Rochester!
Sunday, July 2nd - The Buffalo airport at 8:30 on a Sunday morning was very quiet, it seemed to be just the passengers from our flight walking through the terminals and a few airport staff. Out by the curb I seemed to be the only one out there. Called my dad, who was already waiting at the cell phone notification parking lot and he showed up moments later along with his brother my uncle Kim. Dad I had of course seen just this past February but Uncle Kim as well as most relatives here in New York I had last seen when they came for my brother's wedding in California in 2017.
About an hour drive on the highway from Buffalo through Rochester. It's all so green, at times passing through patches of forest.
"How's it compare to Ghana?" dad asks
"Well... it's about equally green I think, though more tropical there. This forest would have palm and banana trees and the like if it was Ghana."
Dropped Uncle Kim off at his house and briefly said hello to his wife Auntie Anne. Made plans to meet back up with them for dinner, and then we continued across town to the house dad grew up in in the Rochester suburb of Irondequoit. I don't think I've been here since at least 2007 when I came through on an epic round-the-country road trip. Irondequoit has so many large trees amongst the houses it's like being in a forest. The houses themselves are all cute weatherboard houses with peaked roofs, many big and being squarish with the peaked roofs look kind of like gingerbread houses. It's suburban but hardly what I think of as suburbs, the houses are all different, and beautiful, and often don't even have fences between them. It's the ideal of the suburb.
We arrived at the house dad grew up in, where his father (95!) continues to live. Dropped off my luggage and of course greeted my grandfather, and then the three of us proceeded out again to a nearby diner.
I don't know why Australia doesn't have a close equivalent of the American diner, since they too have some long long highways and segments of the population that spend a lot of time traveling them. In the American diner you can sit down, often at any hour of the day, for one of a variety of rich (greasy?) filling foods. Roadside places I've seen in Australia mainly sell cheap greasy meat pies and some other cheap options, none of which I'd particularly call hearty and satisfying.
Had a corned beef hash with delicious rye toast (Australian rye bread tastes very different from American rye bread). And what's this free refills on the coffee?
Returned to the house. Filed another expense report for the added costs of the flight fiasco and took a nap.
That evening we went to Kim & Anne's for dinner -- bratworst &/or chorizo sausages in buns (none of this flaccid piece of bread nonsense!), corn on the cob (which I fondly associate with upstate NY), beans. Had a craft beer from my favorite brewery (Arrogant Bastard) in California, which they happened to have; and as well enjoyed the lemonade they had on hand. I think Anne was kind of amused by my excitement for lemonade (Australia doesn't really do lemonade at all. They call 7up lemonade and your average Aussie honestly thinks that's what lemonade IS).
Kim and Anne live in a large house with woods behind it. And noteably none of the houses here have backyard fences, so when I'm wandering around the backyard I'm always wondering if I'm accidentally wandering on to a neighboring property, though no one seems uptight about it.
Monday, July 3rd - I had requested bagels or doughnuts for breakfast -- neither of which Australia really does (doughtnuts are all small and cheap quality for expensive price, bagels are like $12 a bagel). The nearby bagel place was apparently closed on Mondays but dad brought back some doughnuts from his morning shopping run.
Went to my grandfather's favorite Mexican place for lunch. Now if I'd been living in California I probably would have disdained to go to a Mexican place in New York, but coming from Australia I figured anything here would be close enough to authentic in comparison that I'd be happy to see it.
My grandfather, though he's getting very old, is a charming fellow full of personality. Apparently he comes to this restaurant at least once a week, and also he speaks fluent Spanish (& Portuguese and German and probably other things), so the cute latina hostess immediately recognized him and greeted him with genuine enthusiasm, giving him kisses on both cheeks. Similarly when the waitress (from Dominican Republic) came to our table she also enthusiastically greeted him with cheek kisses, and then later another waitress who was on her way out and already in her street clothes came over just to greet him. The manager himself came by to say hi later (no kisses).
Had one of my favorite things, chilequiles. As with the diner the day before, ravenously cleared my plate in record time.
Later that afternoon dad and I went out for a walk at a nearby park (Durant Eastman Park?). It had been my specific request, that I fondly recalled a nature walk around a pond from when I was little, and this was dad surmised most probably the location. It was a nice large pond surrounded by forest, a trail winding along the water's edge. Only other people on the trail were about half a dozen hispanic fisherpersons.
"So what do you remember about the pond?"
"Really only just that there were turtles."
And lo, there were turtles!
We videochatted mom during the walk (she's stayed in California) so she could live vicariously through us.
"Are there beavers?" I asked dad. He assured me that yeah there's beavers around.
And then. And then. At the far end of the pond, where the water had devolved into a swamp, gurgling around stands of trees and thickets of cattails, we saw some large brown hairy animal among the aquatic foliage. IS that? Is that? That IS! A gosh darn beaver!!
Wow. A beaver! You don't see beavers every day. And then looking more closely at nearby stumps we were able to identify many that had been beavered.
From there we drove along the lakefront (of Lake Ontario) to a "frozen custard" place of some repute. As we pulled into the parking lot a raised truck went by with two big American flags flying from it.
"It's too bad the Trump folks have basically co-opted the American flag. It's nice to be patriotic but now you see that you just know they're a Trump supporter."
I poined out something I'd heard said in Sweden when I was there as an exchange student in 1998 -- "if you have a Swedish flag on your house, you're patriotic. If you have on one your car you're a racist." Hey I don't make the rules.
At the frozen custard place one lined up outside an outdoor window. Btw throughout this the temperature has been perfect, in the 70s (20s celsius). An older asian woman was at the window ordering for ... her family? and/or she was a caretaker of some mentally disabled persons? bebcause a blonde young man who seemed to have a few nuts loose was running between her and the car at the curb trying unsuccessfully to convey details about their order (and it looked like there was one more person in the back of the car who definitely seemed mentally disabled). After at least one of the frozen custard orders had been conveyed back to the car the driver got out, an older caucasion man walking with a crutch, who grumpily crutch-stomped his way up to the window loudly complaining both that his companions couldn't get anything right and then loudly and rudely chastised the employee for not putting enough almonds on his order. He had an American flag on his hat.
"Definitely a Trump supporter" dad whispered to me. I don't know what to think of that group because I would have definitely thought it was two adult caretakers of the mentally differently-abled except the driver man did not seem to have the patience and personality for it.
Finally those people left, the next people ordered quickly and left a big tip and we also went out of our way to be nice to the employee girl.
Walked down to the beach while eating the frozen custard, dipped my hand in Lake Ontario. Water nice. It was by now after six pm but still as warm and sunny as mid-afternoon, being summer relatively north in the northern hemisphere.
Altogether, driving once again through the beautiful ideal of the suburbs, the temperature being perfect, it strikes me this place seems kind of a paradise. And yet dad considered California a paradise to move to from here. True in California he didn't have to contend with snowy winters, and apparently the humidity can get pretty miserable in Rochester at times in the summer, but for these few days at the height of summer it sure has seemed perfect to me!
Also I've been reflecting lately that the weather literally anywhere seems better than where I live.
Our flights were the next afternoon (today), but yesterday evening we were notified that one of the legs of the flight had been cancelled. Dad started scrambling to find an alternative, there weren't any good ones. We were looking at leaving potentially very early the very next (this) morning. It seems there's still a big flight kerfuffle, specifically centered around United and Newark, which is who we were flying with and through. Finally we settled on a morning flight the next next morning (Wednesday). Of course there was no cost to us since the airline had cancelled our flight on us, but its always a hassle.
As our original flight had us flying at twilight on the 4th of July I'd actually been rather looking forward to seeing fireworks from above. Guess we'll have to see them from ground level. Hopefully from the lake front maybe.
Me at the same table (and chair!) in 1985 and today
This morning had an email back from Arne about the invoice expressing surprise at the extremely high cost of the overnight hotel in New York. It was $469 which was indeed absolutely gouging, but it was nothing fancy (comfort Inn) and thats just what happens when you're booking at the last minute at a time when all accommodation is heavily impacted. Arne and co have been extremely accomodating in the past but now this has me worried they'll either object to the costs or pay them grudgingly and think less of my ability to be trusted to make reasonable arrangements. :-|
Anyway, today is the Fourth of July so we'll see what the day has in store!