amsterdam

It’s amazing how many places there are in the world that I had never given thought to and then fell in love with. The first time I experienced this was Utah; it’s a special memory for me in how new and strong the feeling was. I was absolutely amazed by the beauty, and in particular that I had never even known that Utah had anything in it to see. Then we drove through open roads with red rock flanking us, and my love for desert began and since then moments in the Southwest feel like a gift. Nowadays I talk to people about Utah and everyone nods in agreement, but I had no idea. Even though I played no part in making Utah, I thought this must be what discovery feels like.

Now Amsterdam is another place like this for me. I’ve never thought about visiting the Netherlands, but I’ll pretty much travel anywhere new when the opportunity arises so when my brother suggested it , I got excited about the exploration. But I had no expectations; I had no image at all of what Amsterdam looked like. In fact, my image might have been a little dreary because my only encounters with it were 1) when I passed through it on our way to Prague and I was sad that I got an Amsterdam stamp in my passport instead of a Prague one, and 2) when I read Ian McEwan’s Amsterdam and found it to be too dark and boring.

But, I loved it. Of all the major European cities I’ve visited (London, Paris, Rome, Florence, Venice, Athens, Prague, Brussels, Vienna), it is my favorite. Of course there are lots of countries I haven’t been to that may have competing cities—Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Germany. But as of now it’s Amsterdam. For my brother it’s become second to Paris. While Paris has the unparalleled appeal of mind-blowing big-city glamour and culture, I’d argue for Amsterdam for the following:

1) The water: Water is everywhere, and even though I’d read about canal cruises, I didn’t quite picture how the city is built atop water. People live in houseboats, and on cobblestoned streets lining canals, and there are hundreds of small and large canals and bridges. It’s just really cool to see water everywhere, how the reflections change through the day and night, and see visually how the city has been built around this natural force.

2) Bikes: People bike everywhere, more than any other city I’ve visited, and everything in the city is catered to bikes first. It gives the city a very quaint, freeing feeling, and it also creates a different kind of city community feel when you can see everyone and everyone is outside while commuting.

3) Language: I haven’t heard much Dutch, and thought it was very pretty. It’s less harsh than German, less self-aware than French. Also, everyone speaks English with a pretty accent. I love that the people are open to using English and the idea of being bilingual in general. There’s something about language—that I’m sure linguists have described much more eloquently—that opens up more avenues of thought and experience. I took more French in college not so much to communicate (my accent is pretty horrible and I’d be afraid to talk to anyone French), more to learn about structuring sentences and learning words, exploring nuances that are beyond direct translation. I think it’s nice that people in the Netherlands are so open to this, where I’ve found other countries in Europe can sometimes distinguish one language as superior to another.

4) Low-key openness: I guess this comes from being a less popularized European city, but overall the city is much more relaxed and less touristy than others I’ve been to. Besides that there is a general openness that feels akin to the Bay Area (the first country to have legalized gay marriage; prostitution is a fairly respectable occupation with health benefits and regulation; etc) without some of the judgment against those less liberal that can sometimes be seen in the Bay Area.

Some downsides include that it's a little expensive like other places in Europe, and the food isn't as memorable as other European cities. But overall, it’s just a beautiful, beautiful city with gorgeous architecture (old and modern), and narrow streets tucked full of images that remind me of how much exists that I haven’t yet discovered.

only girl

My advisor, who I love meeting each week for the pure reason of being with the type of doctor I'd like to someday be, once said that one thing she loves about being a physician is being what people need, which changes for each person. Some people need her to be stern, others need her to be lenient. Some people need affection, others need distance. It's not just personal preference, but about what's best for personal character. At first this might seem like playing a part to cater to someone, but I think that after awhile, if you train yourself to remain open to whatever someone brings to you, you naturally adopt different parts of them and different corresponding parts of them.

This might sound like advocating against being your own person--to be malleable and different depending on who's around you. But I don't think that necessarily has to be the case. I think being open to how another person can change and shape you, can mean drawing on resources within you that you aren't used to reaching for, haven't had to assume in the circumstances you've been in, aren't part of the general personality you've developed. Doing things, saying things, feeling things outside of your usual self aren't always less you than what you do everyday. You own all of it, including what you accept from others.

I thought of this today when Rihanna's "Only Girl" came on the radio. I'm a big fan of that song, and of Rihanna whose voice I love for its slight twang and high power. I thought of it because my friend C and I blasted this song throughout our cross country drive from Connecticut to Arizona, and back. And C is a person who makes me think of how different people bring out different things in me that I wouldn't always offer on my own. She's extremely expressive, while I find it pretty difficult to show when I'm really excited or happy about something. We've grown up in different environments, we respond to our current environments differently. I love in her all of these things that make us different, and she's open to me despite them, and I think that's the one and only thing I require in a friend, a certain openness to how I am and to how people are in general, that makes it easy to connect even if you're very different.

C and I both love this song, and other fun pop songs, and any time we heard one of our favorites, she'd go crazy in the car, and it would make me go kind of crazy too. This one song being iconic, whenever I hear it, I remember those free-for-all moments: all the windows down on a dark road in the desert of New Mexico, with flat-topped mountains fading into the black of night so that you can't see any shapes but think how beautiful it must be during the day; singing over the words over a straight road flanked by cotton fields in the middle of Arkansas which is full of deep reds and pale greens; dancing in the seats of the car through the wide therapeutic nothing of Texas with its surprising pink-tinged wheat and beauty.

And when she blasted the radio on full volume, put the car in park at a stop sign, jumped outside and danced barefoot on asphalt, in some residential southwest neighborhood already asleep. How I didn't hop out after her, but hopped out at the same time, as though I'd already absorbed the energy to fulfill a previously dormant whim. To feel something in you slip out of its cover is almost like to create something new, and there's so much in people to make you feel new.

northeast to southwest

On a cross country drive there's a lot of time to think about why you're doing what you're doing. In the larger scheme of things, but also in the moment--like, why are we driving all day long? I think that that thought is one of the reasons to love long drives. Caitlin, my partner on the road, mentioned a meditative exercise where you sit and concentrate on sensation starting from your toes moving up, so that you become acutely aware of yourself piece by piece. Watching long stretches of road feels similar. You notice sudden and subtle changes in the landscape, and in the position of your arms and legs, and in how much sun is coming through the window to warm your skin. There are moments too when you lose attention altogether, which is nice too.

Caitlin and I both have clinical rotations on Indian health reservations in the Southwest for the month of October. She's doing ob-gyn in Gallup New Mexico, and I'm doing primary care in Chinle Arizona. Both places are in the middle of nowhere, hours from the nearest airport in Albuquerque. The cities are two hours from each other, and we planned on driving from Connecticut to the Southwest together since the end of summer, though most of our few concrete plans were made in the week before leaving. Another thing to love about drives, the freedom and flexibility and living out of the car and not having to carry stuff and worry too much about packaging.

The drive took us way down south on 95 (I had no idea 95 went so far), into regions of the country I'd never seen before. I've wanted to see the South for awhile, not because I had any appealing images of it but because I had no images of it at all. After a night in Maryland we drove through North Carolina, stayed along the coast in Charleston South Carolina and Savannah Georgia, saw Alabama and Mississippi through the car windows, spent a full day in New Orleans, drove along an L-shaped route through Louisiana to reach Dallas for a night, drove across a lot of nothing to get to the next Texan city of Amarillo, and completed a drive across the whole of Texas and the beginnings of New Mexico to arrive at Albuquerque.

To describe the South is hard, after such sensory overload in a new place; and unfair, after such a brief glimpse. But with those caveats, I think it's worth sharing. Driving from Maryland and Virginia into the Carolinas, the weather changed palpably from cold rain to warm yellow. I saw cotton fields for the first time; in Georgia we stopped to pick some, probably illegally; in Texas we were surprised to see miles of cotton and picked those as well. Caitlin had said they smelled like earth, and she was right, and Georgia earth smelled different from Texas earth. Against all overexposure and desensitization, I always feel pleasant surprise at seeing pure white lying so low to the ground (snow, salt, cotton).

We met Charleston SC at nighttime, where the homes have long wide columns, side porches, gates guarding gardens and fountains, and painted family portraits visible through windows. The street and house lamps burn real fire, and the trees and gates stand close to the homes, creating quietly gorgeous shadows. After the night sun takes over for the fire, though they keep the fire during through daylight too. Savannah was more developed and less striking than Charleston, but we did find plenty of magnolia trees, oak trees, and Spanish moss hanging off the oak trees. The drive through Georgia was populated by peach tree orchards, baby pine farms, and lots and lots of cotton.

I fell asleep for a good chunk of the drive through Alabama, due to the sun and to the Faulkner audio book playing in the car (Light in August: worthy to read and very Southern, but listening to books read aloud by strangers hasn't grown on me yet). I went to my first Waffle House in Alabama, and I remember Mississippi being very pretty with its water and expansive fields, and I also remember this day being a daze of a drive. Once in New Orleans, Caitlin snapped me out of it with rapid fire commentary on every street, home and billboard in her hometown. She took me round to all the good eats (crepes, beignets which I called French doughnuts which offended someone, ice cream, burgers & milkshakes), and drove me down St. Charles and her favorite street and Bourbon St in the French Quarter, stopping every few moments so I could take pictures of the incredible houses and balconies. She also introduced me to her tall kind lovely parents, showed me turtles in her favorite park, had our hair cut at her go-to hair salon, and had our pictures taken in a photobooth at a local bar; these parts were best for being specific to her and her home.

From there we had a long drive to Dallas; we didn't have much time to see the city, but we had our own kind of experience through Texas as we drove from there to New Mexico. Between Dallas and Amarillo there is a whole lot of nothing, and it was the first time on the trip that we felt like we were in the middle of nowhere, with mostly trucks on the road and no rest stops for a hundred miles at a time and speed limits of 80 and skies absolutely clear (we saw exactly one cloud). There is something really calming about driving across entire states, sensing both the immensity of things and the fluidity of lines. This made for the best day of the trip, with a soothingly empty landscape of concentrated red dust on either side of us, sometimes suddenly broken by unusual beauty--small sunflowers growing like weeds, a cluster of leaveless trees with gnarled branches, a dilapidated farm house, a field of what we'd call ranch country, stretches of what we called prairie grass--lightly tinged at the top with maroon and purple in a way that seemed unreal, in the way that its faint color could make you feel so much. There was also an adult video store every so often, standing on its own with nothing for miles before and after, because as Caitlin said, even the middle of nowhere needs that.

Once we arrived in Amarillo, we had our Texan experience over the course of five miles and an hour, none of which had been planned (we'd only known that Amarillo was the only city besides Dallas that showed up on our Google map route). This included a huge tacky road-side shop with a sign claiming "everything really is bigger in Texas" and a huge cowboy boot for evidence; breezing through a big warehouse of cowboy boots; a glance inside Hooters (neither of us had been to one and thought TX was a fitting place for our first venture); and a stop at Cadillac Ranch, a public art installation of ten Cadillacs vertically half-buried into the ground that people are free to spray-paint with whatever they fancy as they road-trip across Texas.

Then we were off for more flat landscape (this was our longest day, roughly 12 hours from start of driving to end) until we entered New Mexico, where the land changed dramatically to flat-topped canyons and crumbly ground sprinkled with little bushes. We arrived little before sunset, and drove until dark when the sky became dense with stars, and the outlines of mountains blended into black so that you had to squint to see if they were there. I've been to New Mexico before, but entering it this way felt new. We drove fast in the dark blasting pop songs, and when we got into a neighborhood we stopped at a stop sign and got out of the car to dance outside barefoot (until a car came up behind us and we raced back).

I looked back at something I wrote on the cross country trip I took a few years ago: "When in your life you feel both brave and unsure and open to emptiness, drive across your country with your Thelma." Still believing this to be true, I know I'm lucky to be able to 1) feel this way, and 2) act on it; to not be stuck or closed in feeling or movement. We ended our trip with the hot air balloon fiesta in Albuquerque, getting up at 3 AM to catch the balloons inflating and rising from the heat of fire. It was funny to watch things float and fly after so many days on ground, funnier that I was content to stay in place. Until we left again.

watching water

I’m writing this aboard a ship cruising in the waters around Alaska. I’m on this trip with my parents, oldest brother, sister-in-law and nephew (almost two and already a terror, a beautiful one). It has been less traveling and more bumming around, which has been perfect for me. We sleep a lot, we eat a lot, we play a lot of Scrabble, we laugh a lot at the little one, we sit at window-side tables for hours and watch water that stretches on and on. The latter is my dad nad me; we alternately talk and sit in silence. I’m grateful for the quality quiet time I’ve had with my family. Usually our time is wrapped up in the bustle of the holidays, and while I always love that, this is a different kind of shared time. There is a sense of just living the basics together, and it has been good to live slowly.

This is also the longest time I’ve been able to spend with my nephew, enough so that he has formed an attachment to me. I know that will fade quickly enough after the trip, but it is nice while it lasts. His only words are mommy, daddy, and uh-oh. He uses mommy and daddy to refer to pretty much anything he likes, and sometimes he will chant the words over and over for no apparent reason. Because I call him baby, he has a new word now, “bobby,” or sometimes “bah-bee,” and that’s what he calls me. He still speaks in streams of baby babble, but can understand pretty much anything you tell him. He will also kiss you on command, and he loves holding hands and being held. When he gets excited he’ll holler repeatedly with some laughs in-between, and it is so funny. He’ll climb anything, and he’s at that age where he is so eager to use every sense he has. Being with him makes almost everything a sensory experience. Watching him chew with effort, I feel more strongly the stringy peel of orange slices; watching him fall back with delight after pushing himself forward to complete double high-five, I feel more strongly his little weight and how compactly he fits in my arms.

Outside of being with family, the cruise itself isn’t particularly my thing. It’s crowded, and cheesy, and centered around consumption. There is too much service; we’re constantly being asked how things are and if we need anything and what did we do today and what would we like to do tomorrow. Even though I have nothing to be private about, I miss my privacy. I have yet to find a reliably solitary place, especially on days we’re at sea and not landed anywhere, and everyone is inside. I’m not sure if I enjoy microcosms; as big as the ship is, I feel like I’m experiencing everything in miniature. But the wide-open of the seas does compensate for this. Spending long minutes watching the blue and white, with nothing but music for company, has been a welcome conduit for breathing. It has also been incredibly nice to run everyday in front of sea spilling through windows. I will miss that.

Mostly it has been nice to indulge in nothingness. I sleep without thinking about when to wake up, and that simple sensation makes me consciously happy when I get into bed at night. There is no need to do anything; we do things because of simple urges to do so. I would’ve liked to do more outdoorsy things, but my parents can’t do those things and also it has been raining quite a bit. After ending the most intense year of my life thus far, taking it easy has been welcome. This wasn’t something I planned or thought about; it just happened. The serendipitous gift of being able to do almost everything with a view of water is something to take back with me; I think even after the sight is gone the sort of stillness carried in perpetual movement stays.

summer / travels

The days have followed a routine these past days, of early morning heat collecting more and more moisture that it returns at night with heavy rain, adding some noise and light in the mix. It's not just that this weather doesn't bother me. I love it, and I can guess how you'll respond--but it has nothing to do with a principle of appreciating imperfection. I tolerate the dry heat of California and dislike it when it hits the high 80s, but I love East Coast summers of the sort we've been having in July (not the steady cold gray rain of June), where the sun fries the days and we walk through dense air that cools with rain. Coming home to a stuffy non-air-conditioned house, I open all the windows and wait, and the water comes down so thick and loud that it's like being outside, hearing the slickness of the roads and the miscellaneous trees and railings interrupting the rain's course.

This is the first time I've been on the East Coast for summer since Cambridge in 2005. I have so, so many moments I hold so close from that summer, of being able to live through the night in summer clothing, of escaping to the river after the stillness of lying in front of the fan in my dorm room, of getting drenched in post-humidity rain. At the same time this summer takes me back to a places nearby, it reminds me of summers faraway. I've been so lucky to have been able to travel the last three summers, the past two in Asia where the humidity allowed me to slip into the foreign surroundings. I'll never forget the calm rain of Japan or those crazy amazing thunderstorms in Vietnam.

People say they love travel, and I would say that too except that I think it's more that I love places. I like transiting too, and the movement, and places may not quite be the same without all that, but mostly I think it's what place has meant to me, whether it's everyday corners or momentary visits. These summers have been Greece in love, Japan in transition, Southeast Asia in adventure, Vietnam in solitude and history, cross country in anticipation, Eastern Europe in relief. I never write cohesively as much as I'd like about these bulks of time, because as always I struggle between wanting to experience so that I may express and finding that experience takes from me the time that a slow one like me needs to write.

I did journal through a lot of it. In college, knowing that I wanted to go there one day, one of my roommates gave me a spiral journal clothed in a red Japanese print. When I went to Vietnam, my best friend from high school gave me a travel journal (it came with a protective plastic bag, perfect to shield from rain). It's funny how there are places you long for, that you still long for after you visit; then there are places you long for, that after you visit you don't imagine in the same way again. Japan preoccupied a part of me for some time, but is a place whose significance for me changed afterwards. My desire to go there developed from images, and now afterwards I can't conjure images the way I can for some places. But I do recall a lot of what I felt there--the struggles of that time period and that trip, understanding and learning (still) to value the tough nitty gritty of connections to my family and friends, the long train rides, how much I appreciated really living with myself.

From that journal more than two years ago, a day in Nara--

So many of the temples, statues and buildings here were destroyed in some way (burned, earthquake, conquered), and then rebuilt. On the train back to Kyoto--walked a great deal today, as the sights in Nara Park are very spread out. A deer bit my shorts and ate my map. The people here are very proud of this ancient capital--Japan's first permanent one, though it was only capital for 74 years, before it was moved to Kyoto for 1000. That endears me to this city, to which the Japanese are so connected to, despite its short life as capital. I like the idea that something like that persists in communal memory. The largest bronze Buddha is in Nara, and I liked the temple it was enclosed in very much--the largest wooden structure (and the original was even bigger). The building had been burnt twice and an earthquake knocked the head off the Buddha and melted it. Yet these were restored and the Japanese are all over the place as a tie to the past. I respect that kind of respect for history and conceptual entities.

It was fairly late after I left the temple and it was a far walk to the last sight I wanted to see, Kasuga Shrine. By the time I got there it was closed but I hadn't planned on seeing the inside anyway. It turned out to be the best part of Nara.

It's tucked away in the woods and contains 3000 stone and bronze lanterns. They went on forever. It was pretty empty since it was early evening/late afternoon but the few wanderers around asked me if I wanted a photograph of myself. Even when people offer it's hard to accept but I appreciate the sentiment. For most of this I was very much alone, and I liked taking my time to walk around. The lanterns were beautiful--I can only imagine how other-worldly they'd be when lit. I'm not sure why they appealed to me so much. Thinking of it now, the simple idea of sources of light is appealing, but also that there's something so heavy and sturdy built to contain a bit of warmth and light--something fragile, really. Also something with a lot of power. Mostly I like the idea of holding and containing and protecting light. The idea that it's a delicate thing which requires defense and protection with bronze and stone. And there were so many.

I like old Japan a lot, even contrasted against all the modernity. It's a refuge, and perhaps will never again feel like the original, not a part of daily culture, but it stands as a backdrop.

Apparently from 768 to 1863, the Kasuga Shrine was torn down and rebuilt every twenty years, based on Shinto beliefs of purity. How funny that rebuilding is both a philosophy, deliberate; and an unplanned necessity.

prague

Gray skies shaded the muted colors lighter, but it stayed light until well after nine, the moon rising long before the sun set. On our first night we wanted to sleep at five in the afternoon; we stuck it out through dinner and slept at 9. The second night there was no sleep; there was absinthe dancing and a stage (earlier in the day: absinthe ice cream is good, though it burned Allison's throat and my stomach). Walking in the quiet mid-morning, it was strangely bright without any obvious sun. Saw the sun rise sitting atop a rooftop with an arm around my waist, that I let slip as easily as I let it rest there. The sun appeared suddenly as a gleaming disk, I mistook it for the moon until I remembered. It made a patch of sky blinding, and promptly disappeared into cloud with its ascent. The light stayed behind a while. In the morning, having checked out of our hostel, we stumbled our way around town searching for places to sleep. At one point we catnapped on a bench; upon feeling like bums we went inside to a coffeeshop where only one could sleep at a time. Allison opened her eyes and said, Let's go to the cinema. I was confused, then understood that a theater offered the luxury of letting us both close our eyes. Brilliant--but we stuck it out. After some more napping at an outdoors McDonald's.

All the streets I can remember were cobblestone. The Charles Bridge was crowded, and loveliest from afar. The castle sprawls. Upon huffing and puffing up a grassy park, red roofs abounded. Walking through the city to our bus, came across gorgeous vantage points like surprises. Buildings in the square seemed to press flat against the sky like a movie set. They were boxy in the middle, with lots of curls and odd corners at the edges.

Czech food is warm, meaty and good with beer (very cheap). Attractive waiters with sincere charm. Roast duck was particularly memorable, with savory sauce mopped up by bread dumplings. Allison had "the best croutons ever" in her garlic soup, and I enjoyed a good steak at a slightly medieval former-prison-turned-restaurant where bear hides clung to the walls and a group of burly men befriended a lone Asian traveler, the one guffawing with every sentence uttered by the other. A seafood lunch by the river in Cesky Krumlov, with another castle in view, a full trout with teeny bones and much flavor, laced with lemon juice. Home-made Korean food welcomed us in the mornings and evenings: kimchee, slices of pork wrapped in lettuce and unbelievable sauce, breakfasts of sushi and soup, fish and spring rolls. A welcoming pair of parents who reacted to our presence with smiles, always. Narae's energy kept us walking, eating, looking. We watched Star Trek (it was super cheap to watch movies and the movie was so good!) and rested at the worst Burger King in the world. Saw the castle at night, the lights more subtle than I anticipated; the river reflecting light without taking it all.

The bus station was chaotic; we went back and forth and maneuvered times and routes and stations, but after several trips became expert (kind of) navigators. The bus ride to Cesky Krumlov was filled with stops and locals, and a lot of green. Our hostel was a homey cave with walls painted yellow, lived-in kitchen and common room, and comforting to wake up in. Walked a straight road into town, with nonchalant viewpoints along the way, overlooking a small quaint town, loudly splendorous but humble. We perched on a bench to watch it grow dark (it takes a long time), the pink castle maintaining its pink from the day and gaining white light to define it against night, and talked for some time, getting cold. We talked a lot, falling asleep or staying up, in transit, during meals. Narae and I hiked our way to a hiking trail, and went back, stopping at points and consuming the afternoon in another yellow cafe, with mediocre food and drinks but glad to be sitting. The escalators in Prague are the fastest we'd ever seen; they are scary. Other -ests: biggest breakfast, cheapest (good) beers, most castles, more that I can't recall at the moment (should've recorded).

The ride to Vienna: vineyards, red flowers peppering grass every so often and then in bursts; mustard flowers showering large patches of fields. The ride back: the sky changed every few moments, like the way a movie flashes scenes one after another to show the passing of time. In Vienna, the escalators are normal, the castles and churches darker, in coloring or feel or both. Favorite was a thin white one with a jagged pattern, felt like an icicle piercing the surroundings. Fell asleep in a spot amidst much grass, trios of boys playing soccer, couples, people by themselves reading or watching or listening to music. A glorious nap, on the one day I wore a skirt. Night light brings everything to a glow, the rows of windows individually alight. Had a long dinner with appetizer, main course, and dessert. Walked by many stores, none of which were ever open (night, Sunday, etc). Tried schnitzel (once is enough). We sat outside the opera house, watching people walk out after the performance of My Fair Lady. Allison brought me breakfast in bed: strawberries and bread with prosciutto (I LOVE PROSCIUTTO) and cream cheese. Frolicked in rose gardens, posing by the flowers and decided our route by sight ("let's go toward THAT"). The next afternoon we spent in a pretty clean-cut coffeeshop and had a melange. The gelato in Vienna was especially good (Prague was also very good: a delicious raspberry; in Vienna, strawberry yogurt and kiwi and mango that tasted like biting into all of those things).

We had ice cream every day. Sometimes twice.

changes and happenings

A lot of things have happened. While not everything has been smooth or even pleasantly rocky, I feel the heaviest kind of lucky. It's quite sappy how consciously lucky I feel every day to have everything I do, how much it holds up even the worst days. To inadequately recap. I spent the summer in Vietnam to work on a public health project. I traveled to the center and south, and lived in the north. I stayed in a rural town for a couple weeks, visited my dad's old village, and lived with my uncle, his son and his son's family in the city the rest of the time. My cousin's wife, quite possibly the sweetest person I've ever met, cried at the airport when I was leaving.

I spent three full days at home in which my dad told me how he planted a near dying cherry tree in the middle of our yard and my mom armed me with hoisin sauce to bring to New Haven. You know how parents are cute to everyone but their own kids? My parents are so cute even I think so. I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving, and having a full week with them (and all the brothers, so I think it might be our first full family Thanksgiving ever). My mom keeps reminding me we'll make the turkey together (she made her first one only a couple years ago) and that she'll make my favorite meal too. She and my dad keep asking me if I need funds, something they haven't done in years. I'm guessing they're asking now because they think I've run out, which I was worried about too, but it looks like I'll be able to ride out at least this next year on residual income and aid, which is another part of the luck. But it's funny to me that my mom tells me not to worry about buying a dress for the semi-formal because she doesn't want me to "suffer" (literal translation).

I drove cross country with Allison. We stopped in Tahoe, Lovelock Nevada, Salt Lake City Utah, Denver Colorado, Wall South Dakota, Madison Wisconsin, Rockville Maryland, Lancaster Pennsylvania and arrived here after ten days, 72 hours which were spent driving. We saw lots of rocks and castles, real and figurative. We saw salt and sunsets and my new nephew. We talked a lot, and laughed an unfathomable amount. We played lame games and took pictures of nothing (on the hour). Silly things happened, like our Wisconsin adventure which included bruises and a flooded bathroom. Beautiful things were seen, like Utah and the beautiful beautiful Badlands, which are not castles but make you feel royal, but also small. I'm so so glad that we took the trip and that Allison was the Thelma to my Louise, because how often do you get to do that and more rarely, have it be quite perfect? When in your life you feel both brave and unsure and open to emptiness, drive across your country with your Thelma.

Upon returning to New Haven, I embarked on a scrambled unique honeymoon with the wife, traveling in a 14-foot U-Haul to retrieve and move furniture. First time I've bought real furniture, first time I drove a U-Haul. It took me a full week to get everything and unpack, a week in which I ignored all things school while realizing in class that we were already supposed to have learned in that week what would've amounted last year to a month of material. But it doesn't matter, because I love our new home almost as much as I love the wife. We live on a street lined with restaurants and little shops like the camera store and the random stuff store and the art store and the Art School, and two coffeeshops, including one that's half a block away and owned by Asians who already know how much I love chai. We're on the first floor of an old brick house with hardwood floors and white walls encased in darker wood, with a big kitchen and the homey feel I knew I wanted when we were looking for an apartment. It's just that much farther from school, and that much closer to downtown. Jen and I cook, and Nupur has a bread machine.

School is intense. I can't learn this much this fast. We're learning in modules this year, and we've started with the heart. One of the most interesting, and complicated. Apparently in a month we're supposed to understand the diseases, know the treatments (what do you give first? what's a last resort? what do you give to diabetics?), comprehend how an EKG works and what it's supposed to look like in every kind of dysfunction of your heartbeat (do you know how many different ways your heart can beat?). All this makes me again grateful for being here, without real exams or grades, so I'm still able to appreciate how intellectually satisfying the science is and remember how lucky and awesome it is to pursue something that works your mind and heart. The year's going to be a bit insular, all of us cooped up studying, which sounds kind of sucky but there will probably never be an excuse again to just be cramming in knowledge (hopefully) without other obligations.

At the very least I like the people I'm cooped up with, and through everything else I feel most lucky for the sheer quantity and quality of the people in my life. My college blockmates are all really happy and kicking ass in their respective areas of work/study, and that makes me really happy, to think of everyone growing through the ups and downs of the post-grad years with such grace. It's even crazier to think on the growth with my high school friends who are still some of the best people I know. And in New Haven I have the family I adopted (or who adopted me), people who really love me and at the lowest points (which have indeed already been experienced in the past few weeks) remind me I have absolutely everything I need. Anything that's been hard reminds me also of how there are things I still don't know about myself, and how the more painful experiences force you to know yourself. How you're built, what you value. I know better that honesty matters to me more than acts, that there are things I know I deserve even as much as we hate to use that word on our own behalf, that for as much as I communicate there's a whole lot I miss about even people I know really well and so I need to work on that, that even if you're supposed to pick your battles I will never be able to give up on a person that gave me reason to start trying in the first place. In the end, even if what you find makes things harder--not so much the realization but you yourself--there's good reason for being how you are, and good reason for how each person is.

Reading this over confirms the sap that gratitude makes you produce. But another point is just--so things are quite different. I don't think I'll be blogging much from now on, because I started writing a tiny bit over the summer and I think I want to try as much as I can to continue that, and this year forces me to choose. I'm not sure what happened, but I think it's been this accumulation of gratitude that's pushed me to finally put some things into stories, or rather, clumps. I'll return somewhere in between clumps.

greece

Sunsets from the three different islands we visited, left to right: Crete, Santorini, Mykonos.

The eleven days in Greece with Andrew made up the most intensely full time I have ever had. To be in my favorite country with my favorite person makes for a rare kind of happiness that is intangible and concrete at once. Much of it was surreal, and after all the difficulties, it was continually hard to believe that we made it, that we did it for ourselves and that we were there together, just us. Even on our very last night we were in awe, not only of the place but of our closeness that brought us there. At the same time, nothing in my life has felt as real as experiencing each thing with him, far away from everything else we've known yet being so at home with each other. Absolutely everything went smoothly; any mishaps were minor. We got from city to island to island to island to city exactly as planned, and saw all the sights on our itinerary and more. We spent our funds wisely, and we didn’t go as broke as I had thought we would. I was so proud of our ability to navigate the country, quickly figuring out the subway, bus and airport systems. The combination of my previously planned course of action and his on-the-site directions made everything go so well. It would take volumes to make just a small attempt at describing it all, so I'll settle for a summary of events with a smattering of impressions and feeling. Our photos and these descriptions portray such a small part of it all, the place and our experience. That’s always the case, and as always, I have the urge to share just the bit I can express.

Athens
We flew into Athens from New York (spent a lovely night and half-day there, eating at a late-night diner and doing laundry at a laundromat and being mistaken for newcomers to the neighborhood). The airport experience was worsened by rude people and inefficient service, and the twelve-hour flight wasn't too pleasant either. Not getting much sleep on the plane coupled with the seven-hour time difference exhausted us, but seeing Athens from above made us too excited to care. After dropping our stuff off at our budget hotel, we immediately took off for Mt. Lycavittos, the highest point in Athens. The 360 degree view of Athens was the perfect introduction to the city, and we were completely giddy after seeing the sprawling white that went on and on, and the Acropolis from afar. We also went to Parliament and the National Gardens, and walked around the Plaka district in the evening. The vendors really spill out onto the streets there, very charming and festive.


The next day we got to see everything up close, and he pointed out the linked nature of our experience. From Mt. Lycavittos we could see the Acropolis and from the Acropolis we could see Mt. Lycavittos, and also the Agora, and from the Agora you can see the other sites and on and on. We were early enough that it felt like we had the Parthenon mostly to ourselves, and we spent a long time lingering there. Over the day we saw all the best ruins Athens had to offer—the Ancient and Roman Agoras, the Theater of Dionysus, the Temple of Hephaesteion, and our favorite, the Temple of Zeus. There’s something about the simplicity of ancient columns that I really enjoyed, and there was a lot of empty space around them, so you could really take in the sight in its own space. We also went to the National Archaeological Museum, which has rooms full of amazing sculptures and houses the Mask of Agamemnon, and the Benaki Museum of Islamic Art, which had the opposite feel of the National Museum. It’s small, subtle, not as ancient, but gorgeous. We were the only people there so it felt like a secret treasure. The ceramic tiles and tapestries were beautiful; swirls and bright colors made for such pretty patterns.


Crete
The next morning we took a short flight to Hania, Crete. We first saw the hills hugging the sea from the cab drive, down a steep slope. Our taxi driver enraged us by dropping us off a twenty minute walk from our hotel and trying to charge us twice the fair fare, but our hotel made up for it. It was by far the best deal of the trip, very cheap but quaint and beautiful. Our room’s name was Zeus, and we had a small balcony overlooking a narrow street filled with colorful buildings.


Hania is a city to watch and walk through. We first went to the Municipal Market, where we were amused and a little disturbed by the nonchalant display of lambs’ and bulls’ heads. After that we walked around the Venetian Harbor, whose image was hard to capture in a photograph. The buildings arched around the water, so the view changed with every step.


It was very leisurely, which was nice because we were tired from all the walking the day before and because we needed to rest up for our next day’s activity—making the five-hour hike down the Samaria Gorge, the longest gorge in Europe (about 13 km, and an extra 2 km afterwards to walk out to the city to go home).

We thought we’d die doing the hike, but we actually took it on fairly well. The hike isn’t smooth; it’s steep and very rocky at a lot of parts. At times you just focus on your feet and the land in front of you, which can be a soothing thing to do—concentrating on one simple feat. The path continually changed though, and the whole experience was amazing and a highlight of the trip for the both of us. The drive to the gorge was pretty scary; the bus went over two-way roads at the edge of high mountains at a quick pace, but it was a great way to traverse the landscape. We got there early so we had views of the moonset over blue-misted mountains before we began.

Descending into the gorge, we saw so many things—different hills, creeks, rock formations, bridges…and the same single kind of pink flower bursting in bunches at various spots among the green and brown. At the end there is a narrow gap between cliffs, that they call the Iron Gate, that greets you after a trek across flat terrain. That sliver of light peeking through the gap is the most sublime culmination to a day wandering in the depths of the gorge. It gave us the opportunity for quiet time and conversation, and I think it made us feel very close to take that journey together, small bodies gliding through this massive structure.


The next morning we took an early bus to the other end of Crete, to the capital Heraklion. There we went to the biggest known Minoan palace, Knossos, and went to the museum to see all the frescoes and artifacts people had found there.


A fun part of the day was seeing the city itself, and all the Venetian buildings. We also caught a view of the city from the Kazantzakis tomb, a simple but compelling site. We had a delicious seafood dinner by the waterfront, getting there at sunset and staying until the sea was pitch black.


Lights across the sea started twinkling; one area was completely dark except for one winding line of yellow light, whereas another was sprinkled with green lights. He mentioned how in rural areas, one light usually signified a life—the lamp outside someone’s home, for instance. That sense of life was very detectable walking back to our hotel later in the warm night—a lot of families out, restaurants packed, water fountains in full spring.

Santorini
We loved Crete, but I was excited out of my mind to go to Santorini. We ended up being the only passengers on our tiny plane to the island, so we pretended it was our private jet. This, along with the fact that the airport was abandoned when we got there, caused him to deem Santorini “our island”—it seemed to belong to us from the very beginning. We took a bus to Oia, and though driving on those cliffs scared us, seeing how the island existed right off the sea was beautiful. When we got to Oia, we were even more blown away. Seeing pictures does nothing to prepare you for this place—all the buildings fit snugly into the rocky cliffs, practically dropping into the sea, and they are all a bright painted white.


The buildings within the teeny town are vividly colored: oranges, reds, blues and greens everywhere rising from the cobblestone streets. Walk a few feet from the town and you meet the vast Aegean sea that is so crisp it looks like you can skate on it, with other islands floating atop.



In absolute jaw-dropping awe, we made our way to our hotel. Having gone budget on all our other lodgings, we saved to splurge on our one night in Oia, living in a traditional cavehouse hotel. We appreciated its unique character right away—we both thought it wasn’t worth it to go broke for luxury, but to go for character. This place integrated the natural beauty of Oia into its own structure; it had an arched ceiling lined with stones, rocks nestled in its walls, beautiful wooden doorways and window frames. And it had a balcony with the most amazing view of the caldera, which consists of the surrounding islands and volcano (the same view you get everywhere you go along Oia). We also got a free upgrade to their best room, which had a jacuzzi on the balcony. When we got there he and I stood grinning at each other for quite some time. Then we headed out for lunch, where we also could not stop marveling at the town and sea, and afterwards explored every crevice of Oia.


In the evening we staked a spot at the northern end of the city to watch the sunset. The Oia sunset is often deemed the most beautiful in the world, and I felt so lucky to be able to see it. Hundreds of people come out and line the streets to watch it. The sun becomes completely circular and contained; after a certain point its rays don’t disperse from it anymore, it’s just a wafer in the sky. Andrew took the photo below. Well, he took several of these photos but I thought I should point this one out in particular because I really like it and because he showed it to me right after and asked me whether I liked it, and I remember thinking it was sweet how he valued my opinion about that kind of thing.


We left Oia the next day for Fira, where we stayed for two days exploring the beaches and the volcano. Hiking the volcano across from the island, we could see Santorini Island in its entirely, and were able to look up to where Oia and Fira sat atop the cliffs. We rode donkeys from the port back up to town, which was hilarious and fun, though he vowed never to do it again because the donkeys looked so miserable. His in particular refused to do anything; it would stop for long periods of time without moving, paying no attention to the fact that he was supposed to be carrying Andrew up to the hill. I would look back to see donkey and boy looking equally bemused.


We also went to one of Fira’s famous black sand beaches and to the Red Beach. The sand at the black sand beach comprised of small pebbles that were pretty to sift through your fingers. The Red Beach, though, was the most amazing beach I’d ever been to. Your first sight of it is with towering red cliffs in front of you, with a stretch of white sand that grows distinctly red as it creeps toward the sea. There’s a very distinct line between the sections of white, red, and deeper red once the sand hits the water. Up close, you see the gradations of red, from red rocks to red pebbles to red sand.


We saw the sunset in Fira as well; much less people were out than in Oia, but the sky was a bit hazy so we never quite saw the sun disappear, only watched it slip into the haze.

Mykonos
We were sad to leave our island, but looked forward to a new kind of atmosphere in Mykonos, the party center of Greece. We took a three-hour bumpy ferry ride to the island, and were glad to see the harbor. The buildings there were also mostly white, but in a different way from Santorini. They were boxier, and also often had the same parts that were colored. Like a row of white houses whose stairway railings were painted different colors: one house blue, another red. The roads were the same throughout the town: squares of stone separated from one another with thick white paint (we actually saw a man painting the roads at one point).


We first set out to explore the town, seeing the churches, Little Venice and the five windmills overlooking the water. We caught the sunset near the windmills later, and it was a nice moment. No one was really out, and the sun set very slowly, sinking almost imperceptibly into the sea. It was very quiet in the afternoon, and we sensed that the town hadn’t woken up yet. During our wanderings we came across a giant pink pelican, a famous creature in Mykonos and sometimes rare to see. He was pretty excited about that, and it was nice to have a private viewing—the next day the birds came traisping near outdoor taverns where tourists flocked to them, taking photos and laughing at their peculiar silliness.


Anyhow, on our first night in Mykonos we went out, bar-hopping and dancing, running into a packed gay club by accident—it was fun but not quite as crazy as we had envisioned…we were probably a little early. Lots of clubs and places don’t even open until midnight there, and they stay open until morning. We only stayed out until 3 or so, because we had to get up the next morning to go to Delos.

Delos is a tiny island, now completely uninhabited but once the sacred center of the Cyclades. Seeing the ruins there was unique because it was an entire region frozen in time…walking through, we’d come across mosaics and temples and sculptures. We hiked a mountain to see the entire island, and it was amazing to think the whole place was a sort of artifact. It was a hot and tiring expedition though, so we spent the latter half of the day on Mykonos’s white-sand beaches, enjoying the clear clear and cold waters.


Athens
We took a short flight back to Athens to spend our last day in Greece. During the ride to the airport I thought maybe it would have been better to fly back to NY from wherever we ended in Greece instead of returning to Athens, but after the day was over I couldn’t imagine spending it any other way. We came full circle by revisiting Athens. The first day, we’d seen a panoramic view and the last day, we saw it up close. Because we’d seen all the major sights the city had to offer, we were free to wander. Instead of seeking out particular things as we had the first, we explored. We went to the port to find that it wasn’t anything special, found a delicious ice cream parlor (we had so much ice cream on the trip), and stumbled into the poet sandalmaker’s shop. The shop is a family business that handmakes leather sandals; they had a collection of sandals with different names, some of them named after famous people who had bought them (John Lennon, Jackie O, Sophia Loren). The poet sandalmaker refers to one of the owners (his son was currently manning the store when we got there) who creates sandals and poetry, who says that a writer must have another occupation in order to truly write. That idea, the necessity of experience in order to convey life in words, was personal and touching. We went in and out of the store several times before deciding to get sandals for ourselves. His had to be adjusted, so we got to see the person’s handiwork in play right in front of us. We hadn’t bought anything during the trip, but we thought the sandals would be the perfect memento. They get darker and more brown with wear and exposure to the sun, so that the artistry of the sandalmaker continues with time. We found that notion of continuance fitting for us, feeling that our experience here wouldn’t be bound by geography once we returned, but would stay with us as time passes and as we grow. The same goes for our relationship.


We did a lot of window-shopping in the Monastiraki and Plaka districts, as he tried to find something for his brother, and in the evening headed to dinner. We found a place with a view of the Acropolis and Agora so that we could watch them light up as night fell. Yet another way of closing our time—on the first day, seeing the Acropolis in light and on the last, in the dark. I love how in these places, it is so easy to find a view—so many things are visible from different points in the city. I also like how everyone eats outdoors, and how long the meals stretch—our last meal in Greece was a two-hour dinner…eating slowly, drinking wine, having dessert. The night was very alive, so many people out and vendors everywhere. Our table must’ve been approached about a dozen times by people selling roses. We sat and talked about our favorites of Greece—favorite meal, sunset, hotel, ruins, characters and so on. We put on our sandals, and read aloud the poetry that we’d been given at the sandalmaker’s shop. We wore our sandals on the way home, and I knew we both felt grateful for being able to walk in Greece together like that. The air was so vibrant, live music playing, restaurants still crowded late into the night, vendors with tiny lamps illuminating their products. By that time, we’d developed a habit of waving goodbye to the places we’d seen, and it was hard to wave goodbye to Athens since it was also a precursor to the goodbye to Greece altogether.


What a crazy thing to have done. We went through a lot to make it happen, to stay committed to our fantasy. A lot of things were against us. We’re so young, but maybe that’s partly why we were able to do it. I can’t remember ever feeling so fulfilled, so in awe of how powerful a feeling can be and how far it can take you. Halfway around the world, and back.