| Thursday, September 20, 2007 |
| Desert rainstorm |
This is not my normal Thursday afternoon: sitting at a picnic table under a tent at the New Mexico State Fair with a beautiful Tibetan singer, watching a torrential downpour and eating an ear of roasted corn. We travel to experience new things, right?
Joe and I are back in Albuquerque -- when we left this beautiful place last fall, we vowed we'd come back again soon, so here we are. Once again, we decided to attend my friend Neal's annual world music festival, Globalquerque!, which begins tomorrow and will feature an array of performers from around the world, including India, Italy, Colombia and Senegal. Exiled Tibetan singer Yungchen Lhamo came into town a couple days early, and for some reason she thought it would be fun to attend the state fair on her day off. I don't think it turned out to be at all what she expected (I assured her that this was a completely typical American state fair), but she seemed to enjoy it anyway. We played a coin toss game on the midway and I won an ashtray -- hey, it might be useful if we have guests who smoke (outside, of course). After too brief a time, though, it started raining. We took shelter in a picnic area and Yungchen spotted a man who looked Tibetan. She started speaking to him, and it turned out he was from Tibet and now lived in Santa Fe, so they passed the time with an animated conversation. Yungchen is an exquisitely beautiful, serene person; she seems to get stopped all the time by people telling her how lovely she is, or admiring her knee-length dark hair.
The rain let up a bit, but it was still sprinkling, so we decided just to go back to the car. This proved easier said than done, as the tunnel we had entered through was flooded and the dirt parking lot was now pure mud. (That is going to be a serious mess for at least a few days.) Yungchen was wearing a stunning embroidered dress and I hoped it wouldn't be ruined. She was so gracious about it all, though, and seemed to regard it all as a fun adventure. The desk clerk at her hotel had warned her about the "bad weather," to which she replied that there was no good or bad weather, which seemed to me a very sensible attitude -- I mean, New Mexico's always having droughts, and probably needs a good soaking every once in a while. I am pretty sure that it would be very bad for Globalquerque! if it rained tomorrow or Saturday, though, so I hope the sun shines brightly.
I've traveled all over this great land, and I really believe that Albuquerque is one of America's best-kept secrets. It's just a really comfortable, fun, slightly eccentric place, and there are breathtaking vistas everywhere you go. Plus, they have the world's greatest coffee house/restaurant/wireless internet purveyor, the Flying Star, and many other fine places to eat (always an important consideration in vacation planning). Come visit! |
posted by 125records @ 8:08 PM  |
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Name: Sue
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