Jerez, May 19-25, 2014

May 19–25

JEREZ

We wanted to come to Jerez de Frontera because it is the home to the actual Royal Spanish Riding Academy, the original school of the Vienna Lipizzans. It’s about a three hour bus ride south from Seville, into the heart of Andalucía.  

We’ve booked an apartment in a traditional Andalucían home, in a quiet neighborhood close to the city center. The two-story, stucco home is a collection of apartments where an extended family would typically live, around a pretty interior courtyard. Instead of the relentless IKEA, we have a cozy décor with Moroccan pillows, dark wood tables and heavy shutters. It looks very old world and traditional. The listing notes “No practicing Flamenco in the apartment,” which we thought was a joke, until we were walking through the streets and actually heard someone practicing Flamenco in their apartment. Not something you’d want to hear upstairs.

Our host, Sebastian, grew up in Colorado and works arranging vacations for a boutique travel agency, where his territory is Portugal, Spain and Morocco. It was fun to talk with him, and he had some wonderful suggestions for the best experiences in Jerez. His wife, Carmen, was shyer and quieter, while her Pomeranian, Poncho, was not.

As we walked out through the city in the afternoon, we had our first real experience of the dreaded Dead Zone. The city is vewy, vewy quiet. All the shops are shut down and boarded up. Pretty much everything in the city closes down between 2pm and 5pm, which, unfortunately, is prime time for us. We make our way around the city, trying to get tickets for a horse show, a bodega tour, flamenco show, but anything we try is closed. We’ll need to make some adjustments to accommodate the local customs.

The city is charming and attractive, full of parks and public squares and quiet neighborhoods, with orange trees lining the streets. The orange trees tempt us with heavy fruit hanging just out of reach. We spend a good twenty minutes circling one tree, like feral animals on a stakeout, trying our reach on every low branch, hopping up, shaking the limbs, poking with sticks, maddeningly futile attempts to get ourselves an orange. We move on. They’re probably sour anyways.

By the second day, we’re in the groove and out early. Now the streets are humming with life. The old Mercado is packed with shoppers, and surrounded by street-vendor tents. All through the courtyard are tables set up to sell garlics and caracoles, bags and bags of the little snails. Inside, the Mercado of Jerez is famous for the fish market, and it is one of the best we’ve seen. We stand mesmerized watching one merchant carve up huge fishes for the customers, while others show off some flair as they fillet merluza, or hake, waving the knife with a flourish. There are over thirty stands, selling every kind of fish and shellfish from tiny baby eels to massive tunas.

We’re not going to carry a bag of fish around all day, so we move on and head to the equestrian center. When we arrive, tour buses are dropping off piles of tourists for the noon performance. We’re planning on just getting tickets for a training session, but as the show is about to begin, we decide to go along. We are delighted to find that, despite the many groups attending, we have superb seats at the center of the ring – the fifty yard line, as it were. The arena is not as glamorous as Vienna (what is?) but it’s a very attractive place, not too large, and all the seats are close to the ring.

The Andalucían horses are smaller and lighter boned than the Lipizzans, with their Arabian heritage fully evident. The breed’s signature extravagant mane is beautifully thick, long and wavy. Fun for the grooms, I think. The horses execute dressage movements to music, making complicated team maneuvers. Next, a performance of carriage teams, and finally some “airs above the ground,” always a crowd-pleaser. The arena is located on parklike grounds, with a mansion and small museum. There are several Przewalski's horses kept here also, a few of the mere 1500 said to exist. They are beautiful! It’s very exciting to pet a Przewalski’s snout.

As it turns out, the Sandeman Sherry bodega is just next door, so after our horse show, we take a tour. It’s terribly overpriced, we think, since most of it consists of a mediocre video and some wall murals of peasants, vineyards and barrels, but we enjoy seeing the rooms full of sherry barrels and learning something about the production. We have a tasting, sharing our table with a gruff Italian man on a business trip, and three American men on a road trip. It’s fun to chat in English for a bit.

The city is full of these sherry bodegas, as they are called, essentially blocks-long, low warehouses full of barrels of aging sherry. They fill the air with a fruity-oaky aroma. Some are only known in Spain, others are major brands: Harvey’s Bristol Cream, Sandeman, Tio Pepe. They don’t look like much from the street, but once inside, there’s usually an elegant courtyard and garden.

Sebastian has told us about a small bar that has Flamenco performances, so we hunt through the streets to find it. When we do, it’s closed for the afternoon, naturally. However, we hear music and singing down the alley. There’s a tiny bar, a bodega selling sherry for a local producer, with a lively crew of certified local barflies having a fine time. One woman calls us in, enthusiastically giving up her barstool for me. We order the special, a half bottle of sherry with four appetizers of Spanish prosciutto, for all of 3 Euros. The singing and dancing erupts through the group, they all know the songs. As we pour our glasses of sherry, a third glass slowly slides over to us, as our neighbor begs a small taste for himself, which we happily share. We’re treated to more impromptu performances of singing and dancing as a result. They’re all our brothers now, chatting and laughing, not a dozen teeth among them all.

The next day, Sebastian helps us out and makes an appointment for a tour at the Bodega Tradicíon, a family-owned sherry company. The visit includes a bonus tour of their private art collection, including Goya, El Greco and Picasso. We learn more about the sherry-making process, which is essentially all about aging. The bodegas rarely make their own wine, they purchase it from nearby wineries. It’s blended with alcohol, brandy, and sugars, and sorted out by the sherry master who decides which wines will become which type of sherry: fino, amontillado, cream or Pedro Ximenes, a very sweet style sherry. The sherries are barreled for several years. Every year, portions are drawn off the oldest barrels to bottle, and replaced with portions from newer barrels, mixed to refill the older barrels for a continuous blend of old and new, creating flavor consistency rather than differences in vintage as is done with wines. At the end of our tour we enjoy a tasting that includes some 50 year old sherry that sells for more than $300 a bottle. We’ll not see the likes of this stuff any time soon.

Cádiz, “the oldest continuously-inhabited city in Spain and one of the oldest in southwestern Europe” is a mere 40 minute train ride away, so it makes for a perfect day trip. The city was founded by the Phoenicians, and pokes out from the Iberian Peninsula into the Atlantic like a little thumb. The old city itself, surprisingly, is isolated from the ocean by a great sea wall that wraps around the city. We can walk along it, and look down over the high stone wall to the water, but it’s impossible to get close to the water, except for at the small public beach. We see lots of local guys fishing off the wall, using big chucks of stale bread as bait. There are big fish in the water, although we couldn’t tell if they were more like sea trout or like carp. Overall, though, the city is interesting, historical and charming. There are color-coded paths painted on the sidewalks, with informative brochures from the Tourist Office to  follow each path, green, purple, orange or blue. A fun idea. We walk through the Medieval district, find a pedestrian only street full of cafes, and enjoy a lunch of fresh grilled fish, before hopping back on our train home.

The next day, we need to have a Flamenco experience in this Flamenco Trail city. Sebastian has recommended a small bar, El Pasaje, for an authentic, non-touristy show. We find the place, and are just in time for the afternoon performance. It’s a very small joint, a standing-only rough wooden bar, barrels of sherry filling the wall behind it, and a room big enough for three or so barrels to stand against, and maybe five small sturdy wooden tables before a little stage platform. We grab a table right in front of the stage, for which we pay 20 Euros, including sherries and tapas: fine Iberian ham and Spanish cheese. As the customers start jostling in, the bartenders pour out sherry as fast as they can into small non-stemmed glasses, filled to the brim. The performers are a short, robustly stout, elegant woman and her guitarist accompanist, a sensitive, angular, stringy man. As he waits to perform, he files his long fingernails, getting them just right for the guitar. They begin, both sitting. She performs her songs with a loud, fierce, rough passion, songs of lost love, pain and anguish. She sits until the last song of her set when she explodes onto her feet stamping and waving her arms, bringing the song to a grand crescendo finale. It’s a great show.

7 Videos Included this Post

Seville, May 12-18, 2014

May 12 – 18, 2014

SEVILLE

Our bus ride from Madrid to Seville is about 6 hours, in a very roomy and comfortable bus, passing over the mostly flat open dry Spanish landscape, often filled to the horizons with orchards of olive trees. At one point we pass the blinding light tower of the Gemasol solar field.

Seville is built along the Guadalquivir River, with several elegant and modern bridges defining the cityscape as the bus comes into the station. What strikes us, though, is the gorgeous canopies of jacaranda trees that line the river walk and most of the main avenues of the city. High, lacy and in full bloom, they decorate the streets with an amazing, rich, lilac-indigo color. They shade the boulevards that are filled with beautiful 18^th and 19^th Century buildings, decorated with iron balustrades and painted tiles.

The city is made up mostly of this style building, 4 or 5 stories high, sprawling up to the low hills, whitewashed and hot. We’re surprised, then, to find our apartment building, along the riverfront, sticking up a good 9 stories high. We have the penthouse apartment, or as it’s called here, the attic.

This is actually one of the best apartments we’ve had so far. The terrace is about twice the size of the living room, overlooking the river and out to the low mountains in the west – perfect for enjoying the sunsets. We are the only apartment at the top floor, and the apartment itself is modern and compact. Interestingly, nearly all the wall surfaces – ceilings, bathroom, doors – are covered with a photo collage. They seem to be mostly pictures from magazines, Vogue, National Geographic, and similar, mostly faces or figures (Brad Pitt makes several appearances) an interesting mix, a little chaotic, but it works. Our terrace does get the sun, unrelenting sun in the afternoon, so we have to wait for sunset to enjoy our dinner outdoors.

Seville is an interesting mix of young and old, tourists and locals. The river is navigable from the ocean, so the cruise ships can actually come up to the city itself. They drop everyone off at the Cathedral Square, where they have just enough time to visit the Cathedral, the palace, the bullfighting arena, and perhaps take a short riverboat cruise too. They totally clog up the place, but don’t venture much farther.

But besides the tourists, the city has a very sporty personality. We look out to the riverfront to see a continuous view of runners, bikers, skaters, strollers, rowers and kayakers. The bike paths are marked all through the city, which is fairly flat and well-suited for biking, even in the heat.

The Cathedral here is beautiful and dramatic, with gigantic carved walls filling the altars. There is a grand statute of pallbearers at the tomb of Christopher Columbus, a surprise to us to find him here. The first several stories of the bell tower are the remnants of the original mosque on this site. Instead of steps, there is a brick rampway to the top, so that the muezzin could ride up on his horse. There’s a beautiful view of the city at the tower, and WE CAN SEE OUR HOUSE!

We decide to take a river cruise to see if we can escape the oven-heat of the city for an hour. As we wait to take off, the boat fills to the brim with tourists, all hurrying up to the upper deck. We decide to stay below, at a window seat nearly touching the water. We are the only ones in the room. The five-language tour narration is stunningly lame. If you happen to need the Portuguese version, the described site is long gone by the time you hear it. At one point, the narrator points out “The bridge before us is in the Guinness Book of World Records…” We’re waiting, waiting, waiting, but no further information is provided. We cruise along upriver for about 30 minutes, and WE CAN SEE OUR HOUSE!

We do learn that the island park across the river from our apartment is the site of the 1992 Expo, with a number of the pavilions still there. We make a day trip to walk over, and find a nice park and river walk, but the pavilions are all closed and empty. At the end of the riverside trail is a pretty ugly squatters’ camp, in the shadow of the construction site of an incredibly hideous giant fifty-story office tower, sticking up over the historic city skyline like something much worse than a sore thumb. We’re told it’s supposed to represent a raised torch, but believe me, it does not.

So, finding no access to the Aerospace Pavilion, Navigation Pavilion, Shindler’s Tower, or any other such thing as mentioned in our river cruise, we head back to the city, to the bullfight arena. We are not interested in seeing an actual bullfight, but a tour of the area and museum is available, so we try it. We have a small group of 6, and listen while the guide gives her talk in Spanish, then English. The ring is quite attractive, with ochre sand and brick red seats. The small museum is interesting, with beautiful small portraits of the prized bulls, some classic “suits of lights”, and a collection of Goya prints.

One of the buildings that is still in use on the island in the river is a former 13^th C. monastery, converted in the 19^th C. to a tile factory, and now open as a very interesting contemporary art center attached to a university, surrounded by lovely gardens and an olive grove. Some examples of decorative tiles are still in place throughout the compound. We spend several hours there, then walk back across the river into the neighborhoods. We stop at a little bistro for a plate of caracoles, tiny snails cooked in a broth, that you pull from their shells with a toothpick. It’s caracole season, and every corner café has a sign out: Hay Caracoles!

We walk to the Plaza España, a grand plaza built for the 1929 Expo, now a city administration office and popular tourist site in a sprawling, tree-filled city park. It’s a huge red stone building arching around a lavish fountain, with decorative porcelain banisters, railings and lampposts throughout. The tourist carriage rides all trot through here, with their elegantly sleek Spanish carriage horses. Another day, we rent bicycles here and spend and hour breezing through the park, enjoying the shade.

In Seville, we see our first parking-spot panhandlers. From our terrace vantage point, we watch a couple guys in the avenue below, casually milling around. When a parking spot along the curb opens up, one guy stands in front of it gesturing to the passing traffic with his open palm, “Here’s a spot…Parking spot open here…” Soon enough, a car will pull in, and of course you have to give the guy a euro or so for showing you the spot. We haven’t seen this elsewhere, but is seems like it would be a good bit to try in Manhattan.

One of the less-visited attractions in Seville is the Camera Obscura, set up in a tower not too far from our apartment. We find it easily, and enjoy an agua con gas in the nice café at the tower plaza. This is a popular spot for local families, and there are at least two big parties going on. The outside tables are set for about 50 people, with a whole row of tables for the children. We guess that it’s a birthday party when one boy comes in dressed in a fancy sailor suit. But another boy also has a sailor suit, so maybe it’s just the fashion. All the children, ages about 5 to 10, are dressed so nicely, with the girls in fancy little sundresses and hair bows.

Our turn in the tower comes up, and we join 4 others for our little tour. The gentleman running the thing is very passionate about his work, and has a good time showing off the device. We see a round canvas of 5 or so feet in diameter, suspended on cables in a darkened room. Above us, there is a mirror reflecting images onto the canvas. The guide swivels the disk around, where we have a very clear projection of the city. He points out the Cathedral, which he tells us is the 3rd largest in Europe, after St. Peter’s in Rome and St. Paul’s in London. (I sort of think the Doma in Milan is bigger, but I didn’t argue). He shows us the Palace, the bridges, the terraces full of laundry, and WE CAN SEE OUR HOUSE!

Afterwards, we walk through the city once more, passing a great structure that everyone calls the Mushroom, a modern architectural construction that’s a plaza, a restaurant, a lookout, a big whatsit. There’s an in-line skater freestyle contest going on, with kids of all ages and music. The skaters weave and spin through a course of plastic cups. Makes you want to start skating too. We watch for a while, then continue on past the Cathedral to the Real Alcazar, the Royal Palace and gardens. This palace is an example of Moorish style, very different from the European palaces we’ve seen so far. The arches and walls are embellished with geometrically carved plaster decorations and painted tiles. There’s a small collection of historical tiles in one area that is very interesting. The rooms and grounds are sprawling and mazelike. We wander through enjoying the experience, until we are ready to leave and can’t find our way out. Lost in the Alcazar…

Back at our apartment, we can hear throbbing electronic music and crowds of people shouting from way across the river at the Stadium, where a festival of colors has been going on all afternoon. It’s a music fest, but like the Indian Holi fest (which, if you look it up on Wikipedia, sounds like a major fun time), there is a schedule of color-throwing for the day. We are slightly tempted to go over, but it’s probably sold out, and its been going on for ten hours already and the place must be a wreck, and its going to continue all night long (it actually does), and we’re not that tempted.

7 Videos Included

Madrid, May, 2014

May 5-11, 2014

MADRID

We arrived in Madrid only slightly jet-lagged, making our way easily through the clean and modern metro system to our neighborhood, a lively quarter with a fun mix of residents: old, young, African, Arabic, Chinese, little kids, white-haired señoras, college students, couples with little dogs, young mothers with babies, everybody moving about their day. We have a little IKEA-styled apartment with a view to the airshaft, not to the street as we had hoped, but it is nice and quiet, and we are only a few blocks from the major museums. We stop at the corner café for a sandwich, and get our first tapas when the waiter places a dish of potato salad on the table while we wait for our order. Well, ok…

We aren’t far from the Plaza Mayor, the main plaza of the old city. In the early afternoon, it’s not at all crowded, so we can enjoy the architecture and the open space. There are a few buskers working, somewhat dispiritedly maybe: a guy in a Mickey Mouse suit, another waving a squeaky noise wand. One of the more clever bits is an Invisible Man, a white hat and glasses floating over a dapper white suit. One gimmick is a goat-puppet thing, a cape of long silver strands with a goat head, worn over a kneeling figure who shakes and bows in a goat-like manner. A second goat-puppet works an opposite corner. Now, if they’d team up and have a big goat-puppet battle, we might give them a couple Euros.

We stop for a cold seltzer water, and get a plate of olives! This tapas thing is kind of fun.  Later, at the little restaurant where we stop for dinner, we get a dish of small ham and cheese sandwiches…and a plate of potato chips. Dinner gets to be redundant around here.

As I said, our apartment is quiet. So quiet, we sleep for 12 hours our first night. We can hardly wake ourselves up. But the city awaits! We walk to tour the Royal Palace, one of the most sumptuous that we’ve seen so far. We find the city full of lovely shady parks and charming 19^th century architecture. We stop at the very touristy San Miguel Mercado, where scores of honeymooners from South Carolina are enjoying the fabulous tapas. The place is just too inviting, so we forgive all the “other” tourists for living and find ourselves a table and a couple beers.

The next day, we visit the Prada, one of the world’s great museums and home to most of Spain’s great art. The building and the layout is similar to the National Gallery in DC, with plenty of opportunities to find oneself completely and happily lost. OK, maybe not Bob, but most other people would be happily lost. There are several artists working on reproductions in the galleries; a few are just astonishingly talented. We enjoy the Goyas, Velasquez, El Grecos, Bosch and Breugels, too. There is a special exhibition of huge tapestries designed by Rubens, and one of El Greco’s library with his own notes and commentary on the margins.

After the Prado, we walk through the acres of the Parc de Retiro, Madrid’s Central Park. It’s here that we some of the real charm of the city – the people who live and work here participate fully in the city, enjoying the many parks and plazas as part of their daily lives. We don’t feel like tourists at all, even when we order a pitcher of “sangria” at the café.

On Friday, we go to the Regina Sophia Museum, with a more contemporary art collection. The Museum is pretty gigantic, with a huge modern wing that contains an auditorium, library and offices connected to a 19^th C building with 4 floors around an open courtyard. We keep working our way around and through, and never seem to find an end. The collection here includes Miro, Calder and Picasso, with one great room for Guernica, full of art pilgrims. We’ve actually come at a time when the crowds are small, so we can stand right at the front for as long as we like. The adjoining room shows related works by Picasso, smaller studies and figures, which I enjoy quite a lot.

Saturday is a gorgeous spring day. We walk over to another museum, the Thyssen-Borne Misza, a private collection donated to the state, housed in an attractive building with red marble floors and terra-cotta walls. In the entry, there are larger than life portraits of King Philip and Queen Sophia, she dressed in an elegant cream lace column gown. On the next wall we have similar portraits of the Baron Thyssen-Borne, with more medals on him than Michael Phelps, with his wife Camilla, who’s done up like a Kardashian GlamorShot, in a high-fashion one-shoulder gown, with her precious Maltese at her feet, artistically presented in an ultra-slimming side pose. But enough about her…

We are just lucky enough to attend at the last day of an exhibition of Cezanne landscapes and still lifes, from museums and private collections all around the world. The premise of the exhibit is that Cezanne created his still life arrangements in compositions that essentially mirror the landscapes that he so loved. Placing the works together illustrates the similarities. We like thinking about Cezanne carrying his tote of paints and canvas up the mountain paths every day, painting away in the summer shade. The rest of the museum is a survey of art history, with a little of everything, Medieval to Modern, room by room.  One area shows the hyper-realistic pre-photo photorealism, aka trompe l’oiel, so popular in the 17^th Century. At the sight of one painting of a pantry table full of fresh seafood all ready for the cook, with a big old tabby stretching out her paw to filch an oyster, I shout out GET OFF THE TABLE!!! and scare everybody in the room.

After the museum, we walk through the city to the outskirts, following a walk along the shallow Manzanares river, to what is known as the “Oldest Cider House in Madrid, maybe Spain” Casa Mingo. It’s a big, dark tavern, the walls lined with bottles and barrels of their own cider, and a big oven roasting chicken, the specialty of the house. The place is so empty, we fear it may be closed. There are, however, about a dozen of those older gentlemen European waiters hanging about the bar area, paying us absolutely no mind. So far, we’re just lookers, not customers. We wander through the place and finally settle on a table near the entry. Now, a waiter comes over and takes our order for cider and chicken. Of course. Just as he leaves us, a great busload of tour travelers marches in and fills the room. They all sit at the pre-set tables, and the waiters animate themselves to bring in plates of ham, bowls of bread and bottles of wine and cider, then full plates with whole chickens. These tour people take their meals seriously. They seem to be Dutch or German: grey-haired, tall, gangly-thin, dour. They work at their dinners, with a muted hum of conversation in the air. We are entertained by the sight of them. How can these thin people eat so much? How is there so much wine and so little laughter? The mysteries of life.

We take our long walk back home, and coming down our block as the night starts getting dark, we encounter one of the pleasures of Madrid – EVERYONE is out on the street, sitting on the benches, filling the cafés, standing on the sidewalks. They’re all just talking, drinking wine or coffee, having conversations and socializing. It’s just so pleasant.

We notice a certain hairstyle showing up on a lot of the younger people, one that you might describe as a Rasta-Mullet, with the forward part of the hair fairly short, often shaved high around the sides, maybe with a little bang or pompadour effect at the front, then at the back, a Reggae party goin’ on mon, with a thick hank of Rastafarian dreadlocks hanging down the back to the waist.

Saturday, we take another long river walk to a spot where a gondola ride carries you high over a fairly non-descript part of the city, to a great expanse of rugged parkland full of trails through low, arid pine woods, and not much else. There is a restaurant at the end of the ride, and an amusement park zoo of some sort nearby. People come here for the gondola ride and picnics. Most of the children end up in the game room of the restaurant.

Our walk home takes us into a park with a relocated Egyptian temple from 2000 BC, a gift to Madrid from the Egyptian government for some reason we forget. It’s weird, but fun. A little further through the park, we happen upon a big statue of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, a very popular photo op for the tourists, rubbing the brass burro’s snout all shiny.

On Sunday, we head through the city streets to find an exhibition center from our guidebook, and are blasted by the sound of about 1000 Harley Davidson motorcycles enjoying a major rally. They all swarm by, waving and honking, then pull over, filling a street near us, and hop off the bikes for a group photo in front of an Arc de Triomphe style monument. Then they’re off again, roaring into the city.

 We continue past the National Library and Archeology Museum to an exhibit on the Chinese Terracotta Army, which is interesting, but mostly made up of copies of the statues, and not very Spanish.

 Videos

Nov 2nd, Cute Baby Red Panda

11/2     Saturday

We visit to the zoo, where the animals are enjoying the cool fall air. The new baby Red Panda is bouncing all over his patient but beleaguered mother Red Panda. He is impossibly cute, like a cartoon or fluffy toy come to life. He stumbles adorably as he trots around the habitat. He nearly brings his audience to tears when he pounces on his mother’s tail and bites at it like some pretend prey. He rolls on his back and shows his little white belly with his paws patting at the air. We can’t stop watching him, and only tear ourselves away because we have to get home before dark.

1 Video Included

Cute Baby Red Panda

Oct 29th, Back Home

Bank home!
            We feel a little disorganized and disoriented, but happy to be back. We’ll take our time getting everything put away, picking up our routines, and settling in.
            We can take a moment to think about some of the experiences that were unexpected in small ways, things that make you feel the differences in being home in the USA, or away. For instance, it was impossible to find zip-lock plastic bags! We had a supply with us, for carrying liquids or small toiletries, but when we wanted some, we looked high and low in grocery stores, five-and-dime stores, hardware stores, everywhere and anywhere, with no luck.
            The types of medications that are available are confusing. Acetaminophen, or Tylenol, isn’t sold in most of Europe as far as we could tell. A person needs a prescription for simple hydrocortisone cream. As we packed, I felt a little OCD for bringing a whole sack of our usual vitamins, with extra calcium and vitamin D, but I could have used even more. When we ran out, we found out that simple multivitamins cost about $1 each, or more than thirty dollars for a month’s supply. The pharmacies are much more like holistic medicine centers, with all kinds of homeopathic remedies and herbal supplements. They also sell lots of high-end skin care products. But typically, if you need any kind of medicine, even just cough syrup or aspirin, you have to ask the pharmacist. These things are not available on the shelves for self-service.
            It was fun to see dogs showing up in unusual (for us) places. Chihuahuas in shoulder bags, hounds on the bus, a terrier sleeping under a café table. Usually dogs were welcome pretty much everywhere, with muzzles and leashes required in most cases. The dogs were all well-behaved, too, something we couldn’t say for many of the dogs we encounter on our hikes in the States. Not that we blame the dogs.
            The apartments we stayed in, mostly in Italy, were secured like bank vaults with steel doors, quadruple-lock bolts, steel braces and locked gates. It certainly felt secure, but also made us think about what was the need behind the hyper security.
            Almost all of the restaurant menus would include a vegetarian option, although that was occasionally ham and cheese.
            When we started planning our trip, we felt that we’d be in an environment different from what we’ve experienced before not so much because we’d be in new countries, but because we’ve never spent as much time travelling through major cities. We’re in the national capitals, not the backcountry. So much of the travel advise one encounters emphasizes the big-city dangers of scam artists, pick-pockets, kidnappers, untrustworthy cab drivers, dangerous side streets, bogus offers for rooms or tours, gangs of gypsy thieves, children begging while they steal your wallet, political unrest erupting into riots, anger towards Americans in general. We experienced exactly none of it.
            The people we met were, in every case, delighted to learn that we were Americans, and so pleased that we were taking a trip through their country. We saw Roma people many times, usually with several children with them. Sometimes they were selling small items, or begging, or working, but they were never harassing or threatening to anyone. We walked all over the cities we stayed in, many times off the main streets, sometimes into the less affluent or less populated parts of the city (although we were never lost because Bob has his maps, of course.) If anyone approached us, it was to inquire if we needed directions. On a crowded metro train, a stranger tapped Bob on the shoulder and advised him to keep his bag in front of him where he could keep it secure.
            Often, people at home would express concern about us going into Eastern Europe, especially Bosnia and Serbia, since the war seems so current. We didn’t have much more information about those countries beyond the news of their awful wars. We found the cities to be modern, safe, and full of interesting and cosmopolitan people. The history of the region is complex and palpable, from the Middle Ages to the present. There are unresolved issues there, well beyond the scope of our experience, but, again, we were welcomed warmly and treated with great hospitality in every encounter.

Oct 28th, Frankfurt to USA

10/28   Monday
            Heading home! Our flight is at noon, plenty of time to get up and out. No issues as we get our train to the airport and work our way through security. Our seats on the plane are pretty comfortable, just two together, and the plane is maybe half full. Each seat has its own video, so we can watch movies or tv or listen to music. So everything is pretty quiet for the next eight hours.
            We arrive at Philadelphia with five hours to wait for our flight home. We almost need five hours to get through customs and security again! Several international flights seem to have landed together, and the place is very crowded. We’re making our way through the queue when an adorable little ICE beagle comes up to Bob & sits, happily pawing at his tote bag. Hmmm. “Any fruit Sir?” Fortunately Bob had declared his bananas and ham sandwich, so we are merely diverted to the Agriculture lane, where everything is mercilessly discarded. Good Dog!
            Getting through the scanners causes all sorts of anxiety for people trying to make a connecting flight. We let a family with two babies go ahead of us, setting off a loud stream of prayers from a woman behind us. Apparently God will make sure she gets on her plane.
            After our flight in darkness, we arrive safely home from our long trip. My mother, who has been waiting for this day the whole time, is anxiously waiting for us to deplane. She greets us with relief and a hug and off we go.

Oct 27th, Frankfurt

10/27   Sunday
            We have a relaxing catching-up sort of day. Bob scouts out the train station and airport layout to make sure we have everything figured out for departure tomorrow while I stay in the hotel and work on this journal. The weather is very changeable, almost sunny, then almost stormy.
            We don’t get out until late afternoon, and by then it’s a beautiful fall evening, with a light breeze over the Main River, and clouds picking up the pinks and purples of the setting sun. We walk along the riverfront park, with all the others out enjoying their Sunday. There was a big marathon in the city today, so people with finishing medals and running tights are all around. We find a little stone storefront selling coffees and beers, so we stop for a couple nice weissibers and sit at a picnic table to watch the river for a while. A tugboat cruises slowly by, blasting some heavy metal hair band music for all to enjoy. Can’t place the band though, not Guns n Roses, maybe Poison or White Snake.
            We continue on to our restaurant, Dem Germalten Haus, for dinner. The place is full of locals watching a soccer game, but we find a table in one of the back rooms, really cozy. The whole restaurant is done in rustic maple wood, full of ruddy faced, white haired Germans, with lots of tables full of young people too, and it’s a big place. The waiter is working his “Mad Waiter” shtick, and says “Eight o’clock, I need the table! Eight!” But it’s only six, so we have plenty of time. We order our pork chops and applewine, and we are set for the evening.

1 Video Included

Frankfurt