I shouldn't laugh. I've made my own share of mistakes. From getting trapped behind a generator* ( I got out) to mistakenly ordering vile eggplant when I wanted snake. But I have never (never ever ever) done something that stupid. I mean I've made decisions that cost me days of travel after missing the plane. I've made the opposite of friends with guys who quite literally shoot first and say hello later. But I've never done anything quite so dumb that it put my colleagues into the hospital.

Traveling here (oh, yes. We're still dancing around proper geographic nouns) I had a long layover in a Teutonic city named after a famous American sausage. Or possibly the other way 'round. Being a well organized and efficient city the S-bahn** runs straight into the Flughafen***. A long series of poorly translated 'how do I get a ticket' and 'which track?' later I pop up in the Hauptbahnhof****. I'm thinking to myself that sans guidebook the train station is probably the closest thing to the center of the city. Which it is. It's just that train stations tend not to be surrounded by the blooming of culture and fine street life.

Or at least, it's a different kind of flower the locals are after and the street life is cheap. "Nei, danke. Das will ich nicht" - "Nei danke, Ich versteh das nicht" -"Holy yikes ma'am/sir, I'm not interested in whatever-that-is or where-ever-it-goes." But I made it to the river and a few .5Ls of something nice*x5. Disaster (or at least syphilis) averted.

So sure, I make mistakes, but they're recoverable mistakes. Not the kind that means you might have to be evacuated by air. Unlike the one making me laugh.

They drank the water.

Right from the tap.

-PNG

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Posted by pngd at 8:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I flew in at 5:00am and the city was tiger striped by mountain shadows. Every peak drives up from high plateau like a giant poked his fingers up from underground. The city is balkanized by these hills. Neighborhoods are defined by the strategic terrain they occupy. When the city was held by competing warlords the neighborhoods were held from the hills. Those hills were, at times, parking lots for artillery. Whole neighborhoods were smashed and the city is heavily scarred over a decade later.**
To take a hill or spill into the strategic low ground was to take a neighborhood. And once a neighborhood was taken a fresh round of atrocities began. Mass rape of both genders, focused on alien ethnicities, plundering, and general brutalization were the expected results of a new warlord coming through. When the city was split half a dozen ways the blocks changed hands constantly and the population that could escape did***.

The pattern is repeated in the rest of the country. It is the geopolitical theory of European exceptionalism taken to the absurd****. Every mountain is the king of its valleys. If you have spent time in the Appalachians you've seen the same terrain. Every clan could hold to itself but couldn't dominate its neighbors, well, not for long.

The only group that ignores the demands of the landscape is the birds. They are everywhere, large and small, from pigeons to distantly sighted raptors. The flocks of doves are ever present bobbing along roof lines and fences. Pairs of sparrows and blackbirds explode into view and disappear into the brush. Looking up is like looking into a different world. It may be worth bearing in mind that only the birds have been able to conquer, and hold, the city.

-PNG

Continue reading "Crenellations of the Imperial Graveyard*" »

Posted by pngd at 5:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Hello ? Is anyone still in here? I think the lights burned out. And oh man, it smells like I left dishes in the sink.

Does that last post say 2006??

I swear I didn't forget about you, I just got busy. It's been a long few years. Your PNG is older, rounder, and possessed of more, if not better, credentials. But I'm back now. Well I'm not. I'm out here. Which is to say, back in the world.

Right. Sunglasses, Vest, Passport.

On with the show.

-PNG

Posted by pngd at 3:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

'You guys are C*mmies?? So why am I seeing rudimentary free markets?'

Continuing with a grand tradition of never using a proper noun where a hedged reference will do, see if you can guess where I am now:

"Hello, I am a completely sterile flowering tree."

Its symbol is a flower called the 'Bauhinia Blakeana' and it is the second system of the 'one country - two systems' concept.

The who;e city is like Manhattan without the architectural self-restraint. With no Brooklyn to expand to or even a Jersey to house the workers it has to go straight up. The population density is incredible and allows for whole streets in which the first three floors are restaurants, shops, and services. Above that are the people and offices. And not just tall buildings. The city goes right up a freaking mountain. Ground level on the North entrance could be six stories below ground level on the South side.

You got vertigo? You, my friend, are fucked. The most fun so far has been on the elevated walkways and escalators. You can step out and be 100' off the ground in three quick strides. It's like living in 'Super Mario Brothers' (that's an antique video game, kids).

I only have three days here and then I'm off. We traveled here to visit her parents for Christmas, which of course made Mom a mite sad (Sorry Mom, but I'm horse trading this for good things, I promise). Her parents are actually living on the mainland in a city I keep getting told 'is just like Cleveland if it had 12,000,000 people'. I spent a solid week looking for a guide book and only found one . The city has more people than some nations and yet the country is so big it's a total after-thought. Let's see how this goes

Posted by pngd at 8:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)