what i love about america

Since I’ve been back stateside, I’ve spent some limited time at home and more time in Bethesda, Maryland for Fogarty Ellison ‘orientation,’ which basically consists of me sitting in a very uncomfortable chair in this parlor/library for around seven or eight hours a day listening to various lectures covering topics such as bioethics, hiv/aids, neglected diseases, and clinical research. i don't think the curriculum was well thought out though because it's kinda a mishmash of random things that could be important without a coherent structure. I actually appreciate the time I spent in Geneva a lot more and even though it was crazy and long, the WHO/Duke/HEI weeklong class that I attended during the last weeks of my stay there.

This morning we had an interesting discussion with the foreign fellows (all of us US fellows are paired with other fellows from the countries we’re going to) about the ethics of research in low income or resource poor settings. That was somewhat cool, but a lot of it is not. I was reminded of my conversation at WHO with a Brazilian physician and pharmacist who were instrumental in Brazilian AIDS Program about the Global North/South divide, the fact that people continue to die everyday because they can't access treatment, and the need to get drugs & diagnostics out there NOW with or without 'gold standard' techniques like viral load. I'll write more on this later, because I've thought about this a lot over the past few years that I've been involved in global research/health care.

Anyway, to get back to the title of this blog entry: what I love about America. A short list follows:

1. Tastee Diner (or any diner). Sitting at the counter and talking to the short order cook. The ‘regulars’ at these places.

2. Hamburgers (Thiru, I did have a cheeseburger at Sidetrack Grill my first day back). It was yummy, and it was $5.95.

3. Most people speak English, a language I understand J

4. Being able to drive when I feel like it

5. Really big washers and dryers (compared to Europe) – I did almost all my laundry in one load. Amazing.

6. Big coffees (this is for you, Kim) – most European coffees are tiny (like half the cup, but they are yummy)

7. 24 hr stores like Meijer

8.Everything (or most things) open on Sunday, like the mall!

There might be others, but that’s what I can think of right now. Bethesda is not cool, but I’m staying with my friend Ben (who’s also going to Thailand with me). We often have dinner together and it's been good times meh'g and weh'g, among other things. I've also had a good past few days post-class catching up with friends in DC. One night, I met up with my friend Karlo who went to policy school at Michigan and is now working at the University of Maryland, his alma mater. We were in the Asian American Graduate Student Caucus together and have had lots of good times, including ice cream and/or beer study breaks. Karlo bought me a glass of wine at the Science Club, a bar/restaurant in DC. When he first told me the name of the place while I was talking to him on my cell, I definitely thought I was hearing things. Science Club? It sounds like a high school nerd club. Turned out it wasn’t, but they do have random science paraphernalia around, like microscopes, solar systems, and beakers. Anyway, we had a good time talking about the revolution, interracial dating, marriage, smoking, and the makings of a rock star. I didn’t talk too much to the other policy people who were there because I didn’t feel like I really had anything in common with them and didn’t understand this one guy’s path to becoming a politician…in any case, that isn’t really important. What is important is that I’m happy I saw Karlo and had a glass of wine.

Last night, I went to Raku (this pan-Asian restaurant) with Jay, Davekumar, and Harold (from Harold and Kumar go to Cinque Terre!). He was in town for a world tobacco control conference, and we met up to have an AMSA pow-wow, talk about organizational stuff, and just hang out. Jay and Dave are some of the people I feel closest to from my time in AMSA and when we’re together, it’s like family. We ate a ridiculous amount of tapas/appetizers, including agedashi tofu, calamari, vegetable egg rolls, ginger mussels, and more. Later on in the night, Harold joined us. Harold is an OAT (Old AMSA Type) and was able to offer sage advice on organizational issues. More importantly though, it was interesting to hear about the history of AMSA, the different struggles (and the same ones) med students faced at the time, and of course, random gossip. Interesting topics we talked about included admissions criteria (for medical school or fellowship) & humanity in medicine, mentorship, wikis, strategery, and more.

It is good to feel loved in a place that isn’t home.

good times in good ol' geneve

During my last two weeks in Geneva, I didn’t go to work that often (but I was in class, so I have a valid excuse), but I also didn’t really blog. I had a great time during the end of my stay though and actually was sad to leave, especially because I ended up meeting a lot of cool people (y’all know who you are) through the fellows program during class. Here are some scattered memories that I wanted to jot down while still jetlagged, so I can pretend I’m still somewhat in Geneva. I’ve always found it hard to blog about my experiences in another country after the fact, and since I’m now back in the US, I want to get down as much as I can before I lose the essence of what it was like for me to be in Switzerland.

In no particular order (and definitely not of importance), here are my fave memories of Geneve. (Sorry for the inside jokes, but someone will get them who reads it)

- Googlechat with kim at work, ‘WHAT is your father’s name?’ Sharing stories from our respective childhoods involving such entities as dance teams, the Thai Community, most embarrassing moments, crappy ex-‘s, and more. The implosion of the African Studies Institute at Columbia. (This was not a fave memory, but the use of the word implosion was). Kim as mystery friend to other people we know.

- Long lunch meetings at IOM with thiru

- Cocktails and dinner with Cecilia and crew. Finding out Cecilia is also Theravada Buddhist! Listening to policy wonks discuss (while drunk) issues such as access to second line treatment, a new approach to research and development, and the selection of a new Director-General for the WHO

- Late nights at Central Perk (I will enclose a picture – it’s really a café that’s scammed off of the sitcom FRIENDS)…food and drinks with my two bf’s in Geneve (you know who you are)

- Watching World Cup Matches at Scandale, this lounge/bar in Geneva. Once when I was there with Nina, watching as the place turned into a Japan/Australia reception with random white people doing taiko drumming immediately after the match ended. The place being infiltrated by tons of Japanese expats.

- Jeck’s place with Kim and Thiru. YUMMY! (can we get a bigger carafe of water possibly?)

- D-Vine (a wine bar) with Kim, clueless waitress (the wine bottles ARE labeled), and drunk dude who was excited that we had put our feet up on other chairs.

- Thiru introducing me to some cool peeps at the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) Development Agenda Meeting. People from Brazil arguing about the best place to go on a honeymoon (Chris and I plan to go to Brazil!) A guy from IP-Watch remembering me from looking at my resume! 80 centime coffee!

- Sweet beer at La Terrasse, which still reminds me of a random frat party.

- Falling asleep on the little motorboat Roxanne, Amit, Aditya, Jenny, Jen, and I rented in Lausanne

- Getting giggly on the train back from Montreux

- Swapping boy stories with Roxanne

- Cheering for Portugal in a sea of British fans during the England/Portugal match in Montreux. Being sad yesterday when Portugal couldn’t follow through and lost to France.

- Hanging out with Pan one day after I got locked out of the apartment, eating a yummilicious Greek salad at a cute bakery/chocolaterie, finding new cute places in Geneva, people watching on a park bench in Place Neuve
- Fondue at Home St. Pierre (I know, local Genevois, that fondue in summer is a no-no…it wasn’t my idea!), Harold being upset about Buffett donating all his $$ to the Gates Foundation (all power shouldn’t be concentrated in one place), eating a lot of salami

- My ‘special’ meeting with T, in which a certain girl F was not invited ;)

- Roxanne speaking every language to random hotel people in Cinque Terre. Hanging out at America, America with 15 year old kids flirting with each other over pool tables

- Brunch at Le Calamar with Thiru, Roxanne, Jen, and Kim. Terrible European service. Kim dying of hunger and thirst.

me, kim, roxanne, and jen


Golden Paradise Flying Cheesesteak.

- Gazosa and kir at Le Barge with Kim and Thiru, this cool trailer set up near the river that raises money for local charities.



- Diabolos (Limonade with Peach syrup) at Café Arts

- Neverending hunt for Lemon Soda (this stuff is da bomb, and has little pieces of lemon floating around in it and isn't too sweet. We only could find it in Italy and Switzerland bordering Italy)….being sad that limonade in Geneva=Sprite and that iced tea was never available (even though hot tea was)

v
enjoying lemon soda in cinque terre (i got everyone hooked)

- Flight home from Paris. Sitting next to a super Chinese dude who kept asking me about myself at the beginning of the trip and then after much prodding finally revealing that he was a professor at the medical school but did research in the field of tumor biology. Asking me if I knew that Michigan was a good med school and telling me its ranking. I was like uh, actually, our ranking fell last year, but I didn’t say it. Of course I know about the med school, I just spent the last three years of my life there.

- Ramseier (I probably spelled this wrong) carbonated apple drink from the German part of Switzerland

- Hanging out with Jen (sans a certain person we know).  Making last minute travel plans.

- Good coffee, but why is it in little cups?

- Yummy chocolate (although I didn’t have much of it)

- Cereal with strawberries, courtesy of Pan

- Kumar making fun of me saying, ‘Hi! What is going on? (you can insert any number of random questions here)’

- David Heymann telling me to finish residency. Harold telling me that it was necessary

Things I won’t miss about Geneva

- The price of food
- Everything closed on Sunday
- Everything closed at like 6 pm on weekdays
- French! (mostly because I don’t speak it). I like that lots of words end in ‘-erie’ though. Confiserie, chocolaterie, patisserie, etc.
- No air conditioning anywhere (what’s wrong with you people?! Near the end, I would go to work and sweat up a storm just sitting at the computer)
- Dirty looks from dirty men!
- The size of washing machines (I really did essentially all my laundry in one load when I got back to the US. Amazing!)
- Honking and/or screaming (aka general madness) post-World Cup matches until three in the morning

Last minute decisions...joining up with Harold and Kumar to go to Cinque Terre, Italy!

Weekend of June 24-25th, 2006

Although I had originally planned on making a weekend trip to Germany, the director of our program (who I will refer to as Harold) and another fellow, Kumar (also an alias, but the fellow is Indian) had decided to go to Cinque Terre for the weekend and invited me to come along. I’ve heard tons of people rave about Cinque Terre, a series of five towns built into the mountains on the Italian Riviera, so I signed on and also convinced my friend Jen to abandon her original travel plans to come along.

We decided to go to Cinque Terre on Friday afternoon without any train reservations or room bookings and planned to leave Saturday hella early in the morning. After a long day of class and visits to the US Mission to the UN (where I asked the Health Attache a pointed question about the US role in the firing of US national and WHO Representative to Thailand Bill Aldis) and the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative, we booked it to the train station, bought a ticket for Harold, and reservations for myself, Kumar, and Jen. For some reason, Harold had to be separated from us and always had to sit by himself in the train – I think it had to do with bookings with Eurail passes. In any case, Kumar often went to check on Harold during the train ride while me and Jen hung out. The train ride was long (like 7 hrs) and we transferred in Milan. Since we had some extra time, we found a café near the train station there (which was really beautiful, btw) and I had a tomato and mozzarella panini with a yummilicious salad for lunch. After Milan, we had to catch a series of hot, un air conditioned trains with interesting signage (for example, there was a sign telling you not to throw bottles out of the window…or that’s how we interpreted it, at least). This interesting signage was to become a theme throughout our Cinque Terre journey.

When we finally arrived in the Cinque Terre area, we had the bright idea to try and catch a boat to our town (La Spezia), which was south of the five towns in Cinque Terre. This was a good idea since it was ridiculously hot in the trains. In town, I asked a couple sitting at a café for directions to the ferry and Harold questioned me on how I knew they spoke English…I dunno, I thought, you just have a feeling when you travel on who can help you and who can’t, and the guy (who was older) looked like he knew what we needed to know. Anyway, we ended up just barely missing the last boat out (there were only two a day or something ridiculous) and had to take the train to our hotel. After dropping our stuff off, we decided to start the hike between the five towns, and were able to make it through the first three towns (Riomaggiore, Manorola, and Corniglia) starting from the South before hopping a train to Monterosso for dinner.

Memorable moments from this hike included:

• Practicing the names of the five towns with Harold, and Kumar semi-giving up and just naming them A-E. I think Harold got the five town names by the end, but we were essentially chanting them throughout the trip.
• Kumar joking that there was no group of people he would rather hike ‘Lover’s Lane’ with than us (motley crew of Chinese American girl, Thai American girl, Indian dude, and Chinese American grown up dude)
• More random signage (no high heels allowed while hiking, and then some signs we had no comprehension of…ill try and get a pic to allow you all to come up with your own interepretations – something with fire, but it’s much more complicated than that)
  Climbing up 360+ stone stairs to get to the village of Corniglia. For some reason, this felt like corporal punishment because from the bottom, you can’t actually see that there are that many stairs. Harold vowing NEVER to climb the stairs again. Us realizing at the top that there is a shuttle bus to take you into town.
• Random DJ in Corniglia playing hip-hop in the town square (but then transitioning to soft rock, I think). Us noting that American music is everywhere. Me noting that I like to sing along.
• Harold freaking out about timetables and trains. Example: We went to the largest town, Monterosso, for dinner. It took us awhile to find the restaurant we wanted to eat at, and he kinda freaked out on the waiter because we had limited time (what can we order that will be done in less than 20 mins? We have to catch a train!) and on us (we have to leave now!). He would also freak out throughout the trip whenever we had to catch a train if we weren’t on the platform when the train came, and would start running towards it with his huge, mega-filled backpack.
• Kumar ordering fried shrimp. When they came out whole, he started just eating them before Jen intervened and showed him the expert peeling process. This took a long time, but the shrimp were super delish!
• Randomly running into a religious procession (on further research, I realized it was St. John the Baptist Day), which consisted of priests, a band, people balancing huge crucifixes with Jesus through a contraption that was made up of a belt with a large loop for the pole – for some reason they were not supposed to use their hands), children dressed up in religious costumes, and tons of lay people. Later on the night, there were also kickass fireworks in Monterosso that we watched from the train station back to La Spezia.
  
  
  harold, kumar, jen, and i on the first day of our hike in cinque terre
  
  

Day Two:

Jen and I beat Harold and Kumar out of bed and ate breakfast in the dining room downstairs. It was pretty yummy, and we each got a fresh pastry. I also tried to load up on carbs for the long hike ahead, so ate cereal, yogurt, and also had the obligatory coffee. Because we were catching the afternoon train back to Geneva, we ended up having to carry all our stuff on the hike for the second day. We decided to start our hike at Corniglia (the city with the stairs), assuming that the trail went around the side of the mountain instead of over it. Unfortunately, we were wrong and started the second day with (yes, you guessed it), climbing the 360+ stairs AGAIN, but this time with all our stuff. It ended up not being too bad, but it was just funny at the time.


overlooking vernazza

Highlights of DaY Two:

• Making fun of ourselves for being Asian and taking hella pictures
• Harold taking pictures of all kinds of plants and flowers (this is a continuation from Day One). Harold noting that he used to have a greenhouse/garden where he planted series of plants to show cross evolution, or something like that. (Example: all different types of lemon plants – lemon balm, lemongrass, lemon fruit). Me noting that all of us are true nerds in our hearts.
• Eating more gelato…Harold is obsessed with gelato and wanted to try every gelateria in sight. He almost did, I think. We had a variety of yummy cool drinks in towns while hiking though, including gelato frappes, fruit smoothies, and others.
  
  
  after lunch in vernazza
  
  
• Series of interesting conversations touching topics like race relations and dating, (lots of Asian women and white men being together, for example), why walls are important when living with others (Kumar noting that living with a bunch of other dudes in a loft was fun, but not fun when the walls did not go up to the ceiling, esp when girls were over. Harold noting that it would be hard to study if you could hear other people all the time. Us laughing, and Kumar ending the conversation by saying the main criteria he had for dating girls his senior year was that they had walls in their bedroom), how med school sucks, and more.
• Harold carrying a hella heavy backpack to go hiking (including his laptop, books, etc) and Kumar helping him by taking some of his stuff in the end.
• Lemon soda!
• Me getting hot and taking off my shorts to hike in my bikini boy shorts. Harold being a little shocked (but there were tons of women hiking in bikinis since they would just go down to the ‘beach’ or rock face, and go swimming). Harold noting that I was definitely not ashamed of anything (this is mostly true).
  
  me in my h&m bikini shorts in the middle of our hike from corniglia to vernazza
  
  
• Layover in Milan on the way back to Geneva. Taking the subway to the 3rd largest cathedral in the world, the Duomo. Jen and I being denied entry because we were wearing shorts (and I was wearing a tank top). Jen being sad that we couldn’t go in, and me deciding that we should just change in the square because we had all our stuff with us anyway. I went to a corner where they were doing construction and just took off my shorts (bikini shorts underneath) and pulled on some pants, and Jen gave me a tshirt to pull over. I convinced Jen (who is way more modest than me) to just pull a skirt she had over her shorts and then take her shorts off and pull on some jeans). This turned out to be more complicated than we thought, but it worked in the end. Harold being SHOCKED that we changed in the square. I think he thought we just stripped and put on all new clothing, lol!
  
  
  jen and kumar at dinner (notice the rizzoli bookstore behind them)
  
• Yummy dinner – sharing Asian style and eating risotto, rosemary grilled beef, penne arrabiatta, and greek salad at a restaurant in one of Milan’s famous malls/outdoor arcades.
  
  
  
  OK, that’s it! Jen or Kumar, you can add stuff to this list if you remember anything. All in all, I had a great time and was happy to spend it with Harold, Kumar, and Jen. I’ll post pics when Chris wakes up as well.