Monday, February 25, 2008

The Life of Privilege

Today will be a somewhat shorter post. We have not been on any spectacular trips this week, but we are trying to keep our social calendar lively. We went to a wine tasting on Saturday night attended by about 100 embassy employees. It was in a beautiful setting, at an apartment building near the embassy, with an incredible view of the city and the Avila. The tables were set on a covered patio with a large lawn. It was quite nice. The wine was good, but I could never, and still can't, distinguish one wine from another. It is just as well, since I am blissfully happy drinking inexpensive wine. I was reminded of just how privileged we are to be sipping fine wine, looking out over the lights of the city from the lawn of a luxury apartment, while many of the homes we are looking out over are one room brick shacks with tin roofs. Also this weekend, we were invited to an advance showing of a movie at a “VIP” theater. The movie was “10,000 B.C.” an update of the old Raquel Welsh film, “One Million Years B.C. “(this was set about 990,000 years later). It has not yet been released, so we got to see it first. It was made by the director of “Independence Day” and “The Day after Tomorrow”. It was pretty good, not great. It was fun, with lots of action. The theater had about 50 seats, all of which were like leather upholstered Lazyboy recliners. Very nice. Especially since it was free. They even gave us popcorn and soft drinks!

The other big news is that our “cedulas” arrived as did out first shipment of stuff, Called UAB (Unaccompanied Air Baggage). A cedula is an identity card issued by the host government to diplomats. In the U.S. these are called “carnets”. The real significance of having a cedula is that we can open a bank account here and begin participating in the “permuta” (the complex bond/currency buy-sell thing) and we can get refunds of the VAT on our purchases which represents about a ten per cent discount. Now that a small fraction of our things are here life is a little easier. I have a guitar and my coffee press. Honestly, I don't know what we were thinking when we packed some of the things in our UAB, like four boxes of Quaker Oats. We have kitchen towels, but no knives. A portable DVD player, but no DVD's. A Jam Box but no CD's. Some things make sense like the i-Pod docking station, the computer accessories, plates and silverware. Oh, and the spices, they were a good idea. We are told that the rest of our things (called HHE for HouseHold Effects) are in the country but are awaiting clearance from customs. Things can take a while here. Apparently our car is here too because we were instructed to get liability insurance ASAP.

We hired a maid, Yaneth, and she starts tomorrow and will work two days a week for us. It costs about $10.00 per day. We are thinking of having her come three days a week. It will still cost less than our maid charged in Houston to come for a half day per week.

Last thing: here are some web sites to keep up with what is going on in Venezuela. These are Blogs and news outlets. This is for those who want to get more in-depth information about the situation here. I am providing links for both the pro-Chavez and the anti-Chavez because I would like to keep it balanced (I suspect that the truth often lies somewhere in between) and because everything and everyone in this country is divided into Chavista or Opposition. Use the “language tools” in Google to translate (or any other on-line translation program). Just highlight the text, copy it, paste it into the translator and click “translate”. Here is the Google Translator.

Blogs:

Pro Chavez: Cowboy in Caracas

Anti-Chavez: The Devil's Excrement

News:

Pro Chavez: Ultimas Noticias

Anti-Chavez: El Universial



UPDATE: Late Breaking News!! I now have internet service, which means the “Gringo Phone” is working!!!!! More posts!! More Photos!!! Yippee!!!




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