TRAVEL BLAHG

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L: Brea and Brenda at one of the nautical themed shops. R: A stall selling an assortment of goods on Jl Surabaya Menteng

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Lazy morning at the Salim's with Bolt, the husky puppy.

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Jakarta, the first day in Java

Heat lighting at night, and the air during the day is thick. Even thought it is technically the dry season, it rained this afternoon, a downpour which we sought shelter from in a restaurant called “Cali Deli.”

We are still shaking off the effects of jet lag, and so today was a slow start. We are staying with our family friends, the Salims, in their house on the outskirts of the city. The house is spacious, and when I woke up, everyone was in a different room, or out on one of the porches surrounding the different levels of the house. After a lingering breakfast of mango, orange, fries bananas, singkong, and, eventually, mie pangsit (a noodle served with boiled greens and chicken, with a broth ladled over to the consumers satisfaction), we set off for the antique market on Jalan (street) Surabaya Menteng.

One side if the street was mostly empty, with a few men lounging or carving wooden statues, but the other was occupied by a seemingly endless row of single story garage style shops. The mishmash of contents spilled out onto the narrow sidewalk, forcing passersby to walk single file to avoid tripping over the cases of coins and bangles, dusty wooden masks, candlestick telephones, and scratchy victrolas which broadcasted muffled records as the nearby shop owners nodded along to the familiar song. One seemed to specialize in antique books, all in Dutch. Another contained an astounding collection of crystal chandeliers and steamship engine room telegraphs. One corner shop contained nothing but antique electric fans in various states of disassembly. Many had similar collections of South East Asian wooden figurines, brass teapots and bowls, lamps, and grungy locks in the shape of turtles or lions.

Near the end, the content of the stalls changed to cheap/fake brand handbags and luggage, and the drizzle became a downpour. After waiting in the cafe for several cups of iced tea and plates of fresh spring rolls, we dropped off my parents and Marlene at a Bikram yoga studio, while Lily, Brea, Brenda, and I went to see X-Men: Days of Future Past at the Premier Theater.

When I told my friend from Malang, Rizal, that I was going to the movies, his response was “What? Don’t they have movie theaters in America?” While they may have movie theaters, they don’t have Premier movie theaters, which means no seats which recline into beds, no cozy blankets, and, most importantly, no Indonesian fried rice and Belgian waffles a la mode served directly to you while you watch Wolverine, Professor X, Magneto, and Mystique battle it out for the fate of the mutants. I highly recommend the experience. Also movie ticket prices in Indonesia are cheaper than in America, so there’s that.

Who knows what tomorrow will bring. I’m trying to meet up with 3 different people from 3 different contexts, and then my parents are also probably making other plans. The jet lag is no help, and on top of it is the fatigue of a foreign language. I’m at the point where I can’t turn off my comprehension, even if I don’t full understand it all, but it really is a lot of work to have two simultaneous languages. I love it though.

[whereismorgan]

Hi ho I'm off again. This time it's a family affair. The four of us are going to Indonesia (shocking right?) for 3 weeks to jalan2 and have a good time. Just finished an 11 hour plane ride from Boston to Dubai, in which I got to practice my woefully poor Arabic with an Egyptian flight attendant. Now it is 9:38 at night in Dubai and 1:41 in the afternoon in New England, and 1:41 Sunday morning in Jakarta, and we have 7 hours to kill. I will say flying into Dubai was less of an experience than I expected. It wasn't quite the show you get flying into Vegas or New York or Paris or one of those other big cities with lots of attractions. It just was very flat, which is interesting for the country that boasts the worlds tallest building. We now have to wait until 4 AM for the 9 hour flight to Jakarta. Everyone else at the gate is fast asleep, except for my sister, who is sending strange snapchats.

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Simultaneously working on Paris and Berlin uploads, but right now, we are in Prague, where the carbs are either drunk or boiled, the meat is fatty, and the family is abundant. 

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Days 2 and 3: Walking tours of London (click on photos to enlarge)

Day two started out with an underground ride to the London Tower Bridge area. After tracing the route of the Thames for about an hour, we dipped in to Borough Market, an assorted selection of vendors selling everything from huge wheels of cheese, to champagne, to seafood paella, to meat pies, to seafood so fresh, the lobsters still waved at you from their perch on top of massive spiny fish nestled in the ice. From there, we continued on, dipping into the Globe theater, just missing a performance of the Tempest, and then stopping into the Tate modern for a wonderful view of the city, some Dada art, and a wonderful interactive stop motion animation program which Aaron had to drag me away from after 30 minutes of me drawing trees. 

Crossing the Millennium Bridge (the one that gets destroyed at the beginning of that Harry Potter movie), we made our way north to Covent gardens, another market, which specializes in small boutiques which are simultaneously kitschy and high end. The day ended with us eating dinner with Aaron’s cousin Michael, his son, a random relative from London, and another one from California. 

Day three, and the final full day in London, began with a trip to Primark, an incredibly cheap clothing store, for some warmer clothes to ward off the traces of winter still lingering about Europe. Aaron also bought shorts. Afterwards, we walked down to Trafalgar square, then, cutting West, we walked through several parks, past Buckingham Palace, to the Science museum to see a special exhibit on medicine throughout the ages. Along the way, we spotted a lovely old, apparently mute, Asian gentleman, who was hand feeding the wildlife in St James Park. He gave Aaron and I a few peanuts each, and soon the squirrels and ravens were quite literally eating out of our palms, which was enjoyable until the discovery that squirrels don’t so much have paws as claws.

The next afternoon we left London by train, arriving in Paris to the same grey clouds that had plagued us the entire time in the UK, so my first evening in France was spent curled up on a futon in Aaron’s cousin Sylvie’s minuscule apartment, watching a movie, and then passing out. But more on France later. 

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Beginnings of London

The most foreign I felt in London actually happened as I was leaving. Standing in line to return Aaron and my oyster cards (a plastic refillable metro ticket), I found myself trapped between two groups of Northerners. One was a family decked out in head to toe maroon and gold, and heading to the final cup match for some sporting event. Each time another group of fans passed, the obnoxiously loud son would try to start up a chant. Fortunately, the majority of the time he was unsuccessful. Behind me in line was a group of women who had come to London “for an ‘en pahty!” Upon discovering they shared a common (indecipherable) accent, they struck up a raucous, apparently witty banter, and I was stuck in the middle, seriously questioning my grasp of the English Language. 

We had been staying with Aaron’s cousin, a man named Michael, his wife, and their son, who was younger than Aaron by only a few months, out in their home in Golders Green, a 20 minute ride on the underground from the city center. Over three days in London, we crisscrossed the city by foot: from London tower bridge to Covent Gardens one day, and then Trafalgar Square to Buckingham Palace the next. It was a sort of overwhelming whirlwind tour of the city, and its sort of hard to put it all down in order but I will do the best I can. 

My first afternoon, after getting a take out Asian buffet lunch, we headed to Camden Town to check out the market. After wandering around the kitschy stalls full of knockoff Ray-bans and German school groups, as well as a grocery store where I found Jaffa cakes for 60 pence (!!!!), we made it to the Stables Market just as it began to close down. We wandered around a bit, checking out the brass horse sculptures scattered around the building, and turning down the food stalls closing time “happy hour” deals. Dinner instead consisted of 2 pound grocery store sandwiches eaten on the banks of the lock running through the market.

Later that evening we headed into Picadilly Circus, and wandered through a few parks, as well as China town. At this point I can't honestly tell you much more, because I was so jetlagged, I fell asleep and drooled all over myself on the underground, but pictures indicate Aaron enjoyed himself immensely, and I fell asleep on a rack of instant noodles.

Upon arriving back in Golders Green, Aaron, Michael, and the rest managed to keep me up until 11:30, in order to combat the jetlag, for which I am very thankful. 

This is it for now, and I'll post more on the rest of London later on.

[whereismorgan]

My whirlwind tour of London is almost over. We have been staying with one of Aaron's distant cousins, and his wife and 23 year old son. Today we walked from the Tower Bridge all the way to Covent Garden, which is not a garden, but rather a shopping plaza. Tomorrow we see Trafalgar square, and the Science Museum. More pictures n' words forthcoming when it is not 12:30 in the morning. 

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Dear British Airways,

How did you know?

Love,

Morgan

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1st stop Boston for the day. Met up with Aisha (from Kenyon, not pictured), for brunch, and then with Scott (from Exeter) for a two hour tour of the Harvard campus which included a trip to underground labs with hazardous gasses and glass windows so thick they distorted the view through. After that, I wandered around Cambridge, and fell asleep in a bookstore waiting for my 10:50 flight out of Logan. Not much to report, other than a big thank you for my Boston area friends for showing me around. 

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London, Paris, Berlin, Prague, Athens, Istanbul. See you later!

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Merry Christmas from Cairo!!!!

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Spent a lovely day with Oli and Angie, not at the pyramids, but in a gated community watching MTV and eating eggs and nutella by the spoonful. Merry Christmas!

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Having a very leeeetle Christmas. Currently staying in the gated community of Sheikh Zayed to the North West of Cairo with two of my friends from Kenyon. We exchanged leeeeetle gifts and ate leeeetle chocolates. The Christmas tree is made out of green twine and taped to the wall. MTV Arabia is currently on and playing an interesting mix of American Top 40 and Egyptian Pop music.

Two days ago I said goodbye to most of my friends. Last night, after watching a very Egyptian version of the Nutcracker at the Cairo Opera House, we all drove with my friend Yasin up to Moqqatam, a high rocky hill on the outskirts of Cairo, and looked out over the whole city.Tomorrow I fly out at 10 am. 

Merry Christmas, maasalaama ya qahira. 

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Yesterday, in a mainly symbolic move, Egypt's largest industrial and agricultural city, El-Mahalla El-Kubra, declared itself autonomous from the country and the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood. This is coming on the heels of almost two weeks of protests, where several people have died and hundreds have been wounded. Last night several hundreds of thousands of people marched on the Presidential Palace, but fortunately the situation remained peaceful, even with the presence of a Brotherhood protest only three miles away. 

It is still an uneasy situation, but things have remained peaceful, which gives me hope that everything will settle down and we can continue with finals uninterrupted. That being said, protests will probably continue through this week up until the constitutional referendum, unless they cancel it, or move it back, although at this point pretty much everyone is just too angry to care. All the rumors flying around about Muslim Brotherhood "torture chambers" or news that Morsi is set to make a declaration that gives even wider powers to the already practically independent institution that the military is becoming is not helping. 

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Whats up with Egypt now?

So the situation here over the past few days has literally been changing hourly. First they release a final draft of the constitution, then the judges strike, then they aren't, then they announce the vote will be on the 15th (!!!), then everyone is angry, and it is all so complicated. But basically:

After the secular members of the constituent assembly walked out in protest, the Islamist members pushed through what they are calling a final draft.

It is over 200 articles long

These articles are dangerously vague, and not only allow pretty much any article to be ignored in the name of Shari'a, but also give the military full privacy and control of their affairs, have little to nothing in regards to child labor laws or women's rights, and also allow a majority in parliament to amend it in any way they like (meaning a Salafist majority, however unlikely, would have no bars on the adding of radical interpretations of Shari'a).

The Islamists say it is too Liberal, the Liberals say it is too Islamist

Yesterday Morsi supporters/Islamists protested at the courthouse and literally stopped the court from convening.

Today independent media organized a blackout, which ended up being most of them just posting notices on their homepages stating their disagreement with the Morsi regime. 

Also, the today the Opposition organized more marches. Most protests or marches have names. Today's? The Last Chance. Scary.

The end location of these marches was Heliopolis. Causing wealthy old women to worry about their jewelry. 

Fortunately (?) they were only heading to the Presidential Palace.

They were met by riot police and barbed wire. This did not stop them. They tore down the barbed wire. Fortunately the riot police retreated. 

(Heliopolis is far from where I live, but the tension is still palpable on the streets)

Currently they are trying to decide whether to boycott the constitutional vote (BAD IDEA!!!) or attempt to overwhelm the "yes" votes with their "no's."

Either way, the country is literally split down the middle, also sort of along rural/urban lines.

In the words of my super liberal Arab Spring professor, Ashraf: "I'm not saying a civil war will happen, it probably will not, but this social bifurcation certainly opens the door."

Fun note on Ashraf. He used to be a TA at Boston University. We found his rate my professor. Best quote: "I'm a liberal Democrat and he made me look like Margaret Thatcher." 

We still have classes. Also finals, which is why this is bullet points instead of paragraphs. 

Sources for the curious:

I have found Al Ahram English to be fairly informative, despite being state owned and thus slightly biased towards Morsi. Egypt Independent is also a pretty good private source of news, also clearly biased towards the Liberals.

Twitter tags:

#Tahrir, #Morsi, #Cairo, #PresidentialPalace 

(although these will lead you mostly to young, hip, liberals who hate Morsi, if you don't stumble upon the Muslim Brotherhood)

[whereismorgan]

Top: The dome of Cairo University where the protests are taking place.

Bottom, Left: Protesters marching down Dokki Street, a block away from my apartment.

Bottom, Right: Police praying in the center of Mesaha Square. They have three large trucks parked across the street. Only slightly reassuring, but so far the protests have remained peaceful (the only death was caused by falling tree). The Police are actually probably staying as far away from Tahrir as possible, because their presence in the square usually is what leads to confrontations. 

All pictures taken from the balcony of my apartment and the apartment upstairs. 

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8 more men yelling "Allahu Akbar" and "Islameyya! Islameyya!" just passed through Mesaha square waving an Egyptian flag. A woman two floors down from me started yelling back rude things out her window as they passed, but I don't think they heard her. 

Most people in the square just ignored them, but I also just realized that we have three large police trucks parked on the corner. 

Although there have been a couple of groups passing through, most of the protesters I have seen  appear to be pairs of men heading towards Cairo University. The day has a strange feel to it. The weather is warmer than it has been all week, and the air smells like spring, but at the same time a low fog has been hanging over the city all day. Watching these pairs walk by, it almost looks like they are heading to a parade, or festival. Most are wearing button down shirts or gallabeyas, and light jackets, and carry small Egyptian flags or pro-Morsi posters tucked under their arms. Sometimes if they catch observers in the lower stories watching them, they begin pointing and waving, or unfurl their flags and wave them, ecstatic at the prospect of finally participating in showing their loyalty to their party. 

It truly is sad that these two groups, both who have so much love for their country, their Mesri, cannot seem to find a common ground, and cannot seem to be able to write a constitution with less than 200 articles.