Return of the Blog (also, BHUTAN!)

So, the story of my trip to Bhutan really starts well before the morning we departed from O’Hare. I… have been bad about blogging, since December. Here is a brief (well, condensed) summary of what went on before take-off. Last term was rather damn busy. I was taking 15 credits (for those who don’t know, the law school ABA mandated maximum load is 17), though 4 of those were ITP Bhutan. I also took Copyright (taught by PCD, of torts, Executive Gays Cook for YOU!, and general awesome), Intro Trial Ad (which made Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and many other days generally hellish, but was at least moderately worthwhile), Evidence (with Hughes, of Carleton and strokes), and admin (with Speta of excellent fashion). All in all--timing of ITA aside, it was a pretty good set of classes. Evidence was moderately torturous, as Hughes was not the most effective of professors, but I derived at least some amount of joy from reviewing Speta’s outfits with Deb or Bevis. Finals were interesting. The final paper for ITP went well, and my topic (religion and the Constitution of Bhutan) became rather important--more on that later. I won my jury trial (one of the high school jurors was the judge’s son, I did all the crosses and therefore had to do neither opening nor closing because there were three people in my group), after losing my bench trial because opposing counsel misstated IL law to the judge. The rest were finals--admin was terrifying and it’s questionable whether anyone gave the right analyses to the right questions; evidence was closed-book and partially multiple choice with no great help from the prof in any way (but an awesome flow chart created by the previous owner of my book); copyright was multiple choice in entirety, open book, and moderately amusing.

Not-quite class things from last term: I lost time during the first couple weeks of the term following twitter live-blogs of Perry v. Schwarzenegger, the closing arguments of which are in a couple weeks. I also lost time playing what turned out to be a patience game (I’ve since lost by giving up, after three possibly-dates and four months) with a boy who was otherwise quite promising. Barrister’s Ball--to which I went with the lovely Miss Laura--was fabulous, particularly with Morgan winning alpha permanently by winning prom Queen (Sue won as King, and the royal couple were entirely fabulous, even though Morgan makes for a REALLY UGLY woman). Seven courses were cooked for Sue Provenzano, PCD, and two other profs for the Executive Gays auction item--Becca made the dinner work by continually producing clean dishes. PCD hung out until two in the morning, despite having back issues, and drove me and Bergy home from Morgan’s place. There were study groups of varying degrees of effectiveness, and computer related shenanigans (I’ve recently beaten two operating systems into working together, without the aid of anything but google). Derek and I planned far too much of a Shadowrun campaign that went live during finals, because I’m brilliant. I eventually acquired summer employment (two jobs got within half an hour!) at the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless (a full-time affair, give or take an afternoon and an evening a week, with compensation in the form of four credits to be administered by Audra, starting in two weeks) and research monkeying for Bernardine Dohrn, revamping her Children in Conflict syllabus (for twenty hours a week, which totals 60. I've mentioned insanity, right?). During finals I went out to a swing dancing and tapas meet-up, where I met an interesting (straight) fellow who has decided that more dancing needs to happen. I acquired a cat and a PS2--each for the summer, and each from a separate source. I lost the week after finals to Kingdom Hearts II. Money the Summercat watched and purred.

So, as far as the class for ITP went, it was pretty sweet. There were readings, usually interesting, often thought provoking, and generally topically specific. A few times there were dinners (generally scheduled right after class, with the--hopefully unintentional--side-effect that I could not join because of ITA), or other get-togethers, for movies and such. Guest speakers would come and discuss topics, including the refugee situation, religion, the constitution (Prof. Calabresi was quiet thorough in his treatment of it, despite scheduling difficulties). And there was prep for the trip proper, in several different ways. We were divided among class committees, which were responsible for a variety of things (curriculum, travel, liaison, finance--I was half of the last committee, which Morgan headed), split ourselves up into research groups (constitution—consisting of me, Bergy, Sabo, Shanna, and Christine Leas—legal process, anti-corruption, foreign direct investment/business, and media), which did research and figured out whom to interview, and tried to set up those interviews. In the course of the class, I was tasked with contacting everyone’s favorite Scottish professor, Dr. Richard Whitecross, and setting up a trans-Atlantic teleconference with him (he was awesome). Also, we had to go and acquire a variety of equipment (chargers, converters, sunglasses, drugs--typhoid, anti-diarrhea, general anti-biotic, altitude sickness prevention). And I gathered people’s addresses who wanted post-cards. More on that last when it’s plot-topical.

That all seems a fair, if general and moderately lacking in detail, summary of the past term. Now, to start the story of going to Bhutan as I wrote it down. The story proper starts the night before we left, as I was frantically awaiting the arrival of what would end up being (because it arrived) my suitcase in the mail during this time. Ben and Russell were coming into town for the weekend, more or less on a whim. There was something about coming down to visit a friend who’d said to do so, but that turned out--I think--to not quite be accurate. We hung out a bit, went out to dinner, and I was told that the two Carleton-Roberts had planned to have a game-night. This… it was decided, would be held at my place. Starting at about 9PM. I hadn’t begun packing yet. I was due at 9AM at O’Hare the following morning, packed, passported, and at least moderately awake. People arrived, and games were played (Dominion, predominantly, with expansions), and I chatted with the gentlemen as I packed madly. We were limited to 20kgs of luggage, and I have no scale in my apartment. So… I guessed. Also, I had to frantically type up what I’d written of story (the Neil-Gaiman-dream one, this) in order to have story and paper on which to continue it while in Bhutan--this didn’t really happen, though, as most of my writing efforts went to producing the ensuing journal. The hilarity in my apartment continued, with much good company, until about two, when people filtered out. Russell and Ben ended up staying with (I believe) the Roberts.

I ended up getting three hours of sleep, and was up again to meet Morgan and Bergy (well, Morgan, anyway--there was cab-shenanigans in fetching Bergy, and significant missed connections by cell and doorman) at Panera for breakfast. Our cab brought us to O’Hare with some twenty minutes to spare, and we were nearly the first to arrive. No one failed to show, fortunately, and, after a severe argument between my passport and the scanner, we made our way through security. Bergy and I were both sorta punchy, and through some combination of circumstances I cannot quite recall I challenged him to maintain an Irish accent through the airport. He tried his level best. There was a discovery that Diamox (the altitude sickness drugs, which we were to start on 48 hours before achieving altitude) has a possible side-effect of making all sweet things--particularly coke and diet-coke--taste disgusting (this discovery made possible by Shanna and Christine, and made hilarious by the ensuing experiments conducted in the terminal). Bergy hates flying, so we played Carcassonne (during which time the term ‘castle-jacking’ was defined) as he drank. He got called out by a nearby bar patron on his accent, which seemed to degrade over time. After finishing the game, the experiments, and starting the Yiddish Policeman’s Union, which Bergy brought for my amusement, we got on the plane. I did not sleep much on the plane. Some, but not much. I finished YPU, though, which was quite good.

I was stuck in the middle of my row, between some guy and Christine Leas, and behind Alli Bates. We were surrounded by rather quite loud high schoolers. Our first flight leg took us from O’Hare (ORD) to Tokyo. This flight was many hours. I cannot recall the precise number. There were media issues, for which we were issued apology cards--these turned out to be more lucrative than one might initially imagine. I got pictures in the air of Alaska, which was gorgeous to look upon. (Megaupload link to pictures--there are a gig and a half of ‘em: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=XH5W7O67 , http://www.megaupload.com/?d=3U7B1S9M --these are the initial, unedited set, just after the overexposed/underexposed/out of focus/blurry as shit cull. Edited pics will come over the course of the summer, I suspect) We landed in Tokyo, deplaned, and counted off. I was 2, Morgan 4, Bergy 6. Prisoner jokes ensued (‘Who are you?’ | ‘I am number 2’ | ‘Who is number 1?’ | ‘You are number six.’ etc.). At some point in this transition, I lost my apartment keys. Through customs we went, and set out to acquire food. Bergy and I had udon, various folks went to airport sushi, and so on. The triumvirate had a conversation about some nearby jailbait, and how unfortunate it was that a) they were jailbait, b) how thoroughly gay they were, and c) that they were rather cute. There was also Race for the Galaxy on the floor of the terminal. Then we boarded the next flight, zonked and unshaven, but well-ish fed.

The second leg took us from Tokyo to Bangkok (BKK), which was another 7ish hours, although the plane’s map had us routed to Hong Kong. I slept at least part of the way, but various… features… of the seating arrangements prevented effective sleep. I started another book. We landed in Bangkok, and went through customs, which was an affair involving much line-standing and repeated counting off (John Arendshorst seemed to delight in spontaneously starting count-offs by boldly announcing ‘One!’). It was hot outside. Intolerably so. And humid as shit. Bergy was very pleased with things. Our baggage was collected and shoved into vans, and we were driven to the airport hotel.

There. Were. Showers. Oh, joy and rapture, there was hot water. I cannot recall a time when I’ve felt more pleased about life to shave, shower, and brush my teeth. There were shenanigans involving room placements and beds and who was going to sleep through the four-and-change hour layover and who was not. It ended up that Morgan, Bergy, Sabo, and I kept our stuff in one room, and Morgan decided to sleep. The rest of us played games (Bonanza, this time—a bean counting trading strategy game), and eventually—once all three of us had run through hot water—went down to the vast, cavernous, and well air-conditioned lobby for further nerdery. Bergy and I also acquired food at the hotel restaurant—I can’t remember what I had, but Bergy had some rather tasty Tom Kha Gai (sp? Anyone who knows), which he continued raving about for three or four days. We wandered about outside briefly, he and I, while he poisoned his lungs, and chilled out with Matt Tsacoyianis and Caster a while, until people started coming down from their brief naps.

We returned to the airport and, after a brief misunderstanding, were moved from our initial deposit point--Delta--to our actual departure point--Druk Air (Druk, incidentally, is dzongka for dragon), which airline owns and operates a whopping pair of planes, with one flight a day coming from any of four cities. After getting our bags weighed at check-in—they didn’t weigh our carry-ons, the only reason that I, at least, suffered no weight issues on the way back—we retreated back through customs and security and whatnot, we hit the food courts. I had a slice of chocolate/praline cake that was exceptionally delicious and an ill-advised iced chocolate-drink-thing, which was similarly delicious, if hastily consumed to not imbibe melted ice and the… features… thereof. Then we waited for the plane, and boarded our flight on Druk Air from BKK to Paro (PAR) by way of Gaya, India (GAY. Yes, really). This was one of the most pleasant flights I’ve had in a long, long time. The seats were reasonably roomy, the food was amazing for airline food, particularly in that it was actually somewhat tasty in its own right. They served us mango juice (and orange juice, and water, and the standard other assortment of beverages). The egg-croissant-things actually could have been real (this trip's journal will feature lots of talk about food. Because there was lots of food, much of it rather tasty). There also was an assortment of fruit that we probably ought not to have eaten, but most of us did anyway--and thus I can say that I’ve had a dragonfruit, and see no further need to spend $7 at Whole Foods to try it. While it’s very pretty (both externally and internally--pinkish and kinda scaly-looking on the outside, hence its name, and like an albino kiwi on the inside with black seeds, it’s rather bland. Could be the ones we had, but… ::shrug:: This flight marked the first euchre game--of many--on the trip. Our pilot told us that on our left was Everest, so there was gawking and picture-taking--I don’t think that any of mine turned out, however.

I did, however, get a fair number of pictures of the landing in Paro. It’s consistently rated the first or second scariest airport in the world to land in, incidentally. You descend into a canyon that twists and turns and consistently narrows, all the while getting closer to the ground/mountainside. The scenery is remarkably pretty… and gets incredibly close. Bergy wasn’t quite so happy with this state of affairs, but was not the most vocal person about it. She shall remain nameless. Eventually, we landed, and that seems as good a place as any to stop for the moment. The next installment will run us from Paro to Thimphu, but probably not get much farther than that.

"Perhaps in the abstract one can believe that 'a troll is a troll,' but it is clear that all trolls cannot simply be judged alike, particularly when the inquiry must focus on distinct aspects of each." Dam Things from Denmark v. Russ Berrie & Company, Inc. 290 F.3d 548