On the other side of the fence

Ever wondered why the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence?









A new shiny bag in a window shop -or any object for that matter- can always make our day (and for some make them complete if it's an expensive designer bag).

A job which pays well and makes people feel busy and thus important will have them running after the carrot dangling from the stick till the end of their working days, even if corporate life sucks the soul and happiness out of them like fierce dementors*.

In midst of our distress -and sometimes sheer boredom- we picture a gallant who will come to snatch us from our existing reality to the land where troubles melt like lemon drops**.

From a very early age, we see happiness contained in ideal situations. From fairy tales with lovely castles and classist societies where people can be happy only if they get to the throne, to history books portraying the rise to power and the fall from grace, and ultimately to movies that portray people like getting "dream" objects.

As we grow older, we cling more and more to ideal situations, we wait, we hold our breath, we remain anxious, we work like crazy to get there. We cling to a thread in midst of our madness, we wait for the soothing light at the end of the tunnel -which by the way may simply be a fright train coming our way**. We see salvation in the form of a place, a person, a job, an object, an achievement and hold our breathes for the longest time ever expecting to be on cloud 9 when we get it.

In midst of our rush and waiting we forget to enjoy the true pleasures, the small things, the perfect moments, the good cup of coffee and chocolate bar, the kiss, the dew drop, sunrise, humming along a favorite tune, we don't stop to notice all this in our frenzy in search for perfection.

Life goes on, and we walk on, still under the illusion that we know better than ever before, oblivious to the fact that we remain the children who grow tired of the new toy after a few playing sessions, the same toy we have screamed and stomped our feet to get.

Life will remain a bitch of a swing, bringing us up to the seventh heaven and then crashing back to earth*** , we ought to know better by now and simply relax and enjoy the journey without waiting to be up nor fearing to go down.

"What you don't have you don't need it now"
Beautiful day - U2

Photo:
Tangier, Morocco view from a local tea house in Cape Spartel where people smoke up to cross to the other side

Notes:
* dementors are ghosts in Harry Potter who do just that, suck the happiness and soul out of you
** lines from the song "over the rainbow" from the Wizard of Oz

** Metallica's "no leaf clover"
***for a lovely description of the swing of life, read Rehab Bassam's blog post El-morgi7a

Today's book: Buddhism for Busy People: finding happiness in an uncertain world
Today's movie: definitely Disney's Toy Story
An inspirational note that says it The Awakening by Sonny Carroll

On my bike

All the illuminating thoughts solving my existential crises would fill my mind while I'm pedaling away against the wind...

There's no feeling that compares to beating one's own record of perseverance or finding the perfect pal for your route.

I long for my bike, for leading a healthier lifestyle, commuting without contaminating the environment nor contributing to the crazy traffic and noise.

I envy the inhabitants of cities with bike lanes and alert drivers, and women who can wander around on a bike without getting the attention of passersby, and anyone who can be in a street without the risk of damaging their lungs.

On a brighter note, I have a few traveling tips. Exploring a city by bike with a group or on your own, with a guide or without one, is enchanting. I have tried a few tours and guarantee they would be very enjoyable, especially if traveling on your own.

Paris somehow seems more magical on a bike, especially when you speed on bridges, just take the night tour (I apologize if the guide seems to be giving a biking for dummies course "when this guy turns green we cross, ok?"). In Berlin you get to cover more territory and see the contrast between East and West better. In Amsterdam you'll feel more like a local if you're riding, and your fear of the road will disappear in 5 minutes as you see people hositing shopping bags and toddlers on their bikes, riding with one hand on the handlebar and the other clasping the phone (drivers are quite respectful too). Madrid has a good tour on weekends, and also you can rent from my friends at by-bike. Barcelona's metro is synchronized with a great bike rental scheme, just make sure you get the card in advance -cause I didn't- and bike tours are also available . In pricey Geneva, you can rent a bike for free. The Vienna tour is great, the guides tell you a lot about the city, and in addition to gates and buildings you pass through beautiful parks. I didn't dare to wander in the streets of countries driving on the "wrong" side of the road (quite an open minded statement that is), but I remember London had guided tours and Brisbane bike rentals providing maps of the three main cycling routes. Bogota does its best by giving bicycles and skates car-free streets on Sundays in some areas downtown, in addition to a 120 km of bicycle paths, you may want to give it a try in the land of eternal spring.

I'll update this post if I remember more tours or embark on new ones.

New York times compiles vacations on wheels

NEWS! some brave gang is hitting the streets of my crazy city, Cairooo here I come

Photo:
An old bike in Fatima - Portugal, photo taken with my favorite biking pal.

Now we're cooking

I brought back from Panaji a beautiful hand carved wooden box decorated with flowers and smelling of spices. Inside the box lay perfect bay leaves, cardamom seeds, cloves, cinnamon sticks and a couple more Indian spices of which I cannot recall the name. Examining the ingredients I decide: perfect for chicken Curry and saffron rice.

As I dissolve saffron in boiling water (hot tap water won't do, attention to detail makes all the difference when you cook) I remember my friend in Alicante who gave me this jar so I could cook Fideuà, a Valencian specialty which imitated Paella only to beat it. I also remember how we got the recipe from a notebook decorated with the most beautiful retro cut outs and filled with recipes in swirly handwriting. "Recetas de la mama mía" was my friend's wedding gift from her mom. That day we didn't cook Fideuà, we cooked vegetarian pasta with herbs, to celebrate my favorite couple's moving to the country side and growing cilantro in their own garden.

As I savor the curry marinade after adding a bit of garam masala (literally hot spice) I can't help but feel sorry for those with low tolerance for spicy food. It is amazing how different cultures mix similar spices to create completely different feelings, I find myself remembering Mexican spices, for no good reason at all. I just wish I could stock up on Salsa Valentina, the local brand of hot sauce and then add it to pizza like we used to do at my Mexican friends' kitchens.

Once you've tasted a nation's food you immediately feel a sort of kinship (that's if you get to like it), and when you go there you're less of a khawaga or guiri* (it also helps get a bit of a conversation going round the dinner table). Having cooked Patacones in Madrid with a dear friend from Colombia, mashing the plantains and then frying and refrying them, I find myself feeling a sort of familiarity with Bogotá while still on the plane (mind you, none of Patacones I ate in Bogotá would compare to the ones we used to cook. Tasting Okra a l'Indienne and asking a dinner companion for the recipe I find myself familiar with the spices she lists, having seen them in action in the kitchen I shared with a friend from Trinidad and Tobago of Indian origins (only the best ingredients shipped from the homeland for us, none of the supermarket stuff). I also know that I don't need to set foot in a restaurant when I go to Mexico, as I have helped cook tamales and dined in a zillion Mexican restaurants with my favorite pal in Madrid (the one in Chueca has a green volkswagen zooming in from the ceiling replicating a taxi in the streets of Mexico city). I also recall two colleagues bonding over lobsters in India, oh Goan seafood prepared Portuguese style is just undescribable1

As recipes are passed from generation to generation, people preserve a sense of belonging to a distant land of origin where they have never set foot. Till this day, my grandmas cook Harira and Sharkaseya, reminiscent of Moroccan and Turkish roots and my friend's grandmother has Matzah always ready for Passover.

It is a fact that food unites. Friends would tell tales of meeting fellow expats mainly to share festivities, I can relate. The first Ramadan I spent away from home, I had just landed in town and had no kitchen of my own, luckily I was adopted by a bunch of Egyptian friends and fed Mulukhiya (if only airport authorities knew the amount of the serious smuggling that takes place everywhere around the globe). Smuggling indeed makes you take a bit of home with you, that's what my Tunisian friend did when he brought a good stock of harisa for the weeks we spent studying in Toledo.

I tend to think of cooking as a hobby**, creative cooking is not something I can do often, and cooking for hungry individuals on a daily basis even less. Cooking is supposed to be fun that's what I always say.

Cooking with friends entails laughing over fiascoes and sharing the sweet content of a well prepared meal, then dodging the task of preparing coffee or tea (depending on where you are) after the meal.

One of my clearest memories is going to the premiere of Ratatouille with my roomies and bringing back a poster of the Little Chef -which is still on the kitchen door till this day (the kitchen that is no longer mine in a house I still call my own). The next weekend we invited friends over for an elaborate dinner. There was some dude to impress and he was impressed - I hope I don't get killed over disclosing this one my friend!

I guess I'll never forget the endless international cooking days with my dearest friends in Madrid; ill equipped kitchens would not stop us, it just took challenging one of the guys to whisk the batter to give an electric mixer effect with only a manual whip (throwing in a couple of lines on not exercising enough helped too).

I also smile when I remember Wednesday evenings in Cairo at my friend's place and her baby daughter; while we chopped veggies she played drums with a wooden spoon and a cooking pot.

I add to my cooking memories, all the times my friend and I sang Luis Miguel in a kitchen; first in our dorm's kitchen in Toledo, then at her place when I went to visit in Morocco, the Cairo edition is due this summer inshaa'Allah (Luis Miguel would better be proud of us).

When I travel I always take a look beyond the buildings, the contemporary culture and the socio-economics of the country are usually more interesting for me. The way dishes are served and the table is cleared tells you a lot about the culture.

Mediterraneans tend to share mezzah or tappas and would also share salads, while others don't share dishes at all. At one end of the continuum, some cultures serve individual plates in the kitchen and send them out to the dinning room (sort of too bland for my taste) , and others eat from the same serving dish or fuente (memories of Morocco and the delicious Tagines come to mind), in the middle would be serving the main dish on the dinning table and having seconds and asking people to try this and that and that.

You can also find an indicator if you observe who clears the table and does the dishes. In some culture it's the host or just the women, in others it's the ones who didn't cook, in some plastic plates and cutlery are just thrown away (we love mother earth), and in many the dishwasher deprives those who would have washed the dishes from the greatest post-meal gossip.

Needless to say, in most societies suffering of large income gaps, affordable catering and delivery services (I'll never forget the expression at my friend's face when she saw the Mc Donald's motorcycles in Cairo, I totally related when I saw all the "a domicilio" signs in Latin America) and and other people relieve you of it all: cooking, setting the table and clearing the table.

Keep cooking and smile while you do, for it makes all the difference.

----------------
*Egyptian and Spanish slang for "foreigner"
** Apologies to those who think cooking is a chore

Photo:
Paella in a balcony overlooking Barcelona, made especially for me :)

Recipes:
The official Cinnamon Cake("when in doubt add cinnamon" one of my fav cooking pals)
Basmati Rice recipe (add saffron instead of cumin)
Chicken curry recipe (add more yogurt, substituting yogurt for the coco milk, leave chicken in marinade for a while in the fridge before cooking; be patient and leave it on the stove till the sauce thickens. Needless to say add more curry)
I don't have a written recipe for Paella or Fideua but I can tell you how to cook them

Books:
Like Water for Chocolate and Serving Crazy with Curry, two books on how cooking can be a more effective means of expressing oneself than any other (Mexican and Indian recipes included)

Movies:
Ratatouille, a long awaited Disney story after a too many story-less animations

Goa, dancing queen

Where do I start? Let me say that on the whole India fitted everyone's description, a city of colors and scents so impacting, even for someone from Cairo, a place so exotic yet still vaguely familiar...

My first impression upon landing in Goa was: are you sure we're in India? The scenery and the villagers could've belonged anywhere. Except for a couple of statues of Shiva, the towns have pos-colonial houses painted in bright colors (for Goa was a Portuguese colony for 450 years) and are sprinkled with those tin shacks which characterize any former colony blessed by the curse of natural resources. For all I know, we could've been in Brazil. The greenery and the diversity of it is breathtaking, the effect magnified by the twists and turns of the road which alternate plains and hills continuously (in addition to the weird effect which driving on the left side of the road always has on me). Down the road locals on vespas speed past us and shops have elephants -and sometimes Lord Ganesh- painted on the facades. Ok, this feels more like India.

Arriving at the resort I feel that the seventies have passed here and stopped, literally stopped. The chalets are loyal to the era's upholstery and tiles, the neighbors wear dreads, and you hear the Abba everywhere you go. So far I don't really feel like I'm in India. The markets with shopkeepers chasing tourists could be in any country with a bit of poverty and a weak currency -so that's what tourists feel in Egypt? poor them. At night we head to the beach, watch fireworks, scream life is life, try to do the impossible twist on the sand and just go to sleep.

I go through the first day, happy to be back to the seventies, wishing I could just ditch everyone and summon my friends by means of apparition. Maybe I can wear those pink striped bell-bottoms which I saw in the old bazaar, get my hair braided once again, and then we all gather around the fire with one of us playing soft rock tunes; if someone wishes to smoke a joint they're welcome (just passive smoking for me, thank you very much).

I stay quite anxious though (as is always the case when I travel) and fear not seeing any sign of Hinduism in this Catholic town. Luckily I get to see the cows wandering knowing they own the road by and head to a Hindu temple and an indigenous Catholic Church (Jesus Christ and Angels look Indian and the decor very much so). I witness the Indian tolerance which I have for long read about, as the whole group lights incense and candles at both temple and church, you wouldn't distinguish worshipers from one another. I light a candle and wish for a year of serenity.

Whenever I travel I try to get a local feel of places, sometimes I manage, sometimes I don't. In 70s Goa I wore my most Hippie shawls and tops and sang Dancing Queen at the top of my lungs. I learned the basic hindi dance moves to Bhool Bhulaiyaa a hit in India then -inspired by an earlier hit titled Hare Rama Hare Krishna- from a colleague who will be the ultimate Bollywood star if he makes this wise move. I ate spicy food till I could feel curry in my toe and almost cried eating a chili (a friend's idea of a joke or dare), accepted friends offering of fruit salad sprinkled with chili sold on street carts outside the temple.

I still keep the fondest memories of this beautiful haven where time has stopped. I email my best friend when I go home (as Goa remained faithful to the 70s means of communication) and we both envision a meditation retreat in Goa before the end of the year.

Photo: mural in Goa resort

Links:
Holy Cow, a book which gave me great insight to the Indian culture and spirituality
Hare Krishna Hare Ram, the oldie version reminiscent of the hippie era
Sachs and Warner's article on the curse of natural resources
On Hindu gods, more on Shiva and Ganesh
The God of small things a story which describes the caste system
On keeping Indian traditions and transmitting them to your kids after migrating to new lands, watch The Namesake and read The Hindi Bindi club.

Berlin, a journey through a time machine

I got to know Berlin last spring break. Before my visit I had watched three good movies which set the mood for it; Goodbye Lenin, depicting the contrast between East Germany and West Germany, Downfall telling the story of der Führer's suicide, the Good German an homage to Casablanca filmed in post WWII Berlin. Also Das Leben der Anderen/The Lives of Others -which I watched later on- depicting the Stasi era. Also I went to Berlin via Amsterdam where I did my best to avoid visiting Anne Frank's house as her Diary is the most morose book I read as a child (which reminds me I ought to advise the school library to take it off the shelves, and that has nothing to do with my opinion of the whole Holocaust issue).

My days in Berlin felt like days aboard a time machine. Passing from Checkpoint Charlie and marveling at the means people devised to escape from Eastern Germany; wandering along the lines of the former Wall and feeling the energy of those who brought down the wall; trying not to notice the Holocaust memorial, attending Palm Sunday mass at the Berlin Cathedral that still carries traces of the Allies' bombing; collecting socialist memorabilia from a street market in Mitte (got a bargain for a Karl Marx medallion), I truly felt transported in time.

The contrast between Soviet “wedding cake” buildings and more modern buildings on the other side of the wall made me wonder how crossing the wall made people feel. I imagined East Berlin's supermarkets filled with the most basic products and run down apartments adorned with faded wallpaper, feeling like it's lightyears away from West Berlin with its modern cafés and shops filled with brightly packaged consumer goods (check out the devout socialist's reaction in Goodbye Lenin when a Coca Cola ad materializes on the building opposite hers in her East Berlin neighborhood. No more spoilers I promise!)

History aside, Berlin is very modern friendly city, full of gigs and street markets, offering good food (amazing variety of creative veggies), its lively atmosphere and cultural scene are quite remarkable . There's beauty everywhere in the city and some of the museums are good - I still can't understand why I had to pay 4 euros to see Nefertiti, well I've got only the Egyptian government to blame.

Berlin is a perfect city from all attributes. However, I don't think I can live there, aside from my my poor German which Goethe Institute couldn't' fix, I cannot live with such quiet people, I would drive them nuts. Chatting away in this coffee house in Alexanderplatz, my friend and I saw heads turning and disapproving looks shot, we were two Egyptian gals as Mediterranean as can be (my friend and I were living in Italy and Spain at the time) and were just expressing ourselves!

Carrying a bit of the wall in a bookmark -and nothing makes me happy like a new bookmark and nothing upsets me like loosing a bookmark- I head back to Madrid. I still smile when I see my photo resting from a long walk in Museumsinsle in the relaxed sunshine in a barist outside Hackescher Markt station.

Photo: part of the Berlin wall at the entrance to Checkpoint Charlie museum

Links:
Checkpoint Charlie museum
Museumsinsle
Check out Berlin Wall graffiti art and chronology
Walk down Unter den Linden
Stay at A&O hostels
Go to Quasimodo jazz bar, the neighborhood itself is very nice

Buenos Aires, a portrait in sepia

Before going to Argentina, I expected to see a rather homogeneous culture and too much Tango. The impression I left Argentina with was very different from what I expected.

Buenos Aires felt somehow familiar, after a first glimpse one realizes it is a collage of all European architectural gems. Buildings of Madrid and Barcelona along wide avenues of Paris sprinkled with some Italian piazzas and a couple of Dutch houses, with a tower from London. The city is quite elegant and speaks of a prosperous past, but halas, when crises hit, nothing can be done.

Not only do the city's buildings feel imported, but so are its inhabitants. Porteños, I was told, feel they still belong to their lands of origin. As most immigrants had fled the first world war and could never return, they fed homesickness to their offspring. If you walk down calle Florida and stop at one of the kiosks there, you'll find in addition to newspapers and postcards a zillion pins on the stands; in addition to icons like El Che and the rival football teams, the pins feature flags of Argentina coupled each with a different flag, Italian, Portuguese, Lebanese, marking a sense of belonging to the land of origin.

As for the people, they are quite sociable people who wine and dine on weekdays, sometimes at 10 pm. Elegantly decorated with admirable attention to detail, most restaurants inhabit the Palermo neighborhood, a typical Spanish colonial town, and the various Sohos that have a more alternative flavor.

Pleasant and good humored, most Argentineans can share a joke about their own kind. This is probably the reason why, from Quino's sarcastic idealism to Maitena's burlesque feminism one thing is evident, Argentine comics are the best.

The only neighborhood that fitted my colorful Latin America cliché, is Boca. Even though the streets have nothing but communal tin houses, the inhabitants have painted their tin houses with paint leftovers from the neighboring port on the Río de la Plata, the result is magnificent. Red, blue, green and yellow houses adorned with papier maché statues of the local idols, Maradona, Evita and Gardel. In spite of being the working class neighborhood in one of the world's most elegant cities, Boca was the only neighborhood that tempted me to take out my camera.

To contribute to the joyful air, Coca Cola ads in Buenos Aires are also unique, joyful and somehow frivolous (observing ads to get a feel of the country´s socioeconomics and culture is by now a hobby of mine).

The soundtrack to my visit was exactly what I expected it to be, Carlos Gardel's eternal Mi Buenos Aires Querido which I was humming as if Buenos Aires were my own town which I longed to go back to.

Photo: Coca Cola Ad, bar at Caminito-Boca

Links:
About the City's architecture: Buenos Aires: City of Faded Elegance
Palermo restaurants:
Quino's page
Maitena's page
Recommended restaurants in Palermo, I vote for La Cabrera (you may want to split the giant steak with a friend)
Gardel's Mi Buenos Aires Querido with photos of the city by night

Lisbon's nostalgia

In my mind's eye Portugal is crafted tiles, exquisite street lamps, and an architectural style that speaks of nostalgia for the sea.

The aura of most Portuguese cities is one of a former empire. Walking the streets of Lisbon, you feel the city is looking out to the sea with this nostalgia to conquered land (although the city itself overlooks a river). Upon seeing the Monument to the Discoveries built in honor of the nation's explorers, one feels that one day the people of Lisbon have knelt and prayed while anxiously awaiting the explorers' return home.

In spite of the melancholy, the city has a sort of nonchalant air going at the pace of its trams and funiculars. Sometimes the mood is even festive instead of rain washed and lonely, but that's only on occasions. In Christmas, Europe's tallest Christmas tree fills Praça do Comércio - the city's main square- with people singing along to jingle bells and and savouring roasted chestnuts. On sunny days, you can enjoy eating delicious fresh fish in any of the restaurants flanking the Tejo river.

I remember a friend saying that if you want to know a city like a local you have to feel its subway, I'd add that some of them are indeed works of art. One thing I'll always remember about Lisbon is its metro, whose lines are labeled with a seagull, a boat and a compass. One particular station, Parque, makes passersby think that they are passing through an empire, portraying on its navy blue tiles a white globe where Portugal is connected to its former colonies through dotted lines. As for the people who travel the subway they seemed warm without being as sociable as their Mediterranean neighbors. The dog-obsessed should be warned that they might end up broke in a matter of stations, as the Lisbon equivalent to street artists are young boys playing the accordion with sad puppies perched on their shoulders while holding small buckets where commuters should drop a few coins.

To really be touched by the beauty of the city, go up the Elevador de Santa Justa which is by itself a work of art. This neo-gothic creation twists iron into lace, providing very inspiring shadows and patterns for talented photographers (it's a shame I'm not one of those*). Once up the elevator, if not too dizzy from the altitude you can absorb the scenery and see from above the city on seven hills. Inspired by the view, I recall running out to the Baixa Chiado shopping area to buy pastel crayons, I bought only 4 crayons, silver to paint Santa Justa, blue gray to paint the river, adobe to paint the rooftops and yellow to fill my painting with trams.

Come night hit Alfama's bars, where jazzy music replaces the mournful Fado that haunts you downtown throughout the morning. Onda Jazz is where I listened to Cape Verde's barefoot diva Cesária Évora for the first time. It's strange how contagious Portugal's nostalgia is, for the former colony's blues are still filled with nostalgia in spite of their African beat .

If you're in the mood for a day trip, head to Sintra, it's the closest thing to a fairy tale, with enchanted forests and castles, its beauty is beyond what I can describe. In Sintra buy hand crafted ceramics to remind you of this magical city and eat queijadas to munch on the way back into town.

Photo: Elevador de Santa justa (*I'm thankful I have friends who are good photograhers, this one is borrowed from Francisco Fuentes)
Links:
Lisbon metro and its parque station homage to the discoverers
Monument to the discoveries
Onda Jazz Bar
More on Cesária Évora and a song of hers
Sintra UNESCO World Heritage Site
Recipe for Queijadas