fana in california, part 2

Thanks to the scheduling possibilities of a junior dance company, Fana unexpectedly had a few days in L.A. at the end of the tour. So to complete the California experience, I met up with her down there for some sightseeing as well. This was a little more tricky since I've never actually lived in L.A., but I think we pulled it off. I'd selected four or five possible stops for our day, since I was meeting her in the afternoon after her demonstration performance and wasn't sure which of the various landmarks Fana would want to see. A real trooper, she decided we could do them all! So that's what we did. Our first stop was for food (Trini priorities), at the Los Angeles Farmer's Market, which has a number of permanent shops. One we particularly enjoyed is called 'light my fire', and it has every major pepper sauce you can think of. We saw lots of West Indian brands, including Matouk's, Grace, and others. Didn't buy any, though. For lunch we had delicious Mexican food from a stand that's apparently won lots of city-wide awards. It was fantastic. Here are some pictures of that stop:

The next two stops were Hollywood, where we walked down the Avenue of the Stars, saw famous hand and footprints and the Hollywood sign; and Rodeo Drive, where all the fancy shops are. In Hollywood we also walked through the front of the Kodak Theatre, where the Academy Awards show is held every year. By the time we were leaving Rodeo it was rush hour, and we found ourselves stuck in some of L.A.'s legendary traffic... Eww... Cars in every direction on the road as far as the eye can see - Churchill Roosevelt style. Through some miracle of impatience and dumb luck I eventually got us out of the mire that our planned route had become, and onto a much less crowded street that took us to the coast. Here's Fana investigating the cement signatures at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.

We ended at Santa Monica, at sunset. We contemplated going to the beach so Fana could wet her feet in the (cold) Pacific for the first time, but the beach as you can see is quite large, and we were - well - tired. We settled for pictures. In this picture you can see the Santa Monica Pier in the background, with Highway 1 (which runs along the coast for the entire length of California) in the foreground.

Fana and me, facing west

And finally, appropriately for the land of show business and the beach lifestyle, here's Fana, looking off into the sunset.

fana in california, part 1

Under pressure, I am following hot on the heels of Joey's carnival post with an update of my own :) Over the last couple weeks, we were able to rendezvous with Fana as Ailey II made its way around California. This was exciting first because we got to spend time with her but also because we got to see her/Ailey II dance, which neither of us has done yet. Hooray! Soon after we got back to the US from carnival, the group was in Northern California. We'd flown back in to San Francisco airport, and stayed at Joey's parents' for a few days until the show. It was great - not least because our seats were right in front and on the side, where Fana spent a lot of time for the dance she featured in. She (probably fortunately) hadn't figured out where we were sitting at that point! We especially liked the Ailey-choreographed pieces at the end. The last group piece was so popular, the audience clapped until the dancers did it again! Fun times. Here's a shot of me, Fana and her friend Ghrai in the lobby.

That weekend, the troupe got time off in San Francisco, so I met up with Fana and some of the ladies for a spot of sightseeing. We started in Union Square, where we got to see one of many of the city's quirky and fascinating events/groups, the Brides of March. Some highlights:

We walked all over downtown San Francisco (which isn't actually that big, and if you plan it right can be mostly downhill) from there, through Chinatown, the top of the mark, North Beach, and ending on Fisherman's Wharf, where the ladies had clam chowder, and Ghirardelli Square, where much delicious chocolate was consumed. Here is a photo taken by a trustworthy-looking passerby.

:)

The end.

Carnival!

On Friday, I finished two papers ... one for a controls/robotics conference and the other a revision to a paper on a new voting method. I'll post some pictures or links someday for those of you who might wonder what exactly it is that I do. So, with the great relief of having both of those submitted, it's time to do a little catch up.

Carnival in T&T was great fun! It was my first time being there for Carnival and it was a fantastic experience, plus I somehow didn't get sunburned. Things didn't start off so hot though, we were flying from SF to Trinidad by way of Miami on American. We got to the airport nice and early for our 6am flight, and as we settled in to some empty seats to wait the last few minutes for the airline counter to open at 4am Danielle gets a phone call. Yes, at 3:50am after we were already at the airport, they called to let us know our flight had been canceled. We had checked the display just a few minutes before, but apparently during those 10 minutes they determined the plane "had a mechanical problem." To make matters even more awesome, some computer inside American somewhere had decided that we should be immediately rebooked for the 6am flight the next day. It sounds logical at first, if one flight is canceled, then the passengers should be rebooked quickly ... but there are only so many flights from Miami to Trinidad, and around Carnival they are full. Since we had been rebooked, we lost our seats on that evenings flight to Port-of-Spain. Even if we had figured out a way to get to Miami in time for the flight, it wouldn't have mattered as we no longer had seats on the final leg.

After an hour and a half of wrangling with phone agents and the ticket counter, we managed to get an itinerary taking off at midnight and getting to Trinidad in time for the evening entertainment we had tickets for. And for our troubles, they gave us $30 in food vouchers. We took a 6am train back to my parents house, but man it would have sucked to spend ~18 extra hours in an airport when you'd already gotten up before 3am! With all of that, it really seemed like they had canceled the flight because there weren't enough passengers ... the mob of highly annoyed tired people was not enough to fill half the plane. That being said, the only thing worse than being at an airport at 4am to find out your flight had been canceled and you were going to be there for a while is probably being a mostly powerless ticket agent at work at 4am trying to deal with some extremely unhappy people whose vacations your company had just ruined ... man there were some angry folks. And one poor lady who was there at 4am opening the counters was still there at 9:30pm when we came back to check in!

So, the beginning of the trip was not so hot, and I didn't really manage to catch up on all the lost sleep and completely screwed up internal clock until after Carnival ...

We were supposed to meet our friend Dinah in Miami and travel down together, but instead she landed in Trinidad without us and was picked up by Danielle's mom. While we were still in the air, Dinah got to check out "Kiddie's Carnival" on Saturday. Here are some pictures Dinah took of what we missed out on ... the costumes for Kiddie's Carnival are more like what the costumes for Carnival would have been like years ago. Now the main carnival costumes are swimsuits augmented with feathers and sequins ...



We arrived Saturday afternoon (instead of Friday evening), just in time for some of Sandra's (Danielle's mom) delicious food before a Calypso show. D had shared lots of Trinidadian music with me over the years, but this was my first chance to see it performed. The show we went to had 5 past winners of the annual Calypso competition, it was great.

From Pre-Carnival

Calypso Rose, a 70+ year old cancer survivor stole the show ... she was belting out her songs, shaking it around the stage, dancing down into the audience. It was kind of unbelievable how she was moving, and she was really good too!

From Pre-Carnival

The last performer was David Rudder, who's written many of the more famous recent Calypsos, including my favorite "Dus' in your face" ...

From Pre-Carnival

Alright, more later on the other days of Carnival.