1.5.09
3:43 pm
So.
From the 22nd to the 27th, Christina and I were in Florida.
We ate food, went to Universal (where I, once again, shit myself on the Mummy ride), had Christmas and all that.
On the morning (the early ass morning) of the 27th, we drove to Boca Raton where Phil met us and took us the rest of the way to Miami to catch our flight to Cali (which, for the last fucking time is NOT cool slang for "California", but a city in the country of Columbia (or Colombia as I have been told is also acceptable) where Will and Diana were to be married.)
We returned to Phil's place where I gave my condolences to Vovo while he prepared a bag and a suit and, seven minutes before we had to be at the airport (Phil lives about nine minutes from the airport), he discovered that his passport expired in 2008.
This was the biggest disappointment of 2009. On one hand, it's good that the fourth to last day of the year held that dubious honor, but, on the other hand, it indicates that the events of that day were so disappointing that they out-disappointed the events of the proceeding three hundred and sixty one.
Which they did.
Christina and I arrived at the International Departures place and were finished with check in and everything in about twelve minutes, leaving us with two hours or so to kill; which we did with the Us Weekly crossword puzzle.
P.S. the people who make the Us Weekly crossword are fucking 4th graders who watch a lot of popular TV shows and movies.
But at least it was thick.
We got on the plane all fine and dandy despite that cockface who blew his dick off four days before and actually landed ten minutes early...in Hell.
The air was like a stinky, wet blanket wrapped around and stuffed inside our lungs and the evening smelled of diesel.
We left the terminal, the whitest and tallest things in sight (respectively), in front of a huge crowd of people waiting right outside the airport for their friends and relatives to land.
Then we had a magic adventure trying to get currency changed and that was horrible.
Eventually (forty five minutes later) we met some other Wed Heads (Nick and Krista from Texas, Nick being Will's bud from ISU) and were taken to the Dann Carlton in Cali.
An aside: I love the cabbies in New York.
If you are five minutes late, they will get you there ten minutes early. They are magicians in bright, yellow cars and they terrify a lot of people.
But not me.
I trust them utterly.
I have not only never been in a car accident in a cab, but I haven't even SEEN an accident involving a cab.
I believe they drive, no based on the traffic lights or even their five senses, but more on a sixth sense, a sense that informs them when it's okay to speed in front of a bus or just barely whisper past a pedestrian, inches between them and death.
The drivers in Cali make the cabbies of New York look like dead Amish.
Aside from the absolute glut of people, I noticed the plethora of armed police. One every fifty feet was the average and that made us all feel both comforted (hey, there's cops everywhere!) and disconcerted (hey, why are there cops everywhere?).
The hotel was deliciously opulent and tacky, with strings of flashing blue lights hung EVERYWHERE like disco Spanish moss.
We checked in and saw Drew and his wife Andrea in the lobby then met Nick and Krista for a late dinner downstairs at Tony Roma's A Place For Ribs™ where none of us had ribs and a cop watched us eat from start to finish, again, instilling that dichotomous sense of security/paranoia.
I had a very interesting burger (good interesting) and a Coke made with pure sugar cane.
On our way back to the hotel, we saw Will and Diana in the midst of their maelstrom of international event planning.
I was told to be ready at 8:30 tomorrow morning for the wedding rehearsal and then we'd be off to the day's planned events at around 10 or so.
As I was just getting sick, my sleep was troubled.
Somehow, I awoke the next morning and headed down to the hotel's free continental breakfast and had some amazing chorizo, the best orange juice ever and a new favorite that Chris and I are still trying to track down here in the States...fresh lulo juice.
I had presumed that this was merely kiwi juice since it was green and tasted like citrus-y kiwi, but it was in fact, lulo, which is green and tastes like citrus-y kiwi.
Plus it's fucking awesome.
Will, you wild bear, you got a contact?
Hook us up, Ursa Major.
In the elevator on the way to the lobby, I ran into Steve Aponte (see the "I Paid A Harvard Graduate $50 To Urinate In Public" entry for his background).
We talked a bit and then met Linda, the wedding planner.
I still maintain that she was a cougar.
And a Colombian Cougar is NOT to be messed with.
We were bundled into a tiny, tiny taxi and arrived at the church.
This is the oldest church in Cali (or something) and you can see it in all the tourist brochures and videos for Cali.
It has that simplistic beauty that's missing from a lot of the American churches I've seen.
It feels more sincere that way.
The rehearsal wasn't quite a clusterfuck...sort of a rehearsal clusterfuck and, at one point, after the wedding planner had, apparently (I don't speak Spanish), said something that Diana didn't like, Diana said, very quietly, something like "there are too many people talking and too many cooks in the kitchen"..
After that, everyone got quiet, Will started stroking Diana's arm and the wedding planner stopped directing people to go places.
Plus, the cop standing at the back of the church might have popped the clasp on his holster.
In the end, the groomsmen (me, Steve and Diana's three brothers Carlos, Lucho and Pipe, that last one is pronounced PEE-pay) and the best man, Drew had to stand a lot, go up to the altar once, sit down, then, later, go up to altar again before following Will and Diana out.
Too easy to fuck up, right?
Yeah.
After the rehearsal, I said hi to Brooke (Will's old roommate and friend from grad school).
I had forgotten how awesome she was and I was glad to get a chance to hang with her throughout the trip.
Then we all headed back to the hotel for the craziness.
The craziness was everybody (about 40 or so people) on two buses, being driven all over Cali from 10 to 6.
Our first stop was a small shop which had been closed off for us (guards at the door keeping people out...or keeping us in?).
I was told that this was kind of the equivalent of one of those I heart NY stores in Manhattan, but I still bought a tiny guitar (called a chongo).
Then, back on the bus and off to Diana's father's home.
The adjective I'd like to choose is "palatial".
Think the set of a Puff Daddy video without the whores and ostentation.
He welcomed us all individually and served up more fresh lulo juice (like, just out the blender fresh) and plantain balls stuffed with pork.
It was fantastic.
Next, back to the buses and off to Diana's family's country house (unless I misheard).
It was as bucolic as you'd like and, when we arrived, we were greeted by a selection of fruits we'd never had before, mostly.
There was mango (excellent mango), something that was a combination of a plum and a cherry, some weird, starchy orange thing that tasted kind of chalky, some grapas (probably have that wrong) which were eyeball-sized things encased in a tough skin that you puncture with your teeth before sucking out the liche-esque goo, something that looked like an orange before you tear it open to reveal the bread-like sac containing the slime-coated seeds which you eat (this one wins the Most Interesting New Fruit award) and then these tiny green things that looked a bit like chickpeas.
These, alone, taste like jalapeno peppers, but, you are supposed to roll them in salt and then eat them with a shit of this licorice flavored cane alcohol.
I tried it like that and just ran into all three horrible flavors at once.
I think Eduardo (Diana's dad) might have been fucking with the gringos...
We then sat down and there was salsa music, which Diana and Eduardo danced to.
Around this time, I realized that Eduardo is the real life Mr. Charisma and I happily yield the title.
The man...just oozes sex...wow.
Soon, a really interesting band came out and played some stuff while a dancing horse came out and...pranced.
Then we were served lunch.
Jesus H. Christ were we ever served lunch.
There's some name for it but, basically, it was a huge fucking platter with rice, beans, plantain, fried pork fat, shredded beef, arepas, avocado and chorizo.
It was the Alpha and the Omega of lunch.
There was more dancing and music and a toast by Eduardo in which he told everyone (in Spanish) that "his little princess had been stolen by a wild bear".
Too true, Don Charisma, too true.
Then it was back to the hotel for whatever we had planned for the evening.
For Chris and I and about ten other people, that meant checking out this pizzeria across the street from the hotel.
I had some amazing prochutto pizza and a lot of great conversation with Geeta, Divia, Lila (those three were introduced as Will's sisters, but I never got the back story...) Brooke, Nick, Krista and Brooke's unbelievely beautiful, gringa-looking, Colombian friend, Nicky. Or maybe it was Nikki. She was hot enough to warrant the "i" substitution.
After that, some people headed out to this brand new club to find DJ Quantic, some wanted sleep and some headed to check out the festival lights along the river.
After some deliberation, Chris and I decided to do the lights, which were beautiful and amazing and all that.
We ran into Brooke, Nicky, Nick and Krista and walked back, buying a fresh mango from a vendor on the way.
It was...can you guess?
Next, we all went to a cool little bar called Absenta which sold...ready?...absinthe.
They even had Manson's brand of absinthe, Mansinthe.
I wish I were kidding.
This place had all the charm and eccentricity of the most charming and eccentric dive bar in Brooklyn but without the pretension and effort.
They had a magician doing card tricks there.
Then there was sleeping.
We awoke to another great breakfast, but no lulo.
Instead some melon juice called guanabana.
Meh.
Will took the groomsmen and his other friend, Colby (or maybe Coleby) out to lunch at Tony Roma's A Place For Ribs™ where I had a very adequate Caesar and more Coke.
Carlos, who has become known as the Colombian Me, decided that he was going to provide "four beautiful women" for me because of my size and related sexual appetite.
It was almost Wedding Time.
But, before the ceremony took place, the groomsmen presented Will with his gift from Diana: the Hjennifer Hlopez puppet from South Park that Will is constantly referring to Diana as.
That make sense?
Diana contacted Chris months ago and asked her to make this thing, Christina, being amazing, did.
Will was first shown the video of Diana "singing" the songs set to the music and then with the puppet itself.
He seemed very happy with it.
Then it was Wedding Time.
We headed over to the church and got that hairy motherlover married.
And yes, the wedding was a bit...loose?
Yes, I sat down in the wrong pew (although Linda HAD said we'd be in the third row) and no, I didn't sit down at the right time (although it turned out that NO ONE did so, fuck it) and yes, the groomsmen and the bridesmaids were standing for maybe fifteen minutes more than they should have been and no, Brooke didn't end up reading the thing she was told she was going to read but, seriously, Will and Diana were married and kissing and it was beautiful.
So there.
During the ceremony there were a handful of photographers, one of them is INCINERAINGLY HOT WOMAN who caused Carlos to turn to me during the wedding mass and say, in perfectly clear English, "five beautiful women!"
Outside the church, there were more pictures and Will was handed a cage full of butterflies, or as the badly translated paper that came with them read "small fantasy beings", which he set free.
Aside from being small and fantastical, they were also sleepy and landed among the wedding guests.
It was magical.
But not as magical as Carlos arranging to take a picture of me and this Earthbound goddess of a photographer.
After he showed me the picture, he explained that that had been one beautiful woman and he had to find me four more.
I was just fine with that.
Then, back to the hotel to get on down and eat some more food.
The bridal party entered and stood around and then Will and Diana entered to "Kiss".
Much style, my friend, MUCH style.
Then there was food and toasts and translations of toasts and amazing food and a 12 piece live ass salsa band came in and rocked the fucking shit out of us for about four hours.
Chhay made it rain and Carlos upped the total from four beautiful to seven then to ten, indicating the changes by yelling across the room the new number and holding up his fingers.
Still waiting for those other nine...
Also during this time....there was some dancing done by me.
I...found things in myself that I did not know were there.
And I shared them.
Then, suddenly, it was Carnivale and there were costumed dancers and the night got a WHOLE lot crazier.
Then Will lost his ring.
I blame Phil.
Eventually, there was sleeping.
The next day, Chris and I did breakfast and lay by the pool.
The official wedding and its accompanying plans were done with; many people were returning home or to Cartagena for volcano mud baths, but Will and Diana and a few others had arranged for us to get tickets to a bull fight.
My thought was: when else are you going to see a bull fight?
Before the bullfight however, Chris and I took a short walk around Cali.
We were tipped off to a great lunch place where you could get lunch for about $3 American.
You went in and the waiter asked pollo or carne.
We picked carne and each received a plate with a flank steak, rice, beans and thick cut plantain chips.
Add on a glass of lulo juice and you've got a $4 meal.
Rock. The Fuck. On.
Then, a small fleet of cabs took us to the bull fight.
Long story short, the bull fight was as horribly brutal as you would imagine (six bulls killed in two and a half hours).
Before the fight though, I bought an excellent hat.
Back to the hotel for the evening plans which, for Christina and I included having the best meal of the trip at a tiny Cuban restaurant called Cubar (suggested by Diana's brother Lucho...or maybe Pipe...)
Between Chris and I, we had maybe fifty Spanish words, so we merely combed the menu for words we knew (plantain, chorizo, caso) and ordered three dishes containing these words.
The meal was amazing.
Sauces that were indescribably perfect, something that seemed to be a meatball stuffed with cheese, God's Own Chorizo.
Costing us about $25 total.
Afterwards, we met up with the last few survivors and hit Absenta again, although the angry waitress didn't bring me my mango juice.
At this point, I was utterly exhausted and dehydrated and sick.
And we had to wake up in five hours to get to the airport.
We slept and dragged ourselves out of bed with some time to scarf breakfast.
I drank thirty five glasses of fresh orange juice and seventy five of fresh lulo juice (the vitamin C in each glass of orange juice was, I believe, what kept me alive throughout this trip) and then we checked out and took two cabs to the airport with Drew, Andrea, Will's dad and Will's step mom.
In the end, it was good we woke up so early: the process of getting out of Cali was a lot more strenuous and form filled than the getting in process.
The first leg from Cali to Miami on Avianca was excellent, with lots of leg room and in-flight entertainment.
We landed, got customed and Phil was there to dance with us for five hours or so before we had to go back to the Miami airport to catch our New York flight.
We had some wonderful Cuban food (a necessity for slowly transitioning back into the land of McDonald's) and chilled for a bit at Scotty's on the water, filling Phil in on what he, sadly, was not a part of.
We had some time to pop into his house to say hello to the family and finally meet Grace and then we were off to the airport again.
We picked up another Us Weekly and started the crossword (some of the exact same clues and answers populated this one as well...lazy fucking assholes) and then heard our flight had been delayed an hour while we watched a family self destruct in front of us.
Finally, we boarded the shitty fucking American Airlines 747 and, eventually, got home.
Another aside: when one of your airplanes was used to carry out the worst terrorist attack on American soil ever you should make an effort to create an excellent flying experience.
As in, there are going to be some people who won't fly AA anymore since what happened, so it's your job to make your airline fucking awesome so people will have to be like....aw, shit, what are the chances it'll happen again, they have free HBO!!!
But no, our plane was old (like from the 80's), small (even for the Normals, I was in Hell) and boring (in-flight entertainment included eight flickering, faded monitors that showed High School Musical 3.
I was thinking about blowing my dick up but, luckily I have an iPod and didn't need to.
And yet another aside: So, Brooke works for the FAA and I had a chance to ask her about the no cell phones or devices etc.
She sad there are three factors:
1. Crowd control.
2. You might actually be detonating something.
3. There is a tiny, tiny chance that, if several factors align, something MIGHT MAYBE PERHAPS mess with the radio.
I feel vindicated, but, here's the fucking rub, if I bring any of this up to some snotty sky boy asking me to take my headphones off, they can just cut my dick off for suspicious behavior.
And I'm paying them hundreds of dollars for the privilege.
Fucking airlines.
But Jet Blue was the shit.
No charge for your bags.
You other greedy fuckers...maybe all these bombs have something to do with that.
You ever think about that?
No, you're too busy hiring surly, petty high school drop outs to take away my hand cream.
Seriously, I know there's a LOT of shit behind these bombings, politics, religion etc., but I would not be surprised in the least to find out that everything started when Bin Laden or whoever the bad guy is now just had a series of bad airport/airline moments.
It's really is enough to make you want to explode things.
Like your dick.
I believe I have digressed.
Anyway, the trip was amazing and world changing and a hell of a lot of fun.
No one got kidnapped or even hassled, as far as I know.
Chris was all upset we didn't adventure more but, seriously, I don't speak any Spanish and neither does she so, as safe as the people who now live there say it is, I'd have been nervous.
Drew said one thing, Nicky another, Diana another.
I didn't want to risk something bad happening in a place where I don't understand the customs, speak the language or even have a working cell phone.
Whatever, we had a great time, adventurers or not.
Again, much thanks to Will for having us be a part of this insanity.
In a totally unrelated note: Christina and I will be getting married in our bathroom.
