Reflections from a visitor

If you have been following along with my Argentine adventures, you might remember that my friend Cassie Feesler visited me several weeks ago. I asked Cassie if she would like to write a short reflection on her experiences from her visit here. She recently sent me the following words, and, in her defense, was delayed in doing so as she went on another short trip with friends to Canada just after returning to the United States. Here are Cassie's thoughts on her visit to Argentina:

Hola!

I had the amazing opportunity of visiting my dear friend Teresa and staying in Argentina for two wonderful weeks.  Seeing as how I speak no Spanish I was very lucky to be staying with a friend who speaks fluently.  It was a bit of an adjustment for me but between translators and my small Spanish vocabulary I was able to get by.  People often asked me how I handled myself when people spoke Spanish around me.  To tell you the truth, I was completely clueless at times.  Instead of letting this frustrate me I used it to fuel my desire to learn Spanish.  I recently learned that in August I will be student teaching in Mexico City at the Thomas Jefferson Institute so I guess now would be a good time to learn.

Argentina was absolutely beautiful!  The longer I was there the longer I wanted to stay.  I have a very strong desire to go back and hope to do so soon.  The memories I created while I was there are priceless.  Being exposed to another culture is a magnificent experience.  I love seeing how others live their lives and the values others hold dear.  Being a type “A “personality it was definitely good for me to be submerged in a place that is so laid back and easy-going.  I have not been that relaxed in a very long time and I hope some of that mentality stays with me.

When I think of Argentina I think most not of the kind-hearted people or the breath-taking sights, but of time.   Time is not something that people worry about in Argentina.  In America everything is a race; if it’s not fast it’s not good.  In the U.S. if you are 15 minutes early you are on time.  In Argentina if you are 15 minutes LATE you’re on time.  I have always been a fan of the quote “take time to stop and smell the roses.”  In Argentina you get the chance to do just that. 

Throughout my travels I was able to meet some remarkable people.  Alejandro was a kind-hearted man I met on my flight to Buenos Aires who invited me to stay with his family during my layover.  I was very surprised how open and accepting people were.  I can’t imagine taking in a random stranger and welcoming them into my home as easily as he did.  

I was very lucky to meet the people I did and have to say that I could easily see myself living in Argentina some day.  I believe every experience is a learning experience and through my visit to Argentina I learned how to be more open and flexible.  I want to thank everyone I met along the way for showing me such kindness and being patient with me through my language barrier.  I had many good times in Argentina and hope to create many more on my next trip there! Kisses!

~Cassie Feesler

Déjà vu, spiritual style

It’s amazing how things in life can come full-circle rather unexpectedly at times. Theoretically, this blog entry begins nearly four years ago in my Research in Communication class at Denison with Dr. Amanda Gunn. As one of the core courses of my major, this course required that I develop an extensive research proposal on a specific communication-related research question of my choice. At the time, I had friends from Denison who had recently graduated and moved overseas to work with Campus Crusade for Christ (recently renamed Cru in the United States) in a couple different countries. With my own interests in religion and cross-cultural communication, I decided to develop my semester’s research proposal on whether the training these individuals received (to share important elements of their faith in a cross-cultural context) was adequate for the diverse cultural experiences they would experience in their international work for Cru. My proposed research questions made important assumptions that religious communication involves something much more than language, in the sense of the words that we say to one another. I assumed that religion, in fact, is steeped in the nuances of whichever culture that you may find it. As a result, I crafted a research proposal that asked whether Cru was effectively training its workers in culturally sensitive ways for their ministry work.

Now, we fast forward nearly four years and examine my life in Argentina under the magnifying glass. Last weekend (July 16-18) marked the beginning of my winter vacations. It also marked a chance for me to spend some time at a winter spiritual retreat with friends from the church I have been attending. We were sitting in a study on Sunday morning and I was reading some literature that the church had given to the retreat’s participants about the institution’s vision. It was then that I felt like I had been pelted with a cultural “snowball.”  I use the imagery of being hit with a snowball here because the realization was sudden, and maybe a bit painful for just a few seconds, followed by a slightly tingly reminder that lasts for quite some time after the initial blow.  Let me explain: Since first setting foot in this church’s sanctuary, I have experienced many moments of mental struggle over whether or not I agree with their doctrine. I finally realized in reading the church’s literature at the retreat that I have agonized so much over these issues because I define congregational needs in a very different way than does this body of Christian believers. You might say that, before, I believed a Christian is a Christian is a Christian, and, in some ways, this may be true. Yes, in the ways that I believe I should love, forgive, and selflessly serve others, I think Christians share crucial qualities of a most profound nature. However, I had this “oh wow” moment because I finally was able to recognize that religion, too, is cultural. 

All that I had researched four long years ago in Dr. Gunn’s class was actually materializing in my own life. In the same ways that I assumed my friends with Cru would need new, specialized, culturally-specific skills and knowledge to share their faith with individuals in another country, I observed that I had struggled at times over the last few months as I learned important cultural pieces and how to integrate my own experiences into this puzzle of religious context. Most importantly, and more specifically, I came to understand better the cultural contexts that differ regarding who is being taught, served, and commanded to serve in the diverse congregations of Argentina and the United States.

Understanding all of this for the first time has become the easy part of my spiritual beliefs of where I see myself situated within a church that is obviously situated in the larger context of its society. Now I have to take a few steps forward in faith and search where it is that I think I should be serving others (as an action step of my religious beliefs) both in and outside this church community.

More vacation updates to come…possibly sporadically as I may have sparse internet access while traveling. For now, I am with my parents who arrived on Friday, July 22^nd. It’s simply been awesome to spend time with them as we visit some beautiful places in the province of Córdoba. As translator, tour guide, long-lost daughter, etc., there are certainly already great stories coming soon from this trip…

"Basic" school skills, in your second language

My responsibilities at San Fernando Rey have been varied: introducing poems to phonetics classes, helping with grammar lessons on adjectives, presenting on topics that intertwine political, social, and historical issues of national and international relevance in the United States, teaching construction of the future tense, conducting self-reflection exercises for students to think about how they communicate, reading newspaper articles....and the list goes on and on. However, I am prodded at least once a week with the gentle reminder that while I teach at essentially the equivalent of a community college in the United States, my students have not received the same training in elementary and high school that I might expect from a similar student in the United States. These reminders come often in the form of conversations with students about their most pressing assignments...

First, a bit of reflection on the writing that my students do at San Fernando. Sadly, (attributable to the education system in Argentina) these students are being asked for the first time ever in their academic careers to do writing of any significant length. My students are given assignments starting in year one on the basics of sentence construction and all the necessary parts of speech. In year two, we move to sound paragraph construction, and in years three and four, the students work extensively on the development of thoughts in an essay format.

The second assignment of major concern among students is that of doing an oral presentation in front of their peers. Not entirely as foreign, I know that students also craft these kind of presentations in their pedagogical classes at the institution. However, many of these presentations are given collectively as the fruits of group labor rather than strictly from an individual's research and preparation. Additionally, I've closely examined the posters from many of these presentation assignments in various classrooms and it appears that a notes outline (i.e. lots of text) often simply ends up on the presentation posters. In their defense, I wouldn't blame a student for arguing with me that instead of being able to depend on the Power Point technology to which I am so accustomed, they ultimately create a similar format on a single poster for their class presentation. Regardless, I know that students have expressed great apprehension to me when the situation arises that they have to brainstorm, research, prepare, and present a short presentation on a topic of their own choosing; this is a challenge as they are very accustomed to being given a required topic and all the necessary texts to give all the "right" answers. On top of all of this, bear in mind that my students are completing these assignments and learning these skill sets in a language that they have not been using and refining their entire lives. Finding the right way to articulate something in English, whether writing or speaking, becomes another tricky piece of the learning puzzle.

Reading and writing were at the bane of my existence in my years of undergraduate study. Clearly, I have at least a slight inclination to writing as this blog and my journal continue to be filled with experiences, critical reflections, feelings and questions. ;) Thus, it isn't really a surprise that when I look back on my classes at San Fernando thus far, I find that some of my most rewarding lessons have revolved around teaching the basics of: writing, in the form of prewriting exercises and aiding my students through the editing process; effectively reading current events, in the form of deconstructing newspaper articles; completing a critical self-evaluation, allowing my students to better articulate how they communicate with others; considering context, empowering my students to be more mindful consumers/producers of everything that they read, write, see and hear; and finally, confidently delivering an oral presentation, arming students with the tools to clearly express a well-researched topic. None of these activities/skills have directly dealt with teaching (the vast majority of my students' aspired profession), and yet, I think they were all useful in a multitude of ways for the skills that my students need not only to be teachers but also, generally, a successful professional adult. They have all been eager to participate and gain as much as possible from these lessons that I have presented, despite any lack of their exposure to these topics in the past. It's truly empowering for me as a teacher too to see that they have a desire to integrate these skill sets into their academic careers and professional lives.

Along those lines of the little that I've been able to accomplish thus far at San Fernando, I can hardly believe that a whole semester has already passed; today marks the beginning of my winter vacations and I am excited for what the next few weeks hold in terms of my travels and my parents' upcoming visit. Nonetheless, I can't help but be energized too with my ambitions for next semester and what I hope yet to share with students in terms of these "basic" (or at least what my education has taught me to consider as "basic") skills of communication, evaluation and expression.

Winter vacations, here I come!

Dos Días de la Independencia

Two independence days in one week, how could I be any more lucky?! Of course last week the 4th of July was celebrated in the United States, our Independence Day, but also celebrated within the week was Argentina's Independence Day on July 9th. While there is little (to none) to be said for my July 4th celebrations (I wore a small pin to work that has Argentina and the US flag together), I experienced some new facets of Argentine culture on July 9th and thought I'd reflect on them a bit in my entry today.

Last week one of my students, Marisol Colombo, invited me to a traditional folk celebration that occurs in her town each year on July 9th. Eager to take her up on this invitation, I headed to the bus station on Saturday morning to travel to her town, Makallé, that sits approximately 43 kilometers northwest of Resistencia. Bus terminal experiences are always "enriching," especially when you miss your bus by minutes because you're waiting in line for a ticket and the attendant had to leave his post twice in the course of the last 10 minutes before your bus is scheduled to leave. Clearly I'm not bitter at all about this. So, yes, I missed my bus. However, it was with great fortune that missing my bus allowed me to meet a wonderful woman from Resistencia who is originally from Makallé. She got us to the next bus terminal to make an appropriate bus transfer, shared a lot about herself along the way, and offered her contact information if I should ever need anything in Resistencia. What a blessing amidst the minor hassle of a missed bus!

Marisol met me at the bus stop in Makallé and we walked to her house. After a brief house tour and lunch with her family, Marisol and I headed to the other side of town where they host a very traditional festival each year. An overcast day, we took along an umbrella and crossed our fingers that we wouldn't get poured on as there had already been some light rain showers while we were eating lunch. As we approached the festival I was greeted with a sight not unlike something I might see at my own county fair in Ohio. I think I'll let my pictures tell the rest of the story of my day at this XXI Provincial Festival in Makallé...

First, there was a tractor on display for the kids to climb into and pretend like they were driving. With this particular aspect, I couldn't get too much closer to one of my own country fairs at home.

Posing with a couple of gauchos. Marisol shared with me that Argentina's Independence Day, July 9th, is basically the only day all year that you can get by with wearing the traditional gaucho outfit and not be thought mildly crazy. Of course there are still real gauchos in certain parts of Argentina but I'm not sure if they still wear all these traditional clothes.

Our mid-afternoon snack called a Cubanito. Basically, this is an ice cream cone filled with dulce de leche. Heaven in a crispy waffle cone? Yes please! I have also seen cubanitos sold in other places with the cone dipped in chocolate. Marisol and I witnessed, just after purchasing our cubanitos, a man walk by the small cubanito table and accidentally knock over a tray of probably 15 treats. It was all we could do not to fall to the ground looking at the shocked faces of him and the vendor. Which leads me to my next picture...

I'm pretty sure that this young man who knocked over the tray of cubanitos might have been mildly intoxicated as there was a lot of alcohol at this festival. In fact, when asked by Marisol what called my attention most at the independence day celebration, I remarked on the abundance of open containers that wouldn't be allowed in such an unrestricted fashion at a similar celebration in the United States. In the photo above, you can see several men selling alcohol at their booth. I was trying to capture a candid shot but clearly one of them saw that I was taking a picture. I suppose he simply has allowed me to preserve in a photographic memory the mood of gaiety in the booth where he was working.

Every fair has its share of venders of things, useful things and not-so-useful things, and this festival was no exception. Here, Marisol posed with a gaucho hat that she liked at the nicest booth of the festival's vendors. Things for sale ranged from gaucho gear to small toys to typical Argentine handicrafts to useless nicknacks. But really, what fair would be complete without its share of vendors selling useless nicknacks?

This is the best shot that I could get of the doma, a type of rodeo where the jinete, cowboy who is going to "tame" the horse, mounts the horse that is tied to the pole in this picture. The jinete wears spurs on his boots, (I think) there are spurs of some form on the stirrups at the horse's side, and the jinete also swings a whip with a fairly sharp metal piece [to hit the horse], all to agitate the horse to an angry state. Just like a rodeo in the U.S., the jinete has a goal time to stay on the horse and not be thrown off. At the end of this time, the announcer beckons to a couple of other riders who swoop in on either side of the bucking horse to pluck off the jinete holding on for dear life. Unlike the U.S. however where this crazy riding usually involves the possibility of some prize money, Marisol told me that the jinetes do this each year simply for fun and to keep the cultural tradition alive. She also told me her dad hates the doma as he is a doctor and often has to work at this event. You do the math on that one...

Here we have a line-up of folks on horses, trying to get a better view of the doma by being a bit elevated above the fence and crowd. Rather interesting to me too was the great mix of horses, pedestrians, motor bikes, trucks, and cars that all passed through the same pathways to enter and exit the festival. Sometimes the order among the disorder of major events in Argentina astounds me.

Capturing the children's attention at this festival was this Ferris Wheel. Most notable, however, is how it was powered. If you look toward the bottom left direction of the wheel's platform, you will see the ride operator who, in this case, quite literally provided the force that made the wheel turn. I feel as this could create limits regarding patrons' maximum weight rather than the weight and height minimums we see in the United States to board certain amusement park rides. ;)

Once the doma concluded, a band began to play on the stage that we see on the right side of this photo. All the people gathered in this picture were dancing chammamé which is an Argentine folk dance that I have mentioned before. Shortly after I took this photo, it started raining. Hard. Obviously the electric equipment had to be covered but as the rain died off a bit, the musicians started right back in without sound amplification. Marisol told me that the music and dancing, which had started around 5 PM, would continue until 6 or 7 AM the next morning!

And so you have my complete Independence Day celebration in Makallé. After warming up with a coffee at Marisol's house, I boarded the bus back to Resistencia. However, I was far from the end of my independence day celebrations. I reconvened that evening to have an asado and go out dancing with my basketball teammates. I couldn't have asked for a more perfect mix of traditional and contemporary cultural traditions to commemorate 9 de julio.

This post is rather delayed because, as you can see, my weekend was rather full and I spent most of Sunday writing a mid-term report and planning lessons for my week. Then, yesterday, I went to a teammate's house to watch the Copa América 2011 Argentina v. Costa Rica game, hosted in Córdoba, which Argentina won 3-0. My friends' responses to the game were something like, "ugh, that was an awful game..." While I am learning quite a bit about soccer as I watch it more and more often, I still am not quite sure what constitutes a "great" game. Anyhow, it was a good thing that Argentina won as it was a do-or-die situation and a win was a must for the team to advance out of its pool play bracket. Next game: Saturday at 19:15 against Chile, Peru or Uruguay (to be determined today)!

Montevideo, Maldonado and messes in Buenos Aires

Well, I am finally settled back home again in Resistencia. What a relief. As I recently returned to read my last blog entry, I realize just how tired I was in Buenos Aires. What I wrote was nothing less than scattered in its content and, frankly, didn't make much sense throughout. However, I shall try and reconcile my blog's respectability today with an update on all that came to fruition during my most recent Fulbright adventures.

We shall rewind to Sunday, June 26th when Fulbright assistant Hannah Dalporto (who works in the nearby city of Corrientes) and I boarded our first plane at Resistencia's airport. We nearly died of laughter [and decided we might be becoming a bit too laid back in Argentine culture] when we realized that neither of us knew to which airport we were flying to in Buenos Aires nor if we would have to switch airports once we arrived there (to continue on to Montevideo). Thank goodness the airlines keep track of these things in their computer systems. With most of Argentina's ETA's on the same flight to Montevideo, it was a joyous reunion as we all congregated in the waiting area near our gate. We arrived safely in Montevideo on Sunday evening and wasted no time in sharing our everyday life stories from the last couple of months, storytelling that would thankfully continue throughout the week...

Hannah and I, wind-blown on the tarmac, ready to board our plane!

Bye, bye Buenos Aires! (for the week at least)

Monday morning we jumped right in to the "business" part of our week's seminar with panel presentations from the first group of ETAs. Throughout the week, each ETA had to give a short presentation as part of a five person panel on one of the three following topics: activities and strategies to promote English speaking and writing, strategies to promote classroom interaction and student engagement/participation, and teaching and adapting to life in a foreign culture (in our academic communities and the community in general). Following the morning's first panel presentation, we participated in part one of a two-day workshop with Jennifer Herrin, a U.S. Department of State Senior English Language Fellow (which basically means that she is living and working in Buenos Aires for the year, commissioned by the Dept. of State to give workshops/training on all kinds of language teaching strategies). 

Herein begins the great balance of work, cultural interactions, and "play" that the Uruguayan Fulbright Commission captured perfectly in their scheduling of the week's events. Lunch was eaten at the local Mercado del Puerto, and afterwards, we were escorted in small groups on brief city tours by former FLTA's (individuals who have gone to the US in years past with Fulbright grants to be teaching assistants of Spanish). Following this basic orientation to Montevideo, we all met in the Teatro Solis, the historically famous theatre of Montevideo, to have coffee and a brief tour of this majestic performance facility. Thankfully we also had the opportunity to return that evening for a concert of classical music performed by the Montevideo Philharmonic Orchestra with American piano soloist Ralph Votapek. Our admission was a mere $5; that's the normal admission price for our seats, folks, not a discount in any shape or form! Granted, we were seated on the 4th floor, otherwise known as "Paraiso" (paradise). Nonetheless, we made do as we moved around a bit (occasionally to our usher's dismay. hehe) to seats that were unoccupied.

Teatro Solis. The red latern at the peak of the roof has always signaled to people passing by that there is some type of performance occurring inside the theatre.

Montevideo Philharmonic Orchestra on stage, as seen from our seats in Paraiso.

My artistic attempt to capture the main chandelier in the theatre.

While Tuesday was a rather full day of meetings, presentations and workshop training, Wednesday again brought some good variety to our activities. We started the day in a large group session, debriefing on what we have learned from our Fulbright experiences thus far and where we think these experiences might carry us in the future. Honestly, of all the sessions that we had, this is the one that I truly wish could have been longer. On the brink of breaking into a rich conversation, we had to cut it short and leave for our next event.... Not to say that our next event was trivial in nature, far from it. And so we found ourselves on our way to the Liceo Jubilar Juan Pablo II. This Uruguayan school is interesting for a variety of reasons:

• it is a public school but receives no government funding (i.e. there are private investors, companies, etc. who fund the institution)
• its students attend classes six days a week for nearly 8 hours per day. This is quite an anomaly in Uruguay's system where students usually attend five days per week and only 4 hours per day. I also definitely heard about this time table at lunch from the boys who sat next to me and complained a bit about their long days; I don't think they understand yet what an advantage they have at this school.
• The school is situated in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Montevideo. It seems to me that (while we didn't have a chance to learn quite as much about the school as I had hoped) Liceo Jubilar is working hard to change some of the expectations regarding educational traditions in Uruguay.

The primary purpose of our visit to this school was one of cultural interaction and exchange. As I interacted with the students throughout the day, I easily observed some similarities to adolescents of their same age in the U.S. and some clear differences. They were full of life and energy, often very opinionated, and eager to interact with us. To sum up our visit, I'd say we found great success in:

• making gnocchi (as the 29th of each month in Uruguay is national gnocchi day) and chocolate chip cookies
• teaching the electric slide and a couple other line dances to the students and learning a bit of dancing from them
• completing PechaKucha presentations (20 pictures on 20 Power Point slides and only 20 seconds to talk about each slide) about each of our cultures and then sharing them with each other

Our chocolate chip cookies ready to go in the oven.

Below is a video of our epic lunch table and the small army of people (i.e. Liceo Jubilar students and Fulbrighters) that did most of the cooking. We were ready to eat!

Thursday, to put it quite frankly, was a small slice of paradise (and I'm talking real paradise this time, not the Teatro Solis 4th level "Paradise" seating). We were treated to a full day of relaxation at an Estancia (farm or ranch) just outside of the city of Maldonado, about a 2 hour drive east of Montevideo. With no agenda for the day, we were left free to play soccer, ride horses, explore the small gaucho (cowboy) historical museum, pet llamas, eat, drink, and just generally enjoy the views and each other's company, which I certainly did....

The hammocks were plentiful and I took full advantage of their presence throughout the day :)

Rolling hills stretched for kilometers around the estancia. So. Beautiful.

Cool stuff (I don't think any of the things are quite old enough to be called "artifacts" yet) in the cultural museum

We concluded our Thursday with a small detour through Punta del Este, the ritzy vacation spot that is filled to its max in January and February and creepily deserted in July. One of Punta del Este's most renown places is the beach where we find El Hombre emergiendo a la Vida (The man coming to life), a sculpture made by Chilean artist, Mario Irarrázabal, in 1981. Of course, a massive photo shoot ensued as our group descended the bus for a short exploration of the sculpture and the beach...

Larger than life

 Of course all good things must come to an end, and Friday morning we said chau to Montevideo and boarded the plane for Argentina. However, little did I know, my adventures for the weekend were far from over. Following a short meeting in the Fulbright Commission office, we made a special visit to U.S. Ambassador Vilma Martínez's residence where we were given a tour of the historically and aesthetically fascinating home and were treated to tea with the ambassador herself. It would be great to know what Ms. Martínez actually thinks regarding the issues we raised in some of our questions. However, as expected, she responded in a very diplomatic manner as she represents the U.S. and our government. At the least, I was mildly impressed that she would verbally recognize her necessarily imposed bias and that her personal opinions, while she cannot express them, may differ from those which she is asked to support diplomatically.

Large dining room of the ambassador's residence

View down the main staircase toward the front door. Three rugs on the first floor have designs that honor the United States, Argentina, and France (in honor of its French architect).

One half of the ball room where we sat to have tea with Amabassador Martïnez

To be completely honest, the rest of the weekend was sort of a whirlwind between the airport and the hotel with a little bit of enjoying Buenos Aires in between. In a nutshell-- Friday: flight cancelled so I was lucky to have the chance to spend the evening with fellow Denisonian Amy Royse Brown who was in BA for a Suzuki violin training course. Saturday: Exploring randomly in Palermo, back to the airport where I saw off two of my Fulbright counterparts only to have my own flight cancelled again, back to my hotel. Sunday: We (Hannah, her boyfriend who had just arrived to visit, and I) got stand by tickets for a flight at noon (hoping that we could leave earlier than the flight we booked for 4 pm) and were all lucky enough to actually get seats on this flight too!

And so I've reached the conclusion of my crazy, yet very relaxing, week of Fulbright reunions, enrichment, training, experiences, etc. Already this week I feel as if I have tried to approach my work in some different ways; I definitely have new ideas for reaching out to my students with both useful and interesting strategies and knowledge related to language and culture. As I might have mentioned before, it's rather difficult to wrap my mind around the fact that this was a mid-term seminar and that my grant is already halfway done. More updates soon on how this renewed energy has quickly influenced my daily life and work in Resistencia.

Oh, and all important: Tonight. La Copa América. Argentina v. Columbia. 21:45. In Santa Fe. Viva Argentina! :)

Ladies and Gentlemen, please fasten your seat belts, tighten the strap and locate the nearest emergency exit

Yes, my title is obnoxiously long today, and yes, this entry will be comparatively short compared to many others that I have already written. I write from the Liberty Hotel in Buenos Aires because for the second day in a row my flight has been cancelled due to clouds of ash that have drifted over the city all the way from the Chilean volcano Puyehue. These ash clouds apparently pose a danger as particles that could enter the plane's machinery and cause engine malfunction/failure. So, long story short is: I had a great week in Montevideo, Uruguay for my midterm Fulbright seminar, enjoyed a residential tour of U.S. ambassador Vilma Martínez's home in our return to Buenos Aires as well as a short conversation with her, met up for the evening with a friend from Denison, and am still here in the city, hopefully headed back to my wonderful home tomorrow...

Things I have learned so far include (i.e. a brief preview on the highlights of what has happened in my life in the last week)...what the typical Argentine thinks is the appropriate way to solve a problem in an airport that is closing down, how to make gnocchi, what sitting in "paradise" is like and that karaoke bars are not only popular in the United States.