Tag Archives: friends

Seclusion in Montaña Grande

by ladina

There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged
to find ways in which you yourself have altered.

 — Nelson Mandela

 

The smells are still the same: the smoke from the burning fire in the kitchen, the steaming dark Costa Rican coffee in the mug, the scent of the dogs and of the horses in the garden.

The sounds are still the same: a rooster crows, a dog barks, Angela shouts unintelligibly at Macha’s house, Rigo hammers a nail in a log, the telecaster babbles along though nobody watches.

The earth is still mercilessly scorched by the sun. No wind stirs. There is no escaping from the heat.

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Couchsurfing in NYC

by jose

 

After a week in Brooklyn, we were in for another move. We packed up and sat for two hours in the train, all the way to the northern end of the Bronx, to meet our new host: Kyle.

Although Kyle had never had any formal Couchsurfing guest — so this was more or less a new experience to him — he nevertheless was more qualified to be a host than many I have encountered. Opening up his door with a broad smile, he welcomed us in his apartment, made the presentations with his cats Luna and Yuuki, showed us how to get our airbed settled, and left in a hurry for his night-time work after giving us advice and recommendations — and keys to his place. He had in fact woken up early to see us, cutting on his sleep time to welcome us.

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Brooklynites for a week

by jose

 

“I hadn’t even mentioned Airbnb because I thought you already knew, what with you two being globe-trotters and all!”

Liza had been unable to host us, but had looked into a number of alternatives to help us, although without success. Fortunately, Madleina, Ladina’s cousin whom we had visited two weeks earlier in the Silicon Valley, had told us about Airbnb, a community-based platform for subletting and subrenting everything from a bed to a villa. We had ended up finding the cheapest bed we could possibly hope for, given New York’s crazy accomodation prices.

Liza (Elisabeth by her real name, but it’s damn too long!) was another old friend of mine, who happened to be in New York at the same time as us. She was greatly enjoying her stay, and, as an art lover, loved the fact that she was able to go to all the museums of the city for her work. We took the opportunity to spend a fabulous evening and make a few cultural visits together.

“So now you’re staying in Brooklyn?”

We were, de facto, Brooklynites for a week.

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SF

by jose

I had not seen him for over two years. I remember it well. Ladina and I had made a short trip to Paris, to see family, friends, and celebrate New Year’s Eve in the City of Light.

We made a call at his apartment one evening, the one he shared with Thomas at the time, another very good friend of mine: we all had known each other during classe préparatoire, that oh-so intensive two-year course aiming to make us enter the most prestigious schools of France. We had struggled together, endured together, stuffed our sleep-deprived brains with ludicrous amounts of knowledge, and had become close all the while. And we had left it, more disgusted by the pompous and arrogant elitism of it all, and by the dysfunctional educational and academic system of the Western world, than elevated to any prestige. But I had come out with the best friends I am to ever make, and for this I will never regret it.

Maël was there and as always, it felt like we had seen each other but the day before. Before I knew it, we were sitting on the floor watching Machete with a steak in our plates. He told me he was going to study a (third) Master degree in Berkeley, San Francisco Bay Area — or how he put it: “J’vais à SF” — and that was the last I saw of him.

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Queenstown & The Routeburn

by jose

Only a few hours drive away from Te Anau, we knocked at another door: Leanne and Richard, the parents of my friend Ben, had once hosted me after Ben and I had flown away from the aftermath of the Christchurch earthquake; and, coming back to Queenstown, it was a pleasure to see them again. They warmly welcomed us at their new house, and, being true born and bred Kiwis, enlightened us with a lot of opinions about life in New Zealand, a country so far away from the rest of the world, at once isolated and protected by its distance.

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Back in Te Anau

by jose

“Are you vegetarian?”

I goggled at the woman until it came to me it was a serious question.

“Um, no, why?”

“Oh Andrew couldn’t remember if you were vegetarian or not. You’re having tea at his place aren’t you? He’s cooking mussels.”

That is how, after having vainly looked for Andrew at his work, we ended up knowing we were having mussels for dinner before his colleague actually gave us the directions to his new house. The Hills had moved since my last visit, and apparently, they now lived a bit out of town.

We drove and turned back a few times before finding the house, set amidst meadows and pastures — and a golf course. As we went up the driveway, we had to pull over to let a 4WD pass the other way. Andrew was at the wheel.

“Hey guys! We’re just going sailing with Arlo — they’re in the back, in the garden! See you this evening!”

And he drove on.

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See you, somewhere

by jose

I find it particularly adequate that up to the last hour before parting, we were still furiously playing coinche, our favorite card game, as if wherever we were, and whatever happened, was only a background to our most important activity. Like everytime we had been together. Since August.

The time finally arrived when we really had to move to the restaurant for a last meal together; and the world abruptly came back to us. Marine and Guillaume shouldered their backpacks from their last hotel room after a year spent traveling across Asia, and we set out on the sand under the palm trees. The sea was, as ever, singing its unending song; that day it was one of farewell.

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Tropical bliss in Goa

by jose

Since the last time I was in Goa, three years ago (already!), I only wanted to come back; and deep in the cold of the Himalayan mountains, a few days before entering India again, I thought of Goa to cheer me up. Not of the Taj Mahal, not of the Indian food, not of the bright, colorful, ever-joyous and crazily chaotic Indian culture. I thought of Goa.

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