Mama und Hanna sind hier!

It had been almost 6 years since the last time Mom and Hanna came to Venezuela -they live in Buchholz in der Nordheide, a small town near Hamburg, Germany; they have ben living there for more than 10 years. I was really excited to see them as the day fast approached; the downside is that they were arriving on Dec. 14th, which is the last day of the semester and thus I cannot possibly stick my nose out of school during working hours. So as a compensation and also in order to help them arrive to Barquisimeto quicker, I got a couple of Aserca Airlines' tickets for them to go straight from Maiquetía Airport to Barquisimeto, where almost all my family on my mother's side was waiting for them in the arrivals room. I bet their hearts must have jumped of suprise and joy at seeing all that people together, for both Hanna, who barely knew them (she was 7 the last time she came and she lived here until she was 3) and mom, who is a very emotional (and dramatic) person, hehehe.

Now, they have changed a lot! I was so freakin' shocked when I saw Hanna that tall and cute being just 12 years old! -not that I didn't expect her to be cute; alas, she's my sister, she HAS to be strikinlgy beautiful, hehehe- and mom, well, it seems this friend is taking formol baths regularly, because I know for sure she was not taking Pycnogenol as I do.

But as well as happinnes came with them, tensions started to soar quickly. Mom is a VERY bossy woman who likes to take control of everything around her and of course, she started to do that with our lives as soon as she planed her feets on venezuelan soil. But, this time she got some surprises. We haven't had her by our side in a LONG time so we're not use to cope with such things anymore, and when I mean "we", I mean my grandma, my uncle, my cousin José David and myself. Mom had to confront me quite a few times because
1) I'm not a kid anymore,
2) Living alone in a stressful and agitated city like Caracas has made me evolve and grow as a person and as a man,
3) I can't stand oppression in any form and,
4) Dude, I'm a man and she's a woman! (sorry, G"d decided it was that way, He is also a man)

I never confronted her the way she is used to (a former policeman would never confront anybody verbally without taking loudly) and it seems it worked because as I was lowering my voice and saying "just listen to me mom" and looking at her black eyes, she lowered her guard, which is a HUGE achievement for a man! (no, mom's not an undefeatable monster, don't freak out; it's just that she is very strong and bossy). Anyway, we spent a nice time in Barquisimeto, especially going shopping with Hanna and with mom (on different ocassions, together and separated) was very nice. I had never enjoyed a sister! I mean, our connection is stronger because we were born on the same day, 18 years after. And she's a leader in her class like I used to be in my school when I was a kid! :-D

But it was all good having Mom and Hanna at home with us -mom even cooked for me quite a few times! Another good thing is that I noticed Hanna's spanish is really good since mom doesn't speak german to her at home; good job mutter! and on top of that, I slept in my granny's bed, like when I was a kid and felt lonely, hehehehe.

Three days before they left for Germany, they came to Caracas and spent the weekend with me. It was definitely a great experience because I could show them the place where I live, my friends, my landlords and this beautiful city, although it's a pity that we didn't go to the Avila in the cable-car. Anyway, we dined together and we spelt at a hotel room the three of us, where for the first time in my life since I was a baby, I slept with mom! We also went to Colonia Tovar so Hanna could see that germans came here to make a living and still retain their traditions, which she found really amusing, not just because of the typical soutern german rural architecture, but the appearance of the people (many blue-eyed blond ones, which is really rare in Venezuela) and the taste of Weißwurst, Debreczinerwurst, Knackwurst, Thüringer Rostbratwurst and Bratwurst, oh! and the t-shirt mom bought that said "Colonia Tovar - Ein Stück Deutschlands in Venezuela" with small german houses painted in the background. Sweet!Mom, Hanna, I hope I can see you girls soon :-)

Coño, !אֲנִי לֹא מֵבִין

We were betrayed; like Nikka says in her song, B'Gida. I still don't get what happened during our election process. I feel betrayed by this government, who gave nationality and ID Cards to 2 million foreigners under the condition of voting for them (yeah, I saw the nigerian couple speaking NO spanish going to vote with ID Cards showing they were Venezuelans) and thus disbalancing the results to their side, because they know for sure the people is not with them anymore, at least not overwhelmingly like it used to be and they're definitely NOT the majority any more. Just seeing the expression in the faces of the ministers during the plagued-wth-insanity-and-hysteria speech Chávez gave after the results were announced. Why did this happen? Do we Venezuelans really deserve this piece of shit as a president? Do we really deserve the worth-for-nothing opposition leaders? Do we deserve to have this asslicking high-rank generals in the armed forces? F**K you all guys! >:-/

Sometimes I feel like getting outta here...

Thanksgiving at my boss'

Spending Thanksgving house-sitting my boss' place was an interesting experience, not just because being responsible for an apartment reaffirmed my intentions and aspirations of having my own place, but also for the discovery of a new marvelous drink! I was getting ready for shabbat, and I couldn't find any kosher wine for the kiddush, not even Manischewitz! Seeing that I didn't have enough time to cross the city to get a bottle of wine, I decided to buy another alcoholic beverage -anyway I needed to toast over the dinner, eh? and, looking for bottles of SKYY Cosmo, I came across bottles of a russian ready-to-drink vodka named Коктейль Молотова, of which I bought three bottles of tropical fruits cocktail, which proved to be EXCELLENT -I got sarataco in the snap of a finger! OMG! Excellent Водка!

Mom, I'm on TV!

Added: Wednesday, 22 November, 2006, 13:05 GMT 13:05 UK

Pierre Gemayel was part of a new generation of Lebanese politicians who wanted their country, the jewel of the Middle East to develop free from any foreign influence, in a country where only Lebanese had a say in the affairs of the country, like Rafik Hariri, George Hawi, Samir Kassir and Gibran Tueni. Those responsibles for this murder are only interested in keeping Lebanon unstable and on the verge of another civil war. On the last civil war, Syria benefited from Lebanon's divisions..

Carlos, Caracas

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This was a post I made as a comment on an article about the murder of the Lebanese Minister of Industry. member of the Kata'eb Party and a prominent Anti-Syrian Pierre Amine Gemayel (بيار أمين الجميل) and its direct inlfuence on the ongoing crisis in Lebanon. True, I am a support of the Kata'eb Party, but apart from that personal opinion, I consider that this is all related to a complot of the Syrian secret service to eliminate all the main anti-syrian politicians in Lebanon, a trend that started last year with ther assasination of Prime Minister Hariri (a muslim). Definitely this is not a religious issue, but a political one. Pierre was trying to have the United Nations investigate the killing of Mr. Hariri and punish the responsibles; in my own opinion, Bashar al-Assad and the guys at Hezbollah are involved, because they seem to be the ones who will benefit the most from the comeback of the Syrian control over Lebanon. Such a beautiful country has always tried to be controlled by foreigners, and its unique culture, a melting pot of religions that is as wonderful as delicate. Israel's role? its only wish is to have Hezbollah far from its boders and not shooting Katyushas to the villages in the North, wherever they may come from, so it's unlikely they did it... nah, they would haven't done it and moreover, the Kata'eb militias collaborated a lot with the Zahal during the brief Israeli invasion of Lebanon so there's no point in questioning Israel. Anyway, this murder will only increase the instability in Lebanon A LOT and hence on the region. S**t on Gemayel's killers, whoever did it!

After I posted my message, a guy named James Fletcher, from the BBC called me, to see if I could participate on a chat with some experts on the Middle East about the crisis, ask my questions and express my point of view. Man, I felt like I was at the House of Commons! There was an expert from a think-tank, a member of the European Parliament (yes, European and British, hehehe), a scholar from Oxford and a journalist that passed lots of his life in the Middle East, plus a guy from SIngapore, a lady from India, an Australian and a Belgian on the phone, like me. With all those british-like accents flowing into our conversation, I felt like the Duke of Pork, hehehe :-) It was quite an experience; even though I was NOT on TV, I was .. that was weird, airing my ideas on TV without actually being on camera. Too bad I couldn't watch it!

Violante! :-)

I hadn't seen her since the day of my graduation, which was a while ago -Paola was just a baby then and see, now she's a tall and beautiful girl (definitely she is a mix of her parents Angelo and Norka), and you haven't seen her singing on the karaoke yet!

My friendship with Norka started LONG time ago, when we were hired with 30 other college students from my hometown to work for an IBM parner responsible for providing tech support to all the journalists presents in the VII Iberoamerican Summit of Heads of State and Government, which was held in Margarita Island in November 1997. We were chosen then according to our tech skills, but even though I was not a lab assistant like the rest of them, I was chosen because one of the girls in the group, who happened to be our supervisor's girlfriend, studied with me and knew I spoke English; since it was an international event and despite most of the journalists spoke spanish or portuguese, they expected quite a few journalists from the US, Canada, Europe and Japan, which in fact happened. Anyway, our friendship has grown after that in such a way that I almost became Paola's godfather, hehehe. We studied at the same school but we chose slightly different careers but due to the fact that I moved to Caracas and Norka finding herself in her new role in life as a mom, a woman and a IT professional, we lost contact for sometime. The last time I went to Barquisimeto I was supposedly giving her a letter from Manena, who sent me a parcel from Puerto Rico in which a letter was for Norka. Still, I left the letter in Caracas, but then we decided to have breakfast together. Oh man, it was one of the BEST breakfasts I have ever had in my life; well, no wonder it took from 9 AM to almost 2 PM!

And Paola... oh my G"d! What a beautiful and smart girl! Norka is definitely raising her very well, making her an independent and mature girl, yet still a young and playful one. She is very talented, and she seems to be quite good at catching foreign languages (something that she must have inherited from me, because neither Angelo nor Norka speak another language fluently) because I realised that she knows quite a few Britney Spears' (I still don't understand how Norka lets her daughter listen to such an untalented bitch..) and songs, and also some others from Justin Timberlake, the BSB and the mexican group RBD. You gotta see her on the Karaoke!

Since there were so many thing to talk, we ran out of time and we didn't finish our update, so we decided to continue our meetings when I return to Barquisimeto for the Holidays and hopefully I'll give Norka the letter from Manena. I just hope she can get it before Manena sees her, because she's going to Barquisimeto for the holidays also, hehehe. Oh, Violante? That's an internal joke. When Manena and I started to work as research assistant (myself) and lab assistant (Manena), we used to talk openly about sex; we had never considered it a taboo and alas, we were in the lab all together, but Norka always refused to even make a comment, she always said we were dirty and obscene, like Violante Cabrales De Albuquerque used to criticize Xica Da Silva and when alone, almost masturbate while thinking of Xica's husband and the Enquirer, with the difference that Norka was having sex like a rabbit with Angelo (which eventually produced Paola Goretti) and we thought she was chaste as a virgin! Manena and I were so cheated!

Meteoro was my cab driver!

Spending the weekend with my family was really good, as usual, especially because I had the chance to go shopping with Uncle Tunco to buy stuff needed for the house, like painting for the fences and walls, varnish, wood stain and new paint brushes. For the first time I was paying everything, which made me quite happy because I felt that it was my responsibility :-D I told my uncle not to pay anything under the condition that he finds someone to do the painting job -he cannot do it himself either

Apart from that, I visited my dad but I actually spoke to him for less than an hour because he was leaving for a meeting since now he is the security manager of the regional campaign supporters of Manuel Rosales in my state, which made me even happier since dad is one repented chavista -when I found out he voted for Chávez in 1998, I almost killed him .. man, that was the quarrel of the decade! B"H my dad is back to sanity :-)

On Sunday, I spent the morning talking to my friend Norka at her place, but those moments deserve a special post. Afterwards I headed to the bus station to catch a carrito por puesto to Caracas, and to my luck and happy surprise, I found a former college senior classmate and his girlfriend, who for some reason hated me back then and now turned out to be the nicest of the girls! Anyway, we took one cab with a driver .. oh heavens, what a driver! Well, he didn't really look like Speed Racer (nor he was that young) but definitely I felt I was being driven from Barquisimeto to Caracas on the Mach Five, hahaha! He drove at about 140 Kph (88 mph) almost all the way, even on the segments where it was raining, and kinda competing with the other cars, and rejoicing when he passed another fast car on the highway. Then we we got closer to Caracas, he tried to avoid the queues for the tunnels that access Caracas (Caracas is surrounded by steep mountains that make the city be in a deep and narrow valley, which has determined its vertical growth) so we took a detour through La Cortada del Guayabo, a road FULL of sharp curves that passes through the mountains and next to a water reservoir and end up near the bus station of La Bandera in Caracas.

Well, let me tell you something -this guy was practically having an orgasm while driving at more than 60 mph in such a thin and dark mountain road. Gustavo's girlfriend was so f***in' scared that she got a headache and her muscles were tense as a fence, especially after I said that the area near the water resevoir of La Mariposa was used a lot for witchraft purposes, which we could even see from the road, candles, people and inciense smoke. She was terrified, and as soon as we got to Caracas, we stopped at the first metro station and got off the car, not before she told him "Sir, I would NEVER, EVER take a ride in your car again!". That was funny, especially taking into account that this guy had a Mitsubishi Signo (a Mitusbishi Lancer VII) and not the Mach Five!

The night of the 5 big noses

And then the day DN came. The world will never be the same after we all met..Hehehe, didn't it sound like the beginning of an epic story? Well, not quite but there's something true for sure, and it is that we guys had a blast!

The original group, the "core" of the system:
Well, we all were kinda drunk. After all, one of the pre-requisites for qualifying as a Delta Nu is being a professional drunkard, hehehe :-)

White shoes for ימים נוראים

I just love going shopping, and I never seem to find a bad excuse for swiping my credit cards. And Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and the rest of the Yamim Noraim were definitely excellent excuses to do some shopping. After Rosh Hashana, I bought for myself (as a personal gift from me to me) a wall tapestry with a golden shahada

and a very nice pair of white casual shoes

with brownish suede strips. Yes, there's a reason: one should not be using shows with leather soles in Yom Kippur and I use to attend the temple with leather soles' shoes. But a the end, I wore my Skechers because they looked too cute and pretentious, especially in a day one dedicates to pray (nothing else, no food, no water, no sex... nothing!)

Rosh Hashanah? oh, I spent it at home, which reminded me of who I am and what I am; I know, one shouldn't spend that day alone but that's the way it turned out to be, and the way I enjoyed it. I roasted a chicken and made rice with roasted peanuts and honey, apart from the sweet challot I bought after 1.5 hours of standing in a queue at a kosher bakery with a thousand ladies chit-chatting in a mix of haquitía or yiddish with caraqueño spanish, hehehe.

But to be honest, living Yom Kippur to its fullest definitely touched me. It might sound weird, but I like fasting, I don't know why .. I feel like a special connection between me, my inner self and G'd because I only focus on praying, meditating and nothing else. Maybe that's the reason behind that connection. It's extremely weird that being such a devouring worm like me, I don't even feel a little thirsty! Spending all the day there, just thinking of all the importance of that day, its significance, and seeing all the people in the synagogue (usually the number of attendees is between 40 and 60 and on Yom Kippur there were at least 400) praying and especially praying asking for peace, renovation, and return to the Holy Land. That definitely impressed me in the best way possible and reinforced my convictions of being a religiously observant jewish, proud of my origins, the laws given to us and especially VERY supportive of the land of my ancestors:-)

Definitely, I will continue evolving -waking through this path..

Moroccan underwear

Recently I bought this book, Moroccan Interiors. It contains MANY beautiful pictures of different houses, villas and small palaces in several locations of Morocco, such as Tangier, Essaouira, Marrakech, Fès, Tétouan, Rabat and remote villages in the south of the country. It is just fascinating, as it shows all the different styles that encompass the so-called "moroccan style", which have become the style I want to apply to muy future house. The book has become my personal guide and master planner in such a way that it has inspired me to buy some items, like this hand-carved photo frame (with a pic of me and Lissette at a moroccan restaurant, of course!)

and these indian-made cushions

I even brought these three items from home, which I had had for a LONG time

More to come soon..

OH! the funny reason for this post's title is that "moroccan interiors" translated into spanish is interiores marroquíes, and when I told mom that I had bought a book called Interiores Marroquíes (which also means "moroccan male underwear" in spanish) she freaked out! she was like "why did you buy a book like that, son? are they very diferent to the western ones?"

Venezuelans' favourite sports

We venezuelans are fond of many different activities that are a product of our mixed heritage:

• Drinking beer -due to the influence of the US in our culture, being Venezuela the most americanized latin country (apart from Puerto Rico, which is not an independent country .. yet)
  
• Competing to see who's the most attractive; this is SO freakin' embedded in our DNA that might be the main reason why we are the country with the highest number of beauty pageant titleholders (for both male and female beauty pageants)
  
• Baseball, see item No. 1
• Partying until dawn; see item No. 1
• Shopping as though tomorrow was the end of the world. A proof of this is that we have Centro Sambil, the largest mall in Latin America, and before it was built, we had the largest Mall in Latin America also, CCCT. And yes, before CCCT, we had Shopping Center Mall, the largest Mall in South America. Yes, "Shopping Center" is quite a stupid name for a mall but, alas, it was built in the days of the petrodollars-packed Saudi Venezuela!
  

Shopping happens to be myself and Lissette's favourite sport. During my last weekend in Boston, we decided to behave like proud venezuelans and do what we do best: shopping, drinking, partying and ...being beautiful people, hehehe :-D

We started the day, after a stop a Dunkin' Donuts for some iced coffee, munchkins, donuts and my favourite, a spiced bagel with cream cheese and onion, to Pier1 Imports; Lissette thought the midEastern style stuff sold at Pier1 was going to catch my attention, which it quite did. I bought these table linens


but what I really wanted was these pieces of furniture, but it was not economically practical to have them shipped home even though they were on sale! OMG, I wanted them SO badly! :-(We didn't buy candles or anything like that since I can find homemade scented candles in Barquisimeto, at prices that are absolutely unbeatable, so after wandering in the store for some time, we walked to a shoestore in the same mall, where I got a very nice pair of Skechers (but I didn't get them autographed by La Aguilera though, which is a real pity) and then ... food again! It was time for lunch: a grated broccoli soup with cheddar cheese, and a HUGE veggie sandwich with Brie, Emmental and Gouda cheeses; of course, a homemade lemonade that tasted like real homemade lemonade, hehehehe -it's amazing how these guys in the US eat so many processed food full of preservants.

After the lunch and before the mid-afternoon snack, we went to Target to check some suitcases because we already knew by then that I needed another one but of course, nothing like my Mario Hernández' suitcase, ever! This store is a little like our BECO or Fin de Siglo, being K-Mart and Wal-Mart more low-budget, in my opinion. Nice stuff and lots of people doing shopping!

Now it's time to drive to another HUGE mall to buy something for tía Gisela and some errands I had offered to bring (some CDs and DVDs unavailable in Venezuela due to the currency exchange control system imposed by the Chavez Government) but as usual, I came across another shoestore, and of course, I found something for me, hehehe... afterwards, while Lissette was choosing some skirts and blouses for my aunt, I was checking out some suitcases, but the culturally different body odor of a guy next to me kinda offended me so I decided to take a look somewhere else. I was about to suggest this fellow "Sir, there's something sold at stores called deodorant, and it is advisable to have it applied on the armpits" but my cousin was clever enough to remind me that such a polite remark could've offended him since "we are in the US and we must respect his cultural diversity". I just replied "me saben a culo las diferencias culturales, que se vaya a dar un baño antes de salir a la calle, no'joda! en este continente la gente se baña, usa colonias y desodorantes", to which she just giggled and said "oh brother ..your tongue is as sharp and wicked as usual, just like your mom's and your grandma's"

Oh, the music store! that was such a funny incident! We entered this store, with my list of errands, to which one young boy literally jumped to service me ( no pun intended!) but after five minutes, my cousin noticed something weird, so she said in spanish "andáte con el carajito que está babeao por ti; dejálo que sueñe por un ratico que se levantó a un latino" while walking towards a distant aisle where he told her her favourite music was. The boy luckily never got what we said, hehehe. Then we stopped at a pastry shop to buy our mid-afternoon desserts, a dutch cheesecake with blueberries for me, and a turtle cake (no, it does NOT have turtle meat) for her, and then we headed BACK to Target to buy the other suitcase since the price was definitely the best one, even in comparison to what we saw at tía Gisela's shopping paradise, Macy's. After we were done with shopping, we stopped AGAIN at a Dunkin' Donuts to buy some munchkins and smoothies to get back home, take a shower, fix dinner and then out to clubbing. Lissette prepared a roasted turkey breast, and sautéed green, yellow and orange peppers with a dressing I prepared with balsamic vinegar, olive oil, dill, garlic and dried parsley and we drank a bottle of an italian sparkling water whose name I can't remember.

Then we went to 209 @ Club Café, located in downtown Boston, where a bartender told us about his venezuelan ex being the love of his life and where we also received extra pickles and snacks for just being venezuelans. I agree with Lissette, this guy's best f**k of his life was with a venezuelan! We also went to Lissette's favourite club, 33. It is a very fancy club with two dancefloors. Of course, we went there to give a lecture on reggaeton -I hadn't liked reggaeton until I noticed that non-latinos dance reggaeton as though it was meregnue, and with NO hips moving at all! that was a major shock for me, so I was determined to show them how to dance it. And we did. With lots of perreo.For nearly 3 hours. You can imagine all eyes turned to us during that time, which, at the beggining seemed to bother me a little, but Lissette was more than happy -poor girl, she never gets a chance to shake her ass off like that! and man, she does dance like a beast! Well, after all, she is a venezuelan ;-)

An Improper Bostonian?

There's something about wandering for 10 days around the Greater Boston that I loved and it was having the opportunity to know the city by walking around town without needing a map or anything like that and knowing my cellphone was in my pocket just in the event I had an emergency or got seriously lost -of course, the latter thing never happened because I was not in the streets of a burmese town in the mountains, but in the seconld largest city in the Eastern Coast of the US. The other thing never happened, B"H

Lissette had prepared a very detailed schedule of activities, which started taking a stroll down the Back Bay, starting at Boston Common, a place that used to be an area for cow feeding and herding in the 17th century, if I remember well. Now it is a park. Then we walked all down the Back Bay many areas in Boston are built on reclaimed land, like this one. The weather and the architecture helped make me get an impression that I was walking down the streets of a british city -where is that bloody Camilla?-

Having plenty of time to walk around town before and after attending ALL the attractions that Lissette included in the schedule and my curiosity (I'm an Aquarius, c'mon!) made me know a lot more than any regular tourist would. For instace, after visiting an attraction, like the New England Aquarium, infested with kids from summer camps, I decided to take a stroll down the area, after stopping at a CVS Pharmacy to buy a bottle of Dasani mineral water (it's mineral water, slightly sweetened with Splenda and a light touch of natural lemon, grape, raspberry or strawberry flavor, and it is just PERFECT) and then making moja štikla do the rest, taking me to the Financial District, to the Old State House, to Beacon Hill, to discover my namesake espalanade and finally reaching one of my favorite spots in Boston, The Shops at Prudential Center. That way I got to know lots of parts of the city in such a way that Lissette and Matt were surprised since they never expected me getting to know the city in such level of detail (well, maybe she did)

But what neither of them ever expected me to LOVE about Boston, apart from the metro, or what they call "The T" (I miss you Charlie, especially the Green Line), with its metrotrams that feel SO European for just a few seconds, you feel like you are in Birmingham, Nottingham, Newcastle, Leeds or even Dublin until the machine announces the next station in standard american, not hard-to-understand bostonian english which sounds like british english sometimes. But, the other thing I LOVED about Boston was the cows. They are scattered around the city, and you can find them at virtually every corner, and of course, since I have always wanted to touch a cow's nose to see if it's cold like those of cats and dogs, I took pics of every cow I saw during my stay in Boston. And believe me, there are MANY of them, even a cow like a piggy bank and another like Maya the Bee, with its bee-wings and antennas :-D

On a side note, I also liked the people in Boston a lot. VERY nice and friendly, and good-looking also! It's a culturally very diverse city where you can find people from Guatemala who speaks better Mayan than Spanish, a Brazilian Muscle Mary, an irish-american with a green t-shirt, an italian-american that looks more Sicilian than anything else, a Lithuanian jew and a Cape Verdean and three WASPs (one VERY fat) in the same elevator, oh, and I forgot to mention one ECA Alumni! SH*T, I saw quite a few of them down the streets! All those things -feeling like at home with my family, the people in the streets, the city itself .. have made me think quite a few times if I should think of hopping to the Boston Area as a next step in my life...maybe I become a Bostonian in the future!

Épale, prima!

I hadn't seen Lissette since April of 2005, when she came with Matt to Venezuela to spend Easter with my aunt Gisela and my uncle Oriel and we had lunch together at Maiquetía Airport while they waited for their flight to Barquisimeto. She came last March but I was very busy and since my trip to the US was almost a fact, we didn't worry about not talking in person then. Finally, after JOSTI, I took a flight to Boston to spend a few days with them. I was quite excited to see them, since we're very close and we have shared many things together since we were kids: her mom my kindergarden teacher, my mom & aunt her godmoms, my dad her godfather, spending our holidays together at my father's family's house at the beach with my peer cousins, sharing the apartment when I was taking my internships at Aserca Airlines while she was working for Banco de Lara in Valencia, going together to concerts, and so many things that would make this post endless. In a nutshell, she's my sister.

Anyway, after saying goodbye to Khalil and Kaouthar at Washington-Dulles Airport (we shared a cab who happened to be driven by an iranian who spoke a little arabic and a little spanish as well, apart from farsi and french) I took my jetBlue flight to Boston-Logan, and despite the neverending rainstorm that delayed my flight for two hours, I enjoyed the flight, my blue potato chips, listening to XM Sattelite Radio and watching live TV on DirecTV while flying blue :-)

Lissette was waiting for me at the airport. As soon as we landed, I called her and she was right there in the bag claiming area. After the hugging, the greeting and the venezuelan-style chit-chatting, we headed for the car, while Matt was waiting for us; we loaded all my stuff, including my darbouka, to Lissette's amusement -she said "Holy Cow! You were not joking! you found an arab drum indeed!"- and then we went to a restaurant, because the three of us were F***IN' hungry. Bertucci's is a pretty good chain of ristoranti, whose trademark is the brick oven, where they bake pizzas and oh, the pasta! they claim they use only authentic italian ingredients, which I don't dare to doubt since the food is really tasty and well, good company makes the food taste even better. Then we headed home so I could unpack, take a needed shower and recharge my batteries for the next day since I was going to start doing what I did for the next 10 days -walking around Boston not as a tourist but something between a tourist and a wanderer :-)

Lissette and Matt's house is very cozy, very american-style, like those one sees on the tv series, and they have it very well decorated IMHO even though that is definitely not my style -Lissette's hand and style is seen in almost every corner, no wonder she's the queen of the house!
That red couch converts into a double-bed and it was my bed during my stay in Everett (the quarter of Greater Boston where they live surrounded by los tierrúos brasileños esos, according to Lissette, hehehe. One thing I noticed about Boston is that there is a Dunkin' Donuts virtually ANYWHERE in the city and one in almost every corner, which is awesome if you like Donuts and Bagels (like me) or if you haven't discovered how addictive iced coffee is (like me)


Yes, they even have it in traditional chinese characters! 大便!

JOSTI 2006 -part 3

JOSTI was a very interesting experience for me, not just in terms of meeting new people from other international schools, like Carlos from Discovery School (Honduras) or John and Susana from the American School of Mozambique. Those were moments I'll never forget, like showing my latino pride with my colleagues

and simple and yer great things from lending my phone to Sandra (Union School, Haiti) to let her call her family (and listen to her speaking kreyòl aysyen) to being shocked at seeing all of the guys from Pakistan (yes, all muslims and all long-bearded like ayatollahs) in the same bathroom brushing their teeth at the same time I did, to watch a movie in the laptop with Mazen and Khalil until the three of us fell aslept on the chairs while the movie was still running, to share beers and joke with Mazen and Michel about having him wear an israeli t-shirt in the streets of Beirut, to going shopping with Monday (Kenyan, American School of Tunis) and going downtown to the museums with Khalil, and of course, going to the National Mall and take pics with Nili (Israeli, Walborth Barboud American International School, Tel Aviv) as though she was my mom, or my sweet bube :-)


















But one thing I would never forget about JOSTI was realising that ECA is one of the most advanced international schools in terms of technology, if not the most advanced one; when some schools are still thinking of going wireless, we have been a wireless school for 6 years!

Something I also enjoyed a lot was learning PHP and MySQL with a kid (literally -he's 21) from Apple Computer and .. finding my darbouka on the top of several bags of junk and it even had the price tag on it! (albeit blurry) That was definitely a gift from G'd, because He knows how badly I wanted to have one for my moroccan-style apartment, and of course that was something I was never going to be able to get in Caracas. A few days after I got it, I saw one very similar at a store, with a price tag of US$40. Now that's a gift from heavens!

I come from a family of musicians and singers (on my mother's side) and I had always been told I was musically deaf, but I started pretending I was playing it (and getting lots of smiles and attention) while waiting at the airports (Washington-Dulles, Boston-Logan, Washington-Reagan and Atlanta-Harstfield) and now I can proudly boast of being a decent darbouka player, though a very basic one. Time will tell :-)

JOSTI 2006 -part 2

After settling in, taking a shower and changing my clothes, I needed something urgent. Well, three things: a shower, food and making a phone call. Since everything on campus was closed (Saturday 8:30 pm) I decided to walk into town to find anything that could be open. Man, it was a deserted town -either nothing seemed to be open or I was wandering around a residential area, which it happened to be then. But being so covered with trees, the light barely got to the sidewalks, so I was like "OK, where am I heading to?", which made me decide walking straight always on the same street; I walked for about 8 blocks until I saw something magical on the distance: two golden archs! For the first time in my entire life I felt as though I had seen the heaven itself!

But when I got there, something struck me -I realised that all cleaning personnel, and all the people who does the lowest-paid jobs in the US are Latinos. I had noticed that at the airport also, but for some reason I didn't realise it then. Who knows? maybe I was so focused on enjoying the experience that I ignored such details. But when it did, it hit me like a meteor!

Anyway, after eating, I walked towards a 24/7 pharmacy I saw nearby, and to my amusement, all the clerks were Desis. It was like being in "The Simpsons"! Those pharmacies are very much like ours Farmatodo and Locatel, but these guys lack something .. I don't know what it is, but there's something I missed. Anyway, I bought my band-aids, the phone card, and some sugarfree bubble gum (every Delta Nu oughta keep some in the pocket to make sure the ice-melting smile is accompanied by a fresh breath) and then back to GMU on the same way I took to get out of campus.

The student dorms at GMU are not THAT bad I think, apart from the plastic-covered matresses and the fact that I realised I had air conditioning on the 4th day of my stay at GMU. Anyway, the chiller was good enough, but I didn't like the levels of humidty in DC -no wonder the whole city has been built on a swamp! But it is certainly a beautiful one, with lots of greenery and wide forests even close to downtown

One always makes good friends at conferences and courses, even if you're not as sweet and handsome as I am *LOL*. A very interesting fact is that the closest friends I made during my stay in DC were all arabs: Khalil and Kaouthar from Morocco, and Mazen from Lebanon and, to a certain extent, Mahmood, Mona and Danya from Egypt. Why? I have no idea, but it might have helped that when I was just getting into my room I saw Kaouthar, who cam and introduced himself and, when he said he was from Rabat American School, I quickly replied that I attend a moroccan synagogue, which seemed to break the ice given the fact that moroccans have been very tolerant of jews (even King Hassan II's counselor was jewish) and that moroccan jews are as proud of being moroccans as arabs and berbers alike, even speaking arabic at ahome and keeping so many habits and customs that within less than a year I have started feeling as my own. I think the fact that Khalil's sister lives and works in Melilla helped a great deal also, since jews from Melilla are considered moroccan jews as well and the origins of the people that attend my synagogue are almost evenly divided between Tétouan, Casablanca or Melilla.















Of course, being with K&K and sharing some jokes in arabic made Mazen get close to us, and the same with Danya and Mahmoud, especially because all of us were techies.


Mona was a different case. She teaches at Cairo American College and she is a very conservative lady; she even wears a ħijāb! We shared a table one day because her closest friend was Celeste, an american lady who happened to meet Jean, my school's superintendent like 20 years ago and that was like our link, since she used to ask me about Jean and her family. So one day we sat down at a food court on campus, and I was wearing my famous coca-cola t-shirt and Celeste asked why I was wearing that shirt. So, we started talking and talking, and we exchanged so many different pints of view, and Mona's glad surprise when I told her than Umm Kulthum was a reference in sephardic and mizrachi music among jews and the fact that many israeli musicians release quite a few songs in arabic and many sephardic and mizrachi jews speak arabic very fluently with an accent like that of Egypt and Jordan. I even sung a fragment of "Inta Omri" to prove my fluency in arabic music :-)

JOSTI 2006 -part 1

Attending the JOSTI 2006 Conference was an amazing experience I cannot possibly describe with words, not even in spanish. It had many events that for some people could've been stressful or might have cause certain anxiety (not for me though), like:

• Going to a city I had never been before (Washington DC and its suburbs, including Fairfax)
• Travelling abroad alone (I have travelled abroad before, but never alone)
• Being hosted by some people I have never seen and at a place I didn't even know where it was (George Mason University)
• Attending a conference with people like me (techies) from schools like mine (international schools with an american-style curriculum) and in which most of didn't speak a word of my mother tongue (spanish) and for sure most of us used english as a second language
• Leaving my country for a long period of time (almost 3 weeks)

Apart from that, leaving Caracas by plane is a real pain now because the highway that connects the city to the airport in the coast has several briges across deep valleys and the longest one collapsed last January, and the government has just built a narrow road (if that can be called a road) to connect these two sections of the highway and there are schedules for separate kinds of traffic (personal cars, small buses, trucks and all that stuff) so one has to plan ahead in order to be at the airport on time. So, to avoid all this s***t, I decided to sleep on the night of the 16th of June at a hotel near the airport -I didn't want to wake up at 3 AM because I had to be at the airport at 6:30 just to find out that the queue down the road was stuck because the rains had caused a flood and the mud had covered it!

So, after leaving school at 4:30 I picked a cab to drive me home to take my luggage and then leave me at the station where the buses that leave for the airport are parked; it was very funny to me that the cab driver happened to be Ecuadorian because during that week, Ecuador had showed up as the surprise cinderella team of the Football World Cup, so we were talking about that. How I found out he was Ecuadorian? he had folded a car's flag next to his seat, and you know how curious I am :-)

Then, I took the bus to the airport, I stopped at the international terminal and then I picked up another cab to the hotel. Bloody hotel! I had such a hard time trying to find a hotel room, and c'mon, finiding a room at a cheap hotel on a Friday, is not an easy task at all! I called every single hotel in near the airport (many were motels, actually) and none of them had rooms, so I asked the superintendent's assistant and she called the last hotel I had just called, and after she identified herself as calling from the school, they booked me a room! SH**T!! Anyway I did NOT sleep in that hotel, as it was a motel, and the cab driver offered me to drive me to a decent place. It was ... a very sui generis place, with its curtains with all the solar system printed on the fabric, Israeli sattelite TV on the system, and many same-sex couples dining on the hotel's so-called restaurant.. what the hell was that? I have no idea.

Anyway, I watched TV until I fell aslept, but I woke up earlier than the time set by the watch; in fact, I woke up, took a shower and got all set even before it rang .. I was like anxious to leave everything for quite a few days and "disconnect" from the reality.

When I arrived to the airport, I saw many kids from the school, with their parents, of course. Well, only one and her mom greeted me very nicely and we chatted a little, but not too long since they were on Business and I was on Coach -anyway, it was Delta - the official carrier! ;-)

The trip was OK -good entertainement, but a little poor if you compare it with what I had flying jetBlue (which you can read in a next post) but oh well, the in-flight service (including Mozart's 250s, "Failure to Launch" with Sarah Jessica Parker and Will&Grace) was good except for those perfect scrambled eggs that come out of a box, which I despise and the latino steward trying to speak spanish with a mixed mexican-argentinian-puertorican accent, hehehe. That was funny!

Once I landed at Atlanta's Harstfield-Jackson airport, my journey continued. Man, that airport is HUGE! The inmigration procedure was very smooth, it took me less than a minute standing at the booth with the officer, then picking up my suitcases .. and then the train to my next gate, because my flight to Washington DC was departing in less than an hour, so I had to move my ass off!

But I hated the connection time -too short! I had to take a bala fría from a Taco Bell Express fridge and literally gulp it in front of the gate while waiting for my flight to DC. I am sismply not used to eat while walking or out of a table; as a venezuelan, I need to sit down at a table and eat like a cow. Finally, I boarded my plane to DC and as an observant jew, I opened my siddur in the plane and started to say the prayer for the traveller (Tefilat ha-derech) and to my surprise, there was an american man in his early 50s, looking at me with his eyes widely opened and with an expression on his face that mathed that one of disgust! After I finished praying, I closed my siddur, and looked back at him (I know, my face said something like "what? got any problem with that, mister?") and he said something I didn't recognise and then said clearly "why don't you go back to your contry, camel shepherd?" and stood up and looked for another seat. Ha! I think this guy thought I was a muslim .. and to be honest, I don't care. Fu**in' redneck!

At the end, I arrived to Washington-Reagan Airport exactly in the time the captain calculated (excellent timing eh?) and looked for my bags, and then for the Metro station, to catch it and take a ride to Fairfax-GMU station. Given the excessively high tariffs charged by cabs in DC, I was decided to save as every penny as I could. And so I did! Once I arrived there, I took a cab, driven by a very nice Eritrean man -our ride to Mason consisted mostly on a conversation about coffee, and the awful cofee americans drink. Finally, I arrived at Mason, after 15 minutes wandering around the campus, looking for my building. There it was, Hanover Hall (for registering and checking out towels and linens) and Amherst Hall, the bulding which was set to be my home in the next week.

Washington DC, here I am!

A major surprise in אירוויזיון

I have been a fan of the Eurovision Song Contest since 1998, when Israel won it with Dana International singing "Diva". But, to be honest, I became a BIG fan of it in 2001, after Antique made it to the top three representing Greece, being greek pop/dance music and especially with heavy influences of τσιφτετέλι (Tsifteteli, or greek belly dance music) and now I can boast of having become a quite good critic of the ESC, being able to predict the winner on 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005. Yes, I even dared to predict that Marie N was going to win with such a crappy and "regular" song!

But this time myself, as millions throughout Europe and beyond, got surprised. None of the big favourites of the audience, media and critics, Mihai Trăistariu from Romania (singing Tornerò), the Théa Anna Vissi from Greece (singing Everything), the Bosnian group Hari Mata Hari (singing Lejla) and Carola Häggkvist from Sweden (singing Invincible) were the winners.
Of course forget about the Big 4: The crappy british rap sung by a DJ who is just 32 but looks as old as my father, the German parody of a texan country song, the sad, slow and boring french entry (who do these guys continue sending poor balladists? Get real guys, the ONLY true french-language balladists is Céline Dion) and the worst song Spain could ever send, destroying Las Ketchup's career once and for ever (who the hell thought that was a good song?).

Not even some songs I liked won: neither the Croatian folk dancers that sung Moja štikla with Severina Vučković; not even the one-eyebrow armenian version of Ricky Martin, André. Not even Sibel Tüzün singing a great song in in greek, english and turkish! Forget about Eddie Butler representing Israel -bring Shiri back to stage, בבקשה!-

But let's get real: The Finnish monsters won! OMG! I was so f***in' shocked that so many people were voting for the finnish band Lordi, whom to me looked nothin' more than hard rock singers dressed as monsters that could perfectly fit in a Halloween chapter of Star Trek! But then I had to admit, the guys gave a very good show with those costumes and the lead singer's wings opening at a precise moment, not to mention his double-hatch/sceptre that spitted fire!
The funny thing is that you could actually see the horror in the faces of Maria Menounos and Sakis Rouvas when the local presenteres were reading the results of their national vote. They were terrified! I can imagine all my greek peers wondering "will these monsters topple our goddess? why in hell?" the question could have never been so appropirate :-D and what was even more appropriate and FUNNY, was when the Dutch presenter Paul De Leeuw started making sexually direct moves and comments to Sakis, whose heterosexuality has been questioned quite a few times. Oh, those on-air seconds were so funny! Kalísperma! HAHAHA (kalispera means "good evening" in greek, and sperma stands for .. "sperm") Typical a thing to do for Paul, gotta love him!


I almost peed my pants when he rushed to give the results and OMG..."I like your blouse, Sakis" "You look like Will & Grace, you two" "Will you have my mobile number now or after twelve points?" And trust me..if you have ever seen Paul..you would know it wasn't planned in advance. It's just the way he is. And let's be honest -there's never been anything fun about the ESC and now there was! He was really funny. After the drama that was 90% of the voting and so many people in Europe wishing at least Russia (with the help of its allies Estonia, the Ukraine, Armenia, Belarus, Latvia, Moldova and Lithuania) could win the finnish monsters, this was a breath of fresh air!! I bet Queen Beatrix was laughing her a** off! hahahahaha! Paul, Europa houdt van u!
But let's be serious and look at what happened. Sadly for many of us, the best act won. That many of us don't like Hard rock? True, but the guys did it pretty well. I hate to say that but, none of the rest gave a world-class show. The Finns did, so, let's wait until 2007 in Helsinki! No need to talk about Athens because they organised everything perfectly, offered a prime-class show and well, I think I was a greek in my previous life. Υεια σου Αθήνα! σ' ευχαριστώ πολλί!

Visiting סבתא for Mother's Day

We venezuelans celebrate Mother's Day on the second Sunday of May, and this date for me has always been special because I am blessed by having two moms (Graciela, the one who brought me to life, and Angela, who is also my granny and the one who raised me) and also, as time has passed by, I have gained another mom, Roraima, my stepmom. The three of them are SO different to each other, yet they have quite a few things in common, apart from being very sui generis women and moms.

So this time I decided to spend the whole sunday with her, instead of leaving right after lunch. C'mon, it's HER day! But I needed to find a way to come back as fast as possible after sunday, without having to take a day off since the semester is about to end and my work load increases a lot. What to do? I inmediately thought of buying an airline ticket. I started browising the web ..

• Aeropostín? (slang for Aeropostal where "postín" stands for "delay") Nah, 180,000 Bs. and I could face the risk of having my flight delayed 2-3 hours, which at the end would make me get to work at noon.
• Aserca Airlines? they quit flying to Barquisimeto without notice (too bad, I took my internships there and I felt you know, like being "home")
• LASER? Too bad, they just fly between Caracas and Margarita Island and their service is impeccable
• RUTACA? They don't even know Barquisimeto exist. It's a Eastern-based airline
• Conviasa? Very affordable prices, but they're a start-up airline and haven't started flying to Barquisimeto yet
• Santa Bárbara? No way! 240,000 Bs. for a tourist class ticket!
• Avior Airlines? Small planes, but they boast the newest fleet in Venezuela. Flying these tiny Beechcraft 1900Ds can be funny. let's give it a shot. Wow, nice website, load very fast, totally optimized, uodated info .. the price is just OK, 159,000. Let's try online shopping .. very fancy, I can even "see" how the allocation of seats is in the plane. The frequen flyer program is very fancy, although lacks more alliances, but that's OK for now. Let's flight with these guys.

Everything was so good until 2 days later, I received a voice message saying that my flight (departing at 6:15 am from Barquisimeto) was cancelled and I was assigned a seat on the next flight, at 11:15 am. That I couldn't take! So I called them and explained that I cannot take that late flight and that I ought to take an early morning flight. The operator told me I could get a voucher valid for one year on the same route, which I rejected because I need my flight. Then I thought that I could have it changed to that saturday then, on the opposite direction. She agreed. But then, I realised that it's not worth it, so I called them back and they connected me to one supervisor, he told me he would try to find a transfer to another airline serving that route on Monday morning (either Aeropostal or Santa Bárbara) .. he never called. So I called the next morning, and asked for a solution. They connected me to the same operator that had called me first, and she was NOT polite at all and stated clearly that she had "cleared all matters" with me and that she won't take any responsibility. Man, that pissed me off! What a bitch! I reminded her that as a flight agent, her first duty when a flight is cancelled is asking the passenger if he/she can fly with another airline, on a similar route/schedule, which she did not do. Oh, she hated that! and I was right! So we argued for a minute, and I told her that as a former airiline employee, I was dissapointed of her attitude and lack of professionalism. She told me then that I could get a 75% refund, which I rejected because the flight was cancelled by them, not by me! After arguing that, she told me I could e-mail and call the cusrtomer client support manager, which I did, with a LONG and detailed e-mail (CCing the presidency and Reservations).

The Customer Support Manager, a very nice lady, accepted all my arguments, and told me she was going to help me and call me before 5 PM, and she later sent an e-mail copying all parties involved on my case uring to solve it. 4:30 pm. No phone calls. I called her and she told me she was going to call me ASAP. She did, and she got me an Aeropostal flight on the schedule I had bought with Avior and apologised for the inconveniences, since apparently the girl at the Call center was new and did not command all of the protocols, which I reminded her as a former airline employee I am. Of course I thanked her for all the support and reminded her that I have always supported Avior Airlines because they do serve like a world-class airline. It seems it worked commanding all the airline jargon :-)

Avior rocks!!! סבתא, here I go! :-)

A slow, yet steady shopper

I have continued shopping and watching articles that would fit in my soon-to-be new home in several stores. On Sunday May 7th, I went with José Manuel to Punto de Fábrica, a furniture and decoration store specialized in stuff from Asia. So, some thing could work for me, since there is some sort of the same culture and style from Morocco to Bombay and from Istanbul to Jakarta.



So I bought this hand-carved mirror and this henna lamp

Moroccan overloaded decoration ויותר...

I have decided to finally move to a place of my own, being it an annex or a small apartment. I feel the moment of having my own space has come; I don't want to make parties at home, nothing like that. I just want to roam around the place in my undies, and scratch my balls if I feel like doing it without having to do so in my bedroom. Besides, Having the shabbat dinner, lighting the candles and all that stuff seems to be SO weird to my landlords that they don't understand why I do such things. During Pesach, they were constantly wondering why I didn't dare to have a bite of a piece of bread and focused on eating what they said were "tasteless crackers" (matza)

So, I have started officially looking for either an annex, or a small studio downtown, so I can hit two birds with the same stone: fulfill the mitzva of living close to the synagogue and have a place I can call mine. And that search has not been successful though, but it will come, I'm pretty sure of that. In the meantime, I have started to buy and gather stuff that will be greatly needed in my future home, which will definitely have a certain moroccan decoration, but NOT overloaded! I'm just joking about moroccan (jews and arabs alike) being overloaded, overexaggerated, overnoisy, overdramatic .. well, in what kind of human being I'm evolving into? a moroccan with a definite ashkenazic taste. Anyway, I have already bought some cushion pillows, a set of water glasses, a set of 2 curtains, one of toasted orange gauze, and the other one of raw cotton, making a pair in order to make it look warm, cozy and rustic, yet a bit modern; I am looking also for a computer desk since I can't take the one in the apartment with me. I also need cooking and china sets, which I expect to buy before I go the US and well... lots of good stuff that need to be done and bought, like tea glasses, lamps, henna tent lamps, a shelf, a cabinet or an armoire, a night stand, a pouff, a nargilah, a mirror, I wish I could get an annex with a garden so I can kinda modify it like this. I also need to buy my mezuzot, a menorah, a hamsa blessing, a decent kiddush cup and maybe some armenian ceramics to match with. I already have some small hand made rugs and also a big turkish wall rug mom gave me ages ago and some small syrian-made coffers with nacre. I feel this is a step in the right direction but I need more money!



Oh, there's so much to be done! *sigh*