can you feel the love tonight?

Outside the main restaurant of the hotel, where the complimentary breakfast and buffet lunch/dinner are served, is a grand piano. At dinnertime, a pianist plays... "Can You Feel The Love Tonight." On an endless loop. For many, many minutes on end. Sure, he plays "Like a Bridge Over Troubled Water" and the Titanic song, too. But for some reason I got the giggles tonight when I heard the soulful Elton John melody drifting across the lobby. There's something so silly and ironic about it but I doubt the irony is intentional.

...

no chitral

Very sad news today. The government administration in Chitral has decided that security is too tense right now for American citizens to come to the district. Basically, we don't need their permission, but they told our guys up there that it would be a major headache for them to protect me while I'm there. So frustrating! But I'm not in a position to insist on going and if AKF thinks it's too unsafe, it's too unsafe. There was a brief hope that I could go to Gilgit instead, but the next flight is on April 9. Oh well.

I'm watching the Pakistan-India match right now. India got off to an incredibly fast start but Pakistan has gotten a few key wickets in the past 20 minutes and the pace has come back to Earth a bit. Watched in the hotel's little sandwich shop for the first two hours, which was fun. The staff are all glued to the TV and I think they were tickled that an American would be in there watching just as intensely.

Karim, Nusrat and I met just after noon with a woman from OFDA's regional office in Bangkok. OFDA is interested in funding disaster risk reduction in Pakistan but they basically need people to tell them how to do it. It was a little frustrating because I had to defer (obviously) to Nusrat and Karim, and they were talking past the OFDA rep a little bit. That may dominate my first couple of weeks back, though, if FOCUS decides there's an overlap with what OFDA can do.

Then, while I was eating lunch and watching the match, the OFDA rep, who's named Andrea, came in and sat and chatted for a little bit. She was in between meetings. Apparently she'd just read our proposal for Gujarat this morning! But mostly we talked about other things, including, obviously, the match. I got to show off my new knowledge a bit.

Anyway, time to turn my attention back to the match.

an observation

There is something much more dissonant and jarring about watching an actor in a commercial speak in a foreign language than listening to it spoken in normal conversation or on the news.

spotty posting

Yeesh, I haven't been very good about this posting thing. I guess there hasn't been too much worth posting about. I've been much more cloistered in Islamabad even than I was in Kabul, because the office might as well be inside the hotel. Work has been work. The last couple of days were more productive than the Sindh trip and a major concern has finally gone away, so some good news on that front.

Last night I ordered room service and it was actually cheaper than eating in the hotel restaurant. But awkward. I'd never ordered room service before. I didn't want the service part, I just wanted someone to bring me food. I'm happy to roll that cart up to myself, thank you very much. Weird. Also, yesterday I took my blazer down to the tailor on the ground floor to have the sleeves shortened a little bit and I might get a shirt made while I'm at it. It's pretty darn cheap, so why not?

I guess the one big thing to talk about is...cricket. That's right, I am completely pumped about the Cricket World Cup. Today, as I write this, Sri Lanka is crushing New Zealand in the first semifinal. Tomorrow, the reason I'm so excited: Pakistan vs. India in the second semifinal. This match has merited at least two above-the-fold stories in the newspaper every day since last week. The prime ministers of the two countries are going to watch it together in the stadium. (The match is being played in Mohali, India.) Basically, we have nothing in US sports that approaches this in terms of cultural significance or volume of fan support on either side. "Cricket diplomacy" is the topic of sober opinion pieces. No work will get done here after about 1:30 tomorrow afternoon, when they do the coin toss to determine who bats first.

God, I love sports. All sports. Even if I barely know what's going on -- and I can follow cricket pretty well now -- I get so much pleasure out of watching them.

In other news, I finished Maps and Legends. Liked very much for the most part. Chabon has interesting things to say and, when he doesn't get carried away within his sentences, he says them extremely well. Now I'm reading Chekhov's The Duel. And right now, I'm going to work out quickly and then eat dinner.

islamabad once more

Last hours in Karachi were okay. After a late-ish breakfast, Ahsan and I journeyed across the way to a historic library and museum from the 1860s. It's a wonderful building, both beautiful in its original design and construction and fascinating in its musty middle age. The library is peculiarly third-world-ish -- or maybe I just mean not-American -- in a way that reminded me of libraries in Chile. I can't quite find the words to describe it, but perhaps it's the partially-filled shelves, perhaps it's the splintered crumbly feel of the stacks, perhaps it's the fact that the entire anthology of the Dawn Newspaper is stacked in large, hand-lettered, leather-bound volumes on some seemingly-randomly-placed bookcases. I took a lot of pictures.

We left the library and kept walking around the outside of the building. At another entrance, with no apparent connection to the library, is a museum with an exhibition about the history of Pakistan. The ceiling of the main hall was spectacular with icons and script, painted by a well-known Pakistani artist whose name isn't coming to me. The exhibition itself wasn't that interesting. Point to remember: Mohammed Ali Jinnah was consumptively thin. I mean, the man was wasting away.

After that we walked back across the street to the hotel. I was feeling a headache come on and Ahsan wanted to do some work, so we went back to our rooms to wait out the rest of the time until our airport transfer came.

Ahsan is an affable and game guide and I don't know what I would have done without him. But he has an oddly limited grasp of English, which at the end of the day (literally) drove me nuts. On the one hand, his mannerisms are endearing. Sample sentence: "The departure lounge has a McDonald's outlet and several other outlets for sandwiches and things which are not very much costly." On the other hand, when asked a question he doesn't understand, he tends to zero in on the one snippet he does and to explain what that thing is. Sample exchange:

Luke: Hey, why are the license plates on those cars black?
Ahsan: I'm sorry?
Luke: Most of the cars have yellow license plates, but those are black. [Points to the cars in question.] Why is that?
Ahsan: Yes, those are the registration tags of the cars. The government has just recently started keeping electronic records of registration numbers. Previously all records were kept by hand.

That's actually a terrific example because not only did he not comprehend my question at all, he attempted to answer it and also added a little tidbit of interesting information on the end. Took a couple more rounds to learn that black license plates are purely for vanity and aren't technically legal. Our van had black plates. Also, I've finally learned, first from Yousef, then Ahsan and Youshey, never to tell a native of the country I'm visiting that I want something out of the ordinary. Whether it be a cheeseburger in Kabul or handicrafts in Karachi, the likelihood of them not understanding what the bleep I'm talking about outweighs the possibility that I'll end up getting what I'm looking for.

The flight back was utterly uneventful except that I was seated in an exit row and I made good headway into Michael Chabon's Maps and Legends (thanks Claire!), a collection of essays on literature and culture. The first essay irritated me, gave me the impression that this was a vanity project and that these would just be Chabon's masturbatory expositions of his own thoughts on things. Of course, seems to me that masturbatory exposition on one's on thoughts is the heart of all criticism (along with its positive obverse, the desire to share those thoughts with anyone who may find them worthwhile). But it can be done well and it can be done cloyingly, and the first essay fell in the cloying category. The ones that followed, however, were and are much stronger and more engaging.

While I'm on a book-related tangent, I really enjoyed The Master and Margarita, I recognize that it's a masterpiece and if nothing else it was a joy to read, but I don't think I get it. I need to read Dead Souls and Faust and Solzhenitsyn and Rabelais and so on. In other words, my theory at the beginning of the year that reading classics will enhance my understanding and enjoyment of the world is correct.

Anyway, now I'm back in the Serena. Tomorrow is Sunday but I will probably try to catch up on emails and any other work that I neglected while in Sindh, and to prepare a little bit better -- lessons learned from Karachi -- for my remaining meetings. But first, some dinner.

karachi and thatta

Man what a couple of days. In-country travel is always twice as exhausting as the rest of the trip. Yesterday I got up early and checked out of the hotel. I'd packed light for the Sindh trip and stored my suit case at the Serena. Met Ahsan, for all intents and purposes my babysitter for this trip but also a guy at AKFP who helps oversee the built environments work, including AKPBS, at the airport. The flight was delayed an hour or so, which wouldn't have been a problem except I had three meetings to get through in Karachi by the end of the work day and we were supposed to be landing at noon. The flight -- my first ever on a 747, I think -- was fine. I finished The Master and Margarita; more on that later.

Karachi airport is much bigger than Islamabad, which makes sense because Karachi is somewhere between 15-30 times bigger than Islamabad. It was hot as blazes and crowded as we walked out of the terminal and right toward a giant McDonald's, complete with Playplace. The drive from the airport to the Marriott, where we're staying, was great. Karachi is much more exotic than Islamabad, much more vibrant and alive-seeming. The buses, the rickshaws, the shops, the people walking in the road, the birds, the monuments. We didn't have any time to explore, though, as I was already well late for my first meeting.

It's past 10 and I'm tired from day two of this post, so I'm not going to get into any details now, but basically I had meetings with AKES, AKPBS and AKHS, in that order. None of them went as well as I'd hoped, but it's okay. Under the circumstances it could have been much worse.

Ahsan was with me during the last two, and afterward we took a drive around Karachi a bit. Well, the nicer parts, I guess. We drove out to the beach (didn't you know? Karachi is a major port) and walked around on the sand just after the sun had gone down. Lots of little kids running around, a camel ambled by, some couples wandering, and some older kids riding four-wheelers in circles. After that we went to Bar-B-Cue Tonight, a colossal restaurant that serves any grilled thing you can want, except, obviously, pork or anything we would call barbecue. But it was actually really delicious; we shared a couple of dishes and ended up ordering a second helping of the lamb. I also had my first-ever glass of lassi, a yogurt-based drink, which was delicious and very refreshing.

The hotel's nice but unremarkable. It's a Marriott. One thing: The bed is nicer than the bed in the Serena. Amazing.

Anyway, slept very well last night, woke up this morning a bit before 7:30, had breakfast with Ahsan and a couple of other AKF folks who are down in Karachi for various meetings and things. They all seem to be traveling all the time from one city to another. At 8:30, a big (20-seater) van picked us up in the front of the hotel, along with oh my god I need to finish this later.

Long story short: Today we went to the field. More later, I swear.

Alright, it's morning. Birds I'd never seen or heard before are trilling outside my window. To save myself and everyone from confusion, I'll keep writing as if this were yesterday. So "today" means Friday, March 25. There will be a new post for "today," Saturday, March 26.

As I was saying, the big van picked me, Ahsan and Youshey from AKPBS up in front of the hotel. Youshey was coming along to help guide us around the temporary shelters and the water and sanitation installations. The ride to Sujawal took about 2.5 hours, at least an hour of which was taken just getting out of Karachi. And it's not even like the traffic was that bad. Karachi is just enormous. I became enthralled by the brilliantly painted buses and trucks, to which I alluded in my first post from Pakistan. Hoping to get some good pictures of them today; yesterday all I could get was a bit of video. I took lots of little videos.

Sindh is flat as hell and as such you get a feeling of vastness just driving down the road. It's easy to see why it flooded so completely. But at the same time, it's hard to imagine just how much water there was, to be anywhere from three to TWELVE FEET DEEP across the plain. As everyone saw in the footage of the Japanese tsunami, the wrecking power of water is awesome, in the "scary as shit" sense of the word.

Sujawal is a town of about 15-20,000 people in the middle of Thatta District, on the other side of the Indus River from Karachi. That is, the side that flooded. There, we visited a Family Health Clinic run by AKHS, which serves as a base for one of their mobile medical teams. They have a pharmacy, do peri-natal care including deliveries, offer health consultations and provide some advanced care. For the more heavy-duty stuff, patients are referred either to government hospitals or to the AKU Hospital in Karachi, e.g. in the case of the farmer who, upon returning to his village and fields after the waters receded, tried to commit suicide by swallowing insecticide.

Dr. Bisham, who runs 22 of these clinics for AKHS, was our guide, and got in the van with us when we left. We drove a while longer on the highway and then left the paved road, ending up at a tiny village in the middle of nowhere. Temporary shelters are almost complete right next to the village, along with one additional shelter that houses the mobile medical team when it makes its twice-weekly visit. Families will be able to move in in the next week or ten days. But for the time being, they're still living in what can best be called squalor, in their devastated village. They have no income because their crops were destroyed; their houses, sagging wrecks, are unsafe; the ground is unclean because their animals have nowhere to go but in amongst the houses. Nowhere I visited in Afghanistan approached this in terms of sheer vulnerability and poverty. A few of the men showed us around, including their school and mosque (we didn't go in the mosque). They rebuilt the school after returning to the village, but the government-funded teacher hasn't returned since the flooding. So their kids are either idle or begging in Sujawal.

A tour of the nearly-complete shelters led to a discussion about improvements that had been made on the fly and then about what could be done to further improve the shelters. Basically, future shelters might have a solid door, slightly more clearance between the roof at the walls, and windows cut in the plastic sheeting that seals the houses from the wind.

We left that village and drove on to visit another mobile medical team. Their temporary shelter had been cut off by water last night -- apparently the ministry in charge of irrigation had left a tap open and now there was a small lake between the shelter and the road -- so they had set up shop in an abandoned school. People were lined up outside and inside a doctor, nurse and health educator were tending to patients. A girl lay on a makeshift bed with an IV drip going, the doctor asked a young boy some questions, the health educator was counseling a newly pregnant woman about nutrition. Flies were everywhere. Outside, an older villager explained how high the water had risen (twelve feet, you could see the high-water mark on the side of the school), how it had destroyed their village and how helpful the mobile teams were.

Our final stop was a village where the people had been able to move into the temporary shelters. They had set up the typical perimeter wall of thorny brush, with a single gate. This is to keep animals in and keep thieves out. We waited outside it for a minute while the men went and told the women to go back inside. Then we walked around, guided again by one of the older villagers. We saw how they'd set up their kitchens and the insides of the houses, installing their own shelves and bed mats. Such an obvious improvement over the wrecked houses. These villagers were having trouble getting water, however, because the water tanks had run out and it's too expensive to bring in more tanks. The village is just too remote. There was a debate between Ahsan and Youshey about the viability of installing hand pumps. Bore hills drilled to 30 feet had found brackish, undrinkable water, even this many miles inland. Youshey said that the next step had to be to drill to 80 or 90 feet, but Ahsan was adamant that in this part of the country, you'd have to drill to at least 170 feet to find fresh water, and maybe more. Too deep for a hand pump; the villagers would need a motor or to use animals to get the water. That's not realistic under the circumstances. The solution was left unresolved.

A bit sadder than I'd been in the morning, we piled back into the van and began the long drive back to Karachi. After a pit stop in Sujawal to drop off Dr. Bisham and use the bathroom (hellooo, loose movements), we continued on to a highway restaurant called Cafe Imran. There we had some hot tea with milk, just as a refreshment. It was very tasty. We got back to the hotel just after dark, around 7.

Upon being asked, I'd mentioned my desire to shop for handicrafts to take home. Youshey offered to drive me in his car to a mall in Clifton, the toniest Karachi neighborhood, and show me a couple of shops. I of course said yes, because how many opportunities in my life will I have to drive around Karachi with a native. Youshey is very friendly and his English is excellent. He's also a bit closer to my age than anyone else, maybe mid to late twenties. There was nothing really worthwhile in the mall, which didn't surprise me, but I'm still glad I went.

Back in the hotel, I realized I wasn't hungry, so I read a bit, watched a bit of crappy TV, and went to sleep. And now it's past 9 AM on Saturday, March 26 and I better get a move on if I'm going to see anything before we have to leave for the airport. One last thing: a few photos. Sorry to just throw them in at the end here.

pir sohawa

Just got back from a couple of hours touring F-7 and F-6, two of the nicer (nicest?) sectors of Islamabad, and going to Margalla Hills National Park. Our final destination: a viewpoint on a high ridge over the city called Pir Sohawa. I think we climbed about 1700 or 1800 feet to get there.

The cab driver -- this was recommended to me as the best way to get around -- was a really friendly guy named Tanvir. He took me to the Super Market and Jinnah Super Market, but they were not really what I was expecting. The shops are mostly for practical things like clothes, phones, etc. But I don't need any new Nike pants. The market that we did stop at, the name of which I forget but it starts with "K," had a couple of craft stalls but there wasn't really anything interesting there. I must have gone to the wrong places because I have a hard time believing that Kabul's craft shops are so vastly superior to Islamabad's.

Make myself a little sick being SUCH a tourist, but sometimes you just have to embrace it. It's that or not go anywhere.

Then we drove up to the aforementioned Pir Sohawa. The road twists and turns very sharply as it climbs. At one point we pulled off and got out, and Tanvir pointed out to me a spot where, last summer, a plane from Karachi crashed into the side of the hill, killing all 160 people on board. You can still see the path they cut through the forest to recover the bodies; the vegetation is very thick the whole way up.

Pir Sohawa, in addition to its views, boasts an enormous restaurant called The Monal. Seats something like 1200 people. The smell of grilling meat mingled with the roses and fumes from the passing cars and trucks. Some guys were playing tablas and singing. Took some short clips and photos but it was hard to see much of the view. Islamabad is a hazy city, or at least it has been since I got here.

One highlight: There were signs periodically on the way up saying things like, "Don't tease the monkeys, they can be dangerous," and, "Approaching the monkeys can be a hazard." Monkeys? In Islamabad? Why, yes! On the way down we passed a little troupe of them. Kind of medium-sized, just chilling by the side of the road. Obviously very used to being around people. Who knew?

Towards the end Tanvir started teaching me some Urdu. I won't even begin to try to transcribe it, but I learned, "What is your name?" and, "My name is Luke," and a couple of other basics.

Kind of an underwhelming trip, to be honest, but that's okay. All two hours of it set me back about 20 bucks. If nothing else it was great to leave the hotel for a while and see something different. Tomorrow morning, early, I leave for Karachi. I'll try to do some more prep this evening before I expire. Come on, 10 PM...

pakistan day

Was too busy and then too tired to post yesterday. Lasted just past 9 PM and then woke up at 5 AM. I'll get the hang of this time zone eventually.

Anyway, yesterday was productive. Did some prep work for my trip to Karachi, where I'll be meeting with three of our sister agencies: Aga Khan Planning and Building Services, AK Health Services and AK Education Services. Lunch again with Karim, Salman and Nusrat. We talked about the differences between Muslim and Christian sects, which was pretty enlightening for me and I hope for them a bit, too.

Spent a good chunk of the afternoon going over the finances for the OFDA flood response project with Nadeem, who's the grants finance officer at AKFP. It was great to just be able to sit with him and see how he's broken the budget down and how he's tracking each agency's spending. Helps that he's a really friendly guy and knows the budget backwards and forwards. Amazingly, this is the less-complicated of the two budgets that dominate his time. The other project he works on has eleven partners! I shudder just thinking about that, five is enough. More interestingly (to me, anyway), we went over how we can use some of the savings from certain parts of the project, like non-food item distribution, to cover parts of the project that need additional funding, like the mobile medical teams.

After that, Karim and I met with Mark A., the OFDA Humanitarian Program Specialist who deals with our project in-country. We talked about the lay of the land in terms of the response so far, and how USAID/OFDA was likely to move forward as the emergency part of the response comes to an end in most places. OFDA has been funding early recovery programming since the very beginning of the response, but funding for that type of work is no longer likely to come from them. However, they're trying to work with the rest of the USAID Mission to make the relief-to-early-recovery transition as coherent as possible.

We went over a couple of the issues that have come up with the project and there really is no replacement for a face-to-face meeting to get everyone on the same page. Not going to go into too much detail but the way forward is clear now. Can't ask for much more out of an hour-long meeting. Hopefully we'll get a chance to meet again next week, when I'm back in Islamabad.

Today is Pakistan Day, which means the office is closed and there's no work. I'm going to write a few emails and then venture out from the Serena for the first time. I've gotten some suggestions from Ahsan, who works on housing stuff and will be coming with us to Karachi tomorrow, about places to go and things to see. My friend from high school, Kate, who spent a chunk of her childhood in Islamabad, also gave me some recommendations. Karim said that if he was feeling up to it he'd give me a call and take me around, but his back was still hurting yesterday so we'll see. At the very least, I'll get to one or two of the big markets and a couple of the famous viewpoints in the hills just outside the city.

That's all for now, I guess. Probably more later when I get back from my excursion.

nawroz mubarak!

That is, Blessed Spring Equinox to you all! Nawroz is the Persian/Ismaili celebration of the beginning of spring. Had some cake with the whole AKDN staff about an hour ago to celebrate.

Today has been a bit of a blur, thanks to the jet lag. I have not yet taken a nap (good work, Luke!). Spent most of the day with Karim Nayani, who is coordinating the AKDN response to the flooding, including my grant. He got right down to business after greetings. We talked for a couple of hours, including ironing out some details about my in-country trips. Then went around and he introduced me to a bunch of people, most of whom I can't remember. But they included Nusrat, the Deputy Executive Officer of FOCUS Pakistan, and Salman, who heads up Aga Khan Cultural Services Pakistan and knows more about American foreign policy than most Americans I know. Very engaging. I ended up having lunch with the three of them -- rice and chicken and potatoes in some kind of sauce, not very good -- then doing some work and generally trying to stay awake until cake.

The office is very spiffy and new, although oddly devoid of artwork apart from a beautiful carved wooden screen that hides the copy machine. Karim's quite a bit older than I expected, probably in his 50s. He'd thrown his back out over the weekend, poor guy, lifting flower pots. But he was in good spirits all the same, as everyone seemed to be. Holidays do that, I guess. Nawroz is a big holiday for Ismailis.

I'm barely able to keep my thoughts together, so I'm going to head to the gym, get some exercise, eat dinner, and generally push through to 9 PM. Wish me luck.

coffee

The coffee in the hotel is out of this world good, I think the best coffee I've ever had, worthy of its own post. I was raptures last night drinking my little pot of decaf after dinner. I asked one of the staff: turns out they use local beans and roast them in the hotel.

Also, jet lag is pretty bad today, so coffee is pretty much what's keeping me afloat. If I can soldier through to a reasonable bed time tonight, I should be on normal footing tomorrow. My mantra for today: no naps, no naps, no naps, no naps, no naps, no naps...

serena

I think I meant for my last post to be entitled, "they drive on the wrong side of the road here!" but it was 4:30 AM or some such stupid time and I forgot. At any rate, I was surprised, when I got into the car last night (the airport pickup went smoothly, name placard and all), to discover that Pakistanis have inherited British driving habits.

The flight from Doha to Islamabad was without incident; I watched something but at the moment I can't remember what it was. Maybe an episode of Family Guy, 30 Rock, Pinky and the Brain (!!!) and something else. Whatever, I was mostly zoned out and I think I fell asleep with about 30 minutes to go, because I literally have no memory between the, "Please put your seatbacks in the upright..." announcement and landing. Benazir Bhutto International Airport is small and chaotic. Immigration took 45 minutes or an hour, not too terrible, and my bag was blessedly on the carousel when I came through. The air smelled vaguely like piss as we made the quick walk to the waiting car and then we were off down the nice, smooth highway.

It was quite dark, so I didn't see a whole lot, but I did notice that big brightly-colored trucks that Pakistan is known for were pretty much the only other vehicles on the road. Can't wait to see some of those in daylight. Apparently the prime minister of Bhutan is or will soon be visiting, because there were big banners on bridges along the route that read, "The People of Pakistan Welcome Prime Minister of Bhutan" [sic], with pictures of Zardari and, I assume, Jigme Thinley (yes, I had to look that up).

The Serena is guarded pretty heavily. We went through three checkpoints, not counting the one on the highway. My suitcase was x-rayed twice and there was much weaving through concrete pylons and waving through by guards. The hotel is ridiculous, everything carved wood, inlaid marble and mosaics. As I discovered at the Kabul Serena, though, the thing that differentiates a five-star hotel from, say, a nice Marriott, is the service. As I was checking in -- note, it was 4:15 in the morning -- a man came up to me with a tray of juice in glasses and offered me one. When I asked this morning if they had any outlet adapters, I was told that one would be brought to my room. Everyone is obsequious but not obnoxiously so. It weirds me out and I don't think I could ever really be used to staying in places this nice.

Finally got to sleep around 5:30 AM after showering, taking some more Calms Forte (still not sure whether it works or not) and reading a bit more in The Master and Margarita. Woke up around ten when someone rang my doorbell and then opened the door, wondering if I would like an apple or orange, which he was holding on a tray. I said no and went immediately back to sleep. Turns out the "Do Not Disturb" sign is much more important in a hotel where they BRING FRESH FRUIT TO YOUR ROOM WITHOUT YOU ASKING. Woke up again around 12:30, stretched for half an hour or so, watched some news and went down for brunch. It was good but too expensive. I need to figure out what I'm going to do about meals cause there's no way I can afford to keep eating there. Room service might, amazingly, be cheaper. Anyway, this post has been crushingly boring, but then I haven't really done much, so a blow-by-blow of my sleeping and waking, plus "oh man this hotel is above my class," is the best I can do so far. My bad.

Better posts to come, I trust. But in the spirit of this post, I will report that the current plan is to take a nap because my body is telling me that I've been awake from 3 AM to 6:20 AM, and that does not fit our pattern.

islamabad

Just checked into my room at the Serena. Fancy fancy. Tired/jet lagged/zonked out right now, so more tomorrow.

doh

DOH as in Doha International Airport, that is. Some minor mishaps at Dulles but nothing too terrible and maybe a good lesson learned for future long trips. I'm sitting next to my gate, which boards in a little over an hour, for the three-hour leg to Islamabad. Mishaps in the terminal aside, the Qatar Airways plane was great. The food was ok and the entertainment center (that's right, the entertainment center) had over 100 movies and 250 TV shows. Eat your heart out, United. Fucking "Marley & Me," I still can't believe that was the only option on the way back from Dubai last year... I watched "127 Hours" and most of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and then listened to Art Blakey Live at Birdland while I...

...started The Master and Margarita. Got about 80-90 pages in. Excellent so far, reminds me a bit of Fludd or The Third Policeman. Very lively writing, I obviously don't speak Russian but I imagine that this is a pretty first-rate translation.

DOH is very different from DXB, a lot less ostentatious and more normal-looking, although the duty-free is still mostly Bulgari, Dior, Seiko and the like. And it wouldn't be a Middle-Eastern airport without a large display of gold jewelry.

Last thing to report: the Calms Forte I bought to help me sleep may or may not have done so. Certainly didn't give me the crazy dreams that it's known for. Oh well. I'll try again tomorrow, er, tonight/tomorrow morning, when I get to the hotel at it's 5:45 PM for me and 2:45 AM for Islamabad.

One more thing: It wouldn't be an international trip if I didn't forget something. So here is this trip's item: my bathing suit.