On this visit we go to Israel to celebrate its 50th anniversary, Jordan to see the showcase of the Israel-Jordan peace process, Kuwait to find out where all our oil money goes and why we sent our army to this far-flung paradise, and to London to give a fresh look at one of the world’s great cities experiencing a renaissance.
Thursday 23 April 1998 — Air France from JFK to Paris (5:50 flying) to Tel Aviv (4:10) and a one hour transfer in Paris; allow at least 40 minutes to transfer but relatively little walking. The New York flight arrives via bus, not jetway. Was able to get onto JFK flight arriving 28 minutes before departure; had to argue to get on but it turned out flight left half an hour late anyway. Had a 3-across on every flight except Paris-Israel and Amman-Kuwait. Probably more comfortable than being squished on a full flight and having to arrive 2.5 hours early when flying El Al. Ben Gurion airport staff is exceptionally polite; Lost & Found found my wrist-watch which fell off on the plane when I grabbed my hand luggage from the overhead bin. Buy a phone card upon arrival either at the post office or the newsstand. Taxi to central hotel areas of Jerusalem is $30 and 35 minutes; taxi to Tel Aviv is $20 and 25 minutes.
Friday thru Monday (Jerusalem) — Friday night services at newly restored synagogue near Montefiore windmill with mainly Americans living in Israel; windows face upward to the lit-up-at-night old city walls and it is very inspiring when everyone stands up and faces in that direction. Stayed in 3 bedroom apartment with my two cousins there for the year; my cousin made an excellent Saturday lunch (I don’t know vegeterians know how to cook meat dishes they refuse to taste) and then to other cousins for a birthday party for a black boy one of them fathered in a mixed marriage with a foreigner (now divorced and remarried) (the other kids seem to treat him ok). Walk through the old city to the Western Wall and to check out the construction of the Mamila project which is coming along nicely; the shopping mall is about to be constructed and the Hilton Hotel is being broken in (no meat gourmet room or public telephones yet). The new Dan Pearl hotel has also opened where the Mamila area meets Jaffa Road and there is a small indoor shopping mall attached to the hotel. The Hilton quotes $400 a night but a lawyer told me she got a client in during April on the business floor for $125. Saturday night the coffee shop was busy and the meat buffet was empty except for me and a friend; $45 apiece and nice but not of Tel Aviv Hilton quality. 102.8FM has 24 hour a day English language radio station called Radio West in Jerusalem; mixed programming with CNN news bulletin atop each hour. Lots of new radio stations all over Israel given recent privatization and a good number of them with religious programming; also some Arabic stations and I like the Arab music better in FM having only heard AM before. Time to start noshing around town; today’s lunch will be meat; starting with the obligatory whopper at Burger King (all these American tourists, many of them on the March of the Living, with their baseball caps on backward posing for pictures with their first whopper since these aren’t kosher outside Israel and even in most Israeli outlets), my first brush with Kentucky Fried Chicken, Nathans Famous Hot Dogs opened the day I left so I just missed it. In my opinion, the home chain Burger Ranch gives a better burger; BK is so filled with junk sauces and it’s cold and mushy. KFC gives midget-sized pieces of chicken and it’s not fresh and the taste is nothing special. Blockbusters Video has stores there. Not too many tourists; New York Jewish Federation sent 400 on a 50th Independence Day mission and Israel Bonds sent 1,000 from the entire world, the majority of them from Latin America. Hotels are not filled and dining rooms are so empty some of them are closed but they refuse to lower prices; Egypt after Luxor terror lowered prices and filled up their hotels. Visited Commstock, a brokerage house for those in Israel wanting to trade on the New York stock exchanges, which simply fronts for Oppenheimers of New York. So you fill out papers with Oppenheimer and they kick back some commission to Commstock. As of Sunday, I am paying $128 per night on a corporate rate to the Moriah Hotel which has a decent location but the hotel is a 3.5 star in my book, not a 5 star as advertised. The normal rate is $240 a night and not worth it and they charge me $17.25 to invite a friend for the breakfast buffet which seems steep though it turns out in London I will be asked to pay that amount to invite a friend to much less of a breakfast buffet in the hotel; I am on a floor with a bus tour group and woke up at 6am to slamming doors first when they went to breakfast and then went they came up to get ready to get on the buses. The hotel installed a video in my room so I could tape television programs; they had never been asked to do this before and their 2 teckies had no idea how to install it. I finally figured it out myself having had the same problem in Puerto Rico earlier this year; remember many of these new VCR’s won’t show a picture until you tell the remote control to run the AUTO-SETUP feature to program the channels into the VCR. Simply connecting the VCR to the TV properly isn’t enough. The best deal in town is the Gesher guest house right near the King David Hotel in an excellent location for $37 a night with private bath and breakfast. Phone (02)624.1015. After a siesta and meeting with friend Ronen who is now involved in a casino-boat company which will ferry Israelis and Russians to and from Cyprus (sounds like a winner) it’s off to another round of noshing (Hamelech Falafel and Shwarma on King George is my tried and tested choice and the soldiers are always eating there and THEY should know) and a visit to Israel-Media inside the Sheraton Plaza hotel (www.israel-media.com or phone 623.5887) for good discounts and selection of all kinds of music and videos. The proprietor Uriel Shaveet is very knowledgeable as to hard to find items. This round of noshing I went local and I definitely preferred the falafel, shwarma and burekas to the earlier round of internationally franchised junkfood. After meeting with Otto, a military analyst who that night lectured a group of evangelical christians (their questions are much more analytical and attitudes more open to listening to different opinions on political issues than jewish audiences who come with agendas and less knowledge about the facts), a party at the Cafe Rondo (a happening nightspot owned by a family friend) which the proprietor threw for the 120 soldiers to be decorated by the President the next day, a party he throws each year for the 120 soldiers chosen that year. Very Israeli moment with strictly middle-eastern music, group singing, hands in the air and dancing on the tables and an interesting assortment of ethnic groups all put together. Moshe and I sat with the generals and they smoked cigarettes and I enjoyed the scene and hated to leave since the band was excellent. Monday a visit to old city; moslem places are closed for the new year holiday and clouds over the city prevent a flyover. Some coffees with friends and today’s noshing Round III features dairy. Bonkers Bagels proves a disappointment; no taste either on the bagel or the cream cheese. Speaking of cream cheese, the French “Kiri” cream cheese is a favorite since it comes wrapped individually in squares. Dunkin Donuts is legitimate and Sbarros is busy but I thought the quality in Sbarros was somewhat inferior to what they serve in the States which leads me to believe that BK and KFC is probably better in the States as well. Strange new phenomenon you find in these chain stores: You walk up to the counter and someone smiles and says “May I Help You?” This is a cultural revolution here brought about chiefly through competition among the chains and importation of American management techniques. Dinner at La Guta on Rivlin Street which remains my tried and tested French meat restaurant favorite in Jerusalem (3 course dinner is less than $50); my dinner partner is second secretary in the foreign ministry specializing in Russia and we went from dinner to the Russian Compound where a square is being dedicated to Moscow and the mayor, Yuri Luzhkov, is present along with some famous Russians who think they can sing and a brass band willing to play along. We attended a reception at City Hall with Jerusalem’s mayor and it was a novelty seeing all these kosher hors-d’ourves at a municipal reception. Security for all these mobsters in attendance (and I mean that literally) was unusually light; they must have a truce in effect in Israel because in Russia there would have been an additional 100 bodyguards in attendance. Dedigives me the Ministry view that a deal with the Palestinians is just around the corner and that it will be announced real real soon. I’ve been hearing that for 2 years now so I discount it. He adds that he’s not worried if the Arabs feel they’re getting the better of Bibi (ie: Bibi blabs and ultimately gives them what they want) as long as in the end the deal is a good one. Let the Arabs think they’re smarter; meanwhile, Bibi looks good at home as a hard bargainer and keeps his coalition together and ultimately doesn’t give away very much. Clearly, the lack of terrorism has helped Bibi look good to Israelis. Dedirecently spent an hour with Bibi and says he’s not as dumb as we read in the papers but rather on the ball, at least appearing to be with 100% conviction when he says something to the press. Dedithinks Arafat will realize it’s a net loss to declare his state without an agreement with Israel beforehand; I disagree and think he’s pregnant with statehood and will not give it up for anything. Dediwarns troops retaking Arab cities would cost at least 2,000 soldiers and nobody really wants to do it but that the Israelis are prepared if told they have to do it and are ready to avenge the Arab violence following the tunnels a year ago. Jonathan in Tel Aviv brings a martial artist’s view to the table and says a little violence would be a good thing (he figures Arafat’s legitimacy among his own people is so shaky he will either have to solidify his rule by taking on the hamas or the israelis and figures the israelis are a more rational target from arafat’s point of view in which case the israelis have a dynamic shakeup to deal with the palestinians either by changing facts on the ground as to occupation or by entering into a new deal for peace); says that he was on the front lines during the era of good feelings in 1995 and that even then on the ground things were not nearly as lovey-dovey between jews and arabs as the press made it seem. Dediand Otto think nothing will change for the foreseeable future; Bibi is in forever and might even become President in 2004. If he announces he’s for giving up 13% of the land and his government falls, 65% of the israelis will vote for him as a man of peace, so he can do whatever he likes and still win. If he is actually fixing up the economy as some feel is is, the combination of peace and economic prosperity which could become apparent a few years down the line could have him go down in history as one of Israel’s greatest prime ministers. The opposition is impotent. Otto sees no Palestinian state and thinks the Arabs are a bunch of losers that will never become anything since they can’t work among themselves. The cousins don’t see any change coming and though they don’t like Bibi, they feel that the country is getting used to him, that he appears to be improving and learning on the job, and that no one is really angry enough to go out publicly and try to demonstrate against or overthrow him. That goes for Arafat, in arabic “the old man”, Bibi , Assad, King Hussein and Saddam Hussein. Basically in this region if you survive you get respect and the man has been targeted and hit quite a few times the past two years but is still standing and everyone around him who doesn’t like him is gone. Even though the man has no friends and eats lunch alone, not even with his wife and no one really knows what the man is thinking. Some think he’s a great visionary, some think he has no strategy. Some think he is stupid but others figure anyone who can manage to put all his opposition into the desert can’t be that stupid. Otto thinks Ariel Sharon and Bibi want to overthrow King Hussein and split Jordan between Iraq and the Palestinians and we just pay the Jordanians off with water as it’s a cheap way of keeping the eastern border open in case of war. Otto thinks Israel will act against Iran this year. All in all, I’m not hearing too much new that I haven’t heard before, am getting mixed messages which leaves me at a net loss in terms of the confusion factor, and, most important, I’m given no hope to believe I will collect on my $500 bet (that Bibi won’t finish out his term) anytime soon or at least on this trip. One new thing I’m seeing is that over time taboos over territory disappear; a decade ago no one would ever agree to give up the gaza strip. Now nobody wants it back. A few years ago no one would give up lebanon. Now everyone wants out. And almost everyone is willing to get out of the golan to varying degrees. I have to wonder if jerusalem will also become negotiable in a few years time.
Tuesday (Haifa) — 1:45 bus ride to Haifa; there is no shared taxi service on this route. Price of a ticket is $10. The Dan Carmel Hotel could use some cheer; Haifa looks stodgy and socialist but the new buildings are nice. Lunch with Mohammed who feels he is not reaching his potential here, a view I found much of among colleagues. He wants either to work in the Gulf where Hebrew language skills are in demand (yes, there is business) or to enter the family business; working as a lawyer in an Israeli law firm is getting him nowhere. The job market for lawyers across the board in Israel is horrible; everyone I ran into wanted out. Israelis don’t respect people working for other people. Mohammed sees the royal family of Saudi paying off everyone in order to survive but not investing where the hand is not outstretched. Saudiazation means that foreigners are being ousted and Saudis are being pushed into the universities and into managerial positions whether or not they are qualified. He fears that in 10-15 years these educated but inferior elites will realize things are not what they should be and the Saudi royals will have a revolution of rising expectations. Better to keep all these people dumb and fed if you are a royal. I understand getting a cellular phone in Saudi is very tough. Mohammed, as do other Israeli Arabs I talked to, prefers the Hebrew to the Arabic press for his news; would rather read direct quotes and likes the hard hitting news and analysis. The Arabs don’t have a really good daily paper to read. They don’t look at Hebrew as the Jewish language but rather the language of the place they live in. All things considered, they don’t want to live under Arafat; they know they are second class in Israel but at least they can do what they want and the place is a democracy and the living standard is relatively good. If they had their choice, they’d rather live in the US or Switzerland. A Jordanian visiting Israel said he liked that nobody really looked at him while he was in Israel; this was a relief since he was afraid people would see he was an Arab and give him a hard time; it’s a western free for all society and he was shocked at how polite some people were in giving him directions and also saw that Israelis across the board have warm feelings for Jordan. Mohammed handed me to Shmuel at Haifa’s Rambam Hospital who was hosting me that night at his home and Shmuel and I went shopping in the shuq for fruits and vegetables. Prices go down toward the end of the day (and then you can get some of this stuff ridiculously cheap) and some of these families clapping their hands and singing and otherwise trying to attract attention to their stalls are actually millionaires from all this cash business. Stopped off at Shmuel’s parents’ home for some really good soup and to see some friends visiting from Mexico; during the visit we stood at attention for a moment of silence in front of the television as the sirens sounded across the nation marking the start of the Day of Remembrance and the official state ceremony began on TV to honor the nation’s dead veterans; the theoretical becomes more real when you are surrounded by people who lost their buddies and relatives in the armed forces and of course the schizophrenia of having 24 hours of mourning followed by 24 hours of independence day celebrations is a point of discussion in itself; then to view Haifa Bay at night and to his house where I ran laundry. The roof didn’t dry the clothes overnight but the view from up there was nice. Shmuel’s son joined a teenage youth group of a religiously dovish party which he admits won’t even win one parliamentary seat in the next election, but who cares? On the TV, channels come in from across the border but even though there are icons on the screen, Israelis have no idea what these channels are and where they come from. One of several impressions that leads to an overall theme that Arabs in the past few years have been finding out more about the Jews than vice versa. Today Arabs are watching satellite television programs being produced in Arabic from Arab stations telling them that the Deir Yassin massacre killed half as many people as they were once told and that the jews and arabs lied about it on purpose at the time it occurred each for their own purposes (ie: they said that women were raped; the jews wanted to scare the arabs and the arabs hoped their armies would come in and rescue them; what happened was the arabs panicked and fled). The Arabs are learning that the Jews saved King Hussein’s butt from Syria in the early 1970’s by essentially threatening the syrians to stay out of jordan. The jews are now hearing things too; that the suicide at masada was by jewish assassins fleeing other jews as opposed to jews fleeing the romans. The IDF no longer uses masada to induct new soldiers but each side reluctantly dispenses with its larger than life mythology. Israelis watched a television series called Tekumah which for the first time on Israeli television tended to equate Palestinian and Israeli claims to territory and reopened interpretation of what happened in 1948; the program did not go down well with a significant portion of Israelis who felt it was biased or inappropriate; others felt it was time that a balanced view be presented and that it was a sign of maturity after 50 years that a nation could examine itself critically. I didn’t see the program and don’t know enough to comment on it. Separationists are winning over integrationists (ie: build a wall around the arabs so that an Israeli should never see an arab). Consensus: Iran seems to be changing and should be engaged and not ignored or isolated. Dedifeels Lebed in Russia is not as bad as the world is making him out to be and that he might be relatively friendly to Israel, at least when stacked against the rest of the presidential hopefuls. Arie feels Bibi is tilting at windmills as to the economy and has not really succeeded in breaking any of the old-school blocs (ie: monopolies). I am not sure that american-style competition will work in israel and that totally open markets will lead to consolidation and monopolization just like in the usa. In a certain sense, israel today is more competitive than the us; phone calls internationally from israel and cellular service are half the price they are in the usa. No apparent successor to Arafat yet. My main concern and opinion which has not changed on this trip is that Arafat will declare his state in May 1999 which the world will recognize and that Israel under Bibi will, for whatever political survival or ideological reasons, try to avoid this reality and ultimately the relationship between the two entities will be hostile; I’d rather engage the process now and try to shape it rather than react with the other guy setting the agenda which is what Arafat is indirectly doing. Bibi’s game works in the short run but threatens to cost Israel big time in the long run. Public opinion is strong for Israel in the US now but he is eating up good will and playing a long-term dangerous game of trying to galvanize a Republican hawkish congress against a sitting Democratic president (congress talks a lot but always falls before a president on foreign policy decisions); US public opinion still thinks Rabin is running the country; 80% don’t know who Bibi even is. But interestingly enough, 52% of American jews favor a Palestinian state; only 47% of Americans in general do. So for the Arabs the Jews are not really the problem in the US. Apathy is their worst enemy because apathy leads to a failure to understand the needs of the people of the region or pressure to do anything about the situation.
Wednesday morning railroad along the coast to Tel Aviv; the Israeli railroad has modernized much in the past decade with nice trains that move and the trip is almost an hour and costs about $6.
Wednesday-Saturday (Tel Aviv) — You know you’re in the big city when walking out of the railroad station the taxi driver thinks you are his big fish and tries to take you to your hotel for 3x the normal rate. No way. I walked a block to the street and hailed a cab. Should be no more than $4 to get to any hotel in Tel Aviv from the railway station but definitely too far to walk (at least an hour and a half). Lunch in a beautiful Italian restaurant with lots of antipastos with several colleagues; then some visits with other friends and relatives. My hotel is the Hotel Moss 03.517.1655 located near the beach just north of the Opera Tower or about 7 minutes walk south of the Dan Hotel. I pay a special rate of $60 per night; nothing fancy but very good value and it’s a small hotel with 50 rooms and the service is personal and there is a post office with a public telephone (which became my telephone) just across the street. I’ve arrived in time for a very special occasion, Israel’s 50th Anniversary and as soon as night falls and I’ve finished watching the transition from Memorial Day to Independence Day on the TV, everyone is out of the house and Ayal and I are driving over the Kikar Malchei Israel square (same place Rabin was assassinated) to see the fireworks and the hoopla. We are watching the fireworks from the car as there is absolutely no parking or movement of the traffic. However, Supreme Luck arrived; just as we were exiting the central area and had given up hope, someone pulled out and we had the perfect parking spot. So we went out on the square; lots of punk rock on the stage and people with some kind of spray foam that dissipates on impact. No folk dancing with people dancing in circles or the plastic boppers on people’s heads. Not what I expected but then again this is Tel Aviv and anything you’d think would be Israeli is something these people wouldn’t be caught dead doing; let the Jerusalemites do those things. That’s probably for Jerusalemites. Ayal and I continued to the suburb of Givatayim where Gil and some other friends were waiting; this is more the Real Israel with a town square and yes, more rock music with David Broza performing. Later David and all these other performers would go to private parties for the elites in Herzliya but I am content to pal around with Gil, Ayal and some real good friends. After midnight, they decide to go and party till sunrise at a club in Jaffa and I return to the hotel. Gil says he wants to meet a girl but that any girl that comes without a date is not a good type of girl. Sounds pointless from the start. After a late start, I need to scout the area for a good place to watch the air show which will take place over the Tel Aviv beach. The past few days I’d been seeing practice flyovers in Jerusalem. Ayal was to reserve a table in a cafe but it didn’t pan out and I have a better idea. The Dan Hotel has a buffet in a dining room with big windows overlooking the center of the beach just above ground level. You can hear the loudspeakers and see everything. So the 3 of us sit in an empty dining room, toast the country at 50, and eat a beautiful lunch ($40 apiece) with the best seats in the house watching the air force and navy performing. The maitre’d thinks he will profit extra and tried to get me to pay for a pitcher of orange juice I picked up from the next table thinking it was part of the buffet (that and drinking water was there). He gave up but it’s just the nature of the beast to try and grab. Afterward, I hop a shared taxi to Jerusalem for the Big Show. I expect traffic jams but the streets are strangely quiet; most people are somewhere at a barbeque and nature hike so I have clear roads. Meeting up with my cousin we head out to the Hebrew University Givat Ram campus where the State has erected a stage and thousands of bleachers for the country’s Show of Shows. Hundreds of singers, dancers, fireworks and whatever with VIPs only in attendance and a live television audience in over 40 countries. [I have a PAL version of the program on video and just bought a VCR made by AIWA in Japan costs about $575 in the US that is a dual-voltage digital multi-system that allows PAL tapes to play on an NTSC television and allows tapes of NTSC shows to be recorded or dubbed into NTSC or PAL format; until now I’ve only seen multi-systems that allowed an NTSC tape to be played on a PAL TV.] They are security crazy and letting people in literally one by one. I expected food sales considering the $80 per ticket price and they somewhat overlooked this so I snatched extra dinners from the Israel Bonds dining area but they had all these extra dinners and nobody thought of cutlery so it was a real messy affair. Anyway, the show was preceded by an hour of speeches and Al Gore’s speech to Israel was exceedingly warm and endearing. The national singing icon Rita popped out of a big Jewish Star that popped up from the floor and sang the Hatikva national anthem; she was to be paid $20,000 for the occasion but after an uproar gave the proceeds to charity but it was a great scene anyway. The show was built around sectors of society each showing some of their culture and I hope the show will be available on video tape for people to watch. There were headsets with English translation but I didn’t see them at the entrance (they probably ran out just like they did English programs). They had salute to the Europeans, Moroccans, Ethiopians, Russians, etc. A guy walking a tightrope referred to the need for a prime minister to balance competing interests to stay afloat. The sour point was the last minute pullout of a male dancing troupe because the ultra-orthodox objected to them taking off their shirts and the group refused to agree to the compromise the head of the company agreed to at last-minute meetings at the president’s house after the supreme court refused to hear the issue. I could see both sides of this issue but ultimately when we watch the videos in 20 years nobody will remember that the dance troupe was supposed to dance and didn’t show up. The best view was on TV and I wound up watching the big screens on the sides cause who could see the stage but being there was enough. Always a thrill to be around 10,000 people singing the same songs you sing with jews around the world (ie: Jerusalem of Gold). A supreme nationalist and religious moment that I would not have lived with myself had I missed. Truly a lucky time when one can get on planes and be anywhere the next day at an affordable price with friends they speak to on phones and e-mails and talking the same language and being on the same frequency. The symbolism of being able to have the luxury to eat in hiltons and watch displays of military and cultural power in a jewish country celebrating 50 years and relative peace and definite prosperity at this time in history after 2,000 years of exile was omnipresent, especially considering all that couldn’t reach this day. Everyone should have the chance to enjoy the same joy for their own nations in their own lifetime. Too bad that so few American jews thought it worth their time to show up and that so many Israelis thought there was nothing to celebrate. Some friends of mine went to Sinai camping for the week. So unfortunate to miss the forest through the trees. Consider though that the country is so confident that many of its citizens don’t feel any particular reason to celebrate 50 years of existence. Even though I heard people complaining about unemployment (now 8.3%) and the lack of normalcy with a failing peace process, Israelis are confident, under no particular pressure to agree to do anything (and the US is under no particular pressure to force them to do anything) and the 50th celebrations certainly projected a confident nation. Anyway, the bus company forgot that people like me had to get back to Tel Aviv and fortunately I caught a shared taxi back after midnight. Some girl on board was bitching the whole way trying to save 30 cents off her fare; today cost me about $500 (treating others to lunch and show tickets; hey, Israel charges manhattan prices but the people don’t make manhattan salaries — how do they do it, visa only gets you so far?) and I wasn’t about to dicker over a shekel. Not today. Not even a late night walk along the Tel Aviv beach with kids all over the place foaming each other and my navy blazer, clearly taking its toll from this trip, could spoil the fun.
Friday. The country is still on holiday. The newest shopping mall in Tel Aviv is the Shalom Project, three towers near the railroad station. There are lines waiting to get on to the escalators. Gallery Lafayette has opened a store there and most of the goods are American; they have a buyers club where for $50 a year you get 20-25% discounts across the board in the store. Not a bad idea. Some stores had very nice merchandise such as neckties but the prices were high; hard to tell if people were looking or buying. To the Hilton, ultimately the best I know of in the world of kosher, for a beautiful lunch ($51 a la carte) and to arrange to return there for the dinner buffet ($58) which was outta this world and featured among other things fake shrimps which I found salty and, assuming it was similar to the real stuff, definitely not something i should be concerned about not having. The duck was excellent; I don’t know why but the duck and its preparation in Israel is just so much better than what we get in the US. The problem in the hotels is that if you eat there and don’t stay in that hotel you pay 17% VAT; guests charging through their room accounts don’t pay the VAT. This is a disincentive to eat in hotels (in restaurants the VAT is figured into the price supposedly) and most tourists avoid hotel dining rooms (and I figure the hotels should try and figure out how to scuttle the tax and fill up their dining rooms, most of which are empty) but my experience in Israel and elsewhere is that hotels are often the best food in town if not the world and my best advice is that if you are kosher it’s best to not look at the prices and just be glad you can enjoy the meals, a few of which will not break your annual budget. The restaurants in Israel and the US just don’t hire the chefs you get in the top hotels (most of whom are imported). In the afternoon, a visit with a lawyer friend with an office 15 minutes south of tel aviv in Holon. He is very busy with work and pays $700 in rent for office space big enough for a 2 bedroom apartment. With all my colleagues in Tel Aviv crying about how expensive and not busy they are, they should be looking about 15 minutes south. Evening walk along the beach promenade and to Dizengoff Circle, which has been allowed to run down — nightlife has moved to the beach. So many teenagers bopping around with cellular phones; it must be so cheap here to have one. Late night talk with desk clerk Yair is an Iraqi jew who wants to see peace but feels the Arabs still in their hearts don’t really want peace. Yair can’t bring himself to visit the Western Wall; feels unholy. Strange for someone who seems rather spiritual but probably representative of a sample of public opinion. Lots of people come to visit me on Saturday. Stroll Sheinken Street, the yuppie street of cafes, tatoo parlours and bookstores. Speaking of which, Real Israelis don’t read. That’s why Shimon Peres, always photographed with a drink in his hand, talking to Europeans and mentioning the last book he read, never caught on with his countrymen. Restaurants have become so Americanized; 15 years ago I searched high and low for french toast and most of it was fried bread. Now the restaurants feature pancakes and french toast for brunch and it is delicious. Wish the Americans would start drinking more fresh juices like this region does. Israelis as of last month may now buy property abroad; an 800 (70 meters) foot apartment in Tel Aviv in an old building in a good residential area without elevator or doorman costs $300,000; I can buy my similarly situated apartment in Manhattan which is 1,150 square feet (110 meters) for $150,000. My cousin the accountant figures that Israelis will for the next 6 months readily buy $250 an acre marshland in the Everglades just to be able to buy cheap property. So think about it. Quiet evening resting up for a big day tomorrow in Jordan. By the way, you can now check in the night before for any airline flying out of Israel at consolidated check-in counters in the big cities.
Sunday/Monday (Amman) — The hotel desk clerk will ship all my video tapes and souvenirs to New York for me (and they did arrive) so by 8:30 I’m in a cab off to the airport and there by 9:00. They are just closing the flight out but I’m right on my schedule and have plenty of time to waste looking at the duty frees before the 10am flight which has about 30 people on it for the 20 minute flight to Amman. Doesn’t really matter which side you sit; the view is the same and both Jerusalem and Amman are bypassed. If you get a 5 year multiple entry visa to Jordan before leaving the US (done through the mail), it costs the same as a one time entry visa, about $15, and you can use any border and I got out of the airport in less than 10 minutes. Much better than last time when I wasted an hour getting a visa at the airport. So by 11am Nassar and I are getting into his car for the 40 minute ride into town. This is fantastic speed and well worth paying the $90 ticket which is what you virtually spend by the time you cross the land borders with taxi rides, etc. and which takes much longer. On the drive into town, Nassar peppers his Arabic with Englishisms as he speaks in his cellphone and tells me he doesn’t even realize as he switches languages; I notice people educated in the West are doing this in several countries. The Hotel Marmara has nice rooms and common areas and they sent up nice fruit and tea to welcome me (nicer than what I had in Israel for more money) and costs 45 Jordanian Dinars (1 dinar equals $1.40) with all the taxes; but they are grabbing me on laundry and local phone calls. I gave some shirts, pants and other assorted machine-wash items figuring the whole bill would come to no more than $10 and they charged me $40. Local calls to cell phones were $3 a call. No manager would come out to talk to me. They lost an irreplaceable button on my blazer which I had asked them to sew back on. But I am not going to complain because this was all arranged by my host who is picking up other items on my tab and I don’t want to create problems. All in all, I let him know about it and let him fight with the hotel and I imagine I’ll stay somewhere else next time. A visit to Nassar’s office to hear about his trip to Israel and to enjoy a tuna sandwich with really fresh bread, french fries and fresh juice, some things this part of the world cares about. Nassar, 26, taught a course at Bir Zeit university’s law school, part of the Palestinian university in the West Bank. He was very impressed with the quality of the school and the students; says it is one of the best in the region. My cousins who teach arab students also say they are some of the most motivated students. His impression was that people in the West Bank had jobs and were doing pretty well these days, a very different message than I had heard from anyone else but then again the everyone else was Israeli and they’re never there. Nassar enjoyed the city of Jerusalem; wasn’t too crazy about Tel Aviv, liked the hi-tech Israel and mostly it’s free-to-be-you-and-me culture [he had been told he might be shot or killed if he spoke arabic in public in jewish areas and at first believed this] but didn’t feel inferior as a Jordanian living in a country that is more low-tech. Was impressed with the looks of Israeli girls. Still, though Jordan is not as Western as Israel, Amman always makes a good impression on me; it is clean, orderly and pleasant. I am always surprised at how good an impression it always makes, either before or after visiting Israel. This trip I’m getting better vibes about Crown Prince Hassan; perhaps his appointments will be more on merit than on trying to attain political and demographic balances. Next a visit to Omar Salah at Century, the showcase economic development project for the Jordan/Israel peace treaty. Omar and his office are meant to impress; Omar, the CEO, is 31 and wears an impeccable suit and head of hair. His office is well decorated and probably cost a few hundred thousand dollars in furniture and moldings. There are now about 50 people working in the head office. The centerpiece is a manufacturing zone in Irbid, an hour’s drive north of amman where factories manufacture batteries, gold, textiles such as boxer shorts and items for victoria’s secret and ralph lauren, medical textiles, chocolate pudding, accessories for motorola cellular phones, cans for canned goods and bottletops for pepsi bottles. Omar says the company did $5 million last year, will do this year and next year. When the company went public in October 1997, shares opened at 1JD and quickly went up to 2 JD. Jordanians buy stocks looking for dividends as much as appreciation. i bought 5,000 shares of century; i think this one’s a winner. The company is in ramp-up and investing phases and will not show profits for awhile but its chief advantage is that Jordanians work for 50 cents an hour which is much less than the Israelis or Palestinian-Authority people around them and, of the countries allowed to export to the US duty free (Canada, Mexico, Israel, Palestinian Authority and Jordan), only these area entities can draw on raw materials from anywhere in the world to use in manufacturing. Canada and Mexico must draw on materials from either those countries or the USA. So the Jordanians can actually undercut sources such as Sri Lanka and many countries and companies are watching with great interest. Jordache has signed a memo of intent to manufacture; that is a syrian-jewish company and would make a significant psychological impact in this sector of the textile industry. Nassar says Berings Bank recently evaluated the company’s net worth at $115 million. He says the board of directors is strong and holds Omar accountable for every move and shareholders include some of the country’s most important companies. The crown prince is strongly publicly behind this company and shepharded Omar around on his latest trip to the US. The US Trade Representative recently visited Jordan and the only company he visited was Century. Clearly, Century is THE show in the town that is Jordan. I heard of major Israeli companies doing business with Century while I was there and I heard telephone calls between Omar and Israeli executives who don’t know how to shut up or stop interrupting rat a tat tat like gunners rolling along the Golan (this particular one ate up about one-third of our half-hour meeting). Strange thing was that the point of the phone call was on a legal point that I (even as an outsider to the deal) and Omar knew wasn’t an issue but that the Israeli thought was an issue and it was strange that the Israeli didn’t know enough to say anything. Omar travels often to Israel and thinks he knows Israelis and their mentality better than anyone else in Jordan and met a good number of them in the university in the UK and US; he has a green card for the US and grew up in the UK but, like every Jordanian elite I’ve met, has a copy of The Canadian Citizen immigration pamphlet on the corner of his desk. They are all bullish but hedging their bets. At least they want an easy way to get visas when traveling but Nassar figures getting lots of money in the bank is the best route to easy travel visas. Omar has helped convince his Jordanian colleagues that Israelis are not smarter than Jordanians and there is no need to fear them; Nassar finds both Israeli and American lawyers strangely deficient and missing important details and often dwelling on deal-killing liabilities that are not really important. Omar seems responsible and pragmatic and a bit of an exceedingly energetic workaholic who reads alot and will just pick up a book and read a paragraph to me to illustrate a point. For instance, I asked him if he thought the king was nuts for pressing ahead with Bibi who takes little pain to put the king into embarrassing situations. Omar says the king chose to make peace and has no choice but to plow ahead. He was the only person to say that he thought Bibi was driving recklessly and sooner or later would crash and fall. Maybe the jordanians know the israelis better than the israelis know themselves. Time will tell in this regard. Well anyway, to illustrate his point, Omar picked up a book about business vision and read about the vision thing to show that the king had vision and that visions must be pursued without waver. [It is now 3 weeks later and the Jordanian foreign minister said yesterday that the King is no longer on speaking terms with Bibi.] Nassar and I retired to the conference room to preview a slide show about Century that was to be shown to the crown prince that week and to taste some good chocolate pudding. A secretary came to look at my butt to decide what size boxer shorts to give me and then Nassar and I “made our move” and returned to the hotel to meet some friends, meet a stock broker and head out to dinner with Nassar’s girlfriend at a restaurant in an old-city type place on the edge of town. We took the spooky road back (I thought maybe nassar had the hizbullah there waiting for me) and this long day finally came to an end. Listening to all the Israeli stations on the radio, it is clear the Israelis want the Jordanians to hear their broadcasts and it is strange being in another country listening to the other country’s broadcasts but tomorrow I will be far out of range.
Monday 4 – Wednesday 6 May (Kuwait) — Breakfast with Khan, who like many others who feel jordan isn’t big enough for them, is moving to paris to become vp for emerging markets for societe generale. [nassar leaves soon for a year or two in saudi arabia at the major multinational law firm of white & case] the bank is buying up anything in sight and will either buy or be bought by deutche bank or commerze bank. either way, their stock keeps going up after every buyout and so i bought 100 shares after i returned. i also met with a broker at the arab jordanian investment bank who could handle offshore transactions but the transaction costs are very high; at least $120 for each trade. I think Ameritrade via internet at $8 per trade will put these guys out of business in the long run once reliable digicash systems are put into place. Then to check in at the center city Royal Jordanian air terminal and take the airport bus for the 40 minute drive to the airport for $1.50 which is a good reason to fly RJ. Amman airport is small and works fairly well but is not terribly impressive; duty free has some interesting items such as material to make a suit with but if you will be going to the gulf this material will be cheaper there. A bus took us about 25 feet from the airport building to the plane; an example of how in this region bureaucrats make a big deal out of little things. [At the Jubilee concert in Jerusalem, our seats were on the other side of the section whose aisle we were walking and it would have been easy to go to the front of the section and cross to the aisle on the other side of the section rather than get 15 people to get up from their seats to let us cross to our seats. The security-crazy officers wanted us instead to go all the way back to the entrance to cross. It was so stupid and you could just imagine what they make arabs do every day who are not sitting in VIP sections at national celebrations.] Airplane left a bit late because of the utterly oddest assortment of people flying that I have ever seen. This is probably what the Ethiopian airlift looked like; you had all these people in white sheets who looked very tribal and one of them was carrying what looked like a 5 gallon jug of water on his back; i guess he figured he’d have what to drink in case the plane landed in the desert somewhere (which all things considered was not a stupid thought). Someone said to me later that perhaps he was carrying olive oil which would fetch him a nice sum of money in kuwait. Which of course means you can’t judge a book by its cover. Anyway, the airline crew was clapping their hands trying to get these people to board the airplane. Maybe they had a prayer service on the tarmac or were just standing around in a daze but it took awhile to get this dozen folks aboard. I was sandwiched in with two moslem women and a baby who it was clear did not want to talk to or be sitting with me. But there was no place to move as the plane was 100% full. But they were nice and offered me clean kleenex in place of my handkerchief and i offered them chocolates i bought in the duty free. I got my vege meal and it was very good. Flying in this region is still a luxury and reminds me of pre-deregulation flying in the US. I know they spoke english since one of them was carrying a transcript and materials from the university. The 2 hour early-afternoon flight featured 2 hours of desert and in Saudi you see lots of circles in the desert which are probably oil wells. Kuwait City landing one should sit on the right as the city is along the water and these will be on the right both on landing and departure. Airport has been renovated and is modern, works very well and even though I had to collect my visa upon arrival (i had been e-mailed a copy of it which i showed to the immigration agent who collected the hard copy), i was out within 20 minutes. There are no tourist visas to kuwait; only business visas issued by invitation although if you reserve a room at a major hotel such as the sheraton or meridian (about $200 a night) they will arrange a visa for you. You can also get decent hotels for $100 a night. It may be worth the visit just to go shopping. The cost to Sulaiman of obtaining my visa was $6 which is probably a lot less than it would cost me had I gone through the kuwaiti embassy in the US (by the way, the local currency is the kuwaiti dinar and one dinar equals roughly 3.3 dollars) but he insisted on treating me to this and everything else.
Sulaiman saw me exit customs and he, I and his wife sped off in his cadillac for the 20 minute ride to his house where it turned out I would be staying. I originally thought i’d be in a hotel but we both agreed it would be more interesting to stay in his house. Sulaiman thought i might want privacy and mind his half-dozen kids; I thought that would make it more fun and was more nervous about the rooster and 2 chickens outside that would probably cluck all night. I remembered being kept up all night at mohammed’s house with his father’s two dozen chicken symphony. Sulaiman said they keep a chicken around to ward off evil spirits. Anyway, I did hear it a bit but it was no big deal. Sulaiman has two women from the mauritius islands in the indian ocean working for him; jasmine served us tea as she kneeled on the floor. I wasn’t used to this but, ok and besides there was no better way to do it since the coffee table was low. Sulaiman’s kids are all at home dressed up, one of them in a suit, to greet us formally. Sorta like the scene in the Sound of Music. Nasser who is about 6 years old and enjoys wearing a suit and tie will be quite a prince someday, maybe a diplomat. Sulaiman has 5 satellite dishes atop his house so he can watch around 100 channels from all over the world without having to move his dish around. This area of the world is not exactly removed from popular culture; the newspapers tell you everything that’s going on not just in america but everywhere else since this area has an eye and ear out toward asia as well as europe. The majority of kuwaitis speak english (how else do you speak to all the hired help) and have visited america and a good number of them go to europe to shop although many things are much cheaper to buy in kuwait and the emirates (the emirates is about 10-15% cheaper than kuwait on imported items such as electronics and appliances as there is no 4% duty as there is in kuwait but the cost of living in the emirates is higher). in short, kuwait and the united arab emirates are one helluva duty free shopping zone and you don’t have the duties and taxes here that you see all over europe and the rest of the middle east (except for lebanon which trades certain items at good prices). The house is a three-story with a big kitchen and industrial size refrigerator for some serious in-house eating; vegetables are in cartons. Each of the kids has a bedroom with a PC and, as religious moslems, toilet paper gives way to bidets and water hoses. (Sulaiman tells me if you go back 100 years or so, a cousin or uncle of his brother-in-law was actually jewish.) After washing up and noshing on all kinds of fruits, snacks and tea, we drove to get a feel for the city. We passed by a campus of hospitals (kuwaitis are proud of the free and high quality public health care system; not like other places where any sensible person who could afford to do so would bypass a bumbling and slow public system for a private doctor), the national mosque, parliament building, museum, restored historical ship known as Al-Muhallab (after all this is a settlement on the arabian gulf / called by the iranians the persian gulf and the kuwaitis, before the discovery of oil, were essentially a sea-oriented shipping and trading country), palaces of the emir’s family (which are not open to the public), the stock exchange and some of the leading banks (which attract capital of kuwait and other gulf countries); sulaiman’s father’s clothing store located in an outdoor strip shopping mall which is a main shopping street where the key money for each “door” (a measurement of store frontage) is $1 million; a big indoor shopping mall and a supermarket. Many American chains are in kuwait and you see the odd assortment of Fuddruckers and Chili’s rising out of the desert all over (obviously all the big boys are there too). Sulaiman’s wife is going all out to be the hostess with the mostest; i pop inside a Godiva store to check out the prices; she thinks i would like godiva chocolates and buys me a $25 box. The Godiva store has more extravagant wrappings and designs than I’ve seen elsewhere but prices are similar to that in the states. The big shopping mall features all kinds of fountains and marble, pictures of the royal family (de rigeur in this part of the world — in an amman square you find a picture of the king with the sign “this square a present to the king by the municipality of amman”), a cineplex of movie theaters, a food court and many other stores and things we are all used to seeing. You can buy a pair of eyeglasses for $200 to $400 but for $400 you have a choice of the best fashion frames from Germany, Japan, Italy and elsewhere and the newest lense technologies. About what I’d pay in the US but much more selection. No sales taxes here. Clothing is reasonably priced and I pick up a pair of French suave blue jeans priced at about $70 including alterations which i couldn’t find in the US for less than $100 and not in my size at any price; sulaiman doesn’t want me to pay for these either but i insist on paying so we settle out at $50 which is the family-purchase discount price. Probably a great place to buy perfumes and other small chatchkes you buy in a duty free area. I am told it is a good place to buy gold and if you buy a diamond there a government-provided service will give you a free appraisal to ensure you bought what you thought you bought. We took some coffee/juice and cake in the mall and I found out that in this country people take their desserts very seriously. I would come back just for the desserts having had a good number of excellent ones during my just-under 48 hour visit. Sulaiman and I are both chocaholics so we had some fun here with double spoons and forks. We visited the Sultan Supermarket which is open 24 hours and which featured many men shopping alone at 11 at night. There are many night owls in Kuwait. Not everyone goes to work in the morning hours. Good produce, much of it flown in daily and a huge market with lots of prepared take out items with some prices cheaper and others more expensive than the US. Grocery shopping is probably overall the same price here as in the us. Everything is modern with bar codes, all the brands you know and very nice presentation. I picked up some candied dried fruit treats from syria and other unusual places. We ate dinner upstairs atop the supermarket at a buffet and there was plenty to eat such as green and yellow vegetables and rice, potatos, hummus, salad bar, white fish, and tons of desserts, some of it cakey, sticky, custard, hot and cold. Of course there were plenty other foods as well. I am assured that the Department of Health closely regulates restaurants and the penalties for failing inspection are severe. Sulaiman took me aside and told me his wife thought that as a jew i might not touch their linens and towels and was about to buy a whole new set of these for my use but i let them know there would be absolutely no problem. i don’t know where she came up with that idea and that was the most unusual culture-shock of the trip. otherwise, we were on the same frequency and i definitely felt with sulaiman and his wife like i was with some of my relatives, some of whom have a lot in common with them. sulaiman always says to me “i swear, ivan, you will love it” — and i always do. (i tend to think that religious jews and moslems have more in common than jews and christians and history tends to prove that this point is correct). Finally, it’s about 11 at night and time to call it a day. I scan the radio stations and find several ones broadcasting in english; we have troops there (no one knows how many) and e-mail a quick letter to my brothers back in the states. Must have been unusual getting e-mail from kuwait but hey, the world’s gotten so much smaller. Kuwait could be Tampa, Florida for all you’d know. Same highways, plants, buildings and chain stores such as McDonalds, KFC and Subways all over the place. Isn’t it sad you can’t escape all this half a world away? At least here people don’t lock their doors at night. A neighbor might drop in unanounced to ask if he can print something up on your laser printer. It is a safe place though the Iraqis, in penetrating the cocoon and in making a mess that is still being cleaned up 7 years later in certain places if you look real hard, have forever shattered the complacency that used to exist here. One thing about the Iraqis; they not only looted everything in sight but set themselves about toward destroying all vestiges of Kuwaiti culture and identity in their attempt to make kuwait appear to be part of iraq. For instance, the boat that sat in the national museum as a remembrance of kuwaiti history was torched and destroyed for no good reason. The boat I saw was built from scratch after the Gulf War to, among other things, restore the national pride and it is in consideration of the iraqi spite that kuwaitis are still really angry about the invasion. I don’t think it will ever be forgiven.
Tuesday we start with a big breakfast spread with lots of different types of cheeses, some local and others imported. Nassar told the maid he has no school today and is likely playing hooky but he looks so good in his cream colored dishdasha (the standard outfit worn by males in the gulf that to first appearances is a bedsheet) that you can’t help but smile at him and I’ve decided I and my little nieces (they’re still so young that it will wear unisex on them as a housegown) will look good in them too so i will definitely get some to take home. (I tried on mine this past weekend at home and they are real comfortable with smooth linen. This part of the world is definitely enjoying something the West hasn’t caught onto.) When he is a teenager, he will also wear a white scarf that also covers his head and fasten the headcovering with two black strands of rope-like material. This is the man’s weekday outfit he wears to work and in the streets; on the weekends or at the university he can wear jeans or whatever he likes. The woman wears a headcovering such as a scarf. I didn’t see too many women wearing chadors or veils but they certainly exist. Mind you, I am with educated Kuwaitis; the beduin who are also kuwaitis run on a different frequency which is more tribal and I don’t know much about them except that other kuwaitis look down upon them as somewhat culturally inferior (ie: polygamy is practiced and treatment of women can be harsh) and a bit of a civil scapegoat (ie: if there is theft in kuwait it is probably because of the beduin). Sulaiman and I headed out in his Porsche to look at some of the pretty houses people live in and to visit the man who fathered Sulaiman and his 10 brothers and sisters. Sulaiman’s dad is around 70 at home watching a movie about the kennedy’s and speaks a good english having traveled and done business all over the world. He showers me with a beautiful italian necktie, a bag of pistachios and a cup of red orange juice. Could I assist him in bringing victoria’s secret merchandise in to the country, he asks? maybe via seconds from century jordan, i answer. The house is one of the oldest in the area built about 35 years ago and reminds me of some of the czar’s palaces in st. petersburg with the gold-plated walls and hand-crafted ceilings. The living and dining rooms are kept under lock and key but i enter and take some pictures cause I know my mum will enjoy the designs which are not too different than ours. The homes here have arabic tapestries with writings such as “blessed be this house” and verses from the koran. It is considered bad fashion here to be ostentatious (and the only reason i can safely tell you about sulaiman’s or sulaiman’s father’s house without embarrassing sulaiman’s family is that you don’t know who he or his father is). overall, it is mainly the newer houses that are becoming big and bold; decorators can make a good living here. (Nassar’s girlfriend is a decorator in amman and most people there are doing their own buying and not hiring decorators.) Then a short visit to Sulaiman’s office at a government ministry where he designs websites and assists in bringing his colleagues up to technological speed. Everyone speaks english, shakes hands and is friendly. Then to pick up mail at the post office (5 day local mail delivery means this particular branch of the country has yet to get with the program) and we stop off at home to pick up Sulaiman’s wife Khalida and meet Khaleda’s brother Khaled and his wife from Oregon Christine (who became moslem) for another excellent buffet lunch (about $30 a person) atop the kuwait towers which are very pretty tall obelisks overlooking the city. These and other towers known as the Freedom Towers help distinguish the cityscape that is the capital of Kuwait. Khaled dressed in his dishdasha says “howdy” to me and I feel like i’m in texas man. Then to the outdoor sooq to buy some dishdashas; khaleda and sulaiman are bargaining with the shop keepers to get a good quality piece and price on these $2 items (although you can get a custom made one for $100); you can get caviar here from the caspian sea also at a good price and is sold in the part of the sooq that is being moved indoors and renovated. We ran into some American soldiers on leave before the end of their tour; they are kept away from the civilian areas and know very little about kuwait. We looked at electronics (all the newest stuff from japan is here), clothing fabrics (buy to make your own suit or shirt) and went to hidden upstairs stores to look at shoes. You can buy a simple washing machine for under $100 and you can of course get the best and brightest for more. At least there are affordable items here for those who can’t afford the best. Most Kuwaitis want brand names and are willing to pay the extra money to get the Tiffany’s stamp. Many English items were cheaper here than in the UK (just the 17.5% VAT in the UK is enough of a pinch) but I felt if I shopped in Kuwait what would be left to do in London? We visited a coop store that Khalida is a member of, and there were $5 Polo shirts and $15 versace jeans; i know it’s Indian manufactured, it could be overruns or fakes I don’t know. But it looked good and Sulaiman who, after all dealt in clothes via the family store, thought the stuff was real and he just couldn’t believe how all this stuff was being sold so cheap. I personally don’t wear this stuff so I don’t have any idea but in case you’re interested this could be a real great place to buy this stuff. Jasmine has cooked up a real good vege dinner and we take some photos with the kids and Sulaiman and I are up talking past 1am. Wednesday we go to airport; check-in and passport control takes 5 minutes and i’ve got plenty of time to hang around the duty free (no liquor sold) and walk around the airport. The newspapers have plenty of political debate and the fact that a gallon of gasoline will rise from 50 to 60 cents is big news. The country may not be a democracy but it has a lively press. It’s a 6 1/2 hour noontime flight on Kuwait Airways and it is a wonderful airline with a brand new Boeing 777 airliner with good food, personal entertainment systems in front of each seat and the plane is 2/3rds empty. The kuwait-london flight cost me $675 which was $100 more than the new york/paris/tel aviv segment on air france; so I am paying royally in a region in which airfares are pricey. Sit on the right side for the afternoon flight and the view of downtown London as you come into Heathrow. Only Air France forgot my vege meal; all the others remembered.
Before arriving in London, I am on the plane jotting down various facts and figures about Kuwait. Following is a subjective list of things I managed to think I remember. No corporate or personal taxes; government pays 66% of your home’s electricity bill; local phone is $100 a year; Sulaiman’s electricity bill on a 6,000 foot (550 meter) house is $150 a month; no wonder nobody turns off the lights. The government gives you an interest free loan to build a house; land is not cheap and construction costs are relatively expensive (Sulaiman’s plot is worth about $275,000 today and was about $150,000 more or less a decade ago) but it can be dirt cheap (say $15,000 a plot) if you put yourself on a government waiting list and are prepared to wait for 15 years and go where they tell you. In Sulaiman’s case, the plot of land for his house was part of a subdivision owned by a land-owner who interviewed Sulaiman before agreeing to sell him the land to build his house to see if he would fit into the neighborhood. Tourist hotel and food prices are quite reasonable. Certain things are pricey; long distance international telephony at $1-2 a minute to the US for instance, internet accounts are $150 a month and up but this will soon go down as a government-sanctioned monopoly comes to an end; The population of kuwait is 1.8 million but only 600,000 are kuwaitis who can vote; the rest are hired help and foreigners who have access to many free services such as health care that kuwaitis have but are clearly not members of the tribal country club that you enter by birth or marriage. Only Kuwaiti men can vote and be citizens; women don’t count for much in a political sense. If you are a kuwaiti woman and marry a foreigner, your children follow the father with regard to their rights. If you are a kuwaiti man and marry a foreigner, you have rights. So this encourages men to choose whatever girl they want; but the women have no choices and have to in a sense jeopardize their own security blanket and their children’s status as kuwaitis if they marry outside the nation. Khaleda says after having a baby, the woman has the man by the neck since no man wants to have to deal with the baby. Bringing in maids is expensive; depending on the family, the maid might have a good life or be treated like shit; there is legal recourse and kuwait is clearly not saudi arabia but I am given to assume that, as in most places, the advantage lies with the locals. Roads are good with some 4 and 5 lane expressways; fun for a teenager might be hot-rodding his car or strolling along the gulf promenades and a McDonalds; there is little or no public dating (if you go out on a date it’s often best not to let your parents know about it); no public sales of alchohol (not even in the airport duty free) but embassies in kuwait will sell it to foreigners in the country; police will check drivers at night for identification to make sure foreigners are not in the country without visas; bahrain is about a 3-4 hour drive away and this is a sort of pleasure palace for kuwaitis with nightclubs and other assorted relative decadence. no nightclubs in kuwait. there are some churches. islamic behavior codes are not enforced in public and people pretty much dress as they wish but the sharia is legal law in kuwait. people act with common sense; i stumbled into an all-girls luncheon and good sense told me to get out of there quick! the government makes its money via oil; kuwaitis make their money via business and real estate; there are lawyers but not too many and not much litigation. Since the Palestinians inside kuwait surprised kuwaitis by siding with Saddam Hussein (many kuwaitis had personal relationships with these people), they are really really low on the totem pole in this country and the kuwaitis are glad to be rid of them. Kuwaitis do not particularly care about what is going on with Palestine, their newspapers do report items from Israel and the Israeli TV channels can be picked up by satellite in Kuwait; although there is religious-based opposition to Israel and this will never disappear even if its neighbors make peace with it, Israel will be more tolerable to Kuwaitis if its neighbors and the Palestinians have made peace with it. The people I spoke to were frank about this but essentially pragmatic about Israel and after all, I met Sulaiman via an Israeli. Problems facing Kuwait are that although the young generation is choosing to return to the country and stay kuwaiti (the incentives are enormous), it costs a business owner less to hire a foreigner than to hire a kuwaiti and owners are more accustomed to paying straight out salary than incentive bonuses, although commissions in sales-oriented positions are common. There are many absentee owners living abroad and having their businesses managed in kuwait either by foreigners or family; some of these people are skimming quite a bit but there is so much wealth left over that the activity is not being scrutinized. US chains in the country are by and large succeeding. Lots of fixup since the 1991 war; kuwait probably looks better now than it did before the war. Residences are generally one or two story houses, some of them quite grand. Good amount of greenery in public places and this is expensive to maintain; some tall condos near the sea. Things tend to work, traffic tends to move and the food and water is good. Most public signage is bilingual (english and arabic). Friendship for the US is strong; just like on Israel’s independence day people drove around with american flags sticking out of their cars, people here like america. 1 hour drive to iraq border; 2 hours to iran border. The people are accepting that oil income is dropping and that they will get fewer freebies (ie: health insurance will begin to cost money and maybe there will be some taxes) and one should not expect that kuwaitis will demand more democracy in exchange for these contributory obligations. Elites feel they know and prefer the pragmatic and competent Al-Sabahs (the emir’s family) to other power structures and are afraid that if everyone could vote the Beduin might also vote and force the rest into decisions that would ruin the country. There is corruption in high places but the average Abdul doesn’t notice it in his daily life or brush with the government. Dishdashas are a good equalizer; you don’t have to go to school or work with all kinds of fancy suits and ties. Municipal workday is 7-2 (and I am told it’s strict with most civil servants punching timecards) with Thursday and Friday off; private sector differs but figure a 35-40 hour workweek. Seems that a 5 day workweek that’s real would be more efficient than these 6 day half day weeks followed by a good portion of the private sector. Generally, siesta is sacred in this country and people go home to eat lunch and take naps. The kids come home too and this is a great contribution to family life. It also enables people to go out late at night knowing they can leave work at 2 and snooze it off the rest of the day. Clearly, there is not too much pressure for the average Kuwaiti worker. Many kuwaitis study abroad but return. It is a cash-driven society; not big on credit cards or interest but this is changing slowly. People give charity because money that should be given to charity and is not or interest illegally collected against islamic law is considered Dirty Money and unlucky if nothing else; religious needs are provided by the state. Sulaiman is shiite; the government is sunni. On the surface everyone gets along; nothing in one’s dress distinguishes a religious faction; but sulaiman’s kids have taken abuse in school from other kids (ie: since you are shiite you will go to hell) and there is tension beneath the surface. Sulaiman asked about the Chosen People as to jews; was it true that god gave the jews manna from the sky in the form of edible dew, birds (“al-salwah”) to eat and clothes that never got outgrown during the 40 years in the desert as evidence of god’s blessing and special favor to the jews? I’d heard about the manna but not of the other two items; in any case, my answer (and any reader is free to correct me if I’m wrong) was that all 3 are not expressly mentioned to such detail in the bible but are the stuff of rabbinic commentaries and interpretation as far as i know. In any event, the Chosen People is somewhat of a myth; i was taught that the Jews chose God and to accept his Torah when others refused it, not so much that God chose the Jews. He originally chose to come to Abraham, holy to all 3 religions, but at the time of Abraham the issue was not judaism as much as monotheism. Of course, jews like to think they get special treatment from god in exchange for all the persecution and suffering they get over the centuries. Whether or not that’s rationalization or Truth I don’t know. Truth in my book is that I don’t know whether God is Jewish, Moslem or whatever but I think he’s up there somewhere and likes all of us who conduct ourselves properly as we were taught.
All in all, i didn’t find gold in the streets and kuwait is not as obnoxiously wealthy as I expected, and the people were nicer than I expected having never heard one nice word about a kuwaiti from any other arab. Most probably jealous brethren. Nice quality of life and not a bad place to live where you can live comfortably even if you don’t earn very much money and not too much is demanded of you, if you’re born or married to a kuwaiti. Worth a return visit for shopping and some really nice people. I’ll admit to you I met very few of them and that much of my impressions are influenced by this but I feel confident that I got an accurate picture of the country and stand on this report until proven otherwise.
OK, now let’s go to London.
Wednesday 6 May – Sunday 10 May (London) — I was last here in December 1997 for 24 hours mainly to see friends since I felt i’d seen plenty of it 10 years ago but felt cheated; London demands more time and has really changed for the better over the past decade. Except for having to look left and right every time you cross the street since the traffic pattern is so disorienting, London is very familiar to an English speaking tourist. Not a bad idea to have a few british pounds before arriving. The ATM network was down when i arrived and I paid $4 commission just to change a few pounds at a ridiculous exchange rate. For 5 pounds (multiply by 1.65 to get dollars) there is a speed train to center city picadilly station which takes 15 minutes and runs every 15 minutes. I am at the Holiday Inn at Oxford Circus (171.935.4442) 2 blocks behind Debenham’s department store on Oxford Street and 3 blocks from the Bond Street metro station. The Holiday Inn is 80 pounds per night for a single with taxes and buffet breakfast; I bought through a consolidator (call david or dorit at 171.409.3535) but single rooms are normally 120 pounds. The rooms are small but the hotel is quiet and centrally located if you have to be carrying shopping bags. Room phone extensions have voicemail. Get a British Telecom phone card at any kiosk and avoid the hotel surcharges. BT is a monopoly and gets a heavy price for local calls. Even so beware a British woman in a phone booth; they don’t know how to shut up even as their calls eat up pounds. Another thing worth getting before leaving the airport is a copy of Time Out London for 2 pounds which tells you everything going on that week in town. There are more pages in the London edition than the New York version of that magazine and my impression is there are more wacky things going on in London than in New York. It’s hard to get magazines on Oxford Street in the evenings so get it now if you are afraid you will have to wait until the next day to be able to buy a magazine. I take a walk at dusk in search of fresh fish and chips; doesn’t look promising and the desserts, service and prices don’t compare to Kuwait. I feel I have stepped down a bit.
Thursday it is time to shop. Busy day working the streets previewing the merchandise at John Lewis, Debenham’s, C&A (3 locations), Marks and Spencer’s (2 locations), Selfridges and BH’s. Plenty of arabs in dishdashas walking around and now it doesn’t seem so strange; wonder why people wear their native clothing in london streets and shops but don’t in new york? I had my lunch at one of the fish and chips hovels streetside but the better value and food is in the department stores; the last day I had fish, chips, peas, soda, chocolate cake and a scone all for under 9 pounds which is considered a good deal of damage for a fair price. My fish and chips and some OJ on the street was 6 pounds and wasn’t fresh. The middle east with its freshly squeezed juices is a long way away now. Marks and Spencers has improved greatly; they have some of the best factories in Europe designing for them and they offer decent quality at an affordable price. There are more goods coming from more EEC countries for sale than a decade ago. But bring cash from the cash machine as M&S doesn’t take credit cards. Citibank has a branch with ATM’s on Oxford Street and also on the Strand so you can debit right from your checking account at the best exchange rate without fees. A royal pain in the ass; once I had to take a cash advance from Visa and that cost me $20. Selfridges has beautiful stuff but out of my price range. For me to pay more than $400 for a suit when I can have one custom made with equivalent fabric for under $500 just doesn’t make sense. There are sales this month and some stores on the street (ie: Oxman with 10 locations) has suits for 100 pounds and House of Cashmere had lambswool sweaters for 30 pounds and cashmeres starting at 70 but expect to pay 150 pounds in a store for the average cashmere sweater. Generally, you have to spend at least 75 pounds to get a VAT refund and expect to pay at least 6 pounds commission. You can have the money credited to your credit card and this is better than taking cash in british pounds at the airport. There are cameras all over oxford street. After 6 I headed toward the theater district and got lucky; front row mezzanine tickets to Phantom of the Opera for 32.50 pounds; scalpers in front wanted 85 pounds and a lady visiting from new york wanted to sell me her extra ticket for 75 us dollars so I came out pretty darn good. in london theater you pay for the program if you want it. I didn’t think phantom was that great and wasn’t upset that i had held out for close to 10 years without seeing it. Not a tremendous selection these days in london theater; most of the shows in london are the same titles as those in new york. Afterward to the Ritz hotel for some revenge against lousy british food; i want a good dessert already and figure correctly the ritz is a good bet toward setting the record straight. They close at 11 and have a strict dress policy but will lend you a necktie. The underground closes at 12; hard to buy a magazine after 8 and the radio news is exceedingly provincial (you don’t get the BBC World Service on the radio and I certainly miss it) but the streets seem safe and I walk down Bond Street back to hotel.
Friday. No laundry in area. Should have had Jasmine do more laundry before leaving Kuwait. Should have had her do the laundry I gave the Jordanians to do. Cheaper to buy new handkerchiefs at Selfridges for 1.50 pounds each than to give the laundry 2 pounds apiece to clean them. The laundry on the street is twice as pricey as the hotel! Looks like I will just have to wash this stuff in the bathroom. Only 3 days to go. Beautiful weather for a walk on Bond Street to collect jewelry catalogues. Can even walk around with a jacket all day long and no sweating. Lunchtime visit to the Museum of the City of London located near ancient city walls and along high-walks (above-ground walkways that connect all the office and residential-development buildings, many of which feature new architecture and are really pretty to look at); the museum alone could take a few hours but i have only 40 minutes. Now I know that London was essentially settled by Romans till the Saxons came from the north and kicked them out. Saw a special exhibit about the baron rothschild and then to lunch with an attorney colleague at a vege restaurant (one of very few non-ethnic vege restaurants in all of London) overlooking Liverpool train station on the piazza of the Broadgate business park which i am told is the biggest office development today in the EEC. Some more visits and then to the London Bridge Tower; skip the tour and tell the elevator person to take you straight to the top; the view is not so good as most of the sites are too far away to be seen from this bridge. London is not the best city for skyscraper views. Attention from the bridge view is drawn to a huge plot of empty land along the waterfront which is owned by the saudi royal family; gulf assets exist here too. I walked across the bridge to see the tower of london and metro back to the theater district and purchase tickets and arrange meals for the next 24 hours. The one day metro pass for 3.50 is a great buy an an excellent system considering each ride in central london is 1.30 (that’s over $2); only catch is you can’t start your day till 9:30 am which for me is no problem. The London underground stations have digital signs telling you how long till the next train comes and how long the ride to X station will be. The one city where someone getting on a metro knows in advance what time he will arrive where he’s going. Off to Harrods to see more things I can’t afford to buy, but the man is a genius of retailing. The Egyptian Escalator, The Hall of Luxury, etc. There is an arcade filled with Harrod’s signature gift items and I bought some of these as gifts such as a pocket business card holder for about 10 pounds. Finally an excellent dinner at the Sheraton Park Tower Hotel in Knightsbridge; took a picture of my entree as it was a shame to eat such a pretty creation. Fish juice and cake cost 28 pounds but here at least they gave me a free fish appetizer and some bread (many restaurants here don’t even put bread on the table) and it was all quite tasty and of the highest quality. The kind of stuff you expect from a world class hotel and the price was not that ridiculous compared to whatever else I was paying on the streets and getting for it. Although I’d say the $60 buffet at the Tel Aviv Hilton the previous week was a better buy, I’m sure a la carte in New York City’s Hilton costs the same as I paid in London. A little perspective is in order; many tourists complain about prices abroad but have no idea what it costs to do touristy things at home. An excellent show followed known as Kat and the Kings about a doo-wop group of mixed color in South Africa during the 1950’s; no politics, just lots of energy and fun. Go see this show and skip the others. A nice walk along the Thames River ended my day as I headed back toward Picadilly Circus and my hotel room. Only about 20 minutes from the theaters or about 15 minutes walk from Picadilly Circus back to the Holiday Inn. Sunset at this point is about 9pm.
Saturday I received a friend for breakfast and the hotel wanted about 12 pounds to feed this guy breakfast; I thought it was ridiculous considering what was on the buffet (not much) and so I let him eat my breakfast and I ate continental for 7 pounds. Some things here are priced ridiculous and the only thing I can say is it made the $17 breakfasts at the Moriah in Jerusalem look reasonable. Time to put those walking shoes on. Today we start at Oxford Street at Marble Arch and walk through beautiful and spacious Hyde Park toward Buckingham Palace (allow an hour for this walk) for the Changing of the Guard Ceremony at 11:30. Arrive about 11:20 and cross through several sections to the center so that you are right in front of the gates of the palace at dead center. Just before 11:30, the band will play and enter into the driveway in front of the palace where all the people are standing. People will back away from the gates to see this whereas until now they were all pushing in that direction; that’s when you take advantage of this diversion and move in toward the gates as best you can. If you’re not either tall or right against the gate, you won’t see very much at all. The ceremony isn’t much; the band plays show tunes (sorta hokey since i came expecting british royal pomp) and people march around a lot in no particular direction. Just before noon is the best time to shoot some photos and then they will all march out and the whole thing is over by 12:05. Then walk along the gardens and the Birdcage Walk to the Westminster Bridge and get a look at the Parliament buildings and Big Ben and Westminster Abbey. Then double back behind Parliament Square and the adjoining street toward the Cabinet War Rooms, the alleys leading to 10 Downing Street and the Horse Grounds till you reach a street leading right into the Admiral Arch and Trafalgar Square which is very crowded with people and pigeons during the day and quiet and peaceful at night. By now it’s about 1pm and I’m heading toward Covent Gardens, the Strand and theater district, Aldwych Street and the London School of Economics and then doubling back to the Strand for lunch at the Savoy Hotel. The Savoy is one of London’s finest with beautiful public rooms and a 3 course lunch price fixe for 28 pounds which is probably one of the best deals in town. You can choose one from a selection of appetizers, entrees and desserts and a staff of about 5 serve you. I could say I had the fish cake, roast cod and chocolate mousse cake but of course it was much more than that. The rest I shall leave to your imagination except to say that the Savoy did not disappoint and in the hotels the juices are fresh. Most of the staff are Italians and it is a joy to watch these professionals at work. The restaurant overlooks the river and at night they string up lots of lights outside and there is a big band with dancing. Of course dinner costs much more. Both the Sheraton and Savoy got me in and out within 45 minutes. Then to a matinee known as Dame Edna the Spectacle which is a self-absorbed show about a woman (who I think is a woman) in drag with song and dance numbers such as “Spunk and Phlegm” and a lot of stand up comedy and bantering with the audience. It was a bit of British humor coming from an Australian star and I didn’t exactly get the jokes but it was pleasant enough and exceedingly pointless though i wouldn’t go and recommend it unless you were already a fan of hers. She told a 9 year old in the audience to remember everything as it would all come up later in psychotherapy; she spoke with some people in the audience who had a babysitter at home and then she called up the babysitter and used all this private information in the telephone call. Outside the theater a friend is waiting to take me to dinner at a place called Belgo. Designed by an Israeli, it is a Belgian themed beer-garden restaurant with waiters dressed as Belgian monks. Specialty of the house is beer and there are these fruit beers which were not bad at all. I had mashed potatos and red cabbage (with beer sauce) and some chocolate cheesecake for dinner. It gets hot in there so dress casually. It’s now after 9 and I am walking home. Lots of TV programs about Israel all week long in England I guess tied into Israel’s 50th; tonight is the Eurovision Song Festival and just my luck, an Israeli transsexual named Dana International walks off the winner for Israel for the first time in 20 years. Hallelujah! (That, by the way, was the song that won in 1977.)
It seems I have been rather deaf for the past week since I’ve been flying with a cold and my ears refuse to pressurize. I figure I should check with a doctor and make sure it’s safe to fly home tonight. Hospitals are a waste; don’t even go there. Just call 181.962.4400 and then see a private doctor at the St. Charles Hospital coop clinic near Kensington; don’t go without an appointment as they don’t take walk-ins. It’s 50 pounds if you go to them; 80 if they come to you. I am not wasting time today with metros so it’s lots of taxis but the prices are not higher than New York really. Less than Switzerland at least. Pharmacies and most other things are open on Sundays now. The doctor in London seemed on the ball but she told me she saw white spots on the tonsils, fungus, puss in the ear and gave me a prescription up the wazoo. Next day in New York my doctor said I had none of it and just said to take some eardrops and decongestant. So who knows? [Anyway, the flight home was fine and the ears even pressurized at cruising altitude for the only time for the next week until the descent which would have been fine except that there was rain in new york and we were in a holding pattern of descent for a half hour which i wasn’t prepared to take.] A good thing to do is to go to Victoria Station and check in for your British Airways flight. Boarding pass in hand and sans checked baggage, you can go to the airport with less stress. The hotel gave me a 2pm checkout which i used to finish my shopping (i managed the doctor and the check-in all before 12), shower and pack up, eat that big feast in BH’s department store cafeteria and sort out my loot before getting into a minicab (you phone for this; it’s not a black taxi but much cheaper) at 4:30 for the 25 minute and 21 pound (that’s less than JFK airport to my apartment) drive — no tolls or tips required — to Heathrow (allow lots more time if not during a weekend or nonrush hour). One thing I am noticing in all countries is that radar traps are being put up to deter speeding and it is working at least in those areas. I am lucky that my 6:30 flight to New York with 7 hours flying time is 2/3 empty so I again have a 3 across to myself. Remember to take your VAT forms to the airport to have them stamped and then you drop it in the box nearby. All in all, London is a feel-good city that is fun to walk in with nice clean streets and buildings, a generally happy feeling both during the day and at night, and the mood of the people in the country is positive both about the city and the national government. London seems to be on the upswing and it is full of things to do; I didn’t get to the Imperial War Museum or the Air Force Museum or lots of other things that would have been fun to do; I could definitely spend an additional week there no problem. I also did quite a bit of damage shopping there (and had to break my own rule against checking baggage and check my bag with British Airways) and am now off to the tailor to pick up the stuff altered from the roughly $1,500 worth of clothes I imported. By the way, I would recommend telling US customs that I spent about $700 and pay the 10% duty on the $300 above the $400 allowance and tell them you got the bulk of this stuff from Kuwait where prices were ridiculously low. They are not likely to open up your bag if you’re willing to declare some of it and give them a story about the rest. Many Americans try not to declare anything and this is what leads to problems. Customs takes credit cards.
Thus ends another exceedingly successful and enjoyable journey in which the days were complete with things to do and things to learn about but places in the world that really should be visited in order to begin to understand the people behind the issues and the places we make decisions about on the global chessboard, but the most happy tale is not of the places but of the people that make up the places and the arrival in a foreign land into the care of someone that’s expecting and looking forward to receiving you, something for which I am eternally grateful.
