Semper Fi

Busy busy. I am a busy little bee. Buzz buzz. Anyway, survived my trip despite the fact that my hotel pretty much constituted its own circle of hell (the circle where dive-bombing attack pigeons living inside the building lurk, waiting for you to leave your room, where you can't sit still in your room without being hit by insects flying into your face, where the prevailing smells are bird poop and lentils... shall I go on?). And the usual plus of being outside of Dhaka--seeing some seriously beautiful countryside--did warm my insides a bit. Speaking of my insides, however--well, let's not go there, but suffice to say I was not at my best.

Thursday night I got home, stayed an hour, then promptly went out to Oktoberfest at the German Club, of which I regret not taking pictures. The whole beer garden atmosphere, with all the Germans running around in dirndls and lederhosen, was pretty unique for Dhaka. And hot damn, the wurst was amazing. The wurst was the best, if you will (sorry, couldn't resist).

And then last night was the Marine Ball, perhaps the biggest Embassy social event of year, at which the Marine Security Guard detachment celebrates the anniversary of the founding of the Marine Corps. There are a lot of rituals, including my personal favorite, the cutting of the cake with a giant sword. Sweet. Here's the cake being carried by our Marines:


And James and I--I had this dress made by my tailor, the ever-unpredictable Shamsuddin, and I must say it came out a bit more mother-of-the-bride than I was hoping for:


Today I meant to get work done, but I hadn't really factored in the inevitable post-Ball recovery period. Oops. I am going to have to be reeeeaaalllly efficient tomorrow...

Dinner tonight: Curried Pumpkin Soup topped with fresh cilantro, served with delicious Bulmer's cider. I love fall, even when it doesn't feel very fall-like outside.

Not so much going on.

So I discovered that while we're in Australia, the Sydney Festival will be happening. I was looking at things we could see and decided this guy is the new love of my life. Better yet, on Youtube.

But then the evil, devil website wouldn't let me buy tickets without an Australian phone number. Seriously?! And it's been a nasty week, and this just made me very, very disappointed.

I am off to the northwest of Bangladesh again tomorrow--only for one night this time, which is a damn good thing, because I am booked at the less pleasant hotel in town, and I am not sure how many nights I can live through. Good luck me!

Gosh, my life is so unexciting that I have nothing much to write down here. Work till 7, going home, eating, and surfing the net for two hours before bed just isn't really a compelling narrative. Sigh. I did hit happy hour last night. At the American Club, that bastion of excitement. Woot.

Hooray! James just managed to snag tickets to The Slutcracker by making up a fake Australian phone number. In other news, that name pretty much cracks me up.

Pictures?!? How exciting.

Realized I hadn't posted some photos I took during a trip out of Dhaka last weekend. We took our visiting artist to Dhamrai, a village an hour away where the traditional art form of lost-wax metal casting is practiced. I had been there once before, but this was the first time I was lucky enough to be there on a day when they are casting with hot metal. The molten metal turns cool colors and gives off green light and smoke (like Voldemort killing someone in Harry Potter? Is that too geeky a comparison?):


My mom thought it looked creepy, like they were making meth or something. But maybe that's how her mind works. After they're done, they break open the mold and find something like this:

Cool dude--an owl!

Plus, the Hindu artisan family doing this work lives/works in an awesome old colonial house:


Another shot, because that architecture is sittin' pretty:


After that we visited a traditional pottery village called Kagozipara. Not so many great pics of that--was I tired by then? Quite possibly. However, we did see this completely horrifying creature. It appears to be a spider with only four legs. Since that clearly can't exist in nature, I feel like it must be a minion of Satan sent to terrify the good people of this earth:


Mwahahahaha. Creepy.

Today: brunch with friends, errands, Australia research, cooking pumpkin-black bean soup and cornbread.

Wow, it's been a while

To be fair to me, I've been crazy busy. Like, barely-functioning-and-not-so-much-living-a-life-outside-of-work-busy. I wish it could say it will slow down soon, but I've pretty much got chaos on the calendar from here until we leave for vacation in late December.

Fun thing: this morning we heard a talk by William Dalrymple. I am only a couple chapters into his book In Xanadu, which I only started reading since I knew I would see him today. But it's totally hilarious so I'm happy to be reading it. Though it pales in comparison to how completely hilarious he is in person. That was definitely an unexpected delight for Dhaka.

We've had a visiting artist (who is just a total delight, by the way) in town, and I've been busy going to workshops and such that he's been doing, plus handling a lot of other Very Important Cultural Affairs Work.

Very, very tired. Time for bed. Yesssssssss.

Yucky, icky, miserable day

Ugh. Today was not a good day. Really, I am not sure "not good" is what I want to say, but there is not good word in English meaning "filled with blindingly painful headaches and overwhelming nausea." Maybe Chinese will prove more descriptive.

After a long nap and a good dinner (Pakistani minced beef with beans with raita and pita bread), I have somewhat revived. Of course, the long nap now means it's unclear when I'll go to sleep. In the good news category, though, James passed his bar exam. Not that he plans to practice law with the whole Foreign Service plan, but it's nice to know he's good at taking tests, or something.

To celebrate, I made us puff pastry filled with dark chocolate and strawberries. Mmm.

I've noticed this blog seems to only be about food lately. Sorry, I'll try to cool it. I guess I've just been hungry...

This weekend I am going outside of Dhaka on a fun field trip, though, so hopefully I'll have some photos of something happening outside my apartment.

Glorious

From the fabulous Michelle Nussbaumer, design diva:

"More is more. Less is never more - less is obviously less. Who wants less??"

Because it's true.

Food, film, art

So after my big blog vs. journal debate, I've since not done either. Instead, I've been feeling vaguely unwell and reading a lot of magazines. Tonight I cooked pasta putanesca, which always brings to mind warm childhood memories of my grandmother telling me it was named after prostitutes, since they were so busy prostituting that for dinner they would just throw together an easy dish not requiring fresh ingredients. My grandmother is a special lady.

Then I ate more once Charlotte and Andrea came over for movie night, because bean dip is amazing. We watched Vicky Christina Barcelona, which I liked more than I expected, though I am not sure it had a point.

I am also savoring a relatively less crazy week before our visiting artist arrives this weekend under the American Artists Abroad program. We have a week of really cool programming lined up, so I am very excited--workshops, visits to pottery studios, and other events. Did I mention cultural affairs is awesome?