"40...60..80...satiyorum! satiyorum...sattim!"

What is that you probably ask, one thing about being multi-lingual is sometimes one does not know why but a thought in one´s head comes out in one of the languages she/he speaks without a good explanation. This title was one of those!

I went to my first auction today and boy I had a great time. Did not get to buy what I wanted but went home with something that I equally needed. And fyi, I was at a real auction, like those you see on BBC (one of mom and annemo´s fav, the Antique´s show) not an virtual store like ebay.

It has been almost a month since I moved to the cupu but I still need some furniture--a bed frame that is-- and a refrigerator. My back hurts every morning from what I think is the humidity, I have been sleeping in a foam mattress on the floor (I don´t know how chinese do that and they are not as hunchbacked as they should be!) and drinking room temperature water, or making trips to Titi´s fridge everytime I need to eat or save food. Yesterday I had a party, which was challenging because I ambtiously invited 8 people with a house set up for mostly a party for 6 and it was a pain in the neck to serve food from a fridge that is 3 floors down (on the bright side: my butt is getting rounder and firmer from going up and down the stairs everyday).

Anyways, my dear friend Herb told me that there was a remate (auction) today somewhere called Castells & Castells around 2 pm, so I went a bit early to check out what they were acutioning. I saw a marble morter which I have been dreaming of since I saw this nice one in Havana in my favorite paladar years ago. This one was a smaller one and it was missing its wooden piece to mash things, but it was being auctioned together with a crystal wine pitcher, I said they should be mine today.

I went and bougjht some freshly toasted and grinded colombian coffee, had a bite to eat, written article for the radio and finally it was time to go back and bet. The place was full of older people, and familiar faces: almost all the sellers I remembered from Tristan Nervaja, the flea market I go every once in a while on sundays, of course they were buying these antiques cheaply in remates and selling them the same week 5-10 times more on sundays.

I sat next to a pro, a brazilian antique dealer who introduced himself. Then it started, I could not beleive the bottom prices they had for a box of somebody´s china or glasses, etc. There was a box full of glass things, 3 hermetic jars and a couple of serving dishes, which noone raised the price for more than 80 pesos ( approx. 3 USD) so I raised my hand and bought it! Brazilian said: you see it is very simple.

30 mins later time arrived for my morter. 120 p, 130, 150 p I said, some jerk from behind me kept raising the price, I went all the way up to 340 p, then stopped because I did not think I would spend that much money on them. He bought it for 400! I know it is still a bargain for the two but I did not go for them.

Now that I am writing about this, I remembered. The attractive owner of casa antonio restaurant had a morter there and told me he liked to give me that as a present. I should claim my present next weekend!

I am going to an auction tomorrow as well, there is a bronze bed frame I saw in this other place, maybe that will be mine for less than 50 dollars! Then I have to find another auction where they offer old GE fridges, which I think cupula deserves!

PS: The photo is not from today from where I was. I will go back and take a picture of the place as soon as my cam comes back from Venezuela.

Mango Season

28th of january, 2006. My first hot shower at the cupula!

I woke up around noon and the first thing in my mind was to cool off, I actually woke up without sheets covering me and a bit sweaty, first time since I moved to cupula (there is always a cool breeze there, I dont need a fan or anything). I turn the water on, and it was boiling! Which means, summer actually arrived to Uruguay! I am talking about real, hot, sunny days, when people rush to closest beach to cool off.

My choice was to stay home, hang at my tar beach, reading and writing without sand flying and children shouting around me.

After the shower, first thing that came to my mind is to drink a semi-frozen mango shake-water based not milk--, as I would have done in La Habana. Those first days of summer, around May that is for Havana, all I had to do was to yell to my neighbor Yaneisy, who has a mango tree in her garden and she would send me some with her daughter Luciana, and I would be drinking that really fresh juice while checking my emails in the morning! Ah ah...and if Yaneisy did not have any, I could walk to the market and buy a glass of it for 2 pesos cubanos. I miss Havana sometimes, for these kinds of very special things she can offer. There are no fresh fruit juice counters in Montevideo, they have many sausage and hamburger selling cars (impossible to imagine how can someoone eat that when it is slightly warm out!)

Anyways, back to the reality, I rushed to the supermarket, and bought the closest thing to a mango: peaches! Back in the cupula I blended delish peach slices with coldest water I could find and voila! Happy camper.

The rest of the day. I was in my new retro bikinis, switching from Tatler (british royal gossip magazine I picked up in HK) to history of Buenos Aires, overlooking a city that was so empty, I thought it was the election day in Turkey!

Around 19:30, I got a call, saying it was time to go back to work, finish up the coverage of the WSF in Caracas! There is a emoticon in my msn messenger which expresses my feelings about it, I wish I could copy it here!

Time for Serious Stuff: Uruguay 102.

I have been writing about summer-ocean-parties, pretty much the only available things here during the months of january and february, but a recent discussion with some friends made me want to write about Uruguay in comparaison to Cuba.

The argument is that Uruguay is probably the second most state-controlled country in the Americas after Cuba and it is not because of the new government, they always have been this way.

Here are some of the sectors that are not privatized here: educaction, health, the water (they actually voted against the privatization of water in 2004), the local phone and the main cellphone provider, oil, electricity. Plus, the number of uruguayans who work for the state are much higher than those who live in socialist countries!

The middle class as you know is huge and they are very educated, so in many ways, this is why Uruguay is a very stable and comfortable country to live!--and its history shows in order to maintain this famous stability whic attracts not only people but also foreign investment (i.e. Merill Lynch has its Latin American headquarters in a free zone here in Uruguay) they have been quiet harsh with their citizens, a lot of political persecution, etc.

It is almost 3 am, we are leaving the office, and the quiet asado that we made tonight in order to have a bit fun while working, no buses in the city due to a province-wide strike. Bus drivers are protesting the death of one of their peer, and announced there will be minimum bus service within the next 24 hours.

Taxiiiiiii!

Ser feliz y ser Conciente; Esta mal?*

I came back to Montevideo after an amazing weekend in Punta del Este and La Pedrera.

Friday afternoon I was at the first bus out of the city, heading to famously glamorous Punta del Este, a.k.a. Latin American Riviera. To be honest with you, I did not think it could compare to the Riviera, it is more like our own Bodrum, from the type of people who vacations there, to the type of places they have, bars, rest, boutiques, traffic, etc.

Lorena, Javi´s surfer friend, was waiting for me with a friend of hers, as well as Orhan Abi; we went to watch the sunset at the Port, where you can see the sun literally setting in the horizon, disapearing into the Ocean. Of course Murphy´s law, there were too many clouds to see that perfect orange swallowed by the water, but the sky stayed pinkish purplish orange for at least a half an hour.

We left Punta behind and hit the road towards east, to the neighborhood called Buenos Aires, which is located between La Barra and Jose Ignacio, two fabolous beach towns, frequented by the upper class Porteños for some time now. The houses I have seen on the way there were very very pretty and it seemed like it is the place to be if one is looking for a tons of glamour while vacatining, just like most of the Turks I know of are looking for!

Lorena cooked a delicious dinner, and around 3 am, we hit the road back to Punta to dance in one of the cool clubs of the town. We went to Soho,
Needless to say we were leaving the place , thank god, because I was so tired by then, when sun appeared at the horizon, again pink and cloudy, telling me: your weekend is going to suck, no sunshine for you miss thing!

I left Lorena and Punta del Este around 2 pm, took a bus from one of the smallest towns I have ever been, called San Carlos, which looked like any town from the interior of Cuba, and arrived La Pedrera, with sun shiny and warm saying to me: this is going to be a great dayyyyyy!

After some beaching and gossipping with Orhan Abi, we went home, took a nap--well I did--dressed up and went to Casa Antonio to celebrate my book (I was bitching about not having a real fiesta for this very important event but at the end I had many small fiestas, with different friends and I think there are more to come). Another scrumptous and classy dinner,plus the attractive owner of the restaurant put cuban music the whole night. It was a lovely lovely evening, I think one of the best I had in a long time.

The next day, we spent pretty much the whole day at the beach, played beach volley, and met some interesting Pedrera personas: the mafioso owner of one of the big discos and his ecuri (they reminded me of Max Luther and his loser friend from Superman II), an argentine photographer, some clownish entertainer who performed over there, and later that night, some rantiye porteños and uruguyans.

The photographer said something that night, describing my state of mind: To be happy and to be concisous about it. I said, exactly, why deny?

Hey there, FYI this is time to invest in Uruguay!

I am so happy, sooo happy to hear that the community is investing in Uruguay! I have met the first couple of pioneers who happened to tell me yesterday in an amazing BBQ party that, I quote, "this is going to be the next Miami!" --not in the sense of hundreeds of sunburnt germans walking around in shorts, or Miami Subs in every corner kind of Miami, dont get me wrong. They are talking about bringing onda and reviving this beautiful country, the coast and of course Montevideo.

I decided to try to buy myplace as soon as I have some cash--siempre habana royalites should do, I heard that annemo is in Istanbul promoting my book fulltime!--I fear soon the prices will go up up up, if cool foreigners start buying property here.

Seven Months of Cloudy Montevideo that I was not Lonely!

I woke up because of the warmth of the sun that was tickling my cheeks this morning! After a week of rain, and months of grey, imagine how good it felt. Especially after a whole process of drying the cupula the night before! The leaking is a problem when it rains, as I imagined before moving to the cupula.

Anyways, it has been a long and grey 7 months since I came here, almost a year ago. Luckily I had good company for those days, and seems like the itch, of those seven months, has arrived, and I think it is time for me to float solo for a bit.

It was a loooong weekend; rainy and boring, but it produced many thoughts, many discoveries. I think I am over my bad habit this time! I accepted that I cannot win all the battles, some time I just have to let it go and take a deep breath, keep living. I have been looking for love in all the wrong places, better said, not wrong but maybe slightly underprepared.

So I changed my soundtrack from Jamiroquai´s DYnamite to a Softcell classic. But unlike mArc almond, who kept weeping behind his boy, I said good-bye to mine. No resentment, no feelings left.

Siempre Habana

As of yesterday I had the privilege of holding my first ever published book in my hands! I dont think I can describe the joy and pride I felt that moment....until I realized that none of the people who would share this incredible feeling with me was near by.

As a little girl, or even when I was a teenager, I used to dream about this very moment: surrounded with my dearest family and friends, holding glasses of cool cocktails, they say "Serefe", my book is in display, everybody is happy, Jamiroquai's coolest songs in our ears. I always thought someone will organize a huge party for me, for such an important occasion, I mean how many times I can celebrate "my first ever book"?

But here I was, alone at the cupula (by the way every minute I spent there I love living up there even more) I read my book again and again, looking at it, pictures, sentences, and I went to Havana without realizing, I started hearing the domino games, women talking, the sound of salsa, the smell of black beans...I thought of my girl friends, conner and chantal, with whom I could be gossiping over a cup of cafesito.. cook a great meal with Peggy, with very special guests at the table, or go to a movie with her, just hanging out around town....or my next door neighbor Yaneisy could come over and do my nails and tell me all about what is happining in our street that day...buy black market cheese or ham, or lobster from chubby and loving companeras...ride behind Jenry's poderosa bicycle...fresh mangoes, papayas and ananas at the feria...Habana will be in my heart siempre.

Anyways, celebrating this important moment alone was an experience, an important one. Even though I told myself over and over again that it was fine that I was alone, and that it was the product that count not the fiesta, it was at the end more than anything my fault, it was my choice to be so far from those people I wished was next to me, and here in montevideo, my immediate surrounders did not care so much about potential success far from here. Then I fantasized a bit: maybe this was just a test to see if I can handle fame! (just kidding) But deep inside I wish there was at least one good bottle of wine at home for a brindi...or someone to hug me and say: I am so proud of you Aslicim!

Those who feel bad for me: don´t ! I am sure there will be a party for me someday, somewhere, exactly how I dreamt it to be...very soon... just be there and hug me, ok?

Christmas in Prado, New Years in La Pedre

After 30-something hours of flight, I arrived, without sleeping, in Montevideo. Seeing a very friendly face at the airport cheered me up, plus he shlepped my suitcases around town for a day, and took me to refuge for the night, and blessed me with a great night's sleep! When I woke up it was already: almost christmas! Yikes...I needed to communicate with Herb, whose house was going to be the venue for my "big christmas dinner," find ingredients (such as achiote??), be sure all the confirmed guests show up and those who have not don't.

I managed to do a quick shopping with Herb the day before christmas, we actually were crazy enough to enter a mall that day! Fish was ordered by phone, same as the shrimps and some herbs, arugula and cilantro needed to be found at the feria--at the end of the day Herb confirmed he had everything. See you saturday I told him.

Meanwhile, Orhan called, and said he was coming to dinner, Javier and Juana as well. Saturday morning, I woke up and found Titi and ORhan and Ivana, ready to take me to Mercado de Puerto. We went there on no time, and in no time we were soaked in Medio Medio--ok I started my own end, splashed Titi's bro with my cup, and he got pissed and poored half a bottle of it over my head, and after that I was so nasty, dirty and sticky, all I wanted was to go home and shower. We had fun though, dancing and a tiny cuty buzz end up being a great start for my afternoon at Herb's kitchen.

I arrived to their house, and if it was me opening door to someone who looked like me, I would have consider her cooking a christmas dinner for my super party, but Herb's grandson and granddaughter were really nice and calm thoughout my shower and then freaking out over unpeeled shrimps (3 kilos!). They helped and kept me company, also thought me that their granma has these great pills for sleeping, perfect for long flights, no side effects they said...I wished I knew them before going to HK!

Anyways, I finished eggplant salad, humus, green salad, shrimps with butter and hungarian hot pepper a la mama, pescado yucateca, within the next 4 hours, got my hairdone, got Juana's hair done, dress nicely and welcome the first guests as the proud hostess of the night.
Needless to say, dinner was a success, people loved it, and we went home to Cupula.

The next morning after a quick cup of coffee, we opened our presents! Lovely tradition. Juana woke up, ran to the living room, brought her gifts and opened with a huge smile on her face, and I think she loved the little things I bought in HK for her. Then came our time, I loved my great lamp, green and rustic.

We were invited to Titi's house to lunch, with the rest of her family, which I love, so rapidly we got in to the car, and head towards Prado. I don't know if I ever talked about Prado?? It is "the neighborhood" of Montevideo, if you ask me, it is style and old money all around, history, and an incredibly well-planed landscape, or urban design. And Titi's family has one of those houses that reflects every moment of the family's pas and with kids runing around, its future. We sat down under the gazebo, on a table full of homemade delicias, and pretty much did not move for the next 4 hours. I felt for a moment that I was in one of those movies, italian movies, where the happiness comes out in a form of sharing a meal, laughing, joking, getting drunk, singin, etc. Orhan and I thought we were blessed with some serious ache to deserve this.

One of the best christmas' I have ever had....

After a couple of days recuperating from constant partying, it was time to go to Pedrera, to meet up Orhan for New Years. I left work on friday, lucky enough to catch a botella with Mercedes and her boyfriend, and arrived la Pedrera around midnight, checked out the ambiente and slept until the next morning.

The last day of 2006, was amazing: we sun bathed early in the morning, than had a great lunch--a classic: calamari, greens+ white wine--at Costa Brava restaurant, then went home, for a quick siesta, changed, back to the beach, worked on my tan, and after getting a tip on a new restaurant from a friend of Orhan's we found ourselves at the Casa Antonio, making a reservation for the night.

I thought: this is the beach, the food cannot be that bad! I felt so ignorant after putting the first bite in my mouth, I was mesmerized! what a fine menu, service, ambiance and once again: what an amazing menu!

Fire works came as desert, and I had almost a bottle of Terrunyo by myself, dashed from the rest to attend a party at Paz's house (she has an incredible bungalow, more like a mansion bungalow in La Pedrera) where eventhough party was entertaining I fell asleep within an hour and opened my eyes later in Orhan's car, towards the house.

A really chiled New Year, a first and I hope not the last.

*photo is from casa antonio