Familiarity Breeds … Familiarity?

My grandfather Ole Floren's trunk on the voyage from Norway to South Dakota, Cameroonian woman, map of New Zealand, mango from the Philippines, stone from Alaska

We live in a global village, work in a global economy, worry about global warming and try to be worthy of global citizenship. The underpinnings of the present political struggle between the far right/Tea Party and the rest of us is fear of this big new world in its many-colored guises. It is understandable to some degree…I cannot accept that a woman wants to be one of many wives or live her community life in an ugly black shroud, I do not understand the manipulations and shenanigans of New Mexico’s state budgeters much less those of the U.S. or the world and I truly fear the rising waters of global warming.

 There are choices about how to deal with this unease, this fear. One is to pretend these issues do not exist and to try to elect government decision-makers that promise to make it all go away. Bring jobs home to America—except for the people making your cheap Wal-Mart junk, keep those “foreigners” out, speak English only, burn more coal/bomb for oil. The underlying message being “I’m scared of NOW, of doing something different.”

 The other choice is to get out there, explore the village: walk its streets, shop in its stores, meet the neighbors—acquire global citizenship. Whoever you are you can get your passport stamped through books, film, food, travel and meeting the new neighbors. There is no excuse for limiting your experience to your street corner.

 Google ‘global citizenship’ and there is founding father, Thomas Paine, who described his notion of being a global citizen thusly: My country is the world, and my religion is to do good.

 Now even though Paine was responsible for much of what was written defining freedom, he was eventually rejected because of the abiding American insistence that no beliefs are valid outside of the precept of an all-powerful god who can give anyone behaving badly a pass if only they repent. We can thank a few people over the centuries like Paine that the global religion, for which fundamentalists of all faiths long  and for which they are willing to kill, has not yet become a reality.

 I am about to reread “The Global Soul” by Pico Iyer because it so profoundly influenced my desire to visit every country in the world. I first read it 10 or so years—or about 60 countries ago. I had not yet started to feel like a global soul. Now I think I do. I know some neighborhoods in this sprawling confusing village well and some hardly at all. But I increasingly understand how a home can be created on any of its streets and it will always be a place that mixes the known with the unknown, the safe with the unsafe, and the familiar with the unfamiliar in surprising and pleasing ways.

 My favorite word is global, I produce a festival called Global DanceFest and I approve this message.

Next to food...on a scale of life's necessities. From a postcard by Soizick Meister

Steven and Brant in the World

The Guys

Coming to Australia was a wonderful break from reality for me. During the months before this trip I have been scrambling to keep up with my requirements to transfer into a university and trying to balance a part time marketing internship. This trip was the reward for staying on top of everything because I have now sent out all of my applications and my next semester will be a bit less challenging. After spending a few days at Surfer’s Paradise on the Gold Coast, I couldn’t help but realize that it was very familiar to the San Diego lifestyle. Between the surf culture and sea breeze I felt right at home and the fact that I could drink legally was a nice addition. The first week of this trip was more about relaxing on the beach and unwinding then sightseeing and learning about another culture.           

Beach @ Surfers Paradise: Photo by Brant Wagner

 After the week in Surfer’s Paradise we headed over to Auckland and, to my surprise, it ended up being my favorite part of the trip. We spent a few days in the city bumming around and eventually met up with a local who took us to some of the most breathtakingly beautiful places I have ever seen. We jumped off of waterfalls and went on hikes to secluded beaches with landscape that could be put on a postcard. Aside from the city and the waterfalls, we also went to the area where the new Lord of the Rings movie, The Hobbit, was being filmed. It was apparent why the director chose to shoot the movie over in New Zealand because the scenery was amazing and everything about the area seemed peaceful. Overall the trip was an amazing experience that I couldn’t imagine spending with anyone other than my grandma and my best friend.  By Steven

 This was my first time out of the Country and I absolutely love it. I Traveled to Australia with my Best Friend and his Grandmother. First we explored to city of Brisbane and then took a train and a bus down to surfer’s Paradise. This is where this picture was taken. I love this picture because of the deep color of the sky and with the moon floating over the life guard tower. One thing that I liked so much about this country is that the drinking age is 18 and I am 19! So you know what that means! Me and Steve have been hitting the local scene and checking out the local bars.

Natural New Zealand: Photo by Brant Wagner

 When someone asks you what a waterfall should look like this is what I would show them.  This Waterfall was tucked away in a rainforest that is about 30 minutes out of Auckland, New Zealand. I would have never known about this picturesque place if it was not for our local friend Jordan who took use to this waterfall and two other. We went off the main trail to find this place or as Jordan called we went Bushwhacking. Seeing things like this natural waterfall makes me want to never leave New Zealand.  By Brant

Just Another (Perfect) City by the Bay

 

That old 'city by the bay' vibe

Auckland, New Zealand feels like a world neighborhood to which you would gravitate if you wanted peace, quiet, natural beauty, funky charm and really nice wine. Like San Francisco’s quiet little sister.

 History from a barely remembered book, Wikipedia and two weeks down under! I am curious. Why does New Zealand have such a different vibe than Australia? Of course the question is silly for me to hazard an answer since Surfers Paradise is my only Australian experience and Auckland the only NZ sampling. I read “Fatal Shore” some years ago so there is a vague history of Australia in my mind. The aboriginal people (whom Wikipedia says may be descended from a long-ago migration from the African mainland before the Europeans and Asians were even differentiated as distinct races), the convicts, the harsh land, the British colonial heritage.

 I am still more curious. Somehow NZ had appeared in my mind’s eye as Australia’s pretty islands and that is not necessarily true. It turns out their history is quite different. New Zealand is a Pacific Island in the way the Philippines or Tahiti or Hawaii are Pacific Islands. Settled by Austronesians (later split into divergent groups such as the Polynesians and Melanesians) who came out of pre-Chinese Taiwan and populated the South Seas.

 Here in New Zealand, the Austronesians/Polynesians became the Maoris and it seems their influence on these beautiful islands is profound. Although NZ was also a British colony it feels like the British cowboys set the mood in Australian while the New Zealand colonizers let themselves be influenced by the Pacific people already here.

 Easy Peasy Auckland: Auckland has been to rest and recuperate and enjoy my delightful travel companions. If I win power ball I will invite Steven and Brant to travel the world with me for the next year and then foot all of their education bills through however many doctorates they choose to pursue.

 What interesting adventurous lively guys they are. The two of them have made me feel better about the world—if they are indeed the future then I think we are okay. They are ambitious but not to the exclusion of the idea of ‘doing good.’ They are open but skeptical of all dogma. Nice nice guys and so much fun to be around.

Auckland City Hotel

 We moved hotels after the first three days because our first one was already booked for the weekend and came here to the Auckland City Hotel which has an appealing Malaysian restaurant called “The Mustard Seed” that we may sample tonight. Steven and Brant picked it on Expedia—it was lovely to have them take the responsibility since that is one of those imponderables of travel. No matter how thoroughly you peruse the hotel listings and read Trip Advisor about a quarter of the time you come up wrong-footed.

 The guys have promised to write the blog tomorrow about their adventures so I will simply regale you with mine. Consisting of eating and shopping! Not bad holiday pastimes.

 Started my recovery a few days ago with the best—and only—lamb salad I have ever had accompanied by a fruity crisp white wine even I could detect was very fine. First wine of the trip. A sad sad thing if one is traveling to major wine regions.

 Since then the major meals have included a very pricey harbor lunch that was unfortunately quite ordinary although Brant swears his $15 hot dog was truly gourmet.

World's best $15 hot dog

 Our next best meal was breakfast on the bench in front of (drum roll) Dunkin Donuts! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Enough to make a NON-foodie heart sing!

But tonight Malaysian and tomorrow back to the lamb salad place for a…lamb salad, lamb kabobs and more of the delectable wine. I am purposely blocking out the images of those wooly little lambs we kept around the kitchen stove on blizzardy spring days, the enthusiasm which they drank their bottles of milk, their little baby baa baa baa’s. It has taken me this long but now I’m ready to eat the little buggers. There are Starbucks and MUFFIN stores here as well. A global neighborhood almost too familiar—but nice anyway!

 Buildings with some personality remain.

 They’re scattered among the awful ones, just as in most cities.

 We discovered Kathmandu, New Zealand’s REI. Probably they have them in the U.S. but not in my neighborhood and not with everything on sale. Also an imposing book store on a prominent corner of Queen Street. Bought a stash of regional books of course. And am happily into one by a western Australian writer Tim Winton. The book, Dirt Music, is brilliant. The truth is—Kindles and their other reader friends are awful things, only acceptable on long journeys if one is traveling alone. I may get rid of mine altogether. THE THING IS NOT A BOOK.

 Oh oh. The old curiosity gene that was lying almost dormant about this part of the world is stirring. That is a good thing or not. It almost always happens through books, usually novels. It is like getting the flu when you feel that first prickle of something not being right. With curiosity, the prickle is—I want to go to Perth…or drive down to the tip of South Island…or hop around this whole region to Papua and East Timor and back to Darwin and make myself eat a piece of bread with vegemite on it—it starts small and then pretty soon you are frustrated and depressed because there is no time and money in life to do all of that everywhere in the world. But frustrated and depressed in a good way.

California dudes out in the world

 

And then there’s a boy and his grandmother

 

Travel. And Why.

Same Old Moon

Most blogs are promo or diary/journal it seems. What did I want Time and Space to be? Journal. Opinion. Discovery. Well written with enough travel insights so that it can be enjoyed the way you enjoy reading your favorite newspaper columns on a regular basis.

 Time and Space IS of course intended to be personal…but with a little outsider perspective so it is not all about ME. It feels like it started out with the right idea but that it is sliding off the rails right now.

Same Old Minibar

 IT HAPPENS!

Possibly this is because for the third time (once in Bergen, Norway—bad bad flu; once in Windhoek, Namibia—RA flare-up) in my years of travel I am quite ill, this time with some disease that hampers breathing. Now that the scary part is over I am just listless and bored…and wondering why I want to travel all of the time when many places in the world are fine for their own inhabitants but not so enticing for the casual visitor. And it is so much better to be home when sick. My fluffy comforter, my dulce de leche ice cream, my books and channels and friends with whom to kvetch about the unfairness of it all.

Same Old Ocean

 IT IS A BIG WORLD AFTER ALL MR. DISNEY

So what is it? I keep pondering this apparent travel addiction as the countries add up. As I realize there aren’t so many places that still send the old travel bug galloping up my spine when their exotic names appear.

 Big swaths of the world—Russia and the Stan countries, Southeast Asia, India/Nepal/Bangladesh, much of West Africa—lie ahead of me on this every-country quest. Tens of countries—scattered on many continents—are still to grace my passport. The work goes on. Find affordable plane tickets, hotels. Don’t get sick. Enjoy something!  Go to every country in the world. Really?

Same Old Neighborhood--Sort of

NEIGHBORHOODS

To go to every country in the world is like going to every neighborhood in your town. The poor but interesting or sad or threatening; the boring but pleasant and/or safe; the funky but historic; or the rich and tacky/rich and luxurious/rich and perfect. You go there for dinner, here for groceries, there for a party, here to the cleaners, there because it’s on the way to another there. Here because you live here. That is how I think of my travels—just familiarizing myself with all the neighborhoods of my whole world.

 My ennui makes sense though. As more and more of the ‘neighborhoods’ are checked off my list the thrill of discovery is replaced with an acknowledgement of the familiar –which we all know can have its monotonous side.

 Surfers Paradise, Queensland, Australia is in the ‘boring but pleasant’ neighborhood category. Not bad for a family trip. The purpose is for my grandson to have a good time. And for me to get yet one more passport stamp. New Zealand next; same mission. But with rain and lamb chops. So ‘boring but pleasant’ is perfectly appropriate destination sometimes. BUT STILL…

There is always anticipating the next new thing--however disgusting!

Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport…

Me Kangaroo

There are adventures and travels and journeys and holidays—all will get you to other lands but how you act when you get there will be quite different depending on your mode of choice. On a holiday you have fun dammit!

Holidays are FUN!

 This is a holiday. At a family beach town. In Queensland, Australia. Steven and his friend Brant are relaxing and do appear to be having fun…and I have my 82nd passport stamp so the basic goals have been achieved.  Now what? Bird watching.

 My intent was to write but getting quite ill put a damper on that worthy plan.  I haven’t given up especially since I’ve finished the three detective novels in my bag and must switch to slightly more serious literature before I get to Auckland bookstores. But bird watching is good.

 Our vacation spot, Surfers Paradise, packed with inlanders/outbackers, is San Diego with the landlubbing Zonies everywhere putting their wet suits on backwards and turning a dangerous crimson. Even though this place has nothing on San Diego, Steven and Brant seem okay because here they have total freedom from school and work and parental expectations and they can legally drink beer! Actually they are far too smart to take full advantage of these wild possibilities.

 

Party boys planning another decadent adventure

 

 I am bored and just realized I will come and go from Australia without ever seeing a KANGAROO. But…we’re off to souvenir shop. Surely that will yield one.

Taking self-portraits in the Uggs window

 Oh yeah…and a sun/heat wave here. Blah…

 However I will go buy a new shirt or two so I don’t have to wash anything in the sink. That’s fun.

 And I am sleeping with the big sliding doors wide open every moment.… (however…if sea air cures why am I not okay by now?)  Actually this part is really better than fun.

 And there is ZERO news about American politics on TV. Should I check in on line just in case it all turned rational overnight and intelligent discussion is ensuing? Nah…what are the odds. Fun.

 And Steven just came back from the store with a stash of doughnuts. Serious fun.

 Still I WANT TO SEE A LIVE KANGAROO. Won’t. Oh well, shall I eat my lemon doughnut or my chocolate doughnut?

The Lost Day

The 3 musketeers head ‘down under’

By land or by sea, they will have fun

waiting…Virgin Australia Flight 008

Down and out down under or sick day in Brisbane

Jet lag night

And the night goes on…

And on……

W

Way to Surfers’ Paradise

Made it

Night in Surfers’ Paradise

A boy and his surfboard search

Steven Klotzback, Brant Wagner and Marjorie Neset did not have a January 5 ^th this year. How is that possible? I understand about the International Date Line and all that. And that somehow the missing hours aren’t actually missing. But, I am telling you, we did not experience that day!  How can you not have a day of your life? ‘What did you do on January 5^th ?’ ‘Well, I didn’t have January 5^th this year!’ So all of the good we intended to do on that day will be shifted to January 18^th when we travel for 15 hours and still arrive at about the same time we departed and haven’t wasted any time being selfish or cranky.

Are not date lines and time zones and meridians and latitudes and longitudes—imaginary lines and missing days and Atlantis and black holes fantastic inventions?

 Steven and Brant, my grandson and his best friend, delightful, smart, witty, kind and handsome young men—and my companions on this trip down under (Steven’s 16^th birthday and high school graduation present a couple of years late) are in love with their first big semi-independent (I am here for the occasional check-in only) trip to foreign lands. Brant has only been to Mexico and, while Steven has been to the Philippines twice, it was as a young kid with mom and dad only steps away so this is a big deal. This trip to Australia and New Zealand is all planned and programmed by them and since they’re both friendly and laid-back it is an easy going adventure.

 Into Brisbane yesterday morning with only one small hitch between LAX and our Australian hotel. We had to throw away our stash of uneaten Costco cinnamon rolls before going through border control. Now honestly, what ingredient among all that dough and frosting and cinnamon and sugar could have infected their crops?

 I am apparently having an attack of something like pleurisy (as in I can’t really breathe!) so did not see much of Brisbane. What I did see reminded me of what a small placid Houston might be like more than a California coast town. This morning we took the Gold Coast train down here to SURFERS’ PARADISE.  

 SP is a high-rise beach town, a slightly dowdy Miami Beach with a little of that lovely beach town tackiness of Pacific Beach thrown in. Steven and Brant tell me the water is warm and the waves are high but they are having some trouble figuring out how to rent a decent board for at least a day of surfing. The available rentals are not up to fussy California surfer dude standards and the price to purchase one second hand and sell it back is beyond poor California surfer dude budgets so I am not sure what they will finally do.

 Our rooms at the VIBE Hotel are pleasant…overlooking the ocean…supposed to be rainy and stormy tomorrow which the guys seem okay with because there is roaming about town and skate boarding and swimming and movies and games and each other’s company and life is good. Of course I would be more than thrilled with a day of rain in which I can write and read and overlook crashing waves and drink coffee and contemplate my naval. As long as the guys remain happy which they show no sign of stopping all is well.

Tomorrow I will search out and find Vegemite no matter the weather or the state of my health.

 Now we are going to have a room picnic while the guys get on line to search for surfboard rentals. $66 to have internet while here so needless to say we only have it in one room.  G ‘day then Mates.

2011: A Medium Good Year

Even though it was a year of many losses my immediate family is well—and that is reason enough for declaring my glass more than half full this New Year’s Eve.

To 2012

 I have already written in “Time and Place” about most of the year’s events and passages, travels and trauma. Now, with a slightly new and improved blog format I will attempt to offer a year-in-review, mostly photos and a few words, including extras for the months since my August adventures in the Balkans (which I am sorry to say were never wrapped up properly).

 BUT FIRST… 2012 RESOLUTIONS

In 2012 I will be a wiser and more thoughtful person and lose the same five pounds that have been on the resolutions list for the last 20 years or so.

 In 2012, I will post to my blog twice a week, write the first draft of a whole book called “Neighborhoods” and go to 12-15 more countries.

 In 2012, I will reach Harrison in my reading of presidential biographies.

 In 2012, I will decide whether to get a facelift or a new car in 2013.

 NOW FOR 2011

BAD PEOPLE: One chilly night while I was in the gym making good on my 2010 New Year’s resolutions, a bad guy smashed out my car window and took my bag and backpack with all the usual stuff plus my passport full of stamps and my calendar and cell phone (containing pretty much the sum total of my knowledge). I would have taken photos of smashed glass, all sparkly and beautiful, scattered throughout and around my car but my camera was among the stolen things.

 FAMILY EVENTS: Teresa completed her junior year at UCLA and is maybe headed for summa cum laude.

Teresa...study study study...Engineering no less!

Steven did well at Miracosta Community College and will transfer to UC Irvine in 2012…and maintained his surfer dude lifestyle at the same time.

Majoring in frosting

 Patricia entered her senior year at La Cueva High School and Sara started her first year at Desert Ridge Middle School. They both remain cheerleaders extraordinaire.

Patricia--at the game

 

Sara is looking forward to at least five more years of cheerleading…and her parents?

 

Sara...

A big deal for me. Eldest son Scott came out for a weekend and, with Steven, we toured all of the neighborhoods, streets and apartments where we lived between 1972 and the early 80s—the good, the bad and the ugly.

My boys

 Sara and I went on our first big trip together, the first half which I describe in a previous post, “Go East Young Sara—Go East!” Extra photos here for DC half.

Sara tours White House with Udall interns

 

A long day on the mall waiting for the fireworks. Hot but happy crowd. We felt very patriotic.

A very demanding card player

 TRAVELS: First, in early January, to NYC to a meeting hosted by the organization formerly known as DTW; stayed at the Hotel Chelsea of Patti Smith/Robert Mapplethorpe/many other talented crazy original artists’ fame. Old gas stove in the room’s shabby little kitchenette provided the only warmth for the day the heat went out. Hey, it was under $200 a night in Manhattan…you get what you pay for…history not comfort.

I stayed at the Hotel Chelsea. Therefore I am a writer

 Next to Beirut to the Arab Dance Platform. Can’t find my photos but saw several interesting pieces, went on a winery trip to the Bekaa Valley and ate a lot of doughnuts from the Dunkin Donuts next door to my hotel.

 Then a summer trip home to Minnesota which I wrote about in the post, “You can go home again…you just can’t live there because it’s all fallen down.”

This is how my dad, Sven the lumberjack, made his living

 

Marsha and her very best friend and mom

If there were only more teachers like these two, we’d all be smart

 

Me and my baby bro…all those years of fighting and now we actually like each other.

He got bigger but not smarter than me!

 And finally my travel year ended on a high note with a long rambling bus, train and plane trip through the ten countries that comprise the Balkans plus Ukraine and Turkey. Unfortunately I did not post from the last three countries so here are extra photos of Sofia, Istanbul and Athens.

A Bulgarian goddess or liberty or peace or something like that

 

Istanbul is so very historic and beautiful and alive that I could not begin to select one photo that would do it justice.

SO just an Istanbul photo I like

 I was very tired by the time I reached Athens so I just sat in the park and looked at creatures for the first afternoon.

Athenian wild life

 WORK: All went well considering cuts in Medicaid and VSA National Dept. of Education funding. We dropped the AmeriCorps program in which the burden of red tape finally outweighed the enthusiasm of the talented young people who came to work for us for a year or two.

 Art continued to happen with paintings, pottery, quilts, books, music, dance and drama the happy result.   

 VSA performing artists made a piece with Desire Davids from South Africa.

After the dance party

And more celebration

The stars relaxing

 Global DanceFest presented old friends including the brilliant and buoyant Stephen Petronio Company; Eiko and Koma with their completely unique brand of Butoh, slow, sensual, mesmerizing; Panaibra Gabriel danced the Marrabenta Solos to the traditional Mozambican music of his father and Faustin Linyekula, two dancers and three musicians offered very big  Congolese sound and gorgeous slinky dancing.

 POLITICS: Killed some seriously bad guys, Bin Laden and Gaddafi; were subjected to some second-rate comedians also known as the Republican candidates and then there was humiliation of having to acknowledge that fine old American institution called Congress belonged to us. Suffered some Obama disappointment until the alternatives were considered.  It is the year I gave up any interest in political involvement beyond voting. Better to send your money to Doctors without Borders or go to the casino!

 FAREWELLS: Finally, just like all of the TV news shows, I want to say good-bye to some fine people who left my circle of extended family and friends this year.

 My cousin’s husband and my friend, Otis, lumberjack, gold miner, rancher and storyteller…who always swore he was going to find me an old Minnesota lumberjack for a husband every time I came home.

Otis

 My hero Grace, political activist and head of ACLU for many years—who who was liable to raise her voice in any setting to proclaim what idiots we were for having elected that “goddamn George Bush.”

Grace

 My daughter-in-law’s mom, Sofia, a schoolteacher in the Philippines and a loving mom and grandmother during her years in the U.S. who worked so hard to see that all of her children had a chance for a more secure life than her beloved home could offer.

Sandra's mom, Sofia, dad Joe, Cynthia and Sandra--2009

 My brother and sister-in-law lost their dog Buddy from brutal disease. If you are not a dog person it might seem wrong to lump the loss of a pet in with the loss of people. If you are a dog person you know exactly why Buddy is listed here among the year’s lost loved ones—because to Marsha and Robert he was family.

Buddy

 

DON

 And finally, my sons’ father, Don. I met him in 1958 on McCoy AFB in Pinecastle, Florida. I was newly arrived from Minnesota with a job as the morning coffee girl at the NCO Club. He was an extraordinarily handsome young guy who responded to my “it’s really rainy out today” with “yeah, just like London.” I was 19 and immediately smitten—a cute guy who had traveled. (Well, actually he hadn’t but I did not know that until later!)

About the time we met

Back in the day...

We were married and had two healthy beautiful sons, moved from Florida to the Philippines and back to North Carolina.  Don was sent to Vietnam before the war was really underway where he became a base/village sheriff. We were next stationed at Holloman AFB in Alamogordo where our two towheaded sons ran wild around the base and I commuted to NMSU.

 The marriage ended soon after that. We have been divorced almost 40 years so I did not really know him anymore but he remained my brother’s best friend all these years.

 Don wrote poems, built a catamaran by himself, was a great cook and passed on a playful spirit to his sons.   

 Don loved motorcycles. Suffering from advanced emphysema, he nevertheless decided to take his Harley and oxygen tank and make a 75^th birthday trip to visit his son in New Mexico and then go on the his son’s in California.  He left Albuquerque early, heading down I-25 on his treasured bike and made it as far as Hatch where he apparently experienced a massive heart attack or stroke; he died almost instantly.

 Maybe this last act was foolhardy, but it was wonderfully audacious thing to do—a legacy of not giving in to circumstances he passed on to his boys.

Toward the end I suppose

 Happy New Year everyone! Obama in 2012 and world peace…yeah, right!

Bus-about

Bulgarian rain

September 19^th I think.

Enough. Long bus rides. Many. Long train and road taxi rides. Quite a few. All over the Balkans and more besides. On hot days and now cold days. Rough roads and super highways. Spotless toilets and squat toilets. Past picturesque villages and unsightly mines, Over mountains and under mountains. With bus drivers who are the impresarios of very entertaining little transportation kingdoms and taxi drivers who do not speak for 110 kilometers. Through slow and fast border checkpoints.

  I have paid my road travel dues and am switching to airplanes. Not that they are such a joy. But the toilets are better and, while the humiliation and discomfort are greater when flying, the duration is certainly shorter and the ability to get information when you get into the new place is greater.

 Yesterday. A bad, bad, bad, good, bad, good travel day. Didn’t sleep well, up at 5 am to get to Pristina bus station at 6. Staying in a very nice little room in a tiny hotel above a store where the hotel employees (a family) go home at night so when I can’t figure out how to operate the shower there’s no one to ask. I take a sort of splashing-about a running faucet bath of sorts. You would be surprised at the number of ingenious devices shower makers have created to make you want to stay at home with your own shower forever and ever.

 The weather has turned fall, cold, rainy, gray…my favorite other than the cold part. Bus to Sofia unheated. Even with four shirt/sweatshirt/sweater/pullover combination things it is chilly after a few hours.

 I arrive in Sofia without a hotel reservation, not worried because I know a couple of hotel names and there are always a bunch of taxi drivers on the street outside every bus station with many suggestions. NOT in Sofia. There are three guys none of whom speak English and no central area where I can turn on the computer and check some possibilities.

 Finally I  get one of the guys to find Art Otel in a guidebook. For 20 Euros, more than I paid for the ride from Pristina, we get here. It’s a sweet but cold room. I go to a little Bulgarian food buffet next door for a late lunch and the food is simple and beautiful and fresh and tasty. The hotel gives me a little heater—because I’m old and a wimp and I whine.

 I go out to buy some bananas and get totally lost. But the rain lets up and my neighborhood is the art/funky chic area of the city so finding my way about is a pleasure. I come back home to my berry tart and in-room cappuccino and lots of CNN International and rediscover how much I love doing this…for long moments and hours and sometimes even days.

 Good night.

Macedonian night

Walkabout II

 

Finally, the lime green I’ve been looking for

Bill and his adoring Kosovo Albanian public

Field of Blackbirds

I think it commemorates the battle and Tsar Lazar but I can’t be sure

Old Norwegian detective on the trail of historical bad guys

It really is the wild west of Europe out here

more out west

One of Enver’s bunkers

An Enver bunker–up close and personal

Really bad roads by the Montenegro-Albanian border

The world needs more pink houses

Nice photo

I left you in Sarajevo; I return to you from Pristina in the Republic of Kosovo. I can report several things. The cheap hotel situation is perfectly wonderful. How gorgeous is this funky little 35 euro room? We are not talking clean here; we’re talking retro funky with lime green sheets and an old fashioned bathtub. Kosovo’s my new favorite place…well not really.  

I am sorry to say that the pizza I ordered out for in a weak moment is just as bad as typical stateside pizza. I was hoping for something a little more Italian because of the Albanian-Italian connection. But you learn these things through extensive travel—do not order the pizza in Pristina.

 The Pres looking good

Bill Clinton is much loved here because of sending the bombs into Belgrade to stop Serbia’s genocidal attacks on Kosovo. More about that in the history lesson that follows. Sorry I just cannot resist as this is one of five or so sites I really wanted to and did visit on this trip.

 History, it’s good for you

Just returned from a drive out to the site of the 1389 Battle of Kosovo where the Turks defeated the Serbs leading to a few centuries of bloodshed and turmoil. Rebecca West’s classic Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (1941) describes Kossovo Polye, the Field of Blackbirds, like this:

Kossovo, more than any other historical site I know, arouses that desolation. It spreads peacefully into its vast, gentle distances, slow winds polishing it like a cloth passing over a mirror, turning the heads of the standing grain to the light. It has a look of innocence which is the extreme of guilt. For it is crowded with the dead, who died in more than their flesh, whose civilization was cast with them into their graves. It is more tragic even than its own legend, which with the dishonesty and obstinancy of a work of art, commemorates one out of several battles of Kossovo That battle which was fought under the leadership of Tsar Lazar in 1389, and placed the Serbs under the yoke of the Turks… “

 Kosovo was a part of Yugoslavia before its breakup and Serbia was intent on maintaining that control even though over 80% of the population is Albanian Muslim.

The infamous Serb leader, Slobodan Milošević, came to this very site in 1987 to make a rabble-rousing speech that is believed to have had a major role in inciting the Balkan wars of the 1990’s that involved both America and Europe and ultimately led to Bill Clinton’s statue happily smiling and waving on a downtown street corner.

 I became interested in all this when I read West’s book a few years ago and was quite excited to see both the monument to Tsar Lazar and the stretch of battlefield. West’s description still rings true I think though the giant hydroelectric plant literally pouring smoke over the famed field certainly casts a real and historical pall on the surroundings.

 Where was I? When last we spoke.

• Early morning bus from Sarajevo, long day to Podgorica, Montenegro. Spectacular wild mountain scenery. Odd smoky hotel but turned out perfectly ok because the open window and smoke from a nearby forest fire overwhelmed the smell of cigarette smoke. (17^th)
• Left Podgorica early for Shkoder on the Albanian side of the border. Hassle because you have to take cabs since the roads are so bad on both sides only a few big tour buses brave it. But driver on Albanian side great. Stayed in a luxury (by my standards—almost $100) hotel last night and hated it. Felt Vegasy. (18^th)
•  I booked the trip today from Shkoder to Prizren with same cab driver—again no regular buses. Albania once had a very crazy dictator named Enver Hoxha who built thousands of little concrete bunkers all over his country…the idea was that Albanians could barricade themselves inside and shoot the enemy—whoever they were. Saw several of the bunkers today. Good history day actually. Then I took the bus on in to Pristina. Happy tonight in Hotel Lyon. (19^th)

 Enough. To bed. Wish I were still reading Balkan history but I’ve pretty much given into my base instincts and am engrossed in Scandinavian murders. One’s true nature always comes through doesn’t it?

 ON THIS ENTIRE TRIP I HAVE HEARD AMERICAN-SPEAK EXACTLY ONCE! At the Hotel Moscow in Belgrade. Strange I think.

Walkabout

 

The crumbling grey concrete blocks of Soviet Eastern Europe

Country roads, Moldovan, Ukrainian style

Every town should have an orange building

“Polenta” field

Love these horse and wagon scenes

MY TABLE at the B&B in Suceava

Gaze deeply into my buttery depth

VERY early at the train station

Roma people still obvious sometimes

Train stations just simply look mysterious and romantic

Mom and son on the train to Timisoara

yellow and power lines and hills, nice

the sun goes down

Full moon over Romania

Moon over Timisoara

If I am not on a holiday or vacation or a fact-finding mission or a study trip what in the hell am I doing? I am on a walkabout. The dictionary (Merriam-Webster) defines walkabout as “a short period of wandering bush life engaged in by an Australian aborigine as an occasional interruption of regular work.”  How about…a short period of wandering around engaged in by a restless American woman as an occasional interruption of regular work. It is okay, I think.

 This is my fourteenth day in the Balkan region of the European world. I am in the hotel, Pansion Harmony, in the hills of Sarajevo. Down in the city center where I spent part of the day wandering and shopping it is beautiful and historic and lively. The problem is … I have now spent so many days in city centers that are “beautiful and historic and lively” that it is getting harder and harder to keep my level of enthusiasm as high as these vibrant places deserve.  The kind of city centers that we can only dream of in the US for the most part.

 The walkabout so far then: September day by day

• To Bucharest (3^rd)
• Arrive Bucharest (4^th)
• Sightsee Bucharest, arranging bus to Chisinau (5^th)
• LONG day’s bus to Chisinau (6^th)
• Chisinau walk. Museum. Afternoon bus to Odessa. Check into hotel of horrors, Zirka. (7th)
• Change hotels. LOVE Odessa (8^th)
• Odessa (9^th)
• Early bus, Odessa to Chisinau, cannot get connections on to Suceava so overnight Chisinau again.(10^th)
• Bus to Suceava, check in and dinner at B&B (11^th)
• Tour of Painted Monasteries of Bucovina (12^th)
• LONG train ride to Timisoara in hot dirty miserable train where I meet warm and friendly Romanians who feed me all day and we speak in something called “friend sign.” You know…where you smile and gesture and point and offer each other whatever you have. Overnight in Timisoara, unplanned originally (13^th)
• Second night in Timisoara, hard to get to Belgrade! (14^th)
• Early train to Belgrade, all day mini-walkabout in Belgrade, flight to Sarajevo.(15^th)
• Today in Sarajevo (16^th)

 For the record!

Doing it alone—but then aren’t all walkabouts alone? It is hard to maintain one’s level of energy and enthusiasm when traveling alone. With others you have someone to push you along when spirits flag, to remark upon at day’s end, etc. By the same token, traveling with someone else brings their moods and biases into the picture which can change your perceptions of a place or experience drastically…it’s all a trade-off of course.