Lost in Translation? Three dudes in Bar 348

The Last day of the Ministerial was very very very long. I was there from the early hours of the morning--though I took a lunch break and went to Victoria´s Peak to grab a bite (great view but as most places in HK, from the airport to religious relics, there was an ugly shopping mall of course, selling stupid shit. PS: check out the blog called: "HK: A Big Shopping mall, a.k.a city of the future¨ for more on the malls)
and came back to find out that the final decleration was going to happen but noone new what time would that be.

Whole afternoon, while waiting, kept myself busy working on audio editing and posting features on rwr website have not finished for the rest of the week, chating with fellow press-center mates, finding out that BBC wanted to use some of my photos from the Real HK trip and sorting it out, snacking and interviewing the representative of an important turkish NGO for Acik Radyo, and kept entertaining myself people watching (an all-time favorite, especially with Jasoncum) and sometimes daydreaming (the cumulative dizziness from not sleeping, not working out and not eating healthy was really kicking in by that time). Anyways finally around 11 pm the WTO announced their "consensus" and to forget about this small battle loss a group of us went to protest in front of the police station in culo-de-mundo Kowloon where the protestors from the day before were detained.

Ceci, Brett, Benny and I got there just in time to see that a group of women were being released (or so we hoped) and I stayed there just a bit more to interview famous french peasant leader (for you to get an idea, think about an Asterix but from this century, great guy) then hit the road to upload the latest news to the radio around 1 am (I know what you are thinking: is this how you spend your ¨last night¨in HK, keep reading it gets better later)

Cecilia called me at 3 am saying they were downstairs waiting for me to have dinner! The same quartet, we went to a ¨boiling pot¨ restaurant. What an experience, they bring a boiling pot to the table, actually the pot boils on your table thanks to an electric heater placed in the middle of the table and you choose raw ingredients and cook them and eat them fresh out of the pot (a version of Kendin Pisir Kendin Ye that we do in Turkey!) NEEDLESS to say, after a couple of bears and boiling ingredients ranging from goat testicles, monkey brains, cow tongue (it is an inside joke), putting a lifelong curse to Pascal Lamy, and chatting with chinese undercover secret service dudes (the rest of the group did not agree with me on my assumption but I firmly believe those guys were not who they told us they were) I was feeling much better. After dinner, Ceci wanted to go home, three of us stayed with a mission: Karaoke!

Unfortunately at 5 am, we could not manage to find an open Karaoke bar, so we entered the only open nightclub we found. BOY OH BOY! Probably one of the cheeseest place I have seen, the decoration was so au nouveau rich hard to put it in words (i.e. fabric covered ceilings, huge greek god statues, ugly chandeliers, private rooms and rythmless german house music!) and almost every one was drugged, Brett confirmed my suspicion, it was mostly extacy at that time of the morning what else could it be?

As the only foreigners, only non-Hong Kong residents, noone seemed to talk to us either. We were about to leave suddenly two dudes came and started to talk to Brett, they were from HK but living in Australia, Brett´s home. They asked us how the hell we found the ¨triad¨joint among all the bars in HK??? Suddenly everything made sense: of course who else would hang out on a sunday night, drugged up, in this whole in the wall, paying $10 a beer? Gang members!! Out of all the bars in Hong Kong we were at the famous triad hangout! For some reason it did not suprise me.....

My ¨last night¨in Hong Kong ended there..went back to the hotel, pack up, took a shower and met with Alberto at breakfast, who brought me the good news: My ticket has been changed to next day!!!!

What a relief because I was not menthally ready to go that morning. I needed a closure, something that has nothing to do with WTO, a little adventure, most importantly World´s biggest Budha in Lantau island.

I headed to Ceci´s apartment, where I worked for an hour or so, by that time an argentine friend, Javier, Julia from Brasil and my new turkish friend Ziya confirmed that they will be joining me in this journey ( it takes 45 mins in boat then a bus for another 30 mins).

My mother was right when she told be upon my arrival to HK, when one stands on front of the Budha, feels very little and earthly but at the same time, this 34 meter stature sooths you in certain way.

I think it was one of the most spritual experiences I had. Until my cellphone rang! Acik Radyo was calling me for my daily report! I talked about the protests and arrests, etc and passed the phone to my turkish expert, who commented on what this deal meant for the develepping countries, and especially Turkey (mom text me later saying we were great) .

We left Budha, took a bus, an hour later: we were somewhere that we had no idea where we were! Lost in Translation, once again (subconsciously, by not payin too much attention, I think I wanted to get lost in HK, as I have done in other cities, being on top of everything all week, made me sick after a while). Luckily we were at a subway station, in the middle of an ugly housing complex (estilo ruso!) and a mall in the middle of it (again, mall!), with Haagen Dazs counter and Chillies, etc. Picture perfect capitalist China...

We managed to get back to Kowloon in no time, and by that time we were starving so I proposed we eat at Victoria´s Peak, to see the amazing night view from there. Needless to say it was a good call: really delish food and a fabolous view from the top of HK. What a great way to say goodbye!

We dropped Ziya to his hotel, and also paid a quick homage to HK COnvention Center, where I spent 70% of my time in next 7 days, took the subway back to Kowloon to meet up with the FOcus people, and Cecilia. They were waiting for us in this 100 $ all you can drink bar in Nathan Road, by that time I was so sleepy (being awake for more than 48 hours, plus running around, plus being already tired from the whole week) even the sight of the hot economist could not keep me awake, I said goodbye to all, and he walked me to my hotel.

Curtain.

Real Hong Kong

Thanks to my friends at Focus on the Global South--an NGO based in Asia that deals with trade, policy and development issues-- I was invited to participate in a tour for organized by the for journalists.

The goal of the trip was to show the journalists who are in Hong Kong for the WTO ministerial, the real face of the most liberalized city of the world, glitzy,clean, and perfect on the outside, which are as serious as we all know in our countries but tourist here are very unaware of.

I mentioned the first day that in Hong Kong there are thousands of domestic workers who come mainly from Philippines and Indonesia, through employment agencies who operate thanks to famous Mode 4 of the WTO's General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), in simple terms how the WTO plans on privitazing all the public services and including people. Mode 4 focuses on giving work permits to natural persons abroad, mainly to high-skilled workers, but everyday developping countries pressure the developped countries to expand their quotas for low to mid skilled workers as well. WHy? Because of export subsidies and dumping from the so-called First World, economies traditionally dependent on agriculture empoverishes and unemployment raises, so these governments, in order to maintain a certain level of prosperity want to export workers outside, who will send remittances in foreign currency to support their families and create money flow without real production (HEY HEY, I know, since the blog/me is being reporting from Hong Kong the language has changed. I really never ment to put these kind of stuff in my page but I am here and want to write about it, but at the end everything that is happening here have to do with global trade and development.I wish I could have time to go see something wild to report back as well, but so far, no time for fun.)

Anyways: The tour was called the Real HK, and our first stop was a shelter for the indonesian domestic workers who have been abused at their workspace. These women, come to work in rich HK homes, 24/6 (they have sunday off), for about $400 a month. They do everything we hear from the girls sitting in front of us, and are not treated nicely. One of them told us the story of a friend, who was prisoned by her employer to the house for 7 months, they did not even let her make a phone call and finally she jumped out of 7th floor window of the building where she was, luckily did not die and after recieving treatment went back home recently. I dont want to give to many tear-jerking stories, basically they are being exploited harshly in HK and have few places to go when they need to defend themselves.

Second stop was Hong Kong Women's Worker's Union, whose members are mostly those who work 10-12 hours a day making our clothes,shoes, and bags, but since all the garment factories moved to Mainland China a couple of years ago, some are unemployed, and some work in diffrent fields, also trying to survive.

The last stop, and I think it was the most difficult one to bare, was what they call the "Cage people." These men, live in an apartments around the city, but there are so many in one place that they live in their bunk beads, which look like cages, all their lives. We meet with two, who were cooking lunch, again unemployed due to the fatc that their factories were moved to Mainland (ironically they came to HK in 1966 to work in these factories, once were the main source of income for many Hongkongese) and they are too old to switch jobs.

Next time when you are in Gucci, or Max Mara, or any store really, think about these people who live on 1% of what we spend on a pair of shoe (sometimes) for a month.

You all know that one of the reasons I pursue the life I pursue is partly due to this urge I have (I dont know what is wrong with me!--jk) to do something about these inequalities I see around me, as a journalist, so at least by letting my closest friends, all around the world, know about what is happening in the world, I hope to achieve it slowly but surely.

I started to believe more and more that ignorance is a very comfortable pillow for humans, the less you know, better you sleep.....or shop!


PS: The men in the picture has been living in HK since 1966, he is shown in his "house" (1 mt square approx.)where he shares with 20 or so others. His cage is considered "one of the best" in Hong Kong, in termns of conditions.

"Which one do you prefer, sir?" ---" Black, Black wine please" he says!

I have been dying to write about my night out with the Turkish delegation to the WTO here in Hong Kong the other night, I finally have some time to do it today so here I go.

I coincidentally found the Head Delegate, who happens to be a very nice and cool men in the corridors, who kindly gave me his phone numbers in order for me to reach him and interview him for Acik Radyo (our version of NPR). So at the end of the day I gave him a call and he invited me to his hotel where he said he could brief me on what will be Turkey´s position in these negotiations (for those who think I only write about silly stuff, such as my superficial thoughts about people, my lovelife and international party scenes, here is my oportunity to show you that I am also an intellectual who does serious work--jk). Basically Turkey, a textile exporting country depends on the changes that the G33 countries are pushing at the WTO talks this week, especially on the issue of export subsidies (Turkey imports cotton from Greece because they have a cheaper/EU subsidized price than our own productors) and if WTO decides to stop the EU policy our internal economy, especially agriculture can benefit from it immensely, of course from a social standpoint.

Anyways, I interviewed the Turkish Head Delegate at his hotel, and there met with the other members of the group, mostly businessmen involved in textile industry in Turkey. Suddenly we heard that the Turkish Minister on external trade was on his way there and I was invited to eat with the rest of the delegation, and the minister said he was impressed with such a ¨young and talented¨ turkish girl´s presence in Hong Kong!--I admit I was really proud of myself and airheaded a bit.

We took like 5 cabs following the minister to Grand Hyatt hotel´s famous One Harbour Road to taste their famous Cantonese delicacies.

The night was uneventful mostly people talking about very turkish things, colloquial and hard to translate. But there was one sentence that made the night unfortgetable, when the ¨reporter¨ for Ihlas TV (a channel with religous tendencies funded by the fundamentalists) asked for ¨Black wine¨--I still could not figure out why he thought it was called black, it is not even direct translation from turkish, we call it Red wine as well as the rest of the world!

Tuesday and wednesday was crazy, worked likea maniac, two live reports to the radio, many articles for Uruguay.

Last night we went, with a group of folks from Latin America, friends really, to SOHO and had a great Thai dinner there. the place looked like Asmalimescit street in Istanbul more than SOHO. The food was great and the chinese Elvis was definetely worth listening.

BIG in JAPAN

I cannot believe I actually title a chapter in HK like this, this summer I have heard that song way two many times (Alper if you are reading this, thank you for that amazing night at Baykus)...Let´s leave the nostalgia and talk about Hong Kong.

Sunday night I walked around the city, in Nathan Road area, waiting for my collegue to go back to her apartment so that I can use the internet and send my daily duties back to Montevideo. It must have to do living all my life in some of the coolest cities of this world, I coincidentily find myself inside a building, called ¨Trendy Mall¨ OK OK , I admit, I followed the coolest dressed girls on the street, knowing either I was going to find a really cool store, hairdresser or where I could spot the hot hongkonguese guys! Result: a tiny shopping mall with cutest boutiques! The prices? Almost NY high? Why? When the shopgirl saw my shocked face, said ¨they are all from Japan¨Then it hit me! Last two days I have been walking around thinking, where do I remember these people from: NY. But not as Hongkongese, but as japanese. In NYC Japanese youth dresses up impeccably, usually--mostly-- in designer clothes, hair, attitude....everything that I have been seing around here. So that you know, JAPANese anything is HOT in HK. The food, the clothes, the attitude. Interesting.

I went to sleep with the euphoria of being able to put my finger on something, even though it is super superficial, I know. Forgive me I am jetlagged.

MONDAY

While writing these lines, 3 am in the morning after waking up at 7 and literally working all day, I am amazed with the power of jetlag. How can I be so messed up that I am still awake I ask myself.

Anyways, an eventful and an uneventful day at the same time. I think I worked so hard and so much, I am brain dead.

Coolest thing? The brazilian advisor to the international affairs, a.k.a the HOTEST politician I have ever seen! ...tudo bem tudo bem, a lot of agriculture and trade conversation, could be better if there was more of a wsf atmosphere here.

I left the hottie back in his conference and took the ferry back to Kowloon, saw the famous christmas lights. Very cheesy for my taste, a building decorated with a full size Santa Claus and his sledge was not what I expected, maybe I looked at the wrong lights who nows__

Upon my arrival to kowloon, walking towards the tube, I came accross a store, seemed like they were selling fake designer bags, so I entered. The lady tried to make me believe they were real! I looked at her and said: PLEASE. They were very good fakes but fakes, thanks to years of experience in fashion (mostly buying) she could not fool me. I though she probably sells them as fakes to locals, for cheap, and to abnouxious prices to tourists that she can convince.

I think I am passing out, my fingers hurt from writing. I miss my new apartment. My old bed, waking up in the arms of someone who I really really like...

Robocop in Hong Kong: Waterwars

What a morning! I stopped writing in the early hours of morning (it is on the computer, later will post here) and start my day at 7:30 am, rushing to get to the harbor in Kowloon with some folks from Focus on the Global South as one of the very few press members to be in the Fluvial Protest Boats that Filipino and Thai fisherman rented!

We left the harbor and toured all around Hong Kong for an hour or more before we get near the Hong Kong Convention Center (Mom, it is really an amazing building, I wish you could be here and see it yourself, and I also hope that one day our dear Istanbul will have one just like this). As the sight of the coast guard, press and the HKCEC became closer, one of the organizers of the protests, Rusty i think his name was, came up to me and said:"hello my dear journalist friend, now for you guys two of our comrades will jump on the ice cold water for the cause!" I thought he was joking for a second, making fun of the yellow journalists constantly hungry for that kind of bullshit, but he was not! I went downstairs to the deck and saw two Thai fisherman, barefoot and freezing, waiting there. At the end those two did not jump, two filipinos from Mamamayan-pakisama showed courage and made quite a scene in the early hours of Tuesday.

As soon as we decked in Hong Kong, I went straight to HKCEC for the Pascal Lamy's (the bold French guy who became the Director General of the WTO recently)long-awaited inauguration speech, did a live coverage of the event for Acik Radyo, and witnessed 75 Koreans jumping off the water from the pier outside the HKCEC, from the window of the convention center. Suddenly the calm and clean streets of HK started to look like Fallujah, or the movie Robocop, when the hk government send off thousands of SWAT teams to hold back the calmest protest I have ever seen, no violence at all, people had flowers in their hands for god's sake.

Overall my observation is that the Asian worker unions, and groups are very well organized, diciplined and peaceful in their protests and willing to do anything to beat the WTO negotiations. Getting wet is definetly is not an issue and from what I hear, some koreans are willing to go further and repeat what happened in cancun in 2003.

Later I met with the official turkish delegation to the WTO and the NGOs who came with them, interview one of them, and had a great dinner at the GRAND HYATT (how do I always end up at these weird dinners, I think they find me), DIMSUM a la turca! There are some turks that are riots, I have no words to describe the things they do, it is so turkish it is hilarious! The way they ask the check...and my fav: turkish speakers, you will love this one: all the guys at the delegation, businessman and all, call the charger of the cellular phones....sarz aleti! I was dying, trying to hold my breath, not to laugh hard as I wanted to.

Anyways, it is 2 am again and I am awake, tomorrow is another day!

HONG KONG: One word: Unfuckingbelievable !

After 28 hours of air travel, I arrived in what we can call "the forbidden city for a shopaholic." I came to my hotel around 11 pm, and the streets were full of cool people doing what I like most, most of the time: shopping! Stores, food, human traffic all around me, and after calm as paradise Montevideo, I was like: yeahhhhhhh!

PS: By the way, from the airport to the hotel, to the convention center to the bus, metro, boat, the best customer service I have ever seen, people are so nice and well organized, it is the british detail orientation and chinese diciplne, what a great combination I have to say.

I had a bite and went to sleep, I literally could not keep my eyes open but woke up really early on Sunday, after breakfast with the rest of the NGO crowd at my hotel (we are staying in a YMCA kind of association's lodge, not bad, in the middle of Nathan Road) I hit the road to get my press credentials from the WTO people. On the way, I managed to get a cool haircut, took a nice ferry ride, and get lost on purpose to see the city a bit more. After 2 hours of bargain, it is still on the air whether or not I am Press or NGO (due to a tiny fuck up, I am first registered as an NGO, therefore I can only be counted as one and not press, etc etc blah blah!) but I am in, they gave me one of those ugly conference bags full of information I dont need and an ugly scarf--it is warm and beautiful outside, but well, it seems like they are concerned about the ac in the convention center???.

After a pretty hard fight the WTO press people, I did my first assignment on the protests the local and international NGOs organized in Victoria Park amongst the curious eyes of the Indonesian domestic workers (there were literally thousands of women, outnumbering the protestors, sitting in a park watching these people who are fighting for their rights, but not giving damn, gossiping and eating, it is their only day off I am told)The protest walked through ther Hennesy Road, the super busy shopping district, while shoppers stopped for a moment to take pictures with the cameras or phones, then went back to where they left off. SOme jewelry stores closed their front doors with bodyguards but life went on, plus the protestors were peaceful and had no urge to vandalise anything.

will write more later... I hope to get back to the streets and see more of HK before things get busier here!

Cupula Gets Inaugurated! Yuppyyyyy

One cupula. One woman. Two weeks. Approximately $200 dollars. And Murphy's laws "a ful" Can she do it? (last two days I was asking myself the same question) But on 7th of December, I managed to finish it so that I could held an inaguration party before leaving for Hong Kong!

The day started early, almost all day at work, then quick shopping for food, and cooking some apetizers for the party (and I was so sleepy for partying all weekend with Orhan) and a quick power nap later I schlepped gorgeous and semi-awake single self to the Cupula.

To my suprise Eldin was still working on something, but things were pretty much in order, Orhan and Akasya came early to help, Titi and Justine were already there and after an hour or so (11 pm) the house was rocking! We had a lot to drink and munch, music, and porro, so everybody was happy....

We finished around 4 am...everybody left,and we stayed and slept in the tiny bed, kind of uncomfortable, but cozy and warm, just like I imagined months ago how my first night would be there.

I can tell is waking up there in the morning, in my first OWN place, feeling like an adult, and for achieving something quiet difficult, was amazing. AMAZING!!!!!


Photo 1: Titi, Orhan and Asli.
Photo 2: Luis (my Guatemalan neighbor from 2nd floor), Javier, Juan, Ricardo (a.k.a Justin), Titi, Akasya, Sirley (my neighbor from first floor), Kiko (Sirley´s boyfriend), Orhan Abi, Lucas.....I am taking the picture from a top of a stool, plus heels but no vertigo!

Asli Pelit Proudly Presents: The New and Improved CUpula

As of December 6th around 21:00, CUpula was finished---of course there are some tiny problems and missing pieces in it but when you look at the pictures you can tell where was I a week ago and where am I right now. I rather not take credit for the work, I only dreamt and laid out the plan. If it was not for all the people who have helped me, professionally and emotionally, I could not enjoy my new casa in such short time.

Will write more after today's Parteee, A red carpet event, like a gallery opening!--of course only people who have helped me are invited!

Is this a Turkish Invasion?*

I am sure after March everybody will ask themselves the same question in South Cone: have we been invaded by three turks? And the answer is probably will be YESSSSSsss (I see Orhan saying it with sparkling eyes that say he is really enjoying what he is thinking about)

Well an era ended in montevideo on friday that I would like to call it: the era of boredom total! --ok ok I exagerate, since I have been hanging out with Titi and those great days I shared with Javier were very very good, but overall this is a boring place for Asli Pelit (a.k.a. international party girl)--Orhan finally arrived! And he came with Acacia--a talented and succesful actress from my gen--which added up to all the fun we are going to have this summer.

Let me give you the hour by hour since their arrival:

Friday (December 2nd):
16:00-Arrival Tres Cruces Bus Station
17:00-First bottle of Medio-Medio
18:00-Second bottle of Medio-Medio
19:00-Third Bottle of Medio-Medio (around that time a dork named Martin who is friends with the server and who works at Defense Ministry appears in our table, we tried everything to get rid of him, he did not get it. Javier arrived, there was a miss-kiss situation and a weird uncomfortableness in the air, which dissapeared after a while)
19:30-first bottle of Champagne (Martin was still there but we were more hostile than before in our words at that time)
20:00-Second bottle of champagne
21:00-While girls were having a cup of espresso, boys open the bottle of Raki, gossiping!

22:00-Dinner at Parillada del Sur (also known as the Parillada del Galan, the owner is sooo hot, I cannot think about food when I get there, and he flirts with me, all the time!)
23:00-We leave the restaurant. We need to go to an occupied factory where my friends la Teja Pride were having a concert. First we had to stop somewhere to get the tire fixed. Then we looked for the eurotrash who called Javier and asked to be picked up, then on the way to the factory the egzoz (I have no clue how to say that in english: the thing that the heat of the engine suppose to go out, which sticks out from the back of the car)falls! Literally we had to put it inside the car, almost on top of the eurotrash and arrived (god knows how) to the factory.
01:00-The smelly Factory: we realized that we were in a leather factory, the blood on the floor and a stench that I cannot describe (and will not for your sake). Daniel Viglietti (Orhan called him Uruguayan Ruhi Su, which made me laugh so hard tears came out of my eyes) was singing when we arrived. There were approximately 50 people watching the concert, I believe they were all family members of the workers and friends of the band, then we entered: Orhan with his white pony tail, Acacia as glamourous as an actress should be, me in a Pucci dress with spiky shoes, all semi-drunk and nauseated due to that horrible smell! Noone looked at the stage again. Acacia was filming the concert with her Motorola 6000, while Orhan was trying to convince me why the factory had to be closed down "fifty years ago," making me laugh all the time; I hope we did not appear as mean as people who are clubbing baby seals on the head!
02:00-Back to hotel. Acacia fell asleep, Orhan and I had a couple more drinks, chatting


Saturday (December 3rd):
11:00- Rental Car pick-up
11:30-Visit to the cupula (I was in tears when I opened the door and here he was, Milton almost done with the bathroom who also suggested to install some more plugs in the living room and the crooked shelves and the lamp. He also told me that when he saw that the whole place was painted, 18 feet ceilings, he said to himself that I was crazier than he thought initially, thinking that I climbed up all the way up there and painted myself)We had mate with Titi then we were off to Mercado de Puerto!
14:30-Mercado de Puerto (In briefs: 12 bottles of Medio Medio among 8 people, in 6 hours!)It was a feast exactly how I thought it had to be. Friends, music, good food, and a little bit of drunkeness. Mauro could not take it around 6 pm, Acacia went to hotel to take a nap around 7 pm, and mi amiga Titi was unconcious around 5 pm, but she did not black out until 8 o'clock. I was totally sobered up when Juana came, because I had to be, you cannot be drunk around a 4-year old girl, I dont know how but she woke me up.
20:30- The CUpula. The sun setted amazingly that day, I was at the cupula, looking out from my window, Javier flirting with me, yet still something was not as used to be, he said the reason behind his creepy attitude that "I was still punished for not speaking when I was supposed to!" PLEASEEEEEEE, wake up and get with the program Javier, I told him, I will never ever apologize for something that I have not done, I don't even apologize for things I do wrong!---All that was after a great coupling at the Cupula!
23:00-Pinar. Orhan loved the house. A couple of beers and a bit chitchat. We left Javier and Juana, had ice-cream in Pocitos (I did. Orhan is not an ice-cream person so much)and went back to the center.
01:00-Hotel PLaza Fuerte. Acacia, rested and groomed was waiting for us. We went to la Comedia, the ultimate 30-something joint in town when it is not too hot outside. While the rest of the crowd stared at us with shock, we ate two huge plates of green salad (that is not the classic bar food here, women and men drink beer and eat pizza usually)in order to detox our bodies from all the red meat we consumed earlier.
03:00-Finally in bed in Durazno 2028.


Sunday (December 4th)
11:00--Cuban coffee and hair grooming in Durazno 2028. Acacia braided Orhan's pony tail while I prepared a super mate.
12:00--Tristan Narvaja Antiques Fair. I managed to buy furniture, 1 lit amber pharmacy bottle, and a roble cuttlery holder in 45 minutes! Orhan enjoyed mate and Acacia got herself a very catholic and beautiful necklace.
13:00- Titi's. We were invited to Titi's older brother's (who lives 35 kms outside of Montevideo in a hippy commune, in Sauce)birthday party. Family, friends and roasted lamb in an area of 13 acres-surrounded by vineyards, and super cool houses that the community has built by themselves. It was really really nice. A lot of babies, which to us, turks without babies, was the weirdest element of the whole thing.
18:00-Back to Montevideo. It was time for medio medio again, we went to the terrace of Red Hostel and had a bottle there, gossiping about what we have experienced so far.
22:00-Durazno 2028: I cooked an italian feast for everybody.
24:00-Jetlag finally hit Orhan and Acacia, they went back to hotel to sleep.


*Turkce bilen arkadaslar icin daha da eglenceli olacak: Aslinda bu yazinin basligi:"Orhan, Akasya ve Asli Tabakhane'ye Nasil Bok Yetistirdi?" olacakti..

Extreme Makeover Continues: Cupula creates a Murphy Brown-Eldin Bernecky kind of a relationship

Murphy Brown: Remember that show? I think it was an NBC sitcom. I grew up watching it (I was in secondary school at that time, still living in Istanbul) and always wanted to become a good (and famous) journalist like her (minus being as lonely as she was and raising a child by myself). There are many similarities between me and Murphy: she is very selfish, stubborn, extremely hot-tempered but also, --I know this sounds horribly arrogant--talented, resourceful, clever and caring.

If you do remember the show, after returning from a "stay" at the Betty Ford rehabilitation center, she hires a painter, who slowly becomes a part of her life, because after getting used to her neurosis, he starts enjoying her company and even though she denies it at first, she likes the company as well, so much that when Eldin's work is over, she creates new projects so that he stays in the house keeping her company, an becomes her therapist, almost.

After a week of suffering at the CUpula with a plummer who totally ignored my orders, and kicked me out of my house so that he can "work" alone, Titi called a friend, Carlos, who, as far as I saw so far, does great things around the house. The first day he painted the parts of cupula that I could not reach. Yesterday he made me a kitchen counter to die for--a very rustic wood table--and asked me what else needed to get done, offered to come back to finish off those details. He then suggested that it should be painted again, and proposed to make me a custom made bed for the small bedroom! I said to myself: I have an Eldin--tough Carlos is not so savvy and chit-chatty, he is not a smart ass, he is very very nice.

How are things at the cupula then? So far the bathroom is done (looks really really cute), the living room is almost done (we probably finish it on monday) and tuesday I can probably move my stuff in there, and I can inaugurated on wednesday.

The guests will be asked to bring a plant--bigger and greener the better--no flowers, for the cupula. I will serve meat and sangria!

Extreme Makeover: The Cupula*

This past weekend I worked hard. I mean physically hard. Restauration of my future house has become a difficult task, especially when I realized that when I needed help, there was noone around to offer it to me. (Only Fernanda, my friend from the gym came for a couple of hours and gave me a hand, and a shoulder when I collapsed with tears after burning my eye with paint...my heart in pieces).

I asked myself, when did I become so weak? I used to do everything by myself (ok, I have never painted a 18 feet wall before) and then I started dating a man, Jenry, who took care of everything, all kinds of hard work and made me believe that I will always have that kind of support around me. Not this time, and not in Uruguay (I did not choose too wisely this time, in terms of men I mean).

Instead of crying I said to myself, I am going to do this and it is going to be gorgeous when I am done with it. The before and after pictures are there to show us whether or not I manage to do so, at the end of this week. (I feel like I am in an episode of one of those DYI shows on BBC, without the cute experts who can re-decorate shitholes, as mcgyver used to save the world with a needle, a banana and cheap women's perfume!)



*I am going to post those pictures when I finish everything, I dont want to scare you with the before pix!

I wish I was an uneducated beachbum.....?

Or a secretary, nurse, a housewife...one of those women who do not threaten the male ego, on the countrary, those that most men are used to loving, just like their own mothers.

"Why this subject, why now?" you may ask. What does it have to do with South America? Well, indirectly this journey has been--since I left New York for Cuba--an enlightenment for me, discovering myself in many dimensions, and growing up faster, learning from my experiences alone in strange lands.

I don't want to get too philosophical, boring you and me as well, but thanks to a great friend, Alex, an amazing woman herself, I discovered a very important fact about myself and maybe for a lot of woman, last night, so here I go!

It all started when my dear friend Mauro was telling me that woman, in general, fell for jerks, men who don't care about them, etc, when I was bitching about something that my "boyfriend" did recently. Yesterday when I was talking about the same little incident, Alex pointed out, while questioning my previous relationships, and my boyfriends characteristics, she said that I was going for a certain kind of men, those who don't show their emotions, those who are not fully reliable, those who are egotistical and selfish. The only male love patern I am familiar with is that one, just like all the other women who grew up without proper father figures, therefore I keep falling for different versions of this figure. I am sure there are many women like me, who end up being with these kinds of men, and procrate and give birth to daughters who grow up to be like the rest of us, and in this vicious circle, yes, Mauro is right, we keep falling for jerks! And probably will continue doing so for a long time.

I have a lot of friends who have been through therapy trying to break this bad habit, and some are happily married with the kind of men that used to give them the "iyk" (nice guys). I thought of all the nice guys whose hearts I have broken, including Jenry (who was so heart broken that married a good cuban girl, a teacher, probably dying to give birth and become a quiet housewife in 5 years, with huge latin hips, within 5 months of our break up)What did I do while rebounding from my relationship? Fell for the most emotionally unavailable person around me!

I always denied that my relationship with my father affected my life and choices, claiming that because he was never around me, how could I can be influenced by him?; I guess I was wrong. My dad is a great guy, and I love the way he is, and I am sure if I was growing up with him I would be different. I always remember the fun things we used to do together when I was little: parties he threw, to his many friends, laughs, good food , eating salty lemons with him, huge sunday brunches with sucuklu yumurta (fried eggs with turkish sausage) and fresh turkish bread (mmmm), and I remember he was full of ideas all the time. He still is, a total adventurer and fun to hang out with.

The problem starts when the men you like are not attracted to the kind of woman you are (they are used to a diffrent femal figure) in case of my "boyfriend". He has no idea of how to love and be loved by a woman, because he has never experienced it. So I might be his kind of "iyk" woman: the one who only knows how to love and nourish (just like my mom and granma are) others and he probably panics around me, he does not know what to do; probably scared that he is going to get used to it and suddenly will lose it--knowing me and my track record of globe throtting lifestyle, I don't blame him--therefore he does many stupid things, childish, trying to keep my attention on him all the time.

How am I going to close this entry? or break this bad habit? Like smoking, you know it is bad for you, but it is so damn tasty, especially with a glass of wine or coffee, after a good meal, in a party...you keep smoking that one last cigarette, next to that last-semi-jerk-you-are-in-love-with...


*Photo: Human heart (Mutter Museum in Philadephia, PA). The Museum's collections include over 20,000 objects, including fluid-preserved anatomical and pathological specimens, medical instruments, anatomical and pathological models, items of memorabilia of famous scientists and physicians, and medical illustrations.

Sun, Street concert, World Cup Preliminary, Lunapark and La Teja: what a weekend

What an ordeal this cupula has become! I was anxious to get started with the restauration of my future home this weekend, and eventhough it was a sunny 30 degree day, I did not go to Pinar, I stayed and went there to meet with the plummer friend of mine, who did not show up again to fix my bathroom! I was almost in tears from rage when my cute downstairs neighbor said, "che, want to go see a concert for the political prisoners?" I knew he was talking about the one that we all were sure Manu Chau, who is in tour in Latin America at the moment, would sing there. So I said, well, what I am going to do, so I went.

A couple of beers and warm sun touching my face, Manu really showed up and sang a couple of tunes, we all danced and cheered and unfortunately he stopped to give the word to a speaker who went on and on about the human rights...well I left at that point because my neighbor asked me if I wanted to go see the Uruguay-Australia World Cup preliminary at the stadium! Hell yeah, I said. I was not going to miss another opportunity to go see a partido, especially as the future-productor of a soccer show in a turkish channel (ojala!)

Anyways, the game was AWESOME. The public was quiet for my taste, I am a turk, we scream our lungs out when our national team is playing for the World Cup. I saw moments of euphoria there but even though Uruguay went, the city stayed very very quiet during and afterwards. Shocking....

The next day, sunday, I woke up early enought to order freshly baked sorentinos (huge raviolis filled with jam and cheese) as a good girlfriend, and made a delicious tuco (a classic tomato, onion, pepper, garlic based salsa for pastas) with bacon and chicken, for Juana and Javier who were coming to pick me up to go to La teja, a working class neighborhood, where our dear friends Leo and Davich are from. Their band, la Teja Pride was going to have a small concert and Javier wanted to film the thing together with swedish film students who are in town.

Lunch was awesome, and Javi had to go early to put the stage together, so me and Juana stayed and decided to go to a theme park! I think last time I was in a themepark, I was 16, we used to go to the one close to Dolmabahce palace in Istanbul, at the end of the school year! I am about to celebrate my Tenth anniversary of graduation from HS this year, so go figure!

Juana pretty much decided for our rides, I loved the elephant thingy but the first time we were in it, as a person too old to hang out at theme parks and as a single gal without kids, I did not know that I needed to push a button to go up! I thought we were in a broken ride, but when we got out and I went over to bitch I realized it was my fault but played it so that they kindly offered me a new ticket--one more observation, when you are with a kid, looking like a parent especially, people treat you much nicer, especially if you have a cute kid! After being in almost all the rides and ate enought cotton candy we went back home, changed and wento to Teja. The band was waiting for us to take the stage.

It was a lot of fun, guys giving a concert in their neighborhood, with their granma there knitting while they were rapping hardcore about the social problems and discrimination, etc. Juana was instoppable, running around, dancing, having a ball! No wonder she fell asleep at 9 pm, in the car on the way back from there.

That is how my jungla was this weekend! Next weekend: Cupula or Bust!

No Solo de los Paneles Vive el Hombre*

Said one of my co-workers, Marcelo Pereira, I think after the third day of the summit, while I was telling them about all the 'cultural activities' we were missing by working so many hours!

I did not mentioned before, but one of the best things about mar del plata was presence of my friend Gunes, another crazy turk, who lives in Buenos Aires. I think if it was not for him, I would kill someone before the end of the week!

I found Gunes at the opening ceremony of the Summit. He came with a friend of his from Baires, and then made another friend, who became the focus of our entertainment rest of the week. Jerome, a quebecois, was a person of few words, he was more like a statue, or a lamp, in most cases. He only smiled, and seemed to me that he did have a clue of what was happening around him there or anywhere!

Gunes hung out mostly at the cultural activities of the summit, he was in charge of nightly entertainment, whenever we could. His main obsession was to catch Manu Chau sing--who at the end made a cameo appearence and a concert in the middle of the third day, in a plaza in the city (we both missed it unfortunately).

He also managed to find an incredible gift for my friend Conner, and we send it over to her for her bday after a long and a complicated journey I had to make to meet up with her husband: I try to crash the VIP of the stadium while Chavez was speaking to the people there, with tens of security guards and policeman! Gunes and I met with other interesting characters throughout the week, an ecuadorian kid who came to see the protests--thus the last night of our stay in Mar del will be known as "the night Gunes taught how to insult with a famous turkish gesture--in turkish nah cekmek--" to the same ecuadorian guy and to my co worker Lucas--, the son of the owner of the hostel, prostitutes, italian journalists. We shared a lot of laughs...and I am sure we will share many more in the course of our lives here in south cone!


*Men cannot only live of panels!

A week in Mar del Plata (no, unfortunately I was not sunbathing!)

We travelled, as RadioMundoReal, to Mar del Plata to cover the III People's Summit. After 14 hours of bus ride from Montevideo, we arrived here on Monday. Let me tell you, buses here are awesome, semi-cama (meaning: you can almost sleep as good as you were travelling in Business class!), DVD, etc.
We checked in to our hotel and looked desperatly for food for a while, everything was closed for siesta time!

I took a long walk around, with a couple of friends, discovering the city. For those who don't know, People's Summit is happening here because as of 4th of November in this same city 34 presidents of the Americas are going to meet in order to discuss the future of the Americas. Social movements from all around Americas are here to discuss and propose an alternative to neo-liberal policies that the United States is trying to impose on the continent. The part where the Presidents are meeting is already fenced, so while walking I got to that part (you can see from the photo) where expensive hotels such as Hermitage and Sheraton, offical hosts of the President's Summit are located.

Before I go into details about the People's Summit, I start off with the city of Mar del PLata. It is a charming balneario (I would say it looks like a warmer Cape Cod, with tall buildings) on the eastern coast of Argentina. People say it used to be a very shishi place to hang out during summer, right now it is a secondary choice after Punta del Este (Uruguay). We are here in off season, so the beach and sun are excluded from my agenda, if I could believe me I would jump and swim for a while and forget all the shit that happened here while working. Sometimes my collegues drive me nuts, everyday I say to myself "count till 10...then go look for arsenic!"

Tuesday we started really early, covering different panel discussions, about militarization, debt, solidarity, alternatives, etc. They say there is approximately 9000 people here, I am not so sure of that number, maybe if we include all the people who are here just hanging out, we can reach that number, I guess.

That night, I received a phone call from Acik Radyo in Turkey, and made a live coverage of the event so far. I think among all the things I have been doing and done there that was the most exciting part of it!

Last day, which was friday, we started early covering the peacefull march agains the presence of W and his politics in the continent. The march, with the participation of 15 thousand people started from the Center of the city all the way to the Stadium where Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, together with Diego Maradona, were waiting to reach the public. Aside from the people at the Summit and the march, thousands of locals were present, and after listening a little bit of Silvio Rodriguez live, listened to Chavez for 2 hours under the rain. It was very moving his speech, yet a bit egotistical for my taste.

Later that afternoon, after changing to clean and dry clothes and eating something, together with Davich, our sound engineer, we hit the road to see the "unpeaceful march" in fron of the barricade, behind which 34 presidents of the continent were meeting. As a pro in these kinds of protests, I lead us in front of the protest, where things seemed pretty calm when we arrived. Within the 15 minutes, the so-called black block appeared and there was a quick clash with the police, not even, and some of the protestors started to vandalize the transnational companies offices, starting with Banco de Galicia (we were in front of that one), Telefonica and some of the cellphone (movistar and CTI) stores. The foto is one of a family of small time crooks, taking with them 'as a memory' some of the items from the stores! We left an hour later, the protest was not made to kick Bush out of our lands anymore...

After a 14 hour bus ride the same night, we came back to sunny and tranqui Montevideo...

Cupula of the Edificio Soler: My New Home!

I finally found an apartment in Montevideo, where I can afford and enjoy to live in. Two weeks ago I discovered it, well, while visiting my dearest friend Titi, who happened to own the place!

The building, known as Edificio Soler, belonged to the owners of the luxurious department store which was located on the first two floors of the building. As you can see in the picture, it is an amazing piece of architecture. I am yet to see an apartment there, but I am sure they are all fabolous. There is an eliptic interior courtayard, which has beautiful vitralles (painted glass) windows and a lot of light. The elevator is an original OTIS, and the staircases are marble with bronze railings. The building itself is pheonomenal. Unfortunately the department store is left to its own devices; I don't know why they do not re-open it as another store, it is intact but deserted for some weird reason.

Titi bought the penthouse and the cupula, years ago with a friend. She lives at the penthouse and her friend rents the cupula to those who are brave enough to live up there! As soon as I met Titi, I knew she was the coolest chick in Montevideo, then I saw where she lives and it made me happy to see that someone like her owns such an incredible home and on top of it enjoys and appreciates it.

Cupulas are the domey towers, they are essential to Montevidean architecture. I have been researching about them, so far I did not find anything, there are no coffee table books explaining these beautiful pieces of national architecture. (Javier and I belive they are mystical, other than the esthetics of it, we will soon find out more).

In this case, the cupula has four floors in it, built as servants quarters. I will be living on the very top part, with three side windows which give me 270 degree view of the city and when one climbs all the way up to the to big round windows, can see an actual 360 degrees. It has not been used for a while, so I will have to repair a couple of things, most importantly the bathroom and a good paint job after fixing the leaks from the top windows--Second photo is the view from my future bedroom, I can see Cerro and the bay!

As you can imagine, I am anxious to get my hands on it and fix it, as a DYI freak, after years of watching BBC's Changing Rooms, and being the daughter of an architect, I think I can manage to do so. Plus I have an expert carpinter (Javier) and a plummer (Coco) who already committed to help me out. We also will be filming the process as a memory!

You are invited to the inauguration, dont forget to bring me a plant as a house warming present!

Primevera Montevideana

Montevidean Springtime. Finally arrived. Sunny days, flying polens, and green leaves appeared so suddenly, it was amazing. The streets are filled with people, especially weekends, Montevideans crowd the beautiful Rambla--Malecon of this city.

Although I spend my weekends in Pinar (in Canelones), in the closest nicest beach of the country, when we drive towards (Javier fixed his car, now we are mobilized, what a difference!)Pinar, we take Rambla all the way, and passing through shishi Punta Carretas, Pocitos, Punta Gorda neigborhoods of Montevideo, I watch people: they sit around and drink mate, walk their dogs or kids, or both, jog, and my favorite, already tanned older ladies sunbathing with reflective panels, croc-king their skin.

Other significant spring activities include: more asados in friend's houses, open air concerts, Mercado de Puerto full of people on saturdays, parks...in short, more people out on the streets. Now it feels like there are 1 million and some people living in this city, as in winter it felt like there were 5000!

Bus 714: Montevideo-Pinar

According to Eduardo Galeano, famous Uruguayan writer and journalist, "Uruguay is a bank with a beach." He is kind of right; though I think it would also be right to call it "a big farm on the beach."

If you ever visit, you will see it for yourself but as the story teller, it is my job to tell you a little more about life in this beautiful farm.

Lately I have been spending two hours a day commuting to and/or from Canelones department, to the east of Montevideo, where Javier lives. An hour bus ride from my house (which is in the Center of Montevideo) and I am there, among the pine trees and white sand beaches, single-family homes scattered through out the area, unpaved roads, mom and pop stores, total tranquility.

I will describe --in the near future-- the beautiful Costa de Oro (the part of Canelones by the water) and its neighborhoods, I would like to talk about the hour-long trip and its essential elements, the view from the bus, and important characters.

Us Turks are used to these people. In Istanbul they frequent the boats and trains, selling anything from safety pins to chocolate, to protein bars to socks, whatever they get their hands on. Well, in Uruguay, they hang at the city's only public transportation: buses.

Usually they sell chocolate or similar junk food, but sometimes I see bandaids, or plastic ID covers; they all have different jingles memorized and repeated so many times. After my 7th trip I started to see the same guys, selling different things with the same words, sometimes without even looking at the passengers.

Then there are those who leave a super kitch piece of postcard with a cheesy poem (or prayer) on your lap, give you a sob story to follow up and expect you to buy the piece of paper for whatever you see fit.

One time I saw a full blown stand up act, a guy dressed like a Joker with a puppet acted out a spanish middle age style one-man show. He was awesome.

At the traffic lights one can see jugglers and other kind of circus acts all along the Avenida Italia (becomes Avenida Ginnaitascio---or something like that--in Canelones), which connects Montevideo to the beaches of Canelones.

Than there is the urban myth seller guy Javier told me about. Well it is not a myth because he saw him acting. This particular performance was a man, who appeared two years ago, dressed as a pirate. He would step into the bus and would ask people to give him their money as he takes over the bus! Then would make a stand-up show about politics or economy, actual stuff, and would get down the next stop (I would love to see him, sounds like a quite performance).

Crazy Montevideo Winters are ending, here comes the Spring...

I have missed a day! I went to sleep last friday night and woke up, thinking that it is saturday, sunday morning! "Boluda, es domingo!" ("It is sunday, dork!") said Javier on the phone when I was still trying to wake up from my looong beauty sleep. We missed the Bersuit concert, which was a long-awaited event for me, considering not many cool things have been happening in Montevideo recently.

I have never been so sleepy in my whole life, and I certainly was not tired that night, as to sleep for a whole day. Weird, very weird, I still cannot explain myself what has happened to me.

Anyways, I missed Saturday but had a wonderfull Sunday: my first official interaction with Javier's daughter.

Aside from playing, sharing laughs, paiting our bodies, collaging, eating, singing, the most unmotherly woman --me--went to an amusement park, chatted with other parents while the little girl was enjoying the rides, took her to do pipi-and caki, and clean her afterwards, and at the end of the day slept around 10 pm, while she hugged me as I was her Teddy Bear.

Honestly, it was one of the most affectionate moments of my life. Adults don't hug like that, only children, who are sincere about how they feel about you and they are not afraid to show it to you.

My cousin and I were talking about it the next day, he thinks I probably mesmerized the little girl, because I am a little girl myself, with tons of toys and stories accumulated over time, due to my real age (Juana guessed I was six years old!). He also thinks my unmotherlyness comes from the fact that I am soo young deep inside I cannot think of having kids of my own. He could be right...

I will report more on the adventures of the international party girl as a potential parent, I really hope to be able to keep hanging out with this brilliant girl, again, soon.

Montevideo Part II: Back to Grey City...with a bit more sunshine and esperanza

7 weeks in Turkey. I am very spoiled as you can imagine. Aside from "high level" vacation I had there, with my best friends, it was summertime in Istanbul and there was so much to do and so little time to do everything.

I left Istanbul at dusk, after a GREAT party, drunk and melancholic, and arrived to sunny Miami where my beloved brother welcomed me to tell me we had to hit the beach as soon as we get home and then to a huge pre-MTV Music Awards Party, as you can imagine I did not feel as something was missing. It all happened when I set foot in Uruguay, at Carrasco Airport, I found the saudade exactly where I left it, even though I was full of joy thinking that so many exciting projects were waiting for me.

And as usual, nothing was the same as I left two months ago. A dark apartment with mold in all walls, new changes at the office, a phone that once again does not ring--even once! I felt so lonely and depressed the first couple of days, unimaginable for me considering the fact that there was not "one" good reason to feel that way.

My tio who I shared how I felt, wrote me today, saying "downshift a little bit, there are not many cities like Istanbul." Taking his advice, I probably will write lot more and focus on the new book (Havana is over, now I am writing about Buenos Aires!) and hopefully take a couple of trips outside Uruguay for material to write about.

So welcome back to me and to all of you who read my adventures from the South.

Intermission Continues in Istanbul: Four Weddings and Hopefully Gotumuz Deniz gorecek (our behinds will touch the ocean soon) !

What is a "Good Catch"?

When you are over 25 and taking a vacation during July-August, you have to pack at least a couple of nice dresses and some cash--I have learned--because it is officially the wedding season in Northern Hemisphere.

I remember the days when I would come home for sumer break and immediately we would go to the coast with my friends from highschool and get trashed and sunburned and have a great time (?). Now I see them every weekend, if they are not the ones who are getting married, at somebody´s wedding, all dressed-up (men are once again lucky, they wear the same suit with a different tie at each wedding and they don´t have to suffer in this heat at the hairdresser) semi-drunk, sweaty and sometimes silly.

Last night was my third wedding in three weeks. It had its high points (I have actually seen friends that I love and missed a lot; very good classical turkish food was served at the buffet; and the bartender was making OK mojitos at the bar) but mostly it was one of those events I cannot help but thinking: what am I doing here instead of chilling in Gumusluk???

Since I witnessed many weddings and met many couples, and almost got hitched myself (I had nightmares when my ex discribed me how our wedding should be, and how many of his "close" family members of we had to invite there!).

This week´s wedding had at least some couple who seemed to be slightly passionate (PS: Aside from my friend Azman, who is crazy, I have not heard any turkish couple talk about sex or be passionate in public, so maybe my whole evaluation fails because I am not familiar with the culture anymore) but last week was a horror story. I was sitting in a table with couples sitting next to each other and looked like they are 105 years old and was about to be put in a grave or something. Evaluating the couples I have met at these events, I have come to the conclusion that marriage or a wedding is a highly commercialized and profitable event, and aside from a few exceptions mostly people get married because they see their other halves as a "good catch."

The "good catch" concept is universal: for women, men have to be:
1-rich
2-professional
3-from a good family

looks and similar tastes, etc are not important to women who like to have the perfect wedding and build a perfect family.

The female version of the "good catch" must be:
1-beautiful/hot enough
2-good family
3-quiet and obedient

Smarts and intellect come usually later, as some men don´t even care for these qualities.

Then comes the wedding, the gifts, the outfits, the party. When you find the good catch, you have to invite your friends and family and throw a lot of money so that they eat and get drunk and seem like they are very happy for you, then bring you a gift, all night you have to walk around, kiss and take a picture with people you dont even know (that is a turkish classic unfortunately), with a stupid cameraman on your ass (almost as in Real World: The Wedding), hope that you look good in the pictures and camera, and by the time that is all done, dance a bit and probably pass out on the way home, unless you use serious amounts of coke during the whole event.

My least favorite part of the wedding is when married friends ask when I would get married (i.e. when I would get myself into this craziness). I usually have the urge to say: "Hmm, let me think. The answer: NEVER!"

Don´ get me wrong, I am not cynical or bitter today, or ever, about the issue of marriage. I respect the people who can commit to each other for such long time. Whatever the reasons they are together, there is a chance they will be happily married for ever and have a wonderful life.
What usually pisses me off is when they ask us, those who dont buy this story and refuse the norms and look for a crazy partner who makes us see fireworks and loves us not because we are "the perfect catch," but they adore our imperfections. These kind of partners would probably be considered by the society as a "bad catch" who cannot afford a wedding where the guests get drunk for free another great summer night.

I do want to get married, one day. I used to fantasize about the wedding I like to do and who I would invite in order to have a great time. But instead of the wedding dress and the cake, mostly I enjoy fantasizing about an incredible wedding I would never forget, not the invitees.

One of these plans was to rent a circus, the guests will be seated as spectators watching a full circus act and me and my partner would get married after catching each other swinging from the trapeze. If we could manage to do that, I would call that a GOOD CATCH!

Then there was the Agatha Christiesque wedding party. People would be invited to a normal-looking party, but then suddenly someone would die, maybe the bride or groom, (faking it ofcourse) we would then call the cops, a detective (all actors) and seal off the exit until he discoveres the killer and applause, we would tell the guests what has really happened.

I also thought the idea of getting married in a boat, with a group of friends, sailing in the mediteranean, then getting off the boat in a small island and the ceremony is performed by our captain, on a restaurant literally on the beach, everybody is casually dressed, barefooted, eating fresh fish we caught that day, drinking wine and celebrating this important day, possibly skinny dipping at the end of the party.

Then there is my latest favorite, proposed by my new boyfriend: getting married while shooting a documetary in Iraq, in a bunker, with people we don´t know but they are geniunely sharing our happiness,considering the circumstances, with bombs exploding above us--similar to fireworks but definetely more mortal if you get too close-- and when we come back and people ask us, why we got hitched in Iraq, we tell them, "well you gotta go there to undestand!"--Needless to say I am almost sure he is my kind of catch! after he told me this, and I must be his because I would love to do it this way if I am going to get married one day.

There are 2 more weddings Ihave to attend before I finally can leave the city and go to the coast and swim. The first one will be a bore, another cliche wedding but I am hopeful that the one next saturday would be nice. The bride actually called me and warned me to wear flat shoes, because the party is at a park, open air and they are going to have a big barbecue! Last time I saw her, a week ago,she did not even have a wedding dress.

Cheers for now everyone, be merry...

Intermission

I was not going to write for a while, yet while I was in Miami so many funny and interesting things have happened, I decided to put it here. Here I go...

City with No Soul, only Real Estate

I don’t consider Miami as a part of Latin America, yet, it is definitely the capital of the Americas due to its super latin population and style. After almost a year without visiting the US--I don´t count NYC--I realized how long I have been away from this super materialistic place, and how grateful I am for it. How did I come to this conclusion? After attending three Miami parties in less then 5 days!

Three parties, One Guest in common

Part I: 4th of July in SoBe: You can leave the frat house but cannot take the Frat house from them!

Part II: College reunion: "I am glad everything went well for you” says the girl who is at her 6th year as a sophomore to me. I did not know she was concerned about me and my future when I lived in Miami years ago!

Part III: Feyzi’s house with his friends, Diana and Maria (cool chicks), three putas on my brother´s jocks, and Chanti and I. Track 9 was played so many times...


I have to give details...will do soon I promise!

Montevideo Part I is over. Wait for me Part II, I will be back

It has been 4 months since I have been here. And I am leaving for Turkey tomorrow. I will be back in a month or so but I am sure nothing will be the same when I come back. I realized that everytime I leave a place and go back, the situation changes. Maybe I change, who knows?

There was a lot of enlightenment in the last 24 hours. I have been thinking about what has been happening to me, trying to evaluate my feelings, and I see things more clearly now.

I am happy to find out that my collegues here are fond of me and my work, and I reciprocate. I am really happy with the work I have been doing and that is why I decided to come back and keep doing what I like to do. I hope that when I come back I will have more time and less stress and keep writing as I do now, about other things. I feel like I have missed out and did not get to see this city as much as I would have done in other cities I have lived.

I will not write for a while. I have to leave my Montevideo-state-of-mind here, at the Carrasco Airport and pick it up on the way back.

Chau for now Montevideo, ciudad gris!


la ciudadana ilustre

Soundtrack

I have to accept, I have never been a gadget-junkie, but since I got my iPod, I am the happiest kid on the block. Individualized music, when you hang out most of the time by yourself, is a must. Walking to work, in the supermarket, even when I wonder around the city. I prefer listening to music instead of hearing this city, it is not a loud city, does not have the chuspa that I am used to anyways.
Below I decided to share with you my favorite music, mostly from this part of the world, I think matches this city+me in this city+how I feel about this city and my new life:

-Bajofondo Tango Club presents Luciano Supervielle (the entire CD)
-Faithless: Miss you less, see you more (No roots)
-Bersuit Vergarabat: el Viejo de Arriba, Toco y me Voy, Vuelos, Disconexion Sideral, Porteno de Ley
-Bjork: Isobel
-Depeche Mode: Just can't get enough, Everything Counts
-MC Solaar: la la la la
-La Mala Rodriguez: la cocinera
-Lauryn Hill: To Zion
-Los Fabulosos Cadillacs: Matador, Vos Sabes, Carnaval toda la vida
-Frida Soundtrack: Burning Bed
-Outkast: Crumblin' erb
-Pequena Orquesta de Reincidentes: Blanco y amarilo
-Pink Martini: Una Notte A Napoli
-Sertab Erener: Yavas yavas
-Sezen Aksu: Bir baska ask
-Thievery Corporation: Lebanese Blond
-Zero 7: in the waiting line
-Carlos Gardel: Por una cabeza
-George Michael: Flawless
and there are a couple of songs I love but dunno what they are called, I will refer to them as: Tiki tiki ta ta, Pepepepe and Asli's favorite song!

Jury Duty in Carrasco...A surreal weekend with Corina

There are certain nights in my life that I wonder, how the hell I find myself witnessing these surreal stories, which when one tells others, there is a high probability that the listener doubts the legitimacy.
Last night was one of those.
Corina came yesterday. This is her first visit to Montevideo and we were both so happy to be able to hang out again, after so long.
The plan for the weekend is to have fun, so I decided to give a call to the "photographer"--who turn out to be a 20-year old wannabe music producer/agent--thinking it could be fun for Corina to listen to the band he was talking about last time I saw him. He was super excited to hear from me, and told us that they recently finished a video clip, and invited us to see the video and hang out while the band jams in one of the member’s house in Carrasco (a neighborhood of upper-class Montevideanos, reminds me of West Palm Beach, with big houses, and even malls, and mall rats).
We schlepped our fabulous asses with public transportation all the way to a mall, where they met us and took us with a car to the house. (First advice to pendejos (boys): never make chicks take the bus to go see you if you have a car. They probably will never come back, if she is wise.) The house was exactly how I imagined, an American town house, with 3 cars in the garage, a dog, color coordinated living room, with little--and unfortunately ugly--souvenirs from countries visited, scented soaps and matching towels and tiles in the bathroom, etc.
The band was there, all dressed up. Cori and I entered, and as soon as we saw them, we knew they were not more than a bunch of twenty-year-old dorks who think they discovered the rock music by copying the RS songs, and sin pena! The host of the house and the soloist, who looked like he was no more than 12 years old and 5' 3"(I am being generous), was wearing a t-shirt that said: Keith Richards! The guitarist had a baseball cap made out of leopard print velour, the drummer looked like the Scooby Doo, and the manager with this Buddy Holiday glasses, thought he was the shit.
Cori and I did not look at each other for a while, because we knew we would laugh immediately. The real comedy came when the director was screening proudly his work, the first video of Limousine! As soon as it started I tried to think of something bad (Inside my head: Something bad happened, something bad happened) so that I would not laugh as hard as I should have. It was sooo trucho(I have seen many student movies in my life, and even the worst one was not this bad), so amateur, so tasteless, that made me feel bad. Of course I told them my opinion, which they wanted to hear so badly, I was harsh; Corina tried to be nicer by appreciating the effort. Then they wanted us to see all five (and as horrible as the first one) versions, back to back. I could not take it anymore, we left soon after. Our hosts did not want to leave their house; they tried to be nice to us by offering the approximate cab fare, which we "kindly" refused.

The night began asi...

We decided to erase the memories of the horrible video by going to a boliche in the old city, where people were a bit older and the music was much original. After having a drink, and realizing that we were too tired, we asked for the check and came to realize that we were 10% short of the amount we need to pay! Que verguenza...I talked to the manager to see if it was ok with him, he said yes, and said they have a lot of dishes back there! I smiled and told him it was not a funny joke. Really, it was not.

Walking home from the old town, we heard this loud salsa rhythm from a pub called Lido, located inside a shopping strip. We had to enter, in order to complete our surreal Friday night. Lido club reminded me of those kitsch Latin joints in Brooklyn, consisted of a couple of tables with red-green tablecloth and a small dance floor, yet lacked the Latin heat for some reason. Cori and I were the best dancing couple there. We left the place after one dance, when I sensed that dudes were about to make a move to ask us to dance with them. As we were running out, I heard somebody say something like "tortilleras" (a vulgar way of calling lesbians in Spanish), we laughed and ran home to a good night sleep.
But there was still one more stop we had to make: the weird bar around the corner from my apartment. As we were approaching to my place, we heard loud argentinian rock coming from my street. Once again there was a weird party at the corner (it is not a bar, but every once in a while the owner throws these cool parties for his friends). We wondered as we own the place, and danced to the familiar rythms of Fabulosos Cadillacs and Bersuit, and others, using the last bit of energy we had before we crashed and went to our separete neverneverlands.

Saturday was the day of Mercado de Puerto of course. I had to wake up really early and work at the office for a bit, which sucked. As soon as I was done, picked up Cori and Mauro and we were on our way to Cori's first time at the Mercado. Mercado de Puerto is an old frigorifico (a refrigerated warehouse) in the old city, by the port; in the old days all the meat to be exported would go there and from there would be shipped to Europe. Now it is a big complex of restaurants, parillas mostly, very loud and colorful place Montevideanos spend Saturday afternoons feasting on meat and Medio Medio (a semi-sweet sparkling white wine). It is definitely my favorite activity in this city.

We had 6 bottles of Medio Medio and some asado (cow's chops, delish), and left the place half-baked, without smoking! The hours following the lunch, we had ice cream on the ice-cold Pocitos shore, crashed a major league football game (well I did, they got caught at the door) and went to Nico's neighborhood and dance for hours with the local candombe (Uruguayan folk music made with drums) group. When it finally ended, it was 8 pm, and we went to Nico's house and had a long nap, before going out again!

I think we had so much fun earlier that we should not even try to go out have even more fun, but we tried, we went to a bar in old city, but called the night around 3 am, thank god.

The last image I have of the night is the Nuevo Machu Pichu club (an underground version of Lido) we passed by on the way home.

Sleeping in his arms was all I could think of....I dreamt of someone singing me Mi Carmelito by Bersuit Vergabarat.

Ah Montevideo Ah!

Listening to tango/ambient music 2 am in the morning in my office, after a lovely and loooong day at work, makes me think about decisions one make about her life. Where would I be now, if I did not think that the idea of working for a community radio far from my own country did not sound interesting to me a year ago.

I could be anywhere now.

But I am here, and I am happy. I don´t even know why I am happy. It must be the independence.

PS: The graffiti on the picture is made by sankono, I scouted for the cops, it was 4 am, we were working all night long, he finished the last letter and we ran back to the office; a total adrenaline buster, I assure you. Anyways it means "grey atrocity, " a great name for the horrible statue they built in front of the municipal building of Montevideo.

To All My Fabulous Girlfriends..

Recently, some of my happily "we"ed friends separeted from their other halves suprisingly, and joined the single-late- twenty-something-succesful-female life . As in our patriarchal societies, it is bad to be a single woman, they are all, I am guessing, going through tough times getting used to this new role where ever they are. (Welcome back dahlings!)

Since I left my happily-coupled life in Cuba, I was not sure about where I was fitting in this picture. Sometimes, having a long-distance relationship could be even harder than being single again; it is a very blurry area, especially if you are not sure, when will be the next time you will see your media naranja. Anyways, all I know is, I was sad, felt miserable for the first couple of weeks of sleeping and waking up alone, and not hearing "Hey gorgeous, come back to bed, don't go to the gym this morning!" Nobody reminded me anymore that I was special, smart and beautiful. Nobody to cook for, nobody to care for.

And I guess the hardest part of all was that I did not have any of my girl friends to hang out with, do all the things I have not done while being with a man. Nobody to talk to.

When I got here, I thought I knew what I wanted from life. I thought it was all set up, at least it was pretty much clear what I would be doing here and then after. For obvious reasions, in three months I have been here, so much happened, and I could not control most of what happened, I felt week and stupid afterwards.

Then a couple of weeks ago, I had a moment. Here I was after two hours of body combat, at my cold apartment, alone, watching TV, eating dinner. Then another day, on Sunday, I had brunch all by myself, in my room, alone, not even reading a quality newspaper, without friends. I separated my self from my body and looked at myself: what a pathetic view I thought. Why am I all alone in a foreign country? Why am I not with the ones I love so much? I left my boyfriend, I left my friends, I left mom so that I can do what I think is right. But now I am left here, miserably sola.

I am sure years ago—very few but there were moments—I felt the same way a couple of times, being alone and bored, and I was not even in a foreign country, I was in Istanbul, or even in NYC. I have chosen to go out, get drunk and forget how bored I was, or hang out with people that I really did not care so much, just so that I would not be alone. (This statement just saved me a couple of thousands of dollars I could have spent on therapy later, I am glad I found out all by myself).

I am not going to explain in details why, seems very unimportant right now, but I decided that I was not going to think that being alone is all that pitiable. Since that day, I started discovering this city, the way I want to, going to the places I think are interesting, wearing all the funky clothes I can, even though it does not match with this city’s ambient or the people who surround me. It is not so bad after all. I don’t know how long it would eventually take me to get to know new people, or re-unite with my good friends (and I miss them so much), right now I feel relieved and happy first time in months.

Now I can say it out loud: I am alone and it is fabulous. And it is entirely my choice...

Better be Mala!

The famous Spanish female rapper, Mala Rodriguez, had a show yesterday in Montevideo. We all went, Redes Boys (my co-workers from the radio) and some other friends to see her of course, it is a pretty big deal to have such a big name here, not many take the stage in Montevideo; it is more likely that they go to Buenos Aires. And talking about big concerts, there is a rumor that Rolling Stones chose Montevideo as one of their venues for their 2006 Latin America Tour! As soon as it is confirmed, book your tickets and get your faboulous selves down here for some Stone action! This only is a very good reason to keep living in Montevideo...

Anyways, we got there around 11 pm and it was empty. Around midnight closer to 1 am, the club Da Vinci, a simply decorated loft, where usually the "tiki" montevideans hang, was getting there, packed with hip hop fans, yet it was missing something, rythm maybe. It was my first time in a white Hip Hop party and it was very very quiet comparing to my previous experiences, especially the one at Jimmy's Uptown with my kanki Asli G!

Mala took stage around 2:30 am, by that time I was ready to go home. Then I heard her voice: it was one of those voices that trembled with passion. She had a gypsy tone. Reminded me of the gypsy flamenco singer who visited Istanbul sometime ago, what was her name? She did not speak spanish, only gitano, and she did not know how to read or write, yet she had this incredible voice and when she sang, she made me cry...

One of the high points of the night was meeting the photographer of Rolling Stone magazine. As the "international party girl," you would think I would accept his offer to go to the backstage with him, I refused it. Hopefully he will remember me, next year, when I try to get into the imminent Rolling Stones' concert backstage!

her tercih bir vazgecistir...

Her tercih bir vazgecistir... Ama yasam vazgectiginiz seye dair ipucu vermez. Geri donup, o gunu gokkusagi desenli bir elbise ile yasama sansiniz yoktur.
Bu secim oyununda vazgectiginiz sey, sectiginizden daha degerli ise pismanlik kacinilmazdir. Ama neyin degerli oldugunun karari da yine size aittir. Ve veazgectiginiz sey bazen bir saray, bazen sohret sahnesinin pariltili neonlari da olsa cogu zaman gozunuz hic arkada kalmaz. Hayata baska bir gozle bakmayi ogrendiyseniz, bu secimde kazandiklarini sananlara yanlizca aciyarak gulumsersiniz. Herseyin siradanlastigi bir dunyada bazen kaybetmek en dogru secimdir.

Ve o dunyada en yerinde tercih, vazgecistir.*

Mates, Termos, and Funnypacks: Street Style in Montevideo

Mom keeps saying I should write about the customs and traditions of Uruguay so here I go.

Uruguayan Customs Part 1: Drinking Mate

In every city I have lived in, I've learned something. In Havana for example, I learned that one needs to have clean empty nylon bags in their purses all times, in case they spot a market that has fresh ginger—or good pork chops, eggs, cheese or anything that is found rarely there — and need to buy it right there. Most markets did not have nylon bags back when I lived there, and after a couple of months I became accustomed to carry them in my purse for emergencies. It’s funny; I still carry them in my purse, today, far far away from the eccentric streets of la Habana!

Saying that, today, also known as the day why I love living in Uruguay, I benefited from this corky habit I created years ago. I found out today that, here too, plastics bags could be useful. This morning, almost after 2 years in this town, I prepared myself mate for the first time, and left my house, walked around with it, like a “local” in the streets of Montevideo! When it was time to discard the used mate leaves and stick the mate in my purse, my old habit came so handy, I congratulated myself.

Funny I have not talked about this common habit in my new hometown before. The first time I tasted mate, was at the office and after a little sip I thought I was going to puke, it was incredibly bitter. I am a coffee person—a Cuban coffee person—and sipping hot water through bitter leaves in the morning was not a great way of waking up, so I passed the second time Mauro offered me their national drink. Over the last couple of months, out of curiosity (he told me that it was a habit that one created overtime by drinking it, and that it was addictive!) I tried it here and there, and recently I even bought myself a mate and a thermos, in case an Uruguayan visitor would want to have it, instead of all the other drinks I already have at home.

If there is one custom in Uruguay, that is drinking mate. Even the worst observer will pick up on that. I would say 7 out of 10 people walk around in Montevideo, with a thermos under one arm and mate on their hand. You can spot them everywhere: school, office, movies, shopping mall, museum, you name it. I used to think they had a gap between their armpit, one can only be that comfortable walking miles with a thermos if that was the case!

Introduced to European colonizers by the Guarani Indians, Yerba Mate is a said to be medicinal, but more often it is a cultural drink. Mate contains something like caffeine, which keeps its drinkers energetic, and kills your appetite. There are many different kinds, some bitterer than other, but basically it tastes like green tea, without sugar. My co-workers favor the strongest kinds, I cannot even come close to it; so far only had one kind that was a calmant, I ended up sleeping really really early after sipping it for a while.

The drill to drink mate starts by pouring yerba (the dried leaves) into the mate (that is the cup, made out of dried little green pumpkin, about the size of an orange, which is only found here in South America); but this only is a ritual by itself because you cannot just leave the herb on the bottom, it has to be packed into one side leaving an air pocket for water; then holding the upper tip of the bombilla (a metal straw with a colander at the bottom end so that the drinker does not inhale the leaves) so that it enters the neatly packed mate air-tight, then they poor a little bit of cold water and "wet" the herb, and finally you start drinking by pouring hot water from the thermos into the mate, one person at a time. You cannot share the mate; everyone has to wait his or her turn. If by mistake you drank it before your turn, you kiss the mate and then pass it on. It is not a simple drink, let me tell ya... And I know very little about this weird drink, so go figure.


Drinking mate is seen in Argentina, Paraguay and even southern Brazil, but in Uruguay it is a phenomena. There are tons of different mates those who are covered with cloth, metal, or leather, even horse foot (it is obscene); every store sells thermos and bombillas. Then there are the materos, handmade mate bags, usually made out of leather, where one can put a thermos and mate standing-up. One wonders how come they have hot water all the time, that is the best kept secret: one can buy hot water in many places including in gas stations, where there are machines, like the snack vendors, you put your money and fill your thermos.

I started to guess what kind of political or social ideas Uruguayans support by looking at their mates and materos. The lefties usually decorate their thermos or materos with political stickers, where the chetos (bourgeois) rock the plain ones and have more elaborate bombillas and mates.
Of course there are exceptions, and I am at the beginning of my learning experience, so I may be wrong.

PS: I am going to make a whole new article on fanny packs because it is another phenomenan itself. You may see people decked out, and then you spot a fanny pack on them! Hard to get over.

Resignations North and South

It was an interesting day at work today. We were anxious to hear whether or not the Ecuadorian President and Bush ally Lucio Gutierrez (a.k.a Sucio--means Dirty in spanish) would resign from his position after a week of popular demonstrations in Quito, capital of Ecuador.
He finally did around 3:30 pm (our time). I was listening to Radio La Luna, live from Quito. Everybody was cheering and one could sense the pride in their voice as well as victory.
It is a very peculiar time in Latin America. There is resistance and struggle. There is organization and progress.
Then there is Berlusconi deal. Another popular rejection resulting in right-wing Euro-pro-Bush Prime Minister to leave his position.
Whatever the consequences would be, these events tell us there is hope for a better future...