It's beautiful

It's noisy.


    I walk to work. 


It's grimy.


   Feels like home. 


Marseille,


   It's beautiful.

xo

bb

Learning the facts of life (again)

When you spend some time in a new country, you sometimes find yourself relearning the facts of life. No, not those facts of life, but I mean the little social conventions which if observed smooth daily interactions and which if ignored (perhaps because you didn't know) cause small frictions.

I've been to Germany before, many times, but never for quite this long. When the office offered me a month's worth of work here, after checking the weather charts I grabbed it. As I settled in, I began noticing (or was reminded of) some of these little facts of life. So in case you are ever visiting Germany here is my list so far:

• Always close the door! In Germany (but for that matter in most places other than the US?) all doors don't automatically shut behind you. Or that is they do, because if you find a door closed then after you pass through you must reclose it. Simple enough. But I realize how used we are in the US to doors automatically shutting behind you. One tends to forget. No worries, your kind hosts will remind you!
• To stay or take away? In the US many places automatically serve you in paper cups. But in Germany, when they ask you "to stay or take away?" they really mean it, for two reasons. First, to stay and to go may have different prices (again, the same as many countries other than the US), and second because of recycling. If you're staying in, often even at a sidewalk cart, they will serve you in ceramic or glass and with real cutlery, so everything can be washed and reused.
• Stick to your lane! Most streets have designated lanes for bicycles. Pedestrians straying into these zones will be offered as much mercy as a pigeon wandering across the I-95. An important subtlety, as I've discovered, is that when bicycle lanes are on the street rather than the sidewalk they often go in the opposite direction of car flow. So you really must look both ways before crossing.
• May I take your coat? It is considered impolite to sit in your coat in indoor situations (restaurants, concert halls, offices). Someone will offer to take your coat, and you give it to them.
• Recycle. Every situation seems to have its own recycling code, but you must follow it strictly. At the office, it's plastic / glass and metal / other waste. At home, for some reason it is glass, paper, and everything else. In the park, it's mostly just one trash receptacle.
• Related to this, bring your own bags to the grocery store. You will not be offered bags. If you are disorganized enough to shop without them (ahem), then you can buy bags, but since you are buying them as you check out you need to guess in advance exactly how many you will need.
• Water is a human right. Offices in Germany all provide bottled water to their staff (I'm told, but haven't been able to confirm that it is required by law). Lightly or heavily carbonated, your choice.
• The correct serving size for a beer is 1L. I was in the park with a few friends, and asked for a small beer (really, I'm a wine person). "That's for children," the bartender snorted in somehow a friendly way, and served me 1L instead.  (But wait, park, beer, wine? Yes, you read correctly. Beer is apparently also a human right, which you have the right to access in the park. For that matter, in Austria I have seen construction workers having it for breakfast.)
• Tipping and restaurant bills. Again, like many countries other than the US, they will ask whether you want to pay together or separately. And as such, it is quite normal, even when dining with a friend that everyone gets their own bill, rather than trying pay your share. However, you do have to remember what you had, because when your bill is being prepared, you tell the waiter what you had. After you know  the amount, you add around 10 percent, try to figure out the nearest whole number to that amount, and then ask for the amount of change you need back, leaving the tip implied. Very classy, if you can pull off the math.
• The hidden code of jay walking. Here I'm still figuring it out. Germans are famous for always waiting for the crossing light, and by and large this is true. But there are some occasions where I will people crossing if there is no one coming. I wish I could figure out the hidden code. It has something to do with the size of the street, but there's more that I haven't figured out.

If I think of more, I'll post them in the comments. The weather has turned fine the last day or so. I'm hoping to finish early and head out to enjoy it! Hope there's a hint of summer where you are.

xo

bb

Getting back on my feet (after being swept off them!)

Well it wasn't that kind of sweeping (i.e., not the flutter-of-the-heart variety), but more sweeping the floor in an empty apartment one minute, standing on my soon-to-be balcony in New York the next day, to boarding a flight to Europe and arriving to find that my bag with two months' of clothes is lost (you read correctly -- not delayed, lost).

But I should backtrack. My original plan was to start looking for a New York apartment after returning from my European sojourn. I was touring some apartments with an agent just as a way to introduce myself to her for when I really need her in July. But she offered to show me some apartments, so I agreed. The first three were exactly what I was expecting: depressing! But I was expecting that, so I used them as a way to explain what I was looking for, and even mentioned that I might come back to New York for a few days just to view apartments. But then she mentioned something that had just become available and took me over to see it. And there it was! Apartment love at first sight: south facing, a second western exposure, an actual bedroom (recall, my Boston place was a quasi-loft my New York place a studio -- no real bedrooms), and a small balcony where I can watch the sunset (and breathe New York's wonderful pollution). I said yes on the spot. And there, by a TKO in the first round, the twelve-round apartment search was over. Even better, the lease doesn't have to start for another two months... just when I get back.

I was on this high that I landed in Europe, imagining all the wonderful ways I would spend my summer, now that I knew what I was going back to. So happy was I that I didn't notice that almost everyone had left with their suitcases and I was still waiting. I was in such a good mood that I cheerfully filed my delayed baggage claim, expecting that it would be delivered in the afternoon. That was last week. Now they have unofficially declared it lost (officially they have to wait three weeks). Fortunately, I wasn't traveling with anything I really love, but when I started to add what it would cost to buy enough clothes for the next two months, I began to feel a little wobbly.

In the end,  I replaced about half the things, enough to get me through two months, albeit in a little less style than I would liked. You might imagine (as I sort of did) some kind of glorious shopping spree. Instead it was more like having blood drawn, one pint at a time. No matter, I've digested it, and am ready to move on with my summer.

Hope you are feeling summer in the air wherever you are -- I am!

xo

bb

Going to the beach and The Beautiful game, Indian style

xo

bb

Becoming my father (or Paying the price)

I've been back from India since Saturday afternoon. Since then I have slept a grand total of 12 hours -- over three days. I should be feeling dead tired. I'm not. Just a little dazed, but otherwise quite functional. Though I'm not usually afflicted by jet lag, this time I seem to be affected by half of the syndrome (early rising), while the other half (delicious daytime naps) remains elusive.

My early rising (5 am Sunday, 4.30 am Monday, 3.45 am Tuesday -- noticing a trend?) somehow makes me feel like my father. Like many Indian men and women he is an early riser. For him, there is nothing more spiritual than greeting the rising sun (although not from having been out all night; that's something my father never managed to see the romance of). When we were young, he would rise early (4 am or so), and work for several hours while everyone was asleep. Since he's a doctor, it wasn't his day job that he was working on, but instead coursework from classes he would take at the university. All of those early mornings eventually got him to a Ph.D.

I wonder if he felt in those morning hours as I feel now: slightly tired, but fully alert mentally. Every now and then, my father would wake either my brother or me earlier than usual (ahem, 5 am), and would make us a cup of tea (in India, even children drink it). We would chat a bit, and then both get to work. I'm pretty good in the mornings, so, although this sounds like torture, for me it was a delicious pleasure to spend those early, intimate morning hours with my father.

They say that as you age you become your parents. Well, I'm paying the price for my travels. It's happening.

xo

bb

P.S. In keeping with house rules, the flugelbindery is applying its usual 2:1 ratio: for every week I've been away (whether for holidays or work travel), two weeks' worth of work is waiting for me on my return. As soon as I dig myself out from under the mountain of work, I look forward to being back at your blogs (and back to my usual sleep habits).

A confession or Guilty pleasures or I blog therefore I am

xo

bb

p.s. caught you by surprise, didn't i, in the last frame. the essence of the guilty pleasure is of course guilt. knowing me, you know the guilt is not that i didn't attempt to bake these from scratch (don't have the skill or patience), but is instead eating something from a box when i have a baker around the corner. but while the local boys are magicians with muffins and even brioches, they have not mastered the croissant.

p.p.s. speaking of guilty, i have been very remiss at posting and reading your blogs. i'll be back to it soon! the fluguelbindery made me an offer i couldn't refuse - a one week work trip to india in exchange for a week of holidays, all decided at short notice. i've just finished the holiday, and now i have to pay the bills...

A life without Blogger, Facebook, and Google

A bit like that Christmastime classic, It's a Wonderful Life, one sometimes wonders what life would be like if some small, seemingly inconsequential detail were changed. What, for example, would life be like without Blogger, Facebook, and Google?

I got to run this little experiment during my week in China, since these three sites are blocked there. The middle of three seems the easiest to do without. After all, you can still e-mail your friends. The last was a handicap certainly. And the first -- outright painful! Yes, dear friends, I missed you all! And not only that, but I missed myself, if you know what I mean (and I know you all do): the act of writing is not only expression, but also creation. Describing what we see or feel, our musings, helps them take shape, forces a cloud of possibilities and probabilities to condense into a particular form.

Hope you are all easing into the holidays nicely. Look forward to catching up on some missed blog reading and writing soon!

xo

bb

Changed planes in SF yesterday. This was the view. Almost makes an 11 hour flight worthwhile!

Lisztomana or Lost in Translation

I feel like one of the characters in Lost in Translation. One - which one -  perhaps both.

I am sitting in the airport in Hong Kong. I got up at 3.30 am today, without an alarm, left the friends with whom I was staying [I added an extra day to my work trip so I could walk around a little - the office generously expropriated only half of my day off] by 5 am, only to discover at the airport that my flight was canceled and I had to wait until noon.

I talked my way into the pre-flight lounge and found myself pondering the following after my second cup of coffee:

• What do the lyrics of Lisztomania really mean?
• Is it wrong to drink before noon 7 am? (And I don't mean when you've stayed up all night - in that case if you are still capable of drinking then I think you've earned it.) This is one of those moments where I wish I were standing at the bar in some small town in Italy in December where the old men don't doubt the good sense of getting a shot of grappa in their espresso.
• What does it all mean? No, I don't mean life, but I mean my Google and Blogger tabs which have all kindly been translated into Chinese for me.

A few postcards from the last few days. Hope you're easing into the holidays. A few more days for me and then home!

xo

bb

Home away from home

I know I've written about this before, but I am still always taken by it. You get on a plane, fly 7 hours, and then fly 14 hours more. You are disoriented. Sleep not enough or too much. You wake up dehydrated and with a headache. Feeling a little displaced. And you crack open your computer... and you feel at home right away. Is it beautiful, this modern virtual existence of ours, where our friends are online and where the the desktop is the home?

Yes, and a little sad as well. Because as much as these images and words bridge time and space, and as much as I believe that oldest virtual world and connection of all (ideas and images which we hold in our mind) do the same, there is no substitute for local living.


xo


bb

Not sure why I love the grime and decay of New York, but I do.

Hang on Emmy!

On the road, BB edition

Friends,

I am back on the road for the next days. In some ways exciting (frequent flier miles - attempted exclamation point), in other ways not (14 hours sitting in a middle seat anyone?)

Being more flugelbindery than personal, this trip may not lead to many exciting posts, but it will lead to me being back, and more posts in that sense (if this makes sense - no it does not).

So wish you all a great week or 10 days. Will try to post from the road, but if not, then see you very soon.

xo

bb

Off the wagon and back on again

No don't worry it's not that kind of thing...

But this week the flugelbindery sent me on a flash trip to DC, and for a few minutes here and there I felt like an addict reintroduced to the drug you've learned to love and hate. Though not in the big leagues of work travelers, I've done my share of the shuttle: New York - Boston was a weekly ritual for a long while, and then NY - DC as well and of course monthly trans-Atlantics for a few years. I had the uncomfortable feeling of recognizing the old me in some of my fellow passengers: shuttle veterans who know the flight staff, regulars who know exactly what they're going to drink or which snacks they like and exactly how many. Not unlike George Clooney in Up in the Air, I quickly recovered my instincts for going through all the security screening without missing a beat. Even the slightly antiseptic, stale smell of the aircraft seemed vaguely comforting and familiar. In short, I was off the wagon.

But then this morning as I woke at 5 am just a few minutes before my alarming was going to ring (yes, that is the worst part; I get so wound up that I end up waking up before the alarm no matter what time I set it to...), the charm had worn off and I was happy to be heading home.

Actually I'm staying in Boston this weekend, and the weather is getting cold, so it could well be one of those stay at home, cook, Netflix, cheese and wine kind of weekends. A good antidote to a hectic week...

*         *         *

When I travel, the people I admire are those who are beautifully composed, present (i.e. not distracted or frazzled), focused, and uncluttered. The last is the one I wish I could achieve the most, because if I weren't so cluttered, I wouldn't be frazzled, and I would certainly look better composed... I always aspire to travel with nothing in hand. I did do this once on a trip to India, and it was magnificent (but I was staying at home there, so it was possible). But somehow by the time add my computer and the basic clothing, it's already too much. Perhaps one day they'll invent a way to travel with nothing in hand. No clothes, no cellphones, no travel guides or work files weighing you down. Just your hands by your side,  your eyes watching, your ears listening to the sounds around you, and your mind enjoying it all.

xo

bb

Cool cat

{from the summer archive / my image, please do not use without permission}

The term cool cat probably brings to mind a jazz performer stalking the stage of a dim café. Though I had to look twice, there was doubt that I had encountered one cool cat in the middle of 36+ degree Rajasthan.

Fashion fast

There was an interesting article in the New York Times about individuals who went on a "fashion fast" . The challenge was to live with only 6 items of clothing for one month (underwear, shoes, and accessories not counted).

It made me think that in a certain way it's what I've been doing for the last 3 months. Admittedly not just 6 items, more like 18 (ok, perhaps 24), but it was quite liberating to be limited to just the clothes I had brought with me for all occasions and weather. While I did miss many things I have at home, rarely did I feel deprived. Indeed, I must confess it was really my shoes I missed most from my full range of choices at home.

But now dear reader my fashion fast is becoming a fashion fast forward -- I'm heading home!

xo

bb

Postcards

Hey friends!

As you can see I'm not in the south anymore... Goodbye sirens and hello Rhine maidens... Last night was the Germany vs. UK match. The horns blasting the whole night long! Thinking of you...

xo

bb

* * *

I'm guessing that all of us are old enough to remember postcards. It was a wonderful ritual of travel. You would browse around for something typical, or beautiful, or funny, or ironic (or all of the above). You would find a nice cafe table and scribble away. Then you would wander around looking for the right postage. First you would look for a post office. But then you would recall that tobacconists sold postage as well. And you would then apply postage, and in the final stage hunt around for a postbox.

And of course there was the other side of the ritual. Getting them in the mail! Sometimes a relative (parents - wish you where here!), a friend, or occasionally someone or the other who you had a crush on (or even who had a crush on you). Back in the days before Facebook and e-mail and Skype, that was all we had to engage in long-distance flirtation. Of course if the flirtation got serious you could also take it up to the next level. And back in the day that meant a letter (not wink-wink texting as it might mean these days).

I'm not judging or ranking. Today's methods have their own thrills. But the older style did too.

xo

bb

Goodbye Naples, Hello India (Goodbye India, Hello Basel)

Friends much travel since we last were together on these pages. My time in Naples came to an end, then I went off to India, and now before I know what's what I'm back in Europe, in Basel. The good news I'll get to see some of Art Basel while I'm here. The bad news is that the holiday is over.

I'll try to post some pics of India soon. But in the meanwhile two parting images of Naples...




xo

bb

Slowing down, speeding up

The whole idea of accepting the assignment in Naples was to slow down a bit. When I'm in Bos-NY, the days spin by so quickly, with work and then getting home (whichever one that is) and then keeping myself busy. Here I imagined I would stop to smell the flowers while nibbling on some cheese and sipping white wine, if you'll pardon that very badly mixed image (especially since Italians don't really believe in food on the move -- standing at a bar yes, moving no). I have actually managed two of those three, but that's another story.

(But can't resist one of those stories. My neighborhood cremeria gets mozzarella from Avellino every morning. And I'm not being a snob here or anything, but truly it tastes heavenly just for the day. Even the next day the flavor diminishes.)

But slow down? Not really. Here it seems as though are blowing by. I've met friends, seen art, worked hard, had fun, but not really slowed down. Perhaps that's just not meant to be me?

Well, I leave you with two images then from a recent exhibition I went to by Mat Collishaw. Any guess what these are? I'll tell you below...






It is a lithograph on Corian...

bb

Food for the stomach and mind

Am I little embarrassed by my food obsession? I am. But not too much. An Italian friend of mine worked for a while with a travel agency in Boston which arranged guide tours of Italy. She the most common question that she would get is: what will we eat? It can cut both ways. I have known Americans who must travel with their Oreo cookies (and not just to single out Americans, Gujarati's - my people - are known to travel with their own snacks, dry chutneys, and if they can afford it their own chef) and those who are more excited about the food they will eat than what they will see.

For me Naples has been mostly about work (sadly, but the Flugelbindery is paying the bills) and meeting friends (much happier -- and the nice thing is that this a small town in the end - you meet people everywhere - crossing the street, in cafe, walking home late at night...). But I can't deny a thrill when I go to the local cremeria and see little balls of mozzarella floating lazily like fat fish in a tank. And I won't deny the thrill of seeing a cheese platter when I'm invited to dinner.



But for me also food for the mind (less fattening, you know?). Below a picture from Rita McBride's latest exhibition in Naples. Can you guess what the shapes are?




The neon versions were constructed by an aged neon master in Naples who I had the chance to meet.

Though I haven't read them before, Rita McBride is famous for her "faux" novels. Her first was a faux museum catalog / romance. She has also done faux science fiction. Very cool woman.

Back on the ground (or The summer adventure begins)

The boys at the flugelbindery have been kind enough to let me do a few traveling gigs over the summer. Normally this isn't my kind of thing -- you know, the sleeping alone in a king size bed at the Double-8 Motel on route 182 routine, the bad coffee and stale muffins for breakfast lifestyle, the zombie channel surfing in the hopes finding an episode of Seinfeld, Friends, or Frasier that you haven't seen twice in the last two weeks. But this is different. This is the kind of on-the-road flugelbindery that will take me to Naples for month and Germany for another month with a few weeks in India to recharge BB's cells.

(You notice that it's Naples and Germany, not Italy and Germany, or Naples and Cologne. No Germany seems to be state of mind, whereas Italy is a specificity of lifestyle.)

Maybe this the ultimate revenge against all those boys and girls about town who I tried and failed to emulate. (Did I mention an off-site in Ischia? Take that you white-wine sipping, sockless loafer clad*, impeccably dressed, and already-well tanned boys and girls about town...)

In any case, I'll keep you posted as usual!

More soon...

xoxo

bb

* Summer gives you many footwear options, both open and closed. But the one combination I just cannot pull off is wearing shoes without socks. I admire those who can and do. I envy them. But I just can't emulate them. Perhaps it was the way I was raised

A peek from behind the screen

{images of Fatehpur Sekri by yours truly}

If I were prone to peeking from behind screens, then I might be tempted to do so from these.

bb

Di Chirico meet Maharaja Jai Singh II

{pictures from a recent trip to jaipur}

xoxo

bb