Neighbours Abroad

Last week we went to the holiday fundraiser party of Neighbours Abroad, the organization which represents Palo Alto in its relationships with its 8 sister cities around the world. This is another one of those things which I didn't think I would enjoy, but ended up finding quite fun.

The party was held in someone's house, about a couple of miles walk from where we live. I think I've mentioned that we live in what is sometimes listed as the 2nd most expensive zip code in the US, but we live in a less posh piece, where the houses aren't that big, and don't tend to have gardens. The walk to the party took us through the proper posh bit - big mansions, set back from the road, with lots of formal garden, and of course, lots of Christmas lights given the time of year. As we walked through the streets, we scrolled through Zillow, oohing and aahing at the prices of some of these places - if you've got $7m going spare, maybe you could drop it on this?

The party itself was another trip through the rabbit hole of existence in Palo Alto: lots of very nice, probably quite moneyed people, and some entertainment from a trio of buglers belting out Christmas music. The centrepiece of the party was a ton of food representing the countries of the sister cities: sausages from Germany (Heidelburg), cheese from the Netherlands (Enschede), something I've forgotten from France (Albi), fried bananas from the Philippines (Palo), meatballs from Sweden (Linkoping), sushi from Japan (Tsuchiura), noodles from China (Yangpu District, Shanghai), and quesadillas from Mexico (Oaxaca). The fried bananas were pretty awesome: sweet, sticky, and not really tasting of banana at all.

Our neighbour Bing is heavily involved in this group (she organized the recent twinning with the Yangpu District of Shanghai), and she invited us along. In fact, a lot of people seemed to be there because they'd been invited by Bing! We got talking to Bing's friend Sarah from Serbia, who's been here for 25 years and enthusiastically encouraged Helen to get a job at Stanford. We'll see about that!