[The Life of Shaun #589] Uno y listo

After I finished classes and my student placements, Sushil and I took a twice-delayed trip to Chile, Peru and Bolivia.  The original itinerary included Rapa Nui (Easter Island), but it was still closed to protect its isolated population from covid, so we added Machu Picchu instead.

This was not one of my favourite trips.  There was nothing bad about it, per se, but - and I feel almost ashamed for feeling this way - there was very little that was great about it for me.  I don't know how much was due to the destinations, and how much was due to an ongoing undercurrent of malaise, but I felt underwhelmed for most of the time we were there.  The language barrier was an issue, of course, and getting altitude sickness in Cusco certainly didn't help, but whatever it was, I was just not enthused to be there.

When you travel, some places will speak to you more than others, so it's fine.  I am always happy to see somewhere new, and there were some highlights, namely Valparaíso, the teleférico (cable cars) in La Paz and phenomenal ceviche.  I would still like to go to Rapa Nui, so I will hopefully be back in that part of the world again, but I expect I will be booking an airport hotel for that one.

No hasta luego,

Shaun

 

Santiago is not a quick charmer.  The impressive Andean setting is often obscured behind phalanxes of later-20th-century architecture, and the overall impression of the city is a place of work and economic opportunity rather than joy and beauty.  But with improved weather and choice of locations, the city began to reveal its gritty charm.  It won't be shouldering its way into the alpha cities anytime soon, but there is much to appeal to the modern urban hipster in its gentrifying central barrios.

 

Lima was a flight transfer on our original itinerary, but very glad we reshuffled to have a couple of days there.  The city has a streak of the energy and chaos of India, and a palpable civic pride.  Its mix of indigenous, European and Asian peoples influences the flavours of its streets and its proud food culture; nikkei hasn't taken the world by storm for nothin'.

 

Machu Picchu and Cusco.  When it comes to old stones, England, as with so much else, has a greatly inflated sense of its accomplishments and place in the world.

 
La Paz is one of the coolest cities that I’ve been to, geographically speaking.  It’s built in an Andean valley 3,625m above sea level. The city sprawls up the surrounding hills, and El Alto, its poorer twin, overlooks it from a plateau 500m above. To accommodate this geography, and give better access to the city for the poor, the public transit system includes the world’s most extensive cable car network. The city is chaotic and buzzy and fascinating.

 

Street art, refurbished vintage architecture, hills, seaside, galleries, bars and restaurants aplenty - Valparaíso has everything that makes a hipster(-adjacent) heart flutter with joy.  If we had started here rather than finished, it might've set a completely different tone for the trip.

[The Life of Shaun #588] Has the world changed, or have I changed?

The Queen is dead.  And with her goes the last vestige of Cool Britannia.  You don't have to go back the 70 years of Elizabeth II's reign to see a changed country; in my 17 years here, Britain has gone from open and confident to insular and neurotic.  London has changed, too, from an important global, yet charmingly low-rise, city to one heaving with capital and gauche petro-fuelled hyper-development.  

It's all feeling a bit too much.  I was a fan of the Queen, but not a flag-waving Royalist by any means.  Still, with her death I am feeling that bit more adrift and disconnected from these old islands that I used to love so much.  And it's hard getting through each day when you feel trapped somewhere you don't want to be.

Queen Elizabeth's vision of the monarchy was that it represented "the notion that while generations of people and politicians come and go, while governments rise and fall, while great social and economic change sweeps the country—it is still the same nation".  Perhaps on the surface, but not in its soul.  There is nothing that Charles III, Truss or any government in at least a generation will be able to do to change that.  I fear my Britain is gone forever.

Shaun

Shaun H. Coley ~ Holloway ~ Islington ~ London N7 ~ UK ~ shaunism.blogspot.co.uk

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[The Life of Shaun #587] NNQN

My course comes to an end next week; I have three shifts left, and then that's it.  I still have to do 500 hours of additional healthcare-related work experience over the Summer (I'll be picking up HCA shifts), but the education and training are coming to a close.  

This last placement has been a bear, but I've enjoyed it.  I'm in oncology, and it's tough.  By the nature of the area, the patients can be very 'heavy' in the (frowned-upon, but universally-used) vernacular: complex problems, requiring frequent and time-consuming nursing interventions, at high risk of deterioration, and often bedbound.  When the ward is understaffed - and it almost always is - you feel it.  Each week I get it a little bit more, though, and I like working with cancer patients, so I have accepted a position to work in oncology once I qualify.  It's nice to know where I will be.

I'm ready to be done.  I can't say I feel adequately prepared to take on patients independently, but I am ready not to be a student nurse anymore.  All nurses say you'll never feel confident until you've been doing it yourself for some time, and every ward has a training and mentorship programme for their newly-qualified nurses, so I won't be freely unleashed on an unsuspecting NHS population just yet.  I am looking forward to more independence and developing my place in a team - and starting to get paid won't be so bad either.

With the end of the course will also come a covid-delayed holiday; Sushil and I will be going to Chile, Peru and Bolivia.  New countries for both of us, and we know very little about any of them, so it feels like we're going very far away.  I am looking forward to the mental distance from the everyday that foreignness and a long flight bring, and putting my Duolingo Spanish into use.

Also on the homefront, Sushil finally got covid.  Very mild, and he feels 100% now, even though he's still testing positive.  I've somehow fended it off this time (at least enough not to test positive myself).  Hopefully this means our antibodies will be primed and at the ready to keep us healthy for the holidays.

Yo como manzanas,

Shaun

Sushil went back to India in April to see his family for the first time in three years.  His grandma and her cat were particularly excited to see him.

I joined Natasha and Chris for a few days in Weymouth, Dorset, where Chris's parents have retired.

Chester has become a regular at our favourite local, The Horatia.

Shaun H. Coley ~ Holloway ~ Islington ~ London N7 ~ UK ~ shaunism.blogspot.co.uk

[The Life of Shaun #586] Freedom is their religion 🇺🇦

Sitting here at my desk, watching alerts on my phone about Russian troops getting ever closer to Kyiv, I am disheartened.  I keep thinking back to my trip there five years ago, and how I felt by the time I left.  You could tell that Ukraine was proud to have a chance to showcase itself to the world, to show that it's part of Europe, and that it wants to be part of the West.  I've watched the sign-off to Eurovision several times over the past two days, and it makes me ache for what the Ukrainian people are going through.

I also feel angry.  Angry that neither of my countries, nor the EU, are doing anything meaningful to help Ukraine.  The self-styled global protectors of democracy and freedom are standing aside, watching a modern-day Sudetenland, impotent.  Our neighbour in Europe, which we pledged to protect, is being invaded and Balkanised, having its democratically-elected government toppled, and we move a football match and freeze a portion of the fortunes of a few dozen kleptocrats.  Pathetic.

Not that America and Britain have much of a leg to stand on after our own false-flag war in Iraq.  But that's certainly no excuse for inaction; if anything, it's a chance for redemption.  But, like a century ago, the West is tired of war and Putin's accomplished a de facto Munich Agreement.  Poland must be hoping that history won't rhyme too closely this century.  And I expect China and Tawain are watching our inaction with equal levels of glee and horror.  Leaders of the free world indeed.

The Maidan, Kyiv, 2017.

Shaun H. Coley ~ Holloway ~ Islington ~ London N7 ~ UK ~ shaunism.blogspot.co.uk

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Two Ports, One Trip

With university done for the year, and Sushil's company closed for the holidays, we decided to visit Porto, Portugal's second city.  What this northern port city lacks in eponymous creativity, it makes up for in charm.  The city is beautiful but scruffy, and, other than the Luís I Bridge, which you can't help but come across, there are no real must-sees, so you can take your time.  We spent most of our visit just picking a part of the map and wandering about.

Oddly, given its geography, Porto reminded both Sushil and me of Venice.  There's a similarity in the faded glory aesthetic and the way the buildings hug the roads.  Porto has been on my radar for some time, and it's popping up in media more and more.  But, for now, it hasn't been hyperdeveloped or had its charm glossed away for the benefit of the perfect Instagram shot.  There are still boarded up buildings metres from the River Douro, and prices away from the riverfront quickly descend from tourist to local levels.

I've read that Lisbon has adopted the London model since I was there in 2007, becoming an investment haven, squeezing out locals in favour of newbuild flats for overseas investors.  Fortunately, from January 2022, Porto has been excluded from Portugal's golden visa scheme, so that might relieve some of the pressure.  Still, there was enough scaffolding around town to imply that change was coming.

The streetscape outside our lovely hotel.

The riverfront Ribeira neighbourhood.

Sushil at the Igreja de Santo Ildefonso.

Night in Ribeira.

The Ribeira and Luís I Bridge from Miradouro da Serra do Pilar.

Miradouro da Serra do Pilar

    What €1.75 will buy you in Porto.

Based on the description, we took a daytrip to Braga, expecting a quaint town in the countryside.  Instead we found a drab, postwar bedroom suburb with a small preserved centre.  The only real notable sight was the Bom Jesus do Monte, some way out of the centre.  Braga will not make the revisit list.

From Porto we flew to Bremen, Germany.  Pops is living there with Lara and her family currently, and Lisa and Danai flew over so we could have a family Christmas.  Bremen was part of the Hanseatic League and has solid, wealthy bones as a result.  Its port has been eclipsed by nearby Hamburg's, and most visitors to Northern Germany have Berlin firmly in their sights, so Bremen mostly flies beneath the radar, and seems content with that.  It is a nice, but unexciting city.  

However, I can see what keeps my sister's family there (besides Alberto's job), as my niece and nephew seem to be thriving.  Bremen is big enough to have all the things teenagers are interested in, like dance studios, bars, clubs, shopping, along with an excellent public transportation system.  The kids are able to have the independence and freedom to experiment and be their best teenage selves, without Lara and Alberto having to worry unduly about their safety or them falling in with the worst elements.

The visit was mostly lovely, but Pops was unwell (not covid, per several antigen tests) the whole time we were there.  He was diagnosed with dementia in Summer 2020, so there was a natural cognitive decline, but it was exacerbated by whatever virus he had going on.  Lara said he was much more forgetful and out of it than normal, and Pops missed a couple of the evenings as he was wiped out.  He returned to health a couple of days after we left, so it was just rubbish timing.  I'll be looking to go back in Spring for a redo, presuming Germany starts letting us in again.

Even staid Bremen has its rebellious side!

The Coley+ family.

(Danai, Lisa, Sushil, me, Emilio, Alberto, Lara, Chiara; Pops up front with the newest addition, Toby.)

Ten in Tirana

04 December was the ten-year anniversary of Sushil and me meeting in Mumbai, and we decided to mark the date with a weekend getaway.  Sushil searched for the best price-versus-points destinations and gave me three options: Bucharest, Sofia and Tirana.  As I'd been to the first two, the capital of Albania won.

Albania has a prevailing reputation for corruption and crime, with an Americanesque reverence of guns.  But this aspect of Albanian culture is hidden deeply enough to be of little note to the average traveller, and our weekend passed without incident.  I was fond of Tirana; despite what the EU might say, it’s quite obviously European, with a very heavy Italian streak.  Juxtaposing this are moments when you look around at the architecture and infrastructure and think 'I could be in India'.  A beguiling mix.

Albania is also known for its conservative views on homosexuality.  It is progressing, and we did see some PDA between a couple inside one of the nicer restaurants, but the lack of any gay bars and little openly-queer life makes it unappealing as a frequent destination.

Tirana itself is small, and almost everything of note is walkable from the central Skanderbeg Square.  We saw everything we wanted to over a few hours, and spent the rest of the time in cafés, bars and restaurants.  Tirana definitely has a Mediterranean café culture, with outdoor seating almost everywhere, hosting happy smokers sitting and chatting for hours with nothing more than a cappuccino.  Technically smoking indoors is illegal, but this is very loosely enforced, and we actually had to leave one restaurant as it was just too much.  But we found some absolute gems, notably Era and Noor, and had a much more sophisticated weekend than we expected heading into it.  It turned out to be a very lovely anniversary weekend.

Cheers,
Shaun

The city from our hotel room.

Mural on Skanderbeg Square.  I am unsure if it is meant to be comforting or menacing.

The one mural I wanted to see was the very Soviet façade of the National History Museum.  Unfortunately, it was covered for renovations, so I only got to see the cover mock-up.

Forever Green Tower

During the Cold War, Albania built tens of thousands of bunkers.  Most are disused, but some have been refashioned into museums, art galleries and the like.

The Tanners' Bridge is described as a "well-preserved 18th century Ottoman stone footbridge".  Fair enough, but as it is included in almost every 'what to do in Tirana' list, I expected its surroundings to have been a bit more charming.  The tourist board has missed a trick here.

When I read about the Pyramid of Tirana (An Albanian monument to the Communism that nearly crushed the country is now a crumbling wreck), it of course became #1 on my list.  I knew it was slated for redevelopment, but I hadn't realised how far along it already was.  I expected less efficiency from an ex-Stalinist Mediterranean government, but unfortunately we were too late to see the pyramid in its glory.

"One Balkan, Stonger Balkans".  Commendable, but still very optimistic at this point (see: n. balkanization).

I was quite taken by this bit of civic action.  Tirana used to be much greyer and drabber than it is today.  In the 00s, former mayor (and current PM) Edi Rama started painting many of the buildings across the city.  Though he received some criticism for giving focus to aesthetics when there are many pressing needs across the city, it has greatly improved the feel of the city, and crime and littering reportedly decreased notably in districts that had been improved.

One of the endless cafés in Blloku, Tirana's hipster neighbourhood.  Once walled off and accessible only to high-ranking Communist officials (hence 'The Block'), it is now the trendiest and liveliest area of the capital.

Shaun H. Coley ~ Holloway ~ Islington ~ London N7 ~ UK ~ shaunism.blogspot.co.uk

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum Shops at Cæsars

I had a surprising new sensation on this trip to America; it all felt a little bit foreign.  

This is a case where the English language fails.  A lot of other languages have two ways to say "I know", one that means to understand something as a fact, and another that means to be familiar with something.  I know America, but it doesn't feel familiar anymore.  I don't know if it's because I have been away for over 16 years now, or that I haven't made contact with the mothership in several years due to covid, but from the way people spoke, to the news coverage, the ads on TV,  the neverending incessant need to get into a car to do almost everything, it all felt a bit a world apart.  Other than the car dependency*, I don't mean this negatively.  There's nothing wrong with the way people speak or the ads on TV per se (though I do take exception with pharma promoting directly to consumers), I just noticed things in a different way than I had before.  Or more precisely, I noticed them; they never stood out before.  I felt a bit like a stranger in my own homeland.

But that did not detract from the intent of the trip, to see family and friends, some of whom I hadn't seen in decades.  It was great to see them in their local contexts, to understand a bit better what their lives were.  It's one thing to know someone's moved to Memphis, El Paso or Albuquerque, another to see their homes and favourite haunts in their new cities.  I got to kick back at Rachel's new beach house, be part of Natasha and Chris's rewedding, and see Russ's Summer retreat in Lake Tahoe.  Surprisingly, the one regret I have was not spending more time in LA; that was truncated due to complicated reasons, and I didn't get enough time with my friends there.

Still, by the end, I was ready to come home.  Ready to be back in our flat, walk to the store, wear a jumper in September, and ready to get back onto my course.  My next placement starts on Monday; I will have four weeks at a hospice in East London, followed by three weeks in a same-day emergency care unit.  It's good to be back to my London life.

Cheers,

Shaun

*The need to drive for everything started to feel oppressive by the end.  As my friend Kimb'uh, who was also on a long return to America at the same time, remarked, "Feels strange walking amongst all the cars in an American parking lot - kept wondering where the people were meant to go.  There’s no place for me."

Going native at Maruca's, Seaside Heights, NJ.

With Todd and Lady at Pieces in the Village, NYC.

Outside the Breakers, Palm Beach, FL.  A lot of wedding history here in the Coley/Rankow/Watkinson circle.

With cousins Sara, Jodi and Tommy at the family-famous Poncho's, Dade City, FL.

Spanish moss and brick roads Savannah, GA.  Now that it’s in a blue state, it's a definite must-visit.

Charleston, SC - nice, but seemed poorer and less charming than Savannah.  It’s also much more heavily-touristed - and overrun with hen parties - it’s the (prettier) Newcastle of America.

A happy unscheduled stop, Asheville, NC.  This town is like catnip to me: up in the hills, walkable, midcentury architecture, craft beer, localvore dining, and gay bars absent of hen parties.

Sushil picking out a souvenir in Memphis, TN.  A lot of hurt in this city, still.  It’s missed the urban renaissance of the coasts and interior cities like Austin, Chicago and Nashville, but that’s left the perverse upside of some really great city-centre space - rich in history - that’s neither been demolished nor hyper-developed.  I wonder if Memphis might be the city that gets it right.  It’ll be a tough ride either way.  My cousin has built a very nice life for herself here, however - just outside of Shelby County.

"Sister Cities", El Paso-Juárez, TX-Chihuahua, Mexico.  This city pleasantly surprised us.  From the negative press on Juárez (across the Rio Grande), I’d inferred the worst for El Paso.  While it’s not gleaming rich, it’s certainly not poor.  It’s a nice little city, with a generous microbrewery and food culture, a visible artistic streak, and a strong sense of community and civic pride.

Breaking bad, in Albuquerque, NM.  As a child of the desert whose firmest desire was to leave it, I’ll never quite get the appeal, but our friends have a very nice life here, and it was great to see that.  It was also the very successful climax to our Mexican/Southwest foodie tour.

Bollywood meets Hollywood, CA.

We're all born naked and the rest is drag, right down to the facemask.  San Diego, CA.

Art in Santa Ynez, CA.

On the pedestrian- / accessibility-friendly streets of Reno, NV.  Lesson (re)learnt: there’s tragedy, and then there’s Reno.

Sun through the smoke in Tahoe City, CA.  The smoke waxed and waned depending on the winds, and 3/4 Lake Tahoe was under an evacuation notice of one sort or another while we were there.  Thankfully our little corner was not, and it often felt like we had the North Shore all to ourselves.

Mr. Lee died while I was in Las Vegas, NV.  I am pretty sure Russ, Mike and I put several of his children through university.

And in local news, Sushil became British this week!