Then I Found 2,050 som!

I arrived in Bishkek at 0135 hrs, local time. By 0515 I was through customs, to my apartment, unpacked, and finally drifting off to sleep as the sun asserted its first rays like a halo behind the mountains to my East.

Somewhere in the night, fatigue caught up with me. I never really adjusted to London time, arriving there at an early hour, staying up for the full day, then sleeping for a solid 12 hours until noon the next day. So the fact that it was 5:00 am in Bishkek, and I hadn't slept much on any of my planes, didn't really phase me. Actually, it was odd, because it's not that I was stuck on NY time (where it was then 3 pm), I just wasn't on any time. I ate small meals at irregular intervals and slept in increments of 2 or 12 hours - no middle ground - for 3+ days. Or what I counted as days - the whole process of marking time got very weird.

In nice, quantitative numbers, here's what it took to get me to Bishkek:
4 subways
2 trains

2 taxis

3 airplanes

Time in-air: 14 hours

Total duration from NYC apt to Bishkek apt: 48 hours
Total sleep: 17 hours

Calendar days: 4 (left late 5/26, arrived early 5/29)

Cross-continental travel really destroys the normality of numbers.

On the plus side, other than the subways (which all mysteriously ran local, one of which because someone threw themselves under a train), I had no complications in my itinerary.

So that's the background on how I got to Bishkek, but it doesn't much address the title of this post. For that, I must pay homage to a college acquaintance, who posited that whenever one is teling a story which turns out to be anticlimactic, or simply in need of a better conclusion, one should insert, "and then I found 5 dollars."

True or not, he held this would redeem the story by not only creating a less mundane finale, but also produce, in the mind of the listeners, a benefit you received, hence your excitement for this story which they, until moments before, thought was useless.

I have found the phrase not especially useful, with the occasion that when I do actually stumble upon money, references to this worn out cliche - when true - amplify the wonder of such a revelation.

So when I was walking to my apartment, and a friend pointed down at a wad of bills in the road totalling some 2,050 som (Kyrgyz currency), US equivalent $50, I had myself a good chuckle.

And a good ending for a first Bishkek blog spent mostly complaining about the near-universal tribulations of long-distance travel.

Thanks, college buddy.

Weber (on the lamb)

Calling London

I am greatly curious at the beginning of this journey to see to what degree it will repeat, or even parallel, the adventures of my previous summer touring around Europe. Not only is it radically different in location and duration, "Lamb'09" also possesses a decidedly more concrete purpose. I'm not floating around the continent for 2 months, breezing where the wind and my whims blow; This time I have a job (ok, an unpaid internship/consultancy). I'm staying in one place, and that one place is less familiar than anywhere else I've yet traveled.

Add on to this that the Lamb is the only thing to change its spots in the intervening 10 months. Whereas last year I left an almost-empty apartment, abandoned my job of 4+ years, and underwent essentially a curiosity tour before starting (from scratch) my post graduate studies, leaving behind my girlfriend and best friend to a fun summer of their own. This year I am subletting the apartment that remains my only home while my fiance is working alone in Connecticut, and I'm at the halfway point of my M.A. degree - having learned a thing or two about my subject, but so far from any 'expertise' as to be laughably underqualified.

Another big difference is that while I now find myself in London via New York, as I did last year, this time around I'm seeing London through the eyes of a New Yorker, rather than a Texan. I'd say after 1 year living in NYC, my eyes (and maybe my feet) are the only part of me I could consider "New Yorker," but certainly they've learned what to see and not see, an essential skill of massive-metropolitan living. I'm no longer impressed by the crush of humanity around me, in fact to some degree I've lost the ability to recognize that the dozens of people squeezed into the tube with me are individuals at all. They're just objects, obtacles, potential threats, or casual entertainment for me to view and navigate as I continue through my singular existence. On some level, I recognize they're all treating me in the same fashion, but at a conscious level this rarely reaches cognizance - when someone brushes against my shoulder, I check my wallet, not wonder how they're feeling, what their parents are like, what their dreams might be, or who they're going home to see. The closest I get is the curiousity of what someone is listening to on their iPod, and that only arises when it's playing loud enough for me to hear it via their headphones (ok, earbuds).

the point is, neither seeing, nor hearing, that which is unfamiliar seems to phase me anymore in this metropolitan setting. An odd aftershock is that my assumption of familiarity remains. For example, when in New York, no matter how odd someone may look or act, I take as a blanket assumption that they are American, speak english, act rationally, and, unless wardrobe and activity prove otherwise, that they are themselves New Yorkers, totally unconcerned with me and my life. Now in London, I noticed the same set of assumptions. Whenever a Londoner isn't talking, I peripherally assume them to be 'just another New Yorker,' a ridiculous assumption dispelled only if they get a cell phone call, or salute a street vendor for a purchase.

There is also the added familiarity of now having spent some time in London on previous trips. I won't strech this too far, as my combined time in London in my entire lifetime is about 1 week, but I think it suffices to note whereas summer '08 I was seeing London for the first time, in summer '09 that is impossible to recreate.

I'm in London for less than 36 hours, leaving time only to spend with family (brother Duff and his wife Larissa), watch the Champion's Cup finale, and a little bit of Britain's Got Talent (not on YouTube).

Time permitting, I may also get to stopoff at the British Musuem. I do still love that place, so I suppose some things don't change. That I find refreshing.

Weber (on the lamb)

Summer 2009 Itinerary

Today is the day of packing and preparation and insanity.  Below is a VERY rough outline of what my summer 2009 travel plans look like.  

Last summer I traveled around quite a bit, galavanting from Greece & Turkey up to Estonia and back down through the very hospitable countries of Eastern and Central Europe.  This year I'm doing something different in both approach and location.  First, I'm staying in one place for essentially the entire 2 months that I'm gone, albeit with occasional side trips.  Second, I'm not going to Europe. 

Despite this, I've still received many warm wishes from my friends in the hope that I "have a good time in Europe" this summer, and while I certainly appreciate the sentiment, it will be my obligation this summer to dramatically increase the familiarity of my friends and family with the 5 million people inhabiting Kyrgyzstan, its metropolitan capital Bishkek, and the much larger states of Central Asia that surround it.

For the moment, I know about as many details of my travel plans as you do.  Here is an itinerary which is sure to get filled out substantially, but should form a rock-solid skeleton of the summer, should you wish a clearer picture of the particular "lamb" upon which I am mounted.

Geography blogs will follow, but not until I've gotten a better lay of the land and can impart more than a totally cartographic explanation for exactly what and where Kyrgyzstan is.

For now, here's the travel agent summary:

5/25 NYC -> London (arrive 9:30 am 5/26)

5/26 London: w/ Duff & Larissa

5/27 London: w/ Duff & Larissa

5/28 London (6:55 am) -> Istanbul (5 hour layover) -> Bishkek (arrive 1:35 am, 5/29)

529 Bishkek:  sleep, move-in, recover

5/30 Bishkek: first day of work at Radio Azattyk (RFE Bishkek)

Lots of time spent in Bishkek, possible side trips to Lake Issyk Kul, Almaty, Tashkent, etc.

Less likely trips to Tajikistan, China, etc.

7/27  Bishkek (3:20 am) -> Istanbul (2 hr layover)-> London (7 hr layover)-> NYC (arrive 8:00 pm).  27 hours in semi-continuous transit.

7/28 NYC: r-e-c-o-v-e-r

7/29 NYC-> Sharon, CT (visit Shelley)

7/31 Sharon -> NYC (release sublet, reclaim apartment)

8/?? NYC -> TX and/or OK

Off we go.

Weber (getting on the lamb)