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 B e y o n d   Z ü r i c h

 

G o o d   L u c k

the social phenomenon of parents and kids on board and aircraft

A POLITICALLY INCORRECT ESSAY ON KIDS AND THEIR PARENTS

 

(So to all those sensitive readers, stop reading here)

I had a situation which many of my colleagues will be familiar with. 

Aircraft. Boarding. 

A kid comes on his own running like he's about to miss the flight, though there are 289 souls queuing to get in behind him. I stop him and tell him to wait for his parents because on his own his not going anywhere. He might have had some sort of attention disorder, or maybe he plain simply did not understand what I was talking about, he runs into aircraft in an attempt to run up and down the aisle during the boarding process -good luck pal-. So again, this time grabbing him by the head I tell him to wait by my side until his parents come on board. In a more assertive tone. He stays three seconds before he tries to run away again. I pulled him backwards by his hair, stopped the boarding process and yelled at him to stay where he is. 

Beautiful Lil' India

He smokes bidis, she covers her head.

There is a library, and people actually still use it. 

There is a colonial look, a great vibe and a romantic feeling. Utopia.

Until there were they, westerners, with shopping bags, presents. -Forgiven, because of the Christmas Season, and because who am I to judge anyway...-

Monsoon. Grey. Apocalyptic. High Clouds. Breeze. Sticky air.

Usually I would take one way to go, another way to come back, not to miss anything. But so absorbed are my eyes by just the one side of the road that I might actually come back the same way to stare at the other side of the road. And it will happen guilt free. (Oh yeah, don't we good catholic -at least in theory and paper- girls know how to feel guilty about it all?)

As I approach the neighbourhood, I feel the looks. Try to ignore is all and the best I can do: keep walking, don't look back.  Stares, flowers, masalas, incense, mangos, 24carat gold, spices, colours, lizards; they all coexist in a chaotic harmony that can only happen in Little India. There would be no harmony if it wasn't for this overly populated by men chaos. I am the only woman I can see in the streets for a long time. I am used to this.

My obsessive compulsive addiction for incense has great chances of receiving a decent fix today.  This place is home for different smokes and aromas. Might actually have to try one of each. My blood boils with excitement.

Next to the electronics' store it smells fresh grassy green, coconuty, minty. Next to the BMW parked outside a store of all wooden deities ever imagined pepper itches my nose.

Chinese platform little black shoes. They have a ribbon on top. Open toes. I am blessing the absence of rats in the streets the moment I almost step into a dead pigeon. Aick. Drops the size of who knows what start falling from heaven.

And how welcome they are. They make the air softer, lighter. 

Meanwhile I share a table at the hawkers food establishment with a group of what seems four Indian workers. They look at me eat my food -veggie curry- with my hands and they can't help giggling like little girls. I know my fingers, no matter how much I lick them (is that allowed by this protocol?) will be yellow until well into the night if tomorrow. Suck it, I don't care, it tastes delicious. 

Little India

Singapore

Sept.2012

MELANCHOLY À MONTRÉAL

l o s t

LOST

in translation

in the metro

in the public toilet selection of buttons

lost in TOKYO!

 

R O M A

Barely outside a five star hotel (wouldn't you imagine a clean place?) which is not even in proper Rome and I already understand why they say (they?  who are they? They are the ones that know about every certain matter. 99.9% of the times, no one involved in the conversation actually knows them. Love it) that Buenos Aires looks like Paris and smells like Rome. After thirty or so years, I must admit, they were right. 

But that was not the beginning. So I will start from the very beginning. After all, isn't Rome one of the beginnings of everything? To me, it is. 

Upon boarding the aircraft, seeing my guests of the day makes my day. A good vibe in the air -and no, it wasn't because of my usual sparkling mood.  Old. young, middle age crisisers, women, babies ... everybody all the way to catering men upon landing in Rome are beautifully sexy (saying babies makes it seem sick, I apologize, babies are just oddly beautiful, like they are not normal babies with those purple tones and wrinkles all over).

NOTE: catering people are usually not the prettiest selection of human beings.  Definitely not sexy. This beauty phenomena only occurred in Vienna where even garbage man was so handsome and in East Europe where you don't know whether to focus on architecture or people!

So Italians, Europeans but not so much. My European concept includes English, French, Germans and other Nordic nations. No intention of offending anyone but Italians are a lot more Latin than the rest of Europeans: they have sun and winter is not S O cold. Everything, all, from infrastructure, vehicles to all the rest of the etc's is a lot more shabby, less technologically daring, and no, there are no surprising treats. It's like all has been seen, smelt, heard somewhere or at some point before. All is very used. Third hand feel to it. 

Still, and despite all that, how cute is the POLIZIA, their uniforms, the sirens. Ah... big big sigh.

For a while, during the train ride, I felt I was in some sort of porteño neighbourhood. A familiar and cozy air that I can't really describe so I will not even try. I felt I am no stranger in that ghetto. There are lots of clothes hanging everywhere, people sleeping under the bridge! THAT was a surprise. 

Graffiti blanketed the side of the roads. And this gives me a hint of what is well known: Romans (Italians I should say) are into demonstrations, expressions, colours. Passively, or not so much, they are loud. They  d o  n o t   g o  unnoticed. 

Some buildings really lack in style and I wonder why. This is Italy after all, land where every word is beautiful. But they make up in decadent colourfulness. Those style-less buildings, so alive with their balconies full of either clothes or plants, they commingle with old day pompous palazzos -nowadays I bet they are overpopulated villas. Their glory, long time dead. 

T H A T my dear reader,  was my intro to ROME. 

Finally I emerge: monuments, fountains, churches, forests, marble and all that Piazza del Popolo means to me, you and everybody that takes a first step in there. 

And remember that all of a sudden I realized why they say that Buenos Aires smells like Rome? Well, even sharper, more abrupt was my realization that Rome is Rome and has kept her category during thousands of years for a reason. Zero Vanity. OR 100% vanity?  The grandness , magnitude, prodigiousness (you know what I mean, right?) of what I was about to see sank in. And as loud, chatty, expressive, sentimental and demonstrative as I can be (you can take the Italian out of Italy but not Italy out of the Italian, or was that for the English only?) I am 

speechless. 

PEKÍN

Beijing. Year 2012. 

Population: approx. 19.612million human beings (and not many living dogs)

And which are the odds of taking the same train to  go at 07:30h and to come back at 11:30h as any other randon couple with a baby in a carrycot? 

1 in 19.612million? (Statistics is not my cup of tea) Anyway, lucky me! 

When I saw them on way there I thought of smiling at them but then an odd feeling took over me and I didn't:

I got all paranoid about the baby being dead, or a stolen baby or maybe just a massive block of heroine covered and made up to look as a baby.

That's how I remembered an ordinary couple of chinese people with an ordinarily dressed up baby. Because I studied them as If I'd be asked to IDEntify them later on. Odd. I told you. 

Anyways . Ordinary Chinese. Exotic to us westerners. They look at us like we look at them probably. And even though they are pretty much everywhere (have you been somewhere without Chinese people or Chinatown? I don't think I have) we -or I- still react to them as if ... As if what? Don't know. But I react to them. 

Most the time I think I am normal towards them, but when I see a father running behind his kid learning to walk with a camera and find myself thinking "ah they are like us, they take a million graceless pictures of a baby learning to walk" , that's when I realize I am not normal towards them or I don't think they are the same same . Same same but different. 

Dear Beijing, I prefer to call you pekin. And I hope both you don't mind and you apologize me .

I have missed you more than I thought. Coming back, breathing the chilled polluted air you feed us, being as harassed by the bicycles in the street as by the looks of strangers... Your aromas, your sounds, your Asian idiosyncrasies , yet so superior -though maybe in a more decadent way- than so many other so called Asian capitals. 

Pekin, you've seen me growing into a champion when it comes to sucking the spaghetti out of the lettuce and peanuts soup with the chop sticks , noise & splash included , just like any fellow Chinese . 

Pekin pekin , I sight upon the thought of you . I hold my breath upon your public toilets . I am always hungry of your teachings. My heart is always open to you.

The Story of the Sad night the Red Square was closed and I was in Moscow

Top of the descent; sharp and sudden, flaps screaming the changes ahead. From the airplane's little windows the light-blue sunny earth I departed from became white, pale and frosted.
Officer K. walks us around the airport's exhausted backstage. Glacial cold. She walked fast and her legs were long. I was almost running to keep up.
The first thing that crossed my mind was: How am I going to get around the city if I can't even remember the name of the airport? (And if this lady, who apparently is fluent in English, is barely understandable! Judging by the profile of the passenger, lots of Dior and Gucci, golden and even black credit cards, but no English!)
Out of the blue, she opens a door and there is our entrance to Moscow! Our passports get quickly scanned and stamped. Waiting outside, the comfortable bus that would drive us through the country side for hours before we reached the city.
A countryside so remote and hidden under a sun that never got to lit the sky up, because the day was too short. This scenario of nothingness abruptly metamorphosed into a communist Russia. Concrete apartment blocks with the scabies of humidity attacking. A highway with more cars by the minute, fancy European brands mixing with classic old Ladas. Ritzy neighborhoods breezed in with the snow. We pass through the Moscow River and a city of contrasts: industrial, commercial, residential, communist and finally imperialist. Everything I had seen in the movies was there.
The hotel staff welcomes us in very professional manner. Twenty minutes is all I need to prepare myself an instant coffee in the bedroom whilst I take off my uniform, change into my civies, put on my hat, scarf, gloves, camera inside the backpack and off I go. It's already dark outside. I meet Svetlana, a Russian colleague and Alex, il capitano italiano. Svet will show us around. We head to Московский метрополитен, the moscowit Metro. Stupefaction is what better describes -I dare say anyone's- first reaction. People that know, call the Moscow Metro the Subterranean Palace, and no wonder why! It currently serves around 9.2 million passengers daily around 182 stations. But that's not so impressive when compared with others. Its lines run in a ring shape and the pre-recorded public announcements are done by a male's voice when the train runs clockwise and when it runs counterclockwise it is a lady's voice. Funny, huh? It could have taken me a lifetime to realize if they didn't tell me. It is the deepest transportation system, it goes as much as 84 meters under the earth. The outside is lit by streetlamps to brag about.
Short Pit stop: we ate at a traditional Russian village eatery, wooden and cozy. Simple menu: lots of potato in all shapes and cooked in every way. Some meat balls (but as a vegetarian this wasn’t my preferred choice) and SCHI: a popular year round soup that must have cabbage and some other sour component like cabbage pickle and pickle water, mine also had onions, celery, dill and pepper. It was actually awesome and spicy enough to heat up my body and lift up my mood. We accompanied our dishes with a Baltika No.7, a malty, clear local beer.
Back on our way Svetlana kept telling us stories about the Red Square, like it is the most famous and the center-point of Russia. From here are measured the distances in every direction, here is where streets are born, where public ceremonies, crownings, demonstrations and markets happen. It's named red not because of the color of the bricks or communism like most people thing but is actually a deformed old Russian word, krasnaya, which means beautiful, and it referred to St. Basil's Cathedral that stands right next to the square (Saint Basil was considered the beautiful saint). With time this word's meaning changed to red and hence the Red Square.
With blue feet and runny noses, street vendors with trolleys sponsored by Coca-Cola selling HOt Dogs make us travel back in time. Past and present merge in Russia's belly button.
We walked around the Kremlin, Lenin's Mausoleum, the huge GUM department store and around the St. Basil’s Cathedral to find out that the Red Square gates are closed! Bummer. We wander no longer and rush back to hotel and bed.
I woke up long before the sun. After a hot chocolate in my room, off I went into the city again. I have learnt my way by hard, I took pictures of the metro stations where I needed to connect and exit. Somehow I get my ticket and proudly hop on the packed train, nobody talked much, lots slept and others read the papers.
When I got to the outer world again, up 84meters, to my surprise the sky was so blue, got a glimpse of the sun, but not enough to get any heat. The Square was closed again! I tried talking to the guards, but they don’t do English, and I don’t Russian. I would try my luck later. Say no more. In the meantime I went for classic babushkas (Russian word for granny) and some post cards. It took me very little time to get the dolls, what took me hours to find were the post cards! I saw the tombs of Stalin and other popular guys of the days laying out al fresco around the Kremlin and by eleven I went back to talk to the guards. The Square is still closed. (And apparently was not going to open any time soon). I complained in every language I knew. All they did was redirect me to Lenin’s Mausoleum with a poker face. There I went to spend the creepiest fifteen minutes I spent in a touristic place ever: Lenin’s body was embalmed and in display since 1924. The Soviet Government received over ten thousand telegrams, says the story, asking for the body to be kept in better conditions, so future generations could admire it. This is why in 1929 the current building’s construction begun, using marble and granite replacing the old wooden construction (though it still smells funny). In 1973 sculptor Nikolai Tomsky designed the new sarcophagus. And only in between 1924 and 1972 over a million people had visited the site.
One hot shower to wash off the goulish feeling and get back in the character. Chicken or beef? Top of the descent; sharp and sudden, flaps screaming the changes ahead: sand, sun and heat, nothing like home.

서울 Seoul's Soul in a blink of the eye

This is what I thought I knew about this people:

* For some reason they play it dumb but are actually quite smart. 

* They have a very rigid system that respects older people in ways that for us, at least where I grew up at, is old history. And it doesn't mean we don't respect the old people. But we just don't bow upon someone 1 year older! 

* They are very quiet, easy going and like to eat spicy food with chopsticks.

Bear in mind my friend that all these impressions are formed though my place in the world, which is very influenced by my job. I am a simple humanitarian server that interacts with peoples from all over for limited periods of time. But after various successful interactions, I tend to form an opinion. Though first impressions ... those are priceless! For all the rest there is MasterCard and that's so true. Still, that was before I met them. Koreans.

So, back to this first impression. As they boarded the airplane, fashionable as Parisians, they smelled so good, they found their seats and sat themselves after stowing their Luis Vuitton baggage without help, they fastened the seatbelt and they slept until we landed. I just couldn't believe it. This people are not normal. This might as well be a great trip. That was my very fist impression. 

(Maybe the average of my asian costumer is a bit more demanding and has a more peculiar smell, not such a generic french perfume one).

The city welcomed me at night. Not so much because it was actual night but because it was wintertime. Christmas decoration and neon lights as we approached downtown, a feeling of TOkyo (no I have never been but this is how I imagine it: a lot of tall buildings, neon lights and signs that are supposed to be an alphabet, but to me just cute unreadable signs), a few more turns through wide avenues and violá, the hotel. Majestic. I was surprised by a giant Christmas tree. 

Knowing also that they are probably one of the most skeptical and unbeliever nations in the world, to which I associate the hi suicidal rate, I thought all the rest were Buddhists and don't celebrate Christmas. (I was only to find out that not only there are a lot of Christians, but also that they are into whatever you can buy, like Luis Vuitton bags and CHANEL dresses). And back to the tree and my awe, it was just so big it could have been in the middle of Times Square without getting lost. 

Life around, that is people, sounds, visions, everything, submerged me in an anime mood for a while. This little boy, just part of his big squared head hanging to a side and his hands were visible, squeezing the mum's designer dress. Mum obviously upset about this last fact, pushes him away. Our looks meet. I am touched by him. Maybe just brings back memories or maybe because I have never seen such a little korean, who knows?  I waved and smiled at him. He bursted into tears. I looked away and started talking to colleague, not taking the blame or the responsibility. It was just hilarious. My colleague, also korean, explained me that to him, plain and simple: I am an alien. In his short life, he has probably never seen someone with such big eyes and all so dressed up and head covered in the muslim way. That I should not worry. My anime mood bubble was cracked and vanished. 

I went out. I had to see them in their environment. Youth, they might be very respectful of the older generations and even the one year older next to them, but they are not quiet. Not at all¡! They drink a lot. They are absolutely madmen! And girls, their dresses, seriously, hey, it's -20C out there, get dressed for God's Sake! I was saying, dresses are so short, that later on when I was roaming the local market, I thought they were long tees. Seller was in between indignant and amused when I suggested the long tee thing while checking out a dress. She, too, must have thought I am an alien. 

They have a very peculiar sense of fashion, very southeast asian. Cheap and good quality industry. A super modern metro system that takes you to palaces originally erected in 1394 by the Joseon Dynasty and many other places. It goes through blocks of mega tall housing buildings, with names as original as BLOCK I BLOCK II BLOCK III and so on. Wanting to kill my ignorance, I asked a friend if this had something to do with a communist movement -well, hey yes! It did remind me of Moscow and Zagreb and other communist places- from before splitting up with North Korea or what. And I was explained that it had nothing to do with communism, just a lack of taste in housing design and a need of housing a lot of people in a tiny place. No brain cracker after all. 

Barbecue was quite an experience. I was satisfied with the side of the barbecue, so many fresh greens, carrots, veggies that I have no clue what they are, miso soup, rice. They put it all in the center of the table around the actual barbecue which is like a hot pot hole where they throw the meats. Lots of pork and some veal. Thank you very much, you can have that, I will just grill the onion. There is no meal without Kimchi, this spicy fermented cabbage (is the most traditional, there are other veg kimchies as well but never tried one) thing with many seasonings. I loved it! Thirsty? Cheongju, some sort of Sake but korean. Same same but different, rice wine. Personally not my favourite, though I quite fancied they fresh and clear easy drinking beer.

This is what I think about the average of this people:

(of course, there are exceptions to the rule)

* Some seem smarter than they actually are. They weren't playing it dumb

* They barely speak english, for some reason the ph sound is almost impossible to pronounce and it mutates to P -so they don't say coffee, they say copee. 

* Seems like the original sin's burden can kill them if they put on some weight over 50kg, this specially applies to girls, 

* Over 25 years old and unmarried? Surgery will fix it. 

* Over 27 still unmarried? Just go and stay abroad, you have better chances of happiness there. 

* Easily corrupted by materialism. 

* Uncorrupted souls, independent thinkers are a race in danger of extinction, but they exist!

* No KIMCHI No Life

And honeymooners wear the same clothes. What da F..k?¡! Trends, fashions, traditions. Who knows? But you are always welcome onboard!

@212.com

T H O U G H T S   F R O M  &  A B O U T   T H E  B IG   A P P L E

what's the day today ? somewhere in August, 2011 for sure. 

08.46pm - 74ºF - 23ºC

Erudités talk about first impressions. How lasting they are, consequently, how important it is to create a positive one. My first impression -September, many years back- landing at night in LGA, was : W-O-W. Blinking lights rising from below so high that eventually they were above my window seat level. Little starts on Earth, this must be heaven. By then I realized we are surrounded by water, and my second thought was (by those days I was almost terrified of flying) I hope we don't crash. We didn't. Lucky us.  

Curiously enough, that is not what I remember when I think back of NYC.  

I remember that at night, the second day (first day of actual sightseeing), swollen feet, sweaty and sticky body, undergoing the firsts signs of pot abstinence, I asked my friends "How many days have we been here now?" Not even 24h yet. I was SO ready to take the first plane back to Beaver Creek, home, the mountains, peace, sky, sun and real outdoors. But not quite yet. 

We still had a busy few days schedule, which included: 

• getting lost at the Bronx one night searching for the Blue Moon JAzz Club. 

Not even taxis wanted to stop in the midst of the midnight darkness. And even it's inhabitants were hostile to 4 good looking, definitely well intended and very lost young girls. A-Ma-ZING! Or was it Harlem? Can't remember. It was definitely one where you don't want to get lost.

• finding that awesome argie aerial acrobats of De La Guarda were performing Villa Villa in NYC -we went to see it, of course. How good was it! That was a very welcomed plus :) 

• drinking so much lemon gatorade that even today I can't even smell it, 

• the classic stroll around the parks,
• the museums,
• the broadway musical,
• the under theatre,

• the ferry to the disappointing Statue of Liberty, 

• the Ground Zero territory; THAT was impressive. Even now, so many years later, it is still mind blowing. 

And I mean, in so many levels that it deserves a brainstorm of it's own. It's kind of -no offense please- tragicomic the hole that they made there and how symbolic it is. 

• the Brooklyn Bridge at night, but because it was around the 9/11 it was not lit, mourning. 

What lucky luck mine I though that night. THE one TIME I come to this place and the lights are OFF! I didn't imagine I would return so many more times in the future.  

•  roaming around the neighborhoods that define the city, the chinatown -biggest and most chinese of the eastern hemisphere-, the fashion district (+shopping, duh!), the Little Italy Little India Little Brazil and Lil All Around the World that paints and gives this place the variance of tones, voices, colors and shapes and stories that make it so rich. 

This is one question that arouses every time I'm here. It happened that time, and it keeps happening even nowadays: maybe it's more a thought than a question. 

Americans (US americans speaking, there are so many more americans to america than the US inhabitants) take a pride and joy about their country and specially this city. (Maybe I am absurdly stereotyping, shame on me!) But this city is one of the less characteristic parts of USA. I mean, it's THE symbol by excellence, but what is there here that defines it as American? Nothing here is from here. And what's from here is so brought from many other places. . . Is it about the idea? What it represents? What is that? Why is is that so many groups of people from all over come here to grab a bite of the BigApple, hoping it will magically transform their lives, yet, they don't blend in, not with the American culture, not between themselves. They just are, a mirror, a bis of what they are back home but here. I think it's funny. I think it's great. To me NYC is a LilPlanetEarth built up in a not so small -yet not half as big as I imagined it to be- terrotory. Awesome location though.

The things about NYC that I love(d), are that, avid reader as I am, so many things happened here. Not just novel plots, but actual things, like Nikola Tesla feeding pigeons, blowing up the New Yorker's electricity. Or the old days Mafia battles in the streets, the Wall Street's NY Stock Exchange and imagining all that went on there, how it outlined today's world. The fact that it's a Capital of Culture, that there is a l w a y s something going on, for the cult, the nerd, the yogui, the junkie, the yuppie, the classic... It attends all segments of population. Nowadays I also like that the taxis are going green :) They are still yellow but environmentally friendly.

Can't help it. Every time the same word comes to me : overwhelming. Up, down, left, right, no matter where you look at, you can barely see the sky, because there is so much to see in between. Because despite the wide avenues everything is so cramped up, because everything is so phallic, so high, so tall. Symbolic to a certain moment of life. Majestic? And existence in this city is not reduced to just seeing. 

There is the texture to this place too. It's almost impossible to be somewhere without having to touch something or someone. It's just crowded. In the streets, in the bus, in the subway, in the mall, in the café, even when I go to the park for a run, there is so much people! And the texture of the air you breath mutates from place to place. 

Aromas! As many as restaurants (so many, for a lifetime you can have dinner out every night and never repeat the place), as commuters, residents, tourists, street inhabitants .. . some things, a smell to forget, others a smell I wish I could pack and take back home with me. There is not such thing like the fresh wet smell of dripping rain hitting the pavement close to the freshness of Central PArk. Upon arrival to Times Square the smell of falafels in the corner of the Sheraton, the freezing smell of flakes falling in the sea by the piers, or Bryant Park in spring blooming with people playing chess, reading the New York Times in their iPads, the gentle sweat of the tai chi-ers. 

I sight, I can't deny it: There is no place like New York. 

F u n n y   D a t a

♥New York's Central Park is larger than Monaco.

♥Dutch explorer Peter Minuit purchased the southern tip of the island of Manhattan a native tribe for trinkets and tools worth about $24.

♥The first known name for Manhattan was New Amsterdam and it referred to the southern tip of Manhattan that was a Dutch trading port. 

♥New York's Yellow Cabs are yellow because John Hertz, the company's founder, learned from a study that yellow was the easiest color for the eye to spot. Was he right or was he right¿?

♥The Federal Reserve Bank on New York's Wall Street contains vaults that are located 80 feet beneath the bank and hold about 25 percent of the world's gold bullion.

♥More than 47 percent of New York City's residents over the age of 5 speak a language other than English at home.

♥It takes 75,000 trees to print a Sunday edition of the New York Times. Sad.

you ♥ NY

I ♥ NY (?):)

w'all ♥ NY !

A Dejá-Vu and one more beer please

düsseldorf, germany 

-one of the many places where the cure played a lot-

I might be the virgin of the snow according to my native ¨mapuche¨ name... WHATE-E-VER! This is the only time I have doubted my identity, my origin, my purpose. 

Man, it was a kookoos, maniac, dingy cold, soooo cold! And yo,  If i was ever cold in my life, suffering cold ... this was the second time in ... many years! Once in chile, when i was so young, I still remember in pain! 

I was walking down the streets, sightseeing : -12C can't be so bad, right? (who sent me on a walking tour after hanging out in KualaLumpur's weather?) and all I could think about was that I just wanna get inside wherever because my feet are so cold I'm afraid they're gonna fall off, you know?

It was lovely though, just lovely. This frozen river across the city and the trees, bare and whitened, and every building is just gorgeous to look at, I mean, one may or may not like the style, but every square cm is just so worked out, like a piece of art itself... thats something that still amazes me of europe ~  so peaceful all in all... 

Of course my walk ended up in this old area where the "longest bar" in the world is, or that's what they (when I say THEY I refer to people who knows about what they talk, or at least so They think) say. I thought I was going to find a just enormously long bar. But I did not. THEY don't mean a real bar, but just a street full of bars. And they also sell postcards :) 

I just walked in impulsively when my feet could seriously bear no longer any more cold. I didn't look around, I didn't choose.  I find myself in this very typical restaurant/brewery... It reminded me soooooooooooo much of my grandma's place! No kidding, same wooden dinner tables, the chairs: just identical! Can you believe it? Even the lamps! This classic german beer glassware, the china, everything...Even the ambiance, decoration. It was a flash, a good one. Just never thought that such a whatever restaurant would give me this kinda dejá-vu. 

Many months later, talking with my grandma, she tells me that she moved boxed, shipped and dismantled her german house in sweet home Buenos Aires, and now I get it all.

Then it was toooo cold, toooo dark to keep walking around... my camera decided not to work anymore. Yes, it was so cold that even the camera went on strike! 

The Cure on the iPod, heated train, this is the first world! I just hit it back to hotel's bar. There I asked for the house's "reddest" beer in color that they had. Yes, I meant an Ale, but I only learnt this later on. It was the best beer I've had ever! Smooth, bewitching, persuasive, irresistible, rounded and with so many levels of notes, smells, tastes. So complete. Too bad I don't even know the name because it was so german, so hard to understand. Apparently, from what I got from the bar attendant's english, it is like Düs' local beer, so shouldn't be hard to find.  It was just soooooooooo good I still dream about our reencounter. And so cheap I had to drink so oooo ooooooh much! Shame, I know, I just didn't want to come back with loose change in my pockets.

Germans at the place were quite funny. singing along the piano.... At first it was all quiet, everybody silently enjoying their drinks, piano playing mello songs. But it ended up almost like a karaoke full of drunk, tall, blonde and red faced germans singing out loud, very elegant they were. This surprised me as well. Maybe is just the profile of 5* hotel? Whatever. I was just sitting and ejoying my beers, writing, they made me feel soooo inspired! and those peanuts... mmm... crunchy, spicy, delicious! 

What I wouldn't give for one more kiss of that beer in my lips? 

mouthwatering

As you walk up Queen St. asian food places, from Korean barbeque to specialized Japanese take up the streets. Auckland starts feeling like Seoul. In between all these little eateries (where one can work out a meal for as little as 6.5NZD) stands “Le Garde Manger”. 
 

After a week on the road, or better said in the air, my appetite craves some “real food”, similar to what I would eat at home. I check out their board on the street. It’s already dark and getting cold, I don’t feel like walking much more. I am tempted by the French onion soup and walk in, despite the prices. 

“Alo, table for one?” In pure French accent. “Yes please”

Wooden tables, many small squared tables for two one next to the other, with enough space to make them private, votive candle lighting the night. Patterned red and white tablecloths dress the tables and the lamps on top. Very French, very warm and cosy. Calming colour in the walls and many old pictures of French kitchen characters. Indulgent aromas and a quiet crowd talk on top of French music, Amelie soundtrack, Stacey Kent, Edith Piaf… Ah! Can it get any better? I am wondering.

The server comes to me, welcomes me again, and hands in the big menu. (No, it can't get any more better than this! If food is as good as him, my god!) Two pages, one with the specials, one with the menu. In the fixed menu starters include greens salad, les galettes (pies) with a wide choice of fillings or soup: French onion or soup du jour (butternut squash and almonds tonight). The mains: one fish and one meat dish that can be paired with green beans or salad. On another board, hanging on top the cashier is the wine list: Whites, Reds, New World and French. By the glass and by the bottle. 

Everything is very simple, one might think too simple for the prices they offer. But as the server comes with the dishes for the table next to me, the herbs that float around the tenderloin with the potatoes and the onions, and the mustard grains from the salad seem to come to life and my mouth is watering. When the server comes to me I ask him a couple of things about the ingredients of the butternut squash soup and about the paysanne salad. He replies to me very confidently, as if he had prepared them himself. True love and pride in his broken English make up for his lack of words –which fortunately didn’t matter much because I can handle a bit of French–  I order the French onion soup and the salad and glass of the house French red. He walks to clear another table and gets lost in the kitchen. 

Despite the small size of the place and the open door kitchen the sounds are not loud and every now and then the Chef pops out his head, spies the dinning room and goes to the backyard. He returns with a bunch of fresh herbs in his hands.

Maybe after five minutes the warm bread bun and butter are brought to my table, salt and pepper already in the table, and the glass of wine plus a small glass bottle of tap water. It highly surprised me in a great way, for I didn’t ask for it but was more than welcomed. After another five minutes the soup and the salad, all at the same time, as per request. Lovely. I can’t wait to dip my spoon and break this cheese layer covering the onions. And the romaine is so green and crispy, the mustard vinaigrette so silky and balanced that not only I do not regret coming here to spend 4 times more what I would in any of the many Chinese/Korean/Japanese little eateries around town, but I congratulate myself of my choice. 

As I am finishing my dishes the place is close to full. Service was very good, casual and smart at all times and at all tables. My glass of wine is empty. As my dirty dishes are neatly cleared off my table they offer to pour another one. “No thank you, but you can tell me where the ladies room is”. Basic and very clean. When I come back the server suggests me to try the chocolate fondant with the warm liquid heart but I have had enough. Portions were not huge, just the right size. And at the slow easy going French rhythm for eating they seemed much larger than they actually were. I ask for a cup of tea that comes with evidently home made pastille d’orange as petit four. 

Overall, I had what I consider one of my best meals in Auckland so far. (Though othing beats Tanuki's cave, great company and the taste of reencounter!) Better than the seafood buffet at the 5 star hotel and better than the classic mussels anywhere you go and way too much better than any of the so popular (and some very good and so cheap) Asian food. Was it worth? Yes, definitely. It did calm my home made food crave and the experience was très bon! 

a Taste of Cairo

    It felt like starring in a Hollywood movie full of guns and terrorists – lots of persecution. From the airport into the city, four lanes in the road but nine lanes of cars brought back from the past, an orchestra of  horns, and men shouting at each other in incomprehensible Arabic. Yet you could imagine! Everyone smokes. Cigarettes in the car, sheesha in the cafes, hash in the house... Nobody asks if you mind, only if you want. The sun setting, squared concrete buildings on the sides of the road with clothes hanging out and absorbing smog.

"Is this your first time here?” Magdi asked us.

A staggered “Yes,” is all my friend could reply. My jaw dropped, I was mute with my head out of the window trying to cross into that different dimension, and a little bit afraid too.

Magdi smiled at us through the rear view mirror and blurted out "Welcome to Cairo my friend! Welcome to Cairo!"