Tuesday, March 3
The Owl, the Lake and the Occult
The other night in my sleep I thought I heard an owl. It was one of those nights when the dogs in the village (one of the real annoyances here) were barking like mad making it hard to sleep. The hoot sounded fake so I started getting paranoid. During our brief time here I've become aware that if an indiginous person comes to your house, they don't knock on the door but rather stand in the middle of the yard and make a bird noise to get your attention. In retrospect it's a nice peaceful way to announce one's presence but it's also a little spooky. So I heard the hoot and feeling a wee bit creeped out, got out of bed to investigate. It turned out to be just an owl but I remember thinking it was distinctive because I hadn't heard of owls living around Atitlan. I went back to sleep.
The following morning we took the girls to a brunch spot a short lancha ride away*. We ran into an acquaintance, Lee, who rented us our kayak. He proceeded to tell us that the day before, his wife and some friends had rescued a baby owl from the lake. The "baby" already had a 4 foot wing span and was 14 inches tall. It had been quite a struggle getting the owl out of the water. Lake Atitlan drops off rapidly from the shore so there are few places to wade in. (Although no one has actually measured the depth of the lake, which is a caldera, it is estimated to be at least 1000 metres deep in the centre).
Suffice to say that rescuing a young bird of prey from a deep lake in Guatemala is quite an emotional feat. The women (2 American and one Guatemalan) were worn out and not sure what to do with the bird who was still very much alive. In researching what to do, they learned something unexpected. In Mayan spirituality, the image of an owl in the water signifies a messenger from the underworld, a spector of death.
That night at about 9pm, two lanchas had a head on collision just beyond the bay of Santa Cruz la Laguna where the owl had been rescued. One man, a local, died in the accident. Also in Santa Cruz that night a mother lost her baby. (It turns out that neither lancha had lights, and the driver of one was wearing a walkman. Also, the indiginous are notoriously bad swimmers.)
The baby owl went to a local animal sanctuary the next day. As we become more entrenched in village life, it's hard not to become more mystically-minded about the bizarre things that happen here. On a more practical level, next time we take a lancha, the girls twill wear life-jackets.
* Lanchas are local water taxis, and really the only way to get around the lake (apart from the tuk-tuks which will do if you only need to go to the next town). One mafia family controls all the lanchas on this side of the lake. A few years ago someone told me that another family tried to set up a competing lancha company. He was found danngling from a tree. Needless to say these boats (which seat about 12 but are usually maxed out at 20) have a dodgy safety record. All the Mayan boys around the lake aspire to be lancheros, who all wear slicked back hair, gold chains and impressive-looking belt buckles.
Arusi - a film by Marjan Tehrani (coming soon on PBS!)
You are invited to a NY sneak peak screening of ARUSI PERSIAN WEDDING sponsored by ARTE EAST AND PBS before the March 17th broadcast on Independent Lens.PLEASE SAVE THE DATE AND PASS ALONG THE INFO TO PEOPLE YOU KNOW:
MARCH 4th AT 7:30 PM
NYU CANTOR FILM CENTER, NYU
36 EAST 8TH STREET
NY NY 10003
212 998 4100
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
CO-SPOSORED BY WOMEN MAKE MOVIES
Arusi Persian Wedding chronicles Tehrani’s brother’s journey to Iran, their father’s birthplace, as he travels with his American wife to hold a traditional Persian wedding ceremony and explore his lost heritage. Weaving the young couple’s personal story with historical footage that illuminates the complex history of America’s relationship with Iran, Arusi Persian Wedding goes behind the curtain of political tension to offer a rare glimpse of both modern and traditional Iran.
Born in America and raised by their Iranian father and American Jewish mother, Tehrani and her brother, Alex, grew up during the Iranian Islamic Revolution, when the Shah was expelled and anti-American sentiment exploded, resulting in the infamous hostage crisis of 1979 and setting in motion decades of miscommunication, threats and vitriol between the American and Iranian governments. With a foot in each culture, Marjan and Alex grew up feeling alienated from both cultures, not really at home in either. Through this very personal story, Arusi Persian Wedding explores the complex and troubled relationship between America, the country of Marjan and Alex’s birth, and Iran, the country of their heritage.
Arusi Persian Wedding will have its broadcast premiere on Tuesday, March 17, 2009, at 10 PM (check local listings) as part of the PBS series Independent Lens, hosted by Terrence Howard.
Followed by a discussion with director Marjan Tehrani and moderated by Debbie Zimmerman (Executive Director, Women Make Movies).
To learn more about the film and the issues, visit the companion website at pbs.org/independentlens/arusipersianwedding/
Please spread the word!
TRU FILMS
WWW.TRUFILMS.COM
FILM DISTRIBUTION: WWW.WMM.COM
Thursday, February 5
San Marcos, Atitlan, Guatemala
(Photos to come, but for now check out the link www.travelingtehranis.shutterfly.com)
San Marcos la Laguna...
We arrived here almost a month ago to the day and suffice to say, for a pueblo with a population of barely 3000, there is never a dull moment.
There are 3 main roads in the village, one is paved, partially at least. It runs parallel to the lake and it is the only road if you insist on coming by car, which is by far the most difficult way to arrive. This was how we came, because we had a lot of luggage. It adds an extra 2 hours to the drive from Guatemala City because of the semi-paved condition and hairpin turns and potential to be stuck behind a chicken bus , tuk-tuk (local taxi, kind of like a rickshaw) or other such vehicle that is traveling at 5 mph to avoid being pitched off a cliff into the lake below. This route, as well as precarious, is also highly frustrating for the reason that after you get on the road from Los Encuentros you can actually see the lake, so you are tricked into thinking you are almost there. Then you find that it takes another 2 hours of winding nauseating roads til you finally descend into the villages of San Juan, then San Pablo and finally San Marcos la Laguna.
The other main roads in the town are 2 dirt paths that run up from the lake that are each no more than 4 ft wide. There are surprisingly a lot of businesses along these paths ranging from a holistic center to a bakery, a cafe, a restaurant, guest houses, and couple of tiny tiendas where you are lucky to find a few eggs, juice and something like cheese but not really.
It is easier to get your aura cleansed in Sans Marcos, or have your chakras balanced than it is to find chickpeas and decent salt. Almost everything that is available in Guatemala generally has been rejected from an industrialized country. Plates, knives, clothing, potato peelers, spiral notebooks, clothes pins, pretty much anything you buy in fact, is about as low budget as you could imagine. Which keeps one pretty busy. You'd think people in a sleepy lakeside village would be lolling about doing not much, but between mending broken things and the constant quest for necessary ingredients (and I'm not talking camembert, I mean flour or oats!), it's a full time job just to get through the day. Days pass and you are still trying to cross garbanzos off the list. The day i finally found basil, I felt like I won to lottery! I bought the woman's entire crop of basil because I heard it was so rare, then I had everyone knocking on the door asking if they could come for pesto!
So we're coming to terms with our lack of culinary options. On the whole I think it's better for our health to cut out all the choices. Back home you can eat whatever you want at the drop of a hat and I think that is probably the cause of a lot of degenerative diseases in western cultures. Here it's always the same thing, beans, rice, eggs and veggies or some variation thereof.
The real beauty of this place is it's beauty. It is like you are in a music video of Joni Mitchell's "Back to the Garden" and a little bit of William Golding's "Lord of the Flies" as backdrop. There is something very pure about it, and raw and you never know whether it'll end up good or bad.
There is so much village intrigue it has completely dispelled the myth of small town boredom. Every time we venture forth we come back with the latest scoop. Alex turns out is the reigning king of gossip. He has been brewing local drama since our arrival. I think he'll start a local version of Ola with up-to-the-minute hippy drama! In the Holistic Center there was actually a copy of US Weekly in the waiting area. It was kind of a relief to see that. They should add a section to that mag "Hippies, They're Just Like Us!" and show me in lotus postion and dreadlocks reading about Paris Hilton!
The thing I like most about village life is the accountability factor. Even as a newcomer, people come to rely on you for something, whether it's information or anything. In a big city you can hide out and not participate but not in a place like this. You have to stand up and be counted and if you talk shit, people find out!
There is much more to report but I'm at an internet cafe and time's running out. After a few weeks here, $1.50 an hour for internet seems like a solid rip off!
Stay tuned! I am channelling my higher self and if and when she shows up, I'll have a lot more to write about!
San Marcos la Laguna...
We arrived here almost a month ago to the day and suffice to say, for a pueblo with a population of barely 3000, there is never a dull moment.
There are 3 main roads in the village, one is paved, partially at least. It runs parallel to the lake and it is the only road if you insist on coming by car, which is by far the most difficult way to arrive. This was how we came, because we had a lot of luggage. It adds an extra 2 hours to the drive from Guatemala City because of the semi-paved condition and hairpin turns and potential to be stuck behind a chicken bus , tuk-tuk (local taxi, kind of like a rickshaw) or other such vehicle that is traveling at 5 mph to avoid being pitched off a cliff into the lake below. This route, as well as precarious, is also highly frustrating for the reason that after you get on the road from Los Encuentros you can actually see the lake, so you are tricked into thinking you are almost there. Then you find that it takes another 2 hours of winding nauseating roads til you finally descend into the villages of San Juan, then San Pablo and finally San Marcos la Laguna.
The other main roads in the town are 2 dirt paths that run up from the lake that are each no more than 4 ft wide. There are surprisingly a lot of businesses along these paths ranging from a holistic center to a bakery, a cafe, a restaurant, guest houses, and couple of tiny tiendas where you are lucky to find a few eggs, juice and something like cheese but not really.
It is easier to get your aura cleansed in Sans Marcos, or have your chakras balanced than it is to find chickpeas and decent salt. Almost everything that is available in Guatemala generally has been rejected from an industrialized country. Plates, knives, clothing, potato peelers, spiral notebooks, clothes pins, pretty much anything you buy in fact, is about as low budget as you could imagine. Which keeps one pretty busy. You'd think people in a sleepy lakeside village would be lolling about doing not much, but between mending broken things and the constant quest for necessary ingredients (and I'm not talking camembert, I mean flour or oats!), it's a full time job just to get through the day. Days pass and you are still trying to cross garbanzos off the list. The day i finally found basil, I felt like I won to lottery! I bought the woman's entire crop of basil because I heard it was so rare, then I had everyone knocking on the door asking if they could come for pesto!
So we're coming to terms with our lack of culinary options. On the whole I think it's better for our health to cut out all the choices. Back home you can eat whatever you want at the drop of a hat and I think that is probably the cause of a lot of degenerative diseases in western cultures. Here it's always the same thing, beans, rice, eggs and veggies or some variation thereof.
The real beauty of this place is it's beauty. It is like you are in a music video of Joni Mitchell's "Back to the Garden" and a little bit of William Golding's "Lord of the Flies" as backdrop. There is something very pure about it, and raw and you never know whether it'll end up good or bad.
There is so much village intrigue it has completely dispelled the myth of small town boredom. Every time we venture forth we come back with the latest scoop. Alex turns out is the reigning king of gossip. He has been brewing local drama since our arrival. I think he'll start a local version of Ola with up-to-the-minute hippy drama! In the Holistic Center there was actually a copy of US Weekly in the waiting area. It was kind of a relief to see that. They should add a section to that mag "Hippies, They're Just Like Us!" and show me in lotus postion and dreadlocks reading about Paris Hilton!
The thing I like most about village life is the accountability factor. Even as a newcomer, people come to rely on you for something, whether it's information or anything. In a big city you can hide out and not participate but not in a place like this. You have to stand up and be counted and if you talk shit, people find out!
There is much more to report but I'm at an internet cafe and time's running out. After a few weeks here, $1.50 an hour for internet seems like a solid rip off!
Stay tuned! I am channelling my higher self and if and when she shows up, I'll have a lot more to write about!
Sunday, January 18
Morocco...Blood in the Streets
( I am waaaaaaay behind on the blog I know... Now that we are set up with internet in Guatemala, I can get caught up. But 1st I have to go backward, Eastward... to Marrakech where I left off in December)
Morocco, Dec 9-16.
The day we arrived in Marrakech happened to be the 1st day of the festival of the lambs. Apparently God wanted Abraham to sacrifice his son but his knife was too dull to cut his throat so God said ok forget it, just give me a lamb instead. As anyone who has ever traveled to Marrekech knows, the taxis can only go so far into the medina (the old walled city) before the streets get too narrow. They drop you off and then you make your way through the maze of tiny dusty streets to your riad. So there we were with 2 kids in tow, dragging our luggage through gushing rivers of blood on the day of the sacrificial lambs. Every street had it's pire going, made of a simple box spring, they lined up the sheep heads and made a barbeque. The actual slaughter had occurred hours before so mercifully we were only witness to the aftermath, not the fearful baaing as the poor woolly things awaited their sacrifice. It all felt incredibly, well... biblical. Tallulah toughed it out like a champ as she daintily sidestepped piles of guts and brains. Her only complaint was the smell, and that went on for days - the sickly sweet smell of death, donkey dung and the souks which have a vaguely nauseating yet addictive odor that permeates everything.
The next morning, as we wandered toward the Djmaa al Fnaa (main square), the feral cats were out feasting on whatever bits of sheep that had gotten discarded, so everyone benefited in the end. Nothing goes to waste in the underdeveloped world, which is a great thing to see after living in the land of conspicuous consumption and waste. With memories of the blood bath fading, we threw down a huge lamb tagine without remorse. Sleep comes fast and deep there and then before long a pre-dawn call to prayer draws everyone back to life.
On the whole I would say that Marrakech is not an ideal destination for babies. Kids over 3 will be fascinated by all the noise and smells and intrigue. However, we spent most of our time trying to keep little S away from the flying mopeds, horse carriages, venomous snakes and the inevitable toothless hustler offerign to kiss her with leperous lips. Moroccans are wild for children which is touching except that they show their adoration by swooping the child form out of your arms before you can object and smothering her with wet kisses. Cultural or not but I draw the line with the kissing.
But for a child T's age, having grown up in a clean, well-lit and highly sanitized place like America, Morocco is a kaleidescope of new stimuli and visuals. Every day is spent dodging donkeys, drinking fresh squeezed orange juice from a cart in the square (25 cents, hello!), wathcing snake charmers work their magic, taking caleche rides through the ancient streets and all the while imagining she was about to see Aladdin and Jasmine on the magic carpet (so admittedly Disney is never far away!). The souks held a particular appeal for her as she loved the hustlers pushing an infinite variety of embroidered babouches and sparkly things on us. Even getting conned into a bad henna tattoo was a thrill for her.
Morocco is a land of contradictions. Traditional Islam seems to coexist rather peacefully with the influx of western ideas there. Many of the women stay covered in their hijabs while others dress like westerners in tight jeans and make-up. It's place where each family seems to make their own choices within the Islamic system. Economically speaking there are a lot of oddities too. One night we got a babysitter which cost us $15 for the whole night. We went to the Hivernage quarter (the European neighborhood outside the medina) to have a nightcap at a swanky Arabian nights lounge (kind of pastiche - tacky, like the Vegas version of itself) and one drink there cost... $15. Go figure.
We stayed the last few nights on the outskirts of Marrakech on an organic farm owned by a couple of very cool Moroccans (a lot of guest houses and riads are French owned so they are an anomaly). They let us have the run of the place which was lovely even though the weather was uncooperative so we couldn't swim. We sat fireside indoors enjoying the views of the snow-capped Atlas mountains in the distance and drinking whiskey (hello Islam!). Being a fair drive from town, we chose to dine in which turned out to be a brilliant decision. Isham the owner was a marvelous chef, serving up some of the freshest most innovative Moroccan cuisine we've ever had. If I have a choice for my dying meal, Isham's kefta will certainly be on the short list.
Morocco is an assault on the senses. It's heady, exotic, chaotic smelly and sometimes aggravating, yet it leaves you delirious, exhausted and begging for more. If you haven't been, brace yourself and go!
Saturday, December 6
"A child is a curly dimpled lunatic" (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
It's true that a 4 year old's mind is on fire 24/7. You have to be quick on the draw to keep up with the stuff that comes out of their mouths. They will catch you out!
A few choice examples:
A few choice examples:
- I caught Tallu chewing a piece of gum the other day, which she must have scavenged from the bottom of my bag. I shot her a look but quick as a whip she said, "Look at it this way mother, it's good exercise for my teeth." (PS. I am sometimes called mother thanks to The Sound of Music, but not because I'm at all nun-like I suppose)
- On the bus T was looking out the window. "Mommy, I just saw a lady riding a motorcycle by herself". "Ok..." I said, half-listening. To which she replied, "No, what you should have said was 'You go girl!"
- Nuns, being a rarity in the States, seem to have captivated Tallu's attention lately, coinciding with her fondness for The Sound of Music. In Rome she noticed that the same nun would pass by our hotel every morning and T would say, "Look, she's going to work for God!" We've gone in quite a few churches and cathedrals to see the architecture and frescoes and she is always disappointed not to see any nuns in action. This morning I asked if she wanted to be a nun. Response: "No thank you, I like to play not pray!"
- Serving me a pretend ice-cream the other day (while smoking a pretend Gauloise I daresay!) I asked her how much? ... "Well that depends...will you be paying in dollars or euros?"
Nice is wearing thin. Not that I'm complaining. It's just as valuable sometimes to be in a place you know you never want to return to. I spent 2 weeks here alone with the girls and it felt like I was shipwrecked. Very uninspiring place on the whole. But Tallu made it into the local newspaper - the Nice Matin, posing with the owner of a local bookstore. At first she flat refused (being the daughter of a photographer can backfire I guess), but with stage-mama moi pinching her little neck and promising a lollipop, she eventually agreed to the photo op. The publicity machine can be really draining for the poor noodle.
With Soulmate/Superdad back from the edge of the earth we decided a trip to Marrakech was in order. Ever since our honeymoon I've been itching to go back. Can anyone say...hammammmmmmmmm...
Then it's pretty much time to head home - back to NYC to celebrate the holidays - with a quick pit-stop in Paris to meet the Thomson Twins. Not the acid-wash 80's Brit pop group, but our dear friends Derek & Raina's new arrivals, Alice and Estelle Thomson!
After that it's off to GUATEMALA baby!!!
With Soulmate/Superdad back from the edge of the earth we decided a trip to Marrakech was in order. Ever since our honeymoon I've been itching to go back. Can anyone say...hammammmmmmmmm...
Then it's pretty much time to head home - back to NYC to celebrate the holidays - with a quick pit-stop in Paris to meet the Thomson Twins. Not the acid-wash 80's Brit pop group, but our dear friends Derek & Raina's new arrivals, Alice and Estelle Thomson!
After that it's off to GUATEMALA baby!!!
Thursday, November 27
Mega yachts and deja-vu
HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL!
WE ARE GRATEFUL AND BLESSED TO HAVE YOU IN OUR LIVES AND WE MISS YOU!
Those of you who are sick of my tedious negative declaimations should skip paragraph 1 and go straight to the news about AT right after. If you don't care about him or our family and just want to read about the rich and famous, skip down to the section on mega yachts. But first I have to vent.
I've been thinking about what to write about France, or specifically the Cote d'Azur, since our arrival here about a month ago. Something hasn't sat well with us here and it's been hard to pin down because we're lulled into a false complacency by the sheer fact that we're living on the bloody French Riviera! By saying some of the things I'm about to say, I'm definitely opening the gates for a backlash of bitterness about me being a cultural elitist or worse, and perhaps the more truthful label - a jaded underachieving housewife. But what the heck - the great thing about being 38 1/2 is that you stop really caring what anyone thinks of you anymore. And blogs aren't for making friends, they are for pretending that you have something important to say and a unique way of saying it! Well, if anyone is still bothering to read my meaningless rants, this is what I (and Alex though he's probably loathe to go public with it - and since he's on a boat bound for Antarctica, he can't defend himself anyway!) have concluded during my month in Nice ...
- FRANCE IS OLD!
And I don't just mean in the ancient sense. France is tiresome. There - I am a born-again cultural imperialist. Halleluja! So now that I've gotten that off my chest, I can move on to the minutae of life in France.
- But first a word about Alex...
As I said earlier, he is indeed en route to Antarctica. He left a week ago, passing through NYC to Buenos Aires where he barely hit the ground before he changed airports and hit another plane to Ushuaia*. Ushuaia is at the end of the world where Argentina curls around at Cape Horn. There he met up with the people who organize a race for lunatics who think it's invigorating to run 250 kilometers in desert conditions. (Yes, Antarctica is considered a desert for some unknown reason and if that is common knowledge I'm really ignorant!). They run approximately 40 kms a day for 4 days then 100 kms on day 5. There is a blind man running it too - in Crocs or something. Listen folks, overpopulation is no joke - if you need to find a way to distinguish yourself from the masses, try being a blind, gay Korean antarctic marathon runner. Ok, I made up the gay part, but the rest of it's true. And maybe he's not wearing Crocs, but someone there is I swear. As an aside, if you are over 3 it is not cute to wear Crocs. They are hideous.
But I digress... at the port in Ushuaia it was discovered that the ship - a Russian ice breaker - had a leak in the hull. I guess it's comforting to know that they found this out before they began to cross the Drake Passage (anyone wanting to know more about this fabled crossing can find gnarly footage of it all over You Tube). So as A put it via satellite phone the other night, some boozy Argentine diver was down in the murky depths with a piece of chewing gum trying to fix it so they could proceed. The fact that I have had no further contact with him since being disconnected shouldn't alarm me - should it? Happy Thanksgiving Al, I hope you didn't toss your turkey in the Drake!
- NICE, not nice...
So we moved from Berlin to Nice after we chickened out on our original plan of spending 2 months in Istanbul. For whatever reason it just seemed like it would be easier on me with the girls if I could understand the local culture and language if A had to travel. And the weather in Nice is well...nice! To be honest (and this is where I start sounding like a brat again)there is something generally disagreeable about Nice - or maybe the Riviera generally we're not sure. We live in the Vieille Ville with it's tiny narrow streets and at night it's extremely loud. Given that we live in NYC, you would think we could handle noise. This noise is different - it's aggressive! There are drunken revelers throwing bottles and hollering all night long next to the cathedral in the square by our apartment. Disgruntled lovers brawl and wail like feral cats in heat. The tiny maze of cobblestone streets seem to amplify the vexed voices. Living within a 3 block radius of the bus station in any country is presumably considered a bad idea. We live a block from the bus station. There are 3 clubs and 5 bars below our place and they have huge TVs showing the European football matches. Well, you can see where this is going. After a few sleepless nights we were fed up and tried to get out of our lease but the landlady couldn't find a replacement for us, so we're stuck. Now we have a machine that makes "white noise" to cover up the real noise. It's wierd. The moral of the story is don't live in Vieille Nice. Or don't live in Nice. Oh, Hedge, be nice! Putain de merde!
- DEJA VU
I imagine that back in the old days when you were a pilgrim or something you would go through all these villages and not having a map maybe you'd think you'd already been there and get confused. Because they really mostly look the same let's be honest. But oh so charming too... Anyway. I started to think of LA because there's a huge French population in LA. When I lived in LA I used to wonder why all those French people moved there when they could be in France where there is such history and beauty. Now I kind of understand. France can be monotonous. Everything is so damn old and the same! Not that LA is pretty, but actually in terms of geography it is much like Nice and the Riviera. You get the bouganvilla-draped spanish tiled villas and the lush palms and foothills with snow capped mountains in the distance. If you squint in Nice you might just think you were in LA - minus the billboards of women with fake boobs selling Escalades) If I had lived my entire life in a really quaint old smelling place I might crave the newness and trashiness and flash of a place like LA. It's like a smack in the face, but it could wake you up. I can see why they might not want to come back to France.
Sorry I know I'm banging on. Feel free to tune out if you haven't already. There's nothing more annoying than listening to a rich person whine about being broke or a traveling dilettante moan about life on the road! As I was saying... it's not just the prettiness of France that might get stale after awhile, but also the French way of thinking. The attitude is still very hegemonic. I think maybe they are afraid that if they think outside the box and mix things up a tiny bit, then the whole house of charming old cards will come toppling down.
- Le sandwich...
Let me give you a petite example. Being one of the culinary epicenters of the world, wouldn't you think they might offer more than just 4 choices of sandwich (ok Paris aside, I'm sure there are like 6 options in Paris), Non! You can find a poulet sandwich (chicken with butter --if you beg for mayo you might get it begrudgingly), ham & cheese, just cheese (only brie or camembert - but bear in mind that there are over 350 kinds of cheese made in France!) and sometimes tuna. For some reason this makes me insane. Helloooooo French people, ever heard of an avocado - they have them in every market! - or moutarde, aren't you famous for mustard? What about egg, olive oil, arugula, foie gras for lords sake!!! blah blah blah... They make the best bread in the world and all they offer is plain chicken, ham, cheese and tuna. It's not myopia, it's deeper than that. I think they have a deep rooted disdain for fast food and take-out because it represents American cultural domination and sandwiches are just that. It is why, even now in late 2008, all businesses (aside from restaurants) close from 12 - 2:30 for lunch. It is considered declasse to order a sandwich to go so their rebuttal is to give you a paltry unappetizing selection. I mean there are a million other completely irritating things about the French but I won't bang on about it - you get the point!
- Mega yachts
It is worth noting that not one single name on the top 100 list of the mega mega yacht owners is French. I don't think that having a 35 hour work week and 2 1/2 hr lunches lead to the kind of riches that allow you to shell out $350 million for a boat! That's before you commission Jeff Koons to paint the exterior then purchase the matching painting to go in the master suite inside. Umhmm, all true... For privacy reasons many owners prefer to conceal their idenitities - but how is privacy even an issue when you are chugging around on a shiny white phallic symbol the size of a football pitch! It's like feigning modesty as you ski naked down a mountain with a neon flag on your weenie. So yes, the mega yacht... Sarafsa's owner is too private to be named - but rumored to be American. I heard that with the recession in full swing, it's now uncouth to tout your mega yacht so many owners have leased theirs out for the time being. Probably to the Russians. Nothing is uncouth to a Russian tycoon.
Tallulah wanted to know if we could go on a yacht and could I ask one of the people we saw on board if we could come for a ride. I told her they were the workers, not the actual owners who were on the yachts and wouldn't let us. She became insistent and it escalated into a mini-meltdown. I found myself trying to console a hysterical 4 yr old screaming "I want to ride on a mega yacht now!"
So we'll be here in Nice until Dec 20 when we fly back to NYC via Paris. Our friends there just had twins - yawhat!!! Welcome Alice and Estelle! I hope we are still welcome in their house after all the trash-talking about the French.
I'll end by just saying that in spite of my general impressions of France (which have changed dramatically since I lived in Paris many years ago), our day to day existence is fun filled and joyous. The girls are having a ball and being inundated with new sounds, smells, tastes and ideas. A and I are brushing up our rusty French and when all is said and done, the Cote d'Azur is bloody gorgeous! But that wouldn't be any fun to blog about.
(*If, like me, you had never heard of Ushuaia before now, you might appreciate the fact that the house we'll be renting in Guatemala next year is coincidentally named "Ushuaia". What are the chances?!)
Wednesday, November 12
Quote of the Day...
"This is a fabulous dinner Mommy, but I have to say... the truth is, I just don't want to see these vegetables."
-Tallulah Grace (age 4)
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