Babel

A cafe recently opened on University Drive near Hardy called Essence Bakery Cafe. Saori had gone there before with her friends for late night coffee, and she took me there back there for a late breakfast. Place looked good, it was small, homey, and offered fresh baked goods. However, thier selection of pastries was pretty slim and priced comparitively with Starbucks pastries (which I think is overpriced).

We walk inside and the guy behind the counter hands us two lunch and dinner menus. We tell him we're just there for a bit of breakfast and he indicates the pastry display. Saori orders a coffee and some cookies and the guy completely ignores me after serving it up, going back to wander around behind the counter. I have to ask him for a coffee. There is this horribly obnoxious stereotypically French attitude radiating off of this guy, and I instantly dislike him. I've been to Paris three times, known how hospitable the French can be, but this guy was definitely not one of them. The coffee was standard and overpriced. When he handed over our drinks, he informed us that they were in their lunch service hours and would it be a problem to not sit inside the cafe? (The cafe was unoccupied except for one table). I assured him that we would trouble him no further. We were about to walk out when he told us that it was ok if we sat inside, just this once, but if some customers came in and filled the cafe, we should move over, eh? We declined to despoil thier pristine dining area and instead drank our coffee out on the patio and left for the last time. There was another woman working there who appeared to be another French chef who was extremely gracious except for not smacking the other guy upside the head with a souffle pan.

The other day, Saori and I went to see the movie Babel, directed by the same guy who did Amores Perros and in the same fashion where it follows several characters and stories whose lives are interconnected. It was a good movie, a bit rough to sit though with the same kind of feeling and intensity as Syriana. Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchette playing American tourists off the beaten track in Morrocco reminded me strongly and accurately of the tourists and experiances I'd seen in Egypt and Abu Dhabi. Anyway, I thought it was interestingly impartial to the whole theme of the movie which seemed to be saying something about globalization.

However, it reminded me that as an American in America, we are black on black, our individual actions here go mostly unnoticed on the global scale. In contrast, when one is a foriegner, black on white, every movement has potential for ripples. I remember when I was in middle school, our week long class trip was canceled because the someone in military intelligence forgot to get an updated map. Becuase the map was outdated, the US military bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. The Chinese government used the opportunity to create a huge controlled mob and anti-American sentiment in Beijing to fan support of the Chinese people towards its own military, a mob formed in front of the US embassy, and my school in Beijing was canceled. Ripple effects.

On our trip through Egypt, we met several Arab guides who spoke excellent English. Most of them had lived in the US for many years in various occupations, but for a few after September 11th, their businesses dropped off to failure. Anyway, time for dinner. More on my day later.