Archives: September 2006
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I've been absent because I was sick, sick, sick. I'd like to start travelling now WITHOUT troubles -- and I'm hoping I can arrange that for my upcoming jaunt to Portland.
I arrived in the US on Thursday night and felt fine, but fell asleep before my brother and sister-in-law got in from their flight from New York. By Friday, I was feeling pretty crappy, and Friday evening I asked about maybe seeing a doctor. The situation was a bit delicate, as the problem was clearly a gynecological one, and I didn't necessarily feel like discussing those issues with my entire family. But eventually, I sucked it up and we went to a quick-care medical clinic where I was prescribed some drugs and sighed with relief for not letting the situation get any worse.
But of course it did, and I had been misdiagnosed at the clinic. I was told it would take 24 hours for the antiobiotics to take effect, and in those 24 hours I went from bad to worse.
Read more »I've been working my tail off for the last few days, getting up early and dealing with administrative crap in the morning and then putting in a full 8-hour day in the afternoon at work. I managed to get a sudden, inexplicable burst of energy this week, and I have been like those multi-tasker types I admire so much.
Besides the work and the banking and the school enrollment (nightmare) and the rest, I have also gone apeshit on the fall cleaning of my home. For some reason, I freaked out over the weekend and absolutely had to make my house less cluttered. If I had any sort of storage whatsoever, I would have locked all my stuff away and turned my house into a minimalist space. But no, I have no storage, so it became a "Do I want this, really?" party and I managed to keep it real and convince myself to let go of a few totally unecessary items.
Read more »Last night, Vegas and I went to see Little Miss Sunshine.
I'm not sure whether I wanted to laugh or to cry (from either/both happiness or/and sadness), but mainly I spent the whole film hoping it would never end. I am hopelessly in love with it, and wish I could have the experience of seeing it again for the first time all over again.
I can't say anything else to do it justice. And that's saying a lot.
So it's official: I have been initiated into French society. There is a fine line between the foreigner who knows the country well and he/she who is fully accepted. That line?
Tarot. The Frenchies are obsessed with it.
Not the divinatory kind of tarot that you're thinking about. No, no. Tarot the card game. The game with points and suits and strategy. With the funny deck and the crazy terminology and the scoring system that makes no sense.
I come from a long line of card players. Much to The Boy's chagrin, I could play cards every weekend, all weekend, and probably not get sick of it. Our family is an active card-playing family, and my parents are even the kinds of bridge players who go to championships. Who TAKE PLANES to go to bridge championships. They've even won a few (seriously, they're obsessed -- deserves-a-whole-blog-post obsessed).
So when my Frenchie friends suggest they teach me France's favorite card game, I got all bubbly and excited and ready to rumble. I figured I catch on quickly to card games, thanks to my extensive background, and it can't be that hard, right? Except that, damn -- I had to figure out the deck, first. And oh, aces are low. Stop thinking they're high! And by the way, there is a whole other suit - and it's always trump. And an additional face card, for a total of five.
And also? It's every man for himself, except that each turn its actually everybody ganging up on one person. By the way, you can't organize your cards before you place your bids (what the hell kind of rule is that? Shouldn't that be my own choice???) And? This is the real kicker: YOU CAN'T FREAKIN' SHUFFLE.
The explanation process was a little long and difficult (ok, five minutes, but it was totally overwhelming), and I started getting the hang of it after two or three rounds. They assured me that I was learning extra-quickly, but I felt like a dumbass nonetheless. At one point, Vegas fake-suggested I do something and I didn't understand he was being sarcastic, and I said, "Oh... ok...." and put down the card as indicated. Everyone erupted in laughter: ha ha! Look at the girl who STILL doesn't know how to play! On her second round! I said, "Shut up!!! I'm still learning!!!" But it was all in good fun.
Now, however, there is a small, tarot-playing beast growing inside of me. I keep reconsidering rounds and thinking of tactical possibilities. I'm also on the lookout for a cheap tarot deck, and possibly the English translation of the French terminology so that I can teach my family how to play at Christmas. That would be one more game to play together, and that can't be a bad thing.
Ok, I'll just come right out and say it: I'm going to study up over the next few days and TOTALLY CRUSH MY FRIENDS at our next tarot meeting - currently set for a week from now. Hell, with online games, you can really advance quickly. That is, I assume so. I've never really tried. But I've got a mission.
Bring it on, Frenchies!
The colors really came through on the digital camera well, though. We got the first of our film pictures developed and were sad to see that everything was very washed out. The colors of India are just incredible, almost worth the sickness and misery just to get to see it with your own eyes.
I can say that now, you see, because I am no longer there and feeling like shit. I probably would have never suggested such a thing last week.
K and I both dropped a fair amount of weight while in India. For K, I think the vomiting helped a bit with that, and I am pretty sure she lost even more than I did accordingly. For me, the loss of appetite due to constantly hearing vomiting most likely played a role. Plus, we were active and walking around town whenever we weren't holed up in the hotel with illness, so I suppose the combo of mega-activity/constant illness really is responsible.
Whatever the cause (and however unwelcome), I am pleased with the outcome: I think I lost somewhere between 7-9 lbs. I had gained a little bit of weight over the months of June and July - like 5 lbs - so really I'm just at a more normal weight now. As a matter of fact, I now weigh the exact same as I did on my 21st birthday, which is kind of a nice thing to be able to say to myself.
The change is oddly noticeable to me, which is strange because usually my weight loss is never drastic enough to be seen anywhere besides in my face. The Boy didn't seem to notice much of anything, and Kathypath said she couldn't see a difference. Beccarah didn't remark on any changes either, and so I assumed that the pounds were just evenly lifted off my body in a not-so-noticeable way.
Read more »I made it home.
Landing at Paris Charles de Gaulle, I rejoiced. First off, everything was so clean and shiny in that airport (terminal two, mind you) that I felt I could lick the floors. And the lines we waited in? They had ropes defining them, and people actually formed a single file line accordingly. And the shuttle bus? Brand spanking new. The express train? IT WAS AN ACTUAL EXPRESS TRAIN, appropriately labelled as such on the train information boards.
These are the things I never appreciated before this hellish trip of mine. I never thought about how clean things are, how smoothly trains/cars/buses glide along the tracks/streets, how INCREDIBLY AWESOME it is to have fixed fares and proper labels for everything.
I arrived in Paris at 5.30 on Sunday morning. I passed through passport control in just under five minutes, and by the time I was on the other side, my baggage was already circling along the conveyor belt. I picked it up, made use of a nearby (clean!) toilet, and then picked up the shuttle. It showed up after three minutes wait (on time! on time!) and I bought a (fixed price!) ticket into the city. Approaching the train platform, I saw that the next train was only minutes from departure and I quickly hopped abord. I settled in, and the train departed (on time!).
The whole experience was so fluid and easy that I felt like telling everybody on the train, "Do you see how well this whole thing is working? Did you notice how easy it has been???"
I refrained from doing so, though.
By the time I got to my station, it was daylight and Paris was slowly waking up. I strapped on my backpack and stepped outside, happy to notice that nobody was on the street as I began to giggle with glee. My steps became lighter and I set off in a fucked-up semi-skip down the sidewalk -- difficult to do with a backpack on, I'll tell you that much. But, damn, it felt good to be back.
I have spent the last 20+ hours snuggling with The Boy and telling my horror stories to those who asked the inevitable "How was India????" question. Today, I took care of some administrative tasks and walked around much of the city. I was so glad to be here, I was almost dizzy with happiness. At one point, I turned to some friends and said, "Is everybody still on vacation? I feel like Paris is so sleepy..."
They looked at me strangely, and said that they thought things were more or less back to normal. And I realized that it's just that I have been living in such chaos for the last month that everything here feels so nice and easy and gentle. Today, I think I was more relaxed than I have been in a long, long time -- even before I ever left. I guess going away and going through such insanity made me realize that my life here isn't really all that difficult. I'll do my best to retain that feeling for as long as possible. It's an amazing way to live, appreciating the simplicity of everyday tasks with such enthusiasm.
I am currently feeling good but am having some serious eye problems as a result of the sandstorm on the train to Delhi. My vision still has not been completely restored, and I am getting a little worried about it, as I am sort of half-blind right now. I am calling the optometrist tomorrow to see if my eyes may be a little infected.
The whole blindness issue caused me quite a scene at the FNAC today, where I was berated by a worker for not reading the signs indicating where I could buy a certain product. I had told him on two occasions that I had vision problems and could not make out any of the words on their signs or product labels, and that he would need to describe to me in words what the packaging looked like and where I could find it. I ended up finding the wrong product and he made me feel like a dumbass for not being able to read the labels ("I already told you it needs to say SD! SD!"). Hopefully he felt shitty when I said, "Look, I've told you twice that I am almost blind, so I was going on what you described to me. Sorry for the mistake." His response, "Yeah, well... whatever." The whole thing made me feel for anybody who is handicapped in a way that isn't immediately obvious to others. It was as if he didn't really believe me.
In the end, I was able to buy the product that I was looking for, which has thus allowed me to upload some pictures to my computer. I am still working on them, but I thought I would share a first one straight away:
During our 20+ hour train ride from the desert to Delhi, there had been a raging sandstorm. The windows on the train could not shut, and I ended up getting tons of sand in my eyes. My hands were filthy and I did not have any glasses, and needed to remain as attentive as possible during the night on the train. There was no way I could take out my contacts, and the sand and the wind, coupled with too many hours of dirty contact time ended up destroying my eyes. Upon our return in Delhi, I was almost completely blind (more so than now) but could not close my eyes because they burned too much. Immediately after arriving in the hotel, I pulled out my contacts and sat for 15 minutes with a wet washcloth over my face, practicing deep breathing techniques while trying to work my way through the pain. Eventually, my eyes stopped tearing so much and I was able to snag a photo -- my face is shiny from the tears and the washcloth. Here's what I looked like at that moment.
I think that pretty much describes how I felt for the last 10 days of our trip. And that was before we ever even called the doctor.
More photos to come...
So yeah. We're still here. In-sane.
After a 20+-hour train ride - complete with sandstorm - we arrived in Delhi on Thursday morning and beelined for a nice hotel. Before leaving, my parents had offered to shack us up in a swanky place for one night of our travels -- partially because I think they wince at the idea of us roughing it at hostels all month, and partially because they are generous and awesome like that.
Their offer could not have come at a better time. Just before the train ride, I started worrying about a growing girly infection that I obviously had. Upon arrival at the hotel, I could hardly walk and was grimacing in pain (and I'm pretty good with that kind of pain). I bit the bullet and called a doctor, who had a hard time masking his surprise at how bad the infection had gotten. My diagnosis includes three different infections, so the problem had quite clearly spread with lightning speed. I have absolutely no idea where I got it from -- perhaps it was wading around in the fetid flood waters? I have been put on antibiotics, and have been handed all kinds of other treatments, and have had to see the doctor three times since arriving. He was very strict and told me I could not fly, as the infection would only worsen. No matter: I wouldn't have been physically able to sit in an airplane for eight hours anyway.
Meanwhile, K started feeling sick again, and was eventually back to the vomiting party she had experienced two times before. As I was already seeing the doctor, I asked him about her condition, and she eventually agreed that he should come see her. Turns out she was massively dehydrated and had a serious stomach infection. Her dehydration had gotten so severe that he had to hook her up to an IV -- which was cool because she is a pretty tough chick but has one big phobia: things going into her veins. So that was fun.
But here we are. 24 hours later and we have lived to tell the tale.
I am so incredibly thankful to my parents for helping us out. Had we not been in a nicer hotel, we would have never called the doctor. I cannot imagine what kind of state we would have been in had we not done so. I am 100% sure that neither of us would have been able to fly. They have been amazing and I will need to find a proper way to thank them.
So. Tomorrow we fly out. Finally. This has been a complete nightmare.
