Law, Partially

Ambitions to write entries in every city have crashed. Entries by region? Failed. As we wind down the first half of the trip and leave Italy for points west, maybe I can succeed in documenting our adventure by country. If India travelled to France, Italy would result. Just like India, Italy is even jammed onto the southside of a continent. And just like in India, we enjoyed our adventure, though some days we were dirty and tired of it, and just like in France, we ate very well and went to museums. In Florence I felt like I was in India, often walking in streets (few practical sidewalks), along with cars driven by the unsympathetic, breathing in exhaust fumes, amidst crumbling old buildings and throngs of people. India is of course more crowded, dirtier, and poorer, but sewer smells often linger in those medieval Italian city centers as they do in India's more crowded neighborhoods. Like in India, sometimes I'm amazed that Italy works at all. But it works, and it is a great ...

As a northern hemispheric country, just as in the U.S., summer's heat wears away and leaves change color as fall arrives in the U.K. In my years abroad I've learned how memories of time and place attach to seasons, with seasons becoming markers on the timeline. Your perception of seasonal change is shaped by where you've spent most of your years, especially where you grew up. Shaped by the American Midwest, the autumnal months remind me of baseball season's end, football season's start, school terms commencing, green leaves becoming red and orange, Thanksgiving, and Christmas shopping. We find some parallels between the U.S. and London. Fall brings cooler temperatures, although summers are never as hot and winters never as cold here as we'd get in Iowa. This year, fall brought Christine's return to school, this time at the London School of Economics, alma mater of Mick Jagger and JFK, both of whom didn't earn degrees there (hopefully Christine will be...

We hoped Rome would be the best; we feared it would be the worst. Rome is fascinating. I wanted to see the ruins from the empire we've learned so much about: from seventh grade social studies to Gladiator. I wanted to drink espresso in bustling cafes on the Via Veneto like Marcello Mastroianni in La Dolce Vita . I wanted wine, carbonara, cacio e pepe, and square pizza slices. I wanted to learn what happened to Rome between its sacking by the German gothic hordes in the 400 and 500s and its founding as the capital of united Italy in the 1870s (a silent period, apparently, in our textbooks). How can this ancient city function as a modern capital of one of the wealthiest countries in the world? I have travelled so many places but not yet ever to Rome, though Christine had visited before. Rome in 1960, as presented by Federico Fellini and starring Marcello Mastroianni and Anouk Aimée in La Dolce Vita . Watching the film as a young man in college, I was struck by how cool Rome l...

At first glance, D.C. seems like it would be a very uncool place. We see images current and historic of white guys in suits, grandiose architecture, serious hand shakes, arcane arguments, wide streets, and emblems of a police state: black cars, tinted windows, officers in flak jackets. But my experiences there have always been much less staid, ranging from the rowdy (old days) to the gourmet (present days). I've been visiting friends in D.C. since I was in college. I always found D.C. to be a very young city. There are several universities in D.C., and many college graduates go there to work for government and government-related businesses. Young people are more fun. Now, when I visit D.C., what I notice is new investment. There are old fresh food markets made new again as prepared food halls, old industrial infrastructure turned into dining and entertainment destinations, and disused storefronts converted to pubs featuring existing fixtures (e.g., brick). There are shiny new b...

I sit writing in the lobby of the Taj Land’s End in Bandra. There’s a pianist playing a grand piano, and strolling through the lobby are mainly young and trendy, well-dressed Indians in designer jeans. There are a few white people scattered about. It appears they’re mainly Western businessmen. There are restaurants and a bar in the Taj, and I’m guessing a lot of people are coming here for those. I will not be drinking any coffee. Yes, I drank two delicious cups of coffee at Mocha, no milk, no sugar. I also ate a vegetarian panini that was pretty tasty but doused in oil (surprise surprise – everything in India is doused in oil it seems). And now my gastro-intestinal track, sensitized by India’s abuses and my own indiscretion in eating and drinking, is in disrepair. I’m hoping this isn’t a return of Delhi Belly, just an overdose of black coffee, something of which I have not drank in almost two months. I feel like crap, but my stomach isn’t pained like it was during bouts of Delhi Belly....

Because in addition to being a legal trainee, I am also a journalist, I need to devote this weekend toward writing some articles and doing extra legal research. My trips to Mocha, the coffee shop (“coffees and conversations”), usually suck. It’s crowded. It takes 30 minutes to get a cup of coffee if a waiter even comes to your table. But I was awake early today, and I ventured to Mocha hoping to find free tables. So here I am at Mocha. It’s not crowded on this early Sunday afternoon. It took a long time for my ordered coffee to arrive at my table, but… The coffee, I am overwhelmed with joy to report, is better than Starbucks. I have always found Starbucks to be mediocre coffee, but in law school it became my standard cup. Today I drank some Malabar Monsoon coffee. The Malabar Coast is the Indian coast from Goa south to the extreme southern tip of India: in the modern state of Kerala. Mocha’s menu reports that European sailing vessels would bring coffee from the Malabar Coast to Europe,...

I made two stops this weekend on my quest to find a cup of American-style drip coffee. I had plans every day last week to go to Barista after work to get a cup of coffee and read some of my rural social development books I got from the CRY library. Every day I left work too late to drink coffee, but on Friday night, I had no plans, and it was on. I can describe Barista perfectly. Barista was designed as a rip-off of Starbucks, which in turn was designed as a rip off of the Italian café. In other words, a cup of espresso served in India at Barista has endured some cultural torturing to get to your table. I know Starbucks does not do an Italian café justice. For one thing, the coffee is not as good, and anymore Starbucks is not about lingering over a cup of espresso and savoring the day, it’s about getting in, buying your fix, and getting the hell back to work. Some people, like me, still linger at Starbucks, and even then, I know, it’s not an Italian café, and I think that despite Starb...

I went to the gym this morning and did power yoga, which I believe is really called Ashtanga Yoga. I woke up early to do this, and now at work I am so tired that I finally broke down and drank the coffee that comes from the machine. Surprise, surprise, it wasn't very good. It tasted like watered down gas station coffee, and I'm still tired.

I called the pantry boys and had them bring me some chai and toast. I'm still drinking chai, which is black tea loaded with milk and sugar. I don't prefer milk and sugar in my tea (or coffee) normally, but when in India, do as the Indians do. Walking to work, you see Indians standing at roadside stalls drinking shots of chai and boys making deliveries of chai to whomever. I woke up early this morning to go to the Indian Starbucks, Barista (Starbucks hasn't made it to India yet -- can you believe it?), and read the paper and get some American-style drip coffee. But no. I went at 8 in the morning, and they weren't open. The coffee drinking culture is more of a social than a lifestyle thing here. People don't get coffee before work, they get chai. People don't go into Barista and get takeout. Remember: "A lot can happen over coffee." They drink their coffee, sit in plush chairs, and conversate. If I were to leave my office and walk to Barista in the middl...

India can be a frustrating country. What a day. I have a very red face. Doxycycline has, I think, made my skin prone to burning. I foresee me being teased at work tomorrow for being a foreigner – the kind of foreigner who gets burnt skin. An accounting intern from Singapore sits next to me at work. He went out of town this weekend, and he told me if I wanted to go to the caves at Elephanta Island, his girlfriend was going and I could go with her. I sent her a text message asking if she wanted to meet up. I told her she would recognize me at the train station because I would be the only white guy. She said her and her friend would be the only two Chinese girls. I thought, this is an interesting situation: my first time into Mumbai proper, my first time riding the infamous suburban railway (the most densely packed train system in the world, 3000 die a year), all spent with two Singaporean Chinese girls. Jingyi (pronounced like Chingy)(l) Christine (r) We rode the train into the city and ...

I ventured out to Mocha (you know, “coffee and conversations”). I am for sure being a pretty big pussy, thinking that everyone is always staring at me. Maybe people here im Mumbai glance a little, but it’s not like anyone is hassling me, except for that kid that latched onto my shirt. I do have a bad memory of the day I walked down 125th St. in Harlem and someone yelled, "Damn! Now that's a white boy!" Blonde hair, I guess. Whites have a long history of showing up at places where they’re in the minority: Western Africa, India, China, the Americas. Trouble is, wherever they showed up in the past, they subjugated everyone. (The commies among us would argue that capitalism is a further subjugation of everyone not-white – “take $.20/day to make these shoes, and I’m a buy a Park Avenue Penthouse!”) I’m reminded of what the Chinese used to call the goofy ass Westerners (with what the Chinese thought were goofy clothes, long noses, ugly light-colored hair, horrible body odor): w...