My love affair with Tetra Pak

I keep forgetting to share with you one of the most exciting events of our first year here; it's inexcusable. It's the next chapter in the thrilling Tetra Pak story. Read on, Pakfans!

First, though, let me say that I wish that I were socially active in some other, better way. The energies I put into pursuing a relationship with TP could surely have been applied in a more conscientious way, like writing letters for Amnesty International or something. I know. I am thinking of the letter I wrote to the manager of our local Jewel store growing up, because their sample server stoutly and rudely refused to serve me without my "mommy." Why couldn't I have written someone about the murder of Ken Saro-Wiwa instead? In summary: I am still working on my social conscience. (The manager of the Jewel called me to apologize personally, by the way.)

But since I did already invest this energy, I am happy to report that the TP people are the best! They tried really hard to arrange a plant tour in Switzerland, even though I said I would travel anywhere for it. When they couldn't work anything out, they sent me a video! I was/am slightly embarrassed by it, as it is clearly intended for children learning about the recycling process at school, but I have to say it is a really neat free video. I was able to watch it with Kraftman, my visiting engineer friend, and he enthusiastically gave me special insights about machinery and the inner-workings of factories. (My engineer husband was really sick of my TP craze by then. But even he dropped by to admire the one-operator machine that drove into the forest, chopped trees, stripped them and stacked them into neat log piles.)

The video traced the entire TP process from beginning (tree harvesting) to end (recycling into new products). Unfortunately my burning question, the one about how exactly the layers of paper were separated was not exactly answered. I think we concluded that it was a big magnet and some sucky-air thing. But it was fascinating, and I am forever grateful to the consumer-savvy people at Tetra Pak who know how to keep a customer enthusiastic.

Sirmione

After departing Verona we took a long and intermittently scenic drive to the largest lake in Italy, Lake Garda. We were in search of a fortress castle located on a long peninsula, knowing only that it was marked "interesting" on our map. When we finally arrived, we found that every single vacationing Italian in the entire country was somehow packed onto this thin strip of land. I know my Michigan references have been a bit out of hand recently, but it really reminded me of Mackinac Island sans boyscouts.


Taking away from the castle's interestingness were the facts that it was small and closed. However, whereas most moats grow grass or house bears nowadays, this one actually had water in it, as it connected to the lake on the other side. Bonus points for being completely surrounded by water. If you could ignore the jillions of people filtering through this area, you could almost imagine Legolas in a huge floating leaf leading a stealth attack of the castle. (My Tolkien nostalgia is so easy to trigger on vacation.) Anyway, it would take someone really heroic to conquer this outpost. If anyone actually wanted to conquer this outpost.

Graffito antico

While in Verona we strenuously avoided Juliet's tourist traps, probably at the expense of some great balcony shots, opting instead for some long and slow strolling. The main feature of our walking tour (besides the real watermelon-kiwi popsicle) turned out to be San Zeno Maggiore, a neat old basilica built over the crypt of the outspoken old guy himself. Even though I was partly distracted, working to ignore the epic battle going on between my stomach and the huge chunk of buffalo mozzarella I had for lunch, I was affected by the distinctive atmosphere of this crypt turned church turned monastery improved to become basilica. The place had a nice feel, like I wouldn't have minded staying a while to say a few confessions or something if there hadn't been a growing fear of my having lactose intolerance dominating my consciousness. 

The frescoes painted on various layers of the wall were really beautiful and in impressive condition; I wish the light had allowed more photos. Some pilgrims just couldn't resist adding their mark to this one. How was it ever okay to carve something into the Holy Mother's shoulder?

Enter the American optimist

I'm the kind of person that roots for the underdog, so I don't necessarily enjoy the fact that I was born in a country that, at least for the moment, happens to be a major world power whose biggest export is a weird entertainment culture that, apart from being poorly representative, subsumes almost everything it touches. If I had to pick a country that fit my personality better I would pick somewhere much less flashy, someplace smaller, a bit more buttoned up and happy to have a discussion until the wee hours of the morning. But, alas, we do not pick our country of origin. And, sadly, we cannot change its history or cover up its sins or bury it under a big ton of rocks. We are stuck with it.

I feel particularly stuck with it because we are some of a few lonely representatives of this nation around here. I hope I'm not belaboring this fact in my writings here. I don't really mean to sound dramatic. But the US is a big country to represent and there is a wild amount of misinformation floating about. It is an exhausting job.

You see, for every misconception we correct, there is some other ugly fact that we can neither conceal nor deny. Just recently: Of course someone without insurance with get emergency care at the hospital. And oh yeah, millions of people have no coverage at all. Of course there are still some native Americans left in the US. Err... let me tell you about the first Thanksgiving! And although I used to try to deny the "so many more Americans must be obese" conclusion, I've been defeated on that one. Too many people come back from visits to the US saying this. How 'bout them free refills?

Also, no one seems to know or appreciate the really great things about our rapidly aging nation. Like how many kinds of potatoes there are. Or that we have trees that are wider than a car, even the big old American kind. How you can get edible Chinese food almost anywhere. That the sky can seem even huger if you can get alone enough. That you can find a hundred languages and a jillion small businesses in a city block. How it's so diverse assumptions are useless. And so huge you could never begin to summarize it in one paragraph.

There's no explaining these things, really. And maybe I just need them to be great so they can act for me as a mental counterweight to the heavy bundle of cultural and political crimes America as a community has committed. In any case, pessimistic people usually like to stick with the dark version of the story. I cannot blame them. It's much easier to stick to a tidy narrative than to acknowledge you may have severely misjudged the complexity and diversity of a country everyone knows everything about.

America in the World

Not sure how I feel about this organization, but I think the above rant may have located me somewhere not so far away from these folks. Particularly interesting was their recent survey which determined that 58% of the British citizens surveyed believe polygamy to legal in the US. (Okay, 2,000 participants isn't exactly overwhelming, but 58% is pretty high.)