VOLUME XVIII NUMBER 62 APRIL 5, 2014

Golden Honeymoon

Celebration

Also in this issue:

Know your Family in Argentina!

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Golden HONEYMOON Anniversary

We were married 50 years ago in Johannesburg, South Africa, on April 5, 1964, and spent our 4-weeks long (!) Honeymoon on a tiny island in the Indian Ocean between the coast of Mozambique and Madagascar. This was such a memorable event that this year we began our celebrations with a Golden Honeymoon Anniversary, on the island of Maui, Hawaii – a two weeks extravaganza on our own. A family celebration of the Golden Wedding Anniversary will take place later this summer, on July 5 in Stafford, Virginia.

Here is the Bride’s account of our Golden

Honeymoon…

We had two glorious, magical weeks on Maui. The weather, of course, was perfect as it always is in Hawaii and we found the condo we rented, Milowai 204, in Maa’laea wonderfully well-equipped as usual. The whales alas! were few and far between as this is the end of the season. By April the babies are big enough for them all to head north to Alaska. Still we took our favorite Sunset Whale Watching Cruise on the Pride of Maui and they did find a few

stragglers!

Most of the time we lazed around on our lanai admiring the scenery – across the bay to Kihei with Haleakeala, aptly named “the Gate of the Sun”, the highest volcano on Maui, soaring to 10,000 ft behind it. We also checked out the crazy Canadian “lobsters” cooking themselves to a crisp beside the swimming pool. Coming from Arizona we have a healthy respect for the sun and rationed

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ourselves to one hour a day, usually in the late afternoon ,which was enough to tan at least a little!

We ate some delicious meals – details later – and visited some parts of the island that we had not seen before and will certainly visit again. Kula, which we could see from our condo, is located about halfway up Haleakeala at an altitude of about 5,000ft. and about a 40 minute drive. The Kula Lodge came highly recommended by Jamie who runs the “General Store” and we had a most enjoyable lunch there. The

highlight is really the view. One can see both sides of the island from up there. The vegetation is lush, very varied and colorful – all my South African favorites grow there in profusion – proteas, bougainvillea, bauhinias, etc.

Another ”find” was the Kahili Golf Course and Restaurant, which was practically next door, situated on the West Mountain. This is a golf course to die for! Also they are justifiably famous for “the best buffet on Maui”. Sunday Brunch was delicious! A definite “must” next time. Not so, a restaurant, which was highly touted by a friend here and various “foodie” sites –

Mama’s Fish House. This is located in Paia, halfway to Hana and a pain to get to. It is beautifully situated – sand, palms and the sea, has a wonderful island

ambience, waitresses very glamorous in sarongs BUT it was hideously expensive. Restaurants in Maui are generally pricey but an appetizer consisting of four butterflied, not very jumbo, shrimp in vanilla sauce for $30 was excessive. We returned to an old favorite, a small Japanese Restaurant, the Izikaya, which

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serves okonomiyaki, a kind of fishy noodle pancake, “Japanese Pizza” we call it. Delicious and impossible to find just about anywhere outside Japan.

For my anniversary present Dad gave me a beautiful 24-carat gold pendant, a replica of one worn by Mary, Queen of Scots. He ordered it to be

hand-made all the way from Fife in Scotland. It came complete with the following message in Gaelic: “Bho nh-Alba le gaol” (pronounced fo nAlba le ge-ul – meaning From Scotland with Love).

He was delighted with my present of a brass (at least it looks like gold) ship’s clock very appropriate for an “admiral-grade reservist” in the Polish/NATO navy…

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We are back home again after those idyllic weeks and we look forward to celebrating our Golden Wedding Anniversary organized by our three sons in Stafford, Virginia, on July 5th!

Know Your Family in ARGENTINA!

They may be coming to the airport near YOU!

Let’s refresh your memory: Our family in Buenos Aires, Argentina, consists of Grand Uncle Bogush PREINL (the only brother of Dad’s mother ALICJA), his three daughters: Alicja Beta, Cristina Ana and Mariella Ana, plus Alicja’s daughter (and Dad’s nearest niece) Micaela Paola Preinl. We know them all well having visited them in Argentina five times since 1992.

After the 2014 Consumer Electronics Fair in Las Vegas, Micaela and her fiancé Marco visited us for four days in Prescott and have departed laden with “stuff”, including two computers, one sound bar 4ft in length for playing video games, a multitude of baby blankets and clothes for Marco’s brother’s baby, and heaps of clothing including two pairs of boots for Micaela. We didn’t even know what a sound bar is but were told that all of these items are outrageously expensive in Buenos Aires. Thus, any family member flying to Miami comes with a LONG list of requests for family and friends. As the airfare – for them – is only $50 US they come to America fairly frequently. But this time, they said, they encountered “contratiempos” i.e. setback with the sound bar on their journey. It turned out that both the flight restrictions out of Phoenix and customs paperwork in Miami delayed the transit of the sound bar to Buenos Aires.

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A Wedding in Argentina: Next year!

They have been dating for four years. Marco, an owner of a successful electronics games business, is 39. Micaela, a qualified attorney employed by a bank as a tax expert and studying for a doctorate, is 33. He is divorced with a 14-year old daughter of whom he has custody. So life is complicated! As Mica has no father, Dad’s uncle Bogus has really been a father to her, but he is nearly 95 now

and suffering from Alzheimers. There is no man in the family except Dad as her only “Tio” who can give her away at her wedding. So, he will be her El Padrino and is absolutely delighted. As they became formally engaged during this visit to the U.S., during the Las Vegas convention, we asked when might the wedding take place? Any chance that it could be in May this year? We will be in Buenos Aires then on a side trip while travelling to Brazil to attend the World Tunneling Conference where Dad has been invited to give the closing address - a great honor! No such luck as Marco’s younger brother, he has two, will be getting married this year. Why, we asked, should this be an obstacle? Well! An ARGENTINIAN WEDDING, capital letters, are necessary is a BIG affair:-

There are two ceremonies, a civil and a religious one a day apart. Some 300 guests will be invited. The cost of wining dining and entertaining them will be ~ $150 per head, making a total of $45,000!

So-o-o, one can now understand why only one wedding a year can be afforded by the family.

Why so much? The answer lies partly with who Marco, or at least with who his father is. His father has recently retired as a pilot with LAN (the Chilean airline), prior to which he was a senior captain in the Argentine navy. All his navy buddies have to be invited, the family is extensive and well-to-do (five servants, which is a

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lot even by their standards) plus all Mica and Marco’s friends. His father’s position is the reason that they could fly so cheaply to Miami, at one tenth of the actual fare!

We had hoped to spare ourselves another transcontinental, from here to Buenos Aires is 19 hours but c’est la vie. Mica is a sweetheart and we can only hope and pray that the wedding does eventually take place. Having been “once bitten” Marco is probably “twice shy”. We do not think his family can be too enthusiastic about the match even though she is a clever girl, even an attorney, and nearly a doctor of law. Will this be enough of a recommendation in this highly stratified social structure?

There are curious anomalies there. For example both Mica and Marco OWN their apartments, they plan to rent hers after the wedding. Her mother Beta Alicia owns two apartments as does Bogus plus until recently a “quinta”, a rather dilapidated and primitive country cottage! In a country, which is subject to frightful inflation, probably about 20 percent at the moment, US dollars and property are the only assets that keep their value!

The diet is a little odd, too. Marco scorns what he calls “ the poor man’s diet” namely, fruit, vegetables, chicken and pasta! Our regular diet in other words! He only likes to eat BEEF. Worse yet, the parts he likes best, and are considered delicacies there are what we consider “offal” or “organ meats” for example intestines and sweetbreads i.e. pancreas or brains! All of which taste pretty good actually! As a diet, however, it is a surefire recipe for a heart attack! We introduced them to oatmeal and cereal neither of which they had ever eaten. Not very well received! Danish/ pancakes and very strong dark coffee is their breakfast of choice! However, they did like our outdoor ‘kolacione’ lunch featuring kielbasas galore, ham and cheeses – and adding roast beef also helped…

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Good news! Mica has just called us to say that both families are very happy about them getting married and the wedding date has actually been set: Saturday, March 7, 2015, which is the weekend just after Easter. And we have to be there!