Expectations

Oh, life is full of disappointments, anywhere you care to look for them.  The greater the expectation, the more likely the disappointment to follow.  Still, I was surprised to see this warning in my local K-Mart.

I've decided not to pursue it further:  I have no need to seek additional disappointments in my life.  I'll never know why this particular magazine moved an anonymous shopper to post a sad little warning.

I am reminded of the six-word Hemingway novel--

For sale:  baby shoes, never worn.

I find this real-life six-word story equally compelling.  Is this a person disappointed in love, or perhaps one ruing the thousands spent on a less than perfect day?  Maybe a person of limited means frustrated by an inability to fund a dream wedding?  So many ways to disappoint.  I am happier with the mystery.

My own baby granddaughter wears no shoes.  Her fat little feet don't hold her up yet, although they will soon.  She hasn't learned to plant them flat and wide.  She does a hundred squats a day, hauling herself up on with whatever she can find, and plopping down again on her diaper-padded bottom.  She learned to climb up one stair this weekend, and found it both surprising and terrifying.  It's only one step, but there she was, out on a ledge, not knowing what to do next.

I feel like that sometimes, too.

Right back where I started

I went around the world by plane, boat, horse cart, canoe, bike, foot, bus, train, carriage, and probably some other means of transportation I've overlooked.  Now I'm back home, in my own little house, at my same job, in my treasured circle of family and friends.  I traveled over 20,000 nautical miles and 6000 air miles to make the trip, losing a whole day and picking it back up through more than a dozen time changes as I traveled westward around the globe.  I crossed the equator twice and the prime meridian at least five times.  At one point, I crossed them together.

This week marks another way I am back where I started.  As I unpacked for the first time on board, I lost the sight in my left eye and was sidelined temporarily by what looked like a vitreous detachment.  After consultation with the ship's doctor and an ophthalmologist in San Diego, I was allowed back on the ship, cautioned to watch for further symptoms and see a doctor when I got back home.

So Wednesday, I went for a routine follow up visit to a new ophthalmologist.  I thought I would run down from the office, get checked out, and be back for an afternoon meeting.  (My office is up two flights of stairs and down one corridor from the eye clinic, a benefit of working in the hospital.)  Instead, I wound up having some kind of procedure that evidently has no name other than "sort of a spot welding, but with lasers."  I have asked several times, but this is all I get.  It felt more like jack hammers, but with lasers.  Or staple gun, but with lasers, since the idea is to tack down the retina, not break it up.

Turns out I had three tears in the retina, of uncertain age.  I wasn't having any symptoms, so it's likely that they occurred at the time of the original incident back in January.  Fixing them required 1500 of something, presumably beams of intense light aimed at my eyeball over the course of two hours.  Not pleasant.

Recovery was also not pleasant.  I wound up calling my (amazing) boss, who administers the ophtho department as well as my own, which set into motion a whirlwind of concern.  (The retinal fellow made a few rookie mistakes, like not giving me any aftercare instructions, or his name.  He also did not get a consent for the procedure, which set into motion a whole different whirlwind and resulted in my treatment being taken over by the attending.)

My (third) new eye doctor says don't lift anything over five pounds and don't do anything more strenuous than walk around the block, which is my kind of medical advice.  He also says watch TV instead of reading, knowing it's unrealistic to expect no reading or computer work for the next three months.  I am practicing my touch typing skills, and I am being conservative about my screen time, but there's no realistic way to move through my life without computer screens for the next month.

As is so often the case, this medical intervention gives me much to think about in terms of how medical care is delivered and how dependent consumers are on providers whose qualifications we have no way of judging.

I work in a teaching hospital, and I am fully prepared to have care provided by a team that includes medical students, residents, fellows, and often puts attending physicians into a background role.  It can be an uneasy balance.  As a person with only one body, a relatively healthy one, I don't have a lot of points of intersection with the system.  I have no way of differentiating between routine, emergent, acute.  I've been here long enough that I know health care decisions can also be an uneasy balance.  I, too, have to find the balance between criticizing the system and benefitting from the favors I can call in.

All of this balancing has left me a little unbalanced.  I walked in expecting a routine visit and had instead a very thorough examination (which is, I suppose, the routine) that uncovered a condition that was treated immediately.  Was it emergent (in need of immediate treatment)?  The San Diego doctor said that if he had uncovered/suspected a retinal tear, he would have sent me to a specialist and it would have been 10 days to 2 weeks before I was treated, so he had no issues with my taking off on a journey to a host of third world countries.  My Charlottesville doctors said let's see if the laser suite is available yay it is and have a seat.  Whoosh!

Same eye, totally different treatment approaches.  Not sure the new docs would have been so sanguine about sending me off for four months.  Does "don't pick up more than 5 pounds" also mean, "there's no way in hell you should get on a plane"?  Lucky for me, I don't need to find out.  If there was a bullet there, I dodged it and had a fabulous trip around the world.

Two weeks out, I am in the eye clinic for a third follow-up visit.  My eye has been dilated so often the pupil is (semi? no one knows) permanently larger.  I am once again hypervigilant about every floater. Mostly, today, I am wondering why people come on time for a doctor who is two hours behind schedule.  I should have brought lunch.  Also, a power supply for the computer.

The waiting room here is crowded, with many people here accompanied by someone younger, or at least someone who can drive them home.  There are two nice ladies in orange outfits, which may be coincidence or may be ashram-dyed-to-match.  The man sitting nearby just showed me a closeup picture of his truck tire, featuring two pieces of grass which look EXACTLY like a cross.  (Clearly, he is the designated driver.  None of the actual patients could see well enough to have discerned this apparent miracle.)

The strawberries I put in my smoothie this morning looked EXACTLY like hearts.  Until I mercilessly crushed them.  Life is full of unrecognized miracles, cynics, and folks searching for something to kill a few hours.

Algú m'estima

I've been away from the trip and from the blog for over a month now.  My loyal Russian friends, whoever they are, are still checking in from time to time.  In any month's time, there are 16 hits from Russia, which leads me to believe it's an automated blog visit, only showing up because my real-person audience is overwhelmingly from the USA.  (German fans, the Russians are giving you a run for pride of second.)

I was pretty disciplined about writing on the ship (although I never quite caught up after leaving Japan).  But at home, there are many more distractors.  Try putting your work, family, social lives on hold for four months, and then add deferring all health and home maintenance issues.  Why, there's hardly enough time to catch up on bad American teevee!  And there are still billions of Sudoku puzzles I have not completed.

Which is to say that I totally mistook "limited internet" for discipline.  All those good habits I had on the ship have disappeared.  With the force of a slingshot pulled waaaay back.  I only gained a couple of pounds on the ship, but access to American restaurant portions, snack foods, and choice in general have undone all those flights of stairs climbed.  (Except for trips carrying my luggage to be weighed, I never used the elevators on the ship.)

I have also replaced blog writing with actual conversation.

Ohmigod, you're back!  When did you get back?
What was your favorite port?
Was it worth it?

But it's always been my intention to tell the rest of the story, post some more pictures, and maybe even transition the blog into the third half on land.  While lots of you have told me you couldn't keep up with the blog, some folks have flattered me with assurances they read every post.

So stay tuned.

The heart pillow/quilt I schlepped around the world meets my Barcelona bedding.

This just in

Last ship breakfast.  Now back to yogurt smoothies.

And so the voyage ends.  We docked in Barcelona early this morning, disgorging around 800 people a a few thousand suitcases, backpacks, duffels, and cardboard boxes.

It's quite a logistical feat to get us all off.  Everyone had to be packed by 1 PM on Wednesday, with just their hand-carried luggage left.  The luggage was color-coded and brought to one of two holding areas, fore and aft.  Tymitz Square filled up with all the stuff left behind.  All day long, the crew carted off our detritus--backpacks, water bottles, clothes, toiletries, notebooks.  A big freecycle.

As we came into port, we could see friends and family waiting.  Many brought signs and flags.  My shipbaord daughter Keani's parents brought a Hawaiian flag, making them instantly recognizable.  (They are actually German, and will travel with Keani to Germany to see their extended family.)  One girl picked out her parents and her aunt, who had come as a surprise.  She was shrieking (fortunately, a happy surprise).

If anyone came to meet me, sorry I missed you.  I could have used some help with my bags!

Adios, Explorer.  So many memories.

I had booked a room not far from the port, in a building with an elevator, a block from a train station.  Barcelona is a city of charm, but also steep streets and buildings with many stairs.  So I had my priorities!

First stop, the apartment to drop off my luggage.  I had made the arrangements with Andrei, but it was his father who greeted me.  "You are alone?" he said, surprised.  I do not know whether this was because the room was a two bedroom suite or because I had enough luggage to last for, say, a four-month trip.  With souvenirs.  (One whole suitcase is stuff I bought, including a queen size comforter.)

After showing me the room and the rest of the apartment, he left to find the password for the wireless, closing the door behind him.  I admired the view from the balcony, sorted out what I needed for the day, and started out.  The doorknob would not turn.  Then it came off in my hand.

My friend Betty says this is what happens when you complain about hotel rooms.  Ghana may not have had water, but it did have doorknobs.

I have taken apart a doorknob or two in my time, and I have broken into rooms with credit cards, and I have even taken doors off hinges, but I was quite firmly stuck in the room.

Ayudarme?

The apartment is long and skinny, and there were four closed doors between me and the owner, but he finally did come to let me out.  "China," he muttered.  (In China, the hotel used fancy pants plastic cards as room keys, and it came with not only doorknobs but combs and toothbrushes.)  "I will fix."

In the meantime, I got the internet password and downloaded my location to my phone.  I got onto FaceBook, as did dozens of Semester at Sea folk.  The Hawaiian-German Keani downloaded 170 pictures from South Africa alone.  I had half a dozen new friend requests.  We are starved for internet.

I found a book in my hotel called "Barcelona ist einmalig [first of all, fundamentally] Katalonien." Which is true, and proudly so.  I picked up some children's books in Catalon.  (When Catherine was little, I picked up a children's book in German for her.  I apologize in advance if this causes my granddaughters grow up to live in Barcelona in twenty years.  Chickpea also has books in Dutch, Greek, Italian, German and probably several other languages by now, so I think one in Catalon will not hurt.

St. George is very big this week in Barcelona

I planned to drop off my luggage and spend a day wandering the sunny streets of the city, but sun was sorely lacking today.  I learned my water resistant jacket is optimistically labeled.  Last time I was here, Catherine went swimming the first week of April and we baked in the Mediterranean sun, but today was chilly at best.  When it started pouring rain, I came back to take a nap.

Cold and dripping, I stopped on the way home at a small grocery and bought milk and a chocolate bar. Hot chocolate sounded like just the thing.  The man behind the counter started a conversation:

Where you from?
US.
Where?
America.  Los Estados Unidos.
How long you stay.
One day.
How long?  One week?
No.  One day.  Una día.
Una día?
I come from boat.  El barco?  Par avion [but that's French, right?  Oops]  Mañana, USA.
You have husband?
No.  Tres niños, no esposo. Una vez, tengo esposo, pero ahora, no.

So now I wonder, is it wrong to travel alone in Barcelona?  I had two conversations today, and both of them led to the traveling alone question.

Back home again, I was heating up my milk and the landlord offered me a bowl of the soup he had been making.  I had planned on a good local meal, but a bowl of soup and some fresh bread filled me up.  Romanian soup, from the stomach of the cow.  Six hours to cook.  My landlord for the day is from Transylvania.  He sells "artificial salt."  I didn't try to make sense of that.  He's never heard of Unitarians.  I didn't even try to explain.

Orange you happy?

In the time that I have been gone, #1 son bought a house, quit his job and got a new job.  #2 son gave up his house, bought an RV and made plans to spend the next year as a nomad student CRNA.  Daughter ended a long-term relationship.  #1 granddaughter learned to read and tell jokes and #2 granddaughter learned to smile and roll over.

And now comes the announcement that I will greet #3 grandchild in October.  Last I heard they were calling the baby Clementine (but all I have is a stolen orange, so it will have to do).

I have been counting the days all along, because it's the only way to keep track of them.  I work an ocean at a stretch, but there aren't many markers. One more Deans' Memo to go.

Tonight was the Alumni Ball, which I skipped.  We had a formal dinner and the waitstaff even had special shirts for the occasion.  They went all out on dinner, and people wore clothes they had bought all over the world.  I wore a length of rayon from Burma, which someday will be a real skirt, with a scarf in matching colors I bought in India, earrings from South Africa, and a bracelet from Ghana.  Men wore suits they had made in Viet Nam.  Women wore traditional dress from China, India, Vietnam.  (Along with the usual skirts so tight and so short they left nothing to the imagination.)  There was a slide show I would have liked to see, but a friend asked for some help.  Then a dessert buffet that was like walking into a patisserie.  The ball itself was crowded, noisy, and full of flashing lights.  I checked in on the CCTV just to make sure there wasn't anything I might regret missing.

At this point, my only regret may be not bringing a bigger suitcase.  My main duffel is packed almost full of souvenirs (half of it taken up by the silk comforter I bought in Japan).  Today was another hard day as people decided to send their possessions home at $7.50/pound.  My office became information central for such questions as "You said in the Deans' Memo the scale is 15 pounds off.  Is it 15 pounds lighter or heavier?"  Yes, we are now the Bureau of Standards.  And the Bureau of Redundancy, answering questions with facts we have repeated over and over in the Deans' Memo.  Tonight a student was hurt that I didn't recognize him.  He said, "I'm the one who wanted to have a pizza party and you said I couldn't."  Get in line, Buddy.  That was one of 30 pizza parties and 50 taco parties I refused.

The Field Office has three doors, but all of them go through another room to get to the central reception area.  I have told people at least a thousand times they can go through our office space, no need to knock, go right in, no, second door, not the first one, I don't know if Karen is in, go look.

This afternoon, Karen came through and I said, "Quick, shut the door.  Or I will kill the next person who comes through it."

Karen said, "Just a second, I need to make a phone call."  Her days are pretty high stress, too.

We have not had very many lovely sunsets, so I took this one of the penultimate sunset.  The last one may not be worth a photo, and if there's one thing I've learned on this voyage, it's don't wait for a second chance.

Orange, I'm happy.

Party like it's ... Fes

Our incredible homestay host, Kaoutar, made our last night in Fes a memory worth its own blog post.

The home we stayed in is in the Medina of Fes, the old city.  The whole Medina is walled in, no traffic.  You couldn't fit a car on those streets, anyway.  Some of them can barely fit a donkey cart.  This means, of course, that when you buy a refrigerator, it is wheeled to you on a pushcart, pulled either by a donkey or a man.  We did see donkeys trotting around with all kinds of things, including tanks of propane for stoves.  Interestingly, they wear rubber shoes for better traction on the cobblestones, which get slippery when they get wet.  Since you can't hear them coming, the most important word in the Medina is "Ballach!" (bahLOCK), which means "get out of the way!"

The stores in the Medina are mostly open stalls.  The residential sections have massive wooden doors, with two separate sections.  A high doorknob for people coming on horseback, a low one for the rest of us.  There are tiny windows high in the walls, but most of the light and air comes from the courtyard, which is open to the sky.  A ritzy house has a screen over the courtyard, but many are completely open to the sky.  They have drains in the floor and the whole courtyard is a step lower than the other rooms.  Rain comes in, rain goes out.  Moroccan homes don't tend to have a lot of furniture.  The tables and chairs are iron frames and ceramic tile tops, so they are indoor/outdoor, just like the living rooms.

Will the real Moroccan please stand up?

[From left:  Meg, Michaela, me, Kaoutar, Kaitlyn, Phyllis, and Brooke.  We let the men back in to take photos after the dancing was over.]

Kaoutar's mother bought her house to use as a B&B about 15 years ago.  But she ran into licensing issues, because she could only outfit four rooms with separate baths.  She works with a homestay program now that has a lower barrier.  We stayed in three of the rooms, and our tour guide stayed in the fourth.  We did not meet the mother, who may have been staying in one of the other rooms that does not open onto the main courtyard.  The house is at least four stories high (three very tall stories, but also doors opening up midway up the flights of stairs).

All through the house, there is wonderful ceramic tile and iron work typical of every place in Fes, no matter how modest.  The bathroom may have no hot water (this is not really a hypothetical; the sink only has one tap and the shower ran cold from both taps), but the cold water falls onto gorgeous tiles.

On our second night with her, Kaoutar had a surprise for us.  At our request, she had bought the ingredients for pastissa, which is sort of a crèpe-wrapped pie, with chicken, almonds, onions, and loads of sugar.  Dessert for dinner.  It's a party dish, so she made a party for us.  She borrowed party clothes for each of us, color-coordinated ensembles with dress, overdress, belt, and head scarf, and then she dressed each of us.  And then we danced.

And we looked at her wedding pictures, and we talked about the baby she will have in December, and promised to send all our friends to Morocco to stay with her.

I haven't had so much fun dancing since Jefferson and Megan's wedding two years ago today.  Happy anniversary, you two, and I can hardly wait to see you in a few days.  xoxoxo

Got my snark on

Three more days and there's a definite change in the atmosphere.  Today is a study day, but there's no studying going on within earshot of the Administrative Office.

There's a scale, and people are weighing themselves and their luggage.  The scale that was there this morning was replaced with a scale that folks are saying overweighs by 15 pounds. 

Which is about what you might have expected to gain on a diet of croissants, bacon, and omelets every morning.  I know I'm not weighing myself until the dead of night.

Another group of people is signing up for "Luggage Free," the world's most misleadingly named freight company.  This is for people who cannot bear the thought of consigning their possessions to the airlines and would rather spend hundreds of dollars having FedEx consign them to the airlines for them after helpfully encasing them in plastic so they don't get dirty.  The cost to ship is $7.50 a pound from Barcelona.  You can spend $100 to check a second bag, or you can pay $375 for a bag at the maximum weight of 50# for most airlines.  Luggage Free indeed.

Obviously, it's difficult to justify this expense if you are flying straight home.  For the students who are spending several weeks traveling around Europe, the convenience may be worth it.  But, really, it's almost cheaper to pay someone to come to Barcelona and carry your bags home for you.

In addition to the general angst surrounding packing, there is the usual end of school year signing of yearbooks, exchanging of addresses, and trying to fit in time with friends.  All of which is going on outside my door.  Inside, I am battling printer issues, duplicating last minute exams, and answering stupid questions.  Pretty much a regular day.

Oh, and we've been in sight of the Rock of Gibraltar since 7 AM.  Passed it around 7, anchored in the Mediterranean waiting to get cleared to get in line to wait for fuel, circled around, approached, circled back, and now we've been filling up for about 6 hours.  (BIG gas tank.  We also filled up in The Gambia, if you recall.  As well as several other ports.)

So there's kind of a party atmosphere.  And a packing atmosphere.  And trying to get something done in the office so I can go party and pack.

It amazes me that 103 days into a voyage of 106 days, I am still being asked if this is the academic office, where the executive dean's office is, and if I'll make some copies.  No, down the corridor, and I don't have a copier.

A student just whined in an email that he couldn't file the folder on the public drive where you are supposed to drop your songs to be played at the Alumni Ball.  Which is tomorrow.  It's not unrealistic to think the folder might no longer be accessible, 27 hours before the event.  But I checked, and it is.  The student was unhappy that I hadn't mentioned it in the Deans' Memo, evidently missing this notice, which has run unchanged for a few issues now. 

Alumni Ball Song Requests   Had enough of Gangnam Style and Call Me Maybe?  Last chance to drop your favorite songs in the folder on the public drive.  Sorry, but no requests can be honored the night of the ball.

The folder is called <_DROP YOUR SONG REQUESTS FOR THE ALUMNI BALL>, so I guess it's understandable that he couldn't find it.  I tricked him up with that "favorite" in the description.  There are currently 263 items in the folder, which translates to 10-15 hours of songs for a 2 hour event.  But I didn't want him to be disappointed, so I wrote, "Look again, and I bet you can find it.  Here's a hint.  You don't have to go very far."  I also told him to check with the person who put up the folder if he couldn't find it. 

I was trying to convey my unhelpfulness, but I need to be less subtle.  I got an email back telling me how hard it is to find on a mac because the files aren't necessarily alphabetized and how much of a disaster the public drive is in general and how someone has changed the settings to make it nearly impossible to find.

Huh?  His mac must be one of those newer models where files are assigned spaces wherever they fit best, like a big game of Tetris.  Mine just has the usual choice of arrangements:  name, date (modified or created), size, kind, label.  I want the "random" choice!  Or maybe "nationality."  Also, on my mac, the folder is colored purple so it stands out. 

I am a very helpful person, but I am tired of people who make no attempt to solve their own problems and then blame their failure on you.  So I confess to answering his second annoying email by suggesting that if he has problems understanding his mac, he ask our IT group for help, and if he has a complaint about how Aparna named the file, he take it to her.  He took the hint.

A tougher case is the girl who came by the office this afternoon and said,

"I'm really stressed about packing.  Do you have boxes?" 
"No."  I did not bother to expand this response.
"Why not?"
"Why don't YOU have boxes?"  (The Deans' Memo specifically said, you'll have to get your own box in Casablanca.  We will not have boxes and will not have tape.  It took two days of inquiries before I could write that.)
"You should have boxes."
"Sorry, we don't."
"Do you have anyone who can pack for me?"

Yes, that's exactly what she asked.  She thinks the SAS should have a person tasked with packing for her.  Well, for all 637 students, I suppose, but mostly for her. 

"For a fee, of course."

Whew!  I thought she was spoiled.  She's just a job creator. 

As a matter of fact, one of our faculty members is packing for a student who bid $200 for the privilege in the shipboard auction. 

"You could put up signs," I suggested.  "I bet you could find someone who would do it." 

She flounced off.  She's probably looking for someone to put up the signs.