Ashley's Back in Asia...And in a jetlagged stupor at the Singapore Airport

Hellllloooo! I am reporting in from the business class lounge in the Singapore Airport on my way to Hyderabad for the first time since I left India almost exactly a year ago. I am flying business class for the first time in my life, and despite 8 hours of almost decent sleep on the plane, I am still totally loopy. Due to the loopiness factor, I plan to write this entry in stream of consciousness style in order to scientifically document the mind on jetlag. This means that I am not responsible for 5th grade level grammar mistakes, heinous misspellings (did anyone ever notice that 'heinous' does not follow the 'I before E except after C' rule?), and incorrect metaphors.

To contribute to this experiment, the only thing for me to really do for the next 8 hours while I wait for my next flight is to sit in this lounge, watch the olympics live (showing the Chinese team at practically every event in which they compete...currently watching ping pong, a sport that I'm pretty sure would not be televised in the US), study Hindi (MaiN Hindi sikh rahi huN ;) so that I can shoot the shit with peeps in Hyderabad, write this blog, and drink champagne (which shall now be referred to as 'Creativity Juice' (brought to you by the champagne and light spirits PAC...)

I got a little Sony digital recorder last week because I had a brilliant idea to interview all the interesting people I know about interesting stuff like they do on 'This American Life' and then post it on my blog in a series of conversations with people about interesting stuff (I articulated it better when I wasn't loopy). I was really gung-ho about this project, but seem to have hit a stumbling block with a) the recorder software doesn't work on my computer and b) the recordings sound like they're in a tin can, kind of like the recordings I made of myself singing Bette Midler's 'From A Distance' on my dad's old tape recorder when I was 8 years old.

This anecdote entered this blog entry because I just heard the Sony recorder beeping when I moved my bag and was reminded that it's so 'ingeniously' designed that I can't figure out how to turn the damn thing off, and seem to have recorded several segments unintentionally. Those will be thrilling to listen to later, I'm sure.

Once I figure out how to get the recordings up, I'm still planning on posting them (assuming I can figure out how to post audio recordings to blogger, another hurdle to my plan). I already have several excellent interviews just waiting to be edited and uploaded, including the story of a super cute Ukrainian Jewish boy and his family running through the airport in New York with relatives stuffing bills in their pockets on their way from Kiev to the big unknown West Hollywood, USA during the turbulent days before the fall of the Soviet Union;) I plan to contend that the tin can quality sound and bad editing contribute to the artistic message of my edgy amateur recording project- Real People. Real Stories. Real-time Recording.


But, back to the main themes I planned to talk about in this entry, my 'Theses' as a high school English teacher or college freshman TA might say. [Fragment. 10 points off]. First, I never finished writing about my trip with Yev to Bulgaria in June. Second, I'm on my way to INDIA! For the first time since I left India a year ago I'm returning to my old stomping ground, which from everything I've heard, has changed a lot in a year, including the opening of the first modern airport in India.


Yay! Two americans just won the women's all around gymnastics competition! And I can see the underwear lines of the chinese girl who hands out the medals, because she is standing right in front of the camera in a very tight skirt. Uh oh, Nastia doesn't know the words to the national anthem but tried to mouth the words anyway - way to show everyone you don't know the words! Why do they do that? If they just didn't do it at all no one would notice, but instead they always do "Oh say can you see, na na na, blah blah blah." Either way, the 4 ft tall, 10 year old on the Chinese girl came in third, and all I can say is "You Go, you 5'3, 100 pound, 'enormous' 18 year old American!"


The lounge has really cleared out, which is weird because lots of people have insanely long connections in Singapore. I surmise that they time flights like this so that more people have to shop in the airport. The cleaning staff now officially outnumbers the guests in the lounge. Speaking of staff outnumbering guests, it's possible that the flight crew outnumbered the number of passengers in business class on my flight yesterday/today.

I say yesterday/today because I have officially lost the day of August 14. I don't know where it went. I left on August 13, I arrived on August 15, 18 hours later. Did it go where all lost things go? Is it hidden with Jimmy Hoffa, the end of Mozart's Requiem Mass, my keys, and that pile of individual socks that disappear every time I do the laundry?

Here are some more brilliant observations I made earlier while on the plane. To summarize, Singapore Airlines business class is pretty wicked (in the 1980's glam rock/Ron in Harry Potter meaning of the term, not the standard dictionary, Wicked Witch of the West meaning):

• The service is pretty insane. In SFO I couldn't find the lounge so I went to the gate and asked where it was. A girl escorted me across the entire airport to get to the lounge. It was seriously a 10 minute walk each way. I thought she was going there anyway, but when we got there she turned around and headed back to the gate!
  
• I got to be on the top of the airplane! Those elusive seats you see on the top of 747's and wonder what it's like to sit there. One word: Awesome.
  
• There were about 8 rows of 4 seats each, two fully reclining seats on each side of the aisle. Window seats get a secret comparment/shelf to put stuff on.
  
• Haven't felt like a kid (or Jed Clampett) in a long time, but there were so many buttons to control the seat, I couldn't figure out how to do basic things like recline. I was like the Indian guy next to me on my flight from Hyderabad to Thailand who had never been on a plane before and couldn't figure out how to buckle his seat belt.
  
• The secret compartment next to the window where I could store all my stuff during take-off and landing was awesome. When I called it a 'secret compartment' (after fiddling around with the high tech buttons for 10 minutes trying to recline my seat) the guy next to me, an Indian businessman from Singapore, gave me the 'isn't that cute' laugh (the semi-verbal equivalent of a pat on the head)...probably the same laugh that I gave the guy who couldn't buckle his seat belt...
• The seats did this fully reclining thing that is somehow designed such that when the person in front of you reclines, they don't recline into you, they 'recline' forward. This is a truly brilliant invention, probably brought to us by the same wonderful person who designed the movie theaters where the seats are tiered enough that even if a tall guy with a big hat sits in front of you, you can still see the screen. Now that deserves a Nobel Prize.
  
• The flight crew memorized everyone's names before we got on board and they addressed me as Ms. Roof from the moment I arrived on the plane. Ms Roof can I carry your luggage for you? Ms. Roof would you like a warm towel? Ms. Roof can I offer you some champagne? I wonder how far in advance they get the passenger list, and do they get our passport photos? How would they know what we look like when we get on the plane? Do they have to spend the hour before the flight studying our names and pictures? Maybe they have secret service ear-pieces:
  
• 'Ms. Roof approaching the entrance, I repeat, Ms. Roof approaching in 10, 9, 8, 7... Jonnie-alpha-beta - INCOMING!'
  
• 'Roger That. Ms. Roof intercepted, luggage and champagne have been handled. Over.'
• '10-4. Mr. Srinivasan now approaching, I repeat Mr. Srinivasan is approaching...'
  
• Overall, I felt like the flight crew was there to seduce us. At 2am they served dinner. They asked me what I wanted from the menu and I told them I just wanted the salad. The salad in general is a good example of the calibre of Singapore Airlines business class (let's not get started thinking about what first class must be like if this is business class...). Meals are served with a personal place-setting with a table cloth, dishes, silverwear, and crystal glasses. My salad came on a chilled porcelain plate, and included scallops, greens, and cherry tomatoes. It was literally served on a silver platter. When I finished my salad they asked me if they may offer me some fresh fruit? Ice Cream? Chocolate creme brulee with fresh berries? Now seriously, even at 2am, who can refuse chocolate creme brulee with fresh berries? Then there were 10 choices of tea, a wine menu, and in the morning I had a mocha made with melted chocolate chips (I know it was made this way because there were some half melted chocolate chips at the bottom of my cup). I'm pretty sure I actually gained weight on the flight.
  
• And finally, I'm pretty sure that the stewardesses have their hair permanently plastered to their heads. I also wonder if they have official breaks to reapply their make-up, because they were like movie stars. For 14 hours their hair and make-up stayed perfectly in place. They do so much walking and baggage lifting in official uniform platform heels and skin-tight tailored outfits for 18 hours at a time - maybe flight attending should be an olympic sport! It's amazing how good looking the flight crews are in countries where discrimination based on looks is allowed and where being a flight attendant is a cool thing to do. I don't expect to see any gorgeous stewardesses on American Airlines anytime soon.

No one likes really long blog entires and I have now passed another hour. However, with 7 more hours to go until my flight, I shall continue...

I have mixed feelings about Hyderabad. I'm excited to see people, but I'm also worried that I'm going to get sick. Coming back is reminding me just how hard it is to live there, and to not even be able to brush your teeth with tap water. Which reminds me, I am now taking my second malaria pill. Right now. This instant...Ok. done. I couldn't open the water bottle, no matter how hard I tried. I ended up having to go get a different bottle, and now I'm drinking Gerolsteiner German sparkling water that tastes too much like minerals. So much for independent woman of substance... But, that's pretty much all my tired mind can wrap around at this point.

I've been studying Hindi for the last few days so I can shoot the shit with the drivers and a few other people. I'm hoping to see Sayed, my favorite driver, while I'm there. We'll see how well I can communicate with him in Hindi this time around. He pretty much taught me everything I knew, which is mostly street Hindi with a thick Urdu slant. When I say the things he taught me to people who speak classical Hindi from the north, they say chuckle and say 'where did you hear that?' I think I'm pretty much saying "What up, yo? You down with the 411?" which, we can all agree, already sounds pretty ridiculous coming from me and would sound even more hilarious coming from someone with a thick foreign accent. Luckily, as far as I know, he didn't slip any swear words into the phrases he taught me.

I think I'm doing pretty well for studying for 2 days - I even wrote myself a little essay (in the anglicized script, not in davanagari sanskrit script- one step at a time...). Simple grammar isn't that hard (famous last words from someone who hasn't had anyone check the grammar in the brilliant little essay), and it's the only language I know of other than English that uses the verb 'to be' in present tense (like "I am going" = "MaiN ja rahi huN" when "MaiN huN is "I am.' For comparison, in Italian the present tense is 'Vado,' in French it's 'Je Vais' and in Russian it's unofficially anglicized as 'ya paidoo.'). Here is my enlightening little essay for any Hindi speakers out there:

Mera naam Ashley hai. MaiN (N stands for a frenchy nasal sound) California meN reheti huN. MaiN 'IniTech' meN karti kam huN. MaiN karti kam huN kampyutareN ke sath. MaiN aksar yatra karti huN ko dur sthani. MaiN bharat (the word for India, which, when pronounced bharAt means a wedding procession...) karti pasand huN kyoNki yeh bahoot sundar hai. Log bahoot accha haiN. MaiN Hyderabad meN paNch mahine reheti thi. MaiN bahoot dosti se milti thi. MaiN hindi sikhti huN, magar maiN bolti huN nahiN accha. MaiN nahiN par sakti ya likh sakti huN. MaiN sochti huN ki hindi mushkil bhasa hai. MaiN yatra karna chahati huN meN Bharat aksar. MaiN dekhna chahati Rajasthan, Assam, aur Darjeeling. Mera manpasand sthan ki maiN ko yatra karti thi Kerala hai. MaiN Singapora meN huN.

I think for 2 days with a dictionary with a 15 page summary labelled 'Simple grammar' it's pretty good! If only I could remember this stuff when I'm talking. Instead it comes out 'MaiN globbymumbleboo hai.' Alas, perhaps some practice will make it better.

Here I am, another hour passed, and I still haven't gotten to Bulgaria. Perhaps its because I was there several months ago now, I already wrote several blog entries on the trip, and I'm loopy. I have half an unpublished entry in which I rip apart a recent article on Sofia that was published by the Chicago Tribune. Suffice it to say, even the headline was so inaccurate that it could be disproved by any unpaid intern fact checker, and they really do need to institute some sort of punishment for people who write travel articles that are grossly incorrect.

A few not grossly incorrect notes on Bulgaria:

• As the photos prove, the Black Sea is not black but instead a deep color of blue. The only thing black about the Black Sea is the color of the pollutants floating around in it.
• The currency is linked to the Euro, and therefore, although things were cheaper than Vienna, they were by no means cheap, and certainly not as cheap as they should be given that Bulgaria is in the Balkans,has a struggling economy, vast rural areas, lots of poor people, and areas of challenged infrastructure.
  
• We can also thank an influx of British tourists and holiday house owners for the lack of hospitality and general expensiveness of anything anywhere near a resort area. Bulgarians were less than friendly, and I can see why. Their entire Black Sea coast has been destroyed by the development of crappy cheap resorts to cater to western Europeans looking for a budget vacation by the sea. The very reason people went there for generations is now missing, since the natural beauty and interesting culture has been almost completely replaced with 1960's style cheap resorts built up on all the formerly beautiful beaches.
  
• As with Romania, it's tough to pontificate the 'right' strategy for how Bulgaria should develop. The new EU infrastructure including a new big airport in the Black Sea port of Burgas so that Brits don't have to see any of Bulgaria but the cheap resorts and a real highway from Sophia to Burgas, is making it easier for some Bulgarians to do business and get out of poverty. Many of the towns that are tourist stops only still exist because of the tourist dollars that keep them financially afloat. But, at what cost does this development come? Bulgarian culture is struggling to stay afloat against the influx of western culture that has grown like wildfire since Bulgaria joined the EU. Bulgaria's music, full of middle-eastern tones and reminiscent of Greek and Turkish music, now has to compete with bad German techno from the early 90's in clubs. How could anyone prefer dancing to bad German techno to those seductive middle-eastern beats?
• The Bulgarian goverment also faces challenges to development since there are still remnants of the old ways. There is a sign in customs that says 'No Payments Allowed' meaning, don't try to bribe your way through customs... There were cops everywhere pulling people over randomly, and apparently to make that custom easier, the city government of Sofia had passed a few draconian laws saying that you weren't allowed to have a dirty car in Sofia and you weren't allowed to wear sunglasses in a car (presumably because they couldn't see your eyes to see if they could make eye contact with you and pull you over).
  
• In contrast to the previous point, Bulgaria is another one of those countries that lets you do pretty much whatever you want at their precious historic sites. While it is awesome to be able to sit on Roman ruins and take funny pictures, I'm pretty sure this doesn't help preserve them. In the World Heritage Site Byzantine ruins in Nessebar, kids were playing a version of in-door soccer using the ancient pillars as bouncers to get a 'goal' ie. bounce the ball off the ancient altar. The boys did this every day of the 4 days we were there, so I assume it was a regular sport. While the fence 100 metres away from the edge of Stone Henge preventing you from pretty much seeing anything is a bit much, using ancient ruins as a soccer stadium kind of takes it to the other extreme - if only there was a happy medium.
  
• Despite any shortcomings we experienced with strangers, the Bulgarians we knew and met at the wedding were delightful and so hospitable. Irina's wedding was so much fun that it lasted over 12 hours that went by in a blink! They stayed out later than that at a club, but we were partied out. That Bulgarian music is just so easy to dance to!
• Irina's Bulgarian wedding included a civil and a relgious ceremony and a reception at the palace of culture with great views of Sofia. The civil ceremony was surprisingly nationalistic, with the woman leading it wearing a sash of the Bulgarian flag, and saluting while the Bulgarian national anthem played (can you imagine playing the star-spangled banner at your wedding? way to kill the romance!). Much of the tradition that is also included in America, like the exchanging of rings, took place during the civil ceremony (possibly a holdover from the old Soviet days when religious ceremonies weren't allowed?). Everyone brought flowers for the couple and family members danced in the street to an accordion in the alley outside the court house after the ceremony.
  
• The church ceremony in the second largest cathedral in Sofia was everything I thought an orthodox ceremony would be, with lots of incence, chanting, and walking around in a circle. There was an added bonus of some crown-wearing. Since it was in Bulgarian, I have no idea what they were saying, but the effect of the rituals in the church were pretty awesome themselves. I enjoyed the modern touch of about 100 digital cameras going off every second to get pictures of the ceremony.
  

I have passed another hour and now I am very, very, very sleepy. It's 12:27am in California and 3:37pm in Singapore. I must stay awake, but I'm getting that truck-ran-over-me feeling that comes with extreme jetlag. I don't know what I would be feeling if I hadn't slept on the plane. I might be in the corner in a fetal position. Hmm, that actually sounds kind of appealing...

I have had a total of half a glass of creativity juice, a cappuccino, a mineral water, a cream puff, and a mini-eclair and I'm ready to pass out. I shall now leave to go find a corner for the rest of my layover on this very, very long day of travel (I left for the airport 26 hours ago). I think watching olympic ping pong is the perfect ointment for my current state of mind...ping...pong...ping...pong...


Baby hot dog speaks for itself.