Depending on the Kindness of Strangers

As a tourist you are perpetually dependent on the competence and the kindness of strangers—the drivers, the restaurant and hotel staff, your fellow passengers—all become part of a public puddle of general cooperation.

Usually, if your attitude is correct, and your luck holds, you swim about in a pond of congenial getting-by. Tips play a big part in this. In New York my sister taught me the fine art of pre-tipping the house-keeping staff, for example.  And writing bad reviews on an appropriate website also used to be an incentive for a reasonable standard of goods and service.

When the kindness puddle gets too polluted, though, it’s important to get to dry land as soon as possible. Everyone knows you can drown in an inch of muddy water.

Take the recent case of the Wild Boar Goulash Soup.

In one of Budapest’s best restaurants this local speciality featured as a course between the warm goose liver and the meat and dumplings. It was not even your ordinary goulash soup, but a special variety made with wild boar. (Query: is there such a thing as domestic boar?)

goulashsoupfeaAnyway, it consisted of tinned cubed vegetables and meat. I know this as a true fact, as I grew up eating tinned soup and loved it. Like a gourmet who can separate a single pearl of Beluga Caviar from a crystal bowl full of lesser eggs, I can distinguish a rubbery cube of tinned beef from any carefully-boiled home-made product. And tinned vegetables have their own texture that simply cannot be reproduced no matter how long you boil a carrot.

By my reckoning, a spoonful of canned meat and veg had been ladled into each bowl, a spoonful of paprika had been added, and it was all topped up with hot water. I wolfed down as much as I could of the solid bits before stopping to reflect, and then left the rest. My more fastidious dining-companion left all of his.

The waiter refused to take our almost-full bowls away, and a rather large lady came to enquire what our problem was. She was not exactly confrontational, but the musician playing the zither definitely stepped on the damper pedal so he could follow the interesting conversation that was about to take place.

It was not to our taste perhaps? We were not used to the paprika? Ah, but, exceptionally, her husband-the-chef had not made the delicious soup today and a sous-chef had made it. She would check with the kitchen ….

She never returned to our table. Much like the Lobster Newburg in Aswan (no lobster and the shells smelled of bleach) or the fennel soup in Istanbul (fennel had been replaced by chopped grass) yet another tourist restaurant had cut the final corner.

When this happens, it is our duty to gird up our tourist loins and send the simple, yet brave, message to the kitchen to tell the chef that it’s not good.

The puddle of cooperation (and the soup) might be better tomorrow.

PS  We left a big tip for the zither man.

Colo-Cola

Well, it seems just like yesterday when I had my last colonoscopy. I remember all the gory details oh-so-well: the shoe-box-sized package of product wittily named “Moviprep”, spending a cold lonely evening stuck on the commode, and apprehensively waiting in the murky bowels of the clinic where technicians stroll around with what look like rolled-up black garden hoses.

And now, five short years later, I’ve been nailed again.

I tried, as usual, to talk my way out of it. There must be a mathematical error. She had promised only every 10 years. No history of colon cancer in my family. My favourite food is muesli. She was having none of it, and retaliated with her own stories concerning family members fainting because of the needle in the back of the hand.

When asked point-blank whether she had actually had one herself, the reply was negative of course.

Intensive international research (a phone call to my sister) has revealed serious cultural discrepancies in the prevention of colon cancer. In Canada you just have to avoid Vitamin C and aspirins and send three-days-worth-of-poo samples off in the mail from the comfort of your own home. After that, no news is good news. Scurvy is a possible side-effect if one procrastinates too long.

If some medical emergency rudely requires a real “colo” then you go on a delicious popsicle, jelly, liquid diet for three days. Here, on the other hand, you are not allowed to eat any fibre food (fruit and vegetables strictly dave-barry-colonoscopy-certforbidden) for five whole days.

Then there is the trauma of the evening before your procedure. You fix your first litre of Moviprep (“colo-cola” in local flash medical parlance), drink (with a straw), and wait. Canadian instructions focus on creating a calming environment with soothing music, scented candles, feather-soft toilet paper, and humorous and diverting reading material. My instructions from the Swiss clinic were to avoid social entertaining on that particular evening as I would be otherwise engaged; and to call an ambulance if nothing happened within two hours.

Anyway, I have a few months in front of me to prepare as the colo doctor has not bought her 2017 agenda yet. I will find the softest eiderdown toilet paper, the loudest Wagnerian thunder-box music, and the most beautiful candles.

Colo-cola cocktails will be served with small paper parasols and black straws. But what I’m really looking forward to is the day after when I will be basking in the sure and certain knowledge of a lovely, healthy, Swiss-clean colo.

 

 

 

Re-entry Hicccups

The full force of the rentrée is with us. The roads are filled with cars, the schools are filled with kids, tanned doctors are back in their offices, exam sessions are underway, the usual French fall strikes have begun, and parking places in town have become rarer than hens’ teeth.

On the political scene here in Geneva a major story has just broken concerning the brilliant invention of the green plastic garbage can. The person in charge (the guy who brought us the concept of letting nature go wild along our public roads) has come up with the startling idea of having a compost bin handily situated right in your very own kitchen. This is to avoid putting heavy things such as corn cobs and nasty inedible sweet potato muffins in your main garbage can. This will, in turn, save money at the cantonal incinerator.

Fortunately, I don’t need a new garbage can, as I still have one that was given out by the Geneva government some 30+ years ago. In those old days of generosity, every household was given 2 garbage cans—a small one of green plastic and a bigger brown brother.  They were meant to stand side by side under the sink.  My retro green James-Bond-era plastic garbage can is virginal as buying the cute little plastic bags that fit inside, and then storing rotting organic waste near a hot kitchen sink somehow struck me as a stinky waste of money.

Agonizing over the circularity, unoriginality, and expense (1.6 million Swiss francs) of green plastic cantonal thought; my politically incorrect garbage can habits; and Geneva’s ever-growing green plastic garbage can mountain, I was struck by a conversation coming from the backseat of the car. The two passengers were discussing the origins of hiccups.

drinking glass of water upside downIt was hypothesized that hiccups result from stress, the proof being that the hiccup victim got an exceptionally bad case right after a small scholastic exercise concerning the multiplication tables. She had completely forgotten some of the trickier calculations (8×7 was a real bummer) due to the summer holidays.

The conversation went on to conclude that either the summer holidays should be shortened to two weeks (so that such lapses and distressing medical episodes could be avoided) or that, like bears, we humans should be able to hibernate all winter and, thus, avoid school entirely.

The average age in the back seat was 9 ½.

Perhaps Canada has got it right.  I’ve not heard anything about free political garbage cans. And there primary school teachers are simply cancelling repetitive and useless activities.

For example, cursive writing is no longer taught. Students learn to print in block capitals – much like the Romans. The curlicues and flying fantasies of penmanship are no longer skills deemed necessary. Stringing things together, like pinning clothes on an outdoor line, is simply a tiresome and irrelevant task.

MAYBENOONEINCANADACANSIGNTHEIRNAMEANYMOREBUTPROBABLYNOONEGETSTHEHICCUPSEITHER.

 

 

 

 

The Bell of Torment

Well, I’ve just got back from a few days of wellbeing (the Long Life formula for guaranteed benessere) at the Italian spa of Castrocaro Terme. Completely shattered.

The problem wasn’t really with the mud mask treatment. I had thought that after it was over the girl would have come back to get me and show me the way out. Fortunately, the doors are only locked very late at night.

And it also wasn’t the dagger glares that we received as we slid gracefully into the spa’s hot mineral pool. No one had handed us the obligatory shower cap, and, anyway, you would never dream of putting your head anywhere near the green sulphur water with its icing of brown froth.

And it certainly wasn’t the reserved breakfast tables in the most convenient and beautiful spots. We were fine down the corridor behind the pillars.

No. It was the clock tower bell.

clocktower2During the daytime, I swear, it was silent as a tomb. However, there were a few hints around town that things were not quite right. For example, there were ashtrays on all flat surfaces.

There was also a suspiciously well-attended thé-dancant in the hotel gardens. Couples danced their afternoons away to Italian versions of gentle nostalgic songs.

And the fruit and vegetable lady shut her shop firmly for the day at 9:30 a.m.

What happens, is that starting at about 11 in the evening, the clock bell begins to chime. It chimes the hour, and then it also informs you of every 15 minutes that pass.

For example, at 12:45 there are a grand total of 15 loud resonating gongs and you have exactly 14 ½ minutes to firmly doze off before the single chime at 1 a.m.

The stress is enormous. If you can get enough of the Long Life rosso under your belt, then you might have a chance of some refreshing slumber. However, if you accidentally wake up any time in the night you’ve had it. Willing myself into deep sleep within 15 minutes was beyond me.

You think of the pleasant things that have filled your day: the cobbler who has repaired your unstuck sandal for 1 euro; the delicious meal of fresh greens and porcini mushrooms up in the hills; your excellent purchase of a big blue glass Murano bowl. And then you start to think about smoking (for your nerves) dancing (to tire yourself out) or a double espresso (to sharpen up).

Leaning out the window at first light (6:15 a.m.) you see the fruit and vegetable lady open her doors, and her customers immediately start to flock in. The bar in the corner of the square opens with instantaneous clientele. All these people are not up early, they have been up all night.

Purchases made, coffee drunk, and dolce eaten, the town inhabitants will sleep the day away, until it’s time for the dance in the park and the night starts again.