The Gathering

Nov. 24th - as many of you are happily preparing for your Thanksgiving gatherings, Thursday will be just another day here in Thailand.  But don't feel too sorry for us - Thailand seems to find many, many other reasons to have holidays.  In fact the term "sanook" means fun, and Thais want everything to be "sanook!"   I already mentioned Loy Krathong, the water festival that was happening the day we arrived.  This weekend is the International Fireworks Festival (I love the fact that it has the same name as the Detroit/Windsor fireworks) - two nights of spectacular fireworks right out over the bay.  Apparently teams from several nations come to compete with their best fireworks - someone told me the team from USA won last year.  Should be exciting!  I'm hoping we will be able to watch them from our hotel balcony.  Other upcoming holidays are King Buhmibol Adulyadej's birthday on December 5th and Constitution Day on December 10th.  I understand New Year's Eve is quite the party here, too.

A very active group of expat women are members of an international ladies club here - not just Americans, but from many different countries.  (They give their membership pitch to all the new Ford ladies when they arrive).  They sponsored a Christmas Bazaar on Sunday, conveniently located at the very hotel where we are currently staying.  I ventured down to check it out.  I wouldn't say it felt especially Christmas-y, but they had some fun booths for the kids, including a semi-Santa in a dimly-lit tent - some of the children wisely balked at a visit to his knee.  There was also a rather disturbing tall man dressed as an angel, complete with giant bra and pink eye mask.  Maybe this is a normal Christmas tradition in some other culture?  I should have taken a picture for you, but I felt a little uncomfortable initiating any interaction!   I might have renamed the event the Christmas Bizarre instead.  Really, it wasn't all bad - they had a room where people were selling their crafts and wares - nice to see the displays of people's talents, although I don't think they were all handmade items.

We were privileged to be invited to a lovely Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday at the beautiful home of another Ford family - they hosted over forty people, mostly Ford expats and their families (lots of children), and everyone brought a dish to pass.  It doesn't substitute for gathering with family, but it was lovely just the same.  They had all the traditional Thanksgiving food - turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie - the works!  We enjoyed being able to visit with other families who are in the same situation as us.  Many have been here for a couple of years, and so had lots of advice to share with us - best restaurants, where to shop for food, what places to visit, where to get DVDs, etc.  I really should have had a notepad handy, as I will never remember it all.

Speaking of "sanook," yesterday I was in the hotel room and heard a lot of shouting outside.  I went to the balcony and saw a group of nearly 100 people, all dressed in black, taking turns at tug-of-war in the water!  It seemed like it took them much longer to get in place than it did for the actual pull.  People were slipping and shrieking their way into the waves.  Must have been some sort of team-building exercise.  When I went to look again a short time later, everyone had disappeared, but I saw a telltale pattern of wet footprints leading into the hotel next door.  Sherlock's got nuthin' on me!

(Looks like it's German stout day at the pool - or should I say stout German day?)

Yep, this is the life.

Bangkok Rules

November 20, 2014 - First, let me share some warmth and sunshine with my family and friends who are dealing with an early and brutal start to winter.

This little beauty is growing at the side of the hotel pool

For my Farm girls - love the shirt!

Tuesday we traveled to Bangkok to visit the Immigration office.  This was our first view of Bangkok in daylight - we fly into and out of Bangkok, but our flights always seem to be at night.  The drive is nearly two hours, all highway.   There is a toll road at one point - 60 baht (about $2).  The next time you are on the freeway, be thankful for the engineers who create the gradual rises and declines - the highway here sometimes feels a bit like a kiddy roller coaster.  One doesn't want to attempt consumption of hot beverages on these roads!

This drive showed us what a beautiful, hilly country we're in - stretches of development, some half-completed buildings (remember the place they were keeping Brody in "Homeland?"), and large industrial yards with huge mountains of cargo containers (reminiscent of the storage facility in "Indiana Jones")  - but in-between is beautiful green hillsides - densely forested, with an occasional shining temple or golden buddha at the top.  And always little roadside stands selling anything you could imagine.  There was a place about halfway to Bangkok that looked like a rest area with many American franchises - KFC, Pizza Hut, Starbucks...  Our driver asked if we wanted to stop there :)

Bangkok reminded me a lot of Chicago - bumper to bumper traffic, lots of cement, tall buildings, and people everywhere.  It was interesting to note that there was water between the two sides of the freeway - I wonder if that was by design, or due to the flooding a few years ago?  Here's a good example of the wiring "system" that is prevalent here and in Pattaya - who needs regulations?

We arrived in Bangkok with time to spare before our appointment.  The building, Chamchuri Square, is a modern, 40-floor high-rise with crowds of people and a shopping mall.  We noticed lots of students in uniform, who turned out to be from Chulalongkorn University, which was right across the road.  (This apparently is the Harvard of Thailand).  Interesting that even the college students wear uniforms.  Since we had time to kill, we gave in and went to Starbucks.  (We've tried to avoid doing blatantly American things!)

Tall coffee and tall chai tea latte ( with teabag!) - real dishes!

Not much different, is it?

We took the elevator to the 18th floor and stepped out into a large room that strongly resembles a secretary of state office, complete with rows of plastic chairs and a "take-a-number" system.  And, just like the SOS, lots of people waiting for their number to be called.  Luckily, the lovely young lady who was assigned to help us had already pulled a number and had much of the paperwork started.  Ford is really good about getting us where we need to go with the assistance we need to get there.  Tim and I wondered if the immigration officers would separate us and ask us questions to see if our stories matched.  The girl laughed and said she could ask them to question us if we wanted - um, no, thanks!  We actually didn't say a word - when we were called up to the counter, the officer behind the desk took a few minutes to look over our paperwork, then asked us to have a seat.  Guess they just needed to look at you to see that a real person was attached to the passport.  We then waited another 25 minutes or so, then our helper picked up our approved paperwork and we were done!

We ate dinner back in Pattaya at a place called "Moom Aroi," which is a very popular fish restaurant.  It is a long, narrow restaurant that runs right along the bay, with rows and rows of tables on a huge patio.  Wonder what they do when it rains?  Had some very interesting, spicy salad and stir-fried rice with crab - quite tasty.  Tim was careful to avoid the dishes that contained fish eyes (yes, really).  On the side that faces the road there are huge tank-fulls of fish swimming around, oblivious to their impending doom.  We watched a guy pull several large fish out of the tank and throw them into a bucket that was headed for the kitchen.  Can't get any fresher than that!  (Barb, you'd love this place!)

The next night we returned to a restaurant we hit the first week we were here - it's called the "Golf Club Restaurant," and is run by an American ex-pat.  It's in a pretty seedy part of town, but Steak Night drew us back.  Three nights a week they do steaks on a Weber grill - a real taste of home, complete with baked potato and corn on the cob.  It's a tiny place, full of ex-pats (mostly men), trading war stories, watching golf and smoking cigars - I'd call it the Thai version of a man cave.  Steak was dee-licious - went home with a happy tummy!

The Dinner

Nov.17th - Our driver, Mick, has taken to calling us "Big Boss" and "Madame."  See if you can guess which is which?   I'm not sure I will ever get used to "Madame" - it's pretty universal, everywhere you go in this city.  The stores, the taxi drivers, the restaurants - they all call me "Madame."  I wonder if that goes with a certain age, or if all farang women are called this.  By the way, I kind of like being referred to as a "farang" - it feels similar to me to the term Muggle.

Our driver recommended a restaurant to us the other night, and it turned out to be a real gem.  (We wondered if this was a place he liked, or more likely, that his "old madame and big boss" liked.)  It was called Mike's Mexican Restaurant - of course, we liked it right off the bat for the name.  But it had really good, fresh guacamole and chips, and the enchiladas and burritos were just how we wanted them to be.  (Frequently the western cooking loses something in the translation).  We will definitely be going back to that one.  Too bad it's not within walking distance.  It seems a lot of the good restaurants are in south Pattaya, and we will be living in the north end.  But it is only about a twenty minute drive to most places, and with Mick at the wheel we can count on a  thrilling ride.

We've enjoyed many different dining experiences here - I met with some of the other Ford wives (look for our "Ford Wives of Thailand" reality show coming soon ;) at a restaurant on the top floor of the Dusit Thani resort, just across the way from the Holiday Inn.  It's a beautiful, older hotel with lots of character.  We had Dim Sum for lunch, and since none of us had a lot of experience with this, the ordering was a challenge.  We were hoping for the Dim Sum where they come around to your tables with carts and you choose what you want from the carts.  But this place just had you order from a menu, and brought it out a little at a time.  Pretty good for the most part, but not a good value for your baht!

Tim and I enjoyed a nice meal at the Sheraton down in the south of Pattaya - very peaceful setting right on the water, without all the traffic zipping by.  Again, the food was good, but pricey.  Many of the western-style restaurants seem to charge a premium for the farangs.

Saturday night we got lucky with trying a different Thai restaurant - Maes Ri Ruen.  It is in the mall not far from our hotel.  It is very plain, and the wait staff doesn't speak much English, but we could point to what we wanted.  We've been pretty careful about not having ice in our drinks or eating fresh fruits or vegetables outside the hotel, but we took a chance when this place brought our drinks with crushed ice and served fresh lettuce with the meal, and were happily healthy the next day.  This place has good, basic Thai food at very reasonable prices.  The spring rolls were especially tasty.  It was a bit curious that I ordered "lemon juice" on the menu (expecting lemonade?) and the drink I got was dark like tea...hmmm.  It tasted good, albeit not lemony - I drank it anyway.

Little miscommunications like this happen daily.  On Saturday, I decided to take a shot at going to the Catholic mass.  We'd discussed it with the driver the night before, and thought we'd made it clear that he should pick us up at 4 p.m.  But when 4 p.m. came and went, we gave him a call and he said, "You want me to come now?"  Well, he needs about 45 minutes to get to us, so we had to abort.  We thought about grabbing a taxi, and the doorman got us one.  But then, at the end of the driveway, the taxi driver stopped and shouted out her window to another taxi driver - we had no idea what they were saying to each other, but when she asked us to go get in the other driver's taxi, we weren't so sure it was a good idea anymore.  So we politely declined, and walked back up the drive to the hotel.  May have been world's shortest taxi ride!

Another miscommunication,(or perhaps "misinterpretation" is better), was when we were here on the pre-trip and I spotted what looked like a version of "Cold Stone," called "Cream and Fudge."  The display indicated exactly the same process: 1.  Choose your ice cream. 2.  Choose add-ins.  3.  We will mix them by hand on our ice cold marble slab.  Well, this is how they mix it by hand:  Scoop ice cream into a cup, place the cup on the ice cold marble slab, and spoon add-ins on top.  That's it!  Kind of funny if you think about it, but, really?

My favorite Thai-English line thus far came in a text from our bank here.  It was an offer for a free drink of some kind if you made some kind of transaction within a certain period of time.  The sales pitch?  "Feel refleshed with us."  Zombies take note!

Flesh and Blood

November 13th - week one in Pattaya has come and gone with every day bringing its own a little challenge.  Still dealing with lots of paperwork, including the whole visa thing.  So the way I understand it, when we enter the country, I get a stamp on my visa.  I then have 30 days to present myself to the embassy in Bangkok to receive permission to stay in the country for 90 more days.  Then, every 90 days we have to request another 90-day-stay.  Guess this is a good way to keep track of the riffraff.

Tim seems to have had a reaction to some poison ivy - probably from the last-minute weeding he was doing around the house before we left.  We first noticed a little redness on our layover in Japan, and now it is a full-blown, miserable case all up his left arm.  If we were at home, he would have hit it right away with some Tecnu scrub and it would have cleared up in a few days.  Here?  Not so much.  Our first attempt was to hit the local "pharmacies" for some kind of topical cream.  According to the doctor we met at Bangkok Pattaya Hospital on our pre-trip, the pharmacies here are unregulated, so you never really know what you are getting - he recommended that we only use the hospital pharmacy.  But that was not close at hand, so we tried a couple of local places anyway.  We tried to explain the problem to the nice clerks - I don't think they have poison ivy here, and they seemed somewhat mystified by our description.  Have you ever tried to explain poison ivy to someone who doesn't speak much English?  Anyway, he tried a couple different creams, but none seemed to help, and the rash kept getting worse.

My next idea was to go to the hospital and perhaps find someone who could tell me what to get, or where I might find the scrub that usually works.  Our driver, Mick, took me over, and I asked for the hospital pharmacy. Of course the pharmacy was way in the back of the hospital, and when I got there, I discovered that their pharmacy was only for prescription meds, nothing over-the-counter.   So, I trudged back to the front desk to see if I could get some help there.  When I described the situation, again I was met with a somewhat mystified reaction.  "Where is your husband?," they asked.  Well, I was just hoping to get some over-the-counter something - didn't think the patient had to be present for that.  But no one was willing to give any advice without seeing the patient, so on to plan B (or C, or whatever we were on by that time).

I read online that rubbing it with vinegar and salt helped, so I gamely headed to the Tesco-Lotus (Thailand's version of Wal-Mart) to see what I could find.  Well, I was able to locate the vinegar fairly easily as it was clearly labeled and recognizable.  The salt, however, was a challenge - no Morton's Salt girl jumped out at me from the shelves.  So I pulled up my Translate app on my phone, typed in "salt," and showed the translation to the clerk - voila!  Felt pretty proud of myself for that one.  (My puzzling skills are serving me well!)  I was also successful in actually purchasing laundry soap this time, not the fabric softener I mistakenly bought when we came for our pre-trip.

The grocery store here looks vaguely like ours, but so many differences.  For example, the eggs are not in the refrigerated dairy section, but just sitting out on a table.  And there are not just chicken eggs - next to the chicken eggs (all brown, by the way) were cute little gray and black speckled quail eggs.  Also, if you're looking for a bag of Lay's, better look in the "potato ship" aisle!  The most shocking thing to me was the meat dept.  I am used to buying my meat in nice, hygienic, plastic-wrapped packages.  Here, the meat is out in big trays, and you use the tongs to pick out the meat you want and put it in a plastic bag yourself.  The worst part was the ground meat (can't say for sure if it was beef) - it had a big spoon just laying in the middle of the meat,  including the handle that had been touched by who-knows-how-many other people - ugh!  (Marika, I can see you gagging as I write this!)  Yes, indeed!  On the upside, there are always plenty of employees around to help customers, unlike many US stores.  It's nice to see so many are able to find employment this way, even though many of them seem to have little to do.  I often see clerks putting on makeup or using their cellphones - I turned down one aisle and there was a young clerk straightening her hair!

Well, after all that, the vinegar and salt did absolutely no good.  (Cathy, I bet you could have steered us to something homeopathic).  Well, hopefully Tim will be able to get out of work early today and present himself to the healthcare professionals - maybe they will be more willing to offer up some advice when they see it firsthand.  We'll let you know.

On the home front, I got to talk to Dad and Kathleen on their anniversary - ten years, holy moley!   They seemed so surprised that I was able to call them.  I am enjoying keeping up with the off-season dealings of my Tigers - so glad to hear Victor Martinez is sticking around, and that Alan Trammell is back wearing the Old English D.  I won't mention the Lions - don't want to break the spell!

Miss everybody!

Sin City

Tim's last day before returning to work -we decided to venture down Beach Road.  This route is always an assault on the senses - people and their wares squeezed into every nook and cranny, a cacophony of music from various bars blasting out into the street, and the smells, the smells, I don't know if I will ever get used to the smells - food, garbage, bodies, and the occasional sweet smell of flowers or incense from the spirit houses along the way.  The spirit houses are mini shrines erected wherever the "spirit" moves, with offerings of food, flowers and incense piled on each.  I saw one shrine that had three pop(?) bottles lined up with straws angled toward the Buddha in case he should become thirsty.  These shrines appear to be permanent fixtures, and the locations are not just on private property, but on many business and public properties as well.   One stands at the entrance of our hotel.  They are all quite elaborate and are even lit up at night.  From Wikipedia:

• spirit house or san phra phum (Thai: ศาลพระภูมิ) is a shrine to the protective spirit of a place that is found in the Southeast Asian countries of Burma, Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand. Most houses and businesses have a spirit house placed in an auspicious spot, most often in a corner of the property. The location may be chosen after consultation with a Brahmin priest. The spirit house is normally in the form of a miniature house or temple, and is mounted on a pillar or on a dais.
• The house is intended to provide a shelter for spirits that could cause problems for the people if not appeased. The shrines often include images of people and animals. Votive offerings are left at the house to propitiate the spirits. More elaborate installations include an altar for this purpose.

courtesy of examiner.com

We walked to Central Festival, a large, six-story mall in the center of Pattaya, intending to see the movie, "Interstellar."   When we entered the mall, a large crowd had gathered in the center, and loud, bass-thumping music was playing.  A Victoria's Secret-style fashion show was taking place right there in the middle of everything!  On all six levels of the mall, men were craning their necks to get a view of the sexy models in their various states of undress.  Little children were playing and dancing in front of the stage - definitely not in Kansas anymore!

When we finally made our way to the theater, "Interstellar" was only showing in the "first class" theater, where, for the equivalent of about $20, you can arrive an hour early and enjoy free drinks and snacks.  Since we missed that window, we decided to see "Gone Girl" instead.  When we bought our tickets, the girl presented us with a seating chart and asked us to select our seats.  It was funny because the theater was only about 20% full, but we dutifully found our assigned seats and waited for the movie to begin.  After about twenty minutes of trailers, we were commanded to rise for the King's Anthem, which included a lovely montage of pictures of the beloved king over the years.  We dutifully stood, happy to respect the local customs, but I wonder what would happen if someone didn't stand?

"Gone Girl" was a psychological thriller with some good plot twists which still surprised me, as it had been a while since I read the book.  On our way out of the theater, we ran into Tim's new boss and his wife.  I couldn't have imagined running into anyone we knew here - that never even happens when we go to the movies in Michigan!

Next up, we decided to finally go and check out "Walking Street," a street in the south end of Pattaya that is closed to traffic every evening, and becomes a red light district/entertainment venue.  Even before reaching the street, the working girls were out in great numbers - there seemed to be one every five feet, and this is not an exaggeration!  I know Thai culture has very different views on the trade, but I found it very dispiriting to see so many young girls sacrificing themselves - hard for this Polyanna to process.  Walking Street is basically bar after bar with girls out front trying to coax people to come inside (I say "people" because they didn't seem to discriminate between men and women).  Many had clever themes to distinguish themselves - one had all the girls dressed as stewardesses, for example.  Occasionally there was a place selling something other than women - one bar had a boxing match going on inside, and crowds gathered along the street to watch.  Needless to say, it was quite a heady experience.  (Double entendres not intended but recognized!)

After all that walking, we decided to give the baht buses a try - these are basically pick-up trucks that have been retrofitted with seats and roofs in the back.  They make constant circuits of the streets in Pattaya, tooting their horn at foreigners to coax them aboard.  For ten baht (about thirty cents) you can ride from one end of town to the other, pushing a buzzer when you want to get off.  They cram 15 or so people in these things, including 3 or 4 that just stand on a platform on the back.

courtesy of inpattayanow.com

We wound up eating at the restaurant in our hotel, where several people were salsa dancing!  (Mike, where are you when I need you?)  The dancers were many different nationalities and ages, and it seemed like many of them knew each other, from a class perhaps?  It was quite entertaining to watch; then we danced ourselves back to the room...

Legal Tender

Friday - our first full day in Pattaya.  Quite happy to be able to once again partake of the great breakfast buffet at the Holiday Inn - delicious food and a wonderful variety of traditional breakfast foods from many cultures.  You can get bacon and eggs, but you can also get spicy noodles, fried rice, Chinese dumplings, and an assortment of unfamiliar fruits, just to name a few items available.  It's fun to try something new each day - today it was the carrot juice, with which I was pleasantly surprised.  And the servers are lovely - so polite and sweet.  A few remembered us from our visit over a month ago, and are patient enough to let me practice a Thai phrase or two on them.

In the afternoon, an energetic and bubbly local woman escorted us to the Tesco-Lotus store (like a Wal-Mart in that it has everything, but not at all like a Wal-Mart really) to get a local phone and take care of some banking. "Nee" (made me think of Ree) was a wiz at narrowing down which phones would work for us, and shuttling back and forth between the various providers to find the best price.  We wound up with a Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 at a very decent price.  At this point, let me just mention that we are suffering from TECHNOLOGY OVERLOAD!!  Between the two of us we have two laptops, a Kindle, and 5 phones in various states of use.  This wouldn't be so bad if we'd added the items gradually; but almost everything is new to us, so we are facing a big learning curve, constantly trying to figure out how this works on that device .  Also, it is a challenge to keep everything charged using the two adapters we have for the Asian outlets.  Kind of reminds me of the Star-bellied Sneetches constantly going in and out of Mr. McBean's machines - as soon as one comes out, another goes in.

Our visit to the bank was the first time I said aloud, "Oh, this is going in the blog!"  We brought a decent amount of US cash to change into Thai Bhats and deposit into our account.  When we handed the cash to the teller, she and the other teller gave each other a look - one of those looks that makes you wonder, "Now what?"  They divided the cash between the two of them and started very meticulously inspecting each bill.  Are they checking for counterfeit?  What else could it be?  Well, they sorted the cash into two distinct piles, and handed one pile back to us.  "These have damage," they said.  "We cannot accept."  The damage?  Honestly, you had to look with a magnifying glass to see them - an ink stain here, a tiny tear there.  Coming from a country where it's legal tender as long as the serial number is intact, we were taken aback, to say the least!  "No problem," Nee tells us, "you can change them at any currency exchange."    Interesting, no?  Guess it was a good thing none of them had "Where's George?" stamped on them!

For our first dinner, we decided to return to the restaurant where we ate on our last first night, the Deutsches Haus, not far from our hotel.  We enjoyed some Schnitzel and some Sauerbraten, washed down with a couple of Heinekens.  It is an open-air restaurant, as many places are here, and we had a few visits from polite salespeople trying to sell us watches and what-not.  No one was pushy, so it wasn't a problem.

As you can see, the sidewalks are quite narrow and uneven, making the trek up and down Beach Road a bit of a challenge.  You frequently have to walk single-file when people are coming from the other direction, not to mention wending your way around vendors and their carts, and motorbikes zipping out from the side streets.  A bit like the back room at "the Farm," right?

No fireworks this night, but a pretty great storm - luckily, we were safely ensconced in our hotel by then.  Always appreciate a good storm to help me fall asleep, although I had no trouble falling asleep this time!

Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands

Yesterday felt as if Tim and I closed our eyes, held hands and took a running leap off a great cliff.  But after a twenty-two hour drop, we soft-landed in a bed of Thai smiles and ocean breezes, and it seemed as if everything would be okay in the end.

My heart was aching as we drove away from home and family.  I had flashbacks of leaving Tim at preschool in Texas for the first time when he was just two years old - same hot tears, same questioning of my decisions (this was the norm in my Texas neighborhood back in the 80's - two mornings a week at a Christian church - the 21st century me would probably not go for it).

After a quick run through the car wash, we turned in both cars (in my mind a symbolic loss of my independence), and jumped into a taxi to the airport.  Once we were checked in and waiting for the flight, I was able to start feeling excited again for the adventure that awaited us.

 I watched "The Trip to Italy" on the flight, and Coogan and Brydon kept me laughing all the way (ho,ho,ho).  Had a short layover in Narita, Japan where I got to try out some of the interesting lavatory options available:

That's right - you can enjoy a spray and a squirt whilst enjoying the sound of a flushing toilet!  When I saw this, it became clear to me why there was such a long wait before anyone exited a stall.

On to Bangkok, the second flight was an assault on what was left of my circadian rhythm - lights out for departure, then just as everyone drops off, the lights come on and food is delivered.  Then, once they've fed everyone and we're all awake, the lights go off again.  Finally drifting off, we are again startled awake by bright lights.  A quick visit to the immigration counter, a dance through customs, and we were on our way...to a taxi ride of more than an hour to the hotel in Pattaya.  

As we neared the city, we noticed what appeared to be Chinese lanterns (or sky lanterns) dotting the sky.  (We knew this because we saw these a few times this summer in Brighton and thought, at first, that they were UFOs or secret government aircraft).  As we rounded the "dolphin circle" (everyone uses this as a landmark in Pattaya) we saw hundreds of lanterns drifting above the water along Beach Road.  And as we exited the taxi, we were welcomed with fireworks!  We just happened to be arriving for the end of the Loy Krathong Festival.  This beautiful festival of lights is celebrated over every body of water in Thailand on the evening of the full moon of the twelfth lunar month (November).  "Loy" means "to float," and "Krathong" is a little raft made from banana leaves.  The idea is to put all your misfortunes in the boat and let them float away.  Some Thais say the festival is to pay homage to the water goddess, Mae Khongkha.  They also say that couples who make a wish when launching their Krathongs together will enjoy long-lasting love.

I don't know, it just seemed like a good omen to me - makes one hopeful for magical encounters to come.