A bit Lost

Martín and I are not cool when it comes to all things music, movies and television. We can't follow a series as it goes out because our brains don't work remembering to be in the same place at the same time every week. We have no idea what's at number 1 in the charts, if they should be at number 1 and where the hell Downton Abbey is.

What we do is wait until something has finished being popular and amazing and then get it. With television series we download them and watch at our leisure. We finished House this year and loved it. Before House, we watched The West Wing. Our latest nighttime viewing has us back in 2006 with the series Lost.

When we were living in Buenos Aires, students would come to classes red-eyed and yawning. "Why are you so tired?" I would ask. The reply was always: "I was watching Lost until 4am."

At the time I thought What? Who would watch a series all night like that? Then The West Wing finished. And Dr. House biked off into the sunset with Wilson. And then we were Love Film subscribers and Lost was always there to watch so we took a deep breath and went for it.

We finished the first season in just over a week. Television watching at its most ridiculous, if you ask me. And although I couldn't see why anyone would go to work on two hours' sleep each night just to watch it, we were also addicted to the mystery, cliff hangers, weirdness of it all.

But as much as it has captured our imagination, there is something missing watching Lost compared to something like House or The West Wing. We don't learn anything. After watching House, I know what a lumbar puncture is (and almost how to do one, they seemed to do them so often); I know the symptoms of syphilis; I know that parking in a hospital can be political and I know what lupus is. Every episode held nuggets of information, parts to be pieced together from a real world.

In The West Wing I would learn about history, religion and philosophy as the characters walked the corridors of power at the White House debating, arguing, reasoning, explaining and resolving on an intellectual level that I have never seen in any other workplace I've been to. It was fast, slick and comforting in the sense that there was going to be something new explained to me. I had to pay attention.

Now, we're in season five of Lost and simply trying to get through it to make sure the pieces all fit together in this now absurd (in my opinion) time travelling jigsaw. Time travel. That's the extent of our learning.

Of course, watching television is not always about increasing knowledge. But it's good when it's time well spent, something gained.

And you're not just sat there after switching off feeling a bit empty having lost a few hours.

Where do we go, really?

There are people who come back from a long weekend in, for example, Madrid, and say, "We've done Madrid."

Really? How? Oh, that museum and that famous tapas place and coffee in that square and that park and that fountain and that palace. No, you haven't done Madrid. You haven't tried to pay your phone bill in Madrid. You haven't protested there. You haven't wondered how you're going to get back with all those bags from the supermarket. You haven't got on a bus and realised you don't have enough fare. You haven't read the local paper from cover to cover. You haven't looked churlishly at someone because they come from a certain neighbourhood in the city. You have visited. You've had the pleasure of stopping by.

Because that's inevitably what we have to do when we travel. Glimpses and mouthfuls, dances and strolls. One croissant, one ruin, one hike, one painting, one smell, one song, one bite, one look. We want everything, instantly, all of the time, it's so easy to live without smelling the flowers when we travel. Then again, that's why it's called travelling places and not living in them. You've got to grasp as much as you can. You've never "done it".

That's why books written by brilliant writers are so fabulous. You can travel to places and live there, side by side with the inhabitants. You smell their smells, you breathe their air. The rusting cars, the torrential rain, the annoying neighbours, the slow post, the trees that grow by rules of their own: they are all yours as well. You wander their dusty streets, you taste their golden chickens, you are afraid of their brutal policemen, you sleep with their smell of jasmine.

Right now, I am travelling in Columbia with doctors and photographers and women with broken hearts in García Márquez's Love in the Time of Cholera. It is a place you read about and feel on your skin. I was there the moment early in the book that I read this:

In summer an invisible dust as harsh as red-hot chalk was blown into even the best protected corners of the imagination by mad winds that took the roofs off the houses and carried away children through the air.

Who wouldn't want to live in a place like this? Who wouldn't want their imagination opened by that dust and watch children flying past as their window as they make lemonade? It's a place where the tinkling of the piano reaches your ears between the turning of the pages; a place where in your own siesta you dream of swimming in its rain. There is time for you to be awakened by sadness too.

I would like to stumble sweaty out of an Egyptian pyramid, to pull faces at the pong of geysers in Iceland, to drink tea listening to the quarks of parrots in Costa Rica and to follow a shark-shaped shadow under the waters around Australia. Maybe one day I will do those things and maybe I won't. But I am comforted by the fact that someone who loves words, somewhere, has written about those places and I can live there too by opening their book.

A Window on Venice

The American author and poet Ella Wheeler Wilcox wrote: "Let there be many windows to your soul, that all the glory of the world may beautify it."

I am reminded of this when I think about my little photography project while I was in Venice: its windows. They did so much to beautify and personalise the city. Each street of this magical city is a new world. Houses, hotels, cafes, shops, gondola yards and stacked together in a colourful rugby scrum, all different characters in a beautiful play. I became interested in their different windows; their shapes and colours, sizes and beauty, flowers and materials. Just like people, it seemed, they told their own interesting stories of the worlds on both sides of the glass.

Looking in or looking it out, no view is ever the same. It's good to remember that.

Here is my photo set of A Window on Venice.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lbirdalonso/sets/72157631403697816/

Restaurant review

I love reading restaurant reviews. I always wonder how you get that job. You have to able to write, but what gives anyone the right to say what tastes good or not? One man's caviar is another man's gruel.

Anyway, I've decided to give it a go, so read on for my review of The Turfcutters Arms, East Boldre, Hampshire.

A Meaty Cut Above

On entering a drinking and eating den, it's never pleasing to see empty tables. However, on closer inspection, it is perfectly fine when you realise they are all pre-booked and those patrons are just a couple of minutes behind you from piling in. The Turfcutters Arms sits on the main road in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it village in the heart of the New Forest, Hampshire. It is a traditional English pub covered in black and white photos of the area, old tankards and lamps, fishing rods, antlers and, while on September 2nd there was no need for a roaring fire, the warmth of the locals' laughter was the perfect welcome.

Being Sunday lunchtime, the specials board was packed with roasts. Just what was needed on a wet afternoon. Boring I know, but M and I were both after some meat and two veg. I also fancied some soup and today's homemade bubbling pot was tomato so I ordered that to start.

A generous helping was delivered and I had to remind myself we were in the country. No London thimble portions here. Great. The soup wasn't smooth which made me happy - I am always suspicious of soups smooth as you get from a tin. It came already topped with black pepper and basil. The tomato was flavoured with garlic, which I love and it wasn't too oily. I like my soup to stick around the chunks of bread I dip in it and hold on. The bread wasn't homemade, but it was warm, which brought another "Ahh" from my lips.

Then came the roast dinners. M ordered roast pork and I chose roast beef. M being Argentine and me having lived there for some years, we are both used to great slabs of meat on our plate. This was heaven. Though why they served it in a swimming pool of gravy on the plate I have no idea. The gravy needs to go last, and just like soup, not be so liquidy. Maybe I should have asked for it on the side, but seriously, who plates up a roast starting with the gravy?

The pork was pale; it looked too pale until I tried its tenderness which melted in my mouth. It was a pig explosion, so subtle only I could hear it. My beef was also excellent, cut into a huge round chunk and pink in the middle. It tasted of meat, which isn't a strange description when you consider some of the meat you can pick up in the supermarket these days.

The wonder of the meat meant the vegetables were a measly side show unfortunately and nothing to write home about. The crackling was perfect, though as always, there wasn't enough. The potatoes were not cripsy enough for my liking, but this could have been due to the swimming pool gravy effect they'd been put through by the time I got to them. All this aside, however, we polished off the lot and sat back, contented and bellies full.

The Turfcutters Arms is not trying to be anything other than it is; a traditional country English pub. It's a warm, relaxing space with friendly staff; it is not over stylised nor does it try too hard and it keeps its menu in the realm of good pub grub. The food is well cooked, fancy free and the meat provider is obviously excellent.

Just put the gravy on the side.

You can find out more about the Turfcutters Arms here: http://www.the-turfcutters-new-forest.co.uk/

When the music's over

I haven’t written on this blog for a few weeks as a lot has been happening. There was a graduation (at last!); a holiday to Italy (hoorah!); getting married (best day ever!); and, of course, London 2012. No sooner had we sent my in-laws back to the land of Cristina the Botox Gaucho than we were sat on the couch with a decanter full of wine and Danny Boyle’s imagination in bonkers overflow.

And there we stayed. Well, that was when I wasn’t donned in purple, red and beige for my two weeks as the welcoming face of Britain; as a helpful hand; as someone who was trying to make the Olympics the best games ever. Yes, I was a London 2012 Games Maker. It was an incredible experience.

We had just got married and then I left him. I left him each day for the Athlete’s Village where for eight hours I would greet, chat to, marvel at, help out, wave on, celebrate with and congratulate athletes, coaches, VIPs, fellow workers, press and families. In a team with other Games Makers and security professionals, we had one of the best vantage points of the games. True, we weren’t on the finishing line; or with a camera and microphone; or in the dressing room, but we got snippets of triumph and disappointment, agony and ecstasy, medals and stories as they passed through security. We made it an easy and pain-free experience and always tried to give them something to smile about along the way.

In the few hours I wasn’t working at the games, I was watching it. We lucked out and had tickets for a men’s volleyball session in which Argentina played, and a men’s hockey session in which both Team GB and Argentina had games. Music, lights, cheerleaders, Mexican waves, interviews, playbacks, chants and incredible sport made each session an unforgettable experience of highs and lows. It seemed each venue had its own character, and characters which would make history there too.

Even watching what I could on the television gave me goose bumps. I think one of the most incredible moments personally was watching a rerun of Charlotte Dujardin’s gold medal-winning performance. I’d never seen a horse do that, and to that music… I was overwhelmed. Simply: WOW.

But there were so many WOW moments over those two weeks. The personal WOW of meeting some of our gold medal winners and congratulating them; the collective WOW of Katherine Grainger’s top-of-the-podium moment; the personal WOW of wishing Mo Farah good luck before his 5000m; the collective WOW as Eric Idle finally took the closing ceremony by storm and we could ignore George Michael and the Spice Girls’ efforts.

There had been so much to look forward to. Now there is so much to look back on. The music is over and London has temporarily turned out the lights. For me, it’s back to reality: teaching, running, wedding planning (we’re having two), writing. It’s not a bad reality by any means, but I am missing London’s energy, music and expectation, those strangers’ smiles and tears, my tiredness, our pride.

I await the beat of the Paralympics with baited breath. Let the music start again…

Marriage

I sit in the darkness, typing, near midnight. The Argentines sleep around me. Do they ponder, as I ponder, the how, the how, the how?

How can two people truly spend their lives together and still love each other until death do us part? Are we really animals of lifelong monogamy, or as usual are we being blinded into these things? In the green corner we have the condors, squawking away about the bliss of mating for life. Sharing a nest, a view, the upbringing of chicks, is unique and wonderful, they claim. Together you make some thing, grow something and make it fly, they say. It's special. And there's always someone there, warming the nest for when you return.

It's interesting that many animals that do mate for life are birds. I mean, they have more freedom than most, being able to fly away whenever they want and not come back. And yet they do.

In the red corner we have the elephants. No one hardly ever messes with them (except those human bastards) and they do OK. They get it done, with hard work and patience. Their time spent in pairs is sporadic, yet with purpose. I applaud that. It reminds of being at university.

With two weeks to go until 'I do' why am I dreaming about all my ex crushes, boyfriends, trysts and lovers? During the night my mind is somehow dealing with my upcoming nuptials in a way that during the day doesn't even occur to me. How many lines must be drawn? People I haven't even thought about for years pop up and must be buried in the sand. That's fine, I don't want to build a castle for them. But the more this goes on, the closer it gets, the more every breath with the word marriage strikes me across the chest and my heart stops beating a second longer.

It stops beating because I love him, adore him, am in love with him. It stops beating because I've never done anything so enormous with anyone else. It stops beating because this is the most serious thing I'm ever going to do. It stops beating because there was me and him and now, always, there will be us.

And then I breathe again. Another second passes and I am still me. And I can still fly.

So I do.

Last moments before sleep

The dress. The flowers. The list. Its gone too long.

Burgundy shoes, black laces. Horrible little boots to wear to school.

If Martín was an animal, what would he be?

Cream curtains slightly too short, slightly too creamy, too light.

I wish I could lie on my front. It looks cosy. I'll regret it.

I remember when we were walking up to Uritorco and you said that it would be good to do more hikes.

Stick my feet out of the covers and then tuck them in between his sleeping legs. Crisp and cool.

It's only dinner time in Argentina. I wonder what they are doing.

I want to get up early. No dreams. A clean sleep.

Conditional tenses chain game, write that down tomorrow for last class.

Where is that car going? A hammock in Brazil. A pub bench in Somerset.

Follow a butterfly for a day, watch it live, watch it die. Is it really a day to live or a day to die?

Liver in gravy with mashed potatoes and cabbage, where to hide, not a clean plate.

Walk into Waterstones and see your book.

There was a sandpit, inside and outside. But a mistake was made, and we never went back outside.

Green mists rising from a bus in Colombia. Don't sleep.

Be happy tomorrow. You are happy. Look at this.

If I could take colourful photos, or black and white, sunflowers, Iguassu Falls, giraffes at the watering holes bending carefully.

Sitting on a train, some vodka, Siberian sunsets, a breeze flicking the book's pages.

Will we have separate armchairs when we are older, or we will stay together on a couch. Like we are together in bed. Like we are together, juntos...