Checking in

Signing on from New Delhi... we visited Agra yesterday and saw the Taj Mahal, plus some other stuff which clearly no one cares about as much. The day was... interesting. The sites were great, but our taxi driver was actually deranged... so, you know, trade-offs. I also took my first auto-rickshaw ride, since we're not allowed to take them in Dhaka. Twelve kilometers on a tuk-tuk was definitely more than enough, thank you, especially considering the zillion-degree heat. Did I mention the heat? I thought I was going to pass out on a number of occasions yesterday. But on the other hand, that meant the Taj was relatively uncrowded. Pictures to follow.

Mini A-100 reunion tonight!

Pretty baby, pretty cupcakes

I finally got to meet Melissa's delightful little daughter, Bea! I am blatantly stealing one of Melissa's pictures of us at Magnolia Bakery (the uncrowded one on the Upper West Side... no standing on lines for me, not even in the picturesque West Village). Hooray for cupcakes!


It should also be noted that her dress is from the fantastic Hathay Bunano of Bangladesh, which you should read all about--great company.

Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité

Just wanted to a mention a very good exhibit at the New York Public Library we checked out the other day: Between Collaboration and Resistance: French Literary Life Under Nazi Occupation. Since, unlike some of my readers (I'm looking at you, Hadi), I haven't read much Genet, Celine, or Robbe-Grillet, I enjoyed the historical portions more than the parts on specific writers. But it was really well done and I felt like I learned a lot, which is all you can ask for in a day.

Moving on out

The movers are here to pack our second shipment to Dhaka. Let's not talk about it.

Instead, I will talk about how lovely things in New York are! What else is new? Yesterday I was cranky since James left me all day, but then he made it all better by taking me to Wild Edibles for their dozen-oysters-and-a-pint deal. They also had fantastic bread (a luxury after Dhaka!). I tried the Long Trail Ale, a nice mild American IPA. Mmm good beer--another luxury.

Then I convinced James to head over to West Chelsea to hit a few gallery openings. The Russian absurdist work we saw was, um, odd (and it got MUCH weirder than this one):


But we loved Dannielle Tegeder's Kandinsky-inspired Arrangements to Ward Off Accidents. The pieces had titles like "The toys of all cultures were products initially of a cottage industry" and "In every accident provisional possibility is driven out." Delightfully mad.

And then we hung out with James's friends from law school on a terrace with a view. A view of something worth looking at--perhaps the greatest luxury of all.

Wowee!

Okay, amidst my freaking out, I will just post that the crazy party Carolyn took me to on Tuesday night with all the socialites was named by Vanity Fair as one of the top three parties worldwide that night. Not sure who gave them the right to make that determination, but hey, I feel cool.

Why did I decide to leave New York again?

Freaking out

GAHHHHHHHHHH moving-related panic attack... we are packing up the NYC apartment, finally, and making the move to Bangladesh final and complete. Which means we are going nuts digging through three years of junk. Yuck.

On the plus side, this means James is coming with me to Dhaka next week! Hooray!!!!!!!!!! I really think that will change my entire experience there (in a positive way)... I am excited.

So I don't have time to write about partying with socialites, meeting Christian Siriano, eating fabulously, and hanging out with my delightful friends, but rest assured that it did all happen. Tomorrow we'll have the packing frenzy, then pass out (it's the first night since I got here that I have nothing scheduled!), then board a bus for Boston the next morning. Whew.

Highlights, lately

1. Seeing Secretary Clinton give the address at the NYU university-wide commencement ceremony at Yankee Stadium. It wasn't so much the speech--which was good--but the reaction of the crowd: they went CRAZY. And I thought, yeah, this is our Secretary. Woot.

2. Seeing James in the funny hat and the gown and the hood. Law school graduation outfits are WAY funnier than undergraduate ones.

3. Dinner at Daniel. That is a gorgeous room, with gorgeous food, of course. Though I must say it is at a formality level that I get flustered. Maybe I should get used to it though--I had better take that protocol class that teaches you about forks.

4. A nostalgic return to the Bohemian Hall and Beer Garden in Astoria, aka Heaven on Earth.

5. Lunch at Sakagura. Mmmmmmmm. Thankfully, though, we now have respectable Japanese food in Dhaka.

6. Reading Muriel Barbery's The Elegance of the Hedgehog (L'Élégance du hérisson), which I so wish I could get a copy of in French--it is delightful, but also very poorly translated.

7. Speaking Bangla with a cab driver (Islami Kazi of Chittagong, who I totally freaked out).

8. Dim sum at Dim Sum Go Go with Andrew. Delightful.

9. Sitting out in Herald Square with 'wichcraft sandwiches, soaking in the sunshine and chuckling at the pomposity of the statue of a seated Horace Greeley.

10. Just being here.

Thinking very, very hard

I feel like I just read a book right before I left Dhaka and I can't remember for the life of me what it was. This is upsetting me because I haven't put it on Visual Bookshelf on facebook, and clearly if it's not on facebook, it never happened.

Anyway, New York continues in fabulousness. Yesterday I met up with Marcel and we ate at the Redhead (um, fried chicken yessssssssssss) and finished up at Momofuku Milk Bar (I still think it was a bit over the top, but the corn cookie--yes, corn--was pretty amazing).

Can you tell the story of my time in NYC is a story of food?

James and I had lunch at Jean-Georges today. A major win, but of course, the three Michelin stars kind of point in that direction. The sea trout sashimi was my favorite.

Afterwards we spent pretty much all afternoon in another Borders, and of course I ended up with another book. I am sure I will regret all this when I am lugging my suitcase back to Dhaka. And this evening I met up with delightful friends from Microsoft for drinks. Seriously, how did I snag such awesome friends from the most boring job ever?

More to come--tomorrow, we hit Daniel. Sweet.

Happy 250th post to me!

And I couldn't be writing it anywhere I'd rather be. New York City IS as awesome as I'd remembered. I love my job and the Foreign Service, but sometimes I think about New York and wonder if I've made a terrible, terrible mistake.

I've had a lovely last few days. After all my fear, I held it together pretty well on the flight from Delhi to Newark. The pilot came around and introduced himself as we were getting seated, and that really helped--I appreciated it, and knowing we had an Air Force Major General in charge up front calmed me down. So points to Continental. Other fun facts about my flight: Natalie Portman was on it, also in business class, so I could see her from where I was sitting! Had they not dimmed the lights for most of the flight, making it impossible to see, I probably would have spent all 15 hours of flight time staring. I guess I should be grateful since the darkness gave me a chance to watch excellent cinema like Vince Vaughn's Four Christmases and Baz Luhrmann's Australia (Note: AVOID). Not that I'm keeping track, but Natalie did NOT turn off her electronic devices at the appropriate times.

Anyway, I landed at 4:30am and was whisked off to Jersey for sleep. My mom and I later visited my grandfather (98 years old and going strong) and hit the mall. I bought a belt to wear over cardigans just like Michelle Obama, aka The Goddess.

On Saturday James and I went to the Frick (real art!), visited his aunt and uncle, went to Borders (real bookstore! Somehow I bought another novel about South Asia though... A Case of Exploding Mangos), and had dinner with Ebonie and Dave at Franny's (real restaurant! Serving real pork! And real wine!).

Yesterday was Mother's Day, and my mother's heart's desire was to tour the Rockefeller family estate on the Hudson River, called Kykuit, and then eat at Blue Hill at Stone Barns. Um, sign me up! Blue Hill was excellent, but who expected otherwise? I have some cool pictures of the estate that I'll post at some point. We also visited the Rockefeller family church, which has windows done by Matisse and Chagall... and sits, unguarded, on a little country road. Amazing.

All in all, a wonderful first few days. I can't wait for more.

Hell day

Whew! Somehow my blogging time got away from me in my rush to finish things up and get onto R&R. And then, of course, there was my weeklong panic attack to contend with.

You see, I hate to fly. By "hate" I mean am deathly terrified. People think this is pretty funny. It might be funnier if I were a pilot or a flight attendant, but diplomats are pretty high on the list of people who'd better stop their whining and just get on the goddamn plane. But every time, I am miserable. Last year I think I flew on 24 flights or something like that--and half that year was spent in the U.S., not allowed to take any vacation days. So this year could be close to double that. And you know what? It doesn't get better.

I found British historian Ian Mortimer's piece on why he won't fly excellent--except for the fear of heights, I am right there with him on everything that makes me terrified. Right there with him until his conclusion that he won't fly. Because everything I need and want to do in my life requires flying, and I don't want to give up everything I ever wanted for this fear.

So this morning I boarded a flight from Dhaka to New Delhi, where I have plenty of blogging time during my 11-hour layover spent in a friend's apartment. I tried to go out, and did manage to get a dosa and hit a tschotchke emporium, but because today is election day in India (who knew? Apparently not me), most things are closed. And soon I have to go get on another plane, knowing how much I hate it.

One perk: today was my first time in business class. Ever. It is sort of exciting, except none of the people in business class would smile at me. On the other hand, I got champagne.

This neighborhood I am spending the day in here in Delhi is so pleasant--just a bit cleaner, brighter, greener, more modern than my neighborhood in Dhaka--the nicest in Bangladesh. And soon I'll be in New York, which is not exactly clean, but I love it.

Office Love

Anyone else obsessed with The Office? Me too, though I have been missing Season 5 due to the inconvenience of living in Bangladesh.

Anyway, I wish so bad that Mindy Kaling would update her blog, things i bought that i love, because it is hilarious and kind of exactly like her character on the show except a billion times smarter and wittier.

I love the accessibility of blogs. An actress/writer of my favorite show ever has a blog, and I feel too awkward to comment on it because she has, like, no comments on any posts so that would be weird. But I COULD comment, and maybe she would write back! Maybe not. Anyway, I have more people commenting on my blog despite not being even marginally famous, so who isn't a loser now?? Hah.

I don't think that made any sense, but I love her, and that's the moral of this story.

Tarte aux tomates

Or "The French Bakery in Baridhara: Week Two."

This week I opted for little tomato tarts (tarte aux tomates). I devoured them in the car pretty much immediately, so no real pictures, but here is one from the internet--the ones I had were less gooey with cheese. They had cheese, don't get me wrong, but it was more of a sharp, hard cheese, making the flavor pungent and salty with no gooeyness involved.


I also bought an olive bread--very nice, though I tend to like it a bit more olive-y, with tapenade in the dough in addition to olives. I was tempted to get the yummy foccaccia again (with its everything-bagel-like toppings), but figured eating another one all in one day would be a bad, bad choice.

James is going to have a field day when he gets here... I haven't been buying the pate just for myself, but for two people, a brick of pate is clearly an acceptable snack.

Happy birthday to my blogchild

AGHHHH!!!!! I realized I missed Rock Star in Dhaka's one-year anniversary on April 16th.

One year and two weeks (and 245 posts) later, here we are. I am in Dhaka, unlike when I actually started writing the blog. I've now been in the State Department for a year and two months, 9.5 of those in Dhaka.

To the few, the proud, my readers, thank you for being interested. I don't mind speaking to the void, but it's always nice when the void speaks back.

This summer I'll find out where I'm going to rock out next. Should be an adventure :)

Here's to the Duchess of Grafton

Uggghhhhhhhhh... not so much functional today.

Note to self: next year, forget feeling like I have to be some sort of cold disciplinarian and be friends with the Fulbrighters. They are fun.

In other Fulbrighter-related news, I was reading one of their blogs and saw something about how their lives in the field are so different from the "chichi" Embassy lifestyle.

And I was like, damn, I wish I were more chichi. I mean, I guess we are in Dhaka, but being chichi in Dhaka is about average for any random suburbanite in the U.S. We have cars?? Gasp. [Note: Okay, fine, the ability to have domestic help is a difference. BUT THAT'S IT.]

At least people think our lives are super glamorous, and I guess perception is more than half the battle here. Being a diplomat feels like belonging to a profession that doesn't exist anymore. Like a cavalier or a courtier or a lady in waiting or something. One day I say I'm a diplomat--who's to say I won't claim to be Mistress of the Robes or something next? True fact: there still is one, but you pretty much have to be a duchess to qualify.