Life with “The Others”

Checking in from the US, where I’m still visiting. While I will never see American culture with the interestingly naive foreign eyes through which I view all others, it does look different once you’ve been gone for a while. As I’ve mentioned, I am foremost mesmerized by all the food choices.

When I first moved to France at age 19, my best friend and I both went home 8 months later chubbier than we’d ever been. The baguettes, the chocolate-hazelnutty goodness of Nutella, the goat cheese, the 1001 other cheeses, the top-quality mustard and dairy, the dark chocolate, the fondue, the homemade mayonnaise, the beer and wine, etc: it was all too much to resist. (As evidenced by a wonderfully embarrassing story of piggery that I had published, “Guest Lessons” in the travel book Europe Through a Backpack.) I thought western Europe was the height of culinary temptation.

When I was 20, there was a somewhat glamorous domestic image attached to these foods for me. (If such a thing as “glamorous domestic” exists.) Those foods belonged in the kitchen of the future me. A tricked out kitchen where I cooked everyday in my lovely house in my designer high heels for my hip dinner parties. (Ha!) But regardless of the very many things that are soooo off about that fantasy, now that I’ve lived there and (important!) cooked for myself for some years, I think “…annnhh“. It’s the junk food and ready-to-eat choices that tempt me. Now, I am generally quite the slender figure because living in the culinary culture of Europe has revealed my laziness American-ness.

That means, the reality is that while it sounds charming, I am too lazy to go shopping just about every single day because my European refrigerator is too small to hold very much and the freezer is virtually non-existent. Also, to get most of the things I’d like to have, I have to travel a very inconvenient distance to get to a proper big store. The ones nearby are the equivalent of shopping at the 7-11. After all that effort, I furthermore cannot be bothered to continuously try to cook the things that are customary to me with the most similar products available, via cooking conversions. These two things together commonly take far more effort than the recipe ever did for underwhelming results. (Like my 15 minute 7 layer bean dip that took 2 hours because the grocery stores had no black beans, no tortilla chips (substituted Doritos), no pre-pitted/sliced olives, no pre-made guacamole, no pre-shredded cheese, and no Cheddar at all. I’m sweating from the labour involved just thinking about it!)

After a few such disappointments, I began to live off of baguette sandwiches and kabobs (gyros), neither of which are very appetizing after the first 1,000. Those wonderful French baguettes? I coudn’t care less about them anymore. I’m not even a white bread kind of girl anymore. The cheese? Don’t really care. I still love the dark chocolate, and the Nutella is still loved, but I just don’t eat it often anymore. While from a “quality food” stand point Europe is an ideal place, that only would work for me if I had a cook. (Lesson: Want a great diet? Stay in Europe long enough to need to prepare your own food. It will wear you out/bore you until you just stop eating!)

Now back in America I am challenged with how to fit in all the things I miss eating in one short trip, even though I’d have a stroke if I ate them all regularly. (“Luckily”, they’re all so convenient to eat that I can make a lot of progres in a little time!) I’m so happy to have snack crackers, cheddar cheese, peanut butter (!), half and half for my coffee, Cheetos, cheese cake, brownies, homemade chocolate chip cookies, corn chips, a plethora of candy bars, frozen vegetables and other frozen dishes, not to mention numerous pre-sliced and diced ready-to-use products. It’s just too terrible and beautiful at the same time to comprehend.

I never said I was proud of how much I miss this. I walk through Wal-Mart (sometimes called “The Evil Empire”) wanting to buy every gizmo I see just because I can, thinking about the arguments of third-world development: some people think the goal is to give them a world like we have; some people think it’s just to make them self-sustainable. I am in the latter camp. My own coming-home expereince is proof positive that, sure, people want stuff, but you don’t want it until you see it! In Europe I am in love with my modest life. But still…cruising the aisles of our mega stores, I becomes lustful over having so many options and my instinct is to spend spend spend! Whoopee! I think.

Now I have to hang my head. I’m a disgrace as a champion of Simple Living. Somewhere inside of me is a fat girl addicted to the Home Shopping Network. I fear if I move back to America I will embrace her a little too eagerly, and if I’m not careful, I won’t even be able to get arms around her.

I’m going to be away for a bit longer, as I am in the US for a visit, celebrating the value of my dollar and and enjoying my semi-annual Junk Food Tour of America. Yum!

I’ll be back soon with an update about Friesland.

Nothing cures a “vacation hangover” (which I had from Turkey) like traveling somewhere else and discovering something new.

One thing I didn’t expect to discover in Prague is opera. Lest I sound like a cultural ingrate, let me say that opera is one of those things that I have always wanted to like. It seems such a very sophisticated thing to dig. As in, it’s so uncool and snobish that you must be above that stuff if you listen to opera. Or else you know something else everyone else doesn’t, neither of which is a terrible feeling to have. So I was never against opera. Just…I never quite managed to sincerely appreciate it. I’ve even got some opera on my iPod. It is not, however, on my “25 Most Played” list. In fact, if there was a “Least Played 25 out of the 200o Songs on Here” list I’m quite sure it would be filled with all the opera on there. But you gotta give me credit for trying, right?

Prague State Opera Theater

When I was in Spain in March, my friend Ilse and I did try to go to the opera. We’d heard the production was very elaborate and interesting. As luck would have it there was no opera playing on Saturday night, our only chance. So it was serendipity when the nice older lady approached my friends and I in line to buy tickets for Prague’s Jewish quarter synagogues and asked if we’d like to see the opera. Most of the gang scattered but I’m too polite, and when I heard opera, I thought I’d give her a chance. My friend Vanessa – always game for whatever you want her to do with you – said she’d also like to go. So we trusted our gut that the lady wasn’t scamming us (she was quite honest about the fact that her organization would make profit, and had lots of ID and official looking papers) and bought 2 tickets. We were going to see Verdi’s La Traviata. The Fallen Woman.

Just before the show we were told that it would be 3 hours long, not 2. We made our “uh-oh” faces at each other, but then agreed that we could sneak out at intermission. Our first look in the door of the Czech National Theater bode well. It was gorgeous, as you would expect of an opera house to be. We were doubly excited to discover that intermission would have $2 glasses of champagne on offer. If nothing else, that would make the evening a heck of a bargain.

But you know what happened? Once the curtain went up, we were both hooked. There weren’t even any elaborate sets and costumes to enrapture us. But we loved it all. In fact, this opera production took an unorthodox, modernist approach. The set was very simple, made up of only white walls with moulding. (Picture your stereotypical French style apartment.) One or two pieces of the wall would be rearranged for each set and the tables or chairs would be switched out. That was the extent of aesthetic variety that we had. Even the costumes were in white and black. It was terribly cool. Like it was simply an interior design fashion show with a live (and very impressive) soundtrack. Usually Violetta was all in white and everyone else in black. The only color in the entire show was the money on the ground for a few minutes of Act I, the trail of yellow rose petals elegantly crossing the room in Act II and, finally, the bright red blood on Violettea’s hanky in Act III.

“Violetta” takes her bow in her trademark white dress.

You knew there would be a bloody hanky right? This is opera! With all the drama that one would expect. It was all there: the heaving of bosems, the falling to one’s knees, the singing in embrace, the clutching of hair, the throwing of one’s self against the walls, the fondling of said walls, the shuddering with sobs, the placing of the back of one’s wrist against the forehead (as if it were an icepack to an agonizing fever), the protracted 40 minute (!) death scene. We could see it all. Our seats were great, or more to the point, the theater was ideal. Call it a “Broadway” type opera, where the theater is old and beautiful, and intimate enough that no one is very far away. Luckily, opera glasses were completely unnecessary in this theater. (Unless for some reason you actually want to feel the soloists’ spittle on your face. Then by all means, whip out those binoculars to get closer.)

We just loved it. I suppose the truth of the matter, at least for us, is that the context is really necessary in order to enjoy the music. First of all, when you see it live the marvel of the fact that a human can make such sounds cannot be denied. It is more amazing that these sounds are for entertainment. If we lived in the animal world, surely a pack of males in season would suddenly rush the stage and tackle the female singer. (Or, I don’t know. Maybe they want to. I can’t speak for how attractive the average male finds a woman trained to make glass-shattering noises.) It is in fact so beautiful that the both of us were holding our breath in rapt attention. The three hours flew by.

Also, the libretto helps immensely. Knowing nothing about La Traviata, Vanessa and I shelled out additional money for the little book, which contains the text. Even though the LED screen above the stage only translated into Czech, the synopsis was in English. Mine and Vanessa’s French and Spanish knowledge meant the the Italian words were discernible enough for us to follow along.

A last endearing fact is that La Traviata is based on a true story. Really! Not “based on a true story” like horror movies are “based on a true story”, where there never really was a serial killer who wore a diaper on his face and tickled all his victims to death. “Based on a true story” as in character’s names and a few details are changed. What’s more, it’s the story of the doomed love affair between Alexander Dumas “Jr.”, son of the famous author of The Three Muskateers, Count of Monte Cristo, etc., who happens to be one of my favorite authors. Junior wrote a book about his own tuberculosis doomed courtesan (a fancy-pants prostitute) girlfriend and their tortured love affair, which became his most famous work, and then Verdi then wrote it as an opera. Sure, that one was easy. Let’s see him put that diaper-wearing serial killer to music.

It’s that great time of year: When the sun comes out and the Wintersmith is gone? Nope. When the world is just days away from being taken over by little “cherubs” on school vacation? Certainly not. International Sea Monkey Day? Close, but no. It’s Eurovision time!

For those than know what it is, read on before you call me crazy. For those that don’t know what it is, oh you are missing it. Even if you’ve traveled a lot to Europe, you haven’t seen anything if you haven’t seen the biggest night of organized kitsch on the continent.

Welcome to a night of lots of men in hot pink, twirling around with arms raised over their heads, swinging their hips like they’re well, like men in America never would, shaking their shoulders like they’ve got cleavage to jiggle tactlessly. And they’re serious. Ok, not all of them, but any of them is too many to pass up watching.

First, I’ll tell you what it is. In short, it is an annual song contest in which each country submits an act and song to represent it each year. It was one of the post World War II solutions (you know, like that other thing, the…oh, whaddayoucallit…ah yes, the EU!) and has been broadcast since 1956. This makes it one of the longest running shows on TV. And it’s just so bad it’s good.

While it’s called Eurovision, and certainly the participants are by and large European, geography has little do to with it. Any country that is an active member of the European Broadcast Something-or-Other can enter. This is why you’ll find Turkey, Russia and even Israel in the show.

40-some countries also makes for a mighty long emission that would make the Oscars look like a commercial. Thus, the finalist nations each year are the top 10 from the previous year’s competition, as well as the top 10 from the semi-finals, which airs shortly before the final. In addition to or among these numbers will always be Germany, France, Spain, the UK. These countries are known as the “Big Four”; automatic qualifiers each year since they contribute most to the European Broadcasting Thingy. The final is always held in the capitol city of the previous year’s winner.

A little trivia: Celine Dion won the title for Switzerland in 1988 and ABBA also got their start on Eurovision.

Now to last night’s show: The video below is a bit long (6 minutes) but includes a snippet of most finalists from Helsinki, Finland last night and is well worth it.

(Another great clip, in which a comedic Australian TV host gives his annual Best and Worst of review from the 2006 Eurovision in Athens, Greece can be found here. YouTubing “Eurovision” gives lots of goods.)

Now, I understand that NBC has purchased the rights for an American version called “World Vision: An American Anthem”. I say, “Bleah.” It’s a lame name and it will miss the beautiful kitsch mark that is the heart of the show. What would Eurovision be without the cultural awkwardness? Without the clash of opinion on what constitutes “good music” or a good show? How interesting can the competition be without entertainers blissfully unaware that one culture’s “hip” choreography or cool, modernized version of a folk jig is another culture’s “There’s a spider on me!” dance? (last night’s perpetrator: take your pick) That the leather pants and glitter wardrobe code for “Look, I’m’ a ‘Rock Star’”, don’t go with jazz hands and dancing the side step? (Last night’s perp: Sweden) Rather, it’s just another’s dress code for riding on the short bus to school. That one man’s backless hot pink shirt is, well, some people’s code for “Please beat me up”. (Perp: Portugal)

Oh! I would miss the parade of foreigners’ attempts to emulate the shiny image of the US music machine, which comes off looking like…well, just not 100% on. (Look, I know that sounds terrible, but you can’t deny that it is the US creates the image standard in the music biz.) Now, if it makes you feel better, I can point out that I find one’s mistakes in a foreign language or culture are only funny in relation to how unexpected they are. Thus, someone who is terrible in English (or whatever) is not funny at all when trying to speak. It’s our friends who speak excellent English that crack us up when they make a slip, because otherwise, they get it, and the mistakes are rare and precious.

Speaking of foreigners’ English, something else would be missing from an American version of Eurovision. Yes, the foreign language music here and there, which is terribly interesting. But moreover, the many songs preformed in English are written by speakers of “continental English” (non-native). That is really the key to artfully rank pop music. That’s is how you get a competition full of songs with lyrics like “rock music can heal your soul” and “first off, she’s a lady/it is a lady’s world”. (You might guess that the latter song took the opportunity to redeem itself a bit by at least rhyming something with “lady” in the 3rd line. Yeah but no.)

No, I just can’t see replicating the beauty of Eurovision, a night in which a plethora of cultures rally around their inability to seamlessly transcend regional tastes and styles. A night in which Europe embraces it’s guilty pleasure (pop of the worst kind) and simultaneously pokes fun at it; a night when the less and less obvious superficial differences between us all are enjoyably amplified. When we consider an American version, it would just be too unanimously ‘understood’ amongst the voters, to homogeneous, too perfectly produced with hip wardrobe and the most expensive choreographers. Who wants that? Not me; I’ll pick dancing Nancies every time.

PS. In case you’re wondering, last night’s winners were: Serbia first and a Ukrainian drag queen second (#18 in the video above).

So. The hammam. The Turkish bath. Rock. On.

I am not a “spa” type person (contrary to all the seeming luxury I’ve been treating myself to since I started this blog. I’ve got my reasons.). I’m also not a “massage” person. I do not relish the idea of a stranger’s hands all over my body. I have had two massages in my life. The first was in a dark room in Hong Kong. I was sort of roped into it by my friend that lives there, who had paid for the lady to come to her house as a treat. It was about as personal as you’d expect a stranger in a dark room in China to be, but my friend swore by her. Ok fine.

My second was here in Brussels. My then newish boyfriend had given me a gift certificate and it had taken me almost a year to cash it in. The lady took me into the room and offered me little plastic panties. Determined to put on my “being naked in front of strangers doesn’t bother me” face, I declined. The lady hovered around the room lighting candles and such. I hesitated to undress. I didn’t mind her being there if that was the norm, but I’d be pretty mortified to take off my clothes and then have her turn around and shriek with surprise. She didn’t seem in any hurry to get out of there, so I took off the clothes and laid on the table. I was slightly surprised by the fact that the towel just barely covered me from there to there. The massage was indeed relaxing. Except for the part where she pulled the towel up high around my neck to keep my top half warm. This of course meant that my bottom half was not warm. What’s more, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: you’re more naked with just a top on, or just your socks on, than if you are completely naked. But I ignored this fact, as she seemed to, and just let her do her thing. Which did indeed leave me feeling relaxed, if not feeling like I should at least buy her dinner.

And, as they say, third time’s a charm. That was the hammam last weekend. I had held out, saying no to spa treatments all week. At the last minute I agreed to join my friend Jess in the hammam. After all, it’s a cultural experience in a vacation that was light on those. Considering that I have particular surgery scars that aren’t the type you go around showing, I had already discussed with a Dutch friend that I wasn’t currently into social nudity. This hammam would be just us however, so I said fine.

First thing: Jess and I walk to the desk and two twenty-five year old Turkish guys in small towels come to greet us as our washers. Umm…ok. We both play cool. They hand us similarly small towels and instruct us to undress in the changing room. Once hidden away, Jess and I both let our eyes go wide. “What’s with the men?” “What are you gonna do?” “What are you gonna do?” In the end we decided to pull the Turkish trick: pretend you didn’t understand. We left on our bikinis under our tiny Turkish towels and decided we’d go from there.

A similar looking hammam, though ours was smaller.

We walk into the ladies hammam, basically an exquisite marble dome. Holes cut in the white roof that let starry little pricks of light through, light gray arches all around with marble benches underneath each. Each one also having a stone basin with hot and cold running water and silver bowls. There is a large flat round stone in the middle, conjuring images of a sacrificial altar. The boys have laid out towels for us on the stone and Jess and I are instructed to lie parallel, head to toe. The heat is lovely and perfect. Not so dry as a sauna, not nearly so wet as a steam room. It’s absolutely perfect warm comfort.

At first I close my eyes. It’s quiet in the hammam. Only the vague sounds of water on stone, perhaps in the pipes buried within. The washers get the water to the precise temperature, filling the silver etched bowls and puring warm water everywhere. splash……splash….slow and gentle. Once pleased with the temperature, and long enough that we have started to work up a tiny sweat, they softly pour bowls of water over us. Legs, torso, shoulders. They tip the water out of the bowls, into their hands to soften the contact, from where it pours onto us. It’s hot enough to surprise you. Not hot enough for you to want them to stop.

Then comes the cleaning. They have washing gloves wrapped around one hand. Starting at the toes, you get earnestly scrubbed scrubbed scrubbed. This is a little rough. At one point I actually ask him to go more gently because it hurts slightly. I am pinching my face a little but he continues. I look over at Jess. Though her face is calm she will tell me later that it was also a little uncomfortable. However, once they are done, the warm water gushes over us again and now our pores are soft and open. I am enveloped in a cloud of silky warm.

Now the occasional jingle of a water bucket handle is added to the sounds. (Who knew what magic could be worked with a pillowcase and a bucket of soapy water?!) The men each take a white cloth sack and dip it into the water. Then they open it up and swing it a little to fill it with air. They close the opening with their hands and jerk!…it poufs up into a foam covered cloth balloon. They rub the soap sud ball over us, depositing a thick layer of satiny bubbles. Then they run their hands down the length of the case, wringing all the foam out of it and onto us. Over and over, until I cannot see Jess all for all the blanket of foam over her.

Then we are massaged. From head to toe. I watch Jess’s handsome “bath boy” work on each part of her, one by one, with great concentration and seriousness. The attentiveness is constant. It. is. awesome. I could not help but think “bow chica bow wow” in my head…and wonder how many saucy movies had been set in a hammam (or was it all just too obvious?). The entire trip was worth this part alone.

After the decadent rubadub we get rinsed down again with the lovely warm water. They help us stand up (we are so relaxed we need help by this point as we feel like jelly!) and pour more water over our heads. I hear Jess scream, and my guy is thoughtful enough to ask first if I want the cold water tossed over me. First I say no, then reconsider. I also give a yelp but it feels good after all the heat. A little more steamy water and then they towel us dry. (!)

Usually this part is followed by different hot and cold rooms, but we are led to some lounge chairs with a heart-breakingly beautiful view and fresh OJ. We are left to relax, which for us means sigh, hem, haw and giggle over the experience and how we were thinking the exact same things. We may not have gotten to jet off to another country for a romantic interlude with a new boyfriend, but we aren’t complaining…

Turkey was a mirage in the desert. An opportunity to enjoy the sun in a way that is a welcome relief from the still sweaty sun of Brussels and also, such a cartoonishly perfect vision of paradise that it seems unlikely to be real. I can’t claim a large amount of cultural enlightenment on this particular vacation, but it was nevertheless a winner. This was my laziest vacation ever. My most sit-in-the-sun-and-do-nothing vacation. My most “vacationy” vacation. I am not one for resorts or lying under the giant radiation ball that is the sun, but I suppose for me that makes this trip as exotic as any I’ve had.

We did learn that Turkish people (at least the ones at this resort) don’t get that a hot tub is supposed to be hot. They don’t get the irony that it’s called a hot tub, not a tepid tub. I wasn’t shocked that it was cold. But I was shocked that they felt this was completely normal. And we learned that the hammam is heaven! (More on that next post.) In spite of my initial hesitation, I liked the Turkish bath so much I’m thinking about taking a sledgehammer to our bathtub so that I have an excuse to get publicly rubbed down by olive skinned Turkish men once a week.

The resort gets two thumbs up. While the English limitations meant we spent a week asking for things from the stronger speakers, still to receive nonsensical responses (“What time does the Japanese restaurant open tonight?” In response, he smiles, shakes his shoulders playfully and bows dramatically, as if I had just complimented him on his outfit. Or, he felt inclined to pretend he was gay.), our Turkish got as far as Nowhere. The service was unbelievable. We were greeted at the door by fresh Turkish Delight (something else I never liked before now) offered on a silver, lidded tray, by people in uniforms that reminded me of the movie Aladdin. We commented that it felt like Disney World, though surely it’s where Disney took its service ideas from. They were attentive enough to be almost embarrassing. When the English caused us to be served something other than what as actually asked for, we hesitated to reorder for fear they’d cry of disappointment. The Mojitos were quite different, made with lemon and sparkling water (we decided to call them Turkitos), but terribly refreshing. The Margaritas at the Mexican restaurant were more like Margarita Martinis (see photos). Not to mention the sour cream being plain yogurt. Overall the food was also impressive, even the “gobbets” of crab, veal, etc- of which we apparently had plenty but never figured out what they were- and the “cracky whiting fish”. Again, God-only know what that means, but it was good. All in all, we learned the hard way, several times, that when some mysterious culinary treat was offered, take one and try it amongst you. Don’t take 3. Because, while interesting, our faces will inevitably turn like these i the photo.
Our first taste of the local “Margaritas”.

On Wednesday, one of us announced that we had bought a plane ticket to go see a boy in London for a day. And just like that, on Thursday morning she was gone, with lots of good wishes, and excitement for vicarious living from us that stayed behind. (Ahh…jetting of on spontaneous, romantic, perhaps crazy whims for the rush of new love. Those were the days…)

We made friends with the staff, partly a characteristic of the service model, partly the result of boredom on their part since the summer season was not yet in full swing, and partly the result of us being some of the only Americans they have ever had at the resort. And I can say that the original purpose of this trip, a rest and recuperation reward for myself and Jess, all was successful. The aches and pains of the previous year all faded away in the celebration of girlfriends. That is no mirage.