - you just said tapas and he would bring you what he thought you should eat. Barcelona is notorious for pickpockets and I just got careless - I'm mad about the camera, but far more heartbroken about the pictures I've lost forever. Included in the pictures was a great visit to the cathedral Gaudi designed, which is just indescribable. So, a mixed bag, but far more good than bad. Oh, and I'm sure that anyone from Barcelona would be horrified by this statement, but I think Madrid has better tapas.

The Glamorous Life

Oh, and just so that people don't think all of this sounds all too glamorous - I mean, come on, who doesn't long for a big swig of donkey penis-flavored hard liquor (with the obvious exception of my brother Eric, who has informed me in no uncertain terms that he will never kiss me again) - I like to occasionally include in these little sections on the glamorous life. This one relates to train travel, which is, normally, pretty effortless in Europe - although I have been doing a ton of it lately (although I'm finished with it for this trip) - and it's certainly a lot easier if you aren't carrying the world's biggest suitcase, along with three other carry-ons (my laptop [for the dozens of presentations on this trip], my C-pap machine [so I can breathe], and another smaller backpack just to store stuff I need to get out in a hurry - money, my passport, my camera, my cell phone, and Chinese chocolate wafers, etc.). So, the morning after that glorious night in Vienna I had to catch a train to Budapest, and it took me all of about ten minutes to get to the train station on the freakishly efficient Viennese metro system, so I had lots of time to get settled. When my train arrived I climbed onto the last car, and settled down to write in my journal. About the time that we were supposed to take off - and keep in mind that Austrian trains are never late, and that Scrooge was dead as a doornail, or you'll miss the point of the miracle [wait, wrong story] - anyway, I see people piling out of the car in front of me (or, as they were saying, the "wagon") and the story was that the electricity was out in that car so I just figured that people were moving to one of the cars in front or behind and we'd be off in a moment, but nothing happened, and suddenly about fifteen minutes had passed (a lifetime to the Austrian engineers) so I stood up and realized, to my chagrin, that the train had abandoned us, and we were an orphan "wagon" left on the tracks, which, all things considered, was pretty funny, and effectively served as a metaphor for my life. Eventually the train - or some train anyway - came back and picked us up, and off we went.

Vienna

Vienna was my next stop after moving on from Klagenfurt. Again, what does one say about Vienna? I've talked about it before, and certainly more elequently than the tired shell that I am now could replicate. The city holds a very special place in my heart for many reasons, starting with the fact that it's the first European city that I ever spent much time in - and it's the first place I visited after my sister Beth gave me my first travel journal, which meant that it forced me to spend a lot of time thinking about it in a different ways - and, well, it's just an amazing place Think of a less hip Paris, that is easier to get around and where everyone is more than happy to speak English. It has amazing architecture and great museums and plenty of cool sights. On this trip I stayed at the Hotel Graben, which is right around the corner from the Stephensplatz, where the U1 and U3 metro lines meet, so it's easy to find. I arrived at the hotel in the afternoon, after catching the train from Klagenfurt and getting into the Westbaunhof train station - the train was an hour late, which is highly unusual for Austrian trains, but more on that in a minute. I was met in the hotel lobby by my very good friend Petra Szucsich, who has run two very successful Global Modules, with my friends and colleagues, Rob Williams and Sarah Cohen. Petra has been a tireless supporter or the GM approach, and has helped us make contacts at two Austrian universities. We had a meeting this afternoon with Katharina and Thomas Stephenson - Katharina teaches at the University of Vienna, and Thomas at Sigmund Freud University. We spent an hour or so planning GMs for the upcoming year at the University of Vienna, and then went off to an outdoor cafe for a great traditional meal. The conversation was funny and insightful, and just goes to show, once again, that Americans who don't travel are missing out on so much - especially if they don't travel because they think that Europeans don't like Americans, which simply isn't the truth at all. Katharina, Thomas and Petra all spoke impeccable English, and put up with my clumsy Hoosier English, and it was a lovely time. After Katharina and Thomas took off home to look after their two year old - or maybe to look after their fifteen year old - Petra took me to a rooftop cocktail bar which included a spectacular view of St. Stephen's cathedral. I finally broke down and tried a mojito, mainly because I was trying to replicate this great drink that I had in the brand new cocktail bar in Ruzemberok, Slovakia (again, more on that story later). Oh, and to show you how easily amused I am by technology, when we decided to go to the cocktail bar Petra pulled out her cell phone and used it to recharge the time on her parking permit - I suppose we have this technology in the US, but I've never seen it, and even if I tried to pull it off I'd just end up calling in a nuclear strike on an ally nation by mistake. In the end, another lovely stay in Vienna, and was sorry to have to move on so quickly.

Donkey Wine

OK, Im going to tell this story way out of order - as if there is any order at all to the way I've been posting things. Since my last posting I've blown through Vienna and Budapest, and am now in Bratislava, and am flying out early in the morning for Barcelona. Still, I've been trying to follow a chronological path, even if it's a parallel one - one from where I am now, and then from my path through China, and then another one from where I am now, but I've just given up. This trip has lasted so long I've lost all track of time, so I'm just going to post what I'm thinking about at the moment, and try and sort if out later.

So, let me try and briefly tell the, what is becoming infamous, donkey wine story. It occured in Dunhuang, China, which is an oasis town that played an important role in the Silk Road (which was the focus of my China CIEE faculty development tour anyway). You fly in over just absolutely desolute territory and drop down into the oasis that gave rise to the town of Dunhuang in the first place. I'll say more about the town later, but, with the exception of Kasgar, it was my favorite stop along the CIEE tour. We stayed at a hotel right next to these impressive sand mountains, and I'll always remember sitting on the rooftop restaurant both having a beer and watching the sun go down, and well as having breakfast there, for a long time -just watching the sand mountains in the distance was rather awe-inspiring.

At a certain point we went into town to eat their specialty, which is donkey meat. It sounds pretty horrible, but with the right spicey sauce it was really OK. Now, their really super famous local "delicacy" was what is sometimes called coin meat, which is sliced up donkey penis. It is called coin meat because if you cut the penis into slim sections it sort of looks like an ancient Chinese coin (which always had a hole in the middle, which, by definition, a sliced up donkey penis would have). I tried, repeatedly, to convince the other professors, or our Chinese leader, Dr. Yanfeng Li, to order this rare meal, but no one would go for it. And, since it cost around $40 - a fabulous treasure in that part of the world - I certainly wouldn't order it myself. So, humbled by this bad experience, as I was leaving the restaurant I heard about donkey wine, which is supposed to be an aphrodesiac. Essentially, it is just hard liquor - not really wine at all - which the donkey appendage - marinates in - they just pour a cup out of the glass container - and it only cost around 10 yuan, which is only around $1.50. Again, no one would participate in this extravaganza. So, I spent the next hour generally berating them and the donkeys they rode in on, or at least mocking them and their universities - and you know how persistent I can be when I get my mind around something. No one can take that much Scudderian abuse, so Yanfeng, and my friends Marcie and Randy caved and agreed to go back to the bar - assuming that their only purpose there was to take pictures to record my bizarre behavior, that is, until their glasses of donkey wine showed up as well. Naturally, the donkey wine was completely odious, made even more so by the fact that I'm not much of a drinker. Randy and Marcie gave it the old college try and finished about half their glasses, while Yanfeng and I tossed ours down completely - including a big flourish at the end (Yanfeng laughed, but later told me that since we had both finished our donkey wine completely we would be friends forever - and at the final drunken going away dinner one of his toasts was to "Gary, my donkey wine brother"). I don't think I'm any worse for wear for the experience, although I did come to my senses three nights later on a high sand dune braying at the moon.