Also, we have a mandolin.

Change of Address

2008-04-30T22:35:51Z

Dear readers, After much consideration, I have decided to ship my blog to blogspot.com. The primary reason is that vox.com is inaccessible on the old computer I have been lugging around, and now, 9 months into my travels, I am taking a stand. Th...

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Brothels that look like nightclubs and other assorted Turkish fun

2008-04-21T21:46:15Z

I spent my first night in Istanbul at the Antique Hostel in Istanbul, a much-lauded spot in the heart of Sultanahmet, the sight-seeing center of the city. I arrived there at around midnight, and was greeted at the desk by a guy wearing a button-do...

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These things happen at airports

2008-04-12T23:11:47Z

As I stood in front of an empty check-in desk at Rio’s Galeão airport, due to the extended disappearance of the airline representative who had failed to inform me that she would be taking her dinner break sometime between asking me for my passpor...

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Good Morning

2008-04-01T02:46:56Z

Dawn is breaking. It is the beginning of my last day in Rio. I just woke up on the floor of the 9th story apartment of a Dutch painter named Dré in downtown Centro, and am currently stationed on the balcony of said apartment, wearing a pair of sh...

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Family Matters

2008-03-27T13:50:06Z

My parents and Arnob, my elder brother (who will heretofore be referred to as “Da,”) arrived at Galeão, Rio’s international airport, at 1 p.m. on February 16th. I had left the choro festival in São Paulo a few days early, on an overnight bus, in ...

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Movement + Parties = No

2008-03-11T17:41:08Z

It was 9 a.m. on February 9th, and I was sitting on a bus bound for São Pedro, a 30,000-person town in the middle of the state of São Paulo, for the fourth annual National Choro Festival. The Rio contingent of choro enthusiasts had organized for ...

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Carnaval

2008-02-29T00:39:27Z

Although Rio Carnaval was one of the most eagerly anticipated events on my Watson calendar, it was also the source of much anxiety. Going out alone on a normal Saturday night in nearby Lapa, a seedy neighborhood chock-full of great music joints a...

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An Experiment in Free Verse

2008-02-26T22:33:30Z

Preface: Dear friends and family, I must first apologize for the lateness of this message. It has been a busy three weeks, with Carnavale, a stint at Brazilian music camp, and then a visit from my parents and older brother this past week. I wil...

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Columbus, Magellan, Mukharji

2008-02-01T13:13:22Z

One of the most spectacular vistas I came across in Ireland was at the Cliffs of Moher. I remember speculating how it must have felt for the first Irish explorers to come upon the massive, mist-enveloped rock faces looming over the waters below. ...

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Second Quarterly Report

2008-01-18T17:06:03Z

The night before I left for Brazil, I stood in front of my little brother’s bathroom mirror at Oxford and talked to myself. “I don’t have to go to Rio,” I told me. “I could just go back home. My parents would be disappointed, my friends would thin...

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