Hello world!
One more trip and once more I will write about my trip. This time is to the USA. Since Trump started his time a few weeks ago, my trip is this time special. This is the 5th time I visit the USA. My last 4 trips were during Obama’s time. This time is surrounded with uncertainties since Trump issued an order a few days ago to prevent citizens from 7 middle east countries from entering the states. Although Egypt is not on the list, things change quickly. Overnight, a Washington DC judge blocked Trumps immigration ban. I am not really worried though. I would like to get in the country but if they don’t let me in, adios!
This trip is really special for me. My first time to be an invited speaker in a conference. Namely the American Clinical Magnetoencephalography Society in Phoenix, Arizona. I fly first to Chicago for 3 days to visit it for the first time and meet a dear old friend 🙂
This flight has also something new. I recently made an interesting new friend, Maria. She is a thoughtful and creative person. Maria gave me some tasks for my flight to ease boredom and make it an “interesting” game. Actually one of the tasks is that I don’t use the word “interesting”! The list has some “thinking tasks” Things to think about in my trip. But it also has one funny requirement. I quote Maria in German (translation below):
5. Rede mit deiner/m Sitznachbarn/in im Flugzeug und finde heraus, wo er/sie herkommt, wohin er/sie fliegt und mache mindestens einen GUTEN Witz, sodass die Person lachen muss.
Bei genau diesem einen Gespräch darfst du nicht „interesting” sagen.
“Speak with your next seat neighbour in the airplane and get to know where he/she comes from. Where is he/she flying to and make at least one good joke that makes that person laugh. In this very conversation, don’t use the word “interesting”.
I usually say “interesting” a lot in conversations. This annoys many people. Because it does not tell you really anything and does not enrich the conversation. In my defense, it is my way of making a mental milestone of things that I really stopped to think about and found an interesting mental remark.
I am excited about this trip, about going back to travel writing again and about my talk. Let me know if you want something from the states 🙂
Joaquin. He was my neighbor in the flight. He comes from El Salvador which is one of my favorite words! I pronounce it El-sal-vadorrrr which is probably wrong :D. From the first look he seemed “interesting”. The conversations later proved this indeed. An assistant professor in university of Hohenheim (which I heard as Hurenheim for some stretch of our conversation! If you know what I mean!). He is researching nutrition of tropical animals. He seemed to be passionate about what he is doing and actually stated this when I asked him about his passion. I used the opportunity to verify all the information Morad tells me about nutrition and its relationship to training and building muscles (most of them appeared to be correct according to Joaquin) so thank you Morad and thank you Joaquin.
I showered him with questions and he gave me an abundance of knowledge. There is a special beauty in meeting people with expertise.
We started by discussing protein metabolism and that after training, your body needs both energy (metabolism is still high) and protein. Protein to build the muscles and energy for various processes in the body. So if you only consume protein, some of it will be used for energy and not for building muscles. This should be really soon after training when your body is “repairing the damage”.
I asked about protein supplements like whey and so. He told me that indeed we mostly don’t consume enough protein per day (1.5–2 gm/kg/day) a chicken breast will have around 40 gm of protein while someone like me might need 150 gm per day. العلم نور!
Somehow the conversation went to soya and I asked if it increases estrogen. He said that soya has a molecule that is similar to estrogen antagonist which pushes the body to release more estrogen to keep the balance. He said that this estrogen itself stimulates testosterone release and that some athletes use this trick to avoid direct administration of testosterone which is prohibited in competitions because it is a performance enhancing drug. He then shocked me by saying that this gives men “bitch tits” LOL! I cracked laughing thinking he was joking but then discovered that it was actually a term! Because the men breast that develops looks like the the breasts of female dogs after lactating. Pointy! 😀
Joaguin made me laugh more than I made him laugh and I said “interesting” only twice 🙂
It was a good flight. Almost 10 hours and my audio system was shot but I managed to watch one movie from Uganda with subtitle (it was in English anyway!). It was based on the true story of a slum girl that learns chess. “The queen of Katwe”. In Atlanta I had a verrry looooooooooooong line for the customs but had the pleasure to chat with two Germans waiting in the line. One of them works in Amazon music and the other was just old. The immigration check was smooth caught my connection 15 min before the take off to Chicago.