Gotta Dance

I'm back in the States now, and back at the office, and everyone there (including me) seems like they are at the end of their rope. Um, er, ropes.

The tension (it's not just me, I swear) is palpable, and makes you just want to run out of the building, screaming. I almost did.

But then, a great friend sent me the following (a video of a dancing cockatoo, courtesty of an avian rescue facility in Indiana):
http://birdloversonly.blogspot.com/2007/09/may-i-have-this-dance.html

Stress relieved. Big smile on face! Thank you!

Day 5 in Brussels: Crotchety and Ready to Go Home

I'm kinda aggravated, because the agenda for our Brussels meetings has been packed, and I haven't had a chance to get out and see things in the daytime (the only time things are open here) since Sunday (when everything was also closed). The only thing I do know is that I've been forced to look at a lot of marketing content that has the same brand stock photography in it, and it's getting on my nerves: a really annoying shot of this random blonde guy sniffing a cantaloupe has been brought up on the presentation screen a painful number of times over the past three days, and it's just wrong. I feel like I never want to eat another canteloupe again as long as I live, which is a shame. It's not a bad fruit, the canteloupe. It's just bad photography.

I also haven't had much time to write, or see enough to have material for interesting observations on this trip. Here on my last night in the city, I should head on out to search for notable happenings, or go to dinner with my colleagues, but I'm totally grumpy and antisocial. I don't like it here at all.

Brussels is a very expensive place, and it's a very sterile place, and, it's just... I'm not sure what words to use to describe it. My thoughts are a little difficult to sort out right now, but my current stomach cramps may have something to do with the increasingly anti-immigrant sentiments flying around here (Google "Belgium" and "vote" and "immigrant" if you want to read about the frightening local happenings of the past couple of days). I'm not so sure that explains it, however, considering how anti-immigrant my homeland has become.

I had been feeling a vague, nagging sense of unease ever since I landed in Brussels. It's different from my crankiness in Dubai, which was more a reaction to the preponderance of the dust and the construction cranes and general ugly expensive commercial character of the place than it was to people I met there. The feeling seemed to crystallize today at some point, helped along by a few comments that were made during my meetings.

First, it was the perky, young German who considered herself an authority on "rap culture". She was loud, blonde, and wore hip, chunky glasses. She kept insisting it was typical in the United States to greet people by saying, "Yo!" whilst holding up the right hand with one's thumb, forefinger, and pinky extended.

We started the training sessions after lunch with a game-show quiz thing, including a section with questions on popular trivia, some of it American. The German loudly called out the answers, claiming to know everything there was to know about black musicians, athletes, and actors. After she piped up a couple of times with the claim, "I know ALL about this!" whenever we asked a question where the answer was Tupac Shakur, Mohammed Ali, or Jamie Fox, (not like there was a dominating theme -- there were exactly three questions about these three people) I thought to myself, "Um, WHAT EXACTLY makes you an expert?" It just irritated me.

Later in the afternoon, we were discussing translation. The representative from Lisbon complained about the quality of Portuguese translation in our company, insisting that its Brazilian basis is inadequate. A new associate from his region chimed in, "Yes! It's unacceptable! The way the Brazilian Portuguese expresses things, it's horrible!" Then she made a sort of spitting-on-the-ground type of gesture, and said some more stuff.

I didn't hear anything she said after that, I just sat there and fumed. I wanted to counter that, whatever her understanding of the importance of her country may be, the driving factor in translating our content is the sheer number of people globally who speak Portuguese, the majority of them being Brazilian. Brazil is a gigantic country, and there is a huge Brazilian diaspora. Portugal itself, though it had very active explorers back in the day, is tiny. Brazilian Portuguese is widely spoken and written and admired the world over.

I sat glued to my seat, as my eyes grew a little wide, my neck craned just a bit, and I thought, "WHAT is it about the Brazilian Portuguese that is so offensive?" The reaction I had to the Portuguese woman's comments came from a slightly different place than the reaction I had to the German woman's comments, but it irritated me just the same. I responded, very carefully, with the comment, "Brazil is VERY large, and so is the Brazilian diaspora. Portugal is a very SMALL country, and the number of people who speak peninsular Portuguese, is, relatively, LIMITED. But I'll make a note of your concern."

I don't know why I'm so cranky, but it's probably a good thing that I'm getting back on a plane to New York tomorrow.

Day 2 (Again) in Brussels: Big Fears – Here’s a List

Over the years, I’ve come to realize that there are many fears from which I suffer, and when I spend a decent amount of time walking around a strange city far away from home, they crystallize into a running list of which I am becoming acutely aware, and I figure now’s as good a time as any to just write ‘em down, as they usually interfere a bit with my ability to enjoy my sojourns abroad, and this trip is no exception.

The minute I get back to New York, I’ll find a good behavioral therapist (a better outlet for this list, but no one but my friends read this blog, and anyone else who might happen upon it shouldn’t care), as any proper New Yorker would.

OK, here it is:

1. Fear of not being in control. There are a lot of corollary fears which hang off of this one gigantic fear, including, but not limited to:
o Fear of being lost
o Fear of depending on others
o Fear of getting sick or being in any way frail, and fear of dying (or process thereof)
o Fear of not having enough money to take care of myself
o Fear of disorganization
o Fear of not understanding what other people are saying and/or thinking, or pissing them off inadvertently
o Fear of being late
o Fear of anyone depending on me and, in turn, disappointing or somehow failing them
o Fear of leaving my apartment or hotel room (This last one is a doozy, I know, but I think I inherited it, along with most of my introverted, particular personality, from my deceased father. I manage to pretend it’s not there, and go out anyway, but sometimes it takes me an hour or two most days, including today, to convince myself.)
2. Fear of public toilets
3. Fear of bad food. A corollary fear hanging off this one includes the fear of being disappointed. Or, is it the other way around?
4. Fear of people who, um….well…just fear of people in general
5. Wait, what was that last one about, again? Fear of whom? What?

Oh, nevermind. I don’t fear people. In fact, I don’t really have a list of fears.

I really like Mark Haddon’s latest novel, A Spot of Bother. I think I’ll go finish reading that now.

I hope breakfast tomorrow is edible, and the meetings are good.

Day 2 in Brussels: Victor Horta’s House

I’m finding Brussels to be a bit like Paris, only more compact. I covered practically half the city on foot (not completely on purpose) in just a few hours on my first day here. It’s so small, though, that all the blocks seem to end in plazas, so you just end up walking around in circles. I was constantly peering at my map yesterday, confused by the multiple directions and Flemish street names. Perhaps by the middle of the week, when I leave, I’ll be completely at home.

Actually, I take that back -- Brussels isn’t much like Paris, it’s just close to France and there are a lot of people here who speak French. It’s a lot smaller, and, I’m finding, kinda sterile. This is an unfair judgement after my very limited experience, I’m sure, but it is a strong first impression. It is very clean and quite beautiful, but it seems lacking in that organic (and sometimes nasty) quality that many places have, where, if you wander around without a particular agenda in mind, you find things could unexpectedly change and something very interesting could happen (hopefully, not some sort of assault) once you turn a corner. I was strolling around the neighborhood of St. Gilles today, and I kept walking and walking and turning corners, but…nothing. Admittedly, it was a Sunday, everything was closed, and it’s a high-end neighborhood (very Upper East Side), but I found myself feeling a bit disappointed nonetheless. Well, this is what I get for not making plans with/asking other people for suggestions – it takes a lot longer to find what you are looking for if you insist upon wandering around aimlessly in the hope of finding it yourself by dumb luck.

I took the metro to St. Gilles to visit La Musée Horta/Het Hortamuseum/The Horta Museum (I’ve learned after about 48 hours here in Brussels that the English language comes third, after French and Flemish, and is sometimes omitted entirely). It was truly wonderful, and I have to remember to personally thank the bellman who happened to be standing next to the snotty, affected concierge (whom I hate, and whose opinion I was ready to ignore entirely) in my hotel who was giving me directions to it yesterday. It wasn’t at the top of my list of things to do, but the bellman looked at me and said, in a very emphatic and earnest tone, that I really SHOULD go. It’s a bit farther than many of the other sights on my list, but I decided to take his advice and head out there this afternoon.

The Horta Museum is actually the private house and studio, constructed around 1900, of Victor Horta, an architect and one of the foremost creators of the Art Nouveau style, an ornamental language which fused exterior and interior design. Although I have some strong opinions about what I do, and do not, like in building and furniture design, I consider myself neither an expert/connoiseur, nor a declared aficionado, of this particular style. Once I entered (after an attendant, who looked very much like a younger version of the conductor Kent Nagano, collected my admission fee of 7 euros), and looked around, however, I felt an immediate (and, for me, rare) sense of calm. The design and details are perfect, showing (as described on www.trabel.com) one of the great innovations of Horta: the rooms are built around a central hall; from the glass ceiling, light falls into the house, thereby creating a much more natural illumination of the building than was the case in the traditional late 19th-century houses in Belgium. There were these magnificent stained-glass portions built into the roof, and mirrors built on either side, that made the glorious, colorfully-illuminated light look like it went on for miles. It was just beautiful. The only thing that interfered with the experience was the preponderance of the color mauve (in the carpets and some of the wallpaper and upholstery), but I got over that. After lingering for quite awhile, I gave into the fact that it was time to go, and headed back to the Place Rogier.

I got back to my hotel room, and settled in to address some stuff for work and the meetings which start tomorrow, but I had a hard time concentrating. Walking a lot in a strange city makes you think, and thinking isn’t always conducive to accomplishing tasks at hand.

Day 1 in Brussels: Rugby is Lovely

It’s a beautiful day in Brussels, but, after a long morning and afternoon schlepping around the city on foot (including a stop at the Museum of Musical Instruments, which is highly recommended: http://www.mim.fgov.be/home_uk.htm), I needed to take a break. I got into Brussels after about 12 hours of flying and layovers (again, through the dreaded Heathrow) last night and was trying to make a valiant effort at sightseeing.

I stopped in my hotel room in the middle of the afternoon to rest my feet a bit, and made the mistake of turning on the TV. There it was, on channel 21 -- the rugby (as in, the 2007 Rugby World Cup playoffs) match between Australia and England, in which England, improbably, won. And then later (I tried to find a pub to watch it in, but the concierge here had me running around in circles, looking fruitlessly for some joint in the central shopping district named O’Reillys), the match between France and New Zealand (in which, VERY improbably, the French won) aired.

I didn’t realize I like rugby so much. Well, actually, I realized I like rugby back in 1991, when I went to a match in Buenos Aires between the Pumas and the All Blacks, but in the intervening years between then and now, I had totally forgotten. I’m a bit of a flake that way – I don’t make the effort to follow any particular sport very closely, but if I go to a game (usually because someone invites me, or throws some tickets my way), be it ice hockey or basketball or soccer or baseball, I come out being a HUGE fan, and it lasts for all of about a week, and then I get back to my life and forget all about it. I like going to games, but I hate keeping track of all of those numbers.

But rugby is, well, unforgettable. The players are incredibly athletic, but it’s far more physical and action packed than American football. And their outfits are smaller than those of soccer players – they wear their shirts like rash guards (presumably, in order to avoid having loose fabric to grab hold of), and their shorts well above their knees. This leaves the bulging, rippling muscles well within plain view. And it’s really breathtaking.

When I first tuned into the England/Australia game, I thought, “What is Heath Ledger doing kicking a ball?” Then I found out that’s Jonny Wilkinson, star fly half for the English selection and for Newcastle Falcons. He’s beautiful. Jason Robinson is also quite fetching. Uh, and they play well, too. I'd post photos, but Blogger isn't letting me, for some reason - just goodle 'em! Yeah! Guess I’ll be watching tomorrow as well.

Still feeling peckish after dinner, I stopped at a grocery on Boulevard Adolphe Max to pick up bottled water and assorted munchies. You know you are no longer in the United States when you are standing in the refrigerated section of a general supermarket, staring at shelves filled with 74 different varieties of prosciuotto, speck and other varieties of artfully-arranged, ready-to-eat cuts of pork. It’s like being in the breakfast-cereal aisle of a Piggly-Wiggly in Buffalo. Confronted with too much choice in cured-meat selections, I grabbed three random packages with friendly-looking labels and headed for the checkout aisles.

Days 1 & 2 in Dubai: Covered and Hungry

I arrived at my hotel on Tuesday just before midnight, and was greeted in my room by a letter from the general manager reminding me that eating and drinking (anything, like, even water) in public is expressly forbidden (as in, I could be arrested) during daylight hours. No entertainment can occur, and stores have modified hours. The body (especially the female body) must be fully covered. Because it’s Ramadan.

In my rush to pack, I forgot about Ramadan. It’s a hundred degrees out at this time of the year in Dubai, and I’m staying at a beach resort. Not to mention that Dubai is a veritable HUB of excess. Luckily, the need to pack for fall weather in Brussels within the same suitcase (the location of my meetings during the second leg of my trip) tempered my choice of clothing, but the letter stressed me out nonetheless. What did “fully covered” mean, exactly? I went to sleep worried that if I didn’t wear turtlenecks and hide my ankles, I’d be caned.

It strikes me as a tad hypocritical that, in a place where they find it necessary to dredge out the shorelines and destroy all natural life in order to fit all of the stupid gazillion dollar yachts owned by sheiks and to create islands in the desert, and where they waste god knows how much on artificial temperature control to build ski slopes in shopping malls, that (amongst other things) I have to hide the fact that I drink water in the daytime, in observance of other people’s religious practices. I like to think of myself as open-minded and respectful, but this is, quite frankly, ridiculous. Well, here’s hoping the next training hub isn’t located in Afghanistan.

I shouldn’t be so bitter – my presentation went really well, and everyone’s been quite hospitable. We all went sailing (photos, taken by my colleagues, will be forthcoming – stay tuned!) on Wednesday afternoon, and I should be thankful for that. Unfortunately, there is nothing here to see in the horizon but residential highrises, and dust and cranes from construction, in the distance. Even after having lived on Miami Beach (where construction has been out of control since, well, 1978) and in Manhattan for many years, I couldn’t help but find the Dubai shoreline, and lifeless, murky water, ugly as all hell.

It is, however, hard to avoid being bitter when I’m hungry. No restaurant will serve (or sell) me food, and I’ve been in meetings all day, and so I’m helpless and hungry. I just want to go home, where I can cook something up, or order it delivered, when I normally eat, which, during this time of the year, typically happens before the sun goes down. Because I’m American. I grew up eating dinner at 6pm.

Fuck it, whatever. I’m off to Belgium. It may be colder there, but at least they eat and drink 24 hours a day.

Getting Ready (Or Not) for Dubai & Brussels

I just got back from vacation in Maui, but am on the road again, this time for work. I didn’t have much time to think or relax (and my vacation had been less restful than I had hoped, for a variety of reasons) before packing, and left everything for the last minute. I started gathering my things and shoving them in my suitcase about 90 minutes before my car arrived, but my efforts were diverted by my new next-door neighbor, a ballerina with City Ballet named Lola. Her and her mother Karen were moving her stuff in as I was leaving, and they were keen on introducing themselves and investigating my apartment as they did so. I barely noticed their presence…I had left my door ajar as I was getting ready to cart my cat’s used kitty litter out to the trash chute, and they waltzed right in. Lola looks like she’s about 19 years old, and I would hate her for being so young and having (or, more likely, being provided with) the money to afford to live in my building (who the hell can afford to have her own apartment on 57th Street at that age? She should be struggling to make it on time to her rehearsals from the very, very far reaches of New Jersey or Canarsie, for chrissake), but I cannot dislike a dancer. I have a framed portrait of Margot Fonteyn on the wall in my office at work…I desperately try to get all of my friends to read Allegra Kent’s memoir, Once a Dancer…I watch Suzanne Farrell’s biographical video, “Elusive Muse”, over and over…how could I not be thrilled that a bonafide ballerina, much less one from New York City Ballet, has moved in right next door? I’m REALLY looking forward to hearing all about Lola’s life and thoughts, as well as those of her loud, interfering stage mother. And I’m hoping they can tell me ALL about what a gigantic asshole Peter Martins is.

Anyway, I was just pushing the last of my things into my bag when the car rang, and I was off. I got to JFK expecting I would sleep on the plane, but was foiled – I had made the mistake of scheduling my connection through London, so the 14-hour trip to Dubai was cut in half into two segments that didn’t allow for proper REM to take hold. Throw in my need to work during the flight (my presentation being one of those last-minute details I had to attend to) and the stress of navigating Heathrow (by far the WORST airport in the WORLD) and vomit-inducing British breakfast food, and you’ve got a very grumpy Diane landing at Dubai International. I was hoping the resort atmosphere of my destination would be restorative.

It wasn’t.