There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune
I know you will scarcely find this credible, but until about 5 minutes ago, I hadn't yet gotten excited about my trip to Nepal. When I was a kid, I would anticipate vacations months ahead of time, and spend hours working myself into a lather about where I would go and what I would do. Over the intervening years, I've developed a sort of ability to focus more sedulously on tasks at hand - age quod agis. I expect this happened due to the fact that as an adult I was travelling so frequently (both professionally and for leisure) that a more disciplined frame of mind was needed just to maintain some semblance of order.
Anyway, I've been focusing on things like my trip to Bodrum and my Turkish classes, rather than this upcoming trip. But a few minutes ago, over MSN Instant Messenger, we quickly formed a plan.
Ace and I are reasonably well-travelled (he much more so than I), so we had no problem deciding weeks ago that we would show up and wing it from there. Today, my friend Sue got me a Lonely Planet: Nepal which finally allowed me to do some cursory research. Additionally, it was a bright, sunny day in Istanbul, which resulted in my sitting outside at a café terrace and enjoying a leisurely, reflective lunch. This particular café is owned by a lady from San Francisco who has travelled several times to Kathmandu, and knows it pretty well. She lunched with me and gave me somewhat of an inside scoop.
Then, Ace IM'd, wondering how we were going to meet up - it's like the days before cellphones.
Well, we've done this before. Years ago, we arranged to meet at the Grasshopper coffeeshop in Amsterdam. Only, we had not been informed that this fine establishment has three locations scattered through the city. What a great time that was, walking from place to place, trying to find Ace, not knowing that he had broken up with his girlfriend and fled to Belgium, and was presently attempting to rid the country of beer by drinking it all. We did later manage to meet up at the Hôtel de Ville in Paris, so everything worked itself out in the end.
So now I've arranged with Ace a plan, as well as a contingency plan, because we are intimately acquainted with Murphy's Law. And I immediately thought of the last time we had to make such a plan, which was almost twelve years ago, and how much fun we had then.
This is going to be damn cool.
Anyway, I've been focusing on things like my trip to Bodrum and my Turkish classes, rather than this upcoming trip. But a few minutes ago, over MSN Instant Messenger, we quickly formed a plan.
Ace and I are reasonably well-travelled (he much more so than I), so we had no problem deciding weeks ago that we would show up and wing it from there. Today, my friend Sue got me a Lonely Planet: Nepal which finally allowed me to do some cursory research. Additionally, it was a bright, sunny day in Istanbul, which resulted in my sitting outside at a café terrace and enjoying a leisurely, reflective lunch. This particular café is owned by a lady from San Francisco who has travelled several times to Kathmandu, and knows it pretty well. She lunched with me and gave me somewhat of an inside scoop.
Then, Ace IM'd, wondering how we were going to meet up - it's like the days before cellphones.
Well, we've done this before. Years ago, we arranged to meet at the Grasshopper coffeeshop in Amsterdam. Only, we had not been informed that this fine establishment has three locations scattered through the city. What a great time that was, walking from place to place, trying to find Ace, not knowing that he had broken up with his girlfriend and fled to Belgium, and was presently attempting to rid the country of beer by drinking it all. We did later manage to meet up at the Hôtel de Ville in Paris, so everything worked itself out in the end.
So now I've arranged with Ace a plan, as well as a contingency plan, because we are intimately acquainted with Murphy's Law. And I immediately thought of the last time we had to make such a plan, which was almost twelve years ago, and how much fun we had then.
This is going to be damn cool.
2 Responses to “This is going to be great!”
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About me
- I'm Sunset Shazz
- Living the dream in Istanbul, Türkiye
- I grew up in the hardscrabble streets of suburban Ottawa, Ontario, committing petty crime, insulting the elderly - basically the classic misspent youth. When I was 19, I moved to West Philly, where I put myself through the Wharton School by dealing crack and hustling. After stints in Paris and London, I eventually graduated and moved to San Francisco, where I put in eight years hard labor working for The Man. But now I pop bottles with models, deciding cracked crab or lobster - who says mobsters don't prosper?
More information about this blog. - My profile
Alas time and the ravages of a big pimpin lifestyle have taken their toll on you Shazz. MattBoy and I FIRST met up with you at L'Hotel de Ville in Paris. That was where we flew into. After a few days in Le Quartier Latin we all split up and made plans to meet at the Grasshopper in Amsterdam. That meeting was ill-fated from the beginning.
A few weeks later, by pure chance, I happened upon your parents in front of the half-price ticket booth in London as I was choking down a pathetic sandwich of stale bread and moldy cheese. They took me back to your aunty's place where you were happily gorging yourself on lamb curry.
The problem with writing about this now is that the definitive record, i.e. my notebooks, are sitting in a box in Dr. Diamond's basement. Provided I don't lose such notebooks at Binion's, we'll have a somewhat accurate source from which to judge these detaisl.