Frida's Notebook

Joy and love

Self portrait wearing my Joy superhero necklace in a taxi in Bangkok.

This week a very dear friend wrote to me in response to my musings on trauma and healing in post-conflict and fragile states like Afghanistan. I've been thinking a lot about what people need in order to recover from the trauma of severe and ongoing violence and violations of their rights. In fact, I've decided to take some time off in the coming years to go back to school and study more about this. I've even discovered that it is possible to study the "psychology of peace and violence", which is an almost perfect match for my personal and professional interests.

So I've been sending out emails all over the world to people who I know and whose experience and insights on these topics I respect and to people I don't know but who are seen to be "experts" and leaders in this field. It is an exciting time, getting responses from friends and strangers alike that show me that I'm not alone in thinking about these topics.

Anyway - back to my very dear friend - she wrote, in reponse to my rambling email about trauma and healing here in Afghanistan, the following beautiful thoughts:

It has been, since the time I spent working through much of this kind of stuff, ... my conviction that the one and only thing that can ever heal the damage done by the cruelty and hatred of humans toward each other, is love.  Without it you can never achieve anything but a sterile kind of survival, but through being shown love people can be healed from the worst of abuses and when people themselves learn to give love they can transcend even the most terrible injustice done to them.

Isn't that wonderful! Now you have some idea of why I love her so much. Like me she got her introduction to this kind of work in the intense and complex the Gaza Strip. Since then our paths have been winding in and out of each other and year by year I have the particular pleasure of discovering that we are learning many of the same lessons, even though we keep conspiring somehow to end up in a country just as the other is leaving.

In her words I saw the reflection of something that has been stirring in me lately. After writing my long recent post about "ahimsa" (the principle of non-violence) and the need to be the change we want to see in the world, I've been starting each day with a short meditation on non-violence and a recommitment to "think no violent thoughts, say no violent words and nuture in my heart no violent feelings" throughout the day. I may not be able to end the hatred and violence which seems to be spreading and escalating here again, but at least I can try not to add to it.

I think that my friend is right - if I cannot guarantee justice or even security to the complainants who approach me I can at least guarantee them that I will recognise their dignity and value and that I will treat them with respect and with loving kindness. 

So when I go off to do my studies next year, do you think I'll be able to design a research project to show that love really is all we need?

Sisters are doing it for themselves

I've written here before about the absolutely critical need to include women and children in discussions about peace-building and conflict resolution in Afghanistan.

As the conflict seems to be intensifying in many areas of this country, discussions here are focused more and more on the unacceptable level of harm done to civilians either directly or indirectly.

I haven't posted much about this, but it increasingly makes up a significant proportion of our work these days. Today I had really interesting discussions as part of a consultation process we are undertaking with a wide variety of actors and affected people about the impact on civilians of the conflict and how civilians can be better protected.

A national workshop on the topic is being planned in Kabul in August and we are doing the regional consultations, hearing from people what their main concerns about protection of cvilians are and what more they think can and should be done. We have also been asking people about the format and particpants for this workshop.

Today one very engaged and interesting man told me that the most important thing was to ensure that religious and tribal leaders were at the meeting, because they are the people who can influence the communities. I thought that was a great suggestion, but asked him whether he thinks other people affected by the conflict should also be there - women and children for example. He told me that the tribal elders are completely able to represent the concerns, needs and views of all their community members, including the most vulberable. When I gently challenged him on this, telling him that in my experience women sometimes have different perspective and experiences to the powerful and influential elders he was very responsive and open to the possibility but obviously quite surprised by the suggestion.

When I got back to my office I found this press release in my inbox - reporting that Afghan women had met with NATO representatives early this month and agreed on a joint strategy to ensure that a "women dimension" is incorporated into NATO's security strategy in Afghanistan.

I smiled at myself, here I was so concerned about arguing for the right of Afghan women to have their say and be heard at a workshop on protection of civilians with NATO chiefs, Government and UN officials, and representatives of the international community. Meanwhile the sisters are out there doing it for themselves!

Be the change

Today is summer solstice, International Day of Possibility (www.dayofpossibility.com) and having treked across Bangkok this morning to attend an Iyengar yoga class I'm feeling very reflective. Beware long post coming up!

Wendie brought me a birthday gift when she came to Thailand last week.

Actually she brought me two - one was from my sister and it was a Superhero (http://www.superherodesigns.com/) necklace by the wonderful Andrea. I chose it myself and chose for myself "Joy" which is exactly what I'm filled with these days as I emerge fully from the challenges of my winter and into the light of summer. The necklace is a colourful and joyful as you would expect and it looks deliciously summery against my Thailand tan!

The second gift was from Wendie herself and was a book of the sayings and teachings of Mahatma Gandhi on "Peace". I used to have a teeny book of Gandhai's teachings by my desk at work everyday when I was working at the Human Rights Commission. On days when I felt myself beginning to tense up or boil over with frustration I would let it fall open and take a little of Gandhi's medicine.

This book has a beautiful introduction by the Bishop Desmond Tutu in which he talks about "ubuntu" which is a characteristic of goodness, the essence of what it is to be human. In his culture, he says, the highest compliment you can be paid is to have someon say "Yu, u nobuntu", you have ubuntu. I love this concept, which has two parts. The first part is about beihng friendly, hospitable, generous, gentle, caring and compassionate. It is about being someon who will use their strengths on behalf of others - the weak and the poor and the ill - and not take advantage of anyone. The second part is about being large-hearted and open, about sharing your worth in every sense.

People with ubuntu understand that if I diminsh you, I diminish myself.

Amongst the many thought-provoking teachings of Gandhi (did you ever notice how staunchly feminist some of his teaching are?) I came across an old favorite and it stopped me in my tracks.

"You must be the change you want to see in the world"

Simple as that, I'd read it a hundred times before, I'd even quoted it to others, believing it and valueing it's wisdom. But this week I found myself coming back to the question that sits behind this teaching: what is the change I want to see in the world?

When I was younger I might simply have responded that I wanted the world to be more just. But I've grown to understand that justice without compassion can be harsh, and that justice done by the book, without intention, can be fruitless and unsustainable. So what really is the change that I want to see in the world?

There are so many answers to that question and I think I will keep exploring them in weeks to come, but some things are clear.

I want the world to be a place where those who are stong and powerful use that strength and power on behalf of others, especially of the weak, the ill and the poor. But more than that I want the world to be a place where little by little the powerful can let go, the strong can let go, where gentleness and compassion are the leading forces rather then control and dominance.

I want this world to be a place where those who need a little help can get it, where those who have a little more can share it. Where the accumulation of massive wealth doesn't make any sense so people stop bothering to do it.

I want the world to move at a pace which keeps in harmony with the rythyms of the planet, where we all remember the feel of being in tune with the moon's cycles and the taste of eating the fresh produce that grows in this season. I want the world to need less things. I want the oceans and rivers to be clean and full of life, I want the sky to be clear and the air clean.

I want the world to be filled with ubuntu, with an understanding that we are all connected to each other and therefore when I harm you I am harming myself. I want the world to be free from violence, I want us to all find non-violent ways to confront and resolve our differences.

I want the world to change, and I'm happy to be reminded by Gandhi that the best and only way to be sure to be doing my part it that is to keep "being the change".

About 12 years ago I arrived back in New Zealand after a ten month journey around Africa, the Middle East, Turkey and Eastern Europe. What I had seen in the Occupied Palestinian Territories was about to change the direction of my career and my whole life. I travelled with the grandfather of a Palestinian friend of mine from Jerusalem, via the West Bank up to Tiberias. We had crossed several check points of the Israeli army. I witnessed violence that was routinised: humiliating and degrading violence against women, children and the elderly. I saw that this violence was being perpetrated by young people from a land of hope and promise, young men and women who were no more "bad" than you or I, but who were caught up in a military culture of fear, violence and oppression.

I decided that the world needed to change, I decided that my first step would be to make my own commitment to non-violence and I had the sanskrit "Ahimsa" tatooed onto my lower back. In the years that followed, when I myself was living in the Gaza Strip witnessing violent conflict everyday and being myself subjected to humiliation by the Israeli army for my sin of living and working in the Palestinian territories, I had to recall this commitment many times. It was a commitment not only to avoid physical violence, but also to avoid mental violence. I had commited to myself that hatred was not an option. I had commited myself to the path of trying to know and understand the person who hurts you and those you care for.

I kept my connections with family and friends in Israel, despite the incredible psychological, emotional and social struggle this often involved. I chose not to slip into simple impressions of "good" and "bad" and I tried always to see the soldiers as whole, precious people - despite the terrible things I sometimes saw them doing.

This was hard work for me at the time, I often felt fragmented, I sometimes longed to put my feet both down on one or other side of that divide between Israel and Palestine and stay there. Almost everyone around me had chosen their side and stayed there, protected by the company of others. I was always moving across those lines, both literally and figuratively. To get from my apartment in Gaza to my friend's apartment in West Jerusalem I crossed Erez checkpoint and took a Palestinian share taxi to Ramallah, then I took another taxi to East Jerusalem, stopping at the checkpoint to change into a car with Israeli plates. This taxi would take me to East Jerusalem from where I would usually have to walk a little bit to the area from which Jewish Israeli cabs were available and willing to take me to Oded's neighbourhood.

I crossed back and forth, trying to keep my mind and heart open, often feeling like a traitor, often feeling like an imposter. I answered the same impossible questions over and over again at both ends of this journey as I acted like a strange kind of ambassador "from the other side". With Palestinians I was always challenging stereotypes about Israeli, with Israeli's the reverse. I never got to be "on the right side" of the discussion.

But I tried, I tried to live with 'ahimsa' in that violent, conflicted place. I failed on many occassions, but I learned that wherever I go and whatever I do with my life the most important choice I will make everyday will be the choice to live well, to live with gentleness, with generosity, with open-heartedness and and open mind. In the Gaza Strip I learned that the only guaranteed shot I had at changing the world was to change myself.

In an octopus's garden

(My hammock in Tanote Bay, looking out over the bay and the dive boats)

I love being underwater. I'm not really such a huge fan of being on top of water. I like a gentle boat ride or a kayak around the bay well enough but I get nervous in big weather on the ocean. But underneath the waves I'm as happy as can be. There is no other feeling quite like it, floating along as though my body weighed nothing, with clouds of tiny fish gathering around me and skoals of barracuda flashing past in the murky distance.

I feel entirely at rest and at peace and, more than anything else, in awe of the amazing marine world. The life is bursting out all around down there, the brightly coloured coral in all shapes and sizes - this one shaped and coloured like a large exposed brain (and named, originally, 'brain coral') that one blue and frilled like old-fashion lace collars. I love the pink anenome with finger-like tendrils swaying in the gentle current, the tip of each dipped in the palest pink. It has it's own perfectly matching fish to live amongst its waving tendrils named, you guessed it, the 'pink anenome fish'.

Here, hiding under a rock, is a blue spotted stingray eyeing me warily as I turn myself upside down and hang in the water to peer into his hiding place. There, peeping out of her hole, is a moray eel with motled blues and yellows down her belly and a suspicious look on her face as she creeps out to see whether Kung's finger is really something worth eating.

I love the comraderie between divers underwater. On one dive this week another diver spotted a sea turtle lying in the coral, taking a rest and having a look around. He saw Kung and I passing by and caught our attention in order to be sure we didn't miss the sight. I sat floating in the water a few metres away from the turtle for several minutes, just admiring his lovely beaky face.

Once we get out of the water, too, we maintain that special connection that comes from having entered together into the world beneath, from having shared those 50 or 60 minutes of silent reverie, pointing out different delights to one another but never speaking.

This week I shared these experiences with three very cool and very capable young Thai men - from left to right they are Team (dive master), Kung (dive instructor) and Buy (trainee dive master). They are all from Bangkok and have escaped the city to make a living as dive masters on Koh Tao. They were funny, and gentle and reassuringly professional - despite looking extraordinarily young.

Finally - although I still can't put the links in properly, I wanted to give you all the information about this amazing holiday.

The retreat was a Radiance Retreat (http://www.radianceretreats.com/Thailand_2007.html) by Jessie Chapman (http://www.intoyoga.com/) held at Kamalaya Resort (http://www.kamalaya.com/) in Koh Samui, Thailand. I can't recommend them all highly enough. Jessie is a fabulous teacher and a lovely woman, her retreat was demanding, in terms of yoga practice, for someone like me whose home practice has become a bit lazy of late. The resort was perfect, all week long I was in bliss, the rooms, the facilities, the Wellness Centre, the pool and the food were all amazing. The retreat was Jessie's first in Thailand but she has been doing similar retreats in Bali and Byron Bay, Australia for some years. Again, all very highly recommended.

The dive company was Black Tip Divers (http://www.blacktipdiving.com/) in Ao Tanote, Koh Tao, Thailand. They are a great little company, smaller than many on the other side of the island, so you are diving in much smaller groups (one day we were only two divers, and the other diver was doing a dive for her advanced course so I dived alone with the dive master). They are Thai owned and run and the staff are good sorts. I can't recommend the accommodation only because they don't have sea view rooms. I stayed in the neighbouring Family Resort, where the rooms were very, very basic but I had a seafront room with a hammock on my deck and room to do my morning yoga looking out over the bay.

Today I'm back in Bangkok, and while I'm making travel recommendations I might as well give a shout out to the Shanghai Inn (http://www.shanghai-inn.com/) which was originally discovered by my boyfriend when we came to Bangkok last year. He arrived a half day earlier than me and managed to uncover what must be the hippest and best value for money budget hotel in Bangkok. This is now my third stay and it is consitently good, great service, great location, great beds, free wifi in room and best of all - fabulous decor!

Yoga retreat: Day Six

After six days of yoga and detox I feel like a million dollars. Days three and four were hard work (not the detox but the yoga - stiff, sore muscles had to be gently coaxed out of bed at 5.40 am but they came around eventually). I love this photo of me with the two wonderful friends who came all the way from NZ to join me on this retreat. Wendie (in the middle) is an absolute champion, she has never really done yoga before and yet she made it through the daily morning session which lasted between two and half and three hours. I was aching and I have some preparation. Mary (at the back) is a natural at yoga with the kind of natural flexibility that I some days dream about, and she makes every pose look graceful.

I have had the most fabulous week imaginable, but I learned one thing that I didn't expect. Even when you get in touch with your true inner voice, the answers to your questions are not always clear. My heart can tell me many things, but there are many things unknown even to my deepest self-knowledge. So now I need to bring what I have uncovered from my true heart together with what I can find out in other places and I hope that clarity will begin to emerge. I may not have a clear answer but I am happy that I know my own true feelings as a foundation for whatever choice I end up making.

Here we are again, in our fabulous outdoor yoga hall, which had views over the ocean and the sounds of nature wakening as we practiced every morning.

Buddha within

Prayer flags outside the monk's cave

I've got some choices to make in the next little while, some of them reasonably "big" life choices. So I wanted to spend time this week sitting quietly with myself listening to my own inner voice, hearing from my heart and my own wisdom. The morning and afternoon yoga practice sessions help me by bringing me very strongly into the present moment and very strongly into awareness of myself, my thoughts and feelings. The evening yoga nidra sessions are also great for slowing and quieting my thoughts so that I can reach beyond the top layer of chatter to the deep wisdom beneath.

But at the end of the day I also wanted some very private time to sit quietly for long enough to hear what my heart really wants. Luckily there are so many wonderful spots here in which to sit.

This is inside the monk's cave -

And this is me sitting quietly and thoughfully in the pool -

Yoga retreat: Day Two

I promised photos, and here they are...

My day today started with three hours of yoga and meditation from 6-9 am, then a delicious healthy breakfast, an hour by the pool and then visit to the "Wellness Sanctuary" for a steam, plunge and full-body massage combo. Divine.

After lunch (again, more of the yummiest healthy food I've ever had) I had a few hours of relaxing, and went for a walk to get these photos. The resort is incredibly beautiful, designed with subtlely and lots of style. In the afternoon we have another yoga session, then I went straight into the weirdest treatment I've ever had...

I know this should be a really funny story for a travel writer's piece on Koh Samui's cult of cleansing retreats. But I'm not that funny. The simple story is that I let a very sweet Thai woman insert a hose into my butt and pump water through me for almost an hour. It was not pleasant, it was not comfortable (neither in the physical nor psycho-social sense), and when I finally thought I was done that very sweet Thai nurse gravely informed me that my colon was indeed, still not entirely happy. She recommends at least one more "hydrotherapy session".

So - my apparently still grumpy colon aside - it was an exceptionally idyllic day, and perhaps I'll live to be very glad I gave myself a good wash out. In the meantime I'm off to recline and meditate on the joyfulness of being here. Then hopefully sleep like a baby ready for the 5.40am wakeup call for yoga tomorrow morning.

Yoga retreat: Day One

Have you ever looked forward to something so much that you suddenly pull yourself up, telling yourself that you need to lower your expectations a little bit or you are bound to be disappointed. A few days ago I was anticipating this retreat with such intensity that I made a conscious effort to remind myself that simply being on holiday would be enough, no matter where I was or what I was doing. I was trying to lower my expectations and avoid disappointment.

Well, there was no need to manage my expectations. This place, this experience, these people have already far exceeded even my highest hopes. I met my very special friends M and W in Bangkok and today we flew to Koh Samui. We arrived in time for a delicious lunch of fruit and salads and a swim in the stunningly beautiful pool - where I found my fabulous yoga buddy from Herat and her mum - before the first yoga class.

The class was bliss, the teacher everything I look for, i.e. thorough, gentle, careful and respectful of the yoga values. By the end of our first two and a half hour session I felt as though my body was floating in a pool of delicious peacefulness. One of the women whom we met in the shuttle on the way to the resort commented on it at dinner - she was impressed at the transformation in me in just three hours. I feel sooooo happy, so relaxed, so lucky and so peaceful.

As we walked out of the class my yoga buddy from Herat and I just gave each other a huge hug, with smiles on our faces so wide we must have looked a little bit goofy. We couldn't have made a better choice about how to spend this precious RnR time. This resort is stunning (photos to come) the people are lovely and the yoga is the real stuff, taught with compassion and truth.

I will tell you more as we go on with the week, but for now I am just so incredibly happy and excited about the goodness I am doing for my body and soul this week. I wish you all could be here!

Alive and loving it

Yesterday as I left Bangkok international airport without my suitcase I sat in the taxi into town feeling a little too tired and a little bit sorry for myself. So I opened my handbag and pulled out a bar of chocolate that my friend/colleague had brought back for me from her recent trip to Colombia. Maybe it was the effect of the cocoa and sugar hitting my bloodstream, or maybe it was the realisation that I was in a taxi in Bangkok eating chocolate bought for me in Colombia, but suddenly I had a flash of how incredibly fortunate I am to live the life I am leading.

Here is a whirlwind rundown of my last few days:

This week was not a pleasant week at work, the second female journalist in a week is killed. Although the first killing seems likely to have been motivated by family conflict (she had apparently refused to marry someone and he may be the suspect arrested by police this week) this second murder was of Zakia Zaki. Zakia was 35 years old (my age) and had run the Peace Radio since the fall of the Taliban in 2001. She was also headmistress of a local school and ran for parliament in 2005. The motive for her murder has not yet been established but there are many speculations including in relation to her ongoing rivarly/conflict with a member of the Wolesi Jirga and to threats she had received about her reporting. I also spent time this week adding up the count of civilian casualties in the conflict since the beginning of 2007, this is not happy work.
(I can't insert links today, but here is a story about Zakiya's murder - http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,,2096815,00.html)

Before I know it, it is Wednesday afternoon. I'm frantically trying to get all my work finished in time for a Thursday am departure on RnR, when we are suddenly all evacuated from our offices without time to get handbags (mine contains my passports). The rush is fully justified as a fuel tanker outside our front gate has been found with an IED (improvised explosive device) attached.

We spend the next four hours in the compound behind ours, waiting for the IED to be successfully defused so we can go back in and finish our work. I'm also waiting to get my passport! Neither is possible and we are eventually sent home, me with an unfinished "must-do" list and a passport to collect before my 7am check in the next morning. But in the meantime I have met the second-in-charge of the NZ Embassy in Tehran and had my chance to lobby him for a permanent NZAID representative in the NZ PRT in Bamyan. I met the Commander of the NZ PRT and when he expressed an interest in spending some of his discretionary funds on gender projects managed to connect him to a friend who is working on women's rights in Bamyan. I met the UNIFEM country director and established the beginnings of a collaboration on gathering data about violence against women, and I met a UNDP officer working on the Counter Narcotics Trust Fund and connected her to a journalist friend writing a book on opium. All in all a relatively constructive period of security lock-down.

I spend the evening in a bar saying a farewell to a much loved friend who is leaving Afghanistan for good, and meeting more interesting people. It is well near impossible to go to a social function in this city without finding people whose work intersects with mine, and I almost always leave with business cards and the beginnings of potential collaboration, if you are a born networker like me this is a kind of professional bliss.

The next morning my driver shows up at 5.30am - which is a good sign because his car had also been shut up in our compound last night - and yes, the bomb has been defused and I am allowed into my office to finish up some urgent work and to pick up my passport and running shoes. By 7.30am I'm at the airport and on my way.

Thursday afternoon is spent whizzing about Dubai getting my haircut, my nails manicured, my legs waxed and my eyebrows threaded. I even manage a flying visit to Zara to pick up a sundress for Thailand. By 5.00pm I'm back at the hotel having a drink and a debrief with a colleague based in the volatile south eastern part of Afghanistan. I always enjoy some decompression time in Dubai with folks who know what it is like leaving Kabul and shifting gear before meeting friends in other parts of the world. It helps to have worked some of the madness out of your system before turning up at the wedding in Italy (in his case) or the yoga retreat in Thailand (in mine).

After a fantastic seafood buffet in Dubai I'm off to the airport again, flying to Bangkok via Sri Lanka. My bags only make it as far as Colombo but I am in Bangkok by Friday afternoon. The self-pity moment in the taxi is probably attributable to having had only 6 hours sleep in 48 hours, as well as to the cumulative impact of all that counting up of dead civilians (my boss comes back on one draft with a question - can you break down those numbers by type of IED? A perfectly valid request but in the instant one that made me see how grusome my work was becoming)

So here I am, without a suitcase, but wearing my fabulous new Zara sunfrock. Worn out by the work of documenting death but feeling so very lucky to be alive and to be living this kind of life - never at risk of forgetting it for too long!

PS: I just got back from Asia books where I picked up my copy of "A Thousand Splendid Suns" along with a copy of "The Kbul Beauty School" which was written by Debbie Rodriguez (who used to cut my hair in Kabul) together with Kristin Ohlson (http://www.kristinohlson.com/). So I've got some good reading to look forward to once we get to the island.

PPS: This maybe more detail than you want, so stop reading now if you are squeemish. But the relfexologist who prodded at my feel for 90 minutes last night told me that my colon is in trouble. I know that colons don't like Kabul, so I'm not surprised, but I am thinking that a week long cleansing retreat is about the right thing to be doing now. Here's to a happier colon in a week's time.

Town and Country Girl

SA Trip 06, originally uploaded by frida world.

I'm a town and country mouse, absolutely, but also an Afghan mountain mouse, a Negev desert mouse, and whenever possible an underwater scuba mouse. Hmmm, I guess I might just be a gypsy mouse. But I'm not really a Big City mouse, although short visits to my city mouse friends are fabulous fun, and I have great memories of mouscepades in London, NYC, Paris, Berlin, Rome, Buenos Aires, Chicago, Mexico City and Sao Paulo. This week I got tagged twice to list eight random things about myself (once by Home in Kabul and once by the lovely {a] of Spelling Tuesday) so here are two lists for Sunday Scribblings, a town list and a country list.

Eight things I love about the country:

1. Driving out of the city on Friday night for weekends on the home farm with my parents, big sister, brother-in-law and the kids - watching my nephew ride his moto-cross bike through the front paddock.

2. Waking up in Mum and Dad's house to the sound of birds and the smell of grass (and of coffee brewing in the kitchen).

3. Long slow runs along country roads, with plenty of time for gentle thoughts and smiles at the cows.

4. The entire New Zealand coastline - farmland and bush sweeping down to the sea with empty beaches to walk along in silence and solitude.

5. Neighbours and family friends who have known me my whole life and who still like me (or like my parents enough to pretend they do) despite my weird lifestyle and long years of absence.

6. Spring: if you're not working on the farm then the season of lambs and calves is pure joy (if you are working, then it is pure exhaustion). I love the slightly creepy feeling of a sandpapery calf tongue sucking on my fingers as I guide it to the milk teat on the feed drum.

7. A childhood filled with sleepouts, dinners cooked on a campfire, improvised tree huts and club houses, tree-climbing, bonfires, and learning to ride a motorbike and drive a tractor long before it was legal.

8. School calf and lamb club days - even though my big sister always got the champion shield, I was often a pretty close second with my calves named after native birds (Tui) and great-aunts (Daphne and Heather)

Eight things I love about town:

1. Old style cinemas especially on rainy Sunday afternoons - with comfy seats, great movies and glasses of wine.

2. Long slow runs through sleepy Sunday morning suburbs, watching the city wake up, followed by huge vegan brunch at a cafe named after Fidel Castro.

3. Book clubs, scrabble and sherry in my favorite bar with my favorite ladies (and very cute barmen stopping by to check out the books and make conversation with the ladies).

4. Access to yoga classes, organic food stores and new music.

5. Bookstores, bookstores, bookstores (the best one I've ever seen is Powell's in Portland, I swear it is worth visiting the city just for this bookstore).

6. Cafes with soymilk and wireless internet.

7. Exploring new cities, e.g. sitting in a pavement cafe listening to guitar music on the street in Buenos Aires (see photo above).

8. Summer concerts in the park or on the beach - with GG's cakestand, cupcakes and Falling Water cocktails.