Hasta la vista Antigua

The weather here in Antigua is almost like clockwork. Its bright and sunny in the morning, starts getting cloudy by noon, rains from 3 to 5 and then gets chilly by evening. For the whole week that we stayed here it skipped this routine once. Even when it rains it pours for a few minutes and settles down to a unsteady drizzle.

The city is all but 10 blocks with the downtown taking up 4 square blocks. There is not much to do in Antigua. It is a popular stop for people because it is pretty close to Guatemala City but much safer. Even though we only met people who were more than willing to help us as we asked around for directions and help in general in Guatemala City, the ominous sign of a security guard with a shotgun at every storefront told something.

Our stay in Antigua was brief but eventful. Three people made an impression upon me. First, there was Oscar, our driver to Lake Atitlan. The fact that he was cheerful at 0530 hours and waited for us at the hostel caught my attention. I prompty fell asleep and woke up just before we entered Panajachel. The road winds down into the town. It was fascinated to watch Oscar, who, whilst whistling to the radio, would go beep, beep on the horn look out and throw a salute, or show the "V" sign to someone on the road, whom I presume was someone he knew. It got more and more frequent as we headed closer to the town. At the town though, he was calling out. Definitely a popular guy.

We met Alex Montoya at the travel agency. He was our guide for the day trip, but became a friend quickly. He speaks three languages, Spanish, English and Italian, has a degree in Business Administration, worked for a bank, then a hotel and now works with his brother at this travel agency. He let us tag along with him even though we did not pay for a guide. We sure were glad we tagged along. He's good friends with the locals, showed us places we would'nt have found otherwise. For e.g. In San Pedro, he took us inside a Mayan temple, a tiny house which houses the Mayan deity. I would have never guessed the diety would wear a cowboy hat, and smoked a cigar. One of the prayer rituals involves the devotee and the Shaman(the priest) each dousing half a bottle of local moonshine, losing themselves and communicating with the supreme being.

I really liked Alex's personality. For instance, as we walked out of a restaurant, a fraggled kid walked up to Alex to greet him. After they shook hands, I noticed Alex slipped Q1.00 into the kids palm. I felt touched that he knew the kid would be there and had the Q1.00 ready in his hands as we walked out. It wasn't just that though, every place that he took us, the people there liked him, be it the Mayan woman who demonstrated how to tie their traditional headgear, the woman who worked at the women's association or the people at the coffee shop. A place has two kinds of beauty, the ambiance and the inhabitants. Alex let us experience both and I thank him for that.  If you are ever at Lake Atitlan and want to experience not just see the place, Alex is your guy. He can be reached at alexmontoyasol@hotmail.com

Finally, there is Julia. We had signed up for week long Spanish lessons since we knew we were going to be in Antigua for a week. Julia was our teacher from the second day onwards since our first teacher did not speak English. As our Spanish improved, we grew closer to Julia. We found out that we could eat Lunch and Dinner with her for a tenth of the price we would have paid at a restaurant. We would have stayed at her place if not for the fact that she did not have Internet. Hopefully the information I gave her will help her get it setup for others to come and stay.

The last day we were in Guatemala we ate with Julia's family. She has a son and two grandsons who live with her. The broken Spanish combined with beer gave way for some interesting conversations. I was taken by how quickly Julia trusted us and let us into her life. I sensed a kind of motherly attention to detail be it the Spanish she taught or the food that she gave us. If you are looking to learn Spanish in Antigua, you can reach Julia at +502-7832-3466

I don't expect to meet a Julia or an Alex everywhere but these kind of experiences are the reason why I embarked on this trip. Lets hope my luck continues.

Hola

We reached Antigua today after sleeping off two days in Guatemala City. We found out by chance that the Embajada De Brasil was close by so we applied for a Visa. We figured we go around Guatemala and pick up our passports when they are ready.

On our way to Antigua, Subha showed me a list of hostels we could stay at. I saw the name Umma Gumma and said, "This is where we should stay. We can't be missing chances like staying at Dai Nonni and then at Umma Gumma". Now that we have checked in though, we are moving out to a better hostel tomorrow.

Subha also enrolled us in Spanish classes. Four hours a day for the next 5 days. Apparently Antigua is well known for their Spanish Schools. I can't wait to annoy everyone after the classes are over. If you don't believe me, just ask Subha about my attention to grammar ever since I took my GMAT.

We are going to hike up Pacaya Volcano tomorrow. It erupted last in 2010 and apparently spewed out lava 5 days ago.

More later...

Heading out

I sit on the plane wondering how everything fell into to place to make this trip possible. I feel it's largely because we have wonderful group of friends who came through and stood by us to help get things done. So I begin this chapter by thanking you with all my heart.

I am also fortunate to have a wonderful travel companion. She quit her job to accompany me on this trip. In fact, she mentioned yesterday that it felt scary to not have a job and a house to go back to. Not many have the courage to do that for somebody else, let alone for your own sake. I don't think a thank you will do justice, I just will have to stay eternally in debt.

I have wanted to do such a trip for quite some time now but my reasons now have changed since the first time the idea came to me. It has become less of an exotic adventure, and more of a necessity.

When I was training at the Rescue Squad, I was told that as a care giver, you are in charge of patient care. One of the things that I was taught is that in order to stop yourself from getting lost in the details of patient care where you are stuck in the moment, you have to step away mentally and think of the bigger picture. For e.g. what is to be done next, is everything that needs to be done being done. This trip is a culmination of that realization that I was not doing that for my own self. So, I am hoping to taking a step away from my life and learn to watch, listen and empathise. Hopefully it will then help me realize my place in this world.

This is the main reason why I wanted to leave the trip open ended. We can just go where the journey takes us. I felt that we can discover a lot more that way. Th goal is more of what we learn rather than how much we see.

All this said, let me get into the details of what we are carrying for this trip. This Google Doc has the list of items we have packed. A big thanks to my cousin for organizing the items into this list. It is a little heavy on electronics, but that is because I plan to get some work done whenever I can. Mainly so that I don't get so far behind when I get back. Moreover, it is also needed if we need to look up some info when we get lost or to reserve a room quickly.

Our first stop is Guatemala, and the rough plan is to head south until we reach Brazil and then head to Africa. If you have any ideas or suggestions please feel to reach me. The links are on the right.

Lease Takeover

How would you like to live in a place where you can see the National Cathedral from your living room.

Not enough you say, then how about a beautiful sunset, in fact you will see a new one every day. I have lived at this apartment for three years and have yet to see a sunset that I have seen before. If you don't believe me, look at the album below.

Still not sold, how about living 2 blocks from the Silver Spring Metro Station. 2 blocks from Downtown Silver Spring, 15 min to Downtown DC, walking distance to Grocery stores and a 7-eleven downstairs for those emergency supply needs. The management is building a recreation room, yoga studio et all in the common area.

Our lease ends on November 15th so we need you to take over our lease by September 15. After the lease period ends you will have an option to renew the lease. So, whether you need a place to stay for two months or just looking for a place to stay, this is where you should be.

The apartment is 1100 sq ft with two bedrooms and two bathrooms. The washer dryer is just outside the front door. The building has a garage in the basement though there is some renovation going on there at the moment. The rent is $1910 and the utilities come to around $100/month.

Please contact me at 240-479-9078 if you are interested.

Views from our House

Need tips for backpacking

This is a short blog post just to get us started.

We are heading out on a backpacking trip around the world for 4 to 6 months.We plan to stay mostly in hostels and the occasional hotel and camp sites. I have put together a list of items that I think we need to carry with us or have it done and ready before we leave. Its the first draft, so its not organized yet. The list contains items that have been added as they come to me. Once I get the list finalized, I plan to organize it in categories.

The link below is a link to a google doc which you can edit. Please add items to the list as you deem necessary. I am hoping the collective intelligence will help us prepare better for the trip.

Click here for the doc

Reddit Revelation

I have realized something and I have to thank Reddit for this. If you don't know about that site, please do so on your own accord, I don't want to held responsible for your lost productivity.

Reading through posts of people posting stuff like this for example, one after the other, until you realize most of the quirks that you thought were only yours aren't just yours anymore. I mean, who would have thought someone takes two steps per square!

So, here's what I come to understand. You are not alone, there are a lot of people who share a lot of your interests. At the same time you are unique, and its the combination of all your qualities that sets you apart. Finally, If you feel lonely or left out, all you have to do is open up, you will be surprised at how many people, strangers they may be, feel the same way or are willing to help you out.

Here Nicky Nicky Nicky

I have been house sitting my friends cat Nicky for the past week feeding him and playing with him. Hes fun to be with, especially when he walks up to you, then drops, literally, to the ground right beside you, does a quick rollover, and the does it again one more time. He reaches out with his front paw trying to touch you when he is rolling over. Weird but funny.

He spends the day indoors and prowls the neighbourhood at night. Last Wednesday, I had duty at the squad. I fed him and since he wasn't interested in going outside, I left him in the house. I come back the next morning to see him outside waiting for me! I didn't think too much into it. I figured, maybe one of my friends tenants let him out.

The exact opposite happens Friday. I let him out, and find him inside the house Saturday morning. This started getting interesting! Not enough to pique my curiosity though. I was too busy with other stuff that needed to get done.

Saturday evening was my weekend duty. I left leaving him indoors. I come back Sunday evening and hes outside. Now now, this cannot be! I had to find out how hes doing this.

I go downstairs check with the tenants but they are gone for the weekend. I then search all over the house for some  kind of opening. All the windows are either shut or have mesh on the outside. After a 15 minutes of searching I found this 2 inch wide cut on the duct tape by the bedroom window A/C unit. I did not want to cover it, but still wanted to find out if he was using. Oddly enough, Misery by Stephen King came to mind. Specifically how Annie Wilkes glues strands of her hair to things to figure out if Paul Sheldon is snooping around the house. NO, I DID NOT USE MY HAIR, but used a book to close the gap partially instead. If I find the book on the floor I know he has used this route. I also needed to know by tomorrow since I was leaving for NJ the next day. I set the whole thing up and wait that night.

I purposefully come in late the next morning to check on him. He's inside waiting for me. No surprise there I guess. I rush into the bedroom to check the book. It was still standing! Wait! this cannot be?!! How the hell is he doing this? I checked the whole house again. There really is other means of getting in or out. I look down and say, "Dude, how are you doing this?". He turns towards me, blinks slowly and says, "Meooowww".

Disappointed, I start to head downstairs when I realize the mail has been picked off the floor. That means someone did come in this morning! I guess he came in with them. I look back at him. He purrs and meows. My plan didn't work because he probably didn't have to use his entrance. Thats good news, but not good enough for me.

The fact is, and people who know me will tell you, I am not a patient guy. I need things to happen and happen right away. If they don't I will probably keep at it until they happen. Not this time though. Nicky has not just outsmarted me, but taught me a lesson in patience. I was thinking of emailing my friend when she gets back and have her test my theory but I am going to hold back myself till I get back. Its almost a month, but its gonna seem like a year. :)  

Oh..mom

This conversation that I had with my mom once just came back to me.

Me: Enn friend oda kalyanam churchulae aachu [My friend got married in a church.]
Mom: Naan kooda Surchkku(pronounced like Surreal) poirikein. [I have been to the Surch too]
Me: Starting to laugh, Gum...Surch illae, Church! [its not Surch, its Church!]
Mom: (Getting defensive)SARI DA, SEARCH!, podhuma?! [Ok..SEARCH, enough?!]
Me: I broke into laughter.

I love you Gum...you make my day, many a day, and not just by being funny.

Acts of appreciation

People will always try to do their job, but knowing that they are appreciated helps them enjoy doing it. I could see their faces light up when I thanked people for working on Christmas day.

Sometimes even a simple act of smiling at a stranger can lift up his/her spirit. Who knows what was going on in their lives that day that seeing you smile gave them hope.

Go ahead, make someones day :).

Happy New Year people.

Expressions - A Full Cycle

Well..almost :)

I grew a little

I attribute it to two very different things that happened in the last three weeks.

Each in their own way taught me not to ride on habits.  Habits stagnate your mind.

As some may know, this is my second year at a First Responder at my local Rescue Squad.  So far, none of the patients have died under my care, nor did they have serious conditions or injuries. Maybe I had assumed what I needed was to provide the care required at the moment, and then get them to the hospital as quickly as possible.  Then everything would be alright.  That had worked up until three weeks ago when I had a patient coughing up blood when I got there, and then she coughed up some lung tissue en route.  I got her to the hospital in record time, and felt that I had done all the right things in taking care of her.

She had had lung cancer and had been in remission until that sunny spring day.  I probably knew it all along, but a day later, I finally realized that she is not alright, and when I was taking care of her, she would have had this realization.  This hemoptysis meant the cancer was back.  I now feel that I could have done better, that in a certain way I was not present for her at a critical time. 

The second experience was very different but no less revealing.  I played paint ball for the first time two weeks ago.  It is a fast paced, light hearted sport that we played in the woods.  Two teams face off against each other, and one has to eliminate the other within a set time.  Simple enough.

I got "killed" in almost all the games which is not surprising, most of us did.  But towards the end of the day, I decided to play the game as if it were real: "I could die if I got shot".  I got so into it that when the shots were fired at me, I really felt my life was threatened. What rattled me, was that I could not see where the shots were coming from, and there was no way I could retaliate.  All I knew was there were two guys shooting at me and I HAD to get out.  And I could not see how.  Fortunately, my teammates took them out.

Still in the game, I moved on, but for the life of me, I could not spot anybody.  Everything looked lifeless in the shadows.  What if this were real, I thought to myself, "If I have to do this everyday, for sure would go crazy".

In my hyper alert state, I turned at the sound of a twig, and opened fire.  The white band on his arm told me I had taken out one of my own.

I realized what soldiers live with and what they have to give of themselves.

Birds eye view

The feeling of soaring in the air with silence around you and the world beneath is something I cannot express. One has to go through the emotion to understand what I mean. No offense to sky divers, but apart from the rush you get at the moment you jump head first, the feeling was not the same throughout.

It was a cool October morning when I took off. The moment you take off in itself is a feeling to savour. You can literally see, hear and feel the ground being left behind. We were towed to 2500 ft by a ultralight aircraft and let go. The aircraft dives back for the next tow as soon as the line is cut so you go from noisy to silent ambiance in a moment. As far as the flight goes, you are constantly gliding back down and mostly what you can do is turn left, right or dive, unless, and this happened to us, you catch a thermal, which took us up to 4000 ft very quickly. It felt like the wind was telling me, let me take you up there, the view is much better.

If you liked what you just read, believe me it only gets better.

 

  

P.S:  The camera is attached to the wing and is controlled by a lever near the pilot. Comments on my head gear are welcome.

Between CardeROCK and a ...

It was perfect weather last Saturday. I wasnt sure where my skill levels had fallen to since I hadnt climbed all winter, but this climb put my mind to rest.

P.S: Sorry about the chatter in the background. I am also not that fat as I appear in the video. In fact now theres proof, cameras do add 10 pounds.

Misnomer

I was talking to my mom this morning and during the course of conversation she mentioned how her "Aadu Sadhai" was hurting. I quickly corrected her saying it was her"Kannukutti Sadhai" not "Aadu Sadhai", since it is her "calf muscle" not "goat muscle".

Anybody agree/disagree/agree to disagree ?

What are you, a Gay Fish?

One of the funnier episodes of South Park, featuring Kanye West.

http://www.southparkstudios.com/episodes/220762

What do you do when the mob comes after you

I got into a fight last Saturday with a bunch of people. I would say about 100 of'em. Fortunately, I had a weapon handy.





It was world pillow fight day. I came out with a shiner around my left eye. I had so much fun that evening, felt so good to beat people up. I am kidding of course, but seriously...

This does not mean you don't have to work today

Me and another colleague decided that enough is enough and turned one of colleagues office by 180 deg. I was standing at the entrance when I took this picture. Every little detail has been rotated 180 deg. If you can make out, the screen is upside down and mouse left handed (I forgot to move it to the left side but it's a left handed mouse).

Unfortunately, I wasn't in early enough to see her reaction, but she was mad for sure. She sat in front of her computer unable to do anything until I got in. I waited for a hour pretending to be busy before setting it right.

Well, I did buy her lunch to make up for this.

The prank just happened to occur on April fool's day.

It only took me 17 years

But I finally understood one of my English lessons from 5th std(grade) maybe. It was called "Stone Soup", heres the wikipedia link(don't go there just yet). Just to be clear, I googled the link only after I figured it all out by myself.

My lesson was a little different than the one in Wikipedia. It goes about like this. A waylaid traveller, hungry and tired, knocks on the door of this miserly woman's house on a cold, dark and rainy night. He asks for food which she denies, so he asks if he can just cook some stone soup for himself. Now, she is curious, since she can save a lot of money by drinking this instead, so she lets him in.

He starts boiling a pot of water, and then puts the stone in it. He keeps her engaged during this time, the topic, I cant recollect. Anyway, he pretends to taste the soup, then says, "mmm..tasty, but if I had some carrots and some other vegetables, it will make it even better". The lady hands him some vegetables. A little while later, he tastes the soup again and says, "Wow, amazing, if only I had some lamb chops(or something), it would be delicious".

Well, you get the point. In the end, the man drinks his soup and goes his way.

I never quite understood the meaning behind this story during class. I just nodded when the rest of the class did. I never did quite well in English(thats a whole another story), but I don't think I did miserably in the test either.

Fast forward to two days back. It was about 2 a.m, I was at the squad, just about to fall asleep. I have no clue as to why, but this story flashed in my head and I had my own Eureka moment. Now, I can claim I have fully understood what the story is all about.

For the less gifted(people who take more than 17 years to get a story), the reason is that the man was trying to get some free food but ended up eating his stone.

Further evidence of our ancestry.

I was watching one of Planet Earth episodes about life in the tropics when they showed the Macacque monkeys in Indonesia swimming underwater which apparently was just for fun. At one point one the playful ones surfaced near the shore and started scratching under his chin with his hind leg. There was a certain quirkiness in the way it went about it, funny at times. Suddenly a thought came out of nowhere and I wanted to see if I can scratch my chin with my feet too.

Well, it took a little effort, but now I can proudly say to the macaques, Aha. Now, if only I can dive underwater like them, I could probably pass for one of them.

I know, I know, I am an idiot.


On a seperate note, I ran a 5k race this morning. I completed it in 24:15 min. I had been gearing up for this for the past month, mostly by running on the treadmill. I learned that if your shin bone hurts when you run, its not because you are low on calcium but your feet have pronation(they don't land right). I bought running shoes which fixed the problem.

Update: Heres a link that gives you a lot of good information on shin splints and how to deal with it.

Anyway, I noticed something interesting happen during the race. Just past the 2 Km mark when I started to get tired, I was suddenly overcome with emotion, almost to the point that I wanted to cry. It would go and after a few minutes I would have the same thing happen to me again. I figured it out eventually, it was the endorphins. The lazy bastards, instead of making me happy, they tried to take the easy way out. Fortunately, my superior intellect prevailed and sanity reigned. By the way, I finished 183^rd in the race and 3rd in my team.

Hey, atleast we now know kryptonite's a good brand

Other titles that might be approriate:

- I guess you could call this recycling.
- Wonder how long it took to get to this.
- Boy, that's one careful owner.


I remember a bike that was locked outside NIH, and everyday when I ride home past it, one more part would have been stripped. Two weeks later, I saw a cut lock lying by the post. Whoever did that really took his time.