THE PHOTOGRAPHERS LINE UP on the horizon, about 15 of them: head to toe Gore-Tex, cigarettes dangling, black cameras at the ready.It’s late afternoon and the sun is about to set.They’ve traveled here from as far as Beijing, perhaps — a fleet of expensive jeeps that are now parked at violent angles on the grassland below, windows sheened with dust.
Every year, on April 1st, the American public gathers for a day of revelry and rapscallionism. Bros pull other bros’ saggy Dickies down in front of cute, giggling girls. Children lie facedown in the tub and pretend to be dead when their parents walk into the bathroom. The internet becomes filled with the hoax deaths of notable celebrities and faux news stories about upcoming movies.
“There’s a ghost in there!” Mariko said. I looked inside to an old man, pale and haggard. He sat cross-legged on a section of raised flooring behind a low display counter full of scissors. He fiddled, focused and deliberate, with some metal object on an impromptu desk made from a toaster-sized wooden block.
When India’s first Starbucks opened in Mumbai, the line was so long that the local chai-wallahs made a killing selling tea and coffee to those waiting on line for tea and coffee.I did not find it strange that people in India would wait that long for Starbucks. The glamour of Starbucks was the glamour of abroad, and as a child growing up in India, Starbucks coffee was as legendary to me as the mermaid featured in its logo.
With the Sochi Winter Olympic Games now in full swing, we’re all becoming familiar with the names of the competing athletes. Deservedly so, as every athlete there has worked incredibly hard and each has an incredible story. But in sport, as in life and travel, much more is learned from the journey than the final destination.
1. Create seedy meetups.There seems to be a growing problem of people creating CS meetups for the sole purpose of hooking up, maintaining creep-to-female ratios in the ballpark of 9:1. That math doesn’t add up for anyone.2. Mention being out of money.Couchsurfing operates under the pretense that it’s not about a free room — it’s about community.
When I moved back home from teaching abroad in Indonesia, I had no job and very little money. I kept busy, though, and one day found myself admiring a mural on the street. I met a boy there, we started dating, and I told him of my love for the French language. He smiled walking into the room one day carrying a pen and handed it to me.
![Dialogue of 5 travelers on their first night in Rome [script]](https://jorgemolder.com/img/mata-2020/3400/image_Qr36r8Ebylp939yRQJt2DTp.jpg)
