Hispaniola - Day 2 - Across the Island

1/15/17, “Across the Island”

Cap-Haitien, Haiti

As the sun sets over Cap-Haitien, I finally have a chance to relax, after spending almost the entire day on a bus ride across the island, from Santo Domingo to Cap-Haiten.  It was around 8 AM when I left my hotel in Santo Domingo, and I did not get to my hotel in Cap-Haitien until close to 4 PM, which was actually nine hours later, due to the time zone difference.  This was very much a dead day, but it was necessary in order to complete my mission, and I’m sure my reader will believe me when I said I considered every option.

In order to say, “Hispaniola Complete”, I need to visit three places: the WHS and legislative building in Santo Domingo, which I did yesterday, the WHS slightly south of here, which I will do tomorrow, and the legislative building in Port-au-Prince, which I will do tomorrow or Tuesday.  I considered four different options in order to visit all three places, and this one turned out to be the most elegant.

Tomorrow is now suddenly up in the air, as my plan of taking a taxi from here to Port-au-Prince seems not to be the best way of getting there, instead, perhaps, a flight would be the better option, but I have plenty of time to figure that out before I go to sleep tonight.  On that note, I would like to address a theme I have mentioned a few times, but I have not properly illustrated it.

Reader, take a look at that map here.  On the westernmost side is Baffin Island and Labrador, both part of Canada, clearly part of North America.  A little further east is Greenland, which takes up the bulk of the frame.  That is also clearly part of North America.  Now, look at the westernmost side, and you will see the British Isles with the Faroe Islands slightly to the north.  Those islands are both clearly part of Europe.  Now, look at lonely Iceland, so far from any other landmass in Europe and so close to its big brother of Greenland.  Based on this image, it should seem quite intuitive that Iceland is part of North America, and my claim is supported based on the positioning of the continental plates that I mentioned on Friday night, the border between the North American and European continental plates running through Iceland’s old parliament, west of Reykjavik.  Why did this come up, and why is it so important?

Well, to answer that, look at this map here.  See the lower tip of that red dot?  That represents a WHS called Cocos Islands National Park.  It is part of the country of Costa Rica, a North American country, but look at where that island is located.  It so far south of any North American landmass that surely it must considered part of South America.  It is only 5 degrees north of the equator, and the southernmost city in Panama is over 8 degrees north of the equator.  Tectonic plates are of no use in determining this one, since Cocos Plate is actually its own plate.

Okay, I had to pause to relocate to get out of the rain, but here’s the crux of it.  I could easily argue that Cocos Island was part of South America, but, doing so, would require me to argue that Iceland was part of North America.  In order to visit Cocos Island, it requires a two-week trip, including 9 days aboard a very expensive diving boat.  That is just for that one WHS.  Iceland could be done in a weekend, or, as I am doing it, part of a 9-day trip that includes Greenland, which I had to visit anyway, and it would have been criminal to omit Iceland from my Greenland trip.  Further, the North draws far more than the Tropics do.

It is for those reasons that I chose to use the interpretation that put Reykjavik in North America and Cocos Island in South America.  This interpretation also puts Curacao, which has its own World Heritage Site, in South America, as, though it is a Caribbean Island, it is part of the South American Continental Shelf.  That is why I will be waiting until I get to Reykjavik in June to announce that I have been to every country in North America.

However, as of writing this entry, I have visited each of the 23 countries that most atlases list as being the only countries in North America.  I will visit Curacao, sooner rather than later, possibly even this year if I can figure out how to do it cheaply during a free weekend, and, it is at that point that I will say, “West Indies Complete.”  This trip instead, my proclamation will need to be phrased “North American portion of the West Indies Complete.”  Enough with the geography lesson.  I am now smoking my 2011 Christmas Pipe, and I can add Cap-Haitien to the list of datelines that includes Quebec Hong Kong, West Palm Beach, Everest and Sydney.  Cap-Haitien is in good company.  Since this is a dead day, there is not much to record, and it promises to be less interesting than the above geography lesson.

After I closed, I headed out to the cigar lounge where I found, to my delight, the #1 Cigar of the Year, fittingly enough, a special edition La Flor Dominica, called the Andalusian Bull.  I paired that with a glass of their finest Dominican rum, and I was in heaven.  After the rum, I went back to my hotel with the rest of my cigar, posted my photos, and soon went to sleep.

I woke up all-too-soon so that I could have breakfast before I got on the road, opting for a fried yucca cracker topped with eggs, ham, and cheese, along with coffee and a the Taquero cigar I had bought after dinner.  I got to the bus station, and it was kind of hectic, but I had soon purchased my ticket, and, not long after, we boarded the bus.  I had half the bus to myself, the other two or three passengers deciding to cram in the front.

It was a boring bus ride, like the rest of the day, and we stopped for lunch in Santiago and to onboard some more passengers, all of whom also crammed in the front, so I continued to have the back to myself.  I had some snacks, various combinations of starch and cheese.  Around noon, we were off.

I slept until we reached the border, which was an entirely perfunctory process, but there was a clear difference there from what made Santo Domingo look like a modern city by comparison.  I was clearly in Haiti.  As we drove to Cap-Haitien, the visions I had had of Haiti from pictures was reconfirmed.

Ruined by earthquakes and hurricanes, this was clearly a country where man had failed to assert his dominion over nature, instead settling for finding a place in nature.  Everything about the country, including the rudimentary construction of the buildings, confirmed this.  When we got to Cap-Haitien, it was more developed, and the bus stop was literally a block away from my hotel, but it was steep hill to get to the hotel.

I checked in and resituated myself.  I had not had a proper lunch, so I planned my next hour or so.  I had it all brilliantly planned.  I would light up my Cuban, then have dinner, which would allow me to claim Haiti as my 71^st country, then I could have my Christmas Pipe and begin my entry before sunset.  I did exactly that.  I lit up a Partagas and headed down to the restaurant by the pool.

The menu looked good, so I sat down for dinner.  I opted for some kind of fritter for my appetizer, and, for my main course, I chose creole goat stew, figuring that was as traditional a Haitian food as possible.  I also got a local beer to accompany it.  The meal was delicious, and that was my first Official meal in Haiti.  I then got a much-needed coffee as I finished my cigar.

After dinner, I went to reception to get the Wi-Fi code, and I asked them about the statue I had seen of the WHS at their front desk and where to purchase it.  One thing led to another, and they would later advise me that I should fly to Port-au-Prince, instead of taking a taxi.  I am now booked on a 1 PM flight to Port-au-Prince, which will get me there much quicker than the taxi would have.  There is also a later flight in case anything goes wrong, and, worse case scenario, I can still take a taxi to Port-au-Prince at 1 PM.

I went back to my room and filled up my Christmas Pipe before heading back to the pool area, stopping at reception on the way to discuss logistics.  It was around sunset, and I sat down by the pool, in view of the bay, where I lit up my 2011 Christmas Pipe and proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close so that I can publish and, later, post my photos before crashing, since I now have to get up pretty early tomorrow, and I am quite tired already.

Hispaniola - Day 1 - Of Coffee and Cigars

1/14/17, “Of Coffee and Cigars”

Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

As my brief time in the Dominican Republic draws to its inevitable close, I am pleased to report the two lessons I have learned about this city, two lessons that I learned even before breakfast this morning, and two lessons that may draw me back here again in a way that other places have not.  The first is of coffee, that you never have to walk far to find a place with a killer cup of coffee or shot of espresso.  The second is of cigars, that bringing cigars to the Dominican Republic as about as useful as bringing coal to Newcastle.

That is my favorite part of the Spanish Caribbean (and Central America, which, as part of the North American tropics, is more the same than different).  Every Spanish-speaking country in this region grows great coffee, and they love to drink it, so finding a delicious cup of local coffee is never a problem.  Further, every country in this region grows tobacco, though some countries are better at it than others, and the biggest cigar countries (Honduras, Nicaragua, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic) are all located in this region.  Here in Santo Domingo, they love to smoke cigars, and almost every block in the Colonial Zone had some type of cigar shop, where they sold either the big brands or, often, unknown brands that they roll in the shop.  It was marvelous.

I suppose there is some irony that I am writing this entry, though, while smoking a pipe, my 2010 Christmas Pipe to be precise.  It is the same pipe I smoked in Kathmandu and Sydney at the end of last year, the same pipe I smoked Quebec and Istanbul, the same pipe I smoked in Belmopan and, most interestingly, Nassau.

The coffee and cigar culture here is very similar to that of Nassau, except that tobacco and coffee production in the Bahamas is entirely monopolized by Graycliff.  While Graycliff makes exceptional product, it is quite different being somewhere with a dozen brands of tobacco and coffee, different ones at every shop, than being somewhere where one brand is king.  That said, I would much sooner spend another night at the Graycliff hotel in Nassau than come back here again.  I have no plans to do either any time soon, but these are the type of experiences I would sooner repeat than seeing Paris or Rome again.  Okay, enough of that.

After I closed last night, I could not connect to the hotel Wi-Fi, so I had to run a signal through my phone, which was a slow process.  It was 3 AM local time by the time, I was ready for bed, and I trouble falling asleep.  I then slept fitfully through the night, waking with less than 6 full hours of sleep before I had to head down for breakfast.  There was a bit of a process involving the voucher for breakfast, which I purchased but should not have, since it precluded me from getting the full menu.  In the end, I did order exactly what I wanted, the typical breakfast called “Los Tres Golpes” or “The Three Hits.”  It consisted of fried plantains, fried cheese, and fried eggs.  I also, of course, got a coffee to go with it.

There was a cigar shop next door with a roller sitting down inside.  I picked out a cigar, which would serve as my first Dominican cigar in the Dominican Republic.  The brand was called Caoba.  I had never heard of it.  It was fantastic, and I lit it up and brought it back to the table, where I awaited my breakfast.

The breakfast soon came, and that was my first Official meal in the Dominican Republic, my 70^th country.  At this point, I would like to correct two things from yesterday’s entry.  The first was that I had omitted a crucial part of what was necessary to say, “Dominican Republic Complete.”  It is necessary for me to take a ceremonial picture in front of the national legislative building, and I had forgotten about that last night.  The second was the country count in North America.  It is 24, not 17, as I had forgotten to include the 7 countries in Central America in my count.  That means, at the conclusion of a successful trip to Hispaniola, I will have been to 23 of the 24 national legislative buildings in North America.

After breakfast, which was, reader, say it with me, quite good, I headed back to my room to resituate myself and finish my cigar.  After my cigar, I headed back down and went to the cathedral, the oldest in the Americas and the spot of the WHS inscription photo.  I lit up an H. Upmann and navigated a bit of a maze of gates to get into what I thought was the exact spot of the inscription photo.  Just as I was about to take my ceremonial picture, it started raining and then pouring.  I waited out the rain and then went to take my ceremonial picture again.

I then realized that the picture was actually taken from outside the gates.  Reader, do you know what that means?  If I had realized that at first, I would have easily taken my ceremonial picture from outside the gates before it started raining.  I navigated back outside the gates and gave my ceremonial picture a third try.  I got the right angle for the back-facing picture, but the selfie was off, so I had to redo it.

Meanwhile, I was approached by a local who was far too helpful.  I knew that, the moment I engaged with him, it would leave my bankroll a bit lighter by the end of the day.  Reader, he tricked me.  I fell for it.  He told me he was going to take me to the Arturo Fuente factory.  I told him to wait while I got the perfect selfie and posted it to social media.  Once I was done, I followed him.  It was not a factory, it was a tourist shop that sold OpusX at almost triple the price I spend in New York.  I was not interested.  I got two cigars I hadn’t seen before, plus some souvenirs, along with some flag souvenirs at the shop next door.

At this point, I just needed my cathedral souvenirs, but, apparently, that did not exist.  No model of the cathedral was for sale at any shop in Santo Domingo, despite my new friend diligently helping me in my quest.  I knew that I would have to give him a small tip at this point.  Our quest ending in failure, he walked me back to my hotel, and I gave him a little something before heading up to my room to resituate myself again.

I finished my cigar and went in search of something called the “Tobacco Museum”, but it seemed not to exist.  I had wanted to get another local cigar for the last part of my mission for the day, seeing the National Congress building and saying, “Dominican Republic Complete.”  I had a scary issue with my phone, but a reboot fixed the problem, and, as I walked outside, I was greeted again by my new friend.  I asked him if he knew where the Tobacco Museum was.  He said it didn’t exist, but he would take me to a cigar factory where they roll the cigars.

I knew that this adventure would cost me more off of my bankroll, but it would be worth it, I hoped.  We got to the little cigar shop, and they immediately put a freshly rolled cigar in my mouth, and it was lit just as quickly.  The cigar was so good (and inexpensive) that I wound up buying a box.  I asked my new friend if he could take me to the National Congress and showed him a picture.  He said it was a short walk, and he would walk me there.  That didn’t seem right, since I thought it to be 3 miles away, but he insisted that the building in the picture was a 15-minute walk.  I took him at his word.  As we walked, he introduced himself as Eduardo and showed me his tour guide ID card.  That seemed legit enough.

We soon came to the building in the picture, and I realized the misunderstanding.  This was the National Palace, not the National Congress.  It was the executive residence, not the legislative building.  “El Senado,” I asked.  He said we would need to take a taxi, and he got a taxi to take us there.

At this point, I decided we would go for the trifecta and take pictures together in front of all three branches of government, which was easy enough, since I knew the Supreme Court to be in the same complex as the Congress.  My phone battery was almost dead, so that would be the real challenge.  We got to the Supreme Court and took our ceremonial picture there, before going to the National Congress.  This was it.  It would be the trifecta, just like I did in Lima, and it would be “Dominican Republic Complete.”

We took our ceremonial pictures, and I made my pronouncement.  “That’s the trifecta, and that means, Dominican Republic Complete.”  It was at this point that he scammed me.  I fell for it only because I was so absorbed in my excitement over my pronouncement and in posting to social media.  He told me how much I needed to pay the driver, in dollars, which seemed a reasonable enough amount for our round trip, so I handed Eduardo an American banknote of slightly more than he requested.  He asked for it in pesos instead, so I gave him the equivalent banknote of pesos, which was actually slightly more, almost double the amount of the requested taxi fare.  He said he needed another banknote.  Wait, what?  No, that couldn’t be right.

So absorbed in my social media posts, I figured I had been doing the math wrong and gave him the second banknote.  As soon as I finished my post, I realized I had been scammed.  It was a small amount, but it stung nonetheless.  I also knew I would not be getting that banknote back.  These taxis have no meters, and I was in a lightly trafficked area with less than 5% battery on my phone.  He walked over to the taxi while I was still posting on social media, and I’m sure he kept one of those two banknotes for himself.

We took the taxi back towards my hotel, and he had the driver drop us off several blocks from the hotel so that he could show me a restaurant where I should go for dinner and where surely he would receive a commission if I did.  Meanwhile, he asked me for a very large tip, a specific amount, double what I had been planning to give him.  I might have given it to him if he hadn’t screwed me with the taxi fare, but the amount that I gave him evened that out.  The second banknote from the taxi “fare” plus what I actually did give him was the equivalent of what he had asked.

I then went up to my room and plugged my phone in the charger, it now at 1%, and crashed.  I woke up in time for an earlier dinner, but I went to the cigar store from this morning to get a couple of boxes first.  I had chosen a highly rated restaurant on Tripadvisor, where I could get local specialties.  I walked over there and reviewed the menu.  The house specialty was stewed crab, and it came with rice and beans.  The national dish of the Dominican Republic is “Las Banderas,” which is just meat (any meat) with rice and beans.  This would work well.

He told me to go upstairs, but every table upstairs was either occupied or had dirty dishes from the previous diner.  That was a major red flag.  I almost walked out.  Instead, I sat downstairs and ordered what I mentioned above, along with rum and sparkling water and a fried beef appetizer.  The meal was disappointing, but it served its purpose.  The rum was the best part.  It took way too long to get my check.

After dinner, I headed back to my hotel, stopping at another cigar store on the way, where I had intended do my “How they smoke cigars in” post, but, for various reasons, it would not quite work, so I instead just got a cigar to go.  I headed back to my room and, once more, resituated myself before going back downstairs, where I sat down in view of the cathedral, lit up my 2010 Christmas Pipe, and proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close so that I can publish early before I, again, resituate myself and head out for the evening to see what kind of adventures I can find.

Hispaniola - Day 0 - Another Year of Travel

“Hispaniola”

1/13/17, “Another Year of Travel”

John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York (JFK)

And so begins another year of travel, the last year of this Travelogue, in fact.  That is not to say that I will stop travelling (or even stop writing), but this blog’s mission is clearly defined in its URL.  5 Years, 17 Goals.  After I have finished my five-year mission and accomplished all 17 Goals, I will have new goals for myself and undertake new trips in the years to come, but whatever adventures may follow, those exploits will not be recorded in this blog.

I am right on target to accomplish all 17 Goals by the time my five-year mission comes to a close later this year, but doing so requires utilizing every holiday weekend.  The way the calendar has been falling the past couple of years, MLK weekend has been coming earlier and earlier.  I only have one weekend in New York to recover from my epic New Year’s trip before I take off again.  Last year it was Mexico, the year before Belize, and this year Hispaniola.

This trip will begin what I am calling the “Year of the Islands”, and it promises to be an epic year to the remaining islands I need to visit to finish my quest.  In the next 6 months (to the day, in fact), my mission will take me to Socorro Island (Mexico), the US Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, the Queen Charlotte Islands (Canada), Iceland, Greenland, and Newfoundland before I embark on the final trip of this quest to a large number of islands in the South Pacific.  I will also have a few domestic trips to the continental US to finish off some National Park Sites, but every international trip I take this year will be to an island, starting with this one to the island of Hispaniola, the last island I need to visit in the West Indies.

Will I be visiting the beach when I travel to these islands?  Of course not!  Have you not been reading along for the past four years?  This trip will represent the last two countries I need to visit in the West Indies, and, by the end of this trip, I will have visited 16 of the 17 national legislative buildings in North America.  What will be missing?  The one in Iceland.

I know I will catch some flak for declaring that Iceland is in North America, but I invite my readers to look at his or her map.  Look at the narrow distance between Canada and Greenland and the narrow distance between Greenland and Iceland.  Both of those distances are much narrower than the distance between Iceland and Britain.  Geologically, the North American and European continental plates meet in Iceland, at the site of their old parliament.  However, the modern parliament in Reykjavik is clearly on the North American side.

It is interesting to note, by a similar understanding, that Hawaii is actually in Oceania, not North America.  Therefore, when I say, “North America Complete”, it will be in Newfoundland (or Labrador), not in Hawaii, and I will reconfirm that statement when I revisit the Capitol Building in DC a couple of weeks later.  These types of considerations are the things I must constantly considering in planning and arranging my trips so that I don’t wind up planning three different trips to the Caribbean in the same month or some such inelegance.

There has been an elegance to the way I have arranged all of my trips, and combining the Dominican Republic and Haiti into one trip was one such elegance.  It would have been very easy to do these as two separate trips, but covering all of Hispaniola in one trip was far more elegant, and far more difficult.  A similar elegance occurred three years ago when I took what I called my “WWI” trip, which took me to Yugoslavia, Austria, Hungary, and Turkey.  I will leave it to my reader’s imagination to figure out why I called that my “WWI” trip.  Okay, enough about this.  I have a Day 0 to record.

I have been making it my tradition to actually begin these Day 0 entries with the recording of my Night -1.  I went to see Silence, the movie that, in my opinion, should win Best Picture (and Director and Screenplay and Cinematography and Costuming and Production Design and Sound Mixing).  However, due to the current “mood” of Hollywood, they are choosing “escapism” over “realism” this year.  That means that a deeply intense religious movie has no place in this year’s Oscar’s race.  Instead of this movie winning 7 Oscars, those Oscars will go to a feel-good musical.  The movie I saw last night was one of the best things Martin Scorsese has have brought to the screen, and that’s saying a lot, since he’s my favorite director.

That movie was called “Silence.”  It was about Jesuit missionaries in 17^th Century Japan, who must choose what torture and torment they will sooner endure than abandon their faith.  Everything about it was just entirely intense and authentic and perfectly done.  After the movie, I went home, with my popcorn refill, and packed.  In the morning, when I was finishing packing, I realized that I didn’t have enough to fill a suitcase, so I just put my clothes in a thick plastic bag, and used that.  I also brought the popcorn to the office, which caused a bit of a commotion.

My friend Connor was in town this weekend, and I hadn’t seen him in months, but we would only be able to meet for lunch, though we will be seeing each other in New Mexico at the end of the month.  We went to Hop Won, and I got my pre-departure lunch of an egg roll and spare ribs.  I then lit up a Cohiba, and we stood outside in front of the spot of the old cigar store.  I couldn’t finish my cigar in time, so I left it in the planters across from Grand Central before going back to the office.

We closed at 3:30 PM, which didn’t give me enough time to regain my appetite, so the popcorn stayed in the fridge, and I also figured that, since I had been upgraded to Business Class, I would get dinner at the SkyClub.  I would take the express bus to the airport, which gave me time to finish my cigar before the bus left at 4 PM.  We were at the airport a little after 5 PM.  My flight was not until 7:51 PM, so plenty of time.

I went through security and then headed to the SkyClub, but, to my disappointment, I was told I did not have complimentary access, since they did not consider the Caribbean to be an international flight.  Dafuq?!?  They consider Canada to be international, but not the Caribbean???  That made no sense!  I would be getting dinner on the plane, so I didn’t want to get food now, but I also knew that I could not wait 3 hours to eat.  I took the escalator back down and looked wistfully through the window at the lounge to which I was denied access.  I got a soda and bag of chips, which would keep me full until they served dinner and then headed to the gate, where I sat down and a proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close, as we will soon start boarding.

Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

Well, here I am, in the famous, historic Colonial capital of the Dominican Republic, which I will be able to claim as my 70^th country after my Official meal tomorrow morning.  I am in Christopher Columbus Park, whom the locals know instead by the surname Colon (is that where the term Colonial comes from?), staring at a statue of him in front of the oldest cathedral in the Americas.  Apparently, Catholicism took root here far better than it did in Japan, if the movie I saw last night is any guide.  I am very much looking forward to that first cup of Dominican coffee tomorrow morning.

It is of significant note that I am now in the Dominican Republic, and, every time I open this Travelogue, I am met with a similar sounding dateline.  “Rosalie, Dominica” is where this Travelogue began.  Also known as the Commonwealth of Dominica, it is not to be confused with this country, the Dominican Republic, though coffee from either country would properly be considered “Dominican”.  I am approaching a million words in this Travelogue.  That is not an exaggeration.  The word count (excluding the lost Antwerp entry) now exceeds 987,000 words.  I might reach my millionth word by the end of this trip.

I certainly did not expect it become this expansive when I sat down and typed the words that I can recount from memory: “I woke up at 4:40 AM this morning to begin my southward journey.”  Okay, it’s actually, “I woke up this morning at 4:40 AM to start my southbound journey.”  Close enough.  I am approaching a million words, but those 13 words (16 including the dateline) started it all.  From Dominica to the Dominican Republic, I have been travelling the world, just as I planned to when I set out to see the world and with far more success than I dared even dream.  Four years ago, Dominica was my 10^th country.  The Dominican Republic will be my 70^th.  Okay, enough nostalgia, I have an entry to write.

After I closed, we soon boarded, and I settled in to my seat.  They served sparkling wine as soon as we sat down, and I opted to watch Captain Fantastic for the flight, which is on the bubble for Best Actor (Viggo Mortensen) and Original Screenplay Oscar Nominations.  The movie as a whole fell flat, but Viggo was the script, and the script was Viggo, so you can’t have one without the other.  I would be happy to see both nominations come through, since Viggo was excellent, as was the script.

They soon brought dinner, which was a nice piece of steak with rice.  There were also plenty of snacks, but I couldn’t stop thinking about that popcorn in the fridge.  I love cold popcorn, I really do.  The butter (or fake butter topping) really seeps in and saturates the kernels.  It’s glorious.  They then passed around the landing cards, and I tried to take a nap, but I couldn’t quite get comfortable.

I was the first one off the plane, but there was a bit an issue in getting a tourist card, as they were not prepared for the flight of Americans for some reason.  I was first on line, so I got my card as soon as they figured out the problem and then cleared border control with no issue.  I was at the taxi area within about fifteen minutes of us landing.  It was before our scheduled departure time.  I was supposed to have a driver arranged by the hotel waiting for me, but he wasn’t there, so they said to just take a regular taxi.  It was before 1:30 AM local time (an hour ahead of NYC time) when I got to the hotel, and I checked in and settled into my room.

I changed into some more casual clothes and went outside to the plaza, where I lit up a Partagas, sat down in view of the Cathedral, and proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close so that I can publish and get some sleep.  Tomorrow, I will be able to claim the Dominican Republic as my 70^th country and say, “Dominican Republic Complete”, over the span of less than hour.  In fact, all I have to do after I say “70” at breakfast is finish my breakfast and walk across the street to take my ceremonial picture in front of the Cathedral before I can say, “Dominican Republic Complete.”  That will give me the rest of the day to explore, which should make tomorrow a fun day.

La La Land: The Experience - Day 2 - "The Fools Who Dream" (Australia - Day 9)

1/2/17, “The Fools Who Dream”

Aboard VX 170, En route LAX-EWR

Usually at this point during the trip, I would be writing my final, triumphant airport entry, celebrating the amazing success that the trip had been, but I pretty much already did that when I was departing from SYD two Days ago.  However, today, I do not feel the triumph of the perfectly planned and executed trip that I felt leaving Australia, but I feel, instead, sadness that this trip must come to an end and that I must go home.

The fact that the trip ended in the company of one of my oldest and dearest friends only made saying goodbye to La La Land and ending the trip even more painful, our farewell emphasizing the finality of the trip itself.  The fact that this entry has a en route dateline, rather than being a proper airport entry, evinces that we postponed that farewell as long as possible without missing my flight, which I almost did.  All of this contributes to this trip being able to make a strong claim as being one of my ten greatest trips of all time, and this entry will be the final reckoning that allows me to make that judgment.

When I set out to see the world, five years ago now, it seemed like a foolish dream, and, as I kept adding to the Goals before I got an eventual list of 17, they seemed even crazier.  How would I possibly visit all seven continents?  I can’t go to Antarctica.  Surely visiting the Seven Natural Wonders of the World was just a foolish dream?  How could I ever go to Everest, surely that was not possible without a hiking background?  How could I visit all 27 Olympic Stadiums, much less set foot inside of all 27?  That was just another foolish dream, was it not?  Well, here’s to the fools who dream, crazy as they may seem.  All 17 of those Goals I set for myself no longer seem a foolish a dream, and they will all be completed by the end of this year.  

There is some irony that my time in La La Land was designed around exploring sites in Southern California, while it was the unplanned parts in La La Land itself that were most enjoyable, by, which, of course, I mean my “La La Land” tour last night and dinner tonight.”  The fulfillment value I got from visiting the three National Park Sites was insignificant compared to the enjoyment value of my two nights here.

When I closed at SYD, I knew that, if my time in La La Land went well, this trip would secure itself a spot in the top ten of all time.  I think it is safe to say that my time here went as well as could possibly have been imagined.  After I closed at DOH two months ago at the end of my “Because It’s There” trip, I declared that trip to be in two-way tie for fifth with my first trip to Europe, and I ranked the remaining as follows: Antarctica at seventh, Greece at eighth, Israel at ninth, and TLGRSTA at tenth.

It is abundantly clear to me that this trip is worthy of a spot on that list.  TLGSRTA was amazing, and I am loathe to dislodge it from the top ten.  My mother and I had a great time visiting three National Parks in the northern Rockies, two of them World Heritage Sites.  Combining Yellowstone and Glacier together was done in such an epic fashion, and my time in the Canadian Rockies and across the prairie could give the Yellowstone/Glacier portion a run for its money.  The natural scenery I saw during that trip beats any of these five trips I am mentioning, with the exception of Antarctica.  However, it was lacking in any really cultural experiences.

Greece suffered the opposite problem, being a purely cultural experience, but it is very hard for something to beat going to Greece at the height of my obsession with Greek mythology and seeing the Athens 2004 Stadium being finished months before the Games.  No, not the Sydney Opera House, nor even the Sydney 2000 Stadium can compete with Greece in that regard.

As for purely natural experiences, Antarctica would win the prize for that (of the five I am considering).  The social experiences, though, is what made the Antarctica trip so special, but reuniting with my friends over the past two days is almost of the same level of the new friends I made in Antarctica.  My New Year’s celebration in Sydney was almost as good as the one in Antarctica.  Reader, what word do you see me using in both sentences?  Almost.  That means that this trip was almost as good as my trip to Antarctica.  Likewise, due the special circumstances surrounding my trip to Greece, this trip falls short of that one as well.

What about Israel?  Yes, Israel was a good mix of natural, cultural, and social experiences, and it was my first time to a new continent as well.  However, it was dampened by the loss of the water bottle before I even arrived at Ben Gurion.  Without the loss of the water bottle, it would be contest between these two trips, but given the fact that Mark III of the water has now been to all seven continents, I think that the door is opened to competition.  The social aspects of Israel, though forced, beat out my two reunions this weekend by a slim margin, even if those friendships have all but died off.  The cultural aspects of visiting my homeland beat out, by a slim margin, the cultural sites that I have visited this trip.  However, the natural beauty of Tasmania beats out anything I saw in the deserts of Israel.  New Year’s Eve in Sydney was a more memorable experience than anything I did in Israel.

I am very tempted to say that this trip is tied with Israel for the ninth spot, but I have to give the edge to this trip because I controlled the schedule, rather than being subjected to a tour group, and, overall, this trip left a more memorable positive impression, though, the next time I do a reckoning, things might change.

This trip was special in so many ways, but something I realized, and this is a reason that it is not ranked higher, is that I enjoy the chase far more than I enjoy the completion.  I enjoy checking things off the list far more than I enjoy the list being fully checked.  That is why the “Because It’s There” trip, which left only this trip to Complete two of my goals ranks so much higher than this trip.  London 2012 and the Mountain were more fulfilling, knowing how close I was to completing those two goals, than Sydney 2000 and the Reef were.  Likewise, visiting Antarctica for the first time, leaving only Africa and Australia, was more fulfilling than finally saying that I had been to all seven continents.

On my master spreadsheet, the one that tracks all of my upcoming (and past) trips and my progress towards my 17 Goals, there is a sheet that is called “40 Goals (Tentative)”, which will be finalized before I leave for Hawaii and will be a necessary part of any travels I undertake following the completion of my “30 Goals.”  A note on the language I am using here.  The “17 Goals” and “30 Goals” are interchangeable, being the 17 Goals I am aiming to accomplish by the time I turn 30.  When I finalize my list of “40 Goals”, they may be 12 or 14 Goals, but they will still be called “40 Goals” for simplicity’s sake.  Those would be the Goals I aim to achieve before turning 40.

Having that list gives my travels purpose in a way that aimlessly wandering about does not, and working towards those Goals is far more fulfilling than finally achieving them.  That is why the goalposts are always shifting.  That means that the moment I make my pronouncements later this year about having completed my 30 Goals, I will begin pursuing my 40 Goals almost immediately after taking a bit of a break from travelling.  That is what this year is about, closing out these Goals, and it began with this trip.  Okay, so how did my second Day in La La Land play out?

After I closed, as promised, I slept out on the balcony, waking up freezing cold around 8 AM.  I had a 6 PM dinner reservation with my dearest friend, who lives here, and I did not want to be a minute late for that.  Our timing was as tight as possible, and I would have to go straight from dinner to the airport, forgoing my airport entry so that we could have an extra hour together.  I calculated that the absolute latest that I could l leave the hotel was 11 AM, but I really wanted to be on the road by 10 AM.  My plan was to have a morning cigar on the balcony after breakfast.  I was too tired to allow that and went inside to sleep for another hour.  It was close to 10 AM by the time I got out of bed, and I knew my time at the two National Park Sites would need to be cut short due to the late departure, which would now be after 11 AM.

I went down for breakfast and opted for the corned beef hash with eggs, along with coffee and club soda.  The meal was disappointing, as they did a gourmet style of it, which was nowhere near as good as the peasant style I would get at a diner.  The service was fantastic, but I had some serious sticker shock when I got the check.  The meal price was expensive, but I was prepared for that.  The drink prices, though, were outrageous.  My coffee and two small bottles of club soda somehow being as much as the meal.  The coffee was obnoxiously expensive, and the club soda bottles were so small that one didn’t even fill up the glass with ice.

After breakfast, I went up to the room to pack and get ready.  I also had to stitch up the rip in my pants where my wallet had torn through last night.  I did a horrible job, and the stitching has long since come undone.  I headed down, and my car was soon ready.  It would be a two-hour drive to Cesar Chavez National Monument, which was completely out of the way and nothing more than a stamp and photo op for me.  I lit up a Graycliff and started driving north and up into the mountains.  My top was down, and it was impossible to close as I drove , even as the temperature dropped into the 30s.

Eventually, I arrived at the NPS, and, I was almost done with an Oliva that I had lit during the drive.  I left it outside the VC and went in.  They were out of brochures.  NOOOOOOO!!!!!!  The NPS brochure is the most Official part of an NPS visit.  If I had known they were out, I would have never gone, saving it instead for whenever I went to Devils Postpile NM.  Worse, there was nothing to see at the site.  Properly, it should have been a National Memorial, not a National Monument, but NMems require Congressional approval, and a Republican Congress would never approve a federal memorial to a Californian labor leader.  They had a paper brochure, which, while not Official, allowed me to get my stamp and pose for ceremonial pictures.

I was done there at 2 PM, and it would be another two hours back to Santa Monica to see the NPS there.  I wouldn’t have time for sitdown lunch, but I had seen a Sonic on the drive up, and I could stop there.  I drove with my top down, intending to have another cigar after lunch.  Well, reader, I never saw the Sonic, and, by 3 PM, it was now too close to dinner time to have lunch, but hunger was starting to preclude any enjoyment I could get for the rest of the day.  A drove the whole two hours without a cigar, an oddity for me, and, as I approached my destination, I saw a 7-Eleven right on the side of the road.  That was perfect.  I could get a coffee and a small, hot snack to take the edge off and keep me going until dinner.  The whole process took five minutes.

I was back on the road and soon arrived at Santa Monica Mountains NRA.  I got to the VC, and they had brochures and stamps there, so I was in business.  They also pointed me to some scenic overlooks, so I was in business.  I was racing against sunset at 5 PM, as the drive from there to the restaurant would take less than an hour, even stopping for gas.  I lit up my last Cuban, a Por Larranga, and took my ceremonial pictures before getting back on the road.  After the cigar, I stopped for gas and went to the restaurant.  I struggled to find parking, but my friend had texted me that she found parking around the block.

I parked across from a familiar-looking black Camaro.  The house I parked in front of had an open door with an old man, who had a huge Star of David around his neck.  He gestured for me to come inside.  Hesitant, I didn’t feel right about refusing his request.  He pointed to a pile of assorted items on the floor and asked me to move it from the entrance area to the corridor.  It seemed an odd request, and, as I helped him, I noticed some very strange relics around his house, including odd masks and skulls.  I was now downright apprehensive.  Looking at him, I thought to myself, if need be, I could take him.  In the process of picking up some of the clothes, which it mostly seemed to be, with odd things mixed in, I ripped the stitch I had made in my pants.  Lovely.  I finished his task and went to meet my friend outside the restaurant, which was not opened yet, as we were early.  This was very clearly the Jewish part of town, confirmed both by the Jewish delis and my encounter with the old man.

My friend and I warmly greeted each other, and I told her what had just happened.  As I explained it, she seemed to think that I had parked in the wrong area.  How could that be?  Surely that was her black Camaro across from my car?  Unless there were two black Camaros parked on the same street, I wondered aloud.  We still had time, and her gift was in the trunk of my car, besides.  We got to my car, and I asked her, “Isn’t that Bagheera [her name for her car]?”  It wasn’t.  There were two black Camaros.  We drove towards where her car was, and I found a legit parking spot, where no one asked me to move clothing for him in the process.  I retrieved her gift from the trunk, and we walked to the restaurant.

It was good being reunited again, and we wasted no time in telling each other the details of our trips from the past week, me in Australia, her in New York.  It worked out well that we were able to meet here, as I was afraid that we would literally wind up crossing paths in the air on our flights home, her flying EWR-LAX, me flying LAX-EWR.  The theme of the menu was popular dishes made with unconventional ingredients, including offal.  We got a bottle of their house red, and four plates to share.

We chose the sweetbreads, bone marrow, oxtail “poutine”, and pork belly sliders.  We took some pictures together, and the food started coming one plate at a time.  It was all good, very good, but nowhere as good as each other’s company.  I was watching the timing, wanting to enjoy every last minute we could together.  After we talked about our trips, the conversation turned to a more personal nature, all of which is, of course, unpublishable out of respect for privacy, but we discussed relationships past and present and various ideas about our futures.

It was a good conversation, one that was very deep and meaningful, and one that I didn’t want to end.  We got dessert and finished our wine, but, the time had come, and if I stayed one minute later, I would risk missing my flight.  We walked together to our cars and said our goodbyes.  It truly was the perfect way to end this epic trip.

It was now two hours before my 10:20 PM flight, and it only took me half an hour to get to the airport.  I returned the car right away, and took the bus to the terminal, but, that was where the fun began.  There was brutal traffic on the way to the terminal, and I worried that that was foretelling a long line for security.  It was an hour before the flight when I got inside the terminal, and I had to drop off my bag to be checked.  Then, security had a long line, and I was now seriously anxious about missing my flight.

Finally, I got through security and headed to my gate, getting there as they announced the final boarding call with five minutes before they would close the gate.  I had made it.  Barely.  And it meant that I had maximized my time with my friend to the last possible minute.  I sat down in my seat (the middle seat being fortuitously open after the passenger relocated), where I proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close so that I can publish, along with closing out this epic trip.  Next stop: Hispaniola, where I will be able to say, “Caribbean Complete.”

La La Land: The Experience - Day 1 - "City of Stars" (Australia - Day 8B)

“La La Land: The Experience”

1/1/17, “City of Stars”

Beverly Hills, California

This establishing shot might seem pretty unassuming, but it is nothing of the sort.  The iconic palm trees of Beverly Hills in the background, visible in the hauntingly beautiful twilight that the light pollution and smog eternally provides in La La Land, makes for a remarkable vista.  As I now smoke my 2013 Christmas Pipe, it is a vista that can compete with Kas (Turkey), the Drake Passage, and Seoul, the other places where I smoked this pipe during my previous Christmas trips.  It can even compete with the vistas I found in Machu Picchu and Lumbini.

The City of Stars, which this city will now forever be called if that song wins the Oscar as is projected, will join London and Quebec as the only cities outside of the Eastern seaboard that I have visited four or more times.  Quebec takes top honors at five overnight visits, but La La Land is now tied with London for four.  Each time I have visited here has been with a different purpose in mind, and the City of Stars shines just for me however I want to experience it each time.

My father always says that the mark of a good musical is if you walk out of the theatre singing the songs from the show.  It took a week or so for me to memorize all the words to “City of Stars”, but I think “La La Land” passes that test with flying colors.  In fact, my entire night was designed around visiting locations from the movie and singing along with the songs.  It’s amazing how a great movie can do that for you.

I actually make a point to visit the setting of each year’s Best Picture winner.  After “Argo” won in 2012, I went to Iran.  “12 Years a Slave”, Louisiana.  “Birdman”, well, I live in New York and go to Broadway all the time.  “Spotlight”, I will be visiting Boston in a few months and stop at the Globe’s headquarters.  “La La Land” is heavily favored to win this year, so today will have served that end, but I have gotten ahead of myself.

After I closed at SYD, I went through border control and security with no hassle and then went to duty-free, getting a bottle of rum for myself and some bottles of wines as gifts.  I then got a flat white and some macadamia nut brittle and headed to the gate.  The delays continued.  In the end, the delays were over two hours, due to a late inbound aircraft from DXB.

I counted us lucky to be out of there with only a two-hour delay, since I had been reading how flights from DXB-SYD were getting delayed by over twenty hours this week.  As long as I got to LAX this morning, there would be no problem.  The day was lightly planned, and I hadn’t even given consideration to dinner plans yet at that point.  For my in-flight movie I chose “Light Between Oceans”, which I figured was appropriate for leaving Australia, and I thoroughly enjoyed it, despite the negative reviews.

I opted for the mushroom tortellini for dinner, which I thought a much better choice than the chicken dish.  It was delicious.  I soon fell asleep, waking up shortly before we crossed the International Date Line and went back in time to 2016.  I suppose I did stay up for another New Year’s, but no one was celebrating on the plane.  They had snacks, including cheese and crackers, banana bread, and a beef and spinach flatbread.  I ate it all before going back to sleep, waking up for breakfast.

I was kind of full at this point, them having served a little too much food for a 12-hour flight.  I ate the sausage and potatoes and half of the frittata, saving the yogurt for later, only to be reminded that we could not bring dairy products back into the States.  Well, I wound up eating it as I waited what seemed an eternity for my checked bag.  Once I went to get the rental car bus, and I was hit by something I did not expect to feel in La La Land, even in winter: cold air.

It was 43 degrees outside.  I had no cold-weather attire packed.  I had also rented a convertible, and I was not going to let a little chill stop me from using it.  On the bus to the rental car center, I looked up “La La Land” filming locations and decided I would go to the restaurant where Sebastian first plays “City of Stars” and, literally, bumps into Mia as my dinner spot, then go to Griffith Observatory, where they have their first date.

By the time I got my car, it was close to 10 AM.  My flight was originally scheduled to land at 6:15 AM, and I had planned to be on the road by 7 AM.  That necessitated a slight reordering of events.  I was due to have brunch with my father’s friend (my friend, as well, and I think I have seen him more times in the past five years than my father has) Gene, and the original plan had been to go to Cabrillo National Monument in San Diego, getting there when they opened at 9 AM or so, then meet Gene for brunch in Del Mar on my way back to La La Land.  Due to the delays, I swapped the schedule and would instead go to Cabrillo afterwards and get to the hotel a little later.  I didn’t mind getting to the hotel later, as long as the other activities fit their way in the schedule.  I called Gene and told him I’d be meeting him around 11:30 AM for brunch.  The timing would be perfect.

On the plane, I thought to myself with some amusement that, in the past two months, I had driven on the left for close to 3000 miles in three countries since the last time I drove on the right, and I wondered if I had forgotten how to drive on the right.  It was not funny.  I had actually forgotten how to drive on the right.  As soon as I got out of the parking lot at Hertz, I misjudged the positioning of the car and collided hard the right front tire and the curb, breaking off a piece of the rubber and scratching the hub cap.  It was the exact same mistake (on the opposite side) I had made in London.  As I drove, more than once, I found myself turning into the left side of the road and having to readjust myself.  It took me almost two hours to get the hang of driving on the right again, and I’m still not fully there yet.  I lit up an LFD for the drive, played the soundtrack to “La La Land”, and blasted the heat to accommodate for the cold air coming in through the open top.

Not long after I finished the LFD, I was at Gene’s place in Del Mar.  He introduced me to his housemates, and we then went out for brunch, him giving me the history lessons of this historic community along the way.  We went to what is now “L’Auberge” and was built on the site of the old Hotel Del Mar, a former haunt of movie stars.  It was a high-end resort, and the menu looked most interesting.

I kept it simple though and ordered tacos and hash browns, along with coffee.  We talked about a wide range of topics, including the writing business, politics, and philosophy.  While we aligned politically at the macro level, we found plenty of nuances where we disagreed, which led to a fruitful discussion.  After my main course, I got a brownie dessert, which was divine.

We then went back to his place so that he could show me his abode, along with a seriously impressive book collection, including two full shelves of poetry.  It was then time to say our goodbyes, and I did so very much hoping to see him again during a future trip to SoCal, whenever that may be.  I suppose it will probably be the next time I decide to go to Comic Con.  I then made my way to Cabrillo National Monument, which should have been a very short drive, and I lit up Graycliff for the way.

It took me about half an hour to the entrance to the area, about a mile from the VC, and my GPS said it would take ten minutes to get the rest of the way.  That couldn’t be right.  Well, there was bumper-to-bumper traffic, almost all foreign tourists, and it took twenty miutes to go that last mile.  I suppose they all wanted to be there for sunset, but I had not expected any kind of crowd at all.  It was where Jose Rodriguez Cabrillo became the first European to land in California in 1542.  There was a statue of him overlooking the bay.  I did my business at the VC, lit up a Camacho, and went to take my ceremonial pictures at the statue.  I also went to the lighthouse to take a picture with the replica of the lighthouse I had gotten at the VC.  From there, it was straight back to my hotel, finishing the cigar on the way.

As I approached the hotel, I passed and drove on the streets with iconic names, such as Sunset Boulevard and Rodeo Drive, well known all over the world.  I settled into the room and went straight to the restaurant, called the Smoke House, which was used as the filming location of the bar where Sebastian got fired for playing “City of Stars”.

There was no piano there, but the interior was unmistakable.  I hadn’t even looked at the menu previously, so I had no idea what to expect.  It was like an old-timey Italian steakhouse, the kind of place with big portions and waiters with bigger personalities.  I got the garlic bread for appetizer and the prime rib with fries and mushrooms for main course, along with a Manhattan to drink.

I knew that I would have trouble finishing the food, and worried that the one drink was so big that it would impair my driving ability.  I was wrong on both accounts, but only barely.  I finished the meal, but it was not easy, and it was some of the best steak I’ve ever had outside of New York.  The drink left me basically the least sober it could have and still have made comfortable driving.  From there, it was a short drive to Griffith Observatory, and I lit up a Nub as soon as I walked out of the restaurant.

When I got to Griffith Park, the main entrance was closed, and I had to circle around to the other entrance, again, shocked at how big of a crowd it drew and, again, almost all Asian tourists.  Where I parked was where Mia and Sebastian lost their cars, sang “A Lovely Night”, and had their iconic first dance, the one shown on the movie posters.  I left my cigar by the car, since smoking wasn’t allowed in the park, and joked that I hoped I didn’t lose my car like Mia and Sebastian did.

It was quite a walk to the Observatory, and the planetarium was closed, along with the gift shops.  That was a major disappointment, but I found another spot that I recognized from their first date.  After that, I headed back towards my car, but, somehow, the walk seemed much longer, and I worried if I had made the same mistake that Mia and Sebastian did.  Eventually, I found my car (and cigar) and relit the cigar before driving back to the hotel.  Once I got back to the hotel, I went out to the balcony, where I will definitely be sleeping outside, lit my 2013 Christmas Pipe, and proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close so that I can publish and get some sleep.