In love with In-grid

One of the better memories I have - one that still bravely resists the G&T onslaught - is of a sleepy, wet morning in the front seat of a rickety old van, watching 2 girls fish in Mongolia. Yes, I did type that right.

On the tail end of the Mongolian adventure a couple of years ago, we left early in the morning with our host (a burly Mongolian man who usually roamed around shirtless in the fairly chilly Mongol fall) to, literally, catch some fish.

"We" means the great moi, the two cute Finnish girls and not the misanthropic British guy. Thank god. Anyway the girls were vegetarian (putting me to shame), and managed through the entire couple of weeks. Not today, though. They conveniently classified fish with vegetables - not too unreasonable given the number of smelly and/or slimy vegetables out there, which is to say a great too many.

After spending the night sipping airag at the tribesman's tent and trying to sleep amidst the warm fragrances and sounds of a hundred farting sheep (first lesson in camping: stay upwind), we set out. We drove around till we found stream, and the girls got out in their ponchos and tackles - I am still not sure how they conjured those up. They managed to catch a few fish, and gut them with gusto, which made me very queasy as I had been sharing tents with these and had on several occasions entertained thoughts that were certainly not honorable.

Anyway, through this whole adventure, I was sitting in the van playing the same 2 songs from a "Best of 200X" type cassette tape that our lovely guide Boloroo had gotten for us from a nondescript shopping plaza where a sweet little girl-urchin followed us around the whole time.

And thus was born my love for IN-Grid. I had the song Tu es foutu (which of course means I Love You, add that to French 101), on repeat, as well as one other by her, because those were the only palatable ones, for maybe an hour. I of course had no clue of any of these details, and once I returned to New York, set out with a vengeance to find the song and singer. Thanks to Google and my superior, lateral-thinking intelligence, I of course did, and it later came in handy for a pick-up conversation at a bar. All in all, a thoroughly long post which I suspect I enjoyed writing more than you will enjoy reading. Ha.