At about 12:30 this morning I left home, and got in a serveece (a kind of taxi). I got out of the serveece at the bottom of a big hill, crossed a teeming marketplace full of the shoutings and shriekings of vendors trying to sell cheap clothes to people who don't need them and can't afford them. I then walked up another hill. I turned down a dusty street and walked past a construction site where a bunch of bronzed, muscular Arab workmen were tinkering with a balky cement mixer (using, I add, what sounded like some pretty unkind language, although I haven't learned any of those words yet).
Proceeding past these normal, everyday sights, and following the directions I'd been given, I went further down the street and went through a nondescript little door into... what can this strange place be?
A dizzying kaleidoscope of horribly clashing overstuffed furniture is scattered haphazardly on a concrete floor. In the middle of the floor, a small circular bar boasts Jose Cuervo, Chivas Regal, Bacardi, Jim Beam (remember, alcohol is very rare here), and perhaps every coffee variation ever devised by the mind of man. Hanging above the bar is, of all things, a disco ball that must be a yard across. But it's not spinning, it's just kind of hanging there. By the bar a shaven-headed goateed guy in a t-shirt and baggy jeans is putting the moves on a slim pale dark-haired lady in tight leather pants, occasionally stopping to wave away the thick cloud of cigarrette smoke that threatens to obscure his vision. His Iberian-flavored English blends into a murmur of conversation in at least four languages, while throbbing trance music creates a pleasant level of soothing white noise. On a couch to my right, a group of college-aged girls in colorful tank tops chatter happily over their forgotten textbooks. Off in shadowy corner, a white guy with a scraggly chin beard and earrings is furiously typing away on a battered old Gateway notebook, pausing occasionally to sip from his iced cappucino.
10 seconds ago I was in Amman. Jordan. Middle East. How on Earth did I suddenly get transported to Uptown?
It's called Books Cafe. A sign out front (I swear I'm not making this up) proclaims it "Fresh as a Daisy!" In the basement there's a bookstore, and though the prices are outrageous ($15 for a used paperback) I'm thrilled. It's the first bookstore I've been able to find since I arrived.
So, my morale is high. There is a staff retreat for Whitman Academy that starts on the 9th. Classes actually start on the 2oth. Until then I'm on vacation, and I intend to make the most of it. At this moment, I am at peace.
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2 comments:
Silas,
Heidi and I also, being in New York City yesterday, are in a city of contrasts. From the glitz of Times Square, to the reality of people sleeping on the street within a few blocks. The mass of humanity in this city is somehow very striking, although we live in a city too. And everyone in a hurry to get somewhere, Heidi said, "What is the hurry, where are they all going?" I suppose that is not so much so where you are.
AY!!! first post on this one. 3 points for me. i laughed out loud that they claim (oh so modestly) to be fresh as a daisy. hah!!! you should work on picking up some chicks at this place, after all, youre american and pickup lines are the first phrases you've leared right? i could give you some tips for uptown love lol
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