A long day in the car and at the vet's

We left with a vulture who needed to have a wing amputated. Dropped him off at vet 1 (in private practice at South Africa's only veterinary school), then drove 3 hours to pick up a vulture with a broken wing and a "brain damaged" martial eagle that had been hit by a car. The latter bird ended up being a snake eagle (which probably explains his behavioral issues--martials are fierce and aggressive, snake eagles are extremely passive around and afraid of people). We dropped the eagle off back at Vulpro and picked up broken leg vulture 2 from last week and took her and the new broken wing back to vet 2.

Right away the vet had doubts about the sweet broken leg bird. She was wheezing a lot more, had not gained much strength, and the X-rays showed infection in her lungs. She was not well enough for the leg surgery, and so she was euthanized.

The broken wing was successfully amputated, but had more infection inside the bone than we originally saw--birds have hollow bones, and mud was caked in at the exposed break. It took the doctor awhile to clean out the dead tissue. The bird's breathing stopped momentarily during the hour-plus surgery, but started again after a bit of manual oxygen.

After surgery, he was very slow to revive. It took over an hour, IV fluids, and some TLC before he woke up. Our fingers are crossed that he'll be good in the morning.

Some notes:
Several widow birds dancing over the grass.
A chameleon saved from the middle of the road.
A caracal at the vet's that mewled like a house cat (and growled like a cougar).
Also at the vet's, a tiny nyala fawn that I wanted to put in my purse.
The McDs chicken ranch tastes alright--except the ranch is totally weird.

Notes on the restaurant & vet

Today we cut up a cow for the birds: back legs to the breeding colony, front legs and head to the rehabbing capes & lappets, middle, for the restaurant. Also took two birds in for leg X-rays (sustained while children grabbed at them to "rescue" them from traditional medicine practitioners--snatching the birds for the reward has become cottage industry), treated another for a crop infection.

Have I mentioned that I'm not too hungry lately?

Also, sorry in advance to the people I'm sitting next to on the plane back.

Exactly what we're afraid of

The deep down disgust that a rotten, mostly-eaten cow carcass inspires is instinctual. It's like jumping at a snake--something from deep down & back in our animal minds. Maggots are repulsive. And watching a flock chickens slurp them up from the hosed-down sludge from three cows in the back of a pickup, frankly makes me not want to eat chicken. Even if the chicks are cure as hell.

But vultures aren't just what they eat. I smelled the back feathers of one today, PJ, a hand-reared Cape vulture. He didn't smell rotten at all. He pecked at my boot grommets an tried desperately to unzip all my zippers. Another bird de-handled the water bucket and pranced around the enclosure proudly carrying it high in the air, all of his compadres following behind.

I'm still being a bit beaten down by jet lag, so that's it for now. Tomorrow I go to the vet to watch a wing amputation--always the very last resort, as it sentences the bird to life behind a barred door, without parole.

Vulpro, Wednesday

Some notes on arrival:
-In the area, besides amazing birds like ibises and storks and of course vultures (!!!!), there are brown hyenas, leopards, kudu, duikers, klipspringers, and "lots of snakes." None of this should worry me.

-My room has a motion alarm, inside two locked gates. My alarm is separate from the house system. It has been suggested that if I am on my own, I not be outside the second gate after dark. There are five large dogs on the grounds, shepherd & malamute mixes. This is all due to common (?) armed & violent home invasions. The man who drove me here said that in Botswana they don't hurt you when they rob, like they do here. He said there were two reasons for this. One, Botswana has capital punishment. Two, "our history with apartheid--the blacks feel the whites have left them out, taken all of their power. Please know that maybe I'm not using the right words, but you understand?"

-Tomorrow and for the next few days, I'll follow a volunteer as she waters the birds and cleans the carcasses from the vulture restaurant. Normally hyenas would clean up the bones--but not on the rescue center's grounds. I'll be able to enter the enclosures once the birds know me a bit. (!!!!)

-I will likely see at least three soft releases and an unknown number of rescued birds brought in.

-I'm still exhausted. Also, mosquitoes.

New Year's eve in South Africa

I didn't think I'd make it. I was so damn tired yesterday afternoon (see also: 2 day flight), that I crashed out at 5pm. But the fireworks woke me up at 11:20. I bought a can of Black Label from the front desk and went to sit on a stone terrace overlooking the city. 

There were hoots and hollers and music coming from around the neighborhood--all private homes surrounded by spiked gates and razor wire. Even in this nice neighborhood. I felt like I was about the have some sort of momentous revelation about my life--but I was still groggy from my death-like sleep.

Around the house (I could see about 240 degrees) there were small fireworks explosions in several directions. At about 5 minutes til, the family that owns this hostel came up to the terrace with a bottle of champagne, I had two glasses. We toasted the New Year at the approximate time, judging by the yelling and fireworks. I forgot most of my pre-revelation. 

Then I went back to bed. 

Maybe it doesn't sound that exciting--but it was lovely. This morning, I woke up at 5:30 because the birds were louder than the fireworks. Hooting, buzzing, scratchy calls, shrieks, and lilted whistles, trills, and warbles. So fantastic. I ID'd a few--bright yellow, orange, iridescent blacks. I hope I get to see a widowbird. The streets are thick with pest-myna birds. 

I've written several postcards and will mail them before heading out into the country this afternoon. 

I can't believe that I forgot my binoculars. (HOW DID I FORGET BINOCULARS?) I also took a picture of my breakfast this morning, but the network out here is so bad that I blew several Kbs trying (and failing) to post it to Instagram. I may try again from the airport this afternoon, where I'll be meeting the shuttle to Hartbeetspoort. By tonight, I will be in the country... hanging out with Cape vultures. 

Happy New Year, everyone. I hope to write again soon.

Day One: Johannesburg

Man. The two toughest things to figure out overseas: toilets and internet. At least so far, the toilets have been totally expected and intuitive. 

It has proven to be prohibitively expensive for me to get internet out of town. In town, I'm using a crazy old computer in 30 minute increments for 20 Rands. There are about eleventy pop-ups on every page I open. 

So far: I needed help to unlock my room and turn on the computer. The desk guy probably thinks that I'm mentally challenged. WINNING.

But! Peter Mundy's publisher is driving to my hostel in an hour and a half to deliver a copy of Vultures of the World. I won't get to meet Mundy himself (heartbreaking!) but we've been exchanging emails and he is very supportive, if terse. 

It's warm and beautiful. The grounds here at the Backpackers Ritz are full of weird birds I need to identify, and skinks. 

I'll buy another 30 minutes tomorrow--and give an update after New Year's... but otherwise, the posts will be quick and few until I am back to wireless land. Postcards, however, have been procured (plus stamps) and those will be free-flowing. 

Today: Frankfurt airport

It's like Paris all over again, and I have no money. I blew some stashed dollars to hide out in a lounge and stretch out (sort of) and snore (probably). And also eat free biscotti and drink coke light. The lighting is soft & soothing in here. There's an open bar which I should've taken better advantage of.

On the plane, I met Aymon, a Nubian from Northern Sudan. He just finished his MBA with an enviro focus. I said, "What do you want to do now?" He said, "Business!" And I said, "But what does that mean?"

I never found out because it was his turn for the bathroom and on that three row plane, we never met again.

Business.

Everyone is posting their real and fake and big and little New Year's Resolutions. I'm going to start small, and resolve to stay open to experiences for the next 30 days.

It turns out a hotspot (or "dongle") is around $150 at the airport. I may not have Internet at Vulpro, as a result. I'll see if the prices are better at Tambo airport. Onward!

The worst adventure story ever...

...starts in an airport. That's the first rule of travel writing.

And yet, that is where almost all of my adventure stories start. So, either my adventures are terrible, or my stories about them are terrible, or more likely... that's a crummy rule.

I feel like I've addressed this dumb rule and my propensity to break it every time I fly somewhere. Am I the only one who's feeling déja vu here? It could also be the smell of Panda Express that is enveloping gate A 43--which will forever be the smell of the University of Wyoming's union. And also my office.

I've been thinking about travel vs home lately. Because I've been planning this trip and packing my home for the last week. But I've been thinking about both for most of my time in Laramie. I knew my time there would be temporary, and I had as one of my MFA goals as much world travel as possible.

Specifically, I've been trying to figure out why travel is more important for me than establishing a home--I pine for a base to which I can reliably return, but not more than I pine for the next trip. I haven't even left Denver and I've already started planning for a way to get to India and Mongolia. It's not a new drive--I tried to go to Morocco as an exchange student in high school (other acceptable locations included Greece or Egypt, I seem to remember), and then to Italy during my undergrad. I wanted to see other things. I value seeing things more than most things. It often takes what I've seen a long time to percolate into a piece of writing, but that never diminishes the memory of having seen.

I still haven't written anything satisfactory about New Zealand, about the 3,000 year old trees. About the tuis, the invisible kiwis. In part because that trip was hard.

All travel is hard, is the thing. I absolutely lost my shit in Paris in June. And in Whangamomona in January. In Spain, I was distressed, but never lost it, while in the Canaries, I bowed out of New Year's Eve festivities to stay home and recoup my wits. It is exhausting to not speak the language, to have expectations thrown out the window, to miss trains, and to misunderstand the price. But Parisian escargot was amazing. The sounds of birds all day and night on the North island. Paella. The Mediterranean. I knew someone who said that in this day and age one might as well stay home--everything can be streamed, someone else has taken better pictures that you can download, and there aren't any lines at the airport in your living room. That guy has no idea what a bearded vulture smells like. He will never know how it feels to buy a joint in Amsterdam (the thrill of a 19-year old buying booze overseas). He will not know the peace and satisfaction of a perfectly packed travel bag, or a notebook that just fits in your passport pouch with a small pen.

I am still not good at traveling. I miss so much. I still race to get to the wrong things sometimes. I get impatient and disappointed in a way that I find disappointing. I feel like there is a kind of travel-zen I need to practice. But I'm getting better at it.

One of the keys is getting to the airport early. I got here just before 1 for a 5 pm boarding time. Crazy? I got a chair massage, had a bloody mary, and made good progress on my newest sock. I only got bugged when a TSA agent nearly threw my laptop on the ground by shoving a bunch of bins down the belt. I'm planning on sleeping some on the plane to Frankfurt. I will spend nearly one-fifth of my trip time in airports--it should be good time.

It's nice to sit after two days of packing and moving, too.

I have thoughts on home too, but it seems ill-advised to wax philosophically about home on the brink of travel. For now I'm going to kick back and look out the window at the blue Denver sky. I'm going to knit my sock and dream of Cape vultures and the Magaliesburg mountains. I'm going to try and enjoy the next day and a half of airplanes and airports.

The enemy of my enemy

I am my own worst enemy. I always have been--except for a brief stint in the seventh grade when that bully-girl Nikki was my enemy. In retrospect, she probably had a crush on me and turned aggressive when I failed to love her. I had no idea, and even if I'd known, I'd have had no idea, you know? These things happen.

But otherwise, it's me.

I've internalized all of the negative talk I've ever heard about myself: I don't have any feelings, I'm frigid, I'm too stubborn to know what's good for me, I have terrible taste in music, clothes, books, movies, other people, I am gullible, selfish, lazy, willful, preoccupied with all of the wrong things. I think about these things and the people who said them to me all the time. I am the over-sensitive little boy in Down at the Dinghy.

I know that none of these things are true. I can point to empirical evidence that disputes every one of those things--but here's the thing that I can't disprove: I often give the impression that I'm a total wreck, because I often feel like a total wreck.

I often feel like I am hanging on by a thread, even if (experience has shown this time and time again) everything will work out, I will get done what I need to, I almost always reach the goals I set for myself, and I do, in fact, know what I'm doing when it comes to taking reasonable care of myself and those I care about.

And yet. To get my shit done, I always have to run myself to this same crazy brink. My most productive time is spent staring over an edge of my own creation, working like mad. Panic-stricken that I will fail to meet my obligations. Guilt-ridden that I will let down everyone who has helped me. Frantic to tackle all of the things before the world turns back into the pumpkin of abject failure. I cannot manage my time or my finances or my self-talk without fear. I admit it.

Everything (and one) I know assures me that this is not healthy and must be fixed. But everything (and one) also says that I will be the happiest if I can just learn to harness whatever I consider my weaknesses to be. So... I need to learn to run on my dis-ease? Because I would like to be the happiest. I really would. I would like to know how this madness can somehow be converted into nourishment. What a metabolism that would be.

In the meantime, right, I will just keep making my way. I will continue to do it my way, as it is the way I can always see, even in the dark. I get how some of my weaknesses are gifts. Stubbornness, for example, is a gift, as is terrible taste. After all, no one is ever in line for my tickets, and the thing I want is almost never sold out.

Drawing

Yesterday I was able to sit for several hours and just draw. It was frustrating and wonderful at the same time. Our drawing workshop of sorts, was led by Katrina Van Grouw, artist and author of The Unfeathered Bird (note: you should buy this book, but if you do using this link, I will make a few cents).

Frustrating, because I used to be able to make my hand do what I wanted--and wonderful, because O! the luxury of just sitting and looking and moving my hand and not-thinking. I write and read, because I cannot imagine any other way to spend my time. But, I do the other things I do, like knit, cook, draw, practice yoga, run--all to keep from flying apart into a million panicked, crazy pieces.  

The less time in the day I can devote to those things that comfort me, the more likely I am to rail against the universe and cry randomly. Sometimes it's easy to know a thing and still forget it, is I guess what I'm saying.

The drawings that came out of the workshop weren't great works of art, but that's beside the point. I loved the shiny silver smudges along the the skin of my hand, loved the sound of the graphite scraping off slowly in arcs.

I've also gotten a few acceptances in the recent past, which I hope to share news of soon. Until then, I'm going to re-arrange my schedule a bit to make sure I can get in that good stuff more as the semester draws to a frantic, harried close.  

New digs

I've moved the blog to Squarespace. Still arranging everything just so, but this will be the place for the next two years or so. Let me know what you think.

Driving is different from riding

In the morning, I get to take a left turn at Albuquerque. Driving is stressful for me. As a result, I eat poorly on the road, play the music too loud, and get into weird pissing contests with other drivers. I get the crappy food and music, but I don't know why that last one happens.

Part of it must be a deep-rooted sense of injustice. I think: Aggressive drivers should not be able to push other drivers around! They should be sanctioned or reprimanded, or at the very least be made to understand how their jerky behavior impacts others. Not like I'm some avenging freeway angel or anything--I think I just want to stand up to car bullies. But, that can be dangerous. And when I'm full of soylent green from a truckstop and my synapses feel all bare and ungrounded, I forget. And when I forget, what's really going on (a road trip, not grade-school recess all over again), I slip into outrage too easily. And then I am on the offensive. What a silly spiral.

When I checked into this fancy pants Motel 6, an AARP member (he asked for the discount when he checked in after me) held the door for me and said, "You kept passing me." I chuckled, amiably, I hope. He didn't seem pissed off--but as I walked away, it occurred to me that he might be. Was I an asshole out there to him?  I imagined how I'd've felt if he were any one of the esteemed septuagenarians who have shared their knowledge (or homes) with me in the last year. How mortified would I have been to have accidentally (or, more honestly: unintentionally) been a road ass to Paul J or John W, for example? Ugh. And then, shouldn't everyone be worth the same respect until they've demonstrated that they don't deserve it? Double ugh.

Tomorrow, in any case, I will try to channel Bugs, rather than Daffy. I'll try to have more empathy, if kindness isn't yet possible.

20130628-224940.jpg

At the zoo-oo-oo / At the zoo-oo-oo

zoostrip

This morning, I got to meet two new species of African vultures and hang out in and around their exhibit at the Phoenix zoo. Their senior keeper is fantastic and will be a great help in the future. Man, I sure hope someone pays me for this job, someday.

For the gallery, click here: Africa via Phoenix

How traveling is like drinking too much. Or, on the eve of my departure.

You always regret the last drink you had. The one you think knocked you over the edge of this is one heck of a hangover into the pit of am I dead? Maybe I'm dead and this is what hell will be like forever. If it weren't for that last shot of Jamesons.. oww my head.  Never the fifteen beers before it. This is the second summer in a row that I have traveled at length on my own. Ever, really. I'm not sure if I'm getting better at it or not, but at least this time I remembered q-tips and aspirin.

Some of the feelings I had in certain cities surprised me (I'm looking at you, Amsterdam & Vienna). It's hard being a good capitalist consumer-tourist when you know too much. And, Paris. Oh goddamn you, Paris you piece of shit heart breaker. I definitely did not see the town of my art-school-girl dreams in either of our best lights considering the crowds and all my money troubles, but I'm willing to give it another shot someday. Next time, I won't do that city on my own.

Part of the reason for this trip was to see if I could come up with enough material for a book chapter or two, and to see if it was a subject I'd want to keep exploring for a year or two more... And, wow, I have some thinking to do, which is all I'd like to say about that at this point.

I made some new friends and had some wholly new experiences, which should be the two most important aspects of travel (in my opinion). And I learned a little bit more about my limitations. Didn't I once love crowds? That time has passed. Also, to not spend money, I really REALLY really need to just not have it. Good thing I've picked the career I have.

Gardens. I lust after them everywhere I go... but I still don't know whether that means I need a more like forever home or a just a hot gardener.

Below are the pictures from my tourist day in Paris. When I post my Instagrams, you will see how hard I tried to be stoked, even though the cold and the crowds and the asshats and the credit card rejections and the junk food. Because, MONTMARTE and NOTRE DAME and CREPES and the SEINE and etc. It's a case of expectations, to be sure... but in this case, I didn't realize I had them until my trip was in full swing. They grew organically out of an otherwise awesome trip. In other cities I had friends (or friends of friends)--and this makes a lot of difference when you don't speak the language.

>>>But for the record I TRIED TO SPEAK THE STUPID LANGUAGE (she raged, bitterly). Yeah, my French is shitty and Jeanne Bangs would be appalled--but I did try.<<<

And so Paris becomes more and more like a night of binge drinking--beginning with such good intentions and ending with a litany to justify one's regrets.

Each long trip seems to end so stressfully--is it because I know that it's all over soon and I don't want it to be, or is it that I am already lamenting everything I couldn't do and taking it out on myself? Or is it just that I am tired of not sleeping in my own bed and not doing my laundry and not knowing where anything is or how to use the freaking toilet (sometimes it's a hole in the ground and sometimes it costs €.70 and sometimes it is "sanitized" after each use which means you need to hurry the fuck out of it)?

I know, for one thing, that I am very tired of buying each meal. The next time I travel for an extended period of time, it will need to be somewhere with a kitchen. My favorite breakfasts all month were at the homes of friends, and two of the best later-in-the day meals I had on this trip were in a kitchen in Haringsee, Austria. The first was a Niçoise salad with  homemade dark sourdough and the second, simply potatoes and asparagus--both farm-fresh. Don't get me wrong, I had some great food... but I ate way too many cheap white rolls and not nearly enough eggs, too.

Speaking of eggs, I have got to get a couple of egg cups. All over Europe, the coolest thing to do is soft boil eggs. By the time I finally got some eggs, they were all soft-boiled, and they were the best ever, so I want to make them a habit (so much more tidy than poached! plus, cute egg cups!). Granted, the egg thing sort of detracts from my drinking metaphor. I'm so damn tired that I'm okay with that.

On that note, I am going to try to sleep for the next 10 hours so that tomorrow involves a bare minimum of defeated/exhausted crying jags. Here are my pictures from one day of Paris tourism, where I seemed to have missed almost everything REALLY great, but managed not to miss even one single heaving mass of tourists. Click here.

5 reasons that bad travel days happen to good people

1. Lack of sleep. I have been going to bed late (the sights to see are too many! the conversation is too good! so many photos to download and upload!) and getting up early (travel always seems to require getting up early--need to work on that for next time). Part of this is weird time stuff, part of it is middle of the night texts from people who have forgotten or didn't know I'm abroad, part of it is weird hotel/motel/nature sounds that wake me up (since when does anything wake me up? since now, apparently) and part of it is...
2. Poor nutrition. I mean, it's not like the bread on bread on bread on cheese on pancetta on wine on black coffee is bad for me, per se. But I am bloated to within an inch of my clothes, I'm over sugared and under-worked. And I'm just not drinking enough water or anything else liquid-like. I don't care how much strolling you do through a capital, you aren't going to walk off a croissant and brie with jam for breakfast and then a baguette full of local delicacies for lunch. Not even if you only had HALF a baguette. I was suffering from a serious brain-sugar imbalance by the time the shit was really hitting le ventilateur today. It didn't help my mood or my ability to deal like a grown ass woman. There's a better way to prepare for this kind of travel; I just haven't found it yet. (Where in the luggage do the nuts and dried fruit go, and does that mean no books, because I did buy two books?) And to be fair, speaking of preparation...
3. Failure to properly pre-plan. I can and must and will take some responsibility for my disappointments today. (And while I do, I will acknowledge the smoothness of other transfers and my ability to handle a lot of crazy on other days.) So, I got totally fucked over on the (triple the expected) cost of my metro pass because I didn't realize quite how far out of town my hotel really was. However, I did call the hotel in advance to make sure they could accept a PIN transaction for the room--they said yes, which turned out to be incorrect. As far as the extra fees and shitty treatment at the Lyon train station, followed by the dirty looks on the train and in each subsequent station when I asked anyone for help?--well, I don't know. Maybe if the whole train ticket business had started better, I wouldn't have noticed. Or I would have been able to laugh it off. I don't know. The problem is...
4. Comparative awesomeness of previous days. Yesterday I was hiking in the French Alps, for fuckssake. Even the longest car ride ever the day before yesterday was spent sitting next to an endangered bird. OF COURSE a day of crowded trains full of pissy commuters would be less amazing. Which segues nicely into...
5. Expectations. I really wanted to get to Paris early enough today to meet with my next vulture expert. It really should have been possible, all other things considered. But it wouldn't have been, as too much chaos was unaccounted for (see #3)--and that was a bummer. It is hard not to let expectations rule the day, especially after nearly 3 weeks of almost everything else working out. Expectations are the biggest buzzkills of ever. However, one big bowl of French risotto with chicken and wild mushrooms and a solid glass of red later, and I feel a bit better. Still let down--that's my brand of unshakeable crazy--but calmer at least, and feeling good (to be honest it's more like less dismal, but I'll take it) about tomorrow.

Back to vultures... Austria to France

I spent the last week or so being a tourist with old and new friends in both Rotterdam and Vienna. But now I'm back on the job. I have to get up early in the morning, so a couple of gallery links will have to suffice. The first set is of my first day at Hans' breeding and rehab center, wherein the bird from Helsinki gets his wings bleached and some medical attention given to a broken flight feather. The center has a ton of birds (in addition to vultures, mostly corvids, falcons, owls, and eagles) and other animals. Click here.

The next set is packing up Helsinki, a press conference at Schonbrunn zoo where bird number two gets named "Gerlinde" after a mountain climber, and a drive across the Italian Alps at 140 kph. With one stop. Oof, my back. Click here.

I'm not ashamed to say that one of the highlights was having dinner at a truck stop that served fresh (and perfectly al dente) pasta pomodoro with a white bean salad and an olive oil bread stick. The main highlight though, was sitting next to the vulture the whole way, and having one of those eyes looking at me every now and then.

Mechelen - Day 6 at Planckendael Nature Park

I am too tired today to write a whole post. That happens.

An owl died today; I saw some amazing vulture behavior at the nature park outside of town; I ate another sweet waffle.

To see today's full gallery of pictures, click here: vulture culture

Day 5 in Antwerp - they can't all be winners, kid

By "they," I mean "lunches." Chipz had potential... a deep fried variety pack, a deep fried burger, and fries (no mayo, please). Except, like many good romances, it always looked more delicious in my dreams. Bicky Burger and the accompanying "mixgrill" were all highly processed. So they had that strange spongy quality of tofu lunch meat, or cafeteria chicken. Two of the tots were actually some sort of spicy rice mix, which was good. And the fries, I mean short of frosting them in a condiment, no one can really mess up fries.

So, my hostess is now teasing me for picking the unhealthiest and least satisfying fast food in the whole city. She had suggested McDonalds, at which I scoffed. After we got our burgers, she said that at least McDonald's came from real cows.

I mentioned that I could say with certainty that the chicken that composed a percentage of my chicken tot had almost certainly ate its mother. She replied that the pineapple on her "hawaiian" burger had eaten its mother, too.

I told her, and I still believe it, that McDonald's might have had a better burger, but Chipz ended up being a better story.

Today in observations, we saw the parents being especially attentive. Snowflake fed the chick for the first time in several weeks, and Sir brought new nesting material over to spruce up the nest.

happyfamily

Tomorrow, we will visit the dating aviary at Planckendael nature park. The flooding in parts of Europe as well as administrative delays mean that my road trip is up in the air. The breeding center in Vienna and the reintroduction site in the French Alps are supposed to be amazing... So I hope I don't miss either one. Cross your fingers, everybody!

For the full Day 5 set (a small one, today), click here: eating the inedible

Antwerp - Day 4 small dramas, human and animal

Moving backwards in time, I just got back from the supermarket a short time ago. Nothing will make an American feel quite as privileged as going to a supermarket pretty much anywhere else in the world. Do you want a cup of soup you can microwave? Good luck. How about baby carrots? BABY CARROTS? Laughable. We have salami and head cheese. No, we do not have granola bars. Do you mean a bag of muesli? There is pink lemonade-flavored soda, but no real fruit juice. Here is a tower of the toilet paper they carry. And here, a bin of the bar soap. Do you want a bag with two full-size microwavable hamburgers, each with condiments, cheese and a bun? You will not find Lunchables (though why on Earth were you looking?) or anything even closely resembling them. However, there are 356 kinds of breakfast-cookie-biscuit things with or without chocolate, and an entire shelf devoted to jarred shellfish.

My hotel (and the zoo) are on the edge of a large Orthodox Jewish neighborhood. I got many long stares and dismissive side-eyes at the market. But I was at the market because the bartender at the restaurant across the street/alley from my hotel would not serve me any food. There are half a dozen wooden sandwich boards out front with "Soep mit Brood" and "Koffie en Gebak" and "Bief en Kip" and "ontbijt, lunch en diner"... but when I go in, Do you have any soup? No. Dinner? No. Coffee? No, she says, drying a coffee cup with a bar towel. Everyone in the place staring at me. Okay, I understand, no soup for me. Okay. There was not a single facial expression in the place: they were all as impassive as stones.

K and I spent some time walking around today. I think the coolest thing I saw was 1) Argus pheasant feathers (how are any of these left, anywhere?!); and 2) Cut-throat finches (Amadina fasciata).

We left the zoo to track me down some stamps and sock yarn (not at the same place). We watched many animals for awhile, including an antisocial penguin, standing exactly in a crack in the fabricated rock wall; the heron, back to watch the tigers; a poor female duck being chased by two males in the hippo enclosure; and a bloodthirsty gull trying to snatch a fluffy ball of moorhen chick out of the moat around the lions--but the parents chased it off. They can't fly well, but they still threw themselves at the gull, twice their size. First one, then the other, leaped at the stones on which the gull perched. Three times, the gull swooped down over the water and was beat back by the little brown-black wings and red bills. And in the end, all seven little nerf balls of baby down made it back to their nest box.

Before that, first thing in the morning, I got to see mother and father Eurasian black vulture go into full defensive display when two keepers had to rake up their leftover bones and scrub out their wading/drinking pool. Such flapping of wings and erect shoulder, ear, and tail feathers! Sir and Snowflake turned into hopping bull-headed turkeys with 10 foot wingspans for a moment, and then Snowflake settled down in the nest alongside the chick, as though nothing were wrong at all. K calls this "pretending there is no chick." She flattened down low in the bowl of the nest, her puffed up feathers relaxed down, and turned her head almost away from the keepers. Meanwhile, Sir continued to spread his wings and hop from stump to stump.

It wasn't until the keepers were not only out of the enclosure, but back to the front of it with the rest of us, that the birds both calmed down. Even little Orion had made like a rug and had to shake out a bit after.

For a full set of Day 4 pictures, click here: zoo-tastic

hippo

Day 3 - Antwerp: Belgian eats, Rubens' house and the botanical garden

I woke up as late as I could, which turned out to be eleven. I'm still struggling with jetlag, and keep popping awake at 3 am--here's hopping I'm cured. Before I mention what I saw today, here are the things I ate:

• Breakfast: two slices of fresh wheat sourdough, a croissant, and a piece of baguette, with a tray of toppings, including butter, hazelnut chocolate spread, and fruit jams. Plus orange juice and coffee. Multiple breads and jam is such a standard breakfast that you can get it at fast food restaurants. I paid way too much for mine, however, because it was touted as organic. I would have had eggs, too, but 2 organic eggs was €3.90. Or, over five bucks.
• Snack: a Belgian Waffel with chocolate. WORTH EVERY WARM MELTY BITE.
• Lunch: another local specialty, Belgian fries. The women in front of me topped their fries with mayo, peanut sauce, and onions. The frietjes shop (they are sold in their own shops, like ice cream) had many toppings, but I couldn't imagine most of them tasting good. So I just asked for some mayo.

  

  What I got, was so much mayonnaise that I wasn't sure I could eat any of the fries. I scraped most of it off onto one of the several little sheets of newsprint paper they gave me. I used to like dipping fries in mayo... I'm not sure I can ever eat that again.

• Dinner: The Belgians had frankly let me down. I got a "Scandinavian special" sandwich on my way back to the hotel. It was a sunflower seedy, crunchy dark baguette with salmon, cream cheese, capers and escarole.

I wandered through the Meirstraat district again, but this time everything was closed. What a world, where every shop is closed one day a week! The pubs and restaurants and museums were open, so it would seem to be a day to do things, rather than buy things.

The first stop was Peter Paul Rubens' house. The entrance fee was not substantial and I hoped to play a bit voyeur. But the house is so well-traveled that it is roped and arrowed into a force flow path. The walk is so narrowly defined that it's more display than home. I went through twice (which must be rare, as it weirded out at least two of the guards) and tried the second time to imagine the rooms as spaces lived in. I looked at the paintings of game on prep tables and tried to imagine having to light all those fires and the house dogs fighting over bones. I tried to imagine the dailiness of going to the garden, twisting out the linens, and painting in a studio with 30 foot ceilings and high windows letting in the diffuse northern light.

(The kitchen)

(The garden)

I'm not a rabid Rubens fan, but the house is full of a variety of period artists. My favorite paintings were "Peasants going to market, the 1630s" by Jan Boeckhorst and Frans Snijders (the hissing swan! the artichokes on their stems!),

and "Two dogs in a pantry" (fighting over a cow's head) by Snijders, alone.

Finally (of course), "Still life with dead birds" by Alexander Adriaenssen. This painting was over the oven/cooking hearth. The kitchen was too dark for a good picture of this one (though you can see a bit of it above), but here it is in full glory on the Rubens house website.

Next, I went to the botanische tuin. It was a small, free affair with a sign at the entrance that boasted of their large collection of  medicinal herbs (I noticed several valerians and Artemisia absinthium) and tried to dispel the (still lingering) rumor that the garden once grew leeches in its ponds for St. Elizabeth's hospital. The garden had a really wonderful mini-exhibit of strange ceramic "flowers" in one of its lawns. Only the entrance sign was translated, however, so I don't know any more about it.

Mostly though, the garden was an opportunity to lie down on the grass in the warm sun for a moment.

I could see many tourists rushing off to their next site, and it made me glad for my modest goals for the day. I hurried through nothing. (Except that waffel. MAN.)

For the full set of Day 3 photos, click here: tourism.