Snowbird City

27 01 2012

The Canadians have landed.

The annual exodus from winter to warmer climes began about Thanksgiving (American Thanksgiving, that is…) and usually lasts until Easter. That means, we here in Hollywood, Florida, are currently in the thick of it.

A caravan of vehicles bearing the license plate “Je me souviens” begins moving south down I-95 just as Florida’s hurricane season is ending, and Quebec’s deep freeze is beginning. The colony grows by the day until South Florida is saturated.

Bienvenue! And spend some money here, you Lexus driver, you!

And they really are ALL French Canadians. In all my years of coming to Hollywood between November and April, I have never seen a Canadian license plate from west of Laval. I have no idea why.

One telltale indication that the snowbirds are back in town are the signs in the stores that say “On parle français” and…I walk by this one every day….

Yuck.

For those of you unfamiliar with this culinary delight from north of the border, it is truly disgusting. A heart attack on a plate if there ever was one. Fries drowned in cheese and gravy, basically. I had the honor of making its acquaintance once while at university in Canada, many, many years ago. My cholesterol level has not yet recovered.

R. and I have started playing a drinking game when we are out in one of the bars downtown or at the beach. It’s called “Identify the French Canadian”. I can’t say what it is about them, but we are generally 98% right (and therefore drink a lot). French Canadians just have this look, and they all seem to look the same.

But despite the invasion of les Français, we are thankful for their cash, which they toss around liberally, as every vacationer should.

To keep our French Canadian friends and neighbo(u)rs happy and entertained during their annual sojourn to Florida, Hollywood offers Claude, the two-step king.

Monsieur "MC et DJ prof." in action at "Disco-Karaoké".

He is out a few times a week in the bandshell on the beach, crooning old favorites from the 60′s and 70′s. Hundreds of retired Canucks spend their afternoons in the sunshine, tapping their feet to Claude’s rendition of “Mustang Sally” and other favorites I never new had French subtitles or translations. His finale today was what seemed to be some kind of folk song that had everyone joining in in a sing-a-long.

It’s fun for the whole family, as Claude’s elderly line-dancing groupies – also out for every afternoon performance – will attest.

The ladies doing their thing for Claude.

We Floridians just sit there and gape at the crazy tourists.


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Categories : Americana, Cruisin', Uncategorized

Monday in the Swiss mountains

19 01 2012

I live in Switzerland, so that means the Alps are not far. In fact, if I walk up the street from where I live, I can even see them, every day. And that means, in winter, there is some serious skiing to be done.

First though, the photographic evidence, to prove that I actually went and returned, to tell the tale:

Monday afternoon. Lovely, isn't it?

Every time I see a photo like this, it makes me want to jump in the car and head for the hills. I admit, I don’t get out enough. And in the last few weeks, the northern side of the Alps has gotten more snow than it knows what to do with so it really is a crime not to take advantage.

The main deterrent is when I start thinking about all the stuff I have to take. First I have to find it all, and then I have to either put it on or take it with me in the car. Long underwear, turtleneck sweater, ski pants, ski jacket, ski gloves, goggles, a furry hat, my balaclava – for particularly frigid days. Then come the ski boots, poles and the actual skis themselves.

For the moment, I draw the line at a helmet. I know helmets are all the rage… safety arguments, setting a good example for kids, and all that… yadayadaya… Yes, okay, maybe someday I will go buy myself a ski helmet. But for now I will stick with my furry hat.

I love my hat. It's so much more fun than any helmet.

I also usually take along a hot tea for the drive out, and a snack of some sort and a sports bottle of flavored water as an ice-cold refreshment for the drive home.

The most important piece of skiing equipment, at least here in Switzerland, is a credit card and/or a wad of cash because one will, inevitably, be paying large sums of money for the privilege of waiting in a crowd for the gondola to the top of the mountain. (On a weekday! Don’t these people have to work?)

And it really is exhausting. I mean seriously… I consider myself pretty physically fit. After all, I have been skating marathons for 13 years. But when it comes to schlepping my ski stuff across an icy parking lot, cloding along in clunky ski boots, dressed for a day in the sub-freezing outdoors and feeling like the Michelin woman, all that junk is unbelievably cumbersome. I always forget how much work it is. And I hate sweating underneath all those layers, especially before I have actually done anything heroic at all.

The temperature was minus 12 degrees Celcius (10 degrees F) in the valley when I headed out last Monday morning. When I finally got to the top, at 2200 meters (7260 feet) above sea level it was, of course, wonderful. I snapped into my bindings and started swishing down the pistes like a pro. (Okay, no, not really…)

By venturing into the great outdoors, not only am I doing my body something good, I’m also reliving a lot of really great memories. Like last winter, going skiing in St. Moritz with my friend Pascale, before she died in a tragic hiking accident this past summer.

So sure I was glad I went – the life-affirming, glorious sunshine and the crisp clear air makes it all worthwhile in the end. But… ugh, the effort that it takes… every time.


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Categories : Cruisin', EuroTrash, Sports that can kill, This & that in the real world

The almost-United States

2 01 2012

In the last couple of days I have been having fitful bouts of insomnia again. Nothing like last summer, but still. Lying in bed, looking at the ceiling is no fun, no matter if its for 30 minutes or 3 hours.

So to make the time pass quicker, I devised a couple of concentration games for myself, one of which is a challenge to name all the 50 states in alphabetical order in less than 2 minutes. It’s not as easy as you think.

For the first twenty or so times I tried this, I always came up with 47 or 48, once I even made it up to 49. But that darn 50th state eluded me. Over and over and over again, I always seemed to be one or two short.

This is so true. (From the website: www.funnyordie.com)

In the meantime I have a system and I know exactly how many states there are per letter. The last couple of times I played this game with myself, I have got to 50 pretty regularly. Let me demonstrate.

First the four A’s. Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas and Arizona. Followed by 3 C’s: Connecticut, Colorado and Chicago. No, hang on. California.

Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii.

The four I’s come next: Iowa, Idaho, Illinois and Indiana.

Kansas & Kentucky.

Louisiana.

This is where it gets interesting. There are SO MANY states that begin with M and N! I’m so sure that this is where I always lose one.

Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Mississippi, Missouri.

New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Nebraska, Nevada.

Whew. Think that’s it.

Then there’s Oklahoma and Oregon, followed by my home state of Pennsylvania.

Rhode Island, and the Souths… Carolina and Dakota.

Texas and Tennessee followed by Utah.

Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

Yay!

Uh oh. That’s 49.  Lost one again. Do let me know if you find it.

(And no – Washington DC is not a state!!! It’s a District!)


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Categories : Americana, Cruisin', Just another working stiff, This & that in the real world

Polo at its Argentine best

16 12 2011

Once every couple of years, I travel to South America to visit my relatives – my father’s family – and last week it was time to drop in on them again. My aunt died suddenly just before Christmas last year, and I don’t know how long my 71-year-old uncle is going to be around.  I just wanted to see them, spend time with them and enjoy their company. It helps that they live in a pretty cool place: Buenos Aires, Argentina.

It is summer in Buenos Aires this time of year; the days get longer and the temperatures climb into tropical regions. And the annual Argentine Open Polo competition gets underway.

For those of you unfamiliar with polo the sport (as opposed to Polo the brand), it is, in a word, elitist. You have to be super-rich to be a part of it, and fearless and athletic to play. Each team consists of four human members, and anywhere between 32 and 64 equine ones, called “ponies”. You may recall, the Princes Charles, William and Harry play polo.

It is hockey on horseback, if you will. Equine golf at full gallop.  Soccer at superspeed… with a mallet… from six feet off the ground.

Geronimo!!!!!!!

The Argentine Open is to international polo what the World Series is to international baseball. In essence, it is the world championship because there is no question whatsoever as to which nation dominates the sport. And within polo, only a handful of families control the business.

Polo enthusiasts from around the world flock to the national polo grounds in Palermo, in the center of Buenos Aires, from late November, to watch their idols make magic. This year was the 118th in which the tournament has taken place.

Attending an Argentine Open polo match has been on my bucket list for a long, long time. So as soon as my travel dates to BA were set, I contacted a friend here who got me tickets to this year’s final, where the best of the very best duke it out in eight chukkas. (Actually learning how to play polo remains close to the top of that said list.)

The finalists were the same teams that have ruled the tournament, the sport, and the industry since 2007: Ellerstina and La Dolfina – neither of which meant squat to me before I set foot on the holy Palermo pitch. (But ladies, each one of those eight boys on horseback makes George Clooney look like a serious has-been. Trust me.)

The ponies are something else altogether, and most have pedigree parentage across several generations who have already played in Palermo finals.

Polo fans are a strange set for your average major sporting event… civilized, white, beautiful people, many showing off a whole bunch of bling and botox. They are respectful and unbelievably concentrated during the action on the field. Polo is the only sport in the world, my ticket-acquiring friend said, where the players make more noise than the spectators. There were moments in the grandstands where you could hear a pin drop. On grass.

Ellerstina making a "Hail Mary" play.

I was spellbound, despite slowly melting in the 32 degree C (100 degree F) heat. It was one of the most fascinating sporting events I have ever witnessed and I was very aware of what a high honor it was to actually be there to watch the final LIVE. However, according to one expert’s post-match analysis, it was a messy game. The teams were nervous and made a bunch of stupid mistakes that led to too many penalties, he added. A number of goals ensued from these penalty situations – not a very crowd-friendly way to entertain 16,000 paying fans.

In the end La Dolfina whipped Ellerstina 16 to 10, and polo’s posterboy, Adolfo Cambiaso, Dolfina’s number one player and owner, added another diamond to his already very full crown as the true king of international polo.

See how fast I have become a polo expert?  Took me a whole eight chukkas in the cheap seats under the hot sun.

The final score of this year's Argentine Open Final.


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Categories : Blood relations, Cruisin', Sports that can kill, This & that in the real world

Of paint, outlets and doorknobs

7 12 2011

So for the last two weeks or so I disappeared into renovation-land. As some of you may know I still own my father’s condo in South Florida. He died about four years ago, and we decided to keep it as a (very expensive) vacation place. Some would call it a “money pit”.

Two years ago, when R. was unemployed for a few months, we decided to start upgrading the place that seemed to have not been upgraded since it was built in 1973. The kitchen’s dome lighting was vintage, and the appliances were slowly taking leave of their functionality, one by one.

The pink bathroom was classic, too.

Gorgeous. Just Gorgeous.

So thanks to my unbelievably resourceful and flexibly unemployed husband, we managed to redo the kitchen and the two bathrooms within about four months. He flew from Europe to Miami five times within that span of time to supervise the construction.

For the past two years we have thoroughly enjoyed our half-new vacation place. But every visit we said to each other that the place kind of needed a new paint job. And every time we came, we also said – “Okay…. next time.”

This past September we attacked the project head on. R. is no longer unemployed, but he now has a job where he can literally take every fifth week off. (PS.: I want one like that too…) So he flew over to Miami and started the long and arduous task of covering every ceiling and vertical flat surface within the four walls of our condo with a fresh coat of white paint. It took him eight full days.

But once the walls and the ceilings were white again, we noticed that the closet doors, room doors and door frames were a kind of seedy beige-y color that depressed us. And the doorknobs, fashionable in the 1970’s, I’m sure, just had to go.

A second working vacation was planned.

We arrived a week and a half ago, and in those ten days the place has turned from dowdy to rowdy.  For the trim and every other surface that needed something fresh, we chose an airy, light turquoise that carries the name “ionic sky”. I kept calling it “iconic sky”. It looks unbelievably Florida-y, South-Beach-y even. Oh-so-cool.

But renovating comes with its pitfalls, too. For example, I never knew painting was so hard, that one can make so many mistakes, and that it is possible to get a cramp in one’s hand from holding a paintbrush for 8 hours every day. I thought that kind of thing only happened when you were writing exams at school.

During our renovation extravaganza, no day was complete without a visit to one of our two local Home Depots. We always seemed to need some tool / widget / screw / nail / cable / switch / outlet / paintbrush / cover / glue that we did not have at home at that particular moment.

On the bright side, I discovered a new, marketable skill I never knew I had: replacing doorknobs. My apparent expertise earned me the endearing title “Miss Doorknob”. My dear, sweet husband, whose native language is not English, was previously unaware of the colloquial connotation of calling someone a “Doorknob.”

Of course, he meant well, and I love him for it.

And hey, if I don’t get a job in my field by the end of January, maybe I can make replacing doorknobs my new career choice!

My handiwork. All mine.


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Categories : Americana, Blood relations, Cruisin', Just another working stiff, This & that in the real world

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