Christmas eve 2008
LOCATION
Onex, in the city of Geneva, Switzerland
CAST
Me
Trajtenberg family:
- Liliana (aunt, i.e. my father's sister, currently living in Montevideo)
- Mario (uncle, married to Liliana, currently living in Montevideo)
- Cecilia (cousin, native Genevoise, currently living in Madrid)
- Michel (cousin, native Genevoise, still living in Geneva)
Anneliese's family:
- Anneliese (friend of Liliana's and Mario's, apparently knew me when I was teensy-weensy, hard to imagine, I know)
- Stefan (first son of Anneliese)
- Vincent (son of Stefan, grandson of Anneliese)
- Laetitia (daughter of Stefan, granddaughter of Anneliese)
- Fanny (daughter of Stefan, granddaughter of Anneliese)
- Joachim (a.k.a. "Jojo," second son of Anneliese)
- Wolfgang (Anneliese's boyfriend - also, potential name for my next puppy)
LANGUAGES
French, Spanish, and German
I was inordinately grateful to Stefan for having the good sense to start the night off with three bottles of champagne (and a couple of bottles of non-alcoholic cider for the kids). I don't usually drink 2 and a half glasses of champagne before dinner, but paired with foie gras, it set a festive atmosphere right off the bat. Nothing like champagne on an near-empty stomach to get me smiling and feeling at ease. Also, nothing like watching Fanny, a round faced 11-year old, work through about a half kilo of pistacchios in 10 minutes flat to get me feeling, well, something.
Three months ago, Fanny took a nasty spill off her scooter, the traces of which are still evident on her face.
Cecilia: What happened to your face, Fanny?
Fanny: I feel off my scooter.
Cecilia: But how? Did you try to brake?
Fanny: I forgot to brake.
She still has a bit of a black eye, and her left cheek is still slightly chubbier than the right one, lending her an air of someone older and perhaps wiser, someone who's taken a beating but fought back.
Let me interrupt, for a second, and explain that Fanny, Laetitia, and Vincent have, in fact, taken a beating this holiday season. Stefan, too. Just a couple of weeks ago, his wife left him for another man. The whole family, Anneliese included, has taken it very hard. Joachim's wife also left him a few years ago, so you can imagine that for grandma Anneliese, these have been trying times.
But the kids are such troopers. It could be because Stefan and his soon to be ex-wife have worked out an arrangement where the kids stay put in the same house while the parents rotate weeks living with them. This may be a temporary arrangement, but you get the intention: to make sure the kids feel the least possible disrruption and the least possible instability under the circumstances.
No matter what the parents do, though, the fact remains that they are separating. And as a child of divorced parents, let me emphasize how much this sucks. It sucks a lot.
And yet, the kids were cheerful and gracious, Fanny especially ebullient after she received her Christmas present - a small, fold-up futon, for general lounging and having friends sleep over. I watched them all night for familiar signs of resentment, of anger, of depression, and was relieved to see none. Even Stefan seemed to have a good time, for which I was very glad. He jovially offered to refill my wine glass about ten times throughout the evening, and when the wine ran out, he brought me a white Swiss beer, none of which I could possibly refuse.
We sat down to dinner after opening the presents. Yes, even I got presents! I made out pretty well, if you ask me: a box of Lindt truffles, a ring from Mexico, a hooded shirt, a wheel of Spanish turrón, and a bottle of perfume (courtesy of Wolfgang, who used to work as a chemist for a perfume company - the perfume he gave me happened to be the exact same one I almost bought in Lisbon when I was bumming around the airport's duty free shop - talk about lucky).
Dinner began with lemon-soaked lotte (monkfish) served on an avocado mousse. Following, we tucked into the honey and orange infused Christmas ham and gratin dauphinois (one of my favorite dishes from this area, essentially just a whole bunch of sliced potatoes baked with gruyère and béchamel sauce). At this point, the evening became a blur with a few distinguishable moments. I'm sure I could have remembered more if I had drunk less, but what's the fun in being the only sober person at a Christmas party?
I remember my aunt, increasingly talkative and animated as the evening passed, prompting me to talk about my days of competitive horse-back riding. I have no idea why it occurred to her that this might be an interesting topic to me and to everyone gathered at the table (although in retrospect I think it may have been because Laetitia, too, is passionate about horses).
The only cogent contribution I muster for the conversation was, "Moi, j'adore les chevaux."
Me, I love horses.
To which most of the group added, "Oui, j'aime bien les chevaux!"
All but Wolfgang, who announced very amiably, "Moi, je mange mes chevaux."
Me, I eat my horses.
Everyone burst out laughing, me especially, and I observed Wolfgang through my wine-goggles. Wolfgang is, well, he's a catch. At least I think so. Granted, he is 68 years old. Not in my target age range, not by any means. But he's got one of the most magnetic personalities I've ever seen in a near septuagenarian. Always smiling, always joking. And he has aged as gracefully as one can hope to age: he still has most of his hair, a shock of white, which he wears on the longer side, letting it cascade over his weatherbeaten brow and frame his crystal blue eyes. He is fit, too. An avid outdoorsman for whom a visit to the Grand Canyon last year was not complete without hiking down the Canyon. One of those people who tells you that you only get one go at life, and by the look of the deep creases on his face, wrinkles caused by smiles and laughter, and his air of being at peace with the world, he's made his count.
But enough about Wolfgang.
The kids' black-and-white kitty made an appearance towards the end of the night, after we'd all finished our second helpings of mousse au chocolat. The kitty was picture perfect: black all over save for his white belly, and a perfectly symmetrical white triangle down his face. He immediately (instinctively, one might argue) made for Michel, a self-proclaimed cat-lover.
Michel: I love cats. And they always seem to love me.
Michel works as an aeronautical engineer. He loves extreme sports. He has every issue of National Geographic that features sharks. He is one of my most badass cousins. I still remember two years ago, when I was last in Uruguay, he came out on my uncle Mauricio's boat with some other family members. On leaving the dock, Michel somehow managed to slice his index finger almost neatly in two with a wire. He turned a bit pale, drank some whisky, and clamped down on the mangled finger until he could treat it with some first aid materials. And that's about it. Not a peep of agony.
It's with this finger, and its neighbors, that Michel set to work on the kitty (forgive me for not remembering the cat's name and referring to him as "kitty"). Scratching gently behind his ears, down his spine, under his chin. The kitty never looked so happy and at ease. Watching Michel, with his rough, veiny hands, caressing him so tenderly and so sweetly, I have to say I felt about the same as the kitty. Happy. At ease.
Merry Christmas, everyone.
Friday, December 26
Eurochristmas Part I
When I was younger, Christmas was my favorite holiday by a longshot. And not for the reason you might assume (although I won't lie to you and tell you I disliked getting presents). Riding on the coattails of Thanksgiving, which my Uruguayan parents dutifully observed every year, Christmas felt more natural.
Don't get me wrong: I have some excellent memories of Thanksgiving. Like my mother waking me and my sisters up early on Thanksgiving Thursday so that we might "reflect" and compile a list of "the things we were thankful for." Or senior year of high school, when my friend Mikey came over and we smoked a joint outside the house before tucking into the turkey and trimmings. Mikey also brought over one of his trademark chocolate-pecan pies, of which I devoured approximately a third that night. I spent Thanksgiving, 2006 with four non-American friends washing down plates of jamón serrano and manchego cheese with bottles of Rioja and Malbec. And this year I reinvented my mother's "wheel of grace" by improving on our old family tradition of giving thanks: all of the French guests at our Thanksgiving celebration in Saint-Etienne were instructed to give thanks for one thing and down a shot of whisky. Before dinner, no less (Ma, I know I make you proud).
But, Christmas. Where to begin?
Christmas has Christmas carols and Christmas trees and Christmas cookies. Christmas has Handel's Messiah. More than anything, though, Christmas has no nationality. My parents, my whole family in Uruguay, they know Christmas. And you better believe it's a big deal. The entire family gets together on Christmas eve to eat and drink and talk for hours on end. Oh and also to "welcome the birth of Christ our Savior," although since my grandmother's passing, our Christmas has become more and more secular (my family is a mixed bag of hardcore Catholics and "take it easy" agnostics).
I haven't always been able to be in Uruguay for Christmas (although if I'm not mistaken I spent almost every Christmas between the ages of one to ten in Montevideo). Miami Christmas is the other Christmas I know, typically involving a Fondue on Christmas eve, followed by candlelight service at a Congregational Church (at which, growing up, I typically played or sang). In contrast to the Uruguayan celebration, we tend to eat our big meal on Christmas day - big meal for us being either the standard Christmas ham, potatoes, etc., or a full blown Uruguayan asado featuring a provoleta (grilled provolone seasoned with oregano, salt, and pepper), chorizo, chorizo parrillero, morcilla, morcilla dulce, mollejas, chinchulines, vacio and entraña.
Regardless of the minor differences between Christmas in Uruguay and Christmas in Miami, the common theme has always been family. Even after my parents' divorce, we'd typically have at least one parent present, and always me, Stephie, and Line. Which was great. Nothing like being surrounded by tens of relatives, near and distant, to bring three sisters closer together (like, really really close together - like cling-to-each-other-for-dear-life close together).
So you can imagine that spending my very first Christmas away from both the rents and my sisters seemed a bit daunting.
Christmas for me can be a time of great joy, joy at being with those closest to me. But it's also time of great sadness. Because Christmas is about being with family, the older I get, the more I feel the absence of those I long to be around. And I'm wracked by this deep yearning for something both nameless and familiar.
But I'm lucky. Lucky enough to have a Swiss side of the family, at this very moment residing in Geneva. And lucky enough to have been taken in by their German friend, Anneliese, who very generously opened up her home and family to me this holiday season.
-continued in next post
Don't get me wrong: I have some excellent memories of Thanksgiving. Like my mother waking me and my sisters up early on Thanksgiving Thursday so that we might "reflect" and compile a list of "the things we were thankful for." Or senior year of high school, when my friend Mikey came over and we smoked a joint outside the house before tucking into the turkey and trimmings. Mikey also brought over one of his trademark chocolate-pecan pies, of which I devoured approximately a third that night. I spent Thanksgiving, 2006 with four non-American friends washing down plates of jamón serrano and manchego cheese with bottles of Rioja and Malbec. And this year I reinvented my mother's "wheel of grace" by improving on our old family tradition of giving thanks: all of the French guests at our Thanksgiving celebration in Saint-Etienne were instructed to give thanks for one thing and down a shot of whisky. Before dinner, no less (Ma, I know I make you proud).
But, Christmas. Where to begin?
Christmas has Christmas carols and Christmas trees and Christmas cookies. Christmas has Handel's Messiah. More than anything, though, Christmas has no nationality. My parents, my whole family in Uruguay, they know Christmas. And you better believe it's a big deal. The entire family gets together on Christmas eve to eat and drink and talk for hours on end. Oh and also to "welcome the birth of Christ our Savior," although since my grandmother's passing, our Christmas has become more and more secular (my family is a mixed bag of hardcore Catholics and "take it easy" agnostics).
I haven't always been able to be in Uruguay for Christmas (although if I'm not mistaken I spent almost every Christmas between the ages of one to ten in Montevideo). Miami Christmas is the other Christmas I know, typically involving a Fondue on Christmas eve, followed by candlelight service at a Congregational Church (at which, growing up, I typically played or sang). In contrast to the Uruguayan celebration, we tend to eat our big meal on Christmas day - big meal for us being either the standard Christmas ham, potatoes, etc., or a full blown Uruguayan asado featuring a provoleta (grilled provolone seasoned with oregano, salt, and pepper), chorizo, chorizo parrillero, morcilla, morcilla dulce, mollejas, chinchulines, vacio and entraña.
Regardless of the minor differences between Christmas in Uruguay and Christmas in Miami, the common theme has always been family. Even after my parents' divorce, we'd typically have at least one parent present, and always me, Stephie, and Line. Which was great. Nothing like being surrounded by tens of relatives, near and distant, to bring three sisters closer together (like, really really close together - like cling-to-each-other-for-dear-life close together).
So you can imagine that spending my very first Christmas away from both the rents and my sisters seemed a bit daunting.
Christmas for me can be a time of great joy, joy at being with those closest to me. But it's also time of great sadness. Because Christmas is about being with family, the older I get, the more I feel the absence of those I long to be around. And I'm wracked by this deep yearning for something both nameless and familiar.
But I'm lucky. Lucky enough to have a Swiss side of the family, at this very moment residing in Geneva. And lucky enough to have been taken in by their German friend, Anneliese, who very generously opened up her home and family to me this holiday season.
-continued in next post
Sunday, December 21
The ANAEM and Falling in Love
The ANAEM is the Agence Nationale de l’Accueil des Etrangers et des Migrations. Translated roughly to English, it stands for the National Agency for the Welcome of Foreigners and Migrations. The ANAEM has a dual mission: to welcome and support aliens when they move to France, and to assist French nationals and workers when moving outside France.
This friendly and welcoming agency is where all of us non-European language assistants are required to pass a medical exam. The exam is one of the requirements for our carte de sejour, which allows us to remain in France for the duration of our work contract.
I don't need to devote much time to how the purported importance of this medical exam escapes me, given that I've been in France since late September, and I only just received my summons to the ANAEM two weeks ago. Let's just say that if me and the other American assistants had arrived in France with tubercular lungs or smallpox, our students would already have been irreversibly exposed to whatever horrible disease we might be carrying. And having our lungs x-rayed at the ANAEM in December would do little to save the poor little buggers.
Kim, Corinne, and I were all schedule for the exam on the day of our first major snow storm in Saint-Etienne. Our little city was receiving a healthy dusting of snow when we boarded the train, and everything looked pristine and white. You can imagine our chagrin when stepping off the train and onto the platform in Lyon only to discover cold, wet rain.
Unfazed, we popped by Lyon's Marché de Noël for a warm cup of vin chaud before heading to the ANAEM. The irony of drinking before a medical exam is not lost on me. However, I wasn't particularly concerned that I would have to pass a sobriety test in order to be allowed to remain in France.
The ANAEM was closed when we arrived at about 20 minutes before 1:30 PM. We stood at the entrance as employees returned from their lunches, huddling close and rubbing our hands together for warmth on the off chance that they might let us into the building early. Apparently, rain, wind, and cold are not good enough reasons to let "foreigners" into an empty building before reopening time.
Once inside, I was reminded once more of how much being inside French government buildings feels like being in hell. Or being in a scene out of the movie Brazil (not that there's a difference).
"Sorry, I'm a bit of a stickler for paperwork. Where would we be if we didn't follow the correct procedures?" And such.
The bureaucracy alone makes my head explode, and the architecture seems intentionally designed to intensify the explosion.
The exam was simple and brilliantly executed. One doctor asks you questions about your health, another doctor x-rays your chest, and a final doctor reviews the x-ray and signs the form that will enable you to go downstairs and obtain a final signature before taking the form back to the Saint-Etienne Préfecture. Which will then enable you to wait a month before passing once more by the Préfecture to pick up your shiny, new, plastic-wrapped carte de sejour.
Only we were all rather nervous about the x-rays. Or sex-rays as they were dubbed. Being left shirtless in a room with an unfamiliar French woman spewing commands at you rapid and only semi-comprehensible French (almost as if on purpose) is not the most comfortable experience.
We all came out with our forms signed and varying tales.
On my turn, the x-ray doctor had me lift and hold my hair up off of the nape of my neck, leaving me in a topless pose that I tend to reserve for bedroom seductions.
Corinne, wearing a necklace, was told to put the necklace in her mouth (shocking, I know).
Finally, Kim, topless Kim, Kim who also had on a necklace, was told to take it off while the doctor wrapped the protective lead pouch around her waist.
"You guys, when she wrapped that thing around me, it felt like we were in love!
This friendly and welcoming agency is where all of us non-European language assistants are required to pass a medical exam. The exam is one of the requirements for our carte de sejour, which allows us to remain in France for the duration of our work contract.
I don't need to devote much time to how the purported importance of this medical exam escapes me, given that I've been in France since late September, and I only just received my summons to the ANAEM two weeks ago. Let's just say that if me and the other American assistants had arrived in France with tubercular lungs or smallpox, our students would already have been irreversibly exposed to whatever horrible disease we might be carrying. And having our lungs x-rayed at the ANAEM in December would do little to save the poor little buggers.
Kim, Corinne, and I were all schedule for the exam on the day of our first major snow storm in Saint-Etienne. Our little city was receiving a healthy dusting of snow when we boarded the train, and everything looked pristine and white. You can imagine our chagrin when stepping off the train and onto the platform in Lyon only to discover cold, wet rain.
Unfazed, we popped by Lyon's Marché de Noël for a warm cup of vin chaud before heading to the ANAEM. The irony of drinking before a medical exam is not lost on me. However, I wasn't particularly concerned that I would have to pass a sobriety test in order to be allowed to remain in France.
The ANAEM was closed when we arrived at about 20 minutes before 1:30 PM. We stood at the entrance as employees returned from their lunches, huddling close and rubbing our hands together for warmth on the off chance that they might let us into the building early. Apparently, rain, wind, and cold are not good enough reasons to let "foreigners" into an empty building before reopening time.
Once inside, I was reminded once more of how much being inside French government buildings feels like being in hell. Or being in a scene out of the movie Brazil (not that there's a difference).
"Sorry, I'm a bit of a stickler for paperwork. Where would we be if we didn't follow the correct procedures?" And such.
The bureaucracy alone makes my head explode, and the architecture seems intentionally designed to intensify the explosion.
The exam was simple and brilliantly executed. One doctor asks you questions about your health, another doctor x-rays your chest, and a final doctor reviews the x-ray and signs the form that will enable you to go downstairs and obtain a final signature before taking the form back to the Saint-Etienne Préfecture. Which will then enable you to wait a month before passing once more by the Préfecture to pick up your shiny, new, plastic-wrapped carte de sejour.
Only we were all rather nervous about the x-rays. Or sex-rays as they were dubbed. Being left shirtless in a room with an unfamiliar French woman spewing commands at you rapid and only semi-comprehensible French (almost as if on purpose) is not the most comfortable experience.
We all came out with our forms signed and varying tales.
On my turn, the x-ray doctor had me lift and hold my hair up off of the nape of my neck, leaving me in a topless pose that I tend to reserve for bedroom seductions.
Corinne, wearing a necklace, was told to put the necklace in her mouth (shocking, I know).
Finally, Kim, topless Kim, Kim who also had on a necklace, was told to take it off while the doctor wrapped the protective lead pouch around her waist.
"You guys, when she wrapped that thing around me, it felt like we were in love!
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