Key in the cognition

07:24 am - A week in NOLA

NOLA stands for New Orleans, Louisiana. On the 14th of June I went there as part of an 18 person group from Cornerstone to spend a week helping Mercy Response restore some of the houses that were damaged by hurricane Katrina and the and flooding it caused. Mercy Response is based out of the Vineyard church grounds in a suburb of New Orleans called Kenner and is working on 30 houses at the moment. They have a big "tent" for the volunteers to live in. The tent has both wifi and air-conditioning. The AC is important because Southern Louisiana is extremely hot and humid. Although the tent is pretty close to airtight, no food is allowed into it just in case. Food is stored in a nearby kitchen and there are bathrooms in a nearby trailer.

We spent our first full day in New Orleans itself, exploring the city as regular tourists; we even had lunch at the NOLA equivalent of Fisherman's Wharf (with the quality and price that implies). Wandering around downtown, I was amazed by how much fun the area seemed to be, what with bars that sold hand-grenades and the like. When we were tired from walking for hours, we piled into a street car and headed uptown to the Garden District, where we played in a lovely park that moonlights as the official mosquito breeding grounds for NOLA. After having our our fill of the park, we headed back to the waterfront to explore some more and fill the hunger pangs gnawing at us from the inside. We had dinner at a restaurant where one member of our group (Tania) used to work when she lived in New Orleans some years ago. That place was much better, although the culinary fiasco of lunch hadn't exactly set a very high bar. Tania left dinner early, supposedly to buy coffee, but no sooner had we walked out of the restaurant than she descended upon us bearing gifts of beignets, which are vaguely like beavertails or funnel-cakes. Not being one for copious amounts of powdered sugar, I blew most of it off my beignet, prompting shocked responses from the others.

On Monday we started working on houses. The 18 of us were split into 4 crews, each assigned to a different house. Since I had a little experience with mudding and painting, I volunteered to lead a crew of 4 to work on a house belonging to a man called Joe, where we would be assisting a contractor who was already working for Joe. All the supplies we would need were supposed to be on-site but when we got there, the contractor informed us that there was no paint so we ended up just caulking and spackling the window and door frames as well as the trimmings.

Consequently, we finished up early and decided to visit a man whose house had been worked on by 2 of my crewmembers last Fall. His name is Anthony and he served as a firefighter for New Orleans for 21 years but is retired now (not surprising since he's 87 years old) and teaches French. He was asleep when we arrived but my loud knocking woke him up and he instantly recognized the 2 women who had worked on his house last year, inviting us in to chat. Anthony regaled us with tales of his adventures as a hurricane survivor, punctuated by frequent trips down memory lane into his colourful past. My favourite story was his decision to paint the inside of his entire house bright pink after it was restored, despite having lived with dull grey walls for decades before the flooding. Fortunately, he was convinced to go with a more subdued peach colour instead. Although Anthony is very funny, it's hard to get a word in edgewise when he's talking so it was a bit of an effort to extricate ourselves from the conversation when it came time to depart.

In the evening we watched a couple of short documentaries about the hurricanes and their effects on people's lives, which motivated us to work hard all week. I learnt that the first people to respond to the flooding from Katrina were the Mounties. That's pretty impressive, considering how far they would have had to travel!

On Tuesday we showed up at Joe's house again but this time the contractor was not around and the door was locked. There was supposed to be a key waiting for us at a secret drop-off spot but it was nary to be found. One of the contractor's other crewmen showed up and assured us that somebody would swing by with a key so we sat around in the grass and talked while we waited for it to arrive. While waiting, one of my crewmembers (Karen) and I needed to use a washroom so we walked a block to the nearest one. On the way there Karen remarked that she didn't want to use the washroom at a fast-food joint because she wasn't buying anything so she would use the one at the gas station beside it instead. I pointed out that she wasn't buying anything there either but she insisted that this was somehow different. When I explained that this distinction was merely one she had been socially conditioned to accept, she realized that this was true. As it happened, there was no toilet paper in the men's washroom and I didn't feel it was fair to ask for some when I wasn't buying anything so I just bought some TP and then proceeded to restock the washroom with it before using it. Karen found this greatly amusing.

After 2 hours had passed and no key had materialized, we gave up on it and fell in with another crew who were working on a house belonging to a woman named Joyce, who had grown up in that house and was very attached to the 4 foot long bathtub she had once used a a child! Several other people working on her place had offered to replace it but she would have none of it. Joyce also has exquisite taste in chandeliers, much to the consternation of the electrician on whom it had fallen to install them. Upon my arrival I was assigned the task of installing a set of drawers into a bathroom cabinet for which there were no instructions. After carefully analyzing the components, I was able to determine how they needed to fit together for the drawers to work properly. The actual installation was straightforward by comparison. I spent the remainder of the workday helping install window blinds and attaching hooks to doors before we cleaned up the place and left.

After dinner we headed downtown to serve food at the New Orleans Mission (a homeless shelter/food bank type place). I don't think they were used to having so many volunteers at once because there was far less work for us to do than we were capable of. Every time they gave us a task, we swarmed it and were done in a few minutes. The only other volunteer present was a local museum curator who had been ordered to perform community service by a court after a DUI indictment. She'd spent a night in the slammer as well and has no desire for an encore.

On Wednesday morning we went back to Joe's place armed with the knowledge that his wife would be around with a key for us. We were looking forward to finally getting started with painting. Once more, it was not to be. No sooner had we arrived at the site when we were greeted by a plumber who insisted that his insurance wouldn't let him work at a site where there were any volunteers present. Sounded pretty daft to me but Joe politely asked us to yield to the plumber because he really needed the plumbing done. Respecting his wishes, we headed back to camp yet again, extinguishing any last hopes we may have had for painting those trimmings. Perhaps God is saving them up for next week's group.

Meanwhile, Mercy Response had been preparing to assist victims of flooding in Iowa by sending some of their tools and staff there from New Orleans. They had a bunch of us inspecting the gear to make sure it worked, cleaning it, branding it and packing it up for loading onto the trailer. It's amazing how much gunk a powerful jet of water can knock off something! After a long day of working in the blazing sun, we took advantage of the heat by playing on a slippy-slide. After dinner some of us built a 2nd floor for a borrowed 20-foot truck so that it could hold all the gear that needed to go up to Iowa. Well, I'm being a tad liberal by including myself there, since I mostly just watched.

The plan for Thursday had been to load up the trucks and trailers with gear and supplies in the morning and then head over to a house where we were to install wood for the floor. That might have happened if the Bobcat hadn't decided to take a sick day, forcing us to rely on good old bone and muscle for lifting several heavy palettes of supplies onto the truck. Although we did get everything loaded in the end and sent off the first response team to Iowa, the resulting delay and fatigue caused us to end the workday earlier than usual. A few of us took advantage of this unexpected spare time to hit Wal-mart for some fresh fruits and vegetables, for which we'd developed a craving over the previous few days. I hadn't realized until this trip just how spoiled we are in California when it comes to healthy food!

After dinner we sat around in a circle to sing worship songs, lead by the talented (and seemingly clairvoyant) brothers Bjerke. It was like camping, except that the sky was a ceiling and the fire was a single candle. And we had air-conditioning. The Bjerkes ran through their entire set list (plus a request from me) before ending with a repeat of an old favourite. Anthony, who had spent dinner engrossed in conversation with Suzanne (whom he knew from her work on his house last Fall) and then stuck around for the musical fare, thanked us for the work we'd been doing and tried convincing Suzanne she should move to New Orleans.

On Friday a large contingent of us headed over to the house of a man named Jimmy, who needed a Pergo floor installed. I'd never seen a hardwood floor installed before but by the time we let, I felt like an expert and was even teaching my new skills to one of the other volunteers! Jimmy was so happy to see his floor being installed that he bought us delicious gumbo and po-boys for lunch. He also gave us a crash course in New Orleans cultural history. Apparently it is a longstanding tradition to take the family to a local bar, where alcohol may be ordered to go! Jimmy suspects that may have something to do with the high car insurance rates.

That night we finally made it out to Bourbon St in the French Quarter again. Seeing people walking (and occasionally dancing) in the middle of the street at night was really neat and made we wish we had a street like that in San Francisco. We eventually ended up at a jazz bar called Sing Sing that was refreshingly devoid of tourists and drunks. We were mildly dismayed to realize that we'd walked in just as the band was about to go on break but decided to stick around until they came on for their next set because we liked what we heard of their music before they walked offstage. That proved to be a good decision as they played through some good songs when they took the stage again, although we left before the set ended because it was getting pretty late.

The next morning we cleaned up the camp so it would be all minty fresh for the next group and then flew home to San Francisco. This week will live on in my memory long after the aches and pains vanish over the next few days. It's a great feeling to have helped people recover from the ravages of Katrina and to know that the gear we sent off to Iowa will be used to bring relief to those currently in dire straits from flooding there. The only thing better than having a prayer answered is being the answer to somebody else's prayer.

Current Mood: exhausted

08:10 pm - Messing with Texas

People had been telling me for several months that I should visit Austin because it's an oasis of liberalism in Texas. This week I finally had a chance to spend a few days in Austin by virtue of staffing the VMware booth at a career fair and delivering an info session on the UT Austin campus.

Several people encouraged us to try the Texan BBQ but I was not particularly impressed by it. What did impress me about the cuisine in Austin were a couple of restaurants, one Thai and the other Korean. Although I'm not usually a huge fan of Thai food, Madam Mam's had me the moment I tasted their spring rolls (wrapped in soft rice-paper, not the thicker hard wheat-based things that are commonly mistaken for spring rolls but are actually egg rolls). Koriente is a small but delightful place run by a couple of the nicest people I've ever met.

The climate in Austin took me by surprise, however, despite having grown up in a pretty hot and humid part of the world and hearing about the Texan summer beforehand. Despite the stupefying heat and humidity, I was able to walk around downtown Austin without sweating too much as long as I mostly stayed in the shade of buildings. Wandering around gave me a feel for the city's vibe, which I quite liked. There are plenty of sidewalks and bike lanes in active use and only one person tried to run us over while we crossed the street. I even passed by a church whose banner read "deliberately diverse and fully inclusive". There's also just enough urban sketchiness to keep it feeling real but not enough to feel unsafe. The street hooligans are definitely more polite than those in SF but I guess they never know who might be bearing firearms ;-) All things considered, aside from the oppressive heat and humidity, Austin meets the Tony standard for liveable cities. In fact, the only thing that disappointed me was the noticeable lack of outdoor art.

Speaking to throngs of CS and ECE students at the career fair was interesting. Both those fields seem to be dominated by people of South Asian descent in Texas, although most of those at the undergrad level are US citizens who speak English fluently and whose parents probably migrated to Texas decades ago. We encouraged just about everybody who handed in a resume at the booth to attend our info session at the end of the fair. Consequently, it was extremely well-attended with probably over 90 students showing up to pack the room. I think they enjoyed my presentation because they laughed at my jokes and asked a lot of questions afterwards, mostly about how to get jobs at VMware.

Current Mood: happy

10:06 am - Adios Antigua, Goodbye Guatemala

My 2nd week in Antigua was much calmer than the 1st. I think Antigua takes about a week to explore and after that people start behaving more like temporary residents than tourists. The 2nd week of Spanish was definitely useful though. On my last day of class I took my instructor out for horchata and lunch at La Fonda, after which we watched a marching band parade around the city.

I've never flown into the US from a country other than Canada before so I hadn't realized that a 55 minute layover at Houston would be cutting things dangerously close. Despite managing to use the US residents line at Immigration - it's about 5 times faster than the one for visitors - and having no problems anywhere else, I would have missed my flight to SFO if it hadn't been delayed by half an hour.

Anyway, I'm happy to have clean drinking water on tap again and be free from mosquitoes and 2nd-hand smoke. I've posted all the photos from my camera online.

Current Mood: satisfied

02:25 pm - A grab-bag of anecdotes

On Sunday evening, after returning from Semuc Champey, I went out for dinner with some other Spanish students. Our waitress was an American schoolteacher who had moved here to start her own school and was currently learning Spanish. She sold a few of us on a new drink that's like a pinacolada with lemon instead of pineapple. Noticing that the rum comprised half the cost of the drink, I asked for sans rum but with pineapple added (since I really just wanted a pinacolada). She brought it out shortly and it was delicious. When the bill arrived, however, I made two discoveries at roughly the same time: I'd been charged for the rum and I was quite drunk; the restaurant had spiked my virgin pinacolada! Fortunately, she was more than happy to knock off the cost of the rum from my bill.

On Monday afternoon I went to the local artisan market with Theresa and Meridith to shop for souvenirs. Bargaining is an interesting experience here because even the inflated opening prices are fairly cheap (by American standards) and they vary a lot between vendors. I experimented a little by trying to find the lowest price I could get for a specific item across multiple vendors. In the end I picked up a pair of striped pyjamas and a couple of jade sculptures for a few greenbacks apiece.

When I first arrived in Antigua, I had expected to see many tourists from the US. To my surprise, there are almost as many from Holland. It seems like you can't go anywhere in this city without hearing Dutch being spoken. Apparently the Dutch love visiting central America during their 6 weeks of annual vacation because it is so cheap.

While I've been on vacation, VMware went public on the NYSE at $29/per share but instantly shot up to over $50 and has held that gain so far. Whee :-)

The mosquitoes here have been getting to me. I killed nearly two dozen of them in the past couple of days but they just keep reproducing. Despite the health concerns associated with mosquito coils, I purchased a pack of them and am going to use them for the rest of my stay here. It beats being eaten alive while I sleep.

While at the local supermarket, Theresa and I ran into a local chap who had lived in NYC for 20 years and, consequently, spoke excellent English. He works for the immigration department in the Guatemala City airport and was very friendly, telling us about Guatemala and offering to help us in any way he could while we were here. His wife didn't speak much English but that gave us a chance to use our skimpy Spanish. They gave us their number and we might end up going out for dinner with them before we leave here.

Current Mood: bored

04:30 pm - Semuc Champey

Since we have no classes on weekends, a bunch of us from the Spanish school decided to go on an excursion to Semuc Champey after Heidi convinced us it would be awesome. The 8 hour van ride was surprisingly pleasant for all but the last half hour, which I spent sprawled out on my back willing myself not to be carsick as we bounced along the bumpy terrain. During the ride, Meridith, Joe and I practiced our Spanish verbs and adjectives using a set of flash-cards my instructor had made for me in the morning. While I had a great time, neither of them wanted to repeat the activity again, ever.

Because the trip takes so long, we stayed at a picturesque little inn that night and then had amazing panqueques with fruit for brekki at the nearby village. Heidi revealed to us that she'd intentionally given herself diarrhea by drinking unfiltered local water so that she could participate in a 3-day clinical study of some antibiotics and make $250. Apparently she's supposed to check in with them daily, which looked to prove problematic if she couldn't find a place with Internet access near the inn.

We rode the 9 km to Semuc Shampey in the back of two pickup trucks, which was very exciting, although I felt bad for the people whom we passed by because the truck's exhaust was absolutely disgusting. It hung in the air as a black cloud for several seconds before dissipating. Apparently emissions standards aren't in place here yet. I guess those roads have very little traffic and the landscape is a vast expanse of greenery so the pollution isn't a problem for now. The dirt roads were mostly single-lane and occasionally sported concrete tracks for each tyre. The paved roads were pretty decent but sometimes had these quadruple speed bumps that I've never seen anywhere else. They also tend to have stray dogs lying on them. I can't quite decide whether the dogs are suicidal or just foolishly hostile.

Our weekend escapades began with a hike up a mountain, during which I found some green berries that I'd never seen before. I wasn't foolish enough to eat any but I did bring a couple back as souvineurs. After the hike we played around in a series of beautiful limpid pools where little fish nibbled on our toes. We also climbed down and back up a waterfall on a rope!

I had to sit out a swim through some caves because I'm not a sufficiently good swimmer to make my way across 40 metres of water but I was kept company by this British girl (Jessica) who had to skip it due to claustrophobia. She had more piercings than anybody else I've ever met. Apparently she got her first one at 12 and kept adding more, currently clocking in at over 40. Her earlobes have enormous holes filled with discs like the Zulu do and she has a series of implants forming an arch just below her collarbones. Sadly, she lost one of the ear-discs, which had been hand-made for her by a friend, when she jumped into the water from a giant swing on which we were playing :-(

After the others returned from the caves, we floated down the river on tubes and then returned to the inn for dinner. I was delighted to discover that they offered horchata as a beverage because I'd been wanting to drink some all week. Although we needed to be up early the next morning, Peter and I accompanied Heidi to the nearby village in search of Internet access so she could check in for her clinical study. We weren't able to find any but we did stumble upon a beauty contest being held at the town hall and ran into our tour guides there. Peter successfully convinced them that he was Heidi's father!

In the morning we stopped by an enormous cavern, inside which Mayan rituals were being held. Until today I hadn't known that the Mayans are still around! We slowly made our way down the steep path cut into the side of the cavern until we were at the bottom and then, once our eyes had adjusted to the dark, we explored the cavern. There were several Mayans engaged in various stages of a ritual and many candles peppered the darkness as we clambered around on rocks slippery with black mud. It was, unfortunately, too dark for me to get any good photographs.

Current Mood: tired

03:02 am - Up close and personal with molten lava

The mosquitoes have been awful these past couple of nights. You'd think that by now they would have evolved to bite without making us itch so we didn't hate them as much. I played Scrabble en Espanol yesterday, which is no small challenge when armed with the vocabulary of a 4-year-old.

There are two main travel agents competing with each other for the discount volcano tours. The incumbent agency has posted a sign disparaging the safety record of the other, which undercuts them by a couple of dollars. It's a testament to something that we went with the cheaper one anyway. [Some other students we know paid thrice what we did to go with a different agency entirely. When I asked them what made it worth the premium, they jokingly said that they would be fed peeled grapes while being carried up the slope and treated to a barbecue at the top.]

Others who'd been on this expedition fed me dire warnings of melted shoes and ankles twisted while stumbling back down the slope in pitch darkness so I procured a cheapo flashlight and sacrificial sneakers for the trip. I also borrowed a pair of good hiking boots as my initial footware. After a mad dash to arrive at the pickup spot, we learnt an annoying lesson about Guatemalan punctuality by waiting well over half an hour before the bus showed up. At least it wasn't a chicken-bus.

Once we arrived at the site, there were a throng of kids trying to sell us walking-sticks and flashlight. After inquiring as to the cost of a flashlight, I reveled in having saved 13 cents by buying one in Antigua. You laugh but that's worth three bananas. As we began our ascent up the mountain, some kids began following us with horses, asking if we would like a "taxi natural". I thought they'd give up on us after a while but evidently they have an abysmal opinion of tourist hardiness as we were never without equine backup until reaching the summit of the mountain.

As we hiked up, I was impressed by the rich volcanic soil, in which I counted at least a dozen distinct types of plant flourishing. I guess the chronic rain doesn't hurt either. Actually, the trails have large holes along the sides to catch runoff rainwater.

Upon reaching the summit, we found ourselves looking down on the clouds from above, which was pretty cool. Down below on the other side we could see tiny figures at the base of the volcano. That's where we headed next.

Walking on old lava is an interesting experience as the rocks are sharp but brittle. As we approached the base of the volcano, we could feel the heat emanating from the glowing red lava around us as it slowly melted and flowed. At times it felt like standing in front of a hot oven with the door open. I was pleasantly surprised to notice that the air was not heavy with the stench of sulphur. The only thing we did smell was caramel from the marshmellows being toasted by the "premium" tour group. I poured some water onto the molten lava and it vaporized on contact. While I thought that was pretty neat, I was outdone by some French (not Quebecois, apparently) guys who urinated on the molten lava.

Instead of hiking back down the mountain, our guide took us down the other side, which was covered in dry fluffy soil. He made a skiing motion that I thought was a joke until he took off down the mountain, effectively skiing his way down on the soil. The rest of us followed suit and it was much more fun than I could possibly have imagined, especially as my boots didn't get filled with soil. I found that I had a surprising amount of control while sliding down, making it more fun than snowboarding. We had to walk around the base to return to the bus, which involved stumbling through the foliage in the dark. It wasn't nearly as bad as I'd been lead to believe though, since I never actually had to turn on my flashlight.

Current Mood: awake

10:31 pm - Fire in the sky

After the chaotic first day, my Spanish lessons have been more structured. I'm now able to engage in uncontrived conversation with my instructor, although I do most of the listening. One advantage of speaking in a language where I lack fluency is that I'm forced to think about what I'm about to say before I say it, enunciating each word clearly.

Yesterday afternoon we went on a bike tour of the region around Antigua. Mountain biking on cobblestone and dirt roads is pretty exhilarating. It was only halfway through the ride that I realized we hadn't been required to sign release forms or wear helmets. I thought that Antigua had a preponderance of dilapidated churches but evidently that is true about all the surrounding towns as well. None of those towns sport the same rustic atmosphere, however, reminding me much more of shanty-towns in Karachi and Mexico than the idyllic Victoria, BC. Towards the end of our tour we were able to enjoy the dazzling spectre of a dormant volcano looming over one of the towns. That bike tour must be a good gig to have.

During the tour I met Meridith, a friend of Emily (one of the other students living in the house with us), who is also blogging her trip. Inspired by a random idea, I went with her and Theresa buy a children's book in Spanish. Sadly, the book turned out to lack any narrative.

After dinner a bunch of us from the school went out to a local pub to hang out. While we were there, Emily and I got photographed to obtain unlimited free drinks at a party next Friday. Apparently the photo will be printed onto a pair of t-shirts for us and we need to wear them at the party to get the free drinks. Seems like a good deal to me.


Today afternoon we played a students VS teachers soccer game. The teachers gave us a permanent power-play to compensate for their superior ball-handling skills. Although we somehow got and held a decent lead for most of the game, they eventually caught up to and beat us. Theresa has posted a slideshow with some great shots of the game.

No sooner had the game finished than the local active volcano began erupting. Apparently we've really lucked out on this trip because it hasn't erupted this violently in about 40 years. I sat on the roof for quite a while, watching glowing red magma spewing into the air as the sky was periodically lit up by flashes of sheet lightning from a nearby thunderstorm. It's unfortunate that my camera can't capture the visual feast of planet earth spazzing out.

But tomorrow I will be climbing up a different active volcano so I may yet nab some good shots of volcanic activity.

Current Mood: impressed

06:58 am - My 1st Spanish lesson + more about Antigua

My instructor, Reginaldo, has a pretty unstructured approach so the lesson ended up being mostly directed by me. Theresa, on the other hand, was taught verb conjugation and given written homework! I think I should have made more notes on the sentence structure for questions.

We had meant to take advantage of the free salsa class being offered on Mondays but had to miss it because we got stuck in the rain. We're here during the monsoon season so it rains without warning at least once daily after morning has passed. I've not venturing outside without me brolly again.

We witnessed a traffic jam yesterday as well, which looked most out-of-place on the ancient narrow streets, There's a unique vibe here with 40,000 people living in a city that has been preserved since the halcyon days of the Spanish empire. Aside from the streets, all the houses here are built along the same lines with enormous front doors and a roofless area between the living room and the rest of the house.

Some other students came over for dinner last night and I went out with them afterward to watch a movie. Although there are no actual movie theatres in Antigua, a coupe of bars and restaurants show pirated films with Spanish subtitles every night.

You might be tempted to think that Antigua is a little backward for having no movie theatres but that's more likely a consequence of the efforts to maintain its historical significance by not replacing the old buildings. And they can't really expand outward because the city is surrounded by volcanoes, one of which is still active. The do make very efficient use of the available buildings though, with schools running a second shift in the afternoon and then being used for university classes at night.

Current Mood: excited

10:02 pm - Antigua, Guatemala: first impressions

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the authorities in Guatemala have a pretty relaxed approach to dealing with tourists. Although I had dutifully checked the box stating that I was bringing "food or other animal products" into the country, they didn't bother asking me what it was - chocolate, as it happens. The drive from Guatemala City to Antigua was windy and lined with numerous gas stations but the red cats-eyes were pretty.

Antigua is a very small city laid out in a nice grid of small blocks separated by cobblestone roads that prevent traffic from moving too fast, which is a pedestrian's delight, but there are no streets signs to be found. Although it's pretty tourist-friendly in a way that's reminiscent of Victoria in BC, almost none of the residents know more than a scant handful of English words so there's a strong incentive to learn functional Spanish ASAP, which is exactly what I want. On the other hand, if Theresa hadn't been around to help me out today, I would have had a tough time interacting with anybody in town.

Although we had originally entertained hopes of using local SIM cards in the multi-band GSM phones we brought along, that didn't pan out so we're phoneless. Fortunately, the student house in which we're staying has DSL and most local cafes offer complementary wifi. I've also already consumed unfiltered local water so things may get interesting soon. I have acquired only a single souvenir so far. It's a wooden mask for which I paid the list price before realizing that we're expected to bargain. Although I'm not going to sweat the $2 USD I could have saved there, we practiced our bargaining acumen at the main souvenir market for future use. Random neat fact: the local currency is named after the national bird.

While exploring the city we discovered this mysterious cultural gallery that is free to enter but requires visitors to provide their passport numbers. It houses some fascinating local works of art and features the most immaculate public washrooms I've ever seen. Another novel discovery was the local practice of letting candle drippings accumulate at the base of holders to form intricate patterns of multicoloured wax.

After lunch we sat on a bench in the central park amongst a menagerie of other people watching a couple of adorable local kids chasing down bubbles being blown by a tourist couple. Also vying to entertain us were two groups of tourists who ended up taking pictures with each other in just about every possible configuration.

We've been practicing our nascent Spanish vocabularies by attempting to decipher every piece of text we come across. The subtle pitfalls of translation were hammered home to us when we attempted to figure out what "un poco de todo" meant by translating each word to get "one small of all". A random tourist, amused by our linguistic antics, informed us that it meant "a little of everything". Another matter that has caused us much confusion here is the time-zone. Depending on whom we ask, it's anywhere between 1 and 3 hours ahead of PDT. Apparently many of the locals are blissfully unaware of daylight savings. Update: Antigua is 2 time-zones ahead of PST but they don't observe daylight savings so they are only 1 hour ahead right now.

Tomorrow we begin our Spanish lessons.

Current Mood: tired

09:03 pm - Guatemala bound

Ever since I moved to California in 2005, I've been wanting to learn Spanish but I wasn't sure how to go about it. A few months ago I heard about these schools in Antigua, Guatemala that offer very flexible and inexpensive Spanish immersion programs that combine individual lessons with field trips and a chance to stay with a local family. I then spent the next few months trying to convince friends to make the trip with me. This weekend I was at a party when I overheard one of my friends mentioning that she too wanted to learn Spanish in Guatemala but couldn't find a travel buddy. You can bet I jumped on that pretty fast! Consequently, we're both going to Antigua, Guatemala for a couple of weeks starting in early August and will be taking classes at one of the Spanish schools there.

Current Mood: tired

07:59 am - Yosemite

On Saturday I visited Yosemite National Park with 5 friends, none of whom had ever been there before either. It took over 4 hours to get there because we stopped for some delicious burritos in Oakdale on the way there. While we had originally meant to hike along 4-mile trail, upon reaching the park we realized that we didn't have enough time for that so we capitulated into hiking up to Vernal Falls instead.

The trail followed one of Yosemite's many streams and was lined with enormous boulders, upon which I unleashed my mad climbing skillz. Incredibly, there were many trees growing out of what appeared to be solid rock.

After a couple of hours we spied Vernal Falls at the top of a steep climb. Despite some close calls, we all eventually made it to the top for an intimate look at the falls as they rushed over the precipice.

I managed to pull a muscle in my thigh on the journey down and now I can't bike uphill so I've been reduced to taking the Muni for the next couple of days.

Current Mood: apathetic

08:52 am - SD zoo

I'd heard that the San Diego zoo was one of the world's best so, since I'm in town for the Virtual Execution Environments conference, I decided to check it out after checking into my hotel the day before the conference begins. San Diego doesn't appear to take public transit seriously but at least it's quite bike friendly. Lacking a bike, however, I ended up cabbing to the zoo. After presenting my Canadian ID when requested at the ticketing booth, the agent informed me that I could take advantage of the 25% discount they were currently offering Canadians!

Wandering around the zoo, I was left with the distinct impression that many of the animals there were endangered. Either this zoo makes a great effort to house endangered specimens or us humans are ravaging the planet of many a majestic beast in our endless quest for more babies. My inner cynic is rolling his eyes at my inner optimist.

The hippopotamii were playing in a large tank of water. One side of the tank was composed of glass so we could watch them frolicking underwater. I'd never seen anything quite like it before: the sight of a 7000 lb animal skipping around like a ballerina was worth the price of admission on its own. Although hippopotamii can be quite ferocious in the wild, the one I was watching seemed almost playful, blowing bubbles out of its nose as us.

I was pleased to observe that the elephants, whose emotional makeup is no less fragile than ours, had all sorts of intriguing toys with which to tinker. One of them was engrossed in a large holow metal polyhedron with a small hole on the surface. After watching her in bewilderment for a little while, I saw her fish a carrot out of the hole with the tip of her trunk and eat it, thereby cluing me in.

Current Mood: tired

11:07 pm - Baking in Baja: the tortilla of life

( They said we'd never be the same again )

Current Mood: contemplative

10:20 pm - Vacation with a Purpose

After hearing about the experiences of several friends who went on mission trips, I've been wanting to go on one myself for a couple of years. The opportunity to do so is finally here. I'll be going to a mission in Baja, Mexico for the 1st week of May.

Current Mood: excited

10:40 pm - Unexpectations

I spent the past 3 days on a campus recruiting trip. On the way there, my flight out of SFO was delayed by 45 minutes, leaving me with a mere 25 minute window in which to switch terminals at Chicago's O'Hare airport before my connecting flight was scheduled to depart. Upon landing, however, I was delighted to discover that that flight had been delayed by 45 minutes as well. Delight turned to dismay, however, when it was delayed repeatedly after that. Even after they eventually let us onto the plane, we sat around for a long time while they tried to find a pair of headphones for the pilot!

While I was travelling, the global stock markets took the opportunity to post astonishing losses.

Current Mood: cranky

07:57 am - Monterey Bay aquarium

After living in California for nearly a year and a half, I finally visited the Monterey Bay aquarium on Monday. We didn't actually get there until 5:15 and the place closes at 6 but we got them to let us in free! It reminded me in many ways of the aquarium in Vancouver's Stanley park. Despite the delightful company, I was viscerally reminded of how much hate sitting in the back of a car for hours. I wish the freight companies didn't control the rails so we could have decent passenger trains here.

Current Mood: thirsty

07:42 am - UIUC info session

I was in Illinois for a couple of days this week to deliver a VMware info session at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Going into it I had no idea that UIUC was the #4 CS school in the country so I was blown away by the number of people in attendance; far greater than at Waterloo or Stanford combined! They also asked so many good questions that we nearly overran our scheduled time.

Urbana-Champaign seemed like a pretty neat city. I spent a couple of hours at the local natural history museum on Wednesday morning, where I encountered a pair of tour-guides-in-training. One of them was French and seemed quite shocked that neither the other student nor the teacher had ever heard of Asterix and Obelix. They were equally surprised that I had.

On the flight home I inadvertently discovered that:
a) wireless electronic devices do work on aeroplanes during flight, although T-Mobile doesn't have much coverage over most of middle America;
b) the flight crew have no way of telling if you leave them on.

Current Mood: surprised

10:14 pm - Visiting Don in Vancouver

Since a_chatterbox is in Vancouver this summer, I figured there could be no better way of celebrating Canada Day than by going to Canada and so I spent the long weekend in the world's best city. Kevin Jungmeisteris was kind enough to let me use his studio apartment in the heart of downtown while he was away camping.

As it happened, we spent most of Canada Day in the picturesque little town of Victoria. Like Vancouver, Victoria is decorated with large bear statues branded by various groups in much the same fashion as the moose that were to be seen all over Toronto 6 years ago. Aside from constantly eating to satisfy our hobbit-like appetites, we also visited the bug zoo. I was skeptical at first but the tour guide was so entertaining that I lost track of time entirely while playing with giant millipedes and fuzzy tarantulas! I'd originally planned to meet up with my friend Zane in Victoria but he didn't get there until after we'd taken the ferry back to rescue andukar from YVR.

However, Zane decided to take the ferry across to Vancouver on Sunday and hang out with us there instead. Don had planned for us to see Measure for Measure at Bard on the Beach and so we decided to meet at Vanier Park where the play was being performed. Vancouver is compact enough that I decided to eschew the buses and simply walk to the park from downtown. Just before reaching the park I was able to enjoy a breathtaking view of the shoreline from atop Burrard bridge. Because I got to the park much earlier than the others, I decided to check out the "No Place for a Lady" exhibition at the Vancouver Museum while I waited for them to arrive. I was quite surprised to learn that harems were actually far more similar to convents than brothels!

Eventually Zane showed up and we were able to watch the play, which I'd read last summer but had never seen before. It was performed using modern costumes and they took a couple of liberties with the stage direction but I enjoyed it thoroughly, despite the accidental intrusion of a kite onto the stage during one of the scenes. After lunch at Vij's Rangoli diner Zane left us and we wandered the city in search of jazz concerts, eventually taking the AquaBus to Yaletown where we heard a couple of concerts before heading home.

On Monday I made my way over to the frat house where Don lives at UBC and met some of her housemates. I played foozball with a couple of them while Don and Magic had brekki. Then we went to the beach at Stanley Park with 3 of them. The water was lovely so we spent a couple of hours throwing a frisbee around in it before leaving so we could return Kevin's keys to him and have dinner together. I'd been hoping to see irishdeviant before she left but the timing didn't work out :-(

Because both Don and Kevin had to work on Tuesday, I visited the Vancouver Art Gallery on my own for a few hours before hopping on the plan back home. I'm not really into paintings that much but I spent a lot of time looking at the exhibitions about prefab houses and Haida artwork. I even picked up a book from the museum store about myths surrounding native Canadian peoples.

When I got to US Customs in YVR the officer looked my passport up in the computer system, peered at the J1 and TN-1 visas on facing pages, and gave me a funny look before asking whether or not I was still a student. I informed him that I was not, to which he responded by revealing that Waterloo still seems to think I am. He explained that normally that would signal that I was violating my J1 but the valid TN-1 precluded that theory from making any sense so he'd let me through but suggested I set the school straight. You'd think that, having recently granted me another bachelor's degree, they'd realize I am no longer a student, especially since I didn't get flagged as one when returning from Montreal a few months ago!

Current Mood: busy

08:49 pm - Seattle

A few weeks ago, when stangerous told me he was going to visit theenforcer and backguy in Redmond, I decided to accompany him and visit Andy (an old friend of mine who recently moved there to work for Microsoft) while I was there. Although I booked a seat on the same return flight as Keith, SpamAssassin ate the itinerary that Alaska/Horizon emailed me so I decided to just follow Keith and assume everything would turn out fine at the airport. Of course, I quickly forgot that the flight was out of San Jose, which I'd never used before, instead of SFO. And Keith assumed I knew how to get to the airport since I've flown out of here so many times in the past so he was relying upon me to get us to the airport. As we were walking towards the Caltrain station, he asked me how we would be getting there via public transit and I began explaining the connection between Caltrain and BART to him. It was only when he expressed surprise that BART serviced San Jose that we suddenly realized something was horribly wrong. As neither of us had a clue how to reach SJC from here, we called a cab and made it there on time. It was the first time I've arrived at an airport and not encountered a line-up at the ticketing counter. I was also taken aback by the unbelievable level of friendliness displayed toward us by the ticketing staff. I'd definitely fly Alaska/Horizon again.

On Saturday morning Andy and I climbed Mount Si along with two of his friends. The trail up reminded me very much of Grouse in Vancouver. It took us just over a hundred minutes to scale it, excluding a snack break we took before tackling the "haystack". Scrambling up the haystack allowed me to practice my dormant rock-climbing skills. Once at the top, we were rewarded by a magnificent view that we enjoyed while eating more snacks. In the evening I had dinner with stangerous, a_chatterbox, backguy, avian_lady and theenforcer at The Cheesecake Factory in Bellevue, where Andy lives.

On Sunday morning I explored Seattle with Andy, his wife Penny and her sister Rose (who also happened to be visiting that weekend). I was surprised to find that Seattle had an extremely steep grad over the few blocks nearest the shore - comparable to SF even! As we walked around downtown I spotted several impressive specimens of industrial sculpture. Although we didn't have enough time to fully explore the Experience Music Project, we admired its famous architecture from the outside and looked at the original costumes of famous musicians on display inside.

When it began raining we drove to the Seattle public library's new central location. It has the most impressive book conveyance and sorting system I've ever seen - much better than the dismal public transit system. After exploring the library for a while we walked over to the Pike St. Market and had lunch at a Bolivian restaurant called Copacabana before wandering around the market. We passed by the original Starbucks but it didn't look that different from any of the others. We found a place that sold very amusing paintings about bad cats and I wanted to buy a t-shirt there but they didn't have any medium-sized ones so I flew home bereft of any souvenirs.

Current Mood: exhausted

09:03 pm - An outsider's impressions of Madison, WI

In addition to being the state capital, the town is roughly the size of K-W and fairly centred around the university, which has a student body somewhat larger than that of Waterloo. The Fluno Center, where I am staying, uses SunRays with Java-powered smart-cards to provide all guests with complimentary in-suite computing facilities. Interestingly, the terminals appear to run Windows 2003, probably via Terminal Server or something like that, although at least they come with Firefox pre-installed. Apparently the system was a gift from a pair of local business school alumni who ended up pretty high on the corporate ladder at Sun and Cisco. Nevertheless, this strikes me as a good potential fit for VMware's ACE. In addition to the SunRays, each room has a complimentary ethernet connection and the entire center is blanketed by an open wireless network. I approve, although it seems ironic that broadband Net access is freely available but local calls are billed at 50¢ apiece.

We got to the career fair slightly before it opened and set up our booth but the first hour was quite dismal with very few people talking to us. But after that things picked up and, while we still had frequent downtime, it was balanced by times when we were inundated with students wanting to talk to us. Wisconsin has a very useful system of filtering students by their majors using coloured stickers so we were able to just focus on those sporting dark green ones. Since it was a general Engineering job fair, we were outnumbered by firms looking for traditional engineers, although there was a pretty decent contingent of students interested in software development.

I was amazed by the large range of preparedness exhibited by the students; some were decked out in formal business attire and armed with resumes printed on hi-quality paper while others showed up in a jeans/sweater combo and had run out of resumes already. Khakis seem to be extremely popular in Wisconsin! There was a lot of demand for summer internships since very few companies seem to offer them and most students want them. We actually met a former VMware intern who is now doing her PhD but stopped by to say "hi". By the end of the day we had amassed several very promising resumes and even more decent ones.

After the career fair 2 of us went out for dinner at a Nepalese restaurant called Himal Chuli. Neither of us had ever tried Nepalese food before. Two thirds of the menu comprised variations of familiar Indian dishes and the rest were items of which I'd been hitherto ignorant. We both ordered the same entrée: a dish made from jack-fruit. It was delicious but I had enough space left in my tummy to cram in a dessert made from dates too. If only it hadn't been so cold on the way back that would have made for a splendid night.

Current Mood: blah