Syria: Suck it.

After a full day of travel that involved no less than five different busses, two failed attempts to hire taxis, and the omnipresent semi-continuous activation of my gag reflex in response to liberal middle eastern hygiene, I arrive at the Syrian border (sans visa) with my two traveling companions: a Belgian girl who as far as I can tell, speaks decent Turkish, and a Japanese guy who everyone can tell, speaks excellent Japanese.

The Belgian girl, named Gabrielle, I’d met in Cappadocia in a town called Goreme. She was heading in the same direction I was, and seeing as how she speaks some Turkish, she could only be seen as an asset. Along the way, she divulged to me that her first kiss was at age 25. I’m guessing there haven’t been too many in the two years since, either. The Japanese student, whose name was something very Asian-sounding, I’d met in the Alana bus terminal. He was wandering around looking extremely confused, and through his broken English was able to convey that he too was on his way to Aleppo, Syria. I took it upon myself to invite him along with us, as Gabrielle is hardly an asset I’m feeling compelled to monopolize.

Once we finally approach the border, amid a teeming bus of nondescript pilgrims, whom the bus had picked up on the side of a highway in complete darkness, the three of us are directed towards the office of the guard on duty. He is a man of average height and build, with an above-average mustache and hard eyes. His colleague, a younger man who almost looks white, sits down directly in front of the Japanese guy:

“Where are you from?” he asks in a deliberately thick western accent.

“Japan”

“Do you know… Jackie Chan?”

The officer on duty (lets call him Rollie - as in Fingers - you know, because of the mustache) motions for us to sit down, and after learning where we were all from, assures Gabrielle and Jackie Chan that they’ll get their visas shortly. I, on the other hand, must await word from Damascus, which could take anywhere from one to three hours.

At this point, Rollie offers us to have some of his chicken schnitzel and chips. Gabrielle and Jackie do the sensible thing and politely decline. I, realizing I could be at this border station for the foreseeable future, while also assuming that accepting the offer may make me seem more like someone they may want to invite into their country, hungrily dig in. And let me just say that it tasted EXACTLY like every other schnitzel I’ve ever had in my life. Jackie and Gabrielle look at me mystified as I am eating at a pace far beyond Rollie’s. It’s about 8pm, it’s too dark to see your feet outside, there’s no food elsewhere in the border station, as it’s a Muslim holiday (so things are likely to be closed anyway). Schnitzel was perhaps the only sustenance I’d be seeing for the foreseeable future.

My two companions get their visas and are prodded by the bus driver to either opt to stay with me at the border, or get back on the bus, the last to pass through the border station until sundown the following day. Not much of a decision, really. I check my pockets and realize I have exactly ten Turkish lira, or not enough to buy a coffee much less a visa, and Gabrielle offers to lend me 50 euro. Faced with no other options, I agree and offer to Paypal her the money when next I have the chance. I say thanks and goodbye and kiss her on the cheek, which in her prudish world is probably a precursor to anal.

They leave. The border station is a huge narrowing room with linoleum floors and dirty white cinder walls, and is completely empty save for a half-dozen guards and clerks. I set off on a mission to convert my euros to local currency. The only exchange bureau unpredictably raises a stink because there is a tiny tear in one of the bills near the top-left corner. Recognizing this as being completely illogical, I storm off in search of the only other place to exchange money; a bar/restaurant across the driveway, which also unwaveringly rejects me.

I am blown away. Astonishment is not even the word. At this stage, if I am unable to unload this 50 euro note, I will be forced to either take a taxi about 150 km (one way, which I’m guessing would cost roughly $200 round trip) back into Turkey just to go to an ATM, wait roughly 20 hours and take a bus, or make a run for it. Making a run for it, especially in Syria as a money-clutching, hooknose Jew (their probable point of view, not mine), is not advisable. The irony in the size of the rip compared to the problem it is causing is simply legendary.

It occurs to me that in a land where the currency converts at a rate of about 1,400 Syrian pounds to one shit stain in my underwear, that rejecting a 50 euro note on the basis of a 10 micrometer tear is like a desperate trucker rejecting the advances of a hot, southern college co-ed because he objects to her fake Gucci handbag. My tolerance for the absurd has never been so tested.

I corner Jackie Chan Superfan and after some karate-ish gesticulations that I’m sure he found amusing, I manage to lobby him to protest the exchange bureau on my behalf. He succeeds, albeit at a rate that would seem horribly unfair under any other circumstances, and I’m now liquid enough to buy a visa, should I be granted one.

In a vacant border station, hours creep by at a pace that feels as though time is actually moving backwards in order to taunt you. Each tick of the clock comes as painstakingly as a blip on Terry Shiavo’s heart monitor. In three hours, all five of the people that have been processed at the border have come and gone briskly and efficiently. Apparently, no one is foolish enough to attempt to cross into a Muslim country on a Muslim holiday. This news serves to discourage my pioneering spirit, as I begin wondering what the likelihood is that I’ll be sleeping the entire night on the stiffly ribbed blended polymer bench I’ve now warmed to the temperature of my narrow ass and thighs.

I’m fiendishly smoking cigarettes solely as a way to quantify time in units other than minutes and hours. Forlorn glances at Rollie through the window of his office are met with wry smiles and eventually a sardonically deliberate closing of his wilted horizontal blinds. A fax machine in the office nearest my bench sits idle. I am so alone that I actually laugh out loud just to hear the echo laugh back at me mockingly.

I’ve been carrying Jonathan Franzen’s “How to Be Alone” for weeks after book-swapping it in Istanbul. Despite its timely poignancy, I don’t even have the strength to open it. I lie down and expectantly wait for my iPod battery to die.

I am awoken to a knock on the glass of the office with the fax machine. Rollie is beaming. He beckons me into his office, and I dance/shimmy towards him to the beat of some bad Arabic pop song he is playing through the speaker on his old, worn Nokia cell phone. I’m going to Syria. Now all I have to do is get there.

Rollie sets me up with a guy who will walk me to a taxi, each person engaged in the transaction cunningly getting a piece of the little remaining cash I have left to spend. The time is shortly before 2am, almost six hours since arriving at the border. The taxi costs all but 13 shitstains of the money I have left on me. I get in to the taxi without hesitation. Get me the fuck to Aleppo, stat.

Four minutes after getting into the car, I am in a thick cloud of buyer’s remorse. This guy must have caught hell from the missus for going out at such an ungodly hour. He was hitting speeds in his late 1970’s model Peugeot that even I wouldn’t dream of reaching back in the days when I would angrily race my Audi A4 down the Pulaski Skyway after a workday. He is all over the road. The middle yellow line is merely a suggestion of best practices as we tear toward Aleppo, experiencing g-forces I’m sure have only before been seen at NASA training facilities.

He drops me at what must be considered the dodgiest corner in Aleppo. There are vagrants and mangy animals everywhere. The hotel I booked is nowhere in sight, but he assures me it is a block towards the center. I set off and after walking around for 20 minutes at 2:30am in pretty much the nastiest part of any town I’ve ever been in, it occurs to me that the sign for my hotel is most likely in Arabic, and I have no chance of finding it, especially at this hour and with any remaining energy quickly slipping away.

Fucked again, I happen across the place Jackie Chan said he was staying at. He did warn me that it was only $4/night and that it was probably horrendous, but at this point, all I want is a room with a lock on the door. Room optional.

After waiting nearly twenty minutes for the desk clerk to escape into the night with my passport and return with what is probably a very good imitation of what I initially gave him, I am led through a narrow walkway to a door with an unconvincing lock clinging to molding that loosely holds together its paper-thin paneling. Security, evidently, is discretionary.

As the clock stalks 3am, the doors part to reveal two dusty beds shivering in the frigid cold captured by a room that looked eerily similar to the border station I’d left behind. Linoleum and cinder are clearly not materials to consider when insulating oneself from winter weather, yet a glut of these resources evidently exist in Syria.

Exhausted, I take the room. The bathroom down the hall makes me think that although I’m filthy, it can only make matters worse. Instead, I put on three layers of clothing, a wool knit cap, and blankets from both beds as I lay down and fall asleep to the resonance of my chattering spine.

The next morning I awaken to beaming broad daylight and a throbbing left eye. Upon further inspection I can see (with my good eye) that my left eye is almost completely swollen shut. I curse the wool cap, Jackie Chan (the Japanese guy and the real Jackie Chan), the hotel clerk, and the Prophet Mohammed as I set out in search of money, a decent meal, and a worthy distraction (hoping my eye improves on it’s own).

A quick stroll around Aleppo’s center tells me the following:

A) ATM’s are difficult to find

B) This Muslim holiday has shut nearly all places of business

C) Aleppo is a filthy shithole

D) The combination of having white skin and one mutant eyeball is enough for people to openly stare

I opt immediately to bail the hell out of Aleppo. The next bus out of town was later that day, and I had little poofs of smoke blasting from my heels on my way to the bus station. Aleppo, fuck off.

After several hours of sleep in the seat directly behind the driver -- underscored by the tinny blare of a grainy Syrian television show -- I awake to the bus pulling into a roadside truck stop. Commonly this is accompanied by a 30 minute stop for food, toilet, chain-smoking, and latent confusion.

Once toilet and snacks were satisfactorily taken care of (I could have used a seat in the toilet, if you're picking up what I'm laying down), I exit the dingy restaurant to the vacant parking lot. Bus: Gone.

Recognizing that openly panicking only makes me a target for unwanted attention, I firmly puff my first cigarette. I begin having thoughts of "Shit, is there even a US embassy in Damascus?" as I watch the minutes waft by. After two hurried cigarettes, I begin looking around for familiar faces while cursing my front seat assignment (as I was unable to recognize anyone for lack of turning around while en route).

Finally, my confused state and constant head-swiveling attracted attention indeed, as someone who recognized me (for once, it helped being the only white guy on public transport) assured me that the bus would return. Which, after another cigarette, it finally did.

From there, I spent five days in Damascus, which was a pretty cool city with some dodgy nightlife that I only took part in half-heartedly. In a muslim city where women aren't allowed out at night, the club scene generally tends to suffer.

In all, there was much more in Syria I wished I could have seen (and given it a fair shot aside from just Aleppo and Damascus), but with a friend meeting me in Tel Aviv shortly thereafter, I had to move forward. So, feel free to visit Syria, just ignore Aleppo. That place can suck it.

Right now, I'm in Maputo, Mozambique having just come off a very cool show at a reggae bar-slash-art gallery. I've been hanging with some of the Mozambican guys I met in Tofo and a surfer from Durban and been having a real solid time in the south here. Ed is meeting me on Thursday and on Monday we head into Kruger National Park. More lions, baby! Rowr!!!

Who's the Worst Blogger Ever??

I suppose by now it's clear that I am. Although I will go easy on myself given that I am in a little surf village called Tofo in Mozambique, where even an ATM is an hour away by public transport. Certainly, in such a place, internet is more a luxury than a way of life.

For one thing, there's no building in this town more than two stories high. No hotels per se, just a lot of camp lodges and guesthouses. Since I got here 10 days ago, I've been hanging out with a small (but tight) crew of ex-pats and a bunch of local guys. Everyone is great fun to hang out with, and despite my rampant chain-smoking and chain-drinking of Tipo Tinto, the local rum (750 mL will cost you roughly $3US), I've managed to make some good friends here. I'm heading out tonight with a group of the locals to hit a club in Maputo and do some serious damage there for their Saturday night party.

Beyond that, just living it large here in Tofo. I have a story on my Syrian experience upcoming, but as with the others, it takes time just to find a computer that will accept a memory key, much less one that has a connection fast enough to upload anything. I'll keep trying. I'm sure by now most people don't even check this anymore. For those of you that do, I appreciate you keeping the faith. Clearly the next blog (once home) will have much more periodic updates.

I Got Robbed!!! Twice!!!

Finally!!!!! After nine months of traveling without incident, I was starting to think I looked poor or something. Then, along came a nice gentleman this afternoon to wildly gesticulate while clutching my shirtsleeve as his buddy lifted my piece-o'-shit first generation Motorola RAZR out of my pocket. How'd he know I was so dissatisfied with that thing? Who knew the good people of Dar es Salaam were so perceptive?

Then, when I got my huge backpack from the baggage carousel in Pemba, Mozambique (where I am now), I found it had been rifled through and my camera was missing. But.... the good fellow responsible was nice enough to leave the camera bag behind, which I found immensely thoughtful. I'm so glad people care about me in Dar es Salaam.

Actually, Dar was fine up until an hour before I was leaving for the airport and the first incident occurred. At least the phone was a story to tell. The camera is just shit luck. But I'm fine (for those that were wondering) so the stories should keep coming as I get more and more of my belongings taken from me. On the bright side, and as my friend in Ukraine reminded me, at least I'm still an ass virgin. Good stuff.

Why America's Cock is Huge

America has a huge cock. There, I said it. America’s cock is so big, it’s like the only black man in a Japanese locker room. There are a great many reasons why this is factually true (if a horrifying visual metaphor can indeed be proven as fact), and I’m going to name just a few.

Hollywood
The United States is the only authority on filmmaking. Period. If you’re someone living in the developing world, you probably don’t have a choice of any other outlets beyond Big Hollywood anyway, so you pretty much think Brendan Fraser is a great actor. And you should kill yourself, because your steady diet of big budget crap with poorly translated subtitles has left you thinking that this is the best thing a movie can be. Meanwhile, many people in the States (ok, maybe not “many” but at least some) know that it can be so much more.

Think for a minute about your first sexual experience with your first girl/boyfriend. Go on, do it. It was awkward at first, but still pretty good, right? You knew that person cared about you, so the awkwardness was tolerable, and then you felt safe in their arms afterwards. Not bad, right?

Now think of your first sexual experience with the town whore/drug dealer. Nothing safe about that. But damn if it wasn’t fantastic and didn’t prove that there’s a whole world of sex out there yet to be explored. And then two years later you get the clap. Life is cruel sometimes.

The same goes for movies, except for the clap part. But the point is, as bad as many of these big budget movies are, they’re still about nine million times better than what is produced locally in many countries. So for that reason, Hollywood reigns supreme.

Secondly, Hollywood is the first (and many times, only) introduction to American culture that many people get to enjoy. This endears people to America a great deal. And why wouldn’t it? Who wouldn’t want to emulate a culture in which one thinks it’s common to bluff your way into a wedding and find all the women sliding off their chairs at the mere sight of you? Hell, that world sounds pretty attractive to me, and I’ve already been to the Ukraine.

Lastly, Hollywood is a brand. You roll with Hollywood, the Trojan of the film industry: no clap. On the other hand, Aleppo is the clap. With or without the movies.

Capitalism
I know there are some boneheads who think capitalism is the root of all evil. And to some degree, they may be right. Conversely though, it allows all people to compete freely for the ability to succeed; theoretically at least.

However, in other countries, corruption and nepotism preclude people from the belief that they can be “anybody.” They observe the Anybodys near the Somebodys are always tomorrow’s Somebodys, and meanwhile, they’re still pushing camel rides at $3 a pop, and so are all their friends. Plus they’re high all the time. That’s probably part of it too.

But in America, you can be high AND have a big-time job. And if you work at some two-bit chop house like Northport Partnership Management, you get to do so while cheating on your wife by boning one of the controllers in her office after hours. Just ask Curtis Grow. He made it an art form.

See how beautiful that is? Who wouldn’t want to be a part of a society in which this is not only accepted, but grounds for a promotion to something like… oh, I don’t know… Director of Business Development?

Fashion
I’ve made a big hullabaloo in the past about all the fake designer clothes in many parts of the world. Now I’m making a bigger hullabaloo about the use of the word “hullabaloo.” That word rocks. Any word that close to “balloon” has to be cool. Yay, balloons!!!

That was weird. Where was I? Right, fake Dolce & Gabbana and Gianfranco Ferre again. Neverminding the fact that these are not American designers (thank fucking god), it is the perception that Americans like this garbage that enables it to saturate the foreign markets. Then again, some losers actually do like these shitty labels, which in itself is tragic. So much hopeful youth, gone down the drain. That drain being Staten Island. And that hope being that sterilization of douchebags is somehow made legal.

Anyway, people abroad don’t know that everyone in Staten Island is a blend of asshole and Dep Megahold, and they see a western brand and run for it not understanding its message. That being “I’m a doooooooouchebag.”

George Bush is the King of the World
The guy is a cunt. Granted. Few would argue that point these days with a 7 year track record that makes God’s brain hurt. I’m in Arusha, Tanzania at the moment, and I’ve watched as he waltzed in and completely shut this city down. This is the same thing he did in Jerusalem when I was there about a month ago. He blows in, shuts down all roads in/out of the city he’s in, suspends service at all airports, and in the case of Arusha, even cell service was suspended all day while he dallied around the Ngorogoro Crater.

Which brings me to an ancillary point. What the fuck is George Bush doing following me around?? I wonder if the Dept. of Homeland Security crosschecked my passport if they would consider me a threat. I’ve been in Prague, Slovenia, Jerusalem, Sharm el Sheikh, and now Tanzania with this guy. And these are not exactly typical stops on a president’s itinerary either. It’s not as if we bumped into each other outside the Camp David bathroom during a barbecue. These are countries he’s never even been to (and doubt if he could point to on a map) and yet we find each other on similar itineraries.

What this has done, is it has given me a considerable number of opportunities to see how a city reacts when the US President is in town. And let me just say, it’s absolutely staggering.

For one thing, everyone talks about it. Whether they like him or not (Jerusalem and Tanzania being pro-Bush, all others thinking he’s the clown most well-read Americans think he is), everyone wants to talk about him when he’s in town. I’m pretty sure Nicholas Sarkozy wouldn’t get nearly the amount of attention if he waltzed his philandering ass into the Sinai as Bush does.

Another tangent: Sarkozy gets divorced and remarried within months, clearly implicating himself in an extra-marital affair, and the international community says nothing (aside from maybe “dude, his new girl makes my penis move”). On the other hand, Clinton gets a bj from some slob and there are impeachment hearings?!?!? I’m confused. And suddenly more attracted to the French culture.

Either way, it probably has more to do with the fact that no one gives a fuck about what the French think or do, so it’s just a case of no one paying attention. Plus, when you’re trading in your ’86 Chevelle for the ’08 S500 as Sarkozy has done, people generally turn a blind eye. Clinton at best made a lateral move, and that raises big questions. Like, “Who???”, “What?!?!?”, “Fucking WHY?!?!?!”

Speaking of, am I alone in thinking that Michelle Obama is hot? Probably. Ok, forget I mentioned it.

The dollar is the biggest dick in the currency game
Despite the decline in the dollar, it’s still the standard by which all other currencies are weighed. Every exchange bank I’ve walked past in the last 8+ months has listed the US Dollar at the top of its buy/sell chart. That, and the fact that you can drop dollars literally anyplace in exchange for goods or services, provided you’re ready to get bent over on the rate. Go ahead and see how many places across the globe accept Pounds Sterling. Probably five. And you wouldn’t want to go there anyway.

All this is hardly a surprise. Since WWII dollar dominance has pretty much been a foregone conclusion. This is especially apparent when you’re in places like Tanzania wandering around with 10,000 shilling notes (worth about $8.50) and people would rather have the greenback than anything printed locally. Which makes sense when you think about it. After all, if the dollar is The Rabbit, then why bother with The Butterfly? I don’t know, maybe I’m still figuring out the vagina.

New York is prettiest girl in school
If you thought you were the prettiest girl in your high school, for one thing you were probably delusional. For another, you were also probably pretty popular. And if you were popular and not the prettiest girl in school, you were probably a total whore. And you were also most likely ignoring Academic Decathlon geeks like me. Fair enough: Blogs like this have become your comeuppance. That, and your sagging waistline. Score one for the geeks.

But no matter. Because New York’s waistline is tight and trim and still getting looks from all the seniors. No matter where you are in the world, New York reigns supreme. If it’s not a bad pizza place named Manhattan Pizza, or a shoddy hair salon named Soho Style (and no, I’m not of the impression this is harkening images of London), then it’s a picture of the Brooklyn Bridge in a bad Italian restaurant. New York is the first girl the guys call when they’re having a party. Without New York, there is no party.

Couple that with the enamored glint in the eyes of inhabitants of the developing world when they hear the name “New York” as they tell you it’s their dream to go there, and your cock literally grows an inch. Of course for many, any city that doesn’t depend on its camels as a source of income is probably a wet dream as well, and that includes pissholes like Detroit, so maybe I’m tooting the horn a bit too loudly. But even so, New York is everywhere. Everyone wants to know her, everyone wants to sleep with her, and many don’t think she’s the bitch some would have you believe.

It’s my contention that part of the reason the past nine months have come so easily, is that A) New York prepares you for anything, B) New York’s street cred is the gold standard, and C) once you’ve slept with New York, all the other girls in school think you must have something going for you besides a sense of humor borne out of self defense.

Beyond all that, I’m in Dar es Salaam on my way to Pemba, Mozambique on the northern coast tomorrow. I opted against Mafia Island as I’ll have plenty of opportunities to game fish and dive in Mozambique. Meeting my friend Ed in Maputo on April 3rd so I’ll be gallivanting overland to get there by then, with my eye on a week in Malawi as I’ve heard nothing but good things. I need to look more into that before making the move, however.