Singapore Suite

Singapore is a city that seems to reinvent itself every two to three years.  There is always a ‘major’ project in process and each time one is completed, ground is broken for another special addition to the city.  I have only been absent for two years, but I couldn’t believe how much the skyline had changed in so short a period of time.  When last here I could see the big ditch where they were starting construction on the new Marina Sands Hotel and Casino.  Now it is a fascinating building of three towers, housing 2500 guest rooms, with a full size city park and restaurants on the top of the towers.  The park sits higher than the Singapore Flyer, affording unbelievable views of Singapore, the harbor and on a clear day, Malaysia.

There are shopping malls and there are shopping malls and then there is the Sands Shopping Arcade.  Name a famous label, designer, brand or something you know you can’t afford, and I promise you it is there.  Shop after shop of luxury goods where places like Louis Vuitton are made to seem a bit down market.  This place has all the glitz of Las Vegas, but it also has far more charm and character.  There is the mandatory canal in the middle of the arcade but instead of gondolas they have Chinese junks paddled by kids with cone shaped hats made of bamboo.  There are about twenty restaurants, most of them signature places run by famous chefs.  I looked at one, a little bistro with a name I don’t know, and the lunches started at about $45 for two courses and the place was jammed.  It was all mind boggling to say the least.

I took a walk around the harbor to see the Merlion, the symbol of Singapore, but it was all covered in a big red box.  I thought perhaps for cleaning or repair but no, this is Singapore and as part of an art festival, they had converted the Merlion into a one suite, five star hotel!!  There is a new pedestrian bridge connecting the Marina area to the new casino.  Since this is Singapore, no ordinary bridge would do.  The new Helix Bridge is simply beautiful and so much fun to walk across, both night and day.

I don’t approve of everything that has changed in Singapore.  When I first started to come to this city I used to run every morning around the backside of the bay, past the monument to Sir Stamford Raffles and though a dense jungle of tall trees wrapped with thick vines that produced the most beautiful flowers that at times would fall with a strong breeze and end up looking like glowing Easter eggs on the green grass below.  When it rained, as it always seemed to do, you could stay dry under the trees and wait for the storm to pass while breathing in the moist perfumed air.  Today I walked that route only to discover that most of that jungle has now been bulldozed in favor of a Formula One track and related parking lots.  It breaks my heart to see this happening, especially for something that is used only once per year.  Joni was right!

A note to all of my fellow road warriors who have stayed in lousy hotels, with funny smells, weird carpeting, and frayed bed sheets.  For all those times when the water would turn ice cold just as you tried to rinse the shampoo out of your hair, when the air conditioning just stopped working on the hottest day of the year and you couldn’t open a window.  For those evenings when your dinner consisted of a box of minibar Pringles and a can of cheap beer.  For all the indignities you have suffered at hotels around the world, I offer you hope!  I have been rewarded by being upgraded to perhaps the most beautiful suite in Singapore, with endless views of the harbor and three large rooms, if you don’t count the kitchen and bathroom.  This suite is bigger than our apartment in Moscow.  It is on the Pacific Floor, which means there is a 24-hour butler, a lounge with Champagne and canapés, afternoon high tea, morning breakfast cooked to order and evening drinks and desserts.  This is the Pan Pacific, where I’ve stayed many, many times, and I must say this is the best visit yet thanks to our good friend Scott.  If only Cindy could be here to enjoy the experience, everyone here misses her, especially me.

When I hop on that long flight from Singapore to the states on Monday I’ll just sit quietly in coach and remember the three days of living like a king, and then I’ll take drugs!

That’s it for now.  Happy Weekend,  William

Penang

Well, according to the calendar it is spring.  Thus far this year I’ve had three springs, the south of France, Lisbon, and Budapest.  Today I landed in my first summer of the season!  I’m in Penang Malaysia, an island just off the coast of the mainland and mostly known for its beaches and the old colonial city of George Town, which is where I’m staying.  The flight from Moscow to Singapore was rather full so I didn’t have the luxury of a row of three to sleep in.  In fact sleep didn’t seem to be an option for me since the seat I had was always being bumped by people going to and from the bathroom.  The good news was that the flight was early so I wasn’t in the plane as long as I had thought I would be.  The bad news was that it just meant I had to hang out at the airport from 5:15am until 8:05am. 

I think Penang is Bahasa Malay for Lines.  From the minute I went to the gate for the flight until I was finally in a cab at the airport, there were nothing but lines.  Getting on the flight was not the normal Singapore efficient procedure one comes to expect at Changi Airport.  There was no explanation but it seemed apparent that they weren’t well staffed at the podium and they just called the flight and all 150 people got in line to board without any plan.  They then tried to call everyone by rows but the room was too small for everyone to rearrange themselves.  I did learn that there had been a gate change and it was a much smaller gate than they normally use.  The flight itself was fast and comfortable and we landed right on time.  The three flights ahead of us also landed on time, which meant huge, like enormously huge, lines at immigration.

The Malaysian immigration officers must have been trained by the Russians.  They take forever to process a rather simple entry into a resort town and the line moved ever so slowly.  Once though immigration I collected my luggage and went out looking for my ride to the hotel.  I had thought the hotel was sending a car but I checked carefully and my name was not on anyone’s placard.  So I went over and got on the line to purchase a taxi voucher, which is needed to get a taxi in all of Malaysia’s airports.  Finally got to the head of the line only to be told that I had to have cash, not credit.  This meant having to go over to the one moneychanger and getting in that line to get some money.  Back to the taxi line and finally got my voucher which then allowed me to go get on line outside in the heat with about fifty other people waiting for the taxi.  It took one hour of just standing there peeling off layers of clothing as I sweat though everything I had on.  Finally it was my turn and up comes a fifteen-year-old Proton, a locally made car.  The driver told me that it is like that every day, they make the taxi cabs wait about ten minutes from the airport and then only allow seven cars to go and when all seven have picked up fares and departed they then release another seven.  What a system!

My hotel was about a thirty-minute ride from the airport and the car of course had no AC, but I was happy to be in anything that was putting a distance between the airport and me.  We pulled up to the hotel and two bellhops came to get my luggage and escort me into the cool lobby and reception area.  No lines, just me and I was already planning my hot shower.  Not to be!  It seems I had no reservation so for the next twenty minutes we tried to call the person who I’m to meet with and who I thought had made my reservation.  The lovely receptionist even called the other hotel that had been recommended to me, but they had no reservation either.  I finally asked if they had a room for two nights and they did but only on the executive level, which is about $40 more per night, but I had no choice.

I was able to Skype with Cindy before taking a two-hour nap, which was very refreshing.  I now sit, sipping ice cold Lychee juice,  and wait for someone to call or write to me since the number I was given to call when I arrived remains unanswered despite half hourly calls.  Such is life on the road and I remember why I really don’t miss it.  Finally reached my contact who suggested she come by and pick me up after her 9:30pm meeting!!  I told her I would be in bed by 9:15 so this turns out to be a wasted day.  I’ll meet with her tomorrow and tour her university and then have dinner.  The allure of travel continues!

Ciao, Wm

Here Yesterday and Now I'm Gone

I’m in Moscow for only twenty-two hours, having arrived yesterday at four and I’m due to depart at two today.  We arrived in snow and traffic and it took more than an hour to get back to the apartment.  I immediately started doing laundry and we managed to get two loads washed, dried and folded before we hit the hay at ten.  

Dinner was a catch as catch can event but it turned out to be innovative and delicious.  I had read an article in the Financial Times about the proper way to prepare Cacio e Pepe pasta, a Roman favorite using only three ingredients. It is like making a risotto only with pasta and you use the water you cooked the pasta in to help finish the cooking and make it creamy.  I did the basic recipe but added roasted garlic and lemon rind, cooked together in a little olive oil. When it was almost done and creamy, I added three beaten eggs, for protein, and continued to toss it around until the egg mixture was incorporated and it was a lovely creamy picture of perfection.

We watched the BBC news and felt joy and surprise that a grandmother and grandchild were pulled to safety in Japan after nine days of being trapped in rubble.  We watched NATO turn military tanks, trucks and rocket launchers into rubble as the pounding of Libya continues.  We were saddened that Bahrain continues to round up the usual suspects and put them in jail and out of circulation.  We were angered at the media for having made the world believe that the Pearl Roundabout was some type of special square that had some mystical political significance, when in reality it is just a traffic circle that had a lovely monument to the Gulf States.  Now the Bahrainis have destroyed that symbol and we continue to protect the royal family with our silence.

It is almost time to go and it is snowing and I’ve got to prepare to march to the Metro through all the slush and water with my luggage.  Who said you can’t have fun in the winter in Moscow? 

Ciao, Wm 

Budapest

I’m here in beautiful Budapest and yet my mind is thousands of miles away.  In my last blog I said that if Bahrain remained true to form they would start to arrest ‘terrorists’ which is what they now call the peaceful protesters. They have.  Displaying a logic you can only find in the Middle East, the rulers of Bahrain ripped down the monument in the Pearl Roundabout, as though destroying the symbol of the movement would stop them in their tracks.  Instead it has incited more calls for protest.

The UN finally votes for a no-fly zone in Libya and yet they do nothing when Qaddafi and his sons speed up their plan to destroy everyone and everything in Benghazi, while his ministers say they are obeying the UN resolution.  In the middle of all of this we find that once again the USA has no consistent foreign policy that we can fall back on in times of crisis.  “In a Paris hotel room on Monday night, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton found herself juggling the inconsistencies of American foreign policy in a turbulent Middle East.  She criticized the foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates for sending troops to quash protests in Bahrain even as she pressed him to send planes to intervene in Libya.”  (NYT)

And just when you think the world can’t get any nuttier, we discover that Utah has become the first state to vote to have an ‘Official State Gun’.  This must be just a test to see if a sense of humor can really help you stay sane!

Cindy has been dutifully going to her meetings and presentations at this conference while I’ve been wandering around this lovely city enjoying the architecture, markets and of course, the Danube. There is a part of me that would love to just hop on a river boat and head down river until I get to the Black Sea. 

Ciao, Wm

Moscow Mixology

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

While I was talking with those earnest high school students about colleges and universities and trying to answer their questions about which school is best in this or that, my mind wandered to an old comedy skit that Father Guido Sarducci, of Saturday Night Live fame, did about the Five Minute University.  In this wired world we live in, it only took me a minute to find the routine and I think you all might enjoy his words of wisdom. 

It has been a cold and blustery day with intermittent snow showers.  March in Moscow is a confusing meteorological mix that can vex or delight. I bundled up and took a bit of a stroll to do a little shopping for dinner. We depart tomorrow for Budapest where Cindy has a conference and I have the challenge of finding restaurants for dinner and walking around town.  We haven’t been back to Budapest since I hurt my leg, which must have been about twenty-five years ago. Cindy and I were running and I wanted to impress her with my gazelle like leaps and misjudged a barrier that I was jumping over and jammed my leg. My knee blew up like a bowling ball and it was two years before I could run again.  I shall be far more moderate this trip.

I just received a notice from the commissary that the supply truck arrives tomorrow and they wanted me to come and help unload and do inventory.  My friends will be disappointed, I’m sure, that I’ll not be in town to assist.

Things have gone from bad to worse in Bahrain. The troops forcibly removed all the protesters from the Pearl Roundabout with loss of life and very heavy casualties.  One of our dear friends who is the principal of the American High School in Bahrain got caught in some tear gas incident, even though she wasn’t near the center of the action.  The government of Bahrain has now, in addition to martial law, imposed a 4 pm curfew and has revoked the right of public assembly.  If things run true to form I expect the next step will be mass arrests of supposed ‘leaders’ of the protest movement.

Slow day occupied mostly by doing laundry in preparation for the trip tomorrow and my two-week round the world starting on Monday.  Doubt that I’ll do much in the way of writing while in Budapest, but one never knows, do one? Back to packing. 

Ciao, Cindy and Wm.

The Ides of a Moscow March

Beware the Ides, so the sage said to Caesar and he should have listened.  While no extreme tragedy has happened here as in did in Rome those many years ago, the weather has been as confused as Caesar and at times as snow white as his wife’s heart. This morning the temperature was 36° at seven, by 10:30 it was 28°, dark and snowing, by noon it was 40° and sunny and now at 4pm it is 35° and as dark as the armpit of a blacksmith.

I went to work with Cindy this morning, and talk about a general sense of confusion on my part.  I have my morning routine very well established.  Up with Cindy, turn on the BBC news at six, into the kitchen to make coffee and get her cereal and other breakfast options sorted out. When the coffee is done I make one to go and one for her breakfast all the while putting away dishes, pots and pans and flatware from the night before.  This morning I also had to shave and shower and put on a suit and tie and I got plenty confused about timing, but things worked out and we were out of the house and in the car by 7:15.

Today was the College Fair at Cindy’s school and I had volunteered to represent SDSU, Boston University, The University of Maryland University College, the University of Massachusetts and the University of Connecticut.  I have been an administrator at the first three and a student at the last two.  Only SDSU and BU actually came though with materials for me to distribute and in fact, it was only those two that any students really wanted to discuss.  The students came in two waves, the first were in 10^th grade that the others in 11^th.  I must say, I’ve never been around students that were so engaging, asked all the right questions and were ever so polite.  As you can imagine there is a huge financial difference in attending BU or SDSU and on several occasions I asked the students if money was an issue in deciding where to go.  Some looked at me like I was nuts and other very politely said that money was no issue.  How nice!

I was really surprised at how expensive it is to go to college now.  BU for instance is about $54,000 per year.  SDSU is $32,000 if you are not a resident of California and only about $12,000 if you are.  When I started UCONN in the fall of 1963, tuition was $180 per year and room, board and books added another $170 bringing a full year to a total of $350!  However, I remember that even then it was a struggle to come up with the money and I had to work two part -time jobs during the school year and work construction every summer to cover costs.  I don’t ever remember saying in my entire life that ‘money is no issue’.

On a lighter note, here is one of the reasons we don’t use the Russian mail.  Here are some marvelous old photos of Moscow from 1909. The horse track is still here and is still used for races and special horse related events.

For dinner last night I prepared Mahi Oreganata.  This is a famous Sicilian dish that we used to have a lot in Little Italy in San Diego.  All you do is mince about three cloves of garlic with some fresh parsley and coarse salt.  Toss it in a bowl with a quarter cup of breadcrumbs, three tablespoons of dried oregano and enough olive oil to make it all hold together.  Pat it on two mahi fillets and bake at 425° for about six to eight minutes, just until the fish is firm to the touch.  I served this with Parmesan risotto and buttered corn.  The smell filled the house while we were eating our salad and we couldn’t wait to dig into this great fish dish.

Mahi Oreganata

If you want to know how far the relationship between the USA and Bahrain has deteriorated, just read these quick communiqué. There is no good that is going to come from this intervention by Saudi Arabia and poor little Bahrain is going to become the next flash point of sectarian violence in the Middle East. Bahrain ruling elite, like Qaddafi in Libya, is using the cover of the crisis in Japan to flex their muscle while the world media is otherwise engaged.

Happy Ides, Cindy and Wm.

Unsettled in Moscow

I had a bit of an unsettling walk this afternoon.  The walk itself was fine, the weather spectacular, no hat, no scarf, and no gloves.  I did get wet, couldn’t help it, everyone walking got wet. If the water pouring down from the buildings didn’t get you, the pools and ponds around the curbs did, as you either were splashed by passing cars or misjudged the depth of the water as you tried to jump or step from street to sidewalk. It didn’t matter; it was so lovely outside that a little water made it even a bit more enjoyable.

The troubling aspect came first when I went into the expensive French bakery that is about six blocks from our apartment.  I wanted to get Cindy a fruit tart and a loaf of good French bread.  I’ve shopped there before without any difficulty but today the new royalty of Russia was out in full force.  Two young women with three hundred dollar haircuts and thousand dollar boots had five counter girls running ragged with their complex order and their imperious ways. While I certainly didn’t understand the conversation, the body language was obvious and their tone of voice was so dismissive, and yet the girls all jumped.  By the time these lesser than grand dames had paid and departed, the store had filled up and it seems all the other women in the place got the best of me, despite my having been the first in line.  My mistake was that I stayed near the tarts when I guess you need to go towards the cash register.  I had waited too long already and had to admit defeat and went to another bakery where I was waited on right away.  No tart for Cindy however.

Even more troubling than just being aced out of a shopping line was observing four young kids, two boys and two girls, who must have ranged in age from 14 to 16 getting stone drunk at 2:30.  One of the boys had gone into the general store across the street from us and came out with a liter of vodka and two liters of beer and the four kids proceeded to sit on the fence and drink and smoke until all the booze was gone and then they just left their mess there and staggered on.  It is sad enough to see older folks drunk but young kids drinking and smoking as an after school activity is just depressing as hell.

We weren’t too hungry last night since we had had a late lunch so I just caramelized some onions, red pepper, and garlic and used them as the filling for a small omelette, which I served on a bed of arugula. Cindy had purchased some olive bread and a bun filled with spiced chicken so we heated them up and they accompanied the omelette quite nicely.

Things are going from bad to worse in Bahrain. Yesterday police stormed the University where Cindy worked to stop some protests. Thousands of protesters clogged the main artery into the financial district of Bahrain. Gulf Community Conference forces, mostly Sunni from Saudi Arabia, have entered Bahrain to help stop the protesters, and Iran threatens to enter if even one Shia is killed.  Great Britain has issued a travel ban on entering Bahrain, and oh yes, today would have been the opening of the Formula One race had it not been cancelled.  The country doesn’t know how to handle real democracy and I’m afraid we are propping up the dynasty, much to the dismay of the majority population of Bahrain. 

I know there must be some really good news out there but I’m having a hard time finding it.  No, wait our friend Vernia in Australia got to go a million miles an hour in an open top Lotus on a race track and as she said, ‘blew the cobwebs out of her hair. I remember now that our dear friends Brent and Kari are sipping rum-somethings in the middle of the Caribbean instead of enduring more winter in Minnesota.  These things give me joy!

Best wishes, Cindy and Wm

Lazy Sunday in Moscow

It snowed again overnight, but just lightly, and by noon the temperature was touching forty and the big melt was in full force.  We did sleep late, but not as late as yesterday since we had a luncheon to attend.  Cindy was up and out on a search for croissants while I tackled the treadmill for 23 minutes.  Despite her best efforts and multiple stops at various stores, Cindy was unable to find a fresh croissant so we enjoyed some other little pastry with our coffee.

Last night’s silent auction was quite nice. The organizing committee did a grand job of decorating the school and as we entered there were costumed greeters, a Brazilian dance group gyrating to a samba beat and hundreds of people surrounding tables of food, drink and chance.  One of the main cafeterias had been set up like New Orleans with hundreds of gift baskets lining long tables named after various famous streets in New Orleans. This was the silent auction room and people seemed to be very generous in their bidding.  There was one ‘French Basket’ that had lots of lovely goodies, and twenty minutes before the bidding was stopped it was already fetching $1500. We ended up the winners of a Ukraine Basket, which was filled with a small artificial Christmas tree and lots and lots of hand painted eggs.  I told Cindy that it was the last Christmas tree we were ever going to purchase and since there were lots of people around she didn’t argue. I’m rather sure I’m wrong!

We had lunch today with our new friends, Katy and Craig, who moved here from Costa Rica. They are now settled in a magnificent apartment about a fifteen-minute walk from here.  They invited us over for a glass of Prosecco to see their new digs and I’m relatively sure I’m going to move in with them and be their cook.  They have a huge, not just by Russian standards, apartment with two large bedrooms, two and a half baths, living room, sitting room, dining area and enormous kitchen with a big table for family meals.  There is a full-length enclosed balcony on both sides of the apartment and there is lots and lots of sunlight.  The ceilings are tall and there is lovely decorative molding everywhere as well as grand glass chandeliers in most of the rooms. All of that, plus there is air conditioning in each of the bedrooms as well as in the living room.  The apartment of course comes with a huge price tag, but it was wonderful for us to see how those in the private sector live, compared to educators. 

We walked to a small Georgian café/restaurant for a light lunch.  The joint didn’t have any wine that we wanted, so we washed everything down with local beer.  Very friendly place and I’m sure if they go there often they’ll become regulars.  The food was great and we had to depend on Cindy’s expertise with the language to figure out what was on the menu. I’m pleased to report that she did a great job (from CC: except for the pickles!  They like to pickle everything and what I thought would be a nice mix of fresh vegetables was colorful and tasty, but not fresh.)

Our walk there and back was delightful since I didn’t even need to wear a hat; it was that warm and wonderful. Lots of melting and we could hear huge chunks of frozen snow sliding off of roofs and garages.  The clouds are rolling in now, but the day was a true delight.

Hoping those of you in the USA have had a successful transition to Daylight Savings Time, which I consider to be a complete waste of time.  Did I mention that when the Russians go onto Daylight Saving Time at the end of the month they will stay there year round?  Yep, they want to keep a nice time difference between themselves and the rest of the Western World. 

Happy Sunday, Cindy and Wm

Morning Blizzard; Afternoon Calm

We woke up this morning at 6:15 to the delightful sounds of garbage trucks making a huge noise as they emptied the ten dumpsters for our complex.  I looked out the window into a blinding blizzard and did the only sensible thing I could think of: Retuned to bed. We finally got up at about 9:45 and it was still snowing.  I had so hoped that the snows were behind us but Cindy reminded me that we were in Moscow and it might snow through April.

We did our exercise routines and while Cindy walked to the store for bakery goodies, I did 20 minutes on our new treadmill.  I started using it on Wednesday and each day I’ve added a few minutes to the workout.  I was particularly happy to have it today since a long walk did not seem to be an option.  The rest of the morning was devoted to just being lazy and drinking coffee and doing some work on the computer.  We watched BBC to see the latest on the earthquake in Japan. Some of the footage of the devastating tsunami was simply incredible.  The sheer force of the huge waves was hard to imagine and we sat there dumbfounded as we watched large buildings being crushed to the ground and carried away by the water.  I will always be amazed at people who decide to stop their cars to watch the water approaching them, only to realize that they misgauged the speed and bam, they were just washed away.

Cindy had a particularly rough day in school yesterday and was none too pleased with the way things had gone. I thought it would be a good idea to have a nice dinner and invite a couple who work at the school to come over so Cindy could talk it though with folks that understand the system better than I do.  We had a proper roast chicken dinner with lots of vegetables and gravy, and apple strudel for dessert.  The conversation and comfort food did much to relax everyone and it was a fun evening. (It is evenings like this that make me wish I had a dishwasher.)

We are off to an event at AAS tonight. It is a fundraiser with a silent auction and the theme is Carnivale around the world, even though we are four days into Lent. It promises to be an interesting evening. We were originally drawn to the event because of the promise of dancing to a live band. It wasn’t until we had paid for our tickets that we were told the dancing starts at ten and lasts until one, but the bus to take us home departs the school at ten thirty!  Bummer.

The sun is out, the temperature has gone up to 36° and the snow is melting fast.  Tomorrow is supposed to be in the 40s so we have high hopes for more melting. 

Until the morrow, Cindy and Wm

Moscow Traffic Management

Okay, quick quiz:  What do the UN, NATO, African Union, EU and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have in common? Answer: When they are really needed to resolve a crisis, they become paralyzed.  I’m not suggesting that we go into Libya or the Ivory Coast with guns blazing, but certainly the restoration of law and order in these and other countries seem to be at the heart of what these organizations are all about.  Sanctions and strong language do not work. Concrete actions are required, especially went you are dealing with petty tyrants and nut jobs. Okay, so I guess I don’t have a career in diplomacy.

On a more relaxed level, here is a story that was told to Cindy by one of the ‘old timers’ at her school.

When some friends at the school first moved to Moscow in the late 1990s they were taking pictures with film (weren't we all).  After the roll of 24 was finished Bruce looked for a place to get them developed and was thrilled when he spotted a sign over a store that said Kodak.  He dropped off the roll and got a receipt.  Feeling proud of his progress thus far, he returned a few days later and was handed an envelope full of negatives.  Stymied but not knowing enough Russian to ask questions, Bruce took the envelope to the school secretary (who was Russian) to ask why he'd only gotten negatives.  Well, you have to ASK for prints.  So back he went to order prints, and a few days later picked them up - but there were only 18 prints out of 24.  Stymied again, he went back to the secretary, to be told that they only print the good ones!!
Even though we don't use film any more, this and similar stories are the norm here...

I took a very long walk today, and even though it is ten degrees cooler, it is bright and sunny and the sidewalks are clear.  I was in a more affluent area that has rather narrow streets when I heard this loud metal against metal sound.  Normally those sounds are preceded by the screeching of brakes, a bit of a crash, and then the crunch of metal, but not this time.  As I got closer to the sound I saw a big white bus, the kind that the military uses to move people around, blocking a T in the road.  Traffic was halted on all three sides of the T. Drivers were honking their horns even though they could see that the bus was not going anywhere.  It turns out that a new, very clean, bright red Honda Civic was illegally parked on the corner of one of the narrow roads.  That did not give the bus enough room to make the turn and the middle of the bus was wedged into the side of the Civic and couldn’t move.  Right on that corner is a café/ restaurant favored by the rich and famous and it always has a contingent of armed police and what look like body guards/secret service types in suits.  Three of the uniformed police came over, looked over the situation and tried to lift the Civic onto the curb. They could not move it despite their best efforts. Meanwhile the suits were getting upset that the only way in and out was now blocked, which from a security point of view isn’t good.

What came next I’m assuming could only happen in Moscow.  There was a quick conference, one of the suits went to the driver of the bus and said something and then the driver got into the bus, gunned the engine and proceeded to make the turn by knocking the Civic onto the curb. The bus kept going, traffic eventually cleared out and the Civic will need to have a new left side installed.  I would have loved to have stayed around until the owner showed up.

Dinner last night was a variation on soup and salad, except we didn’t have salad. Instead I heated some pre-prepared corn blinis until they were nice and hot. I then spread them with salmon roe paste, placed a sliced tomato on top and capped it with sour cream and a fresh parsley leaf.  The soup was Mulligatawny; at least that is what I called it. It was prepared with some fresh chicken stock, some vegetables that had been saved from other dinners, some rice from last night and extra curry for flavor. It all seemed to work well and my critic gave it a thumbs up.

We hope you have a lovely weekend, Cindy and Wm

Moscow Meltdown

I took a long walk today in lovely melting Moscow. For the first time in more than four months, I was walking briskly and fully erect, a sure harbinger of spring. At times I felt like I was walking along a path filled with waterfalls. Water was pouring from every rooftop, gutter and drain.  The gutters that were damaged due to ice produced torrents of water, some from as high as ten stories.  You can imagine the lengths one had to go in order to avoid a very cold shower.  It was all worth the effort however and I was just overjoyed to once again be out and about in Moscow. I even had to take off my gloves and hat because it was just too darn warm!

Those of you who know me well realize that I’m a flawless judge of character, which is why you are my friends.  I had this point validated again today.  If you’ll remember, on March 2^nd I wrote: “The flight from Munich to Lisbon was smooth and comfortable; I had a lady with impeccable manners next to me.”  Well it turns out that lady is Her Royal Highness The Princess of Bulgaria.  We had had just a lovely conversation about so many things and in the course of the three hour flight I found out she was on the board of The American University of Bulgaria and that she was close personal friends with our US Ambassador here in Moscow.  I don’t know the ambassador, but I was very well acquainted with the American University of Bulgaria - in fact, in 1990 I almost had Boston University selected to be the US partner for that University, which was originally funded by USAID and George Soros. So, HRH and I talked about the progress they have made over the past twenty years and I most likely will go and visit them sometime this spring. 

I did a lot of fruit shopping today at the local market at the end of my long, long walk. Things are starting to look much better in the produce department, which again is a very good sign of spring. The sidewalk vendors on the way to the market that usually are there only from Friday to Sunday have taken to opening some of their trucks on Thursday and selling out of them.  I’m sure there are bargains to be had there but still, nothing looks very ‘local’.

We had seafood again last night due to the fact that I made an embassy run and they had some lovely fresh frozen scallops.  I pan seared them and finished them in a teriyaki sauce and served them over a bed of yellow rice, yellowed and flavored by the turmeric.  This was served with a lot of freshly sautéed Brussels sprouts and garlic; quite colorful.  The wine was one I had picked up at the embassy, white Bordeaux, but it was corked and we resorted to boxed Italian.

I saw a mind-boggling assortment of car accidents today on my walk.  None looked as though there was any injury, but lots of car and truck pieces spread all over the roads. One in particular was on a very small street where you wouldn’t think there could be anyone doing any more than 20 miles an hour, and yet both cars, one a service van and the other an SUV, were really mangled. Of course this led to complete gridlock since there was no way around the accident and the horns were blaring so I got out of there fast.  As I was walking I suddenly realized that I’m always telling people the amazing statistic that at any given time 30% or more of Russians are drunk. It never occurred to me that of course many of them are also driving, which now explains a great deal.

For a hundred or so billionaires that are in Russia, accidents like the above are not an issue because they can just get new cars.  Forbes confirms that Moscow is the Billionaire Capital of the World!  This is great news since we’ll be here long enough for me to scout around and befriend one or more of these folks to help us launch our next careers. 

Cheers, Cindy and Wm

VP Brings Warmth to Moscow

The temperature has been above freezing for most of the day. That, coupled with intense sunshine, has produced a lovely thaw and water is running freely off buildings, down roads and most importantly, off sidewalks.  I took the opportunity to walk for about an hour, taking the long way to the embassy.  Once I arrived I knew something was up since they made me show them my badge and they compared it to names on a list.  I was allowed in and the first thing I saw was a parked motorcade of about 25 vehicles, mostly SUVs and Minivans.  They had little signs on them with the emblem of the Vice-President of the USA, and then I remembered that Biden was going to be here for a few days visiting with Medvedev and Putin and others.

The embassy was jumping with lots of press people, tons of secret service agents, many people from the VP’s staff and all of them on their cell phones.  I went into the Liberty Store and did my modest shopping only to end up behind a line of about twelve secret service guys, all purchasing lots of hard liquor and candy bars.  Nothing makes me feel better than to know that the secret service lives on booze and candy bars and that my tax dollars go towards them taking cases of booze back to Washington on Air Force Two.

The morning was spent doing lots of little chores that had accumulated while I was gone. Cleaning filters, washing and filling humidifiers, doing a few loads of laundry and trying to catch up on email and work related odds and ends on the computer.  I put the treadmill through its paces this morning and it works a lot better than I do.  I was tired after only seven minutes but I’m motivated to use it every day and shed a few pounds.  The bench part of it is very nice but since we have no room I can’t use the bench for any exercising since my arms keep hitting the wall.

Last night I was too tired to go to the store to shop so I looked in the fridge and found some nice frozen tuna fillets.  I defrosted them in warm water - they are vacuumed packed which makes that task easy - and set them in a shallow bowl of lemon juice.  While they ‘cooked’ in the juice, I cut up carrots, onions, garlic, red pepper and zucchini and got them ready to stir-fry in the wok.   I cut up some potatoes and placed them in a saucepan ready to boil.  About twenty minutes before we were ready to eat, I cooked the potatoes and started stir-frying the vegetables. I seasoned them with turmeric, chili peppers, curry, and salt and pepper. Just before they were ready I added about a quarter of a cup of Jamaican jerk marinade and stirred things up before transferring them to a serving bowl.  The potatoes were done so I drained them and added a mixture I had made earlier of finely chopped parsley, garlic and black pepper to the saucepan until the garlic was lightly browned.   For the tuna, I got the wok very hot and threw in the fillets for about two minutes on each side and brought them hot and tasty to the table.  It was fun to cook for Cindy and to just have time to sit and enjoy one another again.

Ciao for now,  Cindy and Wm

Let the Good Times Roll

Happy Mardi Gras!

I’m back in Moscow after a rather early morning flight.  The weather enroute was just lovely and I was able to trace our route of flight via their inflight magazine.  We went right over Dresden, a city I still haven’t seen and really want to, as well as over Warsaw and Minsk. The demarcation line between snow and no snow was somewhere just past Warsaw so there is hope that we’ll be snow-free sometime in the next two months.  We flew right over Moscow and the views were incredible with little sparkler like flashes, as the sun would hit the golden domes of all the churches.  Parts of the Moscow River are open and the runways and taxiways are completely clear and clean.

Today is a holiday in Russia, as well as most former communist countries. It is International Women’s Day, which started 100 years ago as part of the suffrage movement.  Seems like it is now a cross between Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day and you don’t want to go out to a restaurant tonight.  I thought with the holiday the traffic might be light and I could take a taxi.  However, because it is a legal holiday, the taxis can charge supplements, in this case a very hefty supplement and the trip would have cost about $85.  I demurred in favor of the train to the Metro, which only took about an hour today and cost about $16. The Metro was jammed with folks carrying flowers for either mom or wife or girlfriend, and since this is Moscow, there were some guys with two sets of flowers, most likely for wife and girlfriend.  This holiday has been transformed over the years, and as this article points out, not for the best. Holidays also bring out the beggars and the Metro had quite a few today, adding a sense of local color and a scent of eau du bum.

My flight today was at 8 am but we were told, via an email, to get to the airport early due to new security concerns.  I had checked a bag so I really didn’t have much in the way of ‘dangerous’ things, but I was still ‘selected’ for a secondary search.  Goodness the Germans are thorough, in fact, so thorough that had they been any more diligent I could have skipped my next colonoscopy!  This of course created lots of problems and delays and several people missed the flight since Lufthansa doesn’t wait for anyone.  I arrived at the airport at 6 am and the join was jumping. Frankfurt Airport has been completely renovated and it is very, very upscale now.  All the funky little stores, cafes and bars have been replaced with international brands. Gone is the little grocery store that used to be in the basement where you could buy last minute German items to take home.  Even the duty free stores only sell the big international brands and I can’t get my Italian brandy in Frankfurt any more.  The price of change sometimes isn’t worth the price.

So, time to go and see what I’ll do for dinner tonight. Cindy should be home soon and even though it has only been one week, it sure seems longer. 

Ciao, wm  

Lisbon Walkabout

Saturday, March 5, 2011

I skipped lunch today in order to get a bit more than an hour to look around Lisbon.  I’ve been involved in meetings since arrival and haven’t really had a chance to see anything of this city.  I suppose if I hadn’t gone to Porto in January, I would be more impressed with Lisbon.  The city has lots to recommend, beautiful old buildings, some lovely walking areas along the River Tejo, old trams and funiculars that go right up the very steep streets that connect the old city to the Barrio Alta, but the city has some very major downsides as well.  Here are some pictures if you’re interested.

Lisbon has not been well maintained.  Part of it has to do with the lousy state of the economy and most here know they are going to end up like Greece and Ireland, deeply in debt and having to suffer huge cutbacks in benefits and services.  There are many buildings in the downtown core, as well as the tourist areas, that have just been abandoned.  There are gypsy women, always with children, begging next to every ATM machine.  There are a lot of homeless filling parks, in doorways of fancy buildings, some right in front of our hotel.  Lisbon seems to be home for thousands of Africans from former Portuguese colonies like Angola, Mozambique, and Equatorial Guinea.  Today I saw several hundred filling one of the downtown squares, some just talking others selling stuff and some of them annoying tourist with their begging.  There were about five people, all homeless by the looks of them, going up and down the outdoor restaurant area asking customers for food.  It was all very sad.

My trip just got a bit shorter since I’m not going to be going to Germany from here.  The people we were scheduled to meet with have been called away to other meetings in other parts of Europe so we’ll reschedule that part of the trip.  This allows me to get home on Tuesday so Cindy and I can celebrate Mardi Gras.  I have no idea what we’ll do, but we’ll at least be together three days earlier than expected.

Ok, time to get back to work.  Enjoy the weekend.  Cindy told me it snowed again!  Wm

Sunshine Here and There

A bright beautiful day in Lisbon, but I’m in meetings all day so it is wasted on my.  I did get a lovely hour walk in early this morning and was walking past a barbershop just as it was opening.  I figured since I was in Portugal, why not.  It was a good experience, not great like Porto, but better than any place I’ve had my hair cut in the USA in the past twenty years.  It was a shop similar to the Porto place but it has not been kept up and there were lots of examples of deferred maintenance.  Paint falling from the ceiling, literally, cracked plaster walls, a general lack of spit polish on all surfaces, but by the time I noticed all of this I was already wrapped up and ready so I just let it go. 

The haircut took a bit longer than I thought since twice he had to stop cutting to answer the phone.  It appears that he must be a landlord for some apartments since I could understand just enough to know that he was telling tenants that there was nothing he could do about whatever problem they were having.  Judging from his shop, I can only imagine the condition of his apartments.  When he finally had time to work on my hair he did a good job.  Mostly scissors and razor so I look decent for these meetings and I’m hoping the cut will last long enough so that my next one can be in Italy in April.

I’ve a twenty-minute break before more meetings and then some big dinner somewhere in Lisbon.  These are very interesting meetings with very interesting people so the time really goes quickly but I’ve really no free time for writing and I refuse to bring a computer to any meeting.

Cindy reports that the temperature inched above freezing and that the sun was bright and warm.  She said that all the Russians were telling her ‘eto vesna’, it is spring!  Everything is relative in Moscow!  Speaking of which, Gorbi is getting a big honor from Dmitry and Vlad.  As Bobby said, “the times they are a changing”.

Must run, Wm

The Most Annoying Man in the World

I would like to introduce you to the most annoying man in the world.

His name is Dieter, he's an accountant, hasn’t washed his hair in days, and looks like a poorly dressed troll.

Any of you who have visited Germany know that their newspapers are designed to make a lot of noise when you turn the pages.  Dieter attacks a newspaper the way his father attacked Poland, with force and explosive movements.  He had not one but four newspapers and he kept snapping the pages the way one snaps a towel in the locker room when you are young and dumb.  In between this noise fest he took out a nail clipper and preceded to trim his nails, even the ones on his prehensile feet.  That noise is like chalk on a blackboard to me and I almost smacked him, but I'm nice.

He ate like a caveman, fingers flying, napkin discarded as unnecessary since he never used it, favoring to use the back of his hand to wipe his face as a more efficient method of hygiene.  After placing enough food in his mouth to look like a chipmunk in autumn, he would then take huge gulps of beer and swish it all around and shallow hard followed by lovely burps.  To end our lovely time together he proceeded to fall fast asleep and snored loudly, like the slob that he was.  It was truly a memorable flight.  This guy should have been on the outside of the plane looking in!

Munich airport is huge, efficient, and lovely.  It is everything that most airports are not.  It is meticulously clean; it has very wide passageways so that everyone can move about easily.  It is nicely lit and had art and architecture to amuse and calm the soul.  Between every four gates there are little kiosks that have all the papers you could think of plus coffee machines for espresso, cappuccino, etc, all free.  There are even little bistro tables so you can sit and wait for your flight to be called, it is so civil. 

The flight from Munich to Lisbon was smooth and comfortable; I had a lady with impeccable manners next to me.  TAP, the Portuguese airline, has little TV monitors throughout the cabin that continually show you where you are, which I love.  The Alps were pure white and the Iberian Peninsula was just lovely to look at from 37,000 feet.  Traffic in Lisbon is as bad as Moscow and it took about an hour to get to the hotel, but it is a lovely city and it gave me a chance to looks a monuments and old buildings that are truly amazing.

That is it for now; I’m really whipped and need to rest well for the upcoming marathon of meetings.  Ciao, wm

Day of Delays

The trip to the airport was really a trip.  It took a bit more than two hours because of all the heightened security.  A total of three searches before even getting to the check-in counter!  The Metro stops had teams of police with dogs who I assume are trained to smell Muslims.  When I got to the train station I had to go through security and that was before having to go through another set of security screenings before getting to the Aero Express train to the airport.  There was yet another screening of all luggage and you had to pass through a metal detector and then get a pat down just to get into the airport.  Finally, I was cleared to go to the check-in counter to get a boarding pass so that I could go through yet another screening, this one a full blown one to include taking off almost all of your clothes.  Somehow, with all of that, I don't feel any safer.

Lufthansa used to be one of the best airlines in the world, and in many respects they are still excellent, but German Punctuality has taken a nosedive.  We were late departing, quite late arriving and then we had to wait for forty minutes for luggage, and all of this for a very light flight.  The flight attendants certainly know how to keep the Russians in check.  First of all they limit the alcohol they serve.  Just some wine and beer and only one at a time, despite the pleas of Russian men for four beers all at once!  They, unlike Air France, do not allow the Russians to open up Duty Free booze and drink themselves silly.  On our flight from Paris to Moscow there was a guy across the aisle from us who opened a full liter of scotch and managed, with the help of his girl friend, to finish almost all of it before landing.  Needless to say, they were not bright eyed and bushy tailed after landing.

I’m staying at The Munich Airport Novotel, which is a mid-level budget hotel chain.  I got a good deal and checked to make sure they had a restaurant and a bus to get there since it is a bit away from the airport.  While waiting for my luggage I asked a Lufthansa agent how to get to the hotel.  I was told to follow the signs for Hotel Shuttles, which I did.  When I got to the assigned area for shuttles, there was a little sign that said, in German, For Novotel take city bus 658 at stop 15!  This was across the street and I turned just in time to see the bus leaving, which gave me twenty minutes to figure out where my Euro change was since it was going to cost 1.45 Euros for the ride.  Forty minutes later, I arrived at the hotel bus stop, and walked the rest of the way to the hotel.  When I checked in I mentioned how inconvenient this process was, and how the website never mentioned all the little details, I was told, “ Well it says you take the bus.”  I was too tired to start an argument so I simply asked for an evaluation form, which I’ll fill out in the morning.  If you want to know if things are expensive here, just think about how much food you could buy for 27 dollars.  That is what BREAKFAST costs!  Needless to say, I’ll get something at the airport before the flight.

Yesterday I went shopping for dinner to make sure that Cindy had at least three to four meals to get her thru the week.  I decided to do a Swedish meal since we were going to finish the aquavit and sing Swedish drinking songs.  I splurged and got a lovely hunk of smoked Scottish Salmon, which I sliced and arranged on a tray with lemon, sour cream, pickles, hard-boiled eggs, crudités, and hot broccoli blini.  It was a lovely starter and gave us ample opportunity for song.  The next course was pan-fried baby octopus, with lemon, olive oil, garlic and paprika, which was served with hot new potatoes tossed with fresh parsley and garlic.  We had grand white Bordeaux with this and it was a very lovely meal.

It is time for a walk before it gets too dark.  Happy March, which did not arrive like a lion.  Ciao, wm