Worlds Apart and Worlds We Live In

Last week, I went to a talk at the university given by Swanee Hunt, the former American ambassador to Austria during the Bosnian War (1992-1995). She recently wrote a book (possible her memoirs...I picked up a copy but haven't looked at it yet) and, certainly, part of the reason for the talk was to promote it, but I'm sure her other reasons for coming back were to reconnect with old friends and acquaintances from her time in Vienna as ambassador.

No matter her reasons (though I had anticipated a completely different type of talk), I found what she had to say interesting and rather enlightening. First, she called Angelina Jolie a saint for directing and producing In the Land of Blood and Honey. Then she went on to explain the personal disconnect she was feeling during her time as ambassador, after she began keeping a journal which her husband had recommended she do during her post. She had wanted to be posted to India as ambassardor (I guess as a foreign service officer, one must take what one can get) and, at the beginning, she wanted to do her best in the post she was given, i.e. do a good job so President Clinton would reassign her to where she really wanted to go after a few years posted in Austria.

At the time, there was no American ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was considered too dangerous. After the break up of Yugoslavia, the Bosnian lands had been claimed by Serbia; thus, it wasn't even officially a country. Despite ethnic cleansing and snipers stalking the streets of Sarajevo, the EU said "Hands off!" to the United States. NATO and the UN knew bad things were happening to the Bosniaks, but didn't know how to do anything about it.

Thus enters Swanee Hunt.She mentioned, during a ceremony commemorating the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the Mauthausen concentration camp, she had a crisis of conscience: here she was at this state dinner eating off of gold-rimmed bone china, boozing it up and rubbing elbows with big wigs from around the world patting themselves on the back for how far the world had come in 50 years, when, 800 km away, the same damn thing was happening in Bosnia.

She knew, because a stack of memos a mile high were waiting for her on her desk, all about the Bosnia situation.

That's when Swanee Hunt decided to tell the president. Bill Clinton didn't want to do anything, until a car bomb exploded, three American diplomats were killed, and, upon attending the funeral, met their children who were all about the same age as Chelsea. The rest, as they say, is history.

It's interesting to think of this, since many of the refugees from the conflict ended up living in Austria. I have several Bosnian students who, though they weren't alive at the time, do have parents who lived through the conflict. It's amazing to me to think of living through a civil war - or any war at all. For though we (the United States) are still at war, it is so far removed from my self, my daily life and my being that, aside from an academic, philosophical, or political discussion, I sometimes forget there's any conflict at all.

To be honest, that scares the hell out of me.

Revanche! Relance!

CDG - mid bomb scare

Paris: AIEEE!

First, I get into Charles de Gaulle at 1:30 pm and figure I need to mail one of my suitcases, because I am definitely over the baggage weight  limit for a within-Europe puddle-jumper. So, expecting I will have to mail my suitcase to Amstetten, I walk over to the Austrian Airlines kiosk (after asking at 3 *other* information booths) and the guy takes one look at my bags & says that my stuff is all too big to fit on the plane & it will cost 15 euro per kilo over limit (20 kg is the limit - I have at least 50 kilo to schlepp around) so I kind of freak out & then go find the post office in CDG. I get my 23 kilo bag out to mail to Amstetten for 68 euro and then schlepp the rest of my shit back up to the area where you can get on the Metro...

My carry-on luggage

What should happen then, but the French National Guard comes storming in, big burly guys with machine guns & tell everyone to get out of the airport area and they turn off the escalators and people run around screaming (well, OK, the French don't go running around screaming, but some less obnoxious, subtle, French version of that - if only for effect), and then finally they turn everything back on, and the crowd dissipates, and then I ask some old guy smoking his 10 millionth cigarette what just happened and he's like, "bomb."

GREAT! I know they had a bomb scare earlier in CDG, like two weeks ago or something, but, seriously, what is with this? Anyway, the army dudes apparently got the whole thing figured out & once the escalators were turned back on, we were all safe once again, and I could actually get down to the trains. So, I hopped on the RER Bleu to get to Gare du Nord and got to the Woodstock Hostel. So absolutely exhausted b/c slept max. 5 hours last night. Our stupid new neighbors leave their dog out all night right outside my bedroom window to bark its fool head off. Mom has taken to spraying it in the face with water every time it barks - including in the middle of the night! It did not help last night, but perhaps after a few weeks of old-fashioned Pavlovian training, she will get somewhere. At this point, I think, Detroit-Wayne has nothing on CDG. If you don't have to go to the airport, Paris is wonderful. If all you do is sit in the airport trying to figure out how you are going to get yourself AND your overweight baggage to Vienna, Paris sucks.

So once I get to the Woodstock, I take this picture of my bed:

Oh, sweet, dear, beloved bed!

But I can't go to bed right away. It is only 4:30 and I have to wait until bed-time like Rick Steves says, so my body can adjust to the time change in a healthy way & I won't be overly harried by jet lag. So, I figure I might as well introduce myself to my roommate, who is sitting outside smoking on the patio area, and from whom I had to get the key. It's only polite to introduce myself, right?

She's sitting with two other guys, and I can tell already she's German, even though she's speaking in English. She is talking nonstop in that funny way Germans have when they are speaking in English.  But, well, still charming. At least to me. I introduce myself and at first she thinks I am French (or speaks to me in French anyway) but I figure she is talking to someone who does not know French because they had been speaking in English. There are actually 3 people at the picnic table in the patio area: Christine, the German, Rasmus the Dane and Simon, who is from New Zealand. Well, I guess that explains why they're speaking in English. I think, OK, I'll introduce myself, chat for 20 minutes, and then grab something to eat from the sushi restaurant down the street, come back and go to bed before 6. Awesome plan, right?

Well, I sit down and start chatting, and we are all having an interesting conversation. The next thing I know, the sun is setting. I think, Oh, it's getting darker earlier. It's probably around 7. Then, we chat more. Christine tells me she is an occupational therapist in Paris on her vacation. Rasmus is a student planning on becoming a Kindergarten teacher, and Simon just competed in the Settlers of Catan world championship in Germany (playing for Australia, who came in 6th place - out of 30 teams). Who'd a-thunk? So, anyway, about 10 minutes after the sun goes down, I look at my phone to see what time it is, and it is already 9:30! OMG, I think. No wonder I'm tired! Minus the 2 hours I slept on the plane (half of Clash of the Titans and then an extra 45 minutes before they served a pre-landing snack), I have been up for 30 hours. I can hardly believe it.