february
how did we get here?
i still haven't seen the official paperwork, but i have purchased a plane ticket to bali with the faith that cash will be advanced to me in a week or two. from bali, i'll be finding my way to remote, enormous papua. though it's highly unlikely that i'll be going anywhere near where these biologists went, that is the vast, amazing, untrammeled land i'm being sent to, and where i hope to do the lowest-impact, most responsible job i can. in the meantime, i'm boning up on my indonesian so i won't be totally lost.
that said, i'm already lost in stress, since you can't learn a language in a week. and traveling around half of the second-biggest island on the planet will be challenging, as it requires getting travel permits for any areas outside the bigger towns, and the terrain in some places may be impassable since i'm visiting during the tail end of rainy season. there will be many short-hop flights, and logistical headaches, and of course edit work i'm supposed to somehow retrieve from one of the precious few internet access points in papua (this will mean scheduling a flight strategically and crossing my fingers real hard, as getting from point A to point B may only happen on thursday afternoons if the plane fills up). not even thinking about that right now so as to avoid freakin out too early – i usually save that for the first night i arrive in the new time zone.
and in other tales of frustration, i took amtrak today.* see, on my way back from SB last week, my car decided to take a little nap on highway 101. at seventy miles per hour, it just shut off the headlights and switched off the radio to get nice and comfy, and inconveniently stranded me on the side of the highway in salinas on a friday night. the weekend stretching luxuriantly before us as it was, no auto shops would open until faraway monday. luckily, miss saigon and beau – who live in san jose, and who i was to visit that night on my way home – offered to come pick me up, an hour-and-a-half away, so i spent the night at their place and got to spend about twenty minutes with my super-darling godchild before miss S dropped me off at the light rail stop on her way to work. took that to mountain view, caught the caltrain to SF, and dos equis picked me up in time for us to spend a perfectly leisurely weekend, including a superbowl party on sunday at a friend's place and a saturday night gig he played with octomutt friends.
tonight after i came back from picking up the car in salinas, he came over to cook me dinner, and i'm trying to get my simmer down to room temperature. (the astor piazzolla remixes and sizzle sounds of sautéed garlic are helping a lot.)
hasta luego.
* remind me NEVER TO DO THIS AGAIN. effective trigger words: 'bakersfield,' 'bus,' 'brush fires' and 'routine four-hour delays.'
i still haven't seen the official paperwork, but i have purchased a plane ticket to bali with the faith that cash will be advanced to me in a week or two. from bali, i'll be finding my way to remote, enormous papua. though it's highly unlikely that i'll be going anywhere near where these biologists went, that is the vast, amazing, untrammeled land i'm being sent to, and where i hope to do the lowest-impact, most responsible job i can. in the meantime, i'm boning up on my indonesian so i won't be totally lost.
that said, i'm already lost in stress, since you can't learn a language in a week. and traveling around half of the second-biggest island on the planet will be challenging, as it requires getting travel permits for any areas outside the bigger towns, and the terrain in some places may be impassable since i'm visiting during the tail end of rainy season. there will be many short-hop flights, and logistical headaches, and of course edit work i'm supposed to somehow retrieve from one of the precious few internet access points in papua (this will mean scheduling a flight strategically and crossing my fingers real hard, as getting from point A to point B may only happen on thursday afternoons if the plane fills up). not even thinking about that right now so as to avoid freakin out too early – i usually save that for the first night i arrive in the new time zone.
and in other tales of frustration, i took amtrak today.* see, on my way back from SB last week, my car decided to take a little nap on highway 101. at seventy miles per hour, it just shut off the headlights and switched off the radio to get nice and comfy, and inconveniently stranded me on the side of the highway in salinas on a friday night. the weekend stretching luxuriantly before us as it was, no auto shops would open until faraway monday. luckily, miss saigon and beau – who live in san jose, and who i was to visit that night on my way home – offered to come pick me up, an hour-and-a-half away, so i spent the night at their place and got to spend about twenty minutes with my super-darling godchild before miss S dropped me off at the light rail stop on her way to work. took that to mountain view, caught the caltrain to SF, and dos equis picked me up in time for us to spend a perfectly leisurely weekend, including a superbowl party on sunday at a friend's place and a saturday night gig he played with octomutt friends.
tonight after i came back from picking up the car in salinas, he came over to cook me dinner, and i'm trying to get my simmer down to room temperature. (the astor piazzolla remixes and sizzle sounds of sautéed garlic are helping a lot.)
hasta luego.
* remind me NEVER TO DO THIS AGAIN. effective trigger words: 'bakersfield,' 'bus,' 'brush fires' and 'routine four-hour delays.'
posted by a wandering eye at 9:08 PM
2 Comments:
Wish you could have stayed in SB on Friday for Gwen's show, but glad you didn't get stuck in Salinas.
Best wishes for your Papua adventure!
terima kasih! (=thanks!)
old town salinas is kind of charming. i never knew, from all those years of driving through to get to santa cruz.
w
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