Ick.

Wow. Playing tennis when it's 91 degrees out (and feels like 101!)--at 8:30pm at night--is pretty hellish. It's like hot yoga. Not that I've ever done hot yoga, but I've heard that they tell you to eat something light like a banana a few hours before and nothing else.

Now I totally understand. I had a few Wheat Thins about an hour and a half before. I got done and felt like there was a giant mush of Wheat Thins in my stomach. Except the Wheat Thins had been enriched with lead and thus weighed twenty pounds.

Also, I am a shade of red that I have never seen on a human before.

Oof. Too much.

The exhaustion is seeping around my eyes today. That doesn't make sense. Let's just say my head feels funny because I haven't been sleeping well the past few days.

At least my internet is back! The internet company is always toying with my heart. With internet down, no working TV, and the phone lines so bad as to be unusable, I was starting to consider carrier pigeon as a viable connection to the outside world.

Also, how much can I not wait to be here????


So much it hurts. I miss you, my city.

Oh so good

I LOVE having a cook who can follow recipes in English. Particularly this recipe. Mmmmmm.... so good.

I finished The Secret Scripture--the twist ending was really predictable (and I am awful at predicting things), but still, very enjoyable. It really gives you a taste of Ireland--and forces you to review your Irish history or else you are totally lost. Now I am starting something that's a bit of an odd choice for me, considering I rarely read non-fiction. A friend who wrote her thesis on religion and Hmong immigrants in California highly recommended The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures by Anne Fadiman. So far, two thumbs up--it is fascinating.

Remind me to write about how my soul is sad and battered witnessing the harsh realities of people's lives in Dhaka, despite the outer appearance of happy wallowing in cooks and drivers and tennis lessons. I swear. Not joking. But sometimes the perks sure do look good.

My food stars are aligning

Two new fantastic food developments that will keep me eating well in Dhaka:

1. Nagasaki. This new Japanese restaurant in Uttara is insanely authentic--way more than it has to be. In eating at a wide range of Japanese restaurants in New York, I only found one or two (I am thinking Sakagura and Yakitori Totto) at this level. I am not sure who they plan to draw in--the Japanese Embassy only has so many people in it. We were the only people in there the night we went. Anyway, I plan to frequent it, perhaps all the more to get it before it's gone, since I have no hopes for its viability.

2. The random French family who started a bakery out of their house in Baridhara. I went for the first time this morning, and I swear, this is going to change my life. They have baguettes, croissants, olive bread, foccaccia (yummy!), apple turnover-type-things, more breads... plus they sell pate, fresh honey, French-style mustard... um, yessssssssssssss.

Miscellany

I feel like this has elements of the style I'd like to try and attain despite the obstacle of the government-issued furniture... this could work, someday:


Via the always-excellent Decorno.

In other news, I am really enjoying the book I am reading right now--The Secret Scripture, by Sebastian Barry. Other than the unfortunately melodramatic title, I find it gripping--though maybe veering toward the melodramatic, as well. I had never heard it mentioned much in the U.S., but I found it in a bookstore in Kuala Lumpur (the place with the bookstores! I love it), and it was short-listed for the Booker Prize. Anyway, it makes me want to hang out in villages in Ireland where everyone should be depressed because their lives are going to shit and yet they're really cheerful anyway because they all tell jolly stories all day.

In other news, I clearly have a robust and nuanced view of Irish culture. Go me.

Today I am enjoying my laziness--reading, briefly working out, sitting around drinking iced tea and reading more, catching up on blogs. Tonight is yet another ball that I opted out of, being fully out of dresses. Things that did not get done today: showering. I should go work on that.

Wowee, look at us!

I can't get over how awesome careers.state.gov makes the Foreign Service look. My job is SO COOL. And breaking news: if you visit the site now, a little Secretary Clinton pops up and talks to you about how cool the State Department is! Sweet!

One night in Dhaka

My evening:

I left work right at 4:30pm today so my driver could take my car to the mechanic. I got home, sniffed the air, and discovered the sweet, sweet (NOT) smell of Bangladeshi mosquito-killing spray my housekeeper had sprayed. Yum.

I settled down to read, drifted off to sleep, and then awoke feeling rather ill. Ughhh.... fumes. Half-awake, I crawled to the TV room (less fumey) and flopped belly-down on the couch, where I slept for an hour-and-a-half. I woke up and realized I soon needed to leave for the medieval-themed St. George's Day party at the British High Commission Club. I googled "medieval English clothing," saw some crap about wimples, gave up, and got dressed in normal clothes.

The party was fun, if rather hot and very buggy, but they played good music (though not Modern English's "Melt With You," my request). The end. Now I hopefully don't die in the night from the fumes.

ADDENDUM: THERE WAS A FIRE-EATER AT THE PARTY. COOL.

Yes, the palm trees in this photo are pretty, aren't they?

Some of the Entry-Level Professionals from the Embassy, this writer included, went on a build with Habitat for Humanity about an hour outside of Dhaka.

This taught us that the values that drive Habitat for Humanity are pretty solidly American. People here aren't so much about the manual labor if they aren't being paid for it. Witness a crew of able-bodied men watching the almost-entirely-female group of volunteers work all day:


Good work, guys--creepy AND lazy.

NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

GAHHHHHHHHHHH.

I am not sure what possessed me to try to research the Taj Mahal today. I thought I had my 36 hours in New Delhi all planned out, ready to take a day trip to Agra.

But then, somewhere I read that the Taj is closed on Friday. The day, of course, we intended to go.

This is a recent change, which of course I missed, and I was pretty bummed for a few hours. Like, really, really, really, really bummed.

It remains to be seen what we'll do instead. I guess we can take the train to Agra as planned and see the Red Fort. But wow, what a let-down. I am looking into leaving NY for Delhi one day earlier, though that may make my mother cry. We'll see.

Grrrr. Carlos.

Today I had a fabulous tennis lesson with my favorite tennis instructor. Despite my earlier misgivings about attempting to play in the heat (according to Weather.com, it felt like 101 degrees Fahrenheit today. Yummy!), I had a great time.

I had been thinking of giving up tennis for the hot season because I thought the heat was getting to me. But now I realize that for the last few times the problem has simply been Carlos. That's not his name, but it's what I call him. He is my least favorite instructor, and I call him that for the simple (though somewhat absurd) reason that I used to think it was his name.

I know that sounds pretty insane, since he's Bengali. But there are some people around with random Portuguese names from when the Portuguese were trading here, so I just chalked it up to that. Turns out that is not his name at all. Like, not even close. Whatevs.

Anyway, do you ever have someone who you behave really badly around because you know they've already seen you at your worst and you can't sink any lower in their estimation? Maybe not. In my life, these people have pretty much exclusively been ones coaching or instructing me in some sort of athletic activity. So that is sort of how things go with us. I stop even trying to play well or have a positive attitude since I figure, who cares, he's the devil. Damn that Carlos!

I have learned that I need to just avoid people who bring out the worst in me. Sorry, Carlos, you're the first to go.

Mmmm

The perfect comforting dinner: tomato soup (from a can, of course!), a grilled cheese sandwich, and a Corona. Yum. Thanks, Commissary!

Lately

So what have I been doing while I haven't been blogging?

Alex was here all week, though he mostly had to entertain himself since I had to work (and on the holiday that fell in the middle of the week, he was too sick and things were too closed to really do much). Last night we had dinner at Ideas Manzil, and the food was even better than usual.

Things have been busy at work, but not TOO much so... I do sort of feel like I am in a race to accomplish things before I leave for my R&R (rest and recreation? or something? State Dept.-speak, of course) in less than three weeks.

But in other news, yesssssssssssssssssss. I can't wait to be back in New York. What isn't awesome about New York???

I am working my way through Trollope's The Prime Minister. This is the second-to-last book in the Palliser series, and I've already read the Barchester series. Not sure what I'll do with myself after it's all done. Hmm... maybe read more books that don't fall into the category of obscure British Victorian literature?

OH! And the missing pouches that were supposed to arrive in February have finally been found. Since I had two packages in them, I was pretty thrilled about this.

Now I should go work out. Ha ha. Ha ha ha. Maybe.

Shubho Nobo Borsho!

Two events coincided this week, requiring festive clothes. There was Bengali New Year (Pohela Boishakh), for which everyone traditionally wears red and white. And there was the visit of my charming friend Alex, who generally encourages the wearing of festive garments.

So here we are, ready to celebrate in style:


I think we look very Subcontinentally dapper. The sales ladies at the store where he got his outfit thought he looked like a Bollywood star.

Glory glory hallelujah

The internet is marching on.

As in, I have it again. Woohoo!

So after all that, folks, you might think I would have forgotten to bore you with vacation pics from almost a month ago. NOT A CHANCE.

The bus from KL (where we arrived) to Penang was super pleasant--we used a luxury bus company called NiCE, and they gave us snacks, made us watch awful movies (Cerberus, anyone? No, I didn't actually think you had heard of it), and drove us through some nice scenery. The road was pretty:


When we got to Penang, we, as expected, fell in love with our awesome hotel. The Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion, the restored residence of a Mandarin merchant, also has 16 guest rooms at shockingly low prices for the awesomeness of it all. We got the Hakka room, if you're looking at the pics online.

The next day we set out on a walking tour of Penang's Chinese heritage, visiting various temples and Sun Yat Sen's Penang base, among other things. I was obsessed with the wall paintings inside the Khoo Khongsi temple:


And we also stopped at Fort Cornwallis, a relic of the British. I am sure the British left behind these trash cans:


At the end of that busy (and hot!) day, we took the bus back to Kuala Lumpur, which was pretty relaxing despite a crazy rainstorm. We arrived around 9pm, checked into the Westin, and hit Jalan Alor for street food, which was DELICIOUS (we had dim sum), almost enough so for me to ignore the rats that were positively frolicking about our table. Then we hit a stylish hookah bar right next to our hotel that was packed with rich people from the Gulf smoking shisha and drinking fruit juice.

The next day we relaxed, shopped, ate... and finished up with a visit to the base of these guys before dinner:


Okay, now that I've left no vacation unposted, I can rest easy. Thank you for your patience.

GAHHHHH

STILL NO INTERNET.

On Sunday I attempted to get my internet service provider to install wireless (since my wireless card still works). They showed up and said, "Where is the wireless router?" I'm all, um, why would you think I have one of those???

????

Anyway, tomorrow the internet is supposed to come. We'll see.

Checking in

Just a quick post since I don't have my home computer right now.

After the whole LAN-card-getting-fried fiasco, things were going fine for a couple days... until I got the Blue Screen of Death. Twice. I stopped using the computer, cried for a while, and the next day got one of the Embassy's computer people to come look at it after work. It is in his able hands now, which means I am at home feeling isolated at night... no obsessively checking email and facebook, no online shopping, no reading random blogs... and with the TV out of commission too, this means I may be getting some serious reading done.

Speaking of reading, I read Anil's Ghost, by Michael Ondaatje, last month. The word I kept thinking of while reading it was "lyrical." I actually had to go through some pains for this book--my mother sent me a copy originally, but then I accidentally left it on the bus from Penang to Kuala Lumpur. I HATE not finishing books, so we ended up going to three bookstores looking for it (but hey, how sweet was it that KL actually has bookstores? Good ones, with lots of books?), and Kinokinuya had it--I love that store. So crisis averted.

I guess this has thrown a wrench in my Malaysia updates. I wanted to post about Penang... sigh.

Electronics update

Alas, despite my initial optimism, the TV is not yet fixed. I feel like the TV man and I are at an impasse--he desperately wants to fix it by playing with all the tiny pieces himself, but is getting nowhere with that, and is reluctant to fix it more easily by buying a $75 replacement piece. I am all like, for the love of bejeesus, just fix the thing, I am pretty sure my insurance will cover that and any other crazy piece this cursed project requires.

More fun: the day after the storm that killed the TV, another storm fried the LAN card on my computer. Who knew the lightning could travel through ethernet cables??? I continue to live and learn about the amazing properties of electrical currents. So James had to scour the city to find me an external LAN card, which ended up costing less than $8, but requiring a great deal of time and effort to procure.

The next day the storm blew out several circuits in my apartment, including the one my bedroom air conditioner is connected to. [NOTE to all those living in places that have winter: It is hotter than Satan's armpit here right now.] Uh-uh. GSO got a weekend call on that one.

WHY ME??? Clearly I am hated by the lightning gods. Or maybe my electronics are especially beloved of them, so they want to claim them all from me, one by one.

Sheer brilliance

Wow. I am rereading E.M. Forster's A Passage to India, and after actually living in the Subcontinent, actually seeing what it does to ex-pats, after seeing the clash of cultures, I can't say enough about how insightful and brilliant this book is. Some of his descriptions of what infuriates members of one culture about the other (from both sides) are just incredible.

And take this passage:

"And sure enough they did drive away from the club in a few minutes, and they did dress, and to dinner came Miss Derek and the McBrydes, and the menu was: Julienne soup full of bullety bottled peas, pseudo-cottage bread, fish full of branching bones, pretending to be plaice, more bottled peas with the cutlets, trifle, sardines on toast: the menu of Anglo-India... the food of exiles, cooked by servants who did not understand it. Adela thought of the young men and women who had come out before her... and had been set down to the same food and the same ideas, and been snubbed in the same good-humoured way until they kept to the accredited themes and began to snub others. 'I should never get like that,' she thought, for she was young herself; all the same she knew that she had come up against something that was both insidious and tough, and against which she needed allies."

Isn't that all the food at the American Club right there--"the food of exiles, cooked by servants who did not understand it"? Eating things out of cans and bottles in hopes of a taste of home when at home we didn't actually eat everything out of cans and bottles? And hoping that you can be the one who won't just sit at the Club all the time and be rude to people?

I don't think I'm rude to people... I try not to be. But I know myself enough to realize that sometimes the comfort of our modern-day American equivalents of "bullety bottled peas" appeals to me just a bit more than I want it to.