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by Michael E. Campana
(being a semi-fictional account of my sabbatical adventures, designed to amuse; to be read with a dose of skepticism)
2 November 2002
So the Anaheim Angels won the World Series? See, Orange County is cool.
Big news in Europe: the Brits and the French are having a spat (What? A spat? Between the British and the French?). Yes, President Jacques "Le monde, c'est moi" Chirac is so miffed at PM Tony "Hold your own coat, Frenchy" Blair that he has cancelled the traditional year-end meeting where the two governments traditionally got together to "let their hair down" and talk about the good ol' days when both countries mattered. At these meetings, each leader would bare his soul to the other one, totally off the record. For example, President Chirac has such an uncontrollable craving for British cuisine (especially kippers, Yorkshire pudding and steak and kidney pie) that it would be anathema to him if the folks back home knew this. PM Blair would satisfy this urge by bringing along the best British chefs and ingredients to the meeting. Similarly, Tony Blair is a fool for those racy "French maid" flicks, so Chirac would always bring his personal library of them and let Tony burn some DVDs. And both would spend hours cracking American President jokes in an effort to outdo each other. Chirac's favorite: "How many mistresses does George W. Bush have? None, because he is a girly-man!" If this humor escapes you, recall that the French deify Jerry Lewis and have a street in Paris named for The Three Stooges. Blair's favorite joke? "Why does Bush think he can walk on water? Because he can't swim!" So what caused all the fuss? Seems that Tony made a crude (to the French, anyway) comment while attending a log-rolling contest in Canada. While watching those agile Canadians spin logs around while floating down the river, Blair declared "Wow! Those logs are rolling over faster than a Frenchman during the German occupation!" When Chirac heard about that gaff, he became so incensed he started speaking English. Stay tuned. (Actually, just as I finished this piece, I read that Jacques and Tony have patched things up, so alles gut.)
Our trip to Italy was great. Venice was especially nice, even better than its California namesake. Mary Frances and I arrived after an exhilarating train trip from Vienna. We were there during the biggest event of the year: the Natathon, a swimming event where the world's best swimmers race around the lagoon. This race used to be a disaster, because each year fewer and fewer swimmers would enter and previous competitors would be absent, often claiming that mysterious illnesses were preventing their participation. But then the city started conducting the race in conjunction with the annual meetings of the International Association for the Study of Water-Borne Diseases and the International Society of Wastewater Engineers, and the problem with the non-returning swimmers was solved. However, a distinctly unique Venetian seafood delicacy - the delectable three-clawed lobster - is apparently heading for extinction.
I tuned up for the Italy trip by trying to recall some of the Italian my father attempted to teach me almost 50 years ago. At least I got the salutation right, but when I greeted everyone with a hearty "Bonjovi!" I got nothing but blank stares (except from the kids, who understood my Italian well enough). The trip was like a journey through my adolescent years, when I worked summers with Italian-American kids (who taught me some Italian, but nothing I could use without being beaten or arrested) from the Boston area, many from the Italian ghetto, the North End. Every time we'd pass a town on the train, I'd say, hey, I knew someone named Ferrara, or Verona, or Bergamo, or Brescia, or Klagenfurt, etc. Pretty soon, Mary Frances was wishing we were in Ireland.
We toured a bit of the Italian lake region in the Alps foothills. Our first stop was Lago di Giardia, the unusual qualities of whose waters are well-known throughout all of Europe. We did not linger there. Then there was Lago di Como, famous for its cardigan sweater industry and singers. Few people know that the lake was really named by a group of Spaniards, who lost their way returning from one of the Crusades. Upon stumbling across (and nearly falling into) this gorgeous, narrow, deep body of water, they asked the local villagers its name. When the locals mumbled a reply in their native tongue, the Spaniards said "Como?" The villagers nodded their heads, and hence the name. The perimeter of the lake is quite developed - makes Lake Tahoe seem like Outer Mongolia. I kept wondering what all the villages did for sewage disposal. My question was answered when one of the ristorantes was featuring the freshest catch of the day - delicioso nine-eyed carp. So it was a Snickers bar for lunch. After Lago di Como we visited Lago di Iago.
Mary Frances departed for home from Malpensa, Milano's international airport. I realize my Italian is non-existent, but to me "Malpensa" translates as "bad thinking" or somesuch. Great name for an airport. But after some digging I found that it was actually named for Milano's first airport director, Malcolm Pensa (his mother was a Brit). The locals thought "Malcolm Pensa" was too un-Italian, so it was shortened.
On the flight to Atlanta Mary Frances sat next to an Albanian man, who marvelled at the fact that in America, all the different groups live together without killing each other. Something to think about. When I spoke with a young Albanian woman working for OSCE in Albania, she commented that they were trying to hide about a thousand young men and women who had been targeted for death because of blood feuds. And I just read that an Albanian group will be observing our elections on November 5 - in Florida, of all places (the truth, honest). Let's hope we can set a good example for them.
Two things to note about Italy:
I returned to Vienna via train from Milano. In Innsbruck I changed to an Austrian train, the Gustav Klimt, a non-stop train to Vienna. The train's namesake was a famous Austrian who revolutionized train travel by inventing the now-famous schnackart, thereby keeping travellers from becoming ravenous during long rides. The Austrians like to name their trains, which I think is a great way to honor famous people and places: Sarajevo, Mozart, Gallipoli, Johann Strauss, Himmler, Jason Priestly, Joseph Hadyn, Orson Welles, etc. Ah, the romance of the rails! As a child I remember watching the Long Island Rail Road's legendary Silver Lining barrel past my house, making the arduous 20-mile run to Manhattan in three hours flat. The train's moniker referred to the fact that when you took it, that's what you had to look for. The Silver Lining was famous for being one of the first "bullet trains", so named because of the rough sections of Brooklyn it traversed en route to Manhattan.
So did you see where the Iranian president chastised the USA for its sabre-rattling in the Middle East, because it was counteracting the growing Islamic tendency towards democracy?
The UN complex here has big entry hall and reception area with a lot of floor space. We can hold sock-hops there and other things, but quite often one of the UN divisions has a display. About a month ago the IAEA had a display of prose, poems, and artwork from some of the citizens of southern Belarus, all of whom had been forced to leave their homes for good because of contamination from the Chernobyl disaster. I don't think I saw anyone look at that display who was not moved to tears. It was certainly one of the most powerful expressions of sadness and despair I've ever seen.
This coming week I go to Georgia - not the Confederate Republic of, but the former Soviet Republic of, Georgia. This is not IAEA business; I am attending a water coordination meeting because a bunch of groups - NATO, XTC, OSCE, INXS, USAID, DAI, Run-DMC - are doing water work in the South Caucasus. Talk about herding cats! We are all hoping the Chechens take their Prozac while we are there. When the IAEA Safeguards Division folks found out I was going, they asked if I would help them out as they are still trying to find those two Soviet-era "port-a-nukes" that are lying around somewhere. Plan A did not work, so they asked me if I would help them implement Plan B. I said I would if it was not life-threatening, and they replied that it probably was not, to the best of their knowledge. So later they came back with a couple of boxes, which I assumed contained some high-tech gizmos. Instead, they were full of photocopied flyers that looked suspiciously like those "Have you seen me?" flyers we get as junk mail in the USA. The flyers actually do say "Have you seen me?" in Georgian, with a picture of a port-a-nuke with a frowning "smiley-face" on it, a toll-free number to call, and the reward (a one-year supply - 100 cartons - of Marlboros). I am to distribute these as I see fit.
I should have some good semi-truthful stories from the South Caucasus for the next report. Future trips include Paris (for business) and Stuttgart (for pleasure) - go figure. I suspect I've been here too long. In the meantime, Ralph Wiedersehen (Auf's brother).
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