Leaving the bubble

We spent Thanksgiving in Georgia, with a wing of TLOML's family. It was a long overdue trip and we had a really good time reconnecting, eating well and yes, feeling thankful.

I was prepared for some culture shocks. I had let P know that it would be a bit colder than LA. I also knew we'd be in the land of subdivisions. For my Brits, a subdivision is a housing development. They're strung out along highways between areas of undeveloped land (actual nature - trees and hills and so on) and are the polar opposite to the urban density we and P are used to. I knew we were leaving the liberal left leaning 'resist' mindset of California for #MAGA land. But a little difference of opinion never hurt anyone, so that didn't worry me any. I also knew - and welcomed - the fact that we'd be trading kale salads and Jamba Juice for Dairy Queen and Waffle Houses. That's good stuff.

But I really never thought I'd see a see saw. Nor one of those dangerous roundabouts the sight of which still makes me wince - the kind you can fly off, or be dragged around half-on-half-off, or be screaming 'stop I want to get off!" while some bigger kid sees how fast they can spin it.

I thought they were banned across America, the land of the brave, free and litigious. You certainly never see such perilous equipment in California. Here, the seesaws and roundabouts have curved seats - kind of like arm chairs -  which hug children of all abilities safely, as their friends indulge in some co-operative play and propel them smoothly and conscientiously.

P would have been on this thing all day if we'd let her

Scream if you want to get off/ go faster!

But no, it's only us softy coastal elites who've banned those deathtraps. This excellent playground in Cumming, GA had both a proper seesaw and a proper roundabout - and was all the better for it. Georgia - making playgrounds great again. Is #MPGA a thing?

Leaving the bubble

I love to live in a bubble, and hate to leave it. Anything north of Manhattan Beach (a 30 minute walk along the beach), south of Redondo (ten minutes on a bike), or east of PCH, I consider leaving the bubble. It means getting in the car, and maybe even trading my flip flops for a more formal shoe. Bleurgh.

Despite my aversion, most weekends involve a trip to see friends in Santa Monica or Venice. That's not so bad. It's a 40 minute drive, and when you get there you could almost still be in the South Bay bubble - they are beach cities, at least, and my flipflops fit in.

Worse is having to leave LA altogether. I had a good run of working from home when we first arrived, but more recently have had to pack my overnight bags and show my face at other Big Corp offices. Airports I have passed through in the past three weeks include IAM, ATL, BOS and BOI.

That last is Boise, Idaho. Land of big skies and potato farms. It's beautiful, by the way. Driving to Big Corp as the sun peeked over the mountain ranges that ring the city I got the sense of what Boise might have looked - what, 100, 150 years ago - when it was just a circle of wagons on a trail. Or something. Until I passed the outlet mall anyway. Plenty of people in Boise appear to be staying true to America's cowboy and pioneer roots: fully 80% of vehicles in the corporate car park were pick up trucks. And I saw two people wearing a cowboy hat in the office. So many stereotypes were ringing true, loud and clear.

As for the other cities I stopped - for just a few hours in each case - they were pretty much as expected too. I noted many fried chicken restaurants in Atlanta, Georgia where Southern hospitality is alive and well, as embodied by the insanely over-helpful and bouffant-haired Big Corp receptionist. I saw a man wearing cowboy boots in Houston, Texas. And in Boston, I saw many many Irish bars.

I will never scoff at Americans who 'do' Europe in a matter of weeks again. I have learnt that 24 hours in a city - even if you only go from airport to hotel to office and back - is more enough to confirm a few prejudices.

Grocery grumblings

When we last lived together in LA, we did a llot of our grocery shopping at super expensive, gourmet, organic, local, hand knitted, artisanal grocers like Bristol Farms or Pacific Coast Greens.

Sadly, the days of spluffing $75 on a home cooked dinner for two are over. We've got a college fund to save for now, after all.

However we are a bit too fancy for our own good. Ralph's, or Von's, or any of those common-or-garden supermarkets don't quite cut it. For one thing, they don't always stock European butter. They are also often short on good fresh seafood. And their ground meats all contain mysterious 'natural flavourings' i.e. '100% ground turkey with natural flavourings'. I assume the fact they need to call them out on the packaging means these are not the natural flavourings which, um, naturally occur within turkey. Needless to say, I miss Saltburn and Sainos and the butcher very much, as I stand tutting to myself in the aisle.

On the advice of some people who are unintimidated by enormous warehouses, we tried CostCo. The one near us hosts a fresh fish guy every Friday and Saturday. You could almost call it a fishmonger pop-up store. Except that it's in a CostCo. The fish is genuinely fresh and you can buy Kerrygold butter in bulk there too.

And yet... and yet there's something just too depressing about shopping in CostCo. It's that moment when you find yourself clutching a 6lb packet of spaghetti, saying 'this is so cheap!' and realising you don't have the cupboard space for it – because you're not running an Italian restaurant. And you put it down and shuffle on and think 'that's another 30 seconds minutes of my life I'll never get back'. That and feeling a bit wired from the horrible lighting and all the sugary samples I couldn't resist.

So it is that we came to track down our nearest Korean grocery. TLOML loves a good Korean grocery, and tells me they are famously inexpensive, for Koreans are famously smart shoppers. Plus they have an incredible range of seafood including plenty of live shellfish, and some obscure species to boot.

We did a big shop, stocked up on the good kim chee and some very inexpensive oils and fruit and veg. But I didn't like it. It was packed, and overstocked, and full of people who'd been there a million times before and know where everything was and what the heck everything was too.

As I stood, baffled by the tea selection and stumped by the shellfish, I was jostled constantly. I don't speak Korean but I'd hazard a guess that the murmur as they passed me was “Look at this pale faced giant – she looks like she's never seen a geoduck in her life!”.

Or what to do with a geoduck?

Am I the only one here who doesn't know what balloon tea is?

TLOML can handle the Korean market, and he has the mental strength for CostCo too. But when it's my turn to pick up the groceries, I'm afraid it's back to Ralph's or Von's. Or if I'm feeling a bit extravagant, Bristol Farms.

Cheesy balls

Last time I was in Brazil I think the experience that had the biggest impact on me was the constant munching on pao de queijo. Or, as I named them, little cheesy balls. On that last trip I was in a meeting room solidly from 8am till 7pm and the guy that wheeled in a hostess trolley with a plate of hot cheesy balls, every couple of hours, was a welcome sight. I missed him when I left.

This time I'm all about the bolinhos de bacalhau. Or, as I call them, little fishy balls. When in Rome / Rio, I guess. Not a day has passed without me eating some of these little fried, salty treats. And with just two days left of my trip, I aim to maintain that record.

I haven't abandoned the pao de queijo, though. Only this time I am roaming free in Big Corp, with hardly any meetings, which means no meals-on-wheels. Instead I have to order for myself like a grown up. The girls at the coffee shop in the office don't even attempt to stifle their smirk as I attempt 'pao de queijo'. There's an invisible 'sh' in there that I never quite place at the right point. How I wish I could effect a decent Carioca accent, with all those sshs and qush and hshsh sounds. Or at least, that the girls in the coffee shop spoke sufficient English for me to order 'little cheesy balls' instead.

Undeterred, I have managed to scarf a fair number of these little cheesy balls. Today I had a working lunch and this is how it worked:

Of course, like all enjoyable food experiences, I find myself wondering if I can recreate it at home. There as a many recipes for pao de queijo online as the number of cheesy and fish balls I have eaten this week. That is to say, a lot. Some require overcooked potatoes as a base, others boiling milk and olive oil, and the easiest one looks a bit like a Yorkshire pudding recipe, only with tapioca and cheese instead of flour.

Sadly I think it will be a little while before I get a kitchen of my own to play in. But when I do... well, I'm adding 'making cheesy balls' to my daydream future life, back in the NW5 comfort bubble.

On ruts and routines

The same ex who accused me of 'living in an NW5 comfort bubble' also repeatedly told me I was 'in a rut'. He was right on both counts - and I was proud to concede so.

Why be ashamed of my lovely comfortable rut? A walk on the Heath every Sunday afternoon, followed by tea and Antiques Roadshow, or a pint. Saturday afternoons rifling through stock in 'The Shop' (so named because the Wonder Twin and I went there so frequently it needed no name). A regular grocery shopping run through the gourmet delights of Kentish Town (B&M Seafood, Phoenicia for baba ganoush and humous, and Earth for all the essentials). A twice weekly walk up to the Ladies Pond in the summer. A monthly pedicure at Tips and Toes. Poker nights, petanque on the Heath, and the occasional cricket match. And so on. This very pleasant, well established rhythm wove its way through a wonderful group of friends and some favourite pubs, parks and cafes, and yes, it was all very cosy.

When TLOML uprooted me to LA it did not take long to establish a new comfortable rut. Our regular run out to Nobu, followed by an ice cream from Malibu Yoghurt. Monday lunches at Coogies, to get out of the maids' hair. A sunset stroll on the beach, and my almost daily forays out on my bike, Doris (for so the Euro has christened her). Gin rummy and whisky on the deck. Pizza nights. Bouillabaisse nights. Our couples workout at the Pepperdine track.

In some ways we never really settled in New York, with our hearts stretched as they were between Malibu and London. But we did manage to get into a lovely comfortable rut there too, fairly quickly. Our regular walk down to Chelsea Market, sprees in the Lobster Place, cocktails at the Tipsy Parson, and coffee at Joe. Detours past Stella or Artichoke on the way home. My new running routine along the river. Nights in with Battlestar Galactica. And, of course, the ritual of bouillabaisse.

Living as I am in limbo, I am without routine. And yet, my ability to create a routine will not be constrained. 10 days in Rio is plenty of time to form a nice comfy rut. I quickly established the same breakfast every day - fruit, cereal and yoghurt, and I don't even look at the 'sausage pie' or the pastry baskets - and a gentle 3 mile jog along the sea front. I've managed to catch E! news every night, and BBC World News 'Hard Talk' every morning, which is a very edifying TV routine. And a highlight of my routine is my expresso duplo in the office, which always comes with a tiny little biscuit on it. The treat for me is guessing what the little biscuit will be.

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Friday

Thursday

Above all, it's just nice to feel at home. Guessing what today's little biscuit will be is a small way of feeling at home.

Still, I am not at home. And I'm dying to get there and get back in my rut. Since I last lived in London some of the parameters have moved: pubs have changed hands, people have had babies and even, gasp!,moved to the country. Still, the foundations of dear friends and excellent pubs remain.

I remain convinced our visa, and therefore TLOML's arrival in London, is imminent. Even though we'll be a little bit nomadic at first, I know it won't take long to establish a new routine. Hopefully one that involves as much as possible of my old routine - expanded and enhanced by TLOML's presence.

Rio bucket list

Most people who know Rio recommend the following bucket list:

1. Chillaxin' on the beaches of Copacabana, Ipanema and Leblon
2. A trip to Christ the Redeemer statue
3. The cable car ride to, and views from, Sugarloaf Mountain
4. A favela tour

Other items, like the Ipanema 'hippie market', visiting Lapa to admire the Santa Teresa aquaduct, and a walk along the shores of the saltwater lagoon which lies at the foot of the mountains behind Ipanema. Oh, and grilled cheese on Ipanema beach.

I'm afraid I didn't do very well.

I tried, really I did. On Friday, I escaped the office early just as the clouds that had hung about all day started to clear. I resolved to go to the Christ the Redeemer statue forthwith. It was 5pm, and all I had to do was drop my FedEx package off at the concierge. So I had plenty of time for the 30 minute cab ride to the station - to catch the last train to the statue, at 6pm.

Dropping the FedEx package required 2 forms, 4 phone calls, and literally took twenty five minutes. But as I hopped into a cab at 5.30pm, I was confident I would still have time to make that last train.

By 5.50pm I had been sitting in traffic, stationery for 15 minutes, watching clouds gather again and rain start to spit. I decided to skip it. The good news is that I'd spent most of my cab ride alongside that lagoon I'd been recommended to visit, so at least I could cross that off my list.

My trip to Christ the Redemer. He's up there on that hill, and this is as close as I got.

Instead of visiting that legendary landmark, I wandered along Ipanema's beach and had a nice early dinner at a lovely restaurant The Euro recommended.

On Saturday I decided it was too cloudy to bother with going up tall places for views. I also decided against the favela tour, having read that the only way to do it without being exploitative is to do a proper one, where the tour company contributes significantly to community projects. But the proper ones take a whole day, and I only have two of those days to burn. Plus I read a few reviews saying things like 'it's fascinating to see how theses slums have working electricity and running water' and decided that just wasn't fascinating enough. I've seen City of God, will that do? I'm making my contribution by relentlessly overtipping anyone who looks like they might live in a favela.

Instead of visiting statues and slums, I slept till 11am, went for a run, and took a cab up to Santa Teresa. Santa Teresa is a sweet, old, hillside neighbourhood where I ate shrimp pasties. I walked down to Lapa, which I had imagined was the Kentish Town of Rio: secretly hip, full of interesting, old, independent shops and places to eat. In fact it was just quite dirty. Still, I bought some cheap fruit and strode towards 'Centro' (downtown) to check out this cool 1970s cathedral:

Twenty minutes of circling this monster, down deserted, graffiti-covered streets, and I gave up. I hopped into the first cab back to Copacabana. There was still plenty of time left in the day for some lying in the (patchy) sunshine.

On Sunday I decided to cut out the middle man: all that 'trying to see stuff' bit. I headed straight for the beach. I took a long walk along Copacabana, Ipanema and Leblon beaches. I wandered into Ipanema and vaguely 'looked' for that hippie market, but when it didn't appear on the couple of blocks I tried, I quickly headed back to the beach.

My Rio sightseeing highlight

All of this is a long winded way of saying that I have been a very bad and lazy tourist. I have ticked Item #1 off that bucket list several times over, and that is all. It's been very nice though. My only regret? I wish I'd managed to find that grilled cheese seller on Ipanema beach.

Happiness-on-sea

I keep seeing women in the Big Corp office wearing halternecks and strappy sundresses. Today I commented, not without a sniff of judgement, that 'Some of these women look as if they're going to the beach'. (For reference, I was wearing a cute faux-Chanel jacket with bracelet sleeves, and a pleated skirt.)

My Brazilian colleague agreed. 'Yes - the beach, or a party,' he laughed, nodding appreciatively. I suppose he didn't mind all that bare tanned skin on show. Funny that.

On reflection, I decided, they probably were. Going to the beach or a party, that is. Or better still, both: a beach party. This is Rio after all.

Living by the beach turns everyone a little scruffy. I rarely got out of soft jersey and battered denim back in Malibu. And that beachy style is not just superficial. Something about the sound of surf, the smell of salt air, and a prospect involving sand and a watery horizon, just forces you to unwind. Being by the sea is just simply, purely, happy-making.

Maybe I'm a bit skewed, because my childhood was spent in a house on a cliff, and even when we moved inland, we were just 4 miles away from the beach. And then, TLOML and I had the happiest of times, living in bliss in our little surf shack in Malibu. For me, by the seaside is my happy place.

So I was trying to develop a theory about how people are happier if they live by the sea. I haven't got far on the mental health benefits, despite rigourous research much Googling. One of the top five 'happiest countries in the world' doesn't even have a coastline (Switzerland, if you're interested).

There's plenty of gubbins about the physical health benefits, though. Fresh air and the outdoor lifestyle that a beach beckons you into, are good for your heart, weight, and so on. That's clearly true - but I'm thinking not of my waistline but of that skip the seaside puts in my step.

What is that haze that lies over Rio? I think it's just the dust caused by the friction of many goodlooking people living by the sea. Happiness dust, I'd call it.

Travel essentials

I'm trying to rein in my spending at the moment. What with all that boring grown up 'saving for the wedding' stuff, it is not a good time to go around whazzing money up the wall on fripperies.

And yet... Rio has forced me to do just that.

It's not poor planning. I packed the two suitcases I have to live out of till our shipment arrives (some time in March) very carefully. It's hard enough for me to select clothes for a weekend, never mind 6 weeks. I covered all my bases - work, play, snow, spring, exercise - and I even managed to select an outfit for a wedding that was a month away. I would normally select that outfit from a choice of several, the day of the wedding. So it was quite a challenge for my ability to make advance wardrobe decisions and I met it. Accessories and all.

But, clearly, I did not plan to end up in Rio, in the middle of the Brazilian summer.

I did my best to resist the temptation to buy a new holiday wardrobe. I borrowed some basics - shorts, a summery vest, and a skirt - from my Wondertwin. I thought that would suffice.

And yet... and yet... I really, truly, could not spend even one more minute in Copacabana without owning a pair of flipflops with pictures of toucans on them. Obviously.

I wonder if I can claim them on my travel insurance, as an emergency purchase.

Cortados and mochafrappucinos

The coffee in Argentina is uniformly great. Not just the good stuff in restaurants or cafes, but even the coffee on the hotel buffet, or from the machine in TLOML's office.

Argentina coffee is served just how I like it: dark, thick, and fairly short. No ridiculous buckets of watery 'drip' filth here. TLOML likes it too - it was in Argentina that he was introduced to the cortado, which is dark, thick, fairly short and a bit milky.

In the US, cortados are hard to find, except in fancy 'artisan' coffee places. In fact, the ridiculous but good Joe serves it, which is why we go there despite it being, as I said, ridiculous.

Cortados are not hard to find in Argentina. Rather rarer are the big watery buckets I hate, and silly things like mintmochachocalattefrappucinos. Which I suppose explains the long queue outside the Starbucks in Cordoba: rarity value.

 'I hear the pumpkin ginger creamy lattes have arrived, let's go!'.

Sorry to sound like a moaning 'Occupy Starbucks' liberal in search of a fictional authenticity. After all, why shouldn't the good Argentines of Cordoba have their Starbucks too? But do they have to like it quite so much? I find it rather depressing. Personally I'll stick with the thick dark stuff, like the tourist I clearly am.

Time Travel

We began this trip with a flight from La Guardia, which is the most charmingly old school of New York's airports. A fraction of the size of Newark and JFK, it is also about 20 years behind in terms of technology.

Witness the phone book bank in the lounge, so convenient for looking up old friends on arrival:

And the cricket scoreboard-style flight details at the gate - no fancy computer screens here:

The TSA staff are relaxed an pre-9/11 way too. It's really a very nice little airport.

24 hours and three flights later we arrived in Cordoba, to the heart of TLOML's Argentine power base. Cordoba is a lovely city. It was founded in 1573 but is thoroughly modern, being home to a number of excellent universities, bright students, shiny office buildings and global businesses (TLOML's being a great example of the same).

There are also horses pulling carts. Not many of them, but like the La Guardia phone book facility, just enough to provide a charming reminder of a simpler time.

It's midsummer and powerfully hot here, which is a shock after the biting cold of NYC. And as I sit in a sun-warmed office considering what flavour of gelato to have after lunch, I am buying Christmas groceries online at D'Agostino.

All in all, a most discombobulating trip. But really rather nice.

Geek Assessments (Oh the Funny Things Foreigners Say)

I'm in Brazil this week. Thanks to Big Corp I flew to Sao Paulo on an overnight flight - 4 hours sleep courtesy of an intentional Dramamine overdose - in an economy seat in the middle of a row. (Damn the United Continental merger! 1k means nothing anymore...) Suffice to say this is not how I imagined visiting Brazil., which has been on my 'to visit' list for a while. I was picturing something more along the lines of a business class lie-flat, and a couple of weeks in Rio.

Still, I'm here now. I'm locked in the Big Corp tower in the heart of Sao Paulo, which is a big 1970s concrete monster of a building, where 4000 Brazilians come to, um, mend computers and stuff.

I'm here as part of a panel of Expert Geeks interviewing dozens of Trainee Geeks, to assess their skills in moving post-its around and writing on a flip chart in different coloured markers. If they meet the grade, they get certified. For your understanding: they really want to get certified. Getting certified is a big deal.

I'm the worst person to be on these geek assessment panels, as I'm such a soft touch. All the Trainee Geeks are so nervous, and anxious to do well. I really just want everyone to pass and get their certificate. I want it so badly that when the Trainee Geek answers the question incorrectly, I ask it again in a different way. And again, in a different way. All the while I'm smiling and nodding enthusiastically like an overeager counsellor.

My fellow panellists roll their eyes and tell me to be a little tougher. We should be hard on these guys, and maintain a high standard for certified Geeks. Well, of course. We don't want just any old Tom, Dick or Harry waving their Big Corp Certified Geek certificate around, do we now?

But not only am I naturally a soft touch, in any Geek assessment panel. There's also the Brazil factor. Specifically:

1.  An attractive man wheels in a trolley with little cheesy choux pastry buns, tiny flower shaped shortcakes and good espresso, every couple of hours.


2. The candidate Brazilian Geeks are all of above average attractiveness. (Sometimes racial stereotypes are rooted in robust observations, okay?)

3. Love is in the air. Or, to put it another way, all my Brazilian Big Corp colleagues kiss and hug each other when they meet in the corridors or lifts. Isn't that a nice way to start your working day? I feel like I'm at a big party, albeit one where everyone is wearing bit business casual.

4. The girl Geeks all have perfect manicures. Which is quite distracting as they gesture towards their presentations. I find myself wondering what shade of burgundy that is, when I should be checking out the standard of their powerpoint.

5. Foreigners say such cute things! And in the most adorable accent, in Brazil's case.
There's been a lot of talk of Helpdesk tickets in these panels, and when our Geeks talk about tickets, they say 'chickets'. 'Ticketing' becomes 'chicketching'. I melt. And pass them all. Even the clumsy English is endearing: one of our candidates yesterday talked about 'preparating' for a workshop. Passed him too.
And the Brazilian who explained 'You know, we have this saying, I don't know if it translates, we say, "Look at the cat! Watch the cat! The cat is by the wall!"', just destroyed me. I didn't have the heart to say it didn't translate. Instead I squashed my giggles, nodded as if I knew exactly what she was talking about, and passed her too.

Copacabana can wait. In my three days in Sao Paulo I am making a lot of geeks very happy.