Trapped in Qatar

In August, I was offered a job in Barcelona. I took it because I had nothing else lined up and, free trip to Barcelona. It took a few months to work out the logistics, but in October, I flew the million miles across the globe. It is closer to 6,000 miles, but it felt like longer. I did not fly directly from Hong Kong to Barcelona. I know those flights exist because I have seen their boarding gates at the airport. Instead, I flew Hong Kong to Doha, Qatar. That's 10 hours.

Then came my favorite part. The flight landed in Doha at 23:30 and the flight to Barcelona left at 09:00 the next day. When I saw these numbers, I knew there would be two options. Either I would be stuck in an airport when everything is closed in the middle of the night for 9 hours or I would be stuck in a shopping mall in the middle of the night for 9 hours. Either choice sounds hellish to me.

It turns out Hamad International Airport has a hotel you can stay in without going through immigration and leaving the airport. They even have special rates for people staying 5 hours or more. That sounded great to me. Until I went to the reception counter and found out the price. Their special short term rate was US$600. For 9 hours. I don't want to know the full day rate.

Actually leaving the airport might have been an option, but how much of Doha is awake in the middle of the night? I know pretty much nothing about Qatar, but I know that the Mediterranean side of the Middle East is not exactly Las Vegas. Jerusalem's streets are beautifully harrowing at three in the morning. The fact that I know that made me hesitate to even look into leaving the airport. As a transfer passenger, no one in Doha looked at my passport. Had I left the airport, someone might have noticed the Israeli visa. Would they care? I don't really know. I suppose it would depend on what was happening in the news that week. I'm willing to bet that most of the people in most of the Persian Gulf region only buy into the propaganda when they are forced to. But I only had 9 hours. Dealing with repressive governments that hate women usually takes longer.

The airport was fully open in the middle of the night. There was more than enough food and shopping available at 03:00. I found a relatively comfortable chair near a children's play area and, since I traveled alone, did not sleep a wink.

After waiting 10 hours for my flight, since it was delayed, I flew from Doha to Barcelona. That's another 8 hours.

At Barcelona Airport, someone was waiting for me. That was pretty good since I was staying at an apartment rather than a hotel and telling a taxi driver where it was would have been difficult. The person who picked me up talked non-stop the entire 45 minute drive. I have no idea what he said. I think he was speaking English. After 33 hours on planes and at airports, he could have been speaking Klingon for all I know. Fortunately, the apartment was ready for me and the bed sheets were clean.

The point of this trip was to work in Barcelona, which I did. What I knew nothing about beforehand was that I would also be going to Amsterdam and two different cities in Portugal. Barcelona took months to plan. Everything else just happened.

Bernardo Bertolucci

After a long fight with cancer and years of generally poor health, Bernardo Bertolucci has died. Unlike typical auteurs, he occasionally directed films he did not write and wrote films he did not direct. He was opinionated, controversial, aggressive and easily my favorite Italian filmmaker.


La Commare Secca
directed by Bernardo Bertolucci
written by Bernardo Bertolucci, Sergio Citti, Pier Paolo Pasolini
starring Marisa Solinas, Allen Midgette

Prima della rivoluzione
directed by Bernardo Bertolucci
written by Bernardo Bertolucci & Gianni Amico
starring Adriana Asti, Francesco Barilli

Il canale
directed & written by Bernardo Bertolucci

Ballata da un miliardo
directed by Gianni Puccini
written by Bernardo Bertolucci, Bruno Baratti, Gianni Puccini

Partner
directed by Bernardo Bertolucci
written by Gianni Amico & Bernardo Bertolucci
starring Pierre Clémenti, Stefania Sandrelli, Tina Aumont

C'era una volta il West
directed by Sergio Leone
written Sergio Donati, Sergio Leone, Dario Argento, Bernardo Bertolucci
starring Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson, Claudia Cardinale, Jason Robards, Keenan Wynn

Amore e Rabbia
“Agonia” directed & written by Bernardo Bertolucci
starring Julian Beck, Judith Malina

Il conformista
directed & written by Bernardo Bertolucci
cinematography by Vittorio Storaro
starring Jean-Louis Trintignant, Stefania Sandrelli, Gastone Moschin, Dominique Sanda

Strategia del ragno
directed by Bernardo Bertolucci
written by Bernardo Bertolucci, Marilù Parolini, Edoardo De Gregorio
cinematography by Vittorio Storaro
starring Giulio Brogi, Alida Valli, Tino Scotti, Pippo Campanini, Alida Valli, Giuseppe Bertolucci

La salute è malata
directed by Bernardo Bertolucci

Last Tango In Paris
directed by Bernardo Bertolucci
written by Bernardo Bertolucci, Franco Arcalli, Agnès Varda, Jean-Louis Trintignant
cinematography by Vittorio Storaro
starring Marlon Brando, Maria Schneider, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Catherine Breillat

1900
directed by Bernardo Bertolucci
written by Franco Arcalli, Giuseppe Bertolucci, Bernardo Bertolucci
cinematography by Vittorio Storaro
starring Robert De Niro, Gérard Depardieu, Dominique Sanda, Laura Betti, Donald Sutherland, Stefania Casini, Sterling Hayden, Burt Lancaster, Alida Valli

La Luna
directed by Bernardo Bertolucci
written by Giuseppe Bertolucci, Clare Peploe, Bernardo Bertolucci
cinematography by Vittorio Storaro
starring Jill Clayburgh, Veronica Lazar, Fred Gwynne, Alida Valli, Roberto Benigni

La tragedia di un uomo ridicolo
directed & written by Bernardo Bertolucci
cinematography by Carlo Di Palma
starring Ugo Tognazzi, Anouk Aimée, Laura Morante, Victor Cavallo

L'addio a Enrico Berlinguer
directed & written by Bernardo Bertolucci
cinematography by Carlo Di Palma

The Last Emperor
directed by Bernardo Bertolucci
written by Mark Peploe & Bernardo Bertolucci
cinematography by Vittorio Storaro
produced by Jeremy Thomas
starring John Lone, Joan Chen, Peter O'Toole, Ying Ruocheng, Victor Wong, Wu Junmei

12 registi per 12 città
“Bologna” directed by Bernardo Bertolucci
cinematography by Fabio Cianchetti

The Sheltering Sky
directed by Bernardo Bertolucci
written by Mark Peploe & Bernardo Bertolucci
cinematography by Vittorio Storaro
produced by Jeremy Thomas
starring Debra Winger, John Malkovich, Campbell Scott, Jill Bennett, Timothy Spall

Little Buddha
directed by Bernardo Bertolucci
written by Bernardo Bertolucci, Rudy Wurlitzer, Mark Peploe
cinematography by Vittorio Storaro
produced by Jeremy Thomas
starring Bridget Fonda, Keanu Reeves, Chris Isaak, Ying Ruocheng

Stealing Beauty
directed by Bernardo Bertolucci
written by Bernardo Bertolucci & Susan Minot
cinematography by Darius Khondji
produced by Jeremy Thomas
starring Liv Tyler, Joseph Fiennes, Jeremy Irons, Sinéad Cusack, Rachel Weisz, Stefania Sandrelli

Besieged
directed by Bernardo Bertolucci
written by Bernardo Bertolucci & Clare Peploe
cinematography by Fabio Cianchetti
starring Thandie Newton, David Thewlis, Claudio Santamaria

The Triumph of Love
directed by Clare Peploe
written by Clare Peploe, Marilyn Goldin, Bernardo Bertolucci
produced by Bernardo Bertolucci
starring Mira Sorvino, Rachael Stirling, Ben Kingsley, Fiona Shaw

Ten Minutes Older: The Cello
“Histoire d'eaux”, directed & written by Bernardo Bertolucci
cinematography by Fabio Cianchetti
starring Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Chiara Mastalli

The Dreamers
directed by Bernardo Bertolucci
cinematography by Fabio Cianchetti
produced by Jeremy Thomas
starring Eva Green, Michael Pitt, Louis Garrel, Anna Chancellor

Io e te
directed by Bernardo Bertolucci
written by Bernardo Bertolucci, Niccolò Ammaniti, Umberto Contarello, Francesca Marciano
cinematography by Fabio Cianchetti
starring Jacopo Olmo Antinori, Tea Falco, Sonia Bergamasco, Pippo Delbono, Veronica Lazar

Thanksgiving Birthday

I was born on Thanksgiving. Every once in a while, it lands on my birthday, but I have only had one Thanksgiving birthday in Hong Kong. That one feels like a lifetime ago. Most of the time, Thanksgiving is not on my birthday and once or twice I was out of the country. This year, I am in Barcelona.

Thanksgiving is not an important holiday in Spain. In fact, they really don't seem to care at all about Pilgrims and Indians making corn and pumpkin pie. No one cares about Thanksgiving in Hong Kong either, but there are enough American and Canadian expats that you can always find something happening somewhere.

A few years ago, I was in Tokyo during Thanksgiving. Japan cares about the holiday even less than Spain, but we found a restaurant owned by some American expats who did a big Thanksgiving dinner every year. Unfortunately, they closed down last year. I don't know why. It seemed like it was the go to place for Americans in Tokyo who wanted a genuine American breakfast. That was my most American Thanksgiving since I moved to Hong Kong. Until this year.

In Barcelona, I went to a place called Flaherty's, one block east of la Rambla, between Placa Reial and the beach. It is an Irish pub that serves a combination of Italian entrées, Mexican appetizers, English breakfast, Irish pies and American sandwiches. They are apparently famous for their annual Thanksgiving dinner. They even show American football games on TV, something no one did in Tokyo. I don't care about football unless the Vikings win the Super Bowl, which has yet to happen. But sometimes it is nice to be in a large room full of other expats talking about our shared culture. I was an American living in China and celebrating Thanksgiving at an Irish pub in Spain, but I was far from the only one away from home.

Flaherty's Thanksgiving menu looked pretty good. They had all kinds of food that sounded like Thanksgiving on the surface, but were not quite Thanksgiving where I come from. There was pumpkin soup with smoked parsnip, date tarts with goat cheese, herb mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes with a Guinness glaze, cranberry sauce with thyme infused red wine. For dessert, they had bread and butter pudding and apple pie. Yet again, I could not find any pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving. They had pumpkin soup, so there must be some pumpkins somewhere, but no pie. The Tokyo restaurant had pumpkin pie, but I think they used Japanese pumpkins. My genuine pumpkin pie quest continues. Although, I suppose at this point, it really does not matter.

Since it was my birthday, I got a free slice of chocolate Guinness cake and more than a few people offered to buy me drinks. I'm not much of a drinker, but I was surprised to realize that I had not had any alcohol for over a year. When you can't taste anything, it would be exceptionally easy to drink anyone under the table. Everyone else downs a shot and they react immediately, or even sooner. The smell of their drink hits them before it even touches their tongue. I can drink vodka like it is water. Fortunately, I know what would happen if I tried to win that contest. I have always hated getting drunk, especially the next day. So even back when I could taste what I was drinking, I always took it easy.

The weird thing about Irish pubs in Spain, at least this one, was that no one tried to talk me into drinking too much. I don't know if there were fewer opportunists there or if I'm just getting too old for men in bars to try to get me drunk. I like to think I'm still young, but on your birthday, you know exactly how old you are.