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Bruno comes to town
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How does he do it?
This is one of my best friends (Bruno...on the right, silly). We met when I lived in Paris in 1995 and get to see each other ever other year or so. Thursday was the end of a two-week visit; only the second time he's been to Atlanta.
We went to visit a friend who works for CNN. We got to see the Headline News set. While watching the anchors, they took a break in front of the cameras while "going to tape. " When one of the anchors heard that Bruno was visiting from Paris, she pulled him up onto the set (in an attempt to improve Franco-American relations?)
"Wow! Your T.V. newscasters are so...nice!"
This isn't the first time he has met a local personality.
Last time he came to visit, we were touring the state capitol offices on our own, when out walked a short gentleman in a suit and cowboy boots. He introduced himself, "Hi there, I'm Governor Zell Miller." He welcomed us to the capitol and asked us about our visit. Very pleasant.
"Wow! Your government...it is so...accessible!"
If only.
Maybe it's because he's french. He's looking for an opportunity to work in the U.S...I'm thinking lobbyist.
I miss him already.
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French protests (and me)
The french are at it again, protesting their own government´s policies. W must love it; as long as they are protesting Prime Minister Villepin, they can't protest him.
"The police eventually turned to tear gas and water cannons to clear the protesters away." [link]
Water cannons? I mean, of course water cannons. Riots = Water Cannons, but when you think about it, do we even *have* water cannons in the U.S.?
"Strikes and demonstrations are part of the fabric of French society."
Quod erat demonstrandum - Water cannons in Paris.
There was a demonstration the first week I arrived to live in Paris in 1995 (I love the french word for it; "manifestation"). It took me by complete surprise; the street was shoulder-to-shoulder, curb-to-curb. People were carrying signs, banners, skeletons on poles, megaphones, each other. I ask my ami what it was about, this huge demonstration.
"Ne sais pas". I dunno, he said, shrugging his shoulders, not really even giving it a second thought. "Labor or something?"
There was only one other demonstration that I knew about that summer; a protest against the French Government performing nuclear testing in the Pacific. The French Government setting off bombs.
It was in Place de Bastille and there were several thousand folks there, mostly young, milling about and looking for...I don't know what. A few people spoke, there was some drumming going on. People danced around and yelled stuff. Some folks were dressed in black hooded robes, dressed like death.
The organizers passed out sheets of little round stickers with nuclear triangles on them. They were to be affixed to french coins to raise awareness in the marketplace of this terrible act by the government. Every time I used them, the little shopkeeper would just peel them off and examine the coins suspiciously for counterfeit.
Maybe that was unusual, to have so few demonstrations that summer. Maybe it was the weather. Maybe it was the more immediate fact that Algieran terrorists were setting off bombs of their own in trashcans all over Paris...making Moruroa in the pacific seem even further away.
You know you´ve been in Mexico too long when...
...you brush your teeth with bottled water back in the states, too
...you wake up to a cold shower and think "well, the gas is out, but at least we have water..."
...you come home to leaky plumbing and a puddle on the floor and think "well, at least we have water..."
...you start to like the taste of huitlacoche
...you look forward to soccer matches on T.V.
...and you know the teams in tonight's match ("TYT" stands for "Trinidad y Tobago")
...you think of "gringos" as other people from the states
...you laugh at "gringos" who go to the Gigante just to buy tequila
...in a restaurant, you ask for "Coca Light" and you don't bother saying "sin hielo"
...you describe everything that doesn't go your way as "pincha"
...you turn on your left blinker to indicate to the guy ahead that he should move to the right
...you never use your right blinker
...you hear the Christopher Cross song "ride like the wind"...and realize you've got such a long way to go to the border of Mexico...from the wrong side.
Ride like the wind to be free again.
And I got such a long way to go.
To make it to the border of Mexico.
So I'll ride like the wind.
Mexico Stories - Mercado
Every city has a central market...the one in Guanajuato is huge, crowded, noisy, and has everything for sale; from pirated DVDs of movies not yet in Gringolandia theaters to vats of pickled chicken feet and steamed chickpeas. Wires crisscross overhead, encased in decades of dust and spiderwebs.
Inside Mercado Hildago - Skylight...Hall...Endless stalls
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For Sale - Quail´s eggs, by the 1000's...guayaba...the ubiquitous hat
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...plus blankets, T-shirts, bracelets, pottery, crucifixes, sunglasses, jimcama, chicharron, baskets, copper pots, flowers, cowboy boots, empanadas, ostrich skin belts, octopus... ...the rest of the story...
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