Tag: travel

Drinking Trip Hampered by Bouts of Boating

On By TommyIn From the Archives, The Lindeman DailyLeave a comment

Excitement abounded as T. Lindeman stepped off the plane in Amsterdam for a trip that, he hoped, would make his liver expand to shapes and sizes heretofore unknown.

“Like the end of How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” explained Lindeman. “Except instead of my heart growing three times larger because of the Christmas cheer in Whoville, it would be my liver because of all the beer in Amsterdam.”

Lindeman arrived with a group from the Fairmount Rowing Association, his rowing club in Philadelphia. The team had traveled across the Atlantic to race in the 51st Annual Heineken Regatta on the Amstel River.

“With proper nouns like that,” said Lindeman, “the real reason for the trip was clear. ‘Heineken’? ‘Amstel’? Let’s just say the forecast called for beer.” The forecast also called for rain; it rained most of Lindeman’s time in Amsterdam.

With drinking on the brain and an afternoon arrival, Lindeman joined some of his teammates for dinner and a quick pint at a local watering hole. As 2AM loomed and his pillow sang a siren’s song, Lindeman left his team and went on autopilot.

“Tommy [Lindeman] has this thing he does in Europe,” said a source close to Lindeman that requested to remain anonymous because it was his brother. “It’s like a pre-bed ritual. Some people remove their makeup, some put their hair up or clean their ears. Some people even floss and brush their teeth. Tommy lumbers around whatever town he’s in until he finds a kebab, then brings it to his hotel and absolutely houses it all over his bed. If you’ve ever shared a room with him in Europe, you know what I’m talking about. And I’m sorry.”

The following morning, surrounded by pita crumbs and shredded lettuce, Lindeman rose with the sun, planning for a day of pancakes and beer. This would be the first time of many that his plans would be interrupted.

“The team wanted to practice,” bemoaned Lindeman. “So we had to head out to the boathouse where we were borrowing a boat for the race, rig the boat, check over our seats to make sure they were ready, and then practice rowing down the race course.

“It really got in the way of our being the ABC — Amsterdam Booze Crew.”

When asked for comment about the ABC, Lindeman’s teammates responded, “What? That’s not a thing.”

With practice over, the team stopped for lunch at a pub near the race course. It was here where the first signs of a schism in the squad began to show.

“There were some older folks in the group who began referring to each guy in the boat as either an ‘old guy’ or a ‘young guy’,” said one of the ‘old guys’. “And after lunch, the ‘old guys’ wanted to go drinking, while the ‘young guys’ wanted to take in some culture. So we split up.”

Lindeman, at 31, was somehow considered a ‘young guy’ — and one of the younger ‘young guys’ at that. But he joined neither group when they split.

“I was tired, so I went to nap.”

Telling words from the self-proclaimed and only confirmed member of the Amsterdam Booze Crew.

With two days of racing ahead, the team had to forego another night on the town. “‘Another Night Falls Victim To Priorities’ — there’s your headline,” quipped Lindeman unhelpfully. Early the next morning, he joined the team at the boathouse, where they launched, raced, and returned to the dock, all inside of a short four hours.

After a quick dinner with the team, Lindeman joined a few of the ‘young guys’ for a pint (which was limited to only a pint) before they rested and went to bed ahead of the second day of racing. “Another opportunity to ABC — Always Be(er) Crushing — ruined. ‘Evening Blimey Stymied By Aquatic Past-Timey’ — there’s a great headline you can use free-of-charge!” offered Lindeman, generously presenting another terrible headline.

The second day of racing consisted of two back-to-back races, and their final placement was decided by the sum of time from all three of that weekend’s races (the 5k time trial on day one, and the 2.5k time trial and 500m duel on day two).

“Not too shabby of a showing!” said one of the ‘old guys’. “We finished in the middle of the pack. If first is first, and last is last, and everything else is the middle of the pack, we finished in the middle of the pack.”

For Lindeman, this meant the rowing interruptions of the trip would finally cease, and he could get to work: “‘At Long Last, Lindeman Libates…Liberally,’” he shared with a wide smile. “Feel free to use that for your article, the fans will love it!”

After showering off with an enormous group of men from all over the world, the team went to the finish line where Heineken had set up a large bar in the Nereus boathouse. With wet whistles, they continued on to a pub for lunch and further drinks. Lindeman later led a crew to the Heineken factory for a tour and tasting. “If there’s anything more exciting than drinking beer, it’s seeing how it’s made! And the perfect opportunity to ABC — Alotta (sic) Beers, Cool!”

The rest of the team’s time in Amsterdam was a blur of Heineken, Van Gogh, breweries, Heineken, pubs, blushing past red-lit windows, kebabs, and Heineken. Looking back on the trip, Lindeman gave his final thoughts.

“Honestly, the rowing was probably my favorite part… off-the-record, of course,” he noted with a wink. “But being grouped in with the ‘young guys,’ I need to be seen as hip and cool and fun. ABC, am I right? Awesome Beer Chap! So how about this for a title: ‘Drinking Trip Hampered By Bouts of Boating.’

“Nah, that’s no good.”

A Non-Doctor’s Unconventional Journey on a Medical Mission

On By TommyIn Non-Daily Dispatch, Travelogues1 Comment

WARNING: This post has detailed descriptions of medical procedures, dirty surgical tools covered in bloody bits, and a baby being born. If you are at all squeamish, maybe skip this one and read something else. I would!

The company I work at has an initiative to fund the travel portion of global health missions. The goal is to alleviate some of the cost burden of getting to high-need areas across the globe and allow medical groups to dedicate more budget to bringing along additional resources and doctors. In 2020, my employer added a new element to this initiative — company employees could volunteer to pair up with a global health group and actually go on the mission, providing organizational and on-the-ground support.

I was psyched. I already resonated with the company’s mission to help physicians in the U.S. with their day-to-day work, but this was an opportunity to take that a step further and provide direct support. And I felt I could truly help from the get-go as I already had a ton of experience organizing trips for large groups with a lot of equipment (when putting together several rowing tours to China over the past few years).

I immediately raised my hand and got paired with a group of physicians traveling to Chennai, India to assist in cleft palate repair. The trip was scheduled for April 2020, and I immediately began coordinating with the hotel and helping all the doctors book their flights. Unfortunately, the trip was cancelled in early March as the coronavirus bug that had been going around decided to become a bigger bug (if you ask my wife, big bugs are scarier than little ones). But at the end of 2021, I was told we were spinning up the initiative again, and there was a trip that December. Feeling just as passionate and excited about joining one of these trips, I jumped at the chance.

This time, it wouldn’t be for cleft palate repair in India. Instead, I was joining a team of OB/GYNs traveling to a hospital in Santiago, Dominican Republic. The local Dominican doctors were very knowledgeable and effective, but were struggling by a scarcity of resources, an overly large patient population, and hospital organizational issues. The visiting team had already been down to this hospital several times over the years, and so was pretty established in its role. But for this specific visit, the doctors had two goals: (1) continue training the team of local physicians on how to perform laparoscopic surgeries (minimally invasive procedures) using tools the local team didn’t normally have on-hand; and (2) review the hospital’s postpartum hemorrhage practices for areas of improvement.

The trip would consist of four full days in the hospital, performing surgeries and training the local physicians on new equipment and surgical techniques. The visiting doctors performed or guided the local team through vaginal hysterectomies, laparoscopic hysterectomies, prolapse surgeries, and emergent ectopic pregnancy interventions. They also held sims (lectures with visual-based teaching) on best practices for postpartum hemorrhage.

For a person who had never been exposed to the intricacies of obstetrics and gynecology, who had never stepped foot in an operating room, and who had only rarely ever seen a more-than-normal amount of blood, I grew more and more nervous as the trip got closer. The cleft palate trip was mostly going to be logistics, patient interviews, and photographs of patients before and after each repair. But this team had already been established in the area, they knew the hotels they wanted to stay at, they already had a driver and most meals sorted, and had their routine set.

Instead, they wanted me to scan through hand-written charts to identify deliveries that resulted in postpartum hemorrhage, coordinate lunches when they were too busy to, and take photos documenting the entire trip – including all the procedures being performed. The first two I was confident were in my wheelhouse. With a two-month crash course in Duolingo, I knew enough Spanish to order lunches and identify “hemorragia” in a chart. But it was the sitting in an OR, photographing things like c-sections, total hysterectomies, and vaginal prolapses, that worried me. I had only read about those things in books! And even then, not really. Who knew that things could fall out?? Not me! And now I’d have to photograph it, which probably meant looking at it? When I mentioned it to friends and family, they teasingly asked if I would faint.

My partner Lauren is an OB/GYN, so ahead of the trip I recognized terms like “laparoscope,” “prolapse,” and “hysterectomy” (from the dinner table talk I was privileged to hear when we would meet up with her coworkers), but I never really appreciated what each entailed in the OR. Having never even been in an operating room, I asked if there was anything I could do to prepare myself and make sure I wouldn’t pass out onto (or into) a patient. Lauren graciously offered to let me shadow her at work, but I felt guilty going into her hospital as the coronavirus Delta variant was rearing its head. So instead I winced through a video or two online, which really didn’t help much at all.

Also, no one had mentioned the smells! People’s insides smell different than their outsides, and that’s not a fun fact to learn in the moment. And when the doctors need to cauterize, it smells like meat cooking. Face masks don’t really block any of those smells out. I distinctly remember one of my first times hanging out with Lauren during her time in med school, and she was discussing with a classmate how she had finally been allowed to work the cauterizing tools in the OR. They both guiltily admitted that they thought it actually smelled good, and I was left thinking “Do I really like this woman? Was BBQ a bad idea for dinner?” Luckily, I wasn’t as squeamish during the trip as I had feared; there were only one or two scenes that forced me to look away and take a breath before getting back to snapping pics. The fact that doctors do this stuff everyday is wild. It was such an alien experience for me, and so commonplace for them.

Anyway, I flew down with the team, and it was very much a “hit-the-ground-running” experience. Minutes after first arriving at the hospital, I was told to quickly grab my camera and run into an operating room. In front of me was a pair of doctors, tugging and stretching a hole in a woman’s abdomen to make enough room to pull a baby out. I was aghast. Not only was it the first time I had seen a birth, it was also the first time I had even been in an operating room, and the first time I had seen someone’s insides. Apparatuses filled the room with beeps and gasps, people rushed all around to check on the patient, blood covered an alarming amount of the ground. And me in the corner: not a doctor, no real training to justify my presence. I managed to take my jaw off the floor long enough to take photos of the doctors, the baby, everything. I even made a gif of the baby coming out! (I’m not including it here. There are limits to what I would put my readers through!)

My uncertainty in my own value was quickly erased by the team after the c-section. They liked the pictures, wanted more of the other surgeries, and said I should feel free to come and go from the OR as I pleased. But first, could I go grab lunch for the doctors? And when I got back, could I start reviewing charts to help them gather the right hemorrhage research? And then run to the hardware store to buy and assemble some shelves so they could better organize their supplies?

The first day was a whirlwind, but by the end of it, I felt more confident and sure of my role. Each day, I grew less overwhelmed and more comfortable documenting surgeries, reviewing charts, and building a supply inventory. While the days were draining, I felt great because my work was truly additive.

But it wasn’t all lunch-runs, charts, and glamor shots. While the hospital does have access to a sanitation machine for cleaning surgical equipment, each cycle takes 12 hours and there aren’t enough spare tools to accommodate that schedule, even overnight. There are no OR techs (who, in the U.S., typically manage equipment), so the equipment and room cleaning is left to the doctors who just spent hours in a procedure. Because cleaning wasn’t actual surgery, it was an area I could help!

Let me set the scene for you. The cleaning process begins with getting gloves, a bottle of alcohol, and some gauze. Sometimes they don’t have your glove size, so the gloves will keep ripping off when you put them on, but eventually you squeeze in a pair without immediately tearing through. Then it’s time to go to town on each tool, scrubbing with the alcohol-soaked gauze to get the bulk of the blood and little bits of flesh off. Maybe the gloves tear again so you double up and hope both layers don’t rip and you don’t accidentally touch blood again. Safety first! You keep scrubbing and it’s taking a while — wow, there’s a lot of chunkies (medical jargon) and congealed goops (medical jargon) and body bits (medical jargon) on here! Once the bulk of the bits are gone, you let the instrument soak in some cleaning solution for a bit before it is rinsed the dried. Then you move on to the next one. Look at you, you’re an expert!

Anyway, I didn’t faint.

While this process may seem distressing (yes), it was actually one of the moments of the trip that I am most proud of. I can point to it and say, “They needed extra hands. I was able to come in and help.” My work scrubbing gave the doctors time to clean up faster and have a longer breather before diving into the next case. That might not sound like much, but actually experiencing how packed their days are, how early they arrive, how late they leave, and how many patients they see while they are there, every little bit counts. Even scrubbing bloody little bits.

When people ask me how the trip was, I usually say, “Exhausting, but worth it.” You often hear that doctors don’t have enough time in the day and that it isn’t easy to give patients the care they need. With this team, I lived a small portion of their experience and found that it’s all true: there is such a dearth of time that any bit saved truly helps.

And at the same time, I gained a lot more insight into how lacking health care is in certain regions, and how hard it is for doctors to do their work when there isn’t enough equipment, or support, or training. In places like the Dominican Republic, you don’t have support staff to clean the rooms and equipment, or to hand a tool to a doctor during a procedure, or to even organize the cabinets. That all falls on the doctors themselves, which means they have to spend extra time between each patient and during each surgery, and see fewer patients in a day. It falls to global health teams to negotiate donations from medical device companies, bring them to these high-need hospitals, and train the local doctors on how to use them. Even outside of the operating room, they spend time giving lectures on best practices, organizing and inventorying available resources, and building shelving space so the sutures aren’t stuffed into the same bin as the forceps, laparoscope, loose gloves, and lunches.

At the start of the trip, I was worried. I’m not a doctor, what if there isn’t anywhere I can pitch in? What if the doctors think I am just a hindrance? But that wasn’t how it went. I didn’t perform surgery (maybe next time!) (jk) (unless…?) (jk), but my work made it easier for doctors to do theirs.

I don’t have a ton of pictures to share of the inside of the hospital — even though the DR doesn’t have data privacy laws, I wouldn’t feel right about it. And because we spent most of our time either in the hospital or sleeping, I don’t have much from outside either. But I have a few to share below.

A hallway within the hospital. This wasn’t where we typically worked, which was an area much smaller and more crowded.
The maternity area of the hospital stores its surgical instruments in a tool box.
A pic of minifig in front of Monumento a los Héroes de la Restauración. It was the only sightseeing we did, after dinner one night, so the pictures didn’t turn out that great. Which leads to…
The only picture I was able to get of myself! A blurry selfie in the dark. We had to keep our masks on most places since, in December 2021, the COVID pandemic was still very much a thing. Being around high-risk patients all day meant having to take precautions not only for ourselves, but for them too.
One more pic of that same monument, this one with a Christmas nativity scene. I really milked it for photos since it was the only opportunity for tourism amid all the work.

Lindeman Daily Triple-Pack: Italy 2023

On By TommyIn Current Articles, The Lindeman DailyLeave a comment

A special Lindeman Daily triple-pack: three articles for the price of one! (Please remember to pay your Lindeman Daily writers.)

Fighting Fire with Fire: Heat Wave Does Little to Solve GERD

Italy has been unseasonably hot during the second and third weeks of July this year, but it’s not just the temperature that’s causing people to sweat and moan as they make their way through the day.

“Haaaaaaagggghhhttt,” said Lindeman, who has already sweated through two tank-tops and a pair of color-changing swim trunks.

According to Lindeman, things were “heating up”. After a few days on the Amalfi coast, hoofing it up and down a mountain between the beach and his Airbnb, he was hurting. Panting his way through the congested, twisting footpaths that make up the main roads of Positano, Lindeman surmised that he needed to drink at least four Peronis at the beginning and end of each walk to replenish the fluids lost to the sun.

“Si, it’s certainly molto caldo,” said one local Positani resident. “But that [Linde]man perspired more than most!”

Lindeman has attempted to douse the flames on his flesh with swimming. “We’ve gone to the beach, taken a boat out, swam in some caves — underwater caves, overwater caves, lots of different caves. But that’s only solving half the problem.”

The heat wasn’t only coming from the outside, but the inside as well. The Lindeman Daily’s medical correspondent, L. Burton, MD, explained that a rapid influx of acidic foods, such as pastas, tomato-based sauces, and all the other delicious foods Italy is famous for, can exacerbate the symptoms of people suffering from GERD.

GERD is short for gastroesophageal reflux disease, a chronic disease in which stomach acid flows up into the esophagus. It can lead to a burning feeling in the chest and throat, stomach pain, bad breath, and vomiting.

“Not only is the burning vomit really painful,” said Dr. Burton, “but the burps are smelly too, and the groans are generally unpleasant.”

Each day, both Lindeman and Burton enjoyed the culinary delights of coastal Italy, and each night both were filled with the fires of Vesuvius.

“There was no escape,” said Lindeman. “You’d be roasting in the heat all day, going from grape-mode to raisin-mode. Then when you’d finally get home to rest in some air conditioning, the lava would flow from within, scorching you from the inside out.”

When asked why they didn’t simply avoid the sun, they both argued that they couldn’t resist taking in all Italy had to offer. And so, the allure of the pizzas, pastas, and vistas kept their fires burning day and night.

When asked for a final comment, both Lindeman and Burton gasped in unison with the sour breath of burning GERD, “Worth it.”

The Truth Comes Out: Romantic Holiday Just an Excuse to Play on Phone

On July 18, T. Lindeman’s reason for choosing Italy as the destination for his sabbatical from work (despite the country suffering from an unseasonal, climate change-driven heatwave) became crystal clear.

“I can’t believe this is why,” remarked his wife, L. Burton. “Sure, everything we’ve done has been wonderful: the boats, the cooking classes, the beaches, the food, the Tommy [Lindeman] in a bathing suit, everything.

“But to finally know his real reason for picking Italy… just… wow.”

“Wow” indeed. As it turns out, Lindeman’s entire trip, from the first five days in Positano touring Capri and Nerano, to the final two days in Naples, exploring the ruins of Pompeii and the vineyards on the slopes of Mt. Vesuvius, had all been a second fiddle excuse for one 20 minute experience on a hotel balcony in Naples.

“So what?” asked Lindeman. “I don’t see anything wrong with building a vacation out of one keystone moment. Lots of people go to Peru, don’t tell me there’s any other reason besides Machu Picchu that people even begin to consider a trip there. And London, is anyone really traveling there for anything other than the kebabs? Sure, the Eye is a close second, but it’s garnish to the kebab experience. This was a similar thing.”

According to several eyewitness accounts, that Napolitano hotel balcony was the site where Lindeman met up with a fellow Pokémon Go player to trade Pokémon.

“It’s not even like this is a novel experience for him,” said Burton. “He’s traded with several other friends in the past. I mean, even his younger brother [Lindeman] plays!”

“No, it isn’t really any different than that,” admitted Lindeman. “But there was an opportunity, so why not take it?”

The details of the trade itself are scarce, though juicy gossip abounds. Some unsubstantiated rumors say that the other party in the trade was a seven-year-old boy from Minnesota. And that Lindeman traded a “Best Buddy” status Hydreigon for a nothing-to-write-home-about Crabrawler. And that soon after their first and only trade, the parental controls on the boy’s mother’s phone locked him out of playing any more that day. But Lindeman is adamant: that is not what matters here.

“Sometimes it isn’t the details that make something great,” ventured Lindeman, holding up pinched fingers and adopting a far-off look. “It’s about the people and the experience… but yes, that kid made out like a thief.”

At the end of the day, though, Lindeman has no regrets. Even his wife remains cheery after learning the circumstances of their trip.

“If it makes him happy, I’m happy,” smiled Burton. “Happy husband, happy life, right? And I got to roast in the Italian heat, so it was a win for everyone.”

Lindeman Takes in Authentic Real Italian Experiences

Over the course of a week-long stay in Italy, Lindeman was on the hunt.

“We wanted to experience true, authentic Italy,” explained Lindeman. “My wife [The Lindeman Daily’s medical correspondant L. Burton] and I had both individually traveled to other parts of Italy in the past, but never felt like we truly scratched the surface of a Real Italian Experience™.”

The couple planned their trip ahead of time, booking reservations, tours, cooking classes, and boat rentals. But it wasn’t in any of the standard fare where they found what they had been craving all their lives.

“If we hadn’t felt the Real Italian Experience™ later on,“ said Burton, “I think I would have been happy with a simple cooking class and boat day.”

“But then we experienced the Real Italian Experience™, and now we know what we were missing,” added Lindeman. It is no single moment that makes a Real Italian Experience™, Lindeman explained, but an all-encompassing feeling of La Vera Italia that comes from a cumulative lived experience.

When local Italians were asked about this, not a single one knew what Lindeman had been talking about.

First, Lindeman and Burton strolled through cliff sides of Positano, exploring shops, bakeries, and pizzerias, before Lindeman decided to take the plunge.

“I was seeing shirts with lemons on them everywhere,” recounted Lindeman. “It must be an Amalfi Coast thing, but I loved it, and needed one.”

“[Lindeman] is notoriously hard to shop for,” explained Burton. “Not only because of his weird body shape, but he’s pretty picky too.”

But through perseverance, Lindeman succeeded. Unable to try anything on as his body was both soaked and caked in sweat, Lindeman took a gamble and sized up two sizes (“Because the Italians are teensy!”). Paying for two linen shirts, one covered in lemons and one in oranges, it wasn’t until he had returned to his room to shower and change that he noticed something was a little off.

“The shirt sleeves were too tight!” exclaimed Lindeman. “The length and size in the chest were both right but the sleeves were constricting my pythons. And I don’t have big pythons.”

Lindeman was later told by a local friend that this was the real Italian style. And he realized he was experiencing something beyond a typical adventure. Was Lindeman on his way to a Real Italian Experience™?

“Tight shirt sleeves? Real Italian Experience™.”

Lindeman and Burton next traveled to Naples, where they took a day trip out to Pompeii and a series of vineyards on the Vesuvius volcano.

“The sweltering heat was a real Pompeii experience,” remarked Burton, noting that the temperatures reached record highs during their visit. “But a real Pompeii experience is not a Real Italian Experience™.”

Lindeman kept eying the volcano with suspicion, refusing to take his eyes off it to make sure it didn’t blow; if it did, he would be the first to know and could book it out of there.

“The American was completely ignoring us,” recounted Teresa, their tour guide through the volcanic vineyards. “Even when we handed him his wine tastings, he never looked away from the volcano.”

After a few hours of this staring contest, Lindeman had an epiphany. Is this fear of a volcanic eruption at any moment, of being incinerated instantly, the experience he had been searching for?

“The ever-present danger of being cooked alive? Real Italian Experience™.”

Eventually, Lindeman and Burton escaped the slopes of Vesuvius unscathed, and returned to Naples for a birthday party.

“Some friends of ours were attending their father’s birthday at the yacht club in Naples,” explained Burton. “They very very graciously invited us to come along.”

The pair met at the yacht club, just barely arriving on time. They soon learned that this was not required, or even preferred.

“Apparently in Italy,” said Lindeman, “being on time is being early. And arriving hours late is arriving on time.”

Indeed, the birthday boy himself did not even show up until two hours into his own party, and guests continued to trickle in for hours beyond that.

“It was a wild time,” said Burton. “There was a lot of singing, gifts from the Pope, who the man of the hour seemed to know personally, and a seven course meal.”

It was a real Neapolitano experience, but as they knew from Pompeii, that does not mean it was a Real Italian Experience™.

“As authentic as it was, there was something missing,” reminisced Lindeman. But that “something missing” would soon be found.

Hours into the party, Lindeman and Burton were fading fast and sleep couldn’t come soon enough. While they tried to put on a brave face, the week of travel in the sun had drained every last bit of energy from them. A bit bashful, they had to excuse themselves and head home.

“They were only three courses into the seven course meal!” explained one partygoer. “It was only 11:30PM! There were hours and hours left in the night!”

They left before any other attendees, including a group of children all under 10 years old. But they swallowed their pride and missed out on what would be a memorable night for the ages.

“That’s ok by us. But the invitation, followed by the festivities, and then the shame of leaving early, that’s what we had been looking for the whole time,” said Lindeman. “And coupled with the shopping and the threatening volcano, our trip ultimately provided that authentic lived experience we had craved.

We truly had a Real Italian Experience™.”

Mysterious St. Paddy’s Day Pincher Returns To Chicago River

On By TommyIn Current Articles, The Lindeman DailyLeave a comment

On March 16, the city of Chicago celebrated its biggest annual holiday by dyeing its namesake river the Crayola color “Toxic Waste Green™”. Millions flock to this event, celebrating with green outfits, green beers, and green vomit in the streets.

“St. Paddy’s Day is an amazing weekend,” said the mayor of Chicago, as their green beer sloshed over the rim and all over their wrist and hand. “We got the beers, we got the bros, and we got the hotdogs. Probably the best weekend of the year for this miserable, cold, windy city.”

However, every bright light brings a shadow: rumors abound of the return of Chicago’s mysterious “St. Paddy’s Day Pincher”.

“He’s a menace,” said the editor-in-chief of the Chicago News. “He’s going around the city, pinching anyone not wearing green. We need pictures to identify this man. No one is safe!

He pinched my mother’s tookas!”

The Pincher hasn’t been caught by camera anywhere, but his presence — and devious deeds — is evident throughout the city.

“It’s horrible,” recounts an attendee covered in welts and bruises. “He doesn’t just do a single pinch. He pinches and pinches until you run away or find something green to wear.”

“One time, he followed me into a Walgreens, pinching me over and over until I bought a green hair tie,” said another. “Then, he just disappeared.”

T. Lindeman travels to Chicago every year for a “Boys’ Trip,” visiting friends and engaging in the festivities of the city’s biggest holiday.

“We love it,” explained Lindeman. “We get to see a river that looks like the same color as the Ooze that made the Ninja Turtles. And all the bars in the area serve green drinks that I assume are made from that same water.”

Lindeman has visited Chicago for the event nearly every year for the past 10 years. However, nearly half of those visits accidentally missed the correct weekend for the river dyeing, arriving either a week too early, or too late.

“You’d think after scheduling for the wrong weekend once, that would be lesson enough,” said Lindeman. “But you’d be wrong.”

Suspiciously, the St. Paddy’s Day Pincher also arrived on the same wrong weekends in the past. On those weekends, he truly proved to be a menacing antagonist.

“So many more victims are pinched on those off-weekends,” reported the Chicago chief of police, tossing back a shot of green Malört and gagging. “Why would someone think to wear green on a weekend that wasn’t St. Patrick’s Day? We had no warning — and I have the welts to prove it.”

“He was 15 feet tall, he was,” slurred an anonymous reveler. “With skin as green as clover, eyes like the emerald sea, and incredible abs! I think I stood next to him at the urinal at Streeter’s.” Video evidence from Streeter’s Tavern shows the anonymous reveler entering the men’s restroom alone, slipping on the wet floor, and falling into the urinal trough, before vomiting on himself and falling asleep. Or, the “Streeter’s Special,” according to the sign out front.

Lindeman confirms that fact that his visits aligned with the Pincher’s are coincidental and entirely unrelated.

“I’ve never heard of this handsome Pincher,” remarked Lindeman, whose thumb and pointer finger are currently in splints. When asked why, he explained the digits were worn out from overuse. “It has nothing to do with anything.”

At the close of the weekend, the Pincher vanished into the night. At about the same time, Lindeman boarded his plane home. Can we expect another visit next year? This reporter says yes, probably whenever Lindeman returns. Whether that be on the right weekend or the wrong.

Don’t forget your green, Chicago.

China Rowing Trips

On By TommyIn Non-Daily DispatchLeave a comment

I’ve gone to China too many times.

In high school and college, I was on the rowing team. Rowing is a sport that can happen wherever there is a river long and wide enough to fit a few boats side-by-side for a good distance. Despite that pretty general criteria and the abundance of water on the earth (or maybe because of it), teams find themselves traveling all over the place to practice and race. Through my time in school, we traveled across the US for training trips and races in California, Florida, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, and Tennessee, to name a few.

This continued after college as well with alumni rowing, but with a twist. Instead of many short trips across the country, we with were invited to fewer races, but they were farther flung across the world. The first of these for me was to China.

As I was still folding up my cap and gown, I received a message from my older brother Jack, who had recently finished up grad school in the UK. His Cambridge team had been invited to send a boat of rowers to China for a week and half to race in three different cities, and they asked him if he wanted to go. He declined as he was busy working at the time, but he let them know that I was still fit (having just finished the national championships) and had absolutely nothing going on (which was a great burn on the fact that I didn’t graduate with a job lined up). So they agreed and I was invited along to race!

I got my passport ready and went to the Chinese consulate to get my visa sorted. Then I boarded a plane to go spend 10 days on the other side of the world with a bunch of people I had never met.

Most rowing trips in high school and college followed the same format: cramped flights or buses, two to a bed in a Days Inn or HoJo, bag lunches, lots of downtime, and straightforward racing. In high school, we also had to pay for most of the trip. All that is mostly what I was expecting on this first trip to China. We’d go to each city (Chengdu, Wuhan, and Linfen), do our racing, and have lots of pal-around time at the hotel in between some serious bouts of rowing. But this would be all-expenses paid—I just had to get my passport and visa, and they’d cover everything else. I was also told there would also be a banquet at the end of the racing, which was new to me but didn’t seem too out of the ordinary.

After a long, cramped flight on China Air, I arrived in Chengdu. That’s when I first linked up with Dave (my brother’s friend and the organizer for the Cambridge team) and met the rest of the crew. We were met at the airport by some of the organizers and some of our “handlers”. Having handlers seemed weird to me, but I supposed we needed translators. I later figured out that they were basically chaperones who were there to make sure we stayed out of trouble and were where we needed to be at the right time. They were all local students who were studying English, and they all seemed pretty fluent.

When we arrived to the hotel, I got my first sign that this wouldn’t be a normal rowing trip. The hotel was enormous, gilded everything, with huge rooms and no need to share beds. I shared a room with the other American on the trip, but we both had our own space.

I was worried: would I miss sharing a tiny bed with another giant dude? (Luckily, I got used to it.)

That night we all crashed early, exhausted by the long flights. But first thing in the morning we were up, traveling to the race course to take a look at our equipment and get it sorted for practice. On the way, we properly introduced ourselves in the light and figured out the lineup for the boat. Everyone on the team seemed great and I was settling in nicely. This would be a great trip, and nothing could go wrong!

We got to the course and that’s when the wheels started falling off. For most rowing trips, you bring your own equipment — boats, oars, cox-box, etc. And the boats are already wired up with speakers and have shoes and seats screwed in. These boats were completely empty, and in two pieces (the front and back were separated). There was a pile of shoes and seats off to one side, and a pile of oars off to another, for all the various competing teams to sort through. The Cambridge team seemed to know to expect this and they had brought their own speakers, wiring, and cox-box, and told a few of us to quickly go through the oars, shoes, and seats to ensure we had matching sets that fit the boat.

A matching set of oars!

Why would the regatta organizers fly everyone over only to have equipment that didn’t match, or that was slightly broken, or in any way wasn’t good? I don’t know, and I never figured it out. This free-for-all was simply part of the competition, every time. Could you get enough workable equipment to get your boat in the water and take some strokes? If so, you were better off than most.

While half the boat went to scavenge from the piles, the other half went to work assembling the boat itself. After finding the right bolts and putting them together, we were met with an interesting hiccup.

It was over 100ºF, and these boats had been sitting in the sun for a few days. When we tried to tighten the boat together, we found that the heat had actually warped the fiberglass, and the two halves of the boat wouldn’t fit smoothly together. That means water would leak in through the seam, which just so happened to be at the six-man’s seat—my seat. So we did the only thing we could. We complained until we realized the organizers didn’t care, then we bought Vaseline and shoved it into the cracks, and kept some sponges in the bottom of the boat to bail it out when needed.

Finally, it was all put together, we had serviceable oars, and were ready to launch. The water was a nice neon green, like the ooze that made the ninja turtles, and the heat was oppressive. We asked our handlers if we could have water, and they said it would be ready for us when we finished practice. We tried to explain that in the heat, it’d be dangerous to work out without water, but they didn’t seem to get it.

So we launched and practiced, trying not to splash any of the water into the boat, and frequently stopping to bail out the leaks. But against the odds, the rhythm was nice, and the squad had some power. After a while we swung it into the dock and put it away. We looked for our handlers and the water, and finally saw them running over with a few boxes. We opened them to discover dozens of cans of Red Bull. As it turns out, Red Bull was sponsoring the regatta, and so cans of Red Bull were the only drinks provided to the athletes. We talked to them again about the need for actual water, and they assured us it would be provided the next day for the race. Which is a little true, they did provide bottles of warm, sweetened, flavored seltzer water. Better than nothing!

We headed back to the hotel to cool off and have lunch. Unlike the bagged meals for US rowing trips, all our meals were provided for. We usually ate at the hotel, which is what we did that day. Meals typically consisted of noodles, rice, and French fries, although Dave (who had gone on some of these trips before) was more adventurous with some of his snacks.

After lunch, we headed out of the hotel to go find some water bottles and granola bars to have for the next day. The handlers did not like that, they wanted us nice and cozy in the hotel, not outside in the world where anything could happen to us. Like what? I don’t know, nothing happened. But we frequently had to find strong excuses to leave the hotel, or simply sneak out.

Again, an early night, and we woke up the next day to race. Typical races are started fairly, with an agreed-upon starting sequence (naming each of the crews competing, then saying “Attention…Go”) and an umpire making sure the boats are aligned evenly. In China, it didn’t really happen that way. They started off with the names, but no aligner to make sure everyone was even. Then they said something very loudly, which may have been “Go” or may have been anything else. Whatever the case, we sped off the line and raced. We got 3rd place.

After the race, there was a short ceremony where they announced the top three finishers for the mens’ and women’s races, and then they set loose a bunch of ducks into the race course and a ton of locals jumped in to grab them. One of the French women’s team’s competitors jumped in to catch one, and she came climbing out with a duck in her arms. However, she must have gotten some of that neon green water in her mouth because she got very sick and ended up in the hospital. I don’t know enough about Chinese hospitals, but she was later airlifted home to France. We heard she ended up recovering.

After the race, we had our first banquet. We dressed in our blazers and had to perform a short skit for the organizers and the other competitors. We chose to do a dance routine to “Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting,” which went over very well with the organizers. When all else fails, just pretend to do karate in front of the Chinese officials and you’ll be golden.

We ate dinner, which was pretty good, but the chefs must have put the names of the dishes through a translator because they came out somewhere between humorous and terrifying. A few examples are: “This is good yo” (no idea what it was), “Baba rice” (lamb over rice), and my favorite, “Fragrant smell of urine” (not too far off, but I didn’t try it).

Noodles and greens, with a healthy amount of spice on top.

We were also introduced to Chinese drinking culture. The organizers would keep coming up to our table to cheers us with a “ganbei,” and then have us all finish our drinks. By the end of it, the organizers were obviously toasted (the rest of us too). I’ve never been to a race where the hardest part was keeping up with the drinking of the organizers. I kind of liked it.

Afterwards, we headed out to some clubs, where it felt like if you were tall and white, locals would invite you over to their table and give you free drinks. I don’t think I spent money on anything in China (which was just as well, considering my aforementioned lack of a job at that point).

The next stop was Wuhan, which has become internationally renowned lately. When we checked into our hotel (which was attached to a water park), I found that the hotel had learned it was my birthday, and they had sent up a birthday cake to my room. Great service! I was already warming up to this new city — I guess you could say I had Wuhan fever.

Aside from the racing (where we got third and were given a giant dish-sized bronze medal), we also took part in a dragon boat race, which we won (the other boat actually sank). Then we toured the mountain next to Donghu (West Lake) where we rowed, which had a temple at the top. And against the wishes of our handlers, a few of us took some roller-luges down the mountain to avoid the steps and make it down faster. Maybe they had god reason to not like us leaving the hotel. But it was too hot to walk!

Wuhan is known as one of the four “stoves” of China, since it sits in a valley that can get incredibly hot, especially in mid-July. Before leaving for Linfen, we cooled off in the water park attached to the hotel. Upon entering, we were greeted with the sight of a man running across the entryway screaming as he held is son in his arms, blood running off the boy’s head. The water park employees shuffled him into a side room, but the park went on business-as-usual, and we went on some rides. I think this is where I picked up my parasite, which caused me to loose around 20 pounds after I returned to the US. It was fun though, and I got better.

Posing in front of the view of the water park from my room.

The last city of this trip was Linfen, famously one of the most polluted cities on the planet. We heard through the grapevine that in preparation for the regatta, they had actually had the factories in town shut down for a few days before we arrived, just to clear the air a bit. It was still tough to breathe, let alone row. Much like the other cities, it was racing, tourism, and banquet, and then we finally went home.

But! Not before I spoke to some of the organizers and suggested they invite Princeton along to some future races. And the next year, I got a message—would Princeton like to send a boat to race in Wuhan and Changsha that summer? So I organized a boat, coordinated travel schedules, ensured everyone had all their documentation ready, and we went off for another trip, this time with the Princeton alumni. And another year we were invited along to a race in Xi’an, home of the famous terracotta warriors. And another we were invited to Shangyu. We kept being invited to go on these amazing, all-expenses-paid experiences through China, and coming home with medals, engraved plates, scrolls, trophies, and the occasional stomach issue. One time, they even gave a cash prize to the winners and we came home with hundreds of dollars each!

They even made us a flag!

Each trip had its own special moments: two of the guys waking up to find a third had slept, and pooped, on their floor; one guy voluntarily doing shoe-ies over and over; another drinking beer out of a teammate’s unmentionables; watching someone pour an entire bottle of baijiu in their face and not even wince; watching someone take a sip of baijiu and immediately vomit; dancing to the Harlem Shake; dancing to the Macarena; racing in a number of suspect boats; showing up to a regatta we were told was going to be 2,000 meters long to find they hadn’t finished building the lake yet so it would only be 800 meters long; learning the story of the Yellow Crane Tower; having schoolchildren line up for our autographs and pictures; being interviewed on TV for the Shangyu News; bonding with the GCBs; and simply getting to travel with friends to completely new cultures and compete.

GCB.

I’m very happy I did each of these trips. They are tough on the body, between the travel, the racing, and the drinking, but they are worth it, and entirely new experiences to standard rowing events. After coming home from each one, my body sore, my mind tired, my stomach sick for weeks, I always say that I would never go back. But then the next invite comes along and I’m excited again.

“These terracotta warriors are good construction — and I would know!”

I’ve had these one-in-a-lifetime experiences four times now. Maybe I’ve gone to China too many times, and I should give someone else a chance. But also maybe not.