So there I am at the Swakopmund Hotel, which is nicely housed in a beautiful old train station... the lobby is fine, with the requisite big comfy chairs and, oh, there it is, the lobby bar! And it appears to be fully stocked (not always a given here in Namibia) and there's more than just Amarula (Angelique...). I approach and tentatively ask whether I can have a martini... the barman says yes and as he pulls out a dusty martini glass (first bad sign), I offer that I would like one of the dry and gin variety. He looks at me perplexed... I decide to not push and resign myself to my luck. Herewith (a favourite word in Namibian English, along with "whereas") the formula:
Asking for a martini in Swakop = receiving a martini glass full of straight white vermouth ("Martini brand") with ice and a slice of lemon... otherwise known as = a tight temple headache roughly 30 mins later...
Happily, my gastronomic luck was better than my alcoholic chance and after consulting with two very nice ladies in a bookstore that I had happened to wander into (one the owner, the other, the Italian proprietor of a local cafe) , I was directed towards the Grapevine, a very popular restaurant for which reservations were de rigeur... lucky for me that one of the ladies happened to be a good friend of the chef and so, having taken a liking to me, I suppose, she armed me with a simple note to transmit to him. It read: "Please find a space for him. Thanks. Paola." Thirty minutes later, there I was sitting at a table enjoying some great wines and two wonderful courses: local asparagus soup (no cream!) and oryx medaillons with spaetzle and gooseberries... yum! wines: a delightful sauvignon blanc (Minelle...) and a rare Merlot/Pinotage mix that had some bottle age on it. A very good recommendation!
Dinner at Grapevine's...
7 comments:
finagle - a word not used nearly often enough.
this is very similar to the story of andy attempting to order a bloody mary in santander. i think they ended up giving him a glass of tomato juice, some vodka and chilli sauce.
he'd actually probably be fine with that cancon nonsense. he brought "a souvenir of canada" back with him to scotland.
dude, if mccain wins, i'm going into therapy. no shitting joke. i mean, that's just the final excuse i need to start my once-a-week.
every day i am radicalised even more. it's like 1933 spain all over again in my head!
Next challenge: "finagle" and "kerfuffle" in the same sentence... And hey, try this sentence on Andy and other yanks: "So my budgie got out, got caught in a toque, bounced off the chesterfield, out the window and ended up in the eavestrough."
So what are YOU going to do if McCain wins?
Yeah, but instead of a "bienio negro" this has been 8 fucking years... at least the Democrats are finally waking up... and what happened to anarchism in the US of A?
i think it died in 1972 with the re-election of nixon.
i blame calvinists for 90% of all evil. the other 10% is divided between nixon and reagan.
i've also spent the past week reading about the baader-meinhof gang. coincidence? i don't think so.
Cool. I was just reading about them a month ago in the Observer. Here's the link:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/28/germany.terrorism
The most interesting thing about them was how they were supported by the bourgeoisie up to a certain point because of residual guilt... I don't think that there's any class guilt ANYWHERE in America, unfortunately...
Post a Comment