Chile

Blending in nicely 

Last month in Santiago, Chile, Francisco "Pancho" Campos, 27, married Tammy Teixiera, 21. Four weeks later, Tammy accepted my request through an expat exchange network to host me on a futon in their one bedroom apartment. A few days after that - a couple days shy of their one month wedding anniversary - I showed up at their doorstep from Sydney.

Celebrating Chilean Independence with the newlyweds, Tammy and Pancho

Tammy greeted me in Portuguese like an old childhood friend. Between a lot of Brazilian pot roast and even more Google translate, Tammy told me her story of growing up on an island near Rio de Janeiro where, two years ago, she met a vacationing Pancho, whom she ultimately left home to join in Santiago. Pancho asked me what I did for work in the States- I awkwardly left it vague, trying to steer clear of finance talk with a nice Chilean guy who was probably just looking to make conversation. Pancho looked confused by my answer. When asked the same question, he began to explain to me his work at a foreign exchange trading firm, and the clients he works with: "have you ever heard of Gold-man Sachs?"

For five days, the Chilean and Brazilian newlyweds unfolded their futon and added an extra seat at their small kitchen counter, taught their visiting Gringo how to use the subway, shared wedding cake leftovers and everything else they could share in apartment 401. Before I left, we joined Pancho's family at a Chilean Independence Day "fonda" in a town outside the city- a festive Chilean take on a Midwestern country fair. Standing room-only crowds gathered by the racetrack to watch kids games that included catch the wild chicken and later, the more difficult contest to catch the baby pig. 

Opening ceremonies at the Fonda, before horse races, pig chases, and cow rides 

I had come to Chile to meet Arturo, a friend of a friend and fellow squash fanatic. We we were introduced by email after I graduated college, and I kept his  offer to visit and train in Santiago in a folder since then. Almost exactly three years to the day after that email, I made my way from Tammy and Pancho's apartment and toward the suburbs of Santiago to find him.

Arturo is in his late forties and speaks perfect English, with a Columbia business degree and successful financial trading firm that he started from scratch. And yet most impressive is his wonderful wife and family. I slept under the glow-in-the-dark stars and a poster of Tin Tin in 7 year old Arturo Jr.'s room, sharing the bathroom and it's world atlas shower curtain with little Arturo and his youngest brother, one year old Joaquin. My third roomate was five year old Violetta next door, who eagerly taught me Spanish and offered to share all of her Gobstoppers candy with me. Arturo had it all. 

He loved helping me train for my upcoming tournament in Brazil. We played at his local club which was set against the Andes. I wanted to hear more about his world but he preferred talking more about mine- peppering in questions about the tour, the other players, my goals as a twenty-something year old rookie wandering with my racquet and bags. 

After one morning session, we sat alone in drying sweat and silence next to the empty courts. Out of the silence, Arturo looked over to me and watched as I unwrapped a dirty brace from my puffy left ankle. "I would give give up everything to be 26 years old again. Everything."

The view from the top of Santa Lucia Hill in downtown Santiago, with The Andes not too far behind 

Chilean Independece Day: let there be meat

A festive soundtrack to the morning commute in Santiago 

Valparaiso, Chile

Officer Berg

The last time I saw Isaiah Berg was as my classmate three years ago on a hill outside Hanover, New Hampshire, struggling to keep up to his bike on a ride just a few days before we graduated college. When a message from Isaiah flicked up on my phone the other week, "hey, are you still in Sydney?", I knew I was in for a treat.

Isaiah hails from a farm in Starkweather, North Dakota, population 100. If you want a good time in Starkweather, you drive 30 miles to the nearest city lights (or nearest traffic lights, for that matter) of Devils Lake, population 7,141. The Berg family farm is big on barley. If you've ever had a Budweiser, chances are some of those hops came from Starkweather, picked by a Berg. Growing up, Isaiah's family hosted exchange students from all over the world. We laughed to think what the teenage student from Sao Paolo, Brazil, must have thought when he pulled up to a North Dakota farm in the dead of winter, -20 degrees.

We hadn't spoke much since graduation, but that would have been tricky: soon after our ride, Isiaah stayed on his bike and along with his two brothers, began pedaling south from Anchorage, Alaska. Down the western side of Canada, all of US Highway 1 from the Pacific Northwest and California, through the baja peninsula of Mexico and the rest of coastal Central America, and alongside the west coast of South America and the mountains of Patagonia, ending twelve months and 16,000 miles later in Ushuaia, Argentina, the southernmost point of the continent.

After that, the real adventure began- Isaiah accepted his commission as an officer in the United States Marine Corps. Two years later on a beach in Sydney, I had the good luck of meeting up for burritos with Second Lieutenant Isaiah Berg, 1st Platoon Commander, Cherokee Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, US Marine Corps. 

We reveled in our new paths since our ride a few years ago. Isaiah is now a rifle platoon commander, leading a group of thirty Marines on an eight month assignment in the rural dirt and dust of the northern Australia bush, training daily in ninety degree heat, fifty percent humidity, preparing at all times for the call for combat. For his next tour in January, Isaiah could be sent anywhere in case of war - the Middle East, Ukraine - where he would serve as a rifle company executive officer, the second-in-command, for a unit of one hundred and thirty Marines. One hundred and thirty lives under his watch. 

Isaiah told me the key to the Marines' successful training is getting comfortable oscillating between low fidelity and high fidelity situations- teaching yourself how to go from 0 to 60 (both physically and mentally) in just seconds, and then back down to 0. One must deal with uncertainty and chaos while looking to win- how to be calm and lead when everything imaginable goes wrong.

I asked Isaiah how he could ever go to a desk job after his experience in the operating forces. "I've been in some tricky situations out here. If I end up in a corporate job, and being in a climate controlled, air conditioned office for a few hours a day is the most terrible thing I have to deal with...well I guess I've found myself in worse situations, and it definitely beats being shot at." 

His life sounded both incredibly admirable and really hard to relate to or even imagine. It felt bizarre to go from stories of life and death to stories of...winning or losing a sporting match.

Isaiah asked me what I've taken away from my tour so far. I told him it's given me the ability to get comfortable with the uncomfortable. Arriving alone in a foreign place with nothing familiar and with no plan or instructions to follow but my own best guess, starting from scratch. Then slowly moving through the transition from unknown to known, from uncomfortable to comfortable, before repeating it all again. The repetition makes me feel I can tackle any new unknowns. 

Isaiah paused from his burrito, "you know, what we're each doing may have more in common than you think."

September 9th 2014

August

While trying to digest both the triple chocolate mousse and the multiple French conversations around me during one of my final extended family dinners with Jacques, Jacques' cousin Nathalie, visiting from the island of New Caledonia, brought over her laptop and pulled up Google Earth. After a dozen zooms over the South Pacific Ocean, we found a sliver of land that is the island of New Caledonia, and when Nathalie urged me in broken English to stop and play there on my way to Australia, I said that sounded like a good idea to me and we continued to finish off the mousse.

A new home a long way from home in the South Pacific

And so a couple weeks later I began the month of August living with a French culinary instructor and her husband, the skydiving world champion of 1990, along with their two teenage kids, four cats, and pet rabbit on the top of a hill of a town called Plum, on a French colony in between Australia and Fiji. 

A few days in, I rolled my ankle while training. I hadn't prepared for what to do when you're living with a French speaking family on an island and can't move. And so we improvised. They gave me a cane. I rehabbed in a pool. Tried teaching the family English and tried teaching myself Spanish. Described life in the States to teenagers who haven't been and had never met an American. Watched family home videos, went to the country fair and to the beach, ate crepes for dinner on Sundays because Sunday night is crepe night. Kept icing the ankle, rehabbing, slowly getting better. Extended my stay. If Seinfeld was a show about nothing, my time in Plum was a visit about nothing. It was hard to leave.

Lots of family time in New Caledonia 

Landing back in Australia, an eight hour drive from Sydney along the dry Australian outback gets you to Shepparton, Australia, which isn't exactly a tourist hub. Returning from Plum, the first of my three Australian pro events was held here in Shepp (as the locals call it), where I roomed with a Malaysian and a Brit in the town motel with cows roaming out back. At the local Italian restaurant, I sat under a portrait of Elvis that the King himself may have hung there back in the day. In the vintage squash club situated next to Mum's Kitchen Diner off the main drag, I managed to squeak by a crafty Pakistani to make my first ever main draw round of 16 in a pro event. 

At home in Mum's Kitchen, Shepparton, Australia

Following the boards to Adam's couch in Bondi Beach

Not all couch views are created equal 

After Shepp, I spent the second half of August surfing the couch of my Santa Barbara childhood buddy Adam, who was moved out to Sydney by his tech company, Dropbox, a few months ago to help start their Asia-Pacific office. He gladly shared his space, I tried cooking us up dinners in return, and we picked up where we left off when we both went our separate ways for college seven years ago. Bike sprints and circuit training in the basement of the Willoughby Squash Club became my routine, as did regular treks through the Paul Fitzgerald Pharmacy and down the stairs, past the shed and into the converted garage for ankle strengthening at Yogatime in Bondi Beach. In the latest world rankings I'm up to #243, up from #289 when I left Boston in June, and for now the 5th highest American playing on the tour. Will get much tougher to climb going forward but I am excited to make it this far.

In the New South Wales Open, I ran into a familiar face from San Diego six years ago: Reyna Pacheco, now a rising junior at Columbia and the first alumni of a US urban squash enrichment program to give the women's pro squash tour a try. Reyna represents all that is possible with urban squash in the US and for the weekend, it felt good to have an American teammate (and fellow Californian!) on the road.  

To get to the final tour event in the sleepy beach town of Coffs Harbor, Australia, I hitched one last six hour ride with Darcy Evans, a nineteen year old pro around my ranking, currently balancing three different part time gigs in order to give the pro tour a shot. The host venue was once a bird aviary and greenhouse before being converted to a squash center, and today it continues to be multi-purpose: I gladly accepted the offer to bunk up with a trio of French players and the Brit in beds below the courts for $25 a night, including breakfast. 

In last few days of August, I met up with a new Aussie friend and we started driving south through the Sydney rain, with no plans, no destination. We stopped off toward the end of the day at a winery and alpaca farm near a tiny town called Berry. Walking in near closing, we were greeted with drinks by the owner, Raj. At one point Raj was a corporate bigwig but gave it up to start this place. He was a squash fanatic and before we left, gave me a signed bottle to open sometime later on: "To Mike, now that you're #1 in the world, here's something to open in case you become #2." 

As the car wound it's way back to Sydney the next night, closing out a wonderfully random weekend and capping off the last hours of a wonderfully random month, my phone lit up with an email from Raj. It was short- he wished me luck, and then signed off with this quote:

"How do you get there? Take a step at a time. Have a rest sometimes. That's how you get there"

Having a rest in the shade with a friendly stranger

Almost famous in Shepp!

Enjoying winter Down Under(wear)