Passport Poll

WHAT’S THE BEST PRESENT YOU’VE EVER RECEIVED?

• A ride in a white limo with champagne and flowers
• Almost 20 years ago: a diamond ring from my (future) husband soon after we met. He was a penniless student, so the ring represented a lot.
• No idea!
• That’s easy... The December issue of Passport, of course. Those things are more valuable than gold!
• Obama’s election?!
• The $25,000 Audemars Piguet watch one of my Russian partners gave me for my birthday last year.
• A fluffy Russian teddy bear hamster! (Note: Hamsters make great pets for expats who plan to be in Russia for 2-3 years. They are good company and low maintenance.)
• A DVD collection of all my favorite 1980s films — St. Elmo’s Fire, The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Pretty in Pink, Risky Business.
• An MP3 stereo system
• For my 12th birthday, my mother found some guy in a gorilla suit to deliver balloons to me at school. As a sixth-grader I was mortifi ed, but now I think it’s hilarious. In fact, I’d like to have my own child just so I can send him or her a balloon-bearing gorilla when he or she turns 12.
• A puppy
• First-class upgrade on a trans-Atlantic plane trip. (Have you ever seen those fi rst-class bathrooms?! There’s potpourri in there!)
• A bicycle — oh, I loved it so much...I rode it four miles to school and another four miles back every day — uphill both ways!
• I was 10, delivering newspapers on my paper route. One house gave me an entire BOX of bubble gum. Man, that was the best Christmas ever.
• A spam filter for my email, so I don’t have to answer stupid questions like this. (Looks like it’s time for a new one.)