Chapter 58: In which the auther rediscovers the joy of having knees and learns Italian

I can't believe that I haven't posted in a week. I've been so good up until now. I shouldn't complain. It's not even the end of March, and I've already posted more than I did all last year.

I haven't run in a week because my knees hurt so bad that I could barely walk. Silly me just thought that if I worked harder, that somehow I could just "run through the pain". This seemed reasonable to me since it didn't seem that different from my approach to mechanical problems in my car: if you ignore them, they will eventually get better as mechanical problems are wont to do. Anyway, I finally decided to take a week away from it and today was the first day I could walk down stairs without any discomfort. I tested out the new knees today on an easy mile. So far so good, but I think a couple of braces and a proper pair of running shoes might be in order.

I'm in Toronto now, and on Sunday, I leave from here to go Mexico City. I can't wait for some of those deliciously nasty street tacos. Originally, I was supposed to go to Rome the week after, but for about a month, I've been hearing that it wasn't going to happen, so I didn't worry about it much. I got an email yesterday, and it's happening. Because of my schedule and the distances involved, I'm not going to make it home for four weeks. Thank god I don't need a visa. Here's my planned itinerary.

• March 18: Greg drives to Toronto
• March 23: Greg finishes class at noon and goes to Newmarket
• March 25: Greg flies to Mexico City, sleeping on the plane. Spends the afternoon at the Diego Rivera museum looking at lillies and Frida Kahlo's eyebrows
  
• March 28 7:23: Greg goes out looking for street tacos and gets mugged (OK, this might not happen, but I've never been robbed before and I'm probably due). He curses all chilangos everywhere and says lots of bad words
  
• March 30 8:00am: Greg checks out of his hotel, goes to class, and finishes by noon
• March 30 1:00pm: Greg eats tacos, goes to the airport and spends four hours in the afternoon learning to speak absolutely perfect Italian
• March 30 10:30pm: Greg gets on flight to Rome via Paris
• March 31 7:55pm: Greg arrives in Rome and smells really bad. He sleeps for 14 hours
  
• April 1: Greg sees everything there is to see in Rome. He drinks so much espresso that he wets himself and doesn't sleep for three days. Visa puts a hold on his card after buying a metro ticket and wifi access.
  
• April 7: Greg leaves Rome to go back to Toronto. It's Gavin's and Krista's birthdays (hey guys, just because I haven't called in 15 years doesn't mean I forgot)
• April 8: Greg picks up his car in Newmarket, drives to Waterloo and on the way there, realises that he forgot to tell Lara's brother, David, that he is going to spend the week on his couch
• April 12: Home again to Ottawa. The kids announce that "that guy in the picture is back again"
  

Chapter 57: In which the author buys his third iPod and considers the purchase of a pair of ruby slippers

Storms a-comin'. At least that's what I'm told. When I stepped out of the hotel tonight for dinner, it was beginning to rain and the air felt thick and humid. In speaking with my new buddy at the restaurant (which I went to last night as well), I hear there's a good chance of a tornado. I was only hoping for a cracking good thunderstorm, but if we get a twister, maybe I'll have something interesting to write about tomorrow.

I just purchased an iPod shuffle; a tiny, blue clip-on one. I love it. The music it plays is completely random, but it always seems to know exactly what I want to hear. Maybe that has something to do with the fact that I selected the music that went on it. I wasn't sure how it was going to behave with my iPod video. I kept them on separate sides of my laptop until I was sure they would get along. At first, you could see that they were curious about each other by the way they eyed each other across the keyboard, although they didn't quite know what to make of each other. Fortunately, all is well and the two get along fine.

The reason I bought it is that I have a more-or-less permanent ache in my left thumb from clutching my iPod video while I run. The shuffle is weightless and clips on to my shirt. My other thumb is still sore from a ball that jammed it during a dodgeball practice a couple of weeks ago. No need to point out who threw it: they know who they are. I miss having the use of both of my thumbs. It somehow makes me feel less-than-primate.

Oh yeah - I play on a dodgeball team. Well sort of... More on that some other night in some other post.

I had a piece of peanut butter pie after dinner. It had some chocolate sauce. It was really good. Really, really good. Peanut butter and chocolate is my arch-enemy. My nemesis. The Lex Luthor to my Clark Kent. The Zoltar to my G-Force. I know that it's bad for me and I hate it, but despite its rich, creamy depravity, I love it so and know that I can never truly leave it. Such is our kismet.

People I met:
The waiter from the restaurant. He works at State Farm during the day, and as a waiter at night. I asked him why, and he says it's because he's a single dad and has lots of kids. I'm not sure if he works a second job to support them or to get away from them.

I Got the Daylight Savings Blues

Daylight savings really messes me up bad, and I don't understand why. I completely get timezones. I can track seven different people in seven different time zones without messing up, but move the clock by an hour within the same time zone and I'm totally thrown off. It just boggles my mind - it's like calculating the solution to partial differential equations. And to top it off, what really messes me up is trying to figure out what time it is in countries that don't follow daylight savings. Thank god for Google (try "what time is it in ").

What a great feeling on the that first day after the spring time change, when you get the extra hour of light at night. It always makes you feel like spring is just around the corner. Add to that the warm sunny day we had today (it was 8C when I arrived today in Chicago), and you can't help but feel like the winter is coming to an end. It looks like I will fulfill my goal this year of not touching a snow shovel for the entire winter.

I'm back in Bloomington again. There's not much to do or many places to eat, but now that it's light a little bit later, maybe I'll swing by the hotel on Washington St. to see if they still have the room full of lamp shades. If so I'll take a picture and post it here. It's really something. Other than that I have no plans other than to pick up a nice bottle of wine at Friar Tuck's (a really good liquor store in Bloomington with a stellar selection of wines).

I Hate Cyborgs

I hate those stupid bluetooth ear pieces that everyone seems to be wearing nowadays. I can understand putting one on when you have a call coming and you need your hands free for something. But why is it that every third person in every airport and restaurant has one permanently fastened to their head? Do they get calls so important during dinners with their families that they can't spend an extra second clipping it on? Do they think it makes them look cool like the Borg in Star Trek? Do they heat up through overuse and fuse to your skin? I even see people wearing them on planes when you can't even use your cell phone. I hope they're waterproof because I bet these people don't even take them off to shower. I don't get it.

And on that note, I would now like to apologise to any of my readers who use these things regularly.

I was going to go to an Indian restaurant tonight that served a curry made from goats hearts and liver. You know how some cultures believe that if you eat the hearts of your enemies, you will acquire their strength? I was thinking that if I had that stew I would acquire the power of the goat. Then I'd be able to eat leather hats and tin cans.

It's Thursday and nothing has happened yet to me in Kansas City. I'm losing hope.

10km or Bust

Since Christmas, I've been working pretty hard to get back in shape (no it wasn't a New Year's resolution), and started to do a bit of running. To my surprise, I didn't hate it half as much as I remembered and was actually able to run more than a half kilometre without collapsing in a pool of my own sweat and vomit. So, I kept it up. As is often my way, I started talking a lot of smack about how I was going to do a 10km run in the spring. Naturally this was a load of crap since I've never run more than 5km in my life until just a couple of weeks ago.

Just around the time that I decided I should reel in my expectations and maybe just go for a 5km run, my dear friend Rich decided to sign us both up for the 10km run. Although his intentions were good, I know in my heart that one day he will have to answer to a higher power for that. I believe that during the race, I will probably die. For the record, let it be known that I regret nothing.

As a result, I'm in much better shape than I was a couple of months ago. It's really made me think about how you can work so hard at something for years and then lose it very quickly if you're not careful. For example, I had spent almost 15 years grooming myself for the role of Fat Bastard's son in an upcoming Austin Powers movie, and now my dreams have been shattered all because of a couple months of careless diet and exercise.

Still nothing exciting nor interesting has happened to me in Kansas City. Stay tuned though, I have a feeling tomorrow is the day it will all go down.

Greg vs. the Guinea Pig

I'm in Kansas City right now, and nothing interesting has happened to me yet. Also, I'm feeling too lazy to try to write about nothing. To fill the void in my creativity, here’s an entry that I wrote while I was in Ecuador last year that I never got around to posting. At the time of writing, I hadn’t gotten the “traveller’s affliction” yet which I strongly suspect was brought on by the cuy. Looks like the guinea pig won after all. I was sick as a dog, although it was nothing compared to what I got in Delhi. That could have been better described as a “sick as an industrial strength, high-pressured, automatic vomit machine”.

I spent another day just kind of hanging around Quito. First I went to the Plaza de Santa Domingo right outside of my hotel and checked out the church. After that, I just sat in the square and people-watched for about a half hour.

I decided to see if I could find a closer trolley station that headed north. Trolley stations aren’t all that hard to find. Just look for the wires over the street and follow them. My walk took me to the Plaza de Independencia where I probably spent another good hour taking pictures and people watching. From there, I followed the trolley wires, but the station that I took yesterday was closed, so I walked on to the next station. It looks like the station I took before is as close as I’m going to get. For twenty-five cents, I guess I can walk for ten minutes.

I took the trolley a ways up and got off to find a restaurant that served cebollado, a soup made from seafood and a bunch of other stuff that was supposed to be quite good. After a bit of wandering, I found the place. The cebollado that I ate was “mixto” which is Spanish for “contains every animal you might have possibly found on Noah’s ark”. You eat it with some sliced onion, lime juice and spicy sauce. Popcorn is a ubiquitous side-dish in Ecuador which I find interesting, but not objectionable.

One thing to note about the hot sauce is that it’s actually hot. It’s not like in Colombia where they make a tasty sauce, keep it in the same room as a hot pepper for ten minutes and call it “piquante”. It actually is spicy. Lots of water and three bathroom breaks later - lesson learned.

From there, I went to Parque Catalina and went to the Natural Science museum and Botanical Gardens. The gardens were great. I spent hours just wandering around. I stopped for a “mora” juice which is kind like what you would get if a blackberry, raspberry, and a currant had a party in a blender. Love it! Have I mentioned how good the juice is down here? You can’t get half of these fruits at home.

After the museum and the gardens, I still wasn’t hungry, so I took a walk into “Gringolandia” which I’m sure needs no translation. I wouldn’t say it’s quite a backpacker slum, but it’s as close as I’ve seen in Quito. There are tons of western-style restaurants with most of the signs on the street in English. I chose a cool little joint called Café Sutra for a couple of drinks to help me work up an appetite for cuy.

One of the things that I wanted to do while I was down here was try “cuy” which is guinea pig. This is considered an Andean delicacy, so I had to try it. Don’t get me wrong; I liked Hammy Hamster just as much as the next kid, but it had to be done.

On the way into Gringolandia, I had walked past a place called Mama Clorindas which I had heard serves cuy. It was fate. I softened myself up with a shot of aguardiente (local South American firewater) and ordered a whole one. I was quite looking forward to it at this point. When it came, it was about twice the size I was expecting. I told the waiter it was more like a baby goat than a guinea pig. The cuy was breaded and I have to say wasn’t quite as good as I was expecting (nothing to do with how it was prepared). I had heard it was like a cross between rabbit and chicken, but a lot of it is just skin, fat, and bone with not as much meat as one would like. All that aside, I still recommend you try it if you get the chance.

After that, I wandered around to check out what was going on with the Halloween parties; I had heard music and seen a group of people congregating. By the time I got there the music had stopped and everybody seemed to be just waiting for something to happen. I hopped in a cab and came home.

Random people I met:

A couple from Australia who were heading back home tonight. They had spent twenty-five days here, but didn’t speak much Spanish. I helped them order tacos at the snack bar at the botanical gardens.

I had a good chat with the cab driver on the way home. He was trying to learn a bit of English. His wife is Dutch, and is a local tour guide. They spent six months living and working in the Netherlands and then six months in Germany. I learned that Halloween is not a holiday for kids in Quito – it’s more of a party thing.