2013-06-19T12:58:51-04:00 Olivia Katrandjian http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/author/index.php?author=olivia-katrandjian Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Olivia Katrandjian Good old fashioned elbow grease. tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.3303651 2013-05-29T17:05:24-04:00 2013-05-29T17:05:29-04:00

Olivia Katrandjian http://www.huffingtonpost.com/olivia-katrandjian/ Café Sperl, (Gumpendorfer Strasse 11-13) a historic coffeehouse dating back to 1880. The menu offers numerous coffee concoctions, many of which are topped with vanilla ice cream and hot fudge. Don't feel guilty about taking your time -- people don't come here for a few minutes, they sit at one of the cafe's marble-topped tables for hours, getting up occasionally to play a game of billiards or pick up one of over 30 international newspapers and magazines the cafe offers.

When you've had your fill of the Viennese coffeehouse culture, head towards the Vienna State Opera House, the 19th-century Neo-Renaissance building that has been home to some of the most esteemed composers and performers in the history of classical music. Walk up Karntner Strasse, one of Vienna's major shopping streets, and venture into the little alleys filled with shops, bars and restaurants. Eventually you'll find yourself back at the Ringstrasse (Ring Road), a boulevard that circles the city center. Architectural gems line the Ringstrasse, like the Rathaus (City Hall) and the Museum of Fine Arts.

Inside the first district, take in the gothic serenity of the Saint Stephen's Cathedral, whose spire defines the city center. Colored tiles zig zag across the roof. Pick up gifts for family and friends at Altmann and Kuhne, a confectionary shop that sells tiny chocolates in decorative boxes -- a delicious, albeit pricey, souvenir. If you don't find any gifts to bring home there, continue walking down the pedestrianized Graben Strasse and make a left on Kohlmarkt. Stop at Demel, which sells candied violets, the favorite treat of nineteenth-century Austrian Empress Sisi. Windows in the back reveal bakers making cakes and strudels.

Cross the Ringstrasse into Stadtpark, where you can say hello to composer Johann Strauss, the Waltz King, whose statue is one of the most photographed in Vienna. Inside the park, cross a tiny bridge over the Vienna River. On your left, you'll see a building wrapped in a two-story porch. The upstairs is home to Steirereck, rated the eleventh best restaurant in the world. But unless you want to splurge, go to Meierei, a café and cheese shop on the first floor offering over 100 varieties of cheese, many of which are Austrian. Old-fashioned milk bottles line the bar, and glass walls allow you to look out onto the park and canal. Apple strudel and sweet curd strudel come out of the oven bathed in a rich cream sauce at 1 and 2 p.m., respectively, so plan accordingly. (Reservations recommended).

After your meal, walk to the Michaelerplatz, a square that displays Roman and medieval ruins just below the street level. Walk through the Hofburg Imperial Palace, where often you'll hear buskers playing music. Take a right on Hero's Square, and stop at the Volksgarten, a park filled with roses and statues.

Walk to the Naschmarkt, an outdoor market that extends several blocks on Saturdays to include a flea market filled with antiques and other tchotchkes. One stall, called Gegenbauer, is run by an eccentric man who has dedicated his life to inventing more than 70 types of vinegar, which you can taste and buy. Other stalls serve everything from regional specialties like Viennese schnitzel to Indian and Middle Eastern food.

Pick up antipasti like stuffed peppers or marinated olives from one of the market's many stalls and bring them to Szigeti Sekt Comptoir, (Schleifmühlgasse 19 04) a sparkling wine bar down the street that doesn't serve food, but provides plates and cutlery so you can enjoy your own snacks with a glass (or bottle) of sparkling wine.

Dinner

If it's not too cold, make dinner reservations in the outdoor garden of Glacis Beisl, a culinary and visual treat tucked into the Museum Quarter. Vines drape the tables and spherical lights hang from the trees, slowly changing color. Meat lovers should not miss two of Vienna's signature dishes: goulash, a hearty stew made with large chunks of beef and a thick sauce, and Wiener schnitzel, breaded and deep fried veal cutlet. Many of the ingredients that go into Viennese food are locally grown, and so the cuisine is seasonal. In the fall, pumpkin dishes abound. In the spring, Carinthian asparagus. Top off your meal with a glass of sturm, fizzy white wine that is still fermenting.

Post-Dinner Performance

The city is home to four opera houses and two major concert halls -- Musikverein, the home of the Vienna Philharmonic, and Konzert Haus, which offers both classical and modern concerts. If you haven't planned ahead, don't worry -- last minute tickets, often in the standing room, are available about an hour before performances.

In December 2012, for the first time in over 500 years, the famed Vienna Boys Choir was given its own concert hall, the MuTh (an abbreviation of "Music and Theater"). The choir also performs during mass every Sunday at the Hofburg Chapel.

The Viennese have high standards when it comes to musical performances, so don't be surprised if the audience boos at the end of a performance.

If you end up at the Opera House and you're in the mood for a treat after the performance, stop by the Hotel Sacher for one of Austria's most famous desserts: the Sachertorte, a chocolate cake filled with apricot jam and topped with whipped cream.

]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1929376 2012-10-01T15:22:15-04:00 2012-12-01T05:12:01-05:00

Olivia Katrandjian http://www.huffingtonpost.com/olivia-katrandjian/ is threatening to shut down one of the country's most active and innovative non-profit organizations.

Vartan Oskanian, a U.S.-educated Armenian who served as foreign minister from 1998 to 2008, is being accused by the Armenian government of money laundering for a donation he accepted from the father (an American businessman and philanthropist) of former U.S. presidential candidate Jon Huntsman Jr..

After leaving his post as foreign minister, Oskanian established The Civilitas Foundation in 2008 in order to strengthen Armenia's civil society. Since its creation, the foundation has received funding from several Western governments, as well as the OSCE, a number of international non-governmental organizations, and individual donors from around the world. Jon Huntsman Sr. was one of these donors.

Huntsman Sr. contributed nearly $2 million to Civilitas in January 2011, and at the time, the Armenian tax authorities said nothing. In May 2012, Oskanian was elected to parliament as a member of the Prosperous Party on a platform of doing away with political and economic monopolies. Two weeks later, the Prosperous Party announced it would not join a coalition, a decision which Oskanian had championed. The very next day, the National Security Service opened a criminal file on money laundering and said that Oskanian and the Civilitas Foundation were involved.

"It's hard to believe the timing was a coincidence," said Ophelia Harutyunyan, who worked as a producer at CivilNet and is now enrolled in the graduate film program at Columbia University.

On Tuesday, the Armenian Parliament will vote to seek removal of Oskanian's parliamentary immunity, in order to charge him with expropriating funds and money laundering. If convicted, Oskanian could face four to 12 years in prison. With or without Oskanian's immunity being removed and whether or not he is put on trial, the Armenian government can also, at any time, freeze the Civilitas bank account and office resources, essentially shutting down the foundation, putting over 60 people out of work, and putting an end to the many successful development projects they have started in the country.

Most of Civilitas' employees are young adults who have been educated abroad, who work tirelessly to strengthen civil society by hosting debates, building libraries, and establishing microfinance development projects, to name just a few initiatives.

"Civilitas has created a space for people like me to work and foster positive change in Armenia," said Diana Muradova, an editor at Civilitas. "Our country is facing hard socio-economic conditions and we have a severe lack of adequate-paying jobs, but Civilitas has given more than 60 educated people an incentive to stay here for development of civil society and free media."

With few professional opportunities, many educated Armenians choose to leave the country in search of work. In 2011, 43,800 people left the country, 1.3 percent of the population. Since 2000, 236,200 people have migrated from Armenia, which is 7.2 percent of the population.

"What Civilitas represented for me was getting young, multilingual Armenians to believe that change was possible -- that you didn't have to leave Armenia for change to happen," said Greg Bilazarian, who worked as a producer at Civilitas and now attends Yale Business School. "This is going to severely hurt 60 people who have chosen to put their faith and energy into something that could change their country. The next step after that would be to leave the country. That's what we we're trying to prevent."

In 2011, the foundation began to publish a daily newspaper and launched CivilNet, a multilingual online news channel with funding from the Huntsman donation. In a country where most media outlets are controlled by the government, CivilNet is one of the only reliable sources of information.

"We delivered a kind of journalism that most people hadn't seen before in Armenia. We never covered stuff simply for ratings. We let people work on stories that really mattered. It would be devastating if anything were to happen to Civilitas, especially if it happened in the name of politics to people who are not working for Vartan Oskanian to get elected, they're working to better their civil society, for women's rights, for the environment," said Bilazarian.

CivilNet was very active during the Armenian parliamentary elections last May, producing videos of blatant election fraud, which the prosecutor's office failed to investigate. If Civilitas is shut down, the upcoming presidential elections will be covered mainly by media organizations controlled by the government.

Full disclosure: I volunteered as a journalist at Civilitas for five months in 2010. I was extremely fortunate to have the opportunity to work with such a talented, hardworking group of people in a country where inefficiency is the norm. As an Armenian American, not only am I am involved in the process of civil society building in Armenia, but I am also a member of the Armenian diaspora, which raises a lot of money for Armenian charities. If Civilitas is shut down, it would be a giant step backward not only in the fight for a less corrupt and more democratic Armenia, but also for all the members of the diaspora who work to make their motherland a better place, and for all those who believe in freedom of the press.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1720951 2012-08-30T07:00:00-04:00 2012-10-30T05:12:01-04:00

Olivia Katrandjian http://www.huffingtonpost.com/olivia-katrandjian/
Held every four or five years, the 100-day festival embraces the idea that art is not limited to paintings on the wall, and need not be constrained to a museum. Instead, the festival is absolutely unconstrained -- there is so much displayed that you can't possibly see everything.

Documenta was first held in 1955, after Kassel was nearly destroyed by Allied bombs during World War II. The exhibition was held in the Freidricianum Museum, then in ruins. The Freidricianum, now rebuilt, is still the center of Documenta today.

A room in the Freidricianum dubbed the "brain" features the festival's theme: sharing history through art. One painting in the brain is significant not for the landscape it portrays, but for what is underneath it. In Afghanistan, the Taliban prohibits art that depicts animals or humans. Mohammad Yusuf Asefi, a Kabul native, saved about 80 paintings by famous Afghan painters from destruction by painting landscapes over them in water-soluble paint.

The Buddhas of Bamiyan, two statues in Afghanistan destroyed by the Taliban in 2001, were not so lucky. But the statues have been reincarnated at Documenta 13. During WWII, the Freidricianum was bombed and nothing was left of the extensive library it housed except burned books. American artist Michael Rakowitz commissioned Afghan stone carvers to turn what was left of the Buddhas of Bamiyan into copies of the books in stone. In conjunction with the project, Rakowitz led workshops in Bamiyan to reintroduce the local community to the art of stone carving, a tradition neglected during years of conflict. The project, called What Dust Will Rise, bridges the catastrophe of one country with that of another.

Another room in the Freidricianum is covered in about 900 postcard-size paintings of apples and pears. The drawings are simple, but in typical Documenta fashion, the curator has chosen works that are significant for the meaning behind them. The fruits were painted by Korbinian Aigner, an anti-Nazi German pastor and apple grower who invented new breeds of apples. After an assassination attempt against Hitler in 1939, Aigner dared to say publicly that if the terrorist had been successful, then perhaps a million people would have been saved. Aigner was sent to a concentration camp but allowed to work in the gardens, where he began growing apples. He developed four new strains of apples in the camp and named them KZ-1 to 4, KZ being the German abbreviation for "concentration camp." One of the trees was replanted in Kassel.

The festival is filled with similar exhibits -- footage of a man who filmed the Arab Spring in Tahrir Square and ended up capturing his murder on video, a mask made by students at an internment camp for Jewish children, nude photographs of a photojournalist who posed in Hitler's bathtub after Germany was liberated -- all pieces that are disguised as art, but tell a larger story.

Documenta 13 is being held until September 16, 2012.

Getting There: Kassel is 90 minutes from Frankfurt and almost three hours from Berlin by train. Go to Bahn.com to purchase tickets.

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Olivia Katrandjian http://www.huffingtonpost.com/olivia-katrandjian/
Couples dance on cobblestone to Fado music. People empty pitchers of red sangria and drink sour cherry liqueur out of edible chocolate shot glasses. Sardines blacken over charcoal, waiting to be enveloped in bread and devoured by the Portuguese who love the salty taste. Dancers in pink parade down Avenida da Liberdade.

This is the Santo Antonio Festival, held every year on the eve of June 13. The first of several saints days celebrated in Portugal, it marks the beginning of the city's many summer festivities.

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Olivia Katrandjian http://www.huffingtonpost.com/olivia-katrandjian/
These are some of the many scenes and words painted onto the deteriorating doors of Santa Maria Street in Funchal, the capital of the Portuguese island of Madeira.

Two years ago, José Maria Montero had an idea -- to have artists paint the doors of abandoned shops and homes. He asked over 100 artists, most of them island natives, to participate in the Arte Portas Abertas project, and gave them simple instructions: pick a door and create whatever you want on it. Not limited to paint, some artists used clay, metal, ceramic tiles and even the keys to a computer keyboard to create art on 161 doors. One artist used iridescent glass and stones to create a sunset over a pebbled beach. Another sculpted hundreds of tiny faces into the surface of a door.

The youngest participant was only 9 years old; the oldest, 65.

"We have all kinds of artists: professionals, amateurs, politicians and students - everyone who wanted to express themselves could," said Montero.

The doors have opened up the street to creativity and prosperity. An area the New York Times described in 2001 as "rundown and vacant" is now bustling with cafés and tourists.

"You wouldn't believe the huge difference that was felt on Rua Santa Maria - it was a dark, badly referenced part of the city and now it is blooming with restaurants and tourists and life," said Roberto Macedo Alves, one of the artists involved in the project, who painted an archangel near the city's chapel.

The project is going to be expanded to other parts of Madeira and mainland Portugal.

"We are bringing art to people who never had the habit of visiting exhibitions or museums," said Alves. "We are surprising them on their way to work."

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Olivia Katrandjian http://www.huffingtonpost.com/olivia-katrandjian/
A bearded recluse inspired by the architecture of nature, the Willowman, whose real name is Will Beckers, works on the village by day, and sleeps inside one of his creations by night.

"As a Land Art artist I feel it is important to actually stay in my own installation that I have created, as much as a learning process for me as for others. I want to make people realize that there is more to life than the digital world we live in," said Beckers.

Beckers' wife Dominique and several animals -- birds, rabbits and chickens -- live alongside him. In an attempt to be self-sufficient, Beckers and his wife eat the eggs the chickens lay and vegetables they grow in a garden suspended from the trees.

"Already three times American visitors have hit the rabbit he has there, just to see if it's real. They can't believe that this is a real world. They expected a pre-fab, designed, and entertainment-park-produced plastic world. Well, it is not," said Loek Sijbers, the artistic director of Floriade's cultural program.

Some installations look like giant birds' nests suspended between tree branches. Others look like cocoons hanging from the trees. Still others resemble above-ground tunnels, burrowed by the artist himself.

Beckers, 45, has been creating sculptures and what he calls Land Art for 25 years, working on commission in the United States, Spain, Holland and several locations in Belgium.

If you make it to Floriade, held in the Dutch city of Venlo, you'll find many exhibits on the map of the grounds. But this village, where eccentricity abounds, is not shown on any map. You'll have to discover it yourself.

]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1440611 2012-04-23T07:00:00-04:00 2012-06-23T05:12:02-04:00

Olivia Katrandjian http://www.huffingtonpost.com/olivia-katrandjian/
An old port of call nestled between the Atlantic Ocean and the Bocaina Mountain Range, Paraty is the kind of place where you could write your memoirs, lying in a hammock overlooking a waterfront dotted with wooden fishing boats in bold greens, blues and oranges.

There are no cars to disrupt the serenity of this hideaway. Bright colors pop out of door frames against all-white buildings. One of these buildings is Casa Turquesa, a bed-and-breakfast tucked into the heart of the old quarter. True to its name, the 18th-century stucco is embossed with turquoise moldings. The owner, Tetê Etrusco, treats the boutique hotel as her home and welcomed me in.

A small library on the first floor is filled with coffee-table books and novels that Etrusco has collected on several trips abroad. I picked out a collection of spy stories and took it to the inner courtyard, which is encased by vine-covered stone walls. In the center of the courtyard sits a swimming pool, lined with turquoise tiles that give the water a jeweled tone. After a dip in the pool, I nestled with my book between white cushions in a bungalow perched above the water. A waiter brought me the drink of the house, a blue cocktail made with cachaça, Brazil's national liquor made from distilled sugarcane.

If you're feeling adventurous, you might hike the Caminho do Ouro, a trail once used to transport gold and precious stones from the mines in the mountains to Paraty. The trail, which was built by slaves, is paved with large irregular stones that lead you into the jungle. The three-hour trek through the Parque Nacional da Serra da Bocaina takes you past colonial churches and plantations and provides views of Paraty and the bay.

At night, a friend and I wandered the streets of the city's historic quarter, populated by boutiques and art galleries. Many art galleries double as ateliers, and often you find the artist inside, creating a new piece. After a dinner of unspeakable proportions -- which I came to realize is the norm in Brazil -- my friend and I stumbled upon a cafe where a live bossa nova duet set the perfect backdrop for a round of caipirinhas, the national drink of Brazil, made from cachaça, sugar and lime juice. It didn't take long for me to realize that caipirinhas are not for the faint of heart. Or liver.

"What do you think this place looked like 300 years ago?" my friend asked me as we walked home through the old quarter, trying not to trip over the over-sized cobblestones while looking up at the stars.

"Probably just about the same," I replied.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1324572 2012-03-10T07:00:00-05:00 2012-05-10T05:12:02-04:00

Olivia Katrandjian http://www.huffingtonpost.com/olivia-katrandjian/
The two Frenchmen travel into Myanmar's Shan State illegally, into territory controlled by a faction of the insurgent Shan State Army (SSA), one of the many ethnic rebel groups that has been fighting Myanmar's government for autonomy. It is a dangerous endeavor given that it is a restricted zone where foreigners, especially journalists and aid workers, are not welcome.

In December 2011, the SSA signed a ceasefire with Myanmar's newly elected civilian government, but fighting still breaks out between the two groups. Travel restrictions imposed by Myanmar's government have severely limited the ability of foreign aid agencies to work in the country. If aid workers are caught in restricted zones, such as outer Shan State, they can be imprisoned or shot dead.

"For Serge and me, the major risk lies in possible surprise attacks by Myanmar troops, for example helicopter action because the Myanmar junta recently received Chinese anti-guerrilla warfare helicopters ... We know what we risk: long years in prison or a bullet in the skin," said Olland.

When asked what NGO they work for, Israel replied, "No NGO." A religious mission, then? "Lord, no. We are not a 'real' organization," says Israel. "We don't go to Shan State because we have a mission or because we have been sent by somebody."

Olland and Israel begin each trip in northern Thailand, where they load an SUV with prescription drugs and medical supplies that they bring from France. They drive through the jungle mountains on a bumpy dirt path that barely resembles a road. Teetering over cliffs, they cross the border and head towards the Myanmar village of Loi Tai Laeng, the headquarters of the SSA.

When their SUV cannot take them any further, the SSA transfers the supplies into an army pick-up truck that is better suited to handle the rough terrain, and Olland and Israel climb into the back with the bags. The truck struggles up the muddy mountain road, sometimes losing momentum and sliding backwards towards the edge of the cliff.

The history of Shan State is almost as rocky as the road leading up to it. Plagued by a civil war buried deep in its jungles, Shan State garnered little international attention until insurgent groups in the region began funding their armies with drug trafficking. Suddenly the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency took notice, going so far as to pressure neighboring Thailand to assassinate the drug lord Khun Sa.

The U.S. had good reason to worry: from 1974 to 1994, under Khun Sa's leadership, so much opium was produced and exported that the share of New York street heroin coming from the Golden Triangle of Myanmar, Thailand and Laos rose from five to 80 percent. Eventually Khun Sa fell, and Yawd Serk took his place, bringing with him a change in policy: eradicating drugs instead of producing them and opening the region up to foreign aid where it is badly needed.

But while the SSA may be trying to reform, the impoverished area in which it operates still has a long way to go. The clinic Olland and Israel finally arrive at -- a dark, musty cabin -- has no electricity or running water, not to mention a doctor. The beds are made of bamboo and topped with a thin bamboo mat. No pillows, no bed tables. A stained wooden table with two metal bars sticking out for footrests serves as a maternity table on which women give birth. Some parts of eastern Myanmar are so impoverished that they use empty soda bottles as IV bags.

Olland, a general practitioner who works in France, spends his time in Loi Tai Laeng training the local staff, who are young people from nearby villages. He teaches them to recognize disease symptoms, make diagnoses and properly administer the medication he brings. He demonstrates how to perform a malaria test and supervises as they take a prick of blood from each patient's finger.

Some cases are beyond the limited experience of the staff, some of whom are as young as 20 years old. Many patients have walked for days through the jungle to reach the clinic, only to arrive to find no doctor present. Olland finds them lying weakly on beds, looking dazed and emaciated.

Olland gives medical exams to several hundred civilians and SSA soldiers, but the small clinic does not have enough beds for all its patients, and many have to lie on the dirt floor for their check-ups. The sound of sniper fire and AK-47s going off can be heard from outside, where soldiers are training. A teenage soldier arrives to pick up medicine, wearing a leather jacket and an M16 on his back.




With few health professionals to teach the locals about prevention, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria have become epidemic among the Shan people. The HIV/AIDS rate of the Shan population is 8.75 percent, the highest among all ethnic minority groups in the region, according to a report by AIDS Care.

In eastern Myanmar, one in 10 children dies before the age of one, and more than one in five die before their fifth birthday, according to the Burma Children Medical Fund. Myanmar has been rated by the UN as the most corrupt country in the world, and the government provides its people with little to no health care or education.

While a spate of recent reforms by Myanmar's government has attracted international praise and even drawn the first visit of a U.S. Secretary of State in 60 years, there is little evidence that any meaningful change has yet reached conflicted ethnic states, where aid and development is most desperately needed. Rebel forces are left with the responsibility of building schools and medical clinics, but according to SSA officials, these are usually the first structures to be burned down when the Myanmar military raids a village.

"For people living in the border area and in Loi Tai Laeng, the biggest risk is multiple types of infections due to poor living standards and health education," said Olland. "Additionally, there is the risk of malaria for the soldiers who stay in the jungle."

While Olland is performing medical exams, Israel is busy taking inventory of the supplies to know what is needed at the clinic and a nearby orphanage and how much they will cost. Back in Bangkok where he lives and works, Israel raises enough money from friends and family to buy these supplies.

But Israel and Olland's friends and family cannot fund Myanmar's health care system, which is ranked as the world's worst out of 191 countries by the World Health Organization (WHO). Myanmar spends an estimated "three percent of national expenditure on health, while the military ... consumes 40 percent," according to a Johns Hopkins School of Public Health report.

Olland and Israel's aid reaches only the fringes of Myanmar -- and of the problem itself. Myanmar's failure to provide its people with health care is a systemic issue, stemming from the government's prioritization of the military over social services. The best Israel and Olland can do is to treat the symptoms, not the disease itself.

Photographer Arthur Nazaryan contributed to this report.

]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1311939 2012-03-02T07:00:00-05:00 2012-05-02T05:12:01-04:00

Olivia Katrandjian http://www.huffingtonpost.com/olivia-katrandjian/
Wings made of brightly-colored feathers glittered on the backs of women wearing little more than jeweled bikinis. Bronze men in lipstick and coconut bras downed cans of ice-cold beer, called cerveja.

And tourists looked on in amazement, stunned to see the biggest street party in the world sprawled out in front of them.

]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1257031 2012-02-09T07:00:00-05:00 2012-04-10T05:12:01-04:00

Olivia Katrandjian http://www.huffingtonpost.com/olivia-katrandjian/
Today, the Portuguese have hundreds of recipes for cod.

"There are more than enough cod dishes for each day of the year," chef José Avillez told me when I had lunch at his new restaurant, Cantinho dos Avillez, in Lisbon.

One of the Portuguese's favorite is "bacalhau a bras," scrambled eggs with shreds of salted codfish and topped with black olives, served with matchstick-sliced fried potatoes, onions and parsley.

My favorite cod dish was "migas bacalhau," a stew of cabbage, red beans, cod, bread and parsley, served in a bread bowl and topped with olives. Back in the day, Portuguese fisherman would throw anything they had around into a single pot, similar to how the French came up with the fish stew bouillabaisse.

In addition to the traditional recipes, innovative chefs at new restaurants in Lisbon are giving the fish a makeover.

"Codfish is almost a fetish for the Portuguese," Miguel Castro e Silva, the chef at Largo, a new upscale restaurant in the Portuguese capital of Lisbon, told me. "I like to cook cod by giving our traditional recipes a modern twist."

On Largo's menu is codfish with wild mint bread quenelles. Using the modern sous-vide method, Castro e Silva puts the ingredients in an airtight plastic bag and then cooks them slowly in a water bath at a low temperature over a long period of time, thereby ensuring a juicy result.

Down the street at Cantinho dos Avillez, try the flaked cod with bread crumbs, a low-temperature egg (an egg cooked at 150 degrees F. for 45 minutes) and "exploding" olives (gel-cased spheres of olive juice that explode in your mouth).

Belcanto, its sister restaurant, serves its own version of the traditional cod "açorda." At Belcanto, the codfish is served with crunchy, sautéed bread cubes injected with cod stock, coriander-textured water, coriander sprouts, cod stock foam, gel-encased spheres of grape juice and a low temperature cooked egg.

But codfish, which once sustained sailors on long journeys, is disappearing because it was severely overfished in the 1970s and '80s. Head to Portugal and try these delicious dishes before there are no more fish left in the sea.

]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1223383 2012-01-27T07:00:00-05:00 2012-03-28T05:12:02-04:00

Olivia Katrandjian http://www.huffingtonpost.com/olivia-katrandjian/
Once you make it to Karabakh (which is only accessible through Armenia), stay at the recently-built Armenia Hotel in the capital, Stepanakert, and use the city as your base to explore the region.

Feast on shish kebob and grilled vegetables. Go to the local market where an old Armenian woman will fry you a piece of jengyalov hatz, a bread stuffed with 13 types of herbs, on a burning hot griddle.

While in Stepanakert, visit the Museum of Fallen Soldiers, where the walls are lined with photographs the Armenians who died during the 1990-1994 war with Azerbaijan.

Don't miss the Gandzasar Monastery, meaning "hilltop treasure," built in the 10th century. Visit at night when the lighting gives this ancient church a ghostly presence.

To explore the countryside, use the Janapar hiking trail, which will take you through snow-topped mountains and fields of yellow and red flowers.

"Karabakh and Armenia have always had footpaths used by natives to get from one village to the next, to monasteries and to trade routes," said Raffi Kojian, who designed the trail in 2007. "Shepherds have created a network as well, to graze the animals. The Janapar is a weaving of these many paths to form one long route for visitors who want to experience some of the best Karabakh has to offer. Hikers will meet lots of helpful and curious locals along the route, and no doubt experience some of the legendary hospitality."

The trail is designed to end at a different village each night, so you can easily plan accommodations. If you're staying with a local, don't be surprised if you're offered homemade mulberry vodka with breakfast. Drink up.

Editor's Note: Nagorno-Karabakh is a disputed territory in southwest Azerbaijan, near the Armenian border. While there are currently no State Department warnings against travel to the region, the Government cautions Americans against travel to the area.

]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1209329 2012-01-22T09:30:00-05:00 2012-03-23T05:12:01-04:00

Olivia Katrandjian http://www.huffingtonpost.com/olivia-katrandjian/
This is the Portugal of Jose Saramago.

Despite his love of this country, Saramago, the Nobel-Prize-winning writer, had a complicated relationship with his homeland. Portugal is a devoutly religious country, and Saramago was infamous for being a Communist and an atheist. Portugal was opposed to Saramago's work, so much so that when he published The Gospel According to Jesus Christ in 1991 and was nominated for the European Literary Prize, the Portuguese government banned the book from the competition. The writer moved to Spain.

But, in his novels, Saramago captured the people and places of Portugal and, with the recent release of the documentary "Jose and Pilar," the Portuguese people's perception of the writer has changed. An intimate look into the life of an endearing and compassionate man, Jose and Pilar ran in theaters for five months in Portugal and was chosen to represent Portugal in the 2012 Academy Awards' Best Foreign Film and Best Song categories.

After watching the film and reading several of Saramago's books, I decided to travel to Portugal in search of places integral to the writer's novels and his life. Before your next trip to Portugal, pick up a Saramago book and check out these places:

The Convent at Mafra


Saramago won fame in the English-speaking world for his novel Baltasar and Blimunda, a love story set during the Portuguese Inquisition. The novel takes place in the convent inside the Mafra National Palace, an enormous neoclassical building in the town of Mafra, about an hour outside Lisbon. The palace houses a beautiful library with about 40,000 rare books (and, at night, several bats).

Forty thousand Portuguese students visit the convent every year after reading Baltasar and Blimunda for a special Saramago tour, which includes a performance of a play based on the novel.

"On the walls of that convent you can still sense the suffering that people went through only to fulfill the King's whims," said Miguel Gonçalves Mendes, the director of "Jose and Pilar," who spent four years following Saramago around the world and shot 240 hours worth of footage.

Azinhaga


Saramago was born in 1922 in the village of Azinhaga, about an hour northeast of Lisbon. Today, the home the author was raised in has been converted to a small museum and bookstore that sells his books in different languages. Outside the museum, a stone figure of Saramago sits on a bench, thinking.

Hotel Braganca



A good portion of Saramago's novel, The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis, takes place at the Hotel Braganca, where the main character, Ricardo Reis, stays for several months. Today, the newly-renovated hotel has reopened as the LX Boutique, a small, modern establishment near the Tagus River, just a few minutes walk from the bohemian Bairro Alto district. You can sit in the hotel lobby and pretend to be Ricardo Reis, reading the newspaper and watching the passersby.

Casa dos Bicos


In the spring of 2012, the Jose Saramago Foundation's headquarters will open in Casa dos Bicos, a 16th-century building in Lisbon. The headquarters will include a library and exhibition hall, and host cultural events and conferences. The foundation promotes reading by presenting workshops based on Saramago's only children's book, The Biggest Flower in the World, at schools and public libraries. Outside the Casa dos Bicos, Saramago's ashes are buried under an olive tree that was brought from his hometown. Nearby you can find a picture of José and Pilar graffitied on a wall with Saramago's words, "You always end up in the place you are expected."

Jeronimos Monastery

In Saramagos's novel, The Elephant's Journey, the elephant lives at the Jeronimos Monastery, a Manueline-style structure in Lisbon that dates back to the 15th century.

The monastery is also where Saramago took his second wife, Pilar del Rio, the day they met to see the grave of the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa.

"I traveled looking for the Lisbon of Ricardo Reis of the 1930's," del Rio told me, referring to one of Pessoa's pen names and the main character of Saramago's The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis. "But that obviously didn't exist anymore. Ricardo Reis didn't show up, but José Saramago did. We walked through streets full of past and history, we followed the talks of the book and for many hours we had the feeling of being out of time, living another reality."


]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1204955 2012-01-14T15:15:00-05:00 2012-03-15T05:12:01-04:00

Olivia Katrandjian http://www.huffingtonpost.com/olivia-katrandjian/
"There's no luxury -- we don't even have a mattress to sleep on," said Ian Walker, the two-time Olympic silver medalist and skipper of the Abu Dhabi boat. "We just boil water in a kettle and make food from powder. During the last leg, we lost four kilos per person on average in two weeks. We never sleep more than three hours at a go. It's tough. But we love what we're doing."

Friday, the boats competed in an in-port race in Abu Dhabi. The Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing team won the race, winning six points towards their overall score. The boats will embark Saturday for Sanya, China.

"In this next leg, there are a lot of issues. Probably the biggest things are the things we can't control. In the Malacca Straights, there's a lot of debris in the water and a lot of fishing boats," said Walker. "It's the second busiest shipping channel in the world. If there are a lot of logs in the water and it's pitch black and we're doing 50 knots, we're going to smash the boat. We need a little bit of luck, but that's what we signed up for."

The race, which lasts nine months, covers 39,270 nautical miles and passes through the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian and Southern Oceans.



]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1183496 2012-01-06T07:00:00-05:00 2012-03-07T05:12:01-05:00

Olivia Katrandjian http://www.huffingtonpost.com/olivia-katrandjian/
The city is home to three opera houses, the oldest of which, the Estate Theater, was built in the 1770s and hosted the premiere of Mozart's Don Giovanni. Orchestral concerts are held at the Dvořák Hall and the Smetana Hall, venues named after the Czech Republic's two most famous composers -- Bedřich Smetana and a violist in his orchestra, Antonín Dvořák.

On a recent trip to Prague, I attended a Czech Philharmonic Orchestra performance of Beethoven's fourth and eighth symphonies at Dvořák Hall. When the orchestra reached the first forte, the auditorium burst with sound, stunning me. I racked my brain for a memory of a concert hall with such fantastic acoustics. My many visits to Alice Tully, Carnegie Hall and Avery Fischer in New York and the Salle Pleyel and the L'Opéra Bastille in Paris had not produced such a reaction on my part.

The legato sections were so rich that I felt that if I reached out into the air in front of me, I could taste the sound. The more the orchestra played, the hungrier I became.

After the fourth symphony, the smiling conductor -- a sprightly Japanese man named Ken-Ichiro Kobayashi -- shook hands with every member of the first violin section as he walked off stage, not a common practice. The musicians seemed genuinely happy as well, tapping their bows on their stands in applause.

During the intermission, I spoke to the principal bass player, Jifi Hudec, about the popularity of classical music in Prague. "I am surrounded by young people who are interested in classical music. At our concerts, sometimes the audiences are half young people, which is surprising," he told me.

The city is overflowing with music. There are six to eight classical concerts for visitors each day, held in Prague's many churches and palaces. Flyers for these concerts are handed out on the street, and the programs are crowd pleasers - Mozart's Requiem, Vivaldi's Four Seasons, Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. You can buy tickets five minutes before the shows begin, and you don't have to dress up, making these performances a casual way to relax after a long day of touring the city. Tickets cost between 100 and 400 Czech Koruna (CZK) (about $20-$50).

Tickets for fancier concerts are also relatively affordable for tourists. Opera tickets for top-price seats range from 1,000 to 1,300 CZK (about $50-$66) making opera more accessible in Prague than in most cities in Europe. Tickets for orchestral concerts range from 220 to 600 CZK, (about $11-$30).

The concert venues are busiest during Prague Spring, the city's annual international music festival. The festival begins each year on May 12 on the anniversary of Smetana's death, with a procession from his grave to his concert hall, where a performance of his "My Country" is given. For two weeks, there are four to six concerts a day. The festival finishes on June 2 with a performance of Beethoven's Ode to Joy.

But don't worry about ordering concert tickets in advance. Prague has concert venues like New York City has Starbucks -- on every other corner and ready to welcome you.

]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.989377 2011-12-16T07:30:00-05:00 2011-12-16T07:34:26-05:00

Olivia Katrandjian http://www.huffingtonpost.com/olivia-katrandjian/
The Antumalal, an architectural gem designed in a Bauhaus style, feels like a five-star version of a log cabin in the woods, perched on a cliff overlooking Lake Villarica. The walls are paneled with wood from the local Araucarias trees, today a protected species. The design was envisioned by a student of Frank Lloyd Wright as a hotel that would sink into its surroundings and provide a haven for travelers.

Opportunities for outdoor activities and sports in Pucón abound, like kayaking around the peninsula or rafting down Class 4 rapids. Travelers can also hike in the nearby Huerquehue National Park and stop for a swim at one of the park's waterfalls or lakes. Other visitors ascend to the crater of the Villarica Volcano and peer down into the volcanic vent.

Travelers less eager to break a sweat can explore the culture and cuisine of the local Mapuche, an indigenous Chilean ethnic group or visit one of the many hot springs in the geothermically active region, like the Termas Geometricas, whose 21 slate-covered pools are set in an idyllic, rainforested ravine.

Today, the Antumalal is run by Rony Pollack, the daughter of Guillermo Pollack, who built the hotel in 1950. The only son of Jewish parents, Guillermo escaped Czechoslovakia during WWII and sailed to South America in search of a mountainous region where he could find refuge.

The lakes, rivers and mountains that drew Guillermo Pollak to Pucón more than seventy years ago still draw people today who are searching for an adventure or a place to escape to -- perhaps not from a war, but from the stresses of everyday life.

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