From New Zealand, with Love
Obviously this post is a bit late, but I just wanted to thank everyone who sent birthday greetings last week. It was definitely awesome to get overseas phone calls, not to mention a certain package containing one of the greatest birthday gifts ever: Take 5 candy bars. It was also pretty awesome to have a flatmate who, although he has only known me for a short time, took the time to bake me a delicious cake from scratch. I'm pretty proud that we polished that thing off in a matter of days.
The only sad thing about having a birthday away from home? I'd say being away from friends and family, but really the saddest thing was not being able to go to Stucchi's for my free scoop of grasshopper pie. You can talk to friends and family from anywhere in the world, but ice cream just can't be sent through the mail. And what a tragedy that is.
2 comments:
Hello, Geetha! This is Ravi in Ann Arbor, MI! I hope you remember me. Your parents stopped by to say hi a couple of weeks ago and told us about your adventures in Australia and NZ. I recommended that they watch Whale Rider because it's about a Maori Girl. They gave me your web address. I don't have a blog yet. I guess I don't really need one...anyway, I read the last 5-6 entries. You are an excellent writer, I must say!
Happy (belated) birthday, and happy 4th of July as well. One year I was in India on 4th of July and it made me sad that there were no celebrations. I subconsciously expected someone to shoot off fireworks and play "Stars and Stripes Forever", but that didn't happen. Not seeing an American flag on 4th of July left me with an empty feeling.
I had read the article in the AA News about the naked guy and the drill sergeant! It was funny! The News and the AAPD got calls from all over the world asking questions. There was also a follow-up article a few days later and they said the girl was leaning towards marrying him because he had handled the situation so responsibly. Ha, ha!
Hope you had a nice 4th of July meal...there are really hundreds of
"truly American dishes" to make...some are born in the USA like beans and corn bread, fried chicken, BBQ (many styles), Cajun food, macaroni & cheese, apple pie, peanut butter; some are borrowed from other cultures like Tex-Mex food, pizza, sausages, Jewish cooking, Cuban/Puerto rican, Italian, Chinese etc. etc. I saw Wynton at Hill Auditorium and he started talking about food, he said y'all call it "Soul Food", but where I come from, we call it..."Food". :-)
I'm afraid I must strongly disagree (respectfully) with your statement "becoming an American pretty much means renouncing whatever nationality/culture/identity you had before"...I think that's totally untrue. Becoming an American means embracing American ideals and values--and you can keep on eating the same food, listening to the same music, wearing the same clothing, and even speaking the same language. As long as you can also speak English, that is. Even though I don't have a degree in American Culture, I feel really strongly about that. Sorry for bloviating!!! Look me up on the U-M online directory, if you like.
cheers, Ravi
Geetha,
A belated birthday wish. Hope you got everything you hoped for.
Eric
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