Monthly Archives: November 2018

Multicultural Disneyland for adults

Posted on by
Reply

Like many children probably did and still do, I used to tell my parents that I wanted to live  in Disneyland. Known as the “happiest place on earth,” with castles, oversized teacups, and song, Disneyland is the epitome of every child’s dreamworld.

I still love Disneyland and Disney, despite their artificial, commercialized creations of happiness and gender role implications, and the false idea that once you get married, it truly is happily ever after and smooth sailing from there on out. But what is actually even more exciting to me than Disneyland is the romance and enchantment that exists in real life, both in nature and what has been man made in history. Sintra, Portugal, is like the multicultural European Disneyland for adults, full of picturesque terrain, majestic mountains, and a large concentration of historical castles, palaces, and estates that have given the town its UNESCO World Heritage status.

We took a day trip to Sintra today, exploring the town, visiting three major sites: Quinta da Regaleira, the Palacio da Pena (Pena Palace), and the Castelo dos Mouros (Castle of the Moors). Quinta da Regaleira was an estate built in the 1800s and passed on from one wealthy family to another, but what makes it quirky is not its romantic palace and chapel, but instead its lush park filled with lakes, grottoes, wells, and fountains. The wells, called the Initiation Wells, are the strangest feature about it that seem like they came straight out of a fairy tale. It was known that these wells were never truly used as water sources, but instead as underground towers that were used for ceremonial purposes, including Tarot initiation rites. The windy and dark tunnels on the property connected the wells, in addition to other caves and grotto areas. Pena Palace, built in the mid-1800s, was one of the most eclectic and interesting castles I’d ever visited due to its unique mix of architectural styles, combining Neo-Gothic, Neo-Manueline, Neo-Islamic, and Neo-Renaissance. As soon as we got closer as we climbed the steep hills of the Sintra Mountains to get to the palace, I noticed many elements of the arches and the detailing of the designs that resembled Persian-Mughal architecture that we saw in Agra and Jaipur, India, during our summer trip. There was much in common with the detailing here, which I wasn’t expecting at all, but was a really pleasant surprise. It made the Pena Palace even more exciting in taking in all the different towers, arches, tiles, and pillars. It was like an intersection of culture being represented in the form of a palace.

One of the things that traveling has made me more aware of and want to learn more about is all the history I missed while I was in school. History was never that fun of a topic to me, but that’s partly because it was never connected to real life… or at least, that’s how I perceived it. There was no connection to real people or places for me. But it’s different when you’re learning history as you are traveling to different places. You’re taking these sights and sounds in and learning more about it by reading about how these places came to be. And that’s always going to fascinating if you really care about what is in front of your eyes. Sintra really is the fairy tale city that I never knew existed. It’s like Disneyland in real life, and not an amusement park.

 

First tastes of Lisbon

Posted on by
Reply

We arrived in Lisbon just after midday today after a connecting flight from Madrid, and the weather was surprisingly holding up despite weather report threats of rain. Based on just a day here, it’s a lot like what I expected: hilly, colorful, lots of random street art, endless beautiful printed and painted tiles on buildings, both commercial and residential, and thankfully nowhere as crowded as crazy tourist magnet cities like Paris, London, and Venice. On certain streets, it just felt like it was us and a bunch of locals, leisurely strolling to get from point A to point B. Some hills were so steep that they required steps; it was like an older, more colorful and historic version of San Francisco.

The coffee and baked goods are as rich and delicious as I was expecting; the coffee was beautifully roasted, strong, and cheap at just 1.10 euros. The pastry we shared, a pao de deus, was thick crumbed, dense, moist, and topped with a large amount of sweetened and buttered coconut. We later had dinner at a restaurant that was recommended by a YouTube food traveler we follow and watch avidly named Mark Wiens, and we enjoyed their oysters, crab soup, sea bream fish, and octopus. Everything was so fresh and tasty; the octopus was Chris’s favorite octopus dish he’d ever had – thinly sliced, grilled, tender, and flavorful, not even a hint of rubbery texture. The fish was extremely moist and so good with the Portuguese olive oil it was served with.

I read a lot of different reviews for restaurants across cities we’d be visiting in Portugal, and it is always such a turn off whenever a review starts with a massive bias or outright disgust for some country’s food. One person who reviewed this restaurant started his review with, “Not a fan of Portuguese food and wouldn’t recommend it to anyone, but this place was an exception!” So what, are we supposed to respect this place even more now and want to try it because you are so bigoted that you would X out every single one of the dishes in this entire country of 10 million people? I just don’t get how people want to seem like they are cultured or well-traveled when they make such ignorant and stupid comments like this.

Portuguese

Posted on by
Reply

We arrived at JFK airport a bit early today to avoid potentially hectic Sunday afternoon traffic, and while Chris sat there enjoying his glass of French Bordeaux, I sat with my earbuds and listened to YouTube videos on my computer re-introducing myself to Portuguese. I actually learned a decent amount of Portuguese about four years ago when preparing for our Brazil trip. I even practiced my accent to get it more accurate. I had read that in many parts of Brazil, even in major cities like Rio, there were many areas where English wasn’t known very well, so it would help to at least know some basic Portuguese phrases. Remembering how fun it was, I sat and tried to re-learn some basic phrases today. Once you don’t use a language, you really end up forgetting it.

Voce fala ingles? (do you speak English?)

Ate mais! (See you later)

Muito obrigado! (Thank you very much – to a man)

But what I’ve read about Portugal, though, is that English is far more widespread, especially in major cities like Lisbon, the capital, and Porto. So while it would be polite to learn some basic phrases, it wasn’t as needed as in Brazil. Suddenly, the desire to practice started to die, and I just wanted to relax and think about all the delicious bread, cheese, and wine I’d soon be having in a country that is oftentimes seen as Spain’s less popular and more understated cousin, but probably is the sexier and more alluring of the two.

 

 

Thankful

Posted on by
Reply

Every weekend before Thanksgiving in the U.S. as we are getting ready to leave for what is now our sixth European Thanksgiving away, all of my social media and even my news sources are flooded with posts and articles on the latest and greatest ways to prepare a turkey and all those beloved Thanksgiving sides: mashed potatoes – how to keep them fresh for longer because we know how temporary their fluffiness is? Cranberry sauce – to eat the canned or to do an innovative twist with additional spices and fruit that may piss your aunt off? Then there’s also the stuffing; everyone has an opinion about stuffing. Should it be traditional bread stuffing with white or wheat bread, or corn bread-based? Is anyone going to be upset if you sub in Chinese rice stuffing instead if there are people of Asian descent at your table?

But by this point, we already would have had our early Thanksgiving meal, or “friendsgiving” meal as others like to call it since we’re not with our immediate family members. I already would have done my early Thanksgiving cooking for the year. Any tempting recipes or cooking tips I pick up this weekend I would just bookmark or save for next year. It’s planning a year ahead and adding more to my browser bookmarks list and copying and pasting new recipes into my Evernote for Thanksgiving ideas in the year to come.

Sometimes, I have fleeting moments when I feel a little sad that I have no family to “go home to” for Thanksgiving, but then I quickly realize and remember how lucky I am to have a life partner who loves to travel and see the world, and what better week to explore the world when most Americans are stuffing their faces with turkey and mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie, when it is typically low season in most of Europe, to enjoy and relish the moments there with lesser crowds and American accents. I’m thankful to have what I have – the globe-trotting, worldly life partner I have, the money and work flexibility to travel as we do, and the good health to allow me to trek up endless hills and windy cobbled streets, and run through airports to get to the places we want to see and learn all about. I have a lot to be thankful for.

 

A little guidance can help

Posted on by
Reply

I left work a bit early today to meet my mentee, who has been having trouble recently attending class. When I say she’s been “having trouble,” I really mean she just hasn’t been going altogether for the last month. She’s already failed one of her classes and has decided to drop it, and when I asked her today why she hasn’t been attending, she said she felt “sleepy all the time and just wanted to sleep.” She’s been sleeping through classes and then staying in bed until she needs to use the bathroom or eat.

Well, I know what that means. Her depression is getting worse. I suggested that she start with baby steps to deal with how to battle her fatigue. She’s been going to sleep by 10 and waking up at 11am the next morning; that means she’s getting 13 hours of sleep every night, and oversleep can oftentimes make you feel even worse and less rested. So I suggested she start small by shaving off a few hours of sleep per night: maybe the first night, go to sleep by 10 or 11, then wake up by 8. No matter what time she goes to sleep, she has to give herself some semblance of routine by waking up at around the same time. Then, immediately haul ass, get out of bed, and do something active, like go to the gym, walk, do jumping jacks; anything to get her blood flowing. The biggest challenge of getting up in the morning is just getting out of bed. That really goes for all of us.

“How am I going to know that you are really committing to waking up at 8am?” I asked her. “I’m going to text you for the next few days at 8am and make sure you’re really awake, and you better not be lying to me and say you are awake but just going back under the covers. We can reevaluate in a week or two whether this is doable.”

She promised she wouldn’t lie and would commit to this for at minimum two weeks before seeing if the time/routine needed to be adjusted.

I left her this evening feeling a bit relieved that we had this conversation in person, but sad at the same time. I’m happy to help her, to give suggestions when she is struggling, but it makes me sad to think that maybe if Ed had someone extra in his life who he could look up to that he could have had similar guidance and encouragement…. Something as simple as someone caring and unjudgmental to say to him, “Hey! You are sleeping more than usual. Why do you think that is? How can we get you into a more regular routine?” No shaming. No anger. No finger pointing. No blaming. No guilting. Just observations, suggestions to make for an easier life. Everyone needs a little extra pushing at some points of their life, and Ed seemed like he never had it at all from anyone.

 

“Do I look like I belong to a cult?”

Posted on by
Reply

Our team’s leadership members were in town this week for their offsite. We had colleagues come in from our San Francisco, Amsterdam, and London offices. It certainly made for a more lively and boisterous ambiance in an office that is usually pretty quiet and empty given that people work from home frequently, especially on tail-ends of the week, and that people are also traveling for customer and prospect visits.

One of my SF colleagues who I am friendly with asked if he would be expecting to see me back in San Francisco during Thanksgiving week next week, or during the Christmas period. I told him that Chris and I are planning to be in Portugal next week, and that for Christmas, we’ll be with his family in Melbourne. He gave me a puzzled look. “Wait, so you’re not coming home for either holiday?”

Here we go. Without even realizing it, it was being implied I was a crappy daughter.

“Oh, maybe I never told you,” I responded. “My mom’s a Jehovah’s Witness, so she doesn’t celebrate any holidays. This just means that these dates don’t mean anything to her, so it’s fine if I see her at other times of the year. I come back three to four times a year anyway, so it’s not a big deal to her or my dad.”

Another colleague overheard the “Jehovah’s Witness” mention and looked even more confused, borderline terrified. “Wait, Yvonne, are you a Jehovah’s Witness?” she asked, seemingly scared to hear the answer.

I laughed. “No, do I look dumb enough to belong to a cult?”

Burn. My colleague who asked gasped a bit, and she politely said that she didn’t think that I would be a JW, but would genuinely be shocked if I were. My other SF colleague looked shocked as the words came out of my mouth.

“You don’t have to be polite around me about this,” I responded. “I believe it’s a cult. I’ve told my mom I think the same thing, so it’s out in the open.”

Politics seem to come up at work more often than religion, but granted that I work in a blue state (and an even bluer city) and our HQ is in a blue state (in an even bluer city than New York City!), it really is just another way of saying that we spend a good amount of time hating on Trump. But religion rarely if ever comes up in a group setting. So in this case when it did, it was actually really comical to see how colleagues responded to my general thoughts around my mom’s “religion.” I’m happy to be open about it.

Levels of poverty

Posted on by
Reply

Among even the most avid and adventurous travelers, India initially appears to be a daunting place. People oftentimes talk about the high levels of poverty, dirt, sexism, classism, disparities between the rich and the poor, and of course, the rape of women, both locals and tourists. They talk about the language barriers. They are frightened by the animals co-mingling with the pedestrians and the tuk tuks and the cars. They’re not sure if they can “handle” it.

Over an Indian meal I prepared for my visiting friend and former teacher visiting from San Francisco tonight, I spent a good amount of time telling her about my experiences in India, how a lot about why I loved it and appreciated it so much was because I mentally prepared myself for the poverty and the begging and the filth, which in the end, really wasn’t as bad as others hyped it up to be from my own perspective. When you are prepared, it doesn’t come as much of a surprise. Thus, you’re then able to appreciate the beauty a lot more. Frankly, other than the extremely humid weather of Delhi and Agra, I didn’t really want to leave India. I was constantly astounded by the kindness of strangers, the politeness of people everywhere. I was excited by all the different sights and sounds and smells I normally do not get back in New York or in the U.S. in general. My teacher has only been to one country in Asia, Korea, and although she is well traveled in the U.S., South America, and Europe, for whatever reason, Asia has seemed distant to her. Maybe it’s because she’s a white woman who doesn’t want to feel completely out of place in a place as “exotic” as Asia. Maybe she just hasn’t had enough friends who have wanted to accompany her to Asian countries; who knows. When the idea of going to India comes up, most of her friends, she told me, said that they are most daunted by the level of poverty they have heard about. They are scared to see it. (Why do I feel like these people are most likely white?).

Well, at that point, it’s really about going outside of our comfort zones. We live in a rich country here in the U.S., even though there is clearly a massive disparity between the rich and the poor. The poverty we see here is not even a fraction of what you see in a country like India. So I understand why it would be considered daunting. But to me, travel is about not being comfortable and doing things and eating things and seeing things that are not your “version of normal,” because that’s what is intriguing and what will make you think and feel more deeply. Maybe if you were exposed to the poverty in India, you’d have a bit more empathy and understanding of the East. Maybe you should challenge yourself when you say you are scared of seeing that level of poverty and ask, why are you scared? What do you think it will do to you? Will it change something about you, and then if so, why and how? Or, is it just that you do not want to see what is ugly and scary and foreign in life? Do you want to live in a bubble away from all that ugliness that exists and is so widespread across the world that you do not know? That’s for you to question and ask yourself if you dare to go there, isn’t it?

When your child’s marriage fails

Posted on by
Reply

Chris’s aunt and uncle just left us yesterday afternoon to continue on to Philadelphia to visit more relatives. Throughout their visit, they were both visibly distraught at the recent breakup of their younger son’s marriage; although they were together about six years, they were “married” less than three, and the news came as a shock to all of us. Granted, none of us can ever be fully aware of what goes on between two people in a life partnership, and it’s even harder when we infrequently see them due to geographic distance.

His aunt frequently made comments about how strange it feels to be someone’s mother-in-law and then suddenly the next day, not. It’s weird to be comfortable enough to call your daughter on the phone, then be told that you cannot call her anymore… ever again. It’s deeply upsetting to know someone as your daughter-in-law, the person who gave you a fourth grandchild and your first granddaughter, and then be told that she is now considered just the mother of your granddaughter. She teared up frequently, saying she wished her no ill will and just wanted what was best for both of them and their child. It was really hard to see her and how emotional she was. She in many ways blamed herself. “Maybe if I had raised him differently, this wouldn’t have happened?” she asked me. “What do you think?”

I had nothing to say. What could I say, really? So many factors go into a relationship working and not working. They both clearly worry about their son a lot and want to help, even if they are unable to. They are concerned, loving parents. She said she hoped they’d be able to work things out, that a reconciliation could possibly happen.

It would be great if it did, but from what I can see, that’s next to impossible.

Family vs. sights

Posted on by
Reply

Chris’s aunt and uncle, who have been visiting us the last few days, don’t do much travel. His aunt goes to Kerala in India for long spurts to visit her parents, brother, and other relatives, and it’s easy for her since they own an apartment there. But other than that, they only travel when there’s a family event to go to, like our wedding back in 2016 when they came to California.

I learned a lot about them during this trip that I had no idea about; his aunt was saying that traveling with her husband was more hassle than it was worth since he has a short temper when he gets confused or lost during travel, which is pretty often and can be counted on. She prefers to travel and be in India on her own rather than with her husband. “It’s like taking a child around; I want to do my own thing and at my own pace, and he’s useless there on his own!” she exclaimed. She said it was important for them both to have their own time separately. She also said that the more she thought about it, while it is nice to travel and see sights, the both of them are fairly like-minded and prefer to travel to places where there are family and friends. They rather spend time catching up with friends and relatives than see sights; it would mean that if they do see sights that they’d have a guide and would not have to worry about getting lost; it would also mean that they’d get quality time with people they know that they normally do not have.

It’s funny to hear them say that. My friends and family are not that spread out, so it’s not like I have a reason to go travel to those places because I probably already know them. But I’d rather travel to see sights and have new experiences than visit people I already know. Or maybe that’s just because I don’t care about my people as much as his aunt and uncle do? What does this say about us as people?

 

He came back to finish college

Posted on by
Reply

Chris said I was talking in my sleep last night. I dreamt that my mom called a week before Thanksgiving to tell me that my brother decided to finally finish college and get his BA, and he got accepted at some school in Boston. I asked her why no one told me anything; obviously, if you start school here, you can’t just randomly start in November. She said she just forgot to tell me, and Ed probably was so busy studying that he forgot he just relocated across the country and didn’t realize his sister needed to know immediately.

“He doesn’t have anyone to spend Thanksgiving with,” she said. She explained she was concerned that he might harm himself if he got too lonely, and so she told me she wanted Chris and me to bring him to Portugal with us.

I was really confused.

“He’s not even alive! How can we bring him to Portugal?! How can he possibly be studying in Boston??” I exclaimed back to her. I had no idea what was going on.

“You need to buy him a plane ticket to Portugal,” she insisted. “Who else does he have nearby? You have to take care of your brother. He’s your blood.”

What is reality, and what is a dream? I had no idea what was real and what was imagined in my subconscious. All I felt was confusion. But a part of me felt happy at the possibility that the last five years had been imagined, that Ed could really be alive, and that I could actually bring him to Europe. It certainly would not be part of the original plan, but who the hell would care if it meant he was alive.

But then I woke up, and he was still dead. Again, it’s just a dream that he’s still alive.