Written in caps

The joy that is walking slowly through airports

Written in London, the capital of England, the UK, and Great Britain.

I remember a TV advert of some kind from my boyhood. It showed OJ Simpson running through the airport. I don't know what they were advertising, but if I saw that commercial now I would never buy whatever they were selling, even if the ad didn't star an un-convicted murderer.

I'm 1/2 way through my trip DCA-ORD-LRH-LUN. I have a long layover here in Heathrow. As well as allowing me to suck up free food and drinks and recline on the posh couches in the several-hectare lounge, the length of the layover allows me one of my favorite passtimes: walking through airports. Very. Slowly. While those around me run or do that weird walk-run thing with big black bags dangling from arms and shoulders banging against their (ample) hips and a wild-eyed panic growing on their faces, I stroll placidly, tugging my little rolling briefcase, safe in introvert-world, created in part by my iPod. But it's more than just smugness. Walking slowly through airports means many things, only a portion of which I can identify:

• I have lots of time so will not miss my next flight which would knock down my delicate itinerary like the shaky string of dominoes it is.
• Because I have a layover, I will be pampered in the lounge with good food, good drink, fast wifi, and flight announcements done in polite English accents in that golf announcer sotto voce.
• I will get on the plane in plenty of time, so I wil find a place for my luggage and settle in while the plane fills

Beyond this I can't explain the euphoria that fills me as I stroll beside, rather than on, those moving walkways.

Change of seasons in DC

When I lived in Addis, there were two seasons: rainy and dry. They were marked by the rain and not much else. Being near the equator, sunrise was at about the same time every day (6:00 a.m.), all year long. The temperatures varied a little, but only by about five degrees or so.

Living in North America again, I notice the change of seasons. For example, last weekend the park rangers drained the fountains, pools, and cascade at Meridian Hill Park, near my house. And the trees outside my window have started to turn colors.

And when I took Toby out this morning at 5:30 it was 42 degrees, windy, and raining. 

Strange bedfellows?

Washington is, first and foremost, a political town. There's a saying that here, national news is local news. Or something. So, seeing this sticker during this morning's dog walk wasn't surprising.

After all, you'd expect some hybrid-driving tree hugger to be for the socialist candidate, right? Just like you'd expect a Hummer to have a sticker for the war-for-oil guy. But this one is a puzzler:

What does knitting have to do with politics? This made me think of some of my favorite quirky bumper stickers:

• [Nuke the Gay Whales] (spotted by Mom)
• [Illiterate? Write now for free help] (On Mom's car--she's a reading teacher.) 
• [I eat tofu and I vote] (Spotted by yours truly in Boulder, CO. Where else?)
• [Visualize whirled peas] 

Ongoing transformation of my neighborhood: The Ritz

It's been interesting hearing stories about my neighborhood. When people hear where I live, they like to tell me about "the old days" when the corner of 17th and Euclid was a police-free zone made for hookers and dope dealers and peddlers of street crime and violence of all flavors. My realtor, who lives nearby, says that in the 80s, even at dusk he would walk down the center of the street, to avoid the muggers lurking in every doorway. It's still kind of a sketchy area. I'm pretty close to 18th street, which on Friday and Saturday nights turns into a frat-boy and Brittany wanna-be haven. Mix hormones, cheap beer, and young men showing off, and you get the expected fights, car wrecks, stabbings, and a shooting or two. Lately, bands of young men have been roaming the area late at night, roughing up people for their cell phones and iPods.

But even in the five blocks that make up my little strip, things are changing before my eyes. Row houses are being bought, gutted, and kitted out with all-new interiors, swanky new porches, and tidy little flower gardens. Two apartment back yards that were full of trash (and rats) have been cleaned up and fitted with picnic benches. One sees children playing there now. The Marriott hotel chain bought the old Christian Science church on the corner and is turning it into a boutique hotel, the first real hotel in Adams Morgan during this era.

And now, across the street from me, the old Ritz building is being fixed up. Since I moved here, the Ritz has been vacant and condemned. When the light was right I could see punched-in walls. The original set of apartment mailboxes were torn out and laying in a pile of rubble on the lobby floor. Then, about a month ago, the construction crews arrived and started gutting it, floor by floor. The workers are taking out eveyrthing but the load-bearing walls, heaving everything out the windows and down large trash chutes into dumpster after dumpster. There's lots of speculation about what the Ritz will become. I'm betting expensive condos, and hoping the old Ritz will once again live up to its name.

There are people who say the "gentrification" of neighborhoods like mine is a bad thing. These people live in Maryland.

The Sunday Afternoon Drumming

One of the many things I love about living in DC (and A-M) is the diversity. The diversity of thinking, races, cultures, outlooks, makes everything more interesting. This diversity is reflected in a regular Sunday-Afternoon/Evening event in Meridian-Hill Park, near my house. Every Sunday at about 4:00 or so, a group of people appear to play drums together.

It started with a couple of guys and has snowballed into a major event that at times sees 20+ drums all playing together and scores more listening, clapping, and dancinng. The rhythms range from West African, to South American, to East African, and American. You see everything from huge bongos to small hand drums to full jazz/rock-style drum kits. Nobody is in charge and the atmosphere is fun, accepting, and very loose.

 The Sunday drumming has morphed from a small musical gathering to a weekly cultural fair, with jugglers, people on stilts, frisbee players, and recently, people trying to walk makeshift tight-ropes strung between trees. Families on blankets with babies and dogs camp next to Ethiopians burning incense and that most-hip Jamaican dreadlocked couple dancing tirelessly until the last drum stops.

D&J are visiting and we went to the drumming yesterday. I forget who said "I don't think we're in Traverse City any more."

Things not allowed east of Connecticut Ave.

I was recently chatting with a friend who was having a friend from Fairfax (VA) over for coffee (in Adams Morgan). We joked that her SUV might not be allowed in the neighborhood. Then we started a silly conversation about other things not allowed in A-M, and came up with the equally silly list below. Any others?

• SUVs
• Mini-vans
• Cars without dents or scrapes or 27 left-leaning bumper stickers
• Soccer-ball stickers on vehicles
• "honor student" bumper stickers
• Bush/Cheney bumper stickers
• McCain bumper stickers
• Suburban-mom "jogging" suits in that weird crinkly fabric
• Velcro sneakers
• Dockers
• Chain stores (Gap, Banana Republic, etc, except Blockbuster, but nobody cool goes there)
• Chain restaurants (except Starbuck's and MacDonald's, but nobody cool goes there, either)
• Running shoes (as opposed to Converse All-Stars)

You know you're not on a US domestic flight when...

All modern in-flight entertainment systems have one of those flight information channels that scrolls a map of the plane's current location along with information such as the time you'll land, time at current location, etc. My flight from Addis to Heathrow stopped in Amman, Jordan. I assume this is why the flight info channel also carried the screen below in its rotation. (Sorry about the photo quality: it's the product of a low-res seat-back screen, a so-so phone cam, and in-flight turbulence.)

Some things have changed, a lot has stayed the same

In the nine months since I left Addis, there have been some noticeable changes:

• There is a new business hotel, the Jupiter. The InterContinental is set to open in a matter of weeks. (It's about time the Hilton and Sheraton had some competition.)
• Quite a few roads are newly repaved, widened, and smooth.
• Even more big offices and condos are under construction, especially around the new German House area.
• The Hilton Lobby Bar is bigger (but is still *the* place to see and be seen in Addis for the happy-hour crowd).
• The traffic on Bole Rd is even worse. I didn't think this was possible.

A lot has stayed the same, too:

• The entire Blogspot domain is still censored, er, unavailable due to "technical difficulties." I can't get to my pals Lastewie or Realmudgarden. (If I even try to link to them from this post, the post won't save.)
• The internet is at least as slow, and now even less reliable.
• Local food is super-tasty, plentiful, and almost give-away in price.
• Service staff understands that they're service staff, and care about, well, giving good service.
• Every single person will give you a smile and "hello" if you start it. Every one.
• Serenade is the best European food in Addis, period.
• Tomoca coffee coffee shop and roastery is pure, unadulterated, coffee nirvana.
  

Your good works, at work

During my walk around the Hilton end of Bole (as opposed to the Airport end of Bole) I decided to embrace my visitor/tourist status and cruise the trinket shops by the post office. There are a couple dozen little stalls. Each stall sells one of two kinds of merchandise: T-shirts and Ethiopian cloth items (dresses, shirts, shawls, etc), or wood carvings and metal Orthodox Christian crosses. While waiting for the stalls to open I stopped for a machiato at one of those non-tourist places that has ETV (the state-owned only TV channel) and an Ethiopian music CD both cranked to 11. At 10:00 in the a.m.

While surfing past the T-shirt shops looking for the elusive "Ishy" shirt in Amharic, I saw this guy. For my non-Midwestern readers, Meijer is a grocery store chain. Apparently they once sponsored a charity walk near Rose City, MI (see print shop name) and everybody got one of these t-shirts. So if you wonder what happens to the clothes you donate at the church clothing drive or whatever, at least one of them made it onto the back of an Ethiopian T-shirt hawker.

Top 5 things I miss about being a non-visitor in Addis

... which is a convoluted headline, but, after living here for so long, now being a visitor is a bother in some ways, such as:

1. Not being in my old neighborhood ("Bole Novis," or "Bole Rwanda"). The Hilton is far down Bole Rd. from my old 'hood. I could cab it, but that takes away from the Sunday-a.m., stroll down to Kaldi's for a machiato and the paper.
2. Walking into my kitchen for a snack.
3. Being able to borrow a Land Cruiser from the office. My hiking partners bailed, and with them went my transportation to Menagesha forest. I could hire a car, but...
4. Not being part of real Addis: I'm part of the visitor industry. I'm separate from the real world and I miss it.
5. Home-made (Ethiopian) food

OTOH, I love the Hilton. Unlike I.R., I really enjoy the Hilton's worn 70's vibe. Even when I lived here, I liked coming to the gym and pool here, something I did almost every day. I'm out in the garden wing which is all overgrown vines and uncut grass and dated, post-modern geometric architecture. People here are nice, they laugh politely at my restaurant Amharic, the guys at the gym remember me, there is a Novis supermarket (with soy milk and good wine) on the grounds. So... things could be a lot worse.