Turkey Two

TURKEY TWO
October, 2010

Things to Like, things that are annoying, about Turkey

I’m getting to like cucumbers, tomatoes, feta cheese and olives for breakfast. It’s kind of like having a Greek salad--without the onions.

Free tea. After a meal at most Turkish restaurants you are offered a free glass of cay. Pronounced “chai” as the c has a little tail that makes it a “ch.” Acik cay means you want it half water and half tea, because otherwise it is very strong. It comes in a tulip shaped glass of three or four ounces, with two lumps of sugar on the saucer. You must hold the rim to drink it. What a nice custom.

Tourists are not usually offered real coffee. Somehow they have the idea that we want Nescafe, and that’s what we get. Real Turkish coffee, strong and in a small cup, you have to go and find in a café.

Most of the pension bathrooms have showers that are on hoses fastened at shower height just randomly stuck somewhere in the small room with a drain in the floor. There is no shower stall per se. The toilet gets sprayed, or the sink or everything. Occasionally the space is so small you cannot sit facing forward on the toilet. In addition, the rooms are usually a step up from the bedroom. In one place, it was two steps up. We both missed the first step more than once, as it was hard to see and you just are not expecting it. There do not seem to be building codes for minimal requirements.

Which reminds me of a general irritation, which is floor levels. One constantly must contend with changes in floor level from inside to out, or room to room, or sometimes within a room. Stairs too have unpredictable heights--one staircase can have several different heights of risers. This is most disconcerting to feet that think they can predict the depth of the next step based on the one just previous. We’ve stumbled and tripped and almost fallen any number of times, and are grateful to so far have remained upright. It makes us appreciate the oversight we have at home that assumes such unconformities are dangerous, which they are, and regulates them generally out of existence.

Turkish buses. They are comfortable, spacious, clean, reliable, frequent, convenient. The bus stations are often far from the center of town, but individual bus companies will collect you from your hotel and take you to the station, and the reverse, in minibuses--the procedure being called “servis.” A host serves tea, Nescafe, fruit juice, colas, sodas and water as well as sweet packaged cookies or cakes on long distance buses.. They stop for meals on occasion, but often at a company owned restaurant where the prices are inflated. We’ve been on buses that went four hours without a stop, and there is not a toilet on most of them. Smaller towns are served by a dolmus, a minibus, usually from a stop close to the center of town. You can get just about anywhere in Turkey by public bus--and in a timely manner. Costs are not dirt cheap, but moderate: $20 to go about 200 kilometers.

Baklava. Bakeries make lots of greasy, heavy sweets, but they also do a big variety of baklavas--called something else depending on the flavor: walnut, pistachio, almond and many more. All are the usual honey-based oozing confections, and delicious, but best taken in small doses.,

Turkish Delight. Turns out this is a powdered sugar covered gelatin candy in a huge variety of flavors and prices. We’ve bought a sort of generic flavor in a grocery for as little as $3 a kilo, but it’s usually more like $16 a kilo--though you generally don’t want a kilo, but 100 or 200 grams. My favorite, though I’ve only tasted a few flavors, is “the sultan,” which is coconut and pistachio, or at least that was what it was called in Selcuk. George likes lemon.

Olive oil. We love olive oil. But it’s a bit of a shock to go from thinking that, as Dr. Joel Fuhrman admonishes, a teaspoon will do on your salad, to having things cooked in oil that, if it is measured at all, must be in cups. On our recent “Blue Voyage” in the Mediterranean off Fethiye, our captain Ahmet was also the cook, and had learned in local big hotels. He knew how to make omelets, which was a treat, as usually the only eggs we’ve eaten have been hard boiled. However, he cooked the omelets in copious amounts of oil, negating, somewhat, their delectability. One dish I love, except for the oil factor, is something called “Imam Fainted.” It’s called this, we hear, either because the Imam fainted from delight at this marvelous dish, or because it required the use of so much olive oil. An eggplant is halved, its center scooped out and mixed with ground meat, this is mixed with spices and cooked in oil, stuffed into the shell of the eggplant, and the whole is simmered in olive oil until done.

Beds: Maybe if we were staying in hotels with any stars at all we wouldn‘t have this complaint, but the small pensions universally buy mattresses that are, I believe, an innerspring style that “firm“ doesn‘t begin to describe. Besides a rigidity that will put your arm to sleep if you are on your side, you risk getting poked with a spring. We remedy this somewhat by traveling with ultra light Thermarest mattresses--after bone jarring experiences sleeping in Asia.. Usually the pillows are okay, but occasionally they feel like they have about as much give as a basketball.

A Wallet Found

Recently we set off on a seven kilometer hike to a town over the mountain from Fethiye to Kaya. The trail was a section of the Lycian Way. There was a road to the town, and we could have taken a dolmus, but we wanted to train up a bit for some more hiking on the long distance trail we hoped to do--should the weather improve. We walked a kilometer or so on a road before we got to the trailhead, and Geo found a wallet on the ground, its contents strewn about. We gathered up all the little scraps and looked through the pile. There was a national photo ID card, a credit card, various receipts, and tucked in the wallet was 500 lira--$350. Whoa! We puzzled over what to do. We were a little afraid that if we just turned it over to the police, the money might not get back to the young man in the picture. But there was no telephone number. How could we find him? We asked Omer, our hotel man, and he felt the police would be best. Geo went to the main station. There was no one there who spoke English, so he could not explain to the guard outside, who would not let him in. Finally we went to the tourist office, and there one of the staff who did speak English went with us to a police station nearby. She and the officer went through the receipts and found that the boy had just paid for a driver’s ed class. They called the school, got his phone number, called him, and he said he’d be right over. George was pleased, for he wanted to hand the boy the wallet and the money himself, to know he’d truly gotten it. Twenty minutes later he arrived, and Geo gave him his things and shook his hand. He kept telling us thank you. A police staffer came out and in halting English said to us the boy was very lucky that we had found his wallet, and that he had a whole month’s pay in the wallet when he lost it. We wish we could have conversed with him, to find out how he could have lost it, and how long ago, but we had to be satisfied only with knowing he’d gotten it back. That, and I took his photo with George.

The Lycian Way
With a remarkable effort, a British woman (now a Turkish citizen) named Kate Clow has gotten the Turkish government to recognize and support a long distance hiking trail is the southern most part of Turkey sometimes called Lycia or Likya after the people who were early inhabitants and builders in stone, often in harbor settlements. She put together the system using a hodgepodge collection of goat herders’ trails, ancient links between towns, contemporary dirt roads, and a few created trails. It stretches from Fethiye in the west to Antalya in the east, and covers about 500 kilometers. When the route intersects major roads, there is a distinctive yellow sign describing the two destinations at hand. Along the path, there is a system of way markers, which are two small stripes, red and white, painted on rocks, trees or poles. Wilderness purists will cringe, but it is really great to have these guiding marks. When you come to a fork, often a red x on a rock let‘s you know which is NOT the way to go. It must be difficult in the extreme to hike the whole thing, for the route goes relentlessly up and down the contours of this rugged, mountainous coast, and it’s rough, rocky, narrow at times, often steep, brushy with the thorniest of shrubs, mainly far from any fresh water, extremely hot in summer with very little shade, and without huts or organized camping. However, it does pass through small villages, and there you can, we have heard, pitch a tent, find a bed or buy a meal. Our plan was to walk a few sections of the trail, parts we could organize from one town or another so we could hike with simply a day pack or at most, a slimmed down load of overnight gear suitable for staying in a pension. One such part we did went from a small hilltop settlement called Akbel down to the sea and the ruins of Patara near a town called Gelemis, a hike of about 14 kms. The highlight was a section of Roman aquaduct that contained many remnants of a siphon system (see two photos) the engineers designed to get the water over a low valley. It was remarkable to see how they had cemented the sections together, sections that had been hewn from blocks of stone with fittings much like what we see in water pipes today. Even more remarkable was to spend an hour in this spot completely alone. After the congestion at Ephesus--dozens of bus loads of people packed into a ruin that had been so ransacked, many of the few existing statues were copies of things now resting in London and Vienna and other big cities of the world--it was a joy to soak in the scene at the Delikkemer, as the siphon is called. This and dozens of other ruins along the Likyan Yolu, the trail’s Turkish name, are just laying about. You can sit on them, poke through them, exclaim and puzzle over this and that, and just let your imagination fill in the blanks. It’s not important to know that it was a fifth century BC Likyan settlement that got taken over by Greeks and then Romans, then Byzantine era folks who built Christian churches out of blocks and pillars they pulled out of falling down temples to Athena or Artemis. It is nice to just sit meditatively for a while on a block and let the weight of all that history soak into your consciousness along with the warmth from the stone.

We ended up spending three nights in Gelemis in a comfy hotel, enjoying a wide sandy beach (a three km hike away), protected from development, amazingly, because of nesting turtles, ruins and gorgeous sand dunes, and hiking to see further ruins, like what our hotel man, Mustafa, claimed is the world’s first light house. Only the bottom ¼ of it is still upright, but it was all of hewn stone, beautifully fitted together with a spiral staircase, once tall enough to shine a firelight over the dunes to show the way into the harbor of Patara. On our first afternoon at the beach, Geo napped and I went swimming, past the surf line and over my head. I soon realized a current was taking me slowly away from the beach. I completely forgot I was not supposed to fight the current--just try to cross it and get out of it. Instead I began to swim as hard as I could for shore. It was not a good feeling to see that I was making no progress. I began to get really tired, and swallowed some water. It suddenly struck me that I might not be able to get in. I decided I needed help. As a wave crested, I could see Geo, lying on his back, his red hat over his face. “George,” I would yell and wave, then the wave would slide under me, and I’d lose sight of him. A woman on the beach called out, “Are you okay?” “No,” I said. “Get George.” I pointed to the sleeping man. (Recreated scene for photo) She sent her husband (he later apologized to me, saying he was not a strong swimmer) after George and started in to the water toward me. I yelled at her not to come in. I could just see two of us stuck out there. Then there was Geo, dashing into the surf (he hates cold water, but he didn’t even flinch), soon able to reach out and grab my hand. We swam in together, Geo giving me occasional shoves and pulls until I could get my feet solidly on the sand. What a guy. My hero.

Another day on another section of the Likyan Way we took a dolmus from the delightful small city of Kas up into the hills to a place called Cukurbag. From there we walked higher still to explore a ruin, then we planned to walk back to Kas--a total of 14 kms. About noon we found a bit of stone wall in the shade to have lunch. There was no lunch in the pack. I had either left it at the ruin when we dipped into the bag for a snack, or it had come out of the unzipped pack accidentally when we were scrambling about. In any case, we had only our water and two pieces of bread. Apples, sardines and almonds were gone. We glumly ate some bread as we hiked along a gravel road. There was a truck with two women at the back. It was a traveling store, and they were buying batteries and light bulbs. I got out our trail guide which had a glossary. Mevey? I asked (fruit). Elma? (Apples). By gestures we gathered that the truck man had no fruit, but one of the women did. He gave her a bag, and we followed her to her house, just there, a lovely old stone and tile roofed number. She disappeared into a basement like room, and soon came back with a whole bag full of apples! We tried to explain that we were walking and could not carry a whole bag of apples, but we would happily take four. I got some coins from my pocket and held them out to her. She brushed my hand away roughly, as if to say, “How could you think I wanted money?” and just gave me the fruit. We hear Turkish village hospitality is remarkable, and this was our first experience with it. As is so often the case when you travel, if you are needy and have to ask for some help, that is often when you have the most memorable moments. She let me take her picture, too. Attached.

When we first arrived in Kas (the s has a tail, so it's Kash)a pension owner met our bus--named Suleyman for the sultan--so we let him carry a bag and we went to look at his place. It had a great roof terrace, and the room was fine, so we took it. Room with breakfast 50 Turkish Lira or $35. The breakfast was exceptionally nice, with lots of fruit and a pretty presentation (see photo). Suleyman’s sister-in-law was in the kitchen. We talked often with a guest named Brian who has retired to Turkey from the UK. It was interesting to learn that he has a one bedroom apartment in Fethiye for about $225 a month, which may be why we have met quite a few retired Bits here. He says Turkey has a three tiered economy: tourists pay dearly for everything, foreign residents pay somewhat increased prices, and locals pay rock bottom. Everything has to be negotiated, he says. We have noticed that it is rare to see fixed prices on things. You ask, and are told the price. So it depends on who you are, what you pay. We are often asked what country we are from. Many Turks think we are German. Geo wants to tell them we are from anywhere but the US, as he thinks Americans will be charged the most for everything.

Our last stop on the coast was Antalya, and city that boasts of being paradise, and in many ways they have a point. The climate is mild, fruits and veggies grow abundantly in the area, the city is set between mountains and sea and just glows, it has protected its old neighborhoods and ruins to some extent, so that narrow, charming streets with restored Ottoman era houses remain--now all pensions or shops, and it boasts a world class museum full of artifacts from area ancient cities. There were, among many glorious treasures, some elaborate sarcophagi. One, however, was small and plain. Around third century, AD. The text nearby explained that it was the tomb of a dog. An inscription had been diciphered which explained the dog had died suddenly and its owner was grief stricken. The dog, it said, was named Stephanos. Its owner was a woman named Rhodope. It was, she said, a happy dog.

Turkey is often cited as being a country that bridges Europe and Asia, and it is fun to see examples of that. Toilets come to mind. In bus stations and city-provided “WCs” there is usually a choice between the classic Asian squat toilet with its faucet and container of water, and the standard western model. We see the Asian phenomenon of small shops--some just a little larger than a closet--lining the streets. There’s a mini-mart selling bottled water, cigarettes, potato chips and sweets on every block. The poor owners are there for hours and hours every dang day. Yet Turkey is modern and western, with good roads, great buses and bus stations (they look like mini airports, with food stalls and internet connections and news on TV) block after block of five to twelve story apartment houses, all with balconies and tidy landscaping. The cities have good mass transit and parks, road signs and walk lights. On TV there are women news readers dressed fashionably with stylish hairdos. Ads are snappy and sell coke, cars, milk and McDonalds. TV soaps are very popular, with waitresses forgetting their customers to watch the latest episode. The current raging issue of headscarves is so typical of the dichotomy here. The country wants to be thought of as modern--and head scarves seem so backward. Yet, there is a strong urge to say people must be free to choose. If a woman cannot be true to herself and take off her scarf to go to college, then she shouldn’t have to. But so many modern Turks wish that she would. The current prime minister is taking a more conservative stance than has been the norm in the government. He is saying let them wear headscarves, and his wife has been wearing one for public events. Shocking! The military says--not at our events. So there’s tension.

Urhan Pamuk has written a book called Istanbul in which he describes Turkey’s great effort to be more western than eastern, and says that it has cost it a lot psychologically. He finds Istanbul a melancholy place, because it has long striven to be what it just isn’t and can’t be. Perhaps eventually Turkey will find an identity that it can be proud of, and it will be something uniquely its own, a blend, for sure, of east and west.

In any case, it’s a great country to visit, and we’ve enjoyed being here very much.

Turkey One

Scarf Store

Turkey (One)
September, 2010

We arrived in Turkey on a flight from Budapest--four hours late--and were grateful that the tourist info desk at the airport was still staffed at 9:00 at night. We got a map of the city and asked if he could show us where our hotel was. We knew it was near Taksim Square, and we knew the airport bus would drop us there, but could we walk to it from the square? Yes, he said, and drew the route. This turned out to be very helpful information when we dealt with our first nefarious taxi driver of the trip. He approached us as we waited for the airport bus, and offered to take us and two others to Taksim for the same price--twice as fast as it turned out. We were a little wary, but said yes, after repeating twice the terms of the agreement. 10 lira each ($6) to Taksim. So we get there after about 20 minutes and he asks what hotel. We tell him. He says it’s three or four kilometers south, and he’ll take us. No, we say, it’s only a couple of blocks, and we’ll walk. He is most insistent, and what do we know? But we resist and send him away. In the first of many such moments, a young man with halting English leaves his post at a sidewalk restaurant where he was making fresh juice drinks and asks if we need help. Where is this street, we ask him, showing him the map. He studies and studies, and decides he knows. He points. We thank him, but ignore the advice, as we think we know better. As it turns out, he was showing us a short cut, and we went the long way around--but at least ended up at our hotel after just a five minute walk with our packs. After we settled in, we walked back to thank the young man at the juice stand. Such generous help has been offered to us every day, which makes independent travel in Turkey possible, for not a lot of English is spoken, and not many signs offer help.

There are heaps of tourists in Turkey, but they tend to travel in flocks, great huge buses full, from France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Holland, each with a language specific guide. Few of them are wandering around looking lost. They are being well cared for. There have been times we’d have liked such comfort, but we like the cheap cost of doing it on our own, and we like the encounters we sometimes get to have with English speaking locals. A good example is Riza. He told me his last name, but I didn’t write it down, and now I’ve forgotten. He’s a guide in Cappadocia, or Kapadokya--the Turkish spelling. Kapadokya is an area of Turkey with several large and small towns that’s composed largely of volcanic tuff from an ancient and massive eruption. This stuff has eroded into what we’ve known as tent rocks--they call them fairy chimneys here. Centuries ago the local inhabitants started carving out the soft rock to make cave homes, and later the Christians here (10th century and later) made rather elaborate cave churches. Most of the towns have taken existing cave dwellings and enlarged upon them with stone cut from the same sort of rock, creating really charming small hotels with low doorways and roof terraces and carved stone details around doors and windows and arched gates. Goreme is perhaps the best of the lot since it is a small town and half the place has turned itself over to the tourist business such that you can find great little restaurants, pensions, guides, motor bike rentals, craft and rug shops everywhere. You have to walk up steep hills to get anywhere from the bus station, and mixed in with the tourist infrastructure are the locals, living in their own modified cave houses, with tractors parked out front and a load of squash just harvested from fields outside of town, which the women are cutting and pulling seeds from. Squash are grown by the million in this area--all the same variety, and apparently all grown for their seeds! In the neighborhood there were also vats of grape juice simmering on open fires, for all over the area are vines, sprawled on the ground, and loaded with purple and green grapes. Some are picked to dry for raisins--wouldn’t that be a seedy mouthful?--and others are pressed for juice, but we don’t think for wine--just a concentrated juice. There are even still a few pony carts around. One day we were hiking and a toothless old man pulled up and offered us a ride. “Rose valley taxi,” he exclaimed. We got in, but he turned out to be a stinker, agreeing to take people someplace, then dropping them much short of the goal and asking for his fare. We didn’t mind though. He was a lark. He and Geo had a dispute about the bill, and he pulled out a very fat wad of bills to show Geo he had no change.

But I got off track. I was to talk about Riza, a 30 something man who works for a small, local company. He was our guide for part of one day, and he took to George right away, as often happens. He wanted to talk to us, and on the 60 km minibus ride back from our outing, we chatted about a variety of topics. What is the average monthly salary in Turkey these days? About 1500 Lira, or $1,000. This is what most teachers make, he says. What about the headscarf issue? He had some clear and thoughtful comments: that it’s a freedom issue. He doesn’t think women should have to wear them, but he thinks they should be allowed to if they want. It is so complicated in Turkey, for the progressive government of the past banned the wearing of headscarves in public buildings and schools. But the majority of women in Turkey wear headscarves. So they wear them to the school or the court house, then take them off, then put them back on when they leave.. This is not a religious issue, Riza says, but a cultural one. It’s tradition. Most women wearing headscarves are not necessarily religious. It’s just what they’ve always done. He actually thinks religion is on the wane in Turkey. The mosques are empty, he says. Young people are not religious.

We liked Riza very much, and that night at dinner we thought of inviting him to have dinner with us, our treat, the next evening. We thought it would be nice to continue the conversation. We went to his workplace in the morning to ask him, and he was flabbergasted. He thought we were joking, and did not answer, but went off on his tour--leaving us puzzled. That night we went back to the office to find him, but he was late. So we left him a note and walked off to a small sidewalk restaurant. A few minutes later he saunters up--how he found us, we do not know. He sat with us for awhile, but he had to catch a bus to the town where he lives. We invited him again for the following night. He said he’d come, but he did not. We were sure he would come, but as we’ve puzzled about the fact that he did not, we think perhaps he was embarrassed, somehow, by the attention. So curious, and so difficult, these levels of ambiguity across cultures. One thing he said to us that stays with me. I asked if he had children, and he said he was not married, and that it was too late for him. He did not have a house or a car, so he had nothing to offer. He would never have a family. This surprised me, for in so many developing countries being a tourist guide is a prestigious position, and better paid than a lot of other work. Maybe not here, but we didn’t get to ask. At the time we just encouraged him not to give up, and I told him about a pretty and smart English speaking young woman I’d met in his town at the tourist office. Geo counseled him not to let rejection get him down. We tried hard.

In contrast, there’s a guy we met at a cave church. He was the caretaker, selling tickets, unlocking the door, giving explanations of the frescoes (there’s Jesus; there’s Mary; there are the magi). We’d met a couple on the hike up to the 12th century ruin who said they did not go in as it cost 2 Lira each. So we are thinking we’ll probably cough up 2 Lira--$1.25--and we approach the ticket man who comes out of his shady nook. Nice looking, short, grey hair and moustache. Eight Lira, he says. What, we say?! This is close to $5 and way more than the cost of a cold beer. Too expensive, we tell him, and start to walk off. He follows. Okay, he says, eight Lira for two. But we’ve got his number. He’s a rat, charging what he thinks the traffic will bear. Nope, we say, too much, and keep walking. He is desperate. Okay he says, free, and he grabs my arm and starts up the stairs. Okay, I say, we’ll make a donation. I assume he just likes talking about his church, but there’s more to it than that I guess. As we walk about the tiny, dim and cool interior, George is taking photos, and I am peering up at the chipped paint of the domed ceiling frescos, our man steering me about with a hand on my shoulder. This is a little unusual. Look, look, he says, kind of agitated. Here is the angel telling Mary. And here, more tugs, here is the baby Jesus. Suddenly I realize his hand is sliding down my right breast. Oh, no, I think, and take evasive action. I want to leave, and hustle George out the door. Now, thinking back, I can’t believe I actually gave him a 5 Lira donation as we left. I should have asked Geo to give him a punch in the nose. I’m 69, I rant to George as we walk away. Wouldn’t you think I’d be past having to worry about gropers?

We stayed in Kapadokya a surprisingly long time--ten days. But it’s like Paul Theroux says in his book Ghost Train that I just finished. Travelers, every once in awhile, just grind down to a halt, and can’t make any more forward progress. Here we could read, write, think, plan, walk, rest, sleep, and enjoy breakfast each morning in the crispy cool air on our roof terrace, balloons hissing overhead (it’s apparently a “must do” in K, to take a $150 balloon ride over the fairy chimneys), while we sipped tea, and chose our fare from a never varying spread: cucumbers, tomatoes, olives, fresh bread, cheese, salami, dried figs, yogurt, honey, jam, hard boiled eggs, watermelon, honey dew, tea or Nescafe.

Now we are restless in Konya. I’m getting tired of the monotony of the restaurant food. Almost every place you go in the whole country has the exact same offerings, and it’s very concentrated on meat. They only seem to know how to make about two kinds of soup (lentil, tomato), and we are served heaps and piles of bread at every meal. It is absolutely the core of their diet. Salads exist, but are not imaginative and consist mostly of tomatoes, parsley, red cabbage, rather bitter lettuce and sometimes shredded carrots. No lovely Greek salads! There’s great produce in the stores, so I am looking forward to a week in Istanbul when we will have an apartment and can cook.

In Konya, a good sized city of 762,000, we saw something we’d also seen earlier in Ankara. The vast majority of women are covered: headscarves and a sort of raincoat of varying lengths, usually in a rather drab color. In the clothing market areas, along side the drab raincoats and headscarves on display, were an array of brilliantly colored, ruffled, flounced, sequined, fussy, strapless, long gowns. Prom dresses a la Turkey. The contrast was arresting. We had enough contact with Ali Ulusan, our hotel owner/host, to ask about this. Where, why, who, we wanted to know. Turns out, for certain special occasions, the women really dress up. Weddings, circumcisions, graduations. And, Ali says, these dresses cost hundreds of lira--he had just bought his wife such a dress for almost $1,000 US dollars. He’d been telling us he didn’t make much money at his little hotel. Wow, we said, how can you afford that? You must do it, he says, even if you have to hock your watch. So when these covered women emerge, they do so with gusto. We also see filmy and brief underwear on display in the markets. Women are women everywhere, it seems.

A week later. We are having a rainy day in Istanbul--good for staying in, having tea and writing. It HAS been wonderful to have a kitchen, not to mention a tasteful and spacious apartment owned by an English woman who is seldom here. We’ve been sharing it with Ramah friends Mike and Chris, and we’ve taken turns cooking. Mike looks up Turkish recipes on line and we experiment. It’s been really nice. There’s wifi in the apartment, and both couples have laptops, so we’ve also been doing a lot of further trip planning. Travel has been made infinitely more manageable with the internet. They are looking at Greek ferry schedules. We’ve initiated a correspondence to discuss a boat trip off southern Turkey with the company owner based in Australia. The four of us will meet again for three nights in an apartment in Barcelona prior to our departure for Galveston on a mega ship.

Here in Istanbul we’ve been able to walk or take a trolley south across the Galata bridge over the Golden Horn into the old city and see all the major sights as desired. Even in October there are lots of visitors to the three biggest attractions (Aya Sophia, the Blue Mosque, and Topkapi Palace), but Chris and Mike managed to avoid the crowds at Aya Sophia by going during lunch time. Aya Sophia is one of those world renowned places it’s a joy to get to see: a huge interior dome/space that has stood since it was completed in, can you believe, 527. It was first built as a Christian church, and happily still has some of the intricate mosaics that were created during its first 1,000 years. After the Ottomans took over here, it was converted to a mosque. Ataturk sensibly said it should simply be an historic site in the early 20th century.

Shopping is part of the fun in Istanbul. One day on the scarf street (every shop up a narrow, steep, cobbled way had scarves flying like flags at its entrance) a woman in one wearing an “escarp” or headscarf, asked me where I was from. Her very next question was, “What religion are you?” In a real cop out, I told her I was Christian. Our Lonely Planet had warned us that this would be a frequent question, and that to tell a Muslim you are an atheist would be so incomprehensible to them, you would be sorry you had said such a thing. “What kind of Christian?” was her next question. “Oh, um, Methodist, Presbyterian--there are lots of Protestant denominations,” I fumbled. “Well, she told me, sounding professorial, “Muslims believe that Jesus was not God, but was one of the prophets, and a messenger from God.” “Oh,” I said, “that’s actually what I believe too”--thinking about the not-a-god part, but that he was a remarkably thoughtful human being. “Then,” she said, “you are a Muslim!” and she gave me a big grin. I asked where she had learned such good English. Turned out she was a retired biologist, and had taught herself English. “Peace be on you,” was the farewell she offered as I left, scarf in hand.

And, peace be with you.

Budapest

Budapest
September 11, 2010

We attended an opera in Budapest this evening--the extra silly Barber of Seville--and it was a brain shocker to be there after spending much of the afternoon in the Holocaust Museum near a temple where the remnants of Budapest’s once thriving Jewish population congregate. I thought about how many of those accomplished, educated and successful citizens, fully integrated into Hungarian society in the early 20th century, must have attended operas in this gorgeous, opulent, gold leaf encrusted building, enjoying interesting lives in a cosmopolitan city. And I kept seeing in mind’s eye film footage someone had taken, now displayed over and over at the museum, of thousands of the city’s Jews walking toward the train station and their transportation to Auschwitz, dressed so nicely--the women in stockings, good shoes, dresses, and coats, the men in overcoats and hats, all with their hands slightly raised at their sides, a star of David sewn to their lapels. The state had managed to protect them until a big political change in late 1944. Suddenly they were doomed, and just as suddenly, annihilated.

Hungary’s history is complicated and convoluted, and I have only slightly more grasp of it all than I did before, but being in a place does help one to focus a bit. Another museum that puts some things in perspective is the oddly popular House of Terror. On the loveliest Boulevard in Budapest, Andrassy Utca #60 was the headquarters of various police state organizations: first the Arrow Cross from the Hungarian Nazi period during the late part of WW II, and later the headquarters of the Soviet/Hungarian police who terrorized the country for years, imprisoning and killing anyone considered an enemy of the communist party and its aims. It’s good that so many people go to this museum. Many of the deaths were caused by Hungarian spies, turning in their fellow citizens for “suspicious” behavior, and we all need to be reminded about how these things happen and how terrible they are. The current Hungarians in power are very clear about how glad they are to be rid of the Soviet domination, and what a terrible time it was for Hungary. It’s only been since 1991 that they have been free. The city is springing back to life, and they have made great strides in restoring old buildings and sprucing up the city.

One wonderful surviving institution is the city central market, which was just a few blocks from our apartment. Since we had a kitchen, we could actually purchase things from the produce vendors, or the strudel makers, or the cheese stalls--just enough for a meal or two of the freshest, most lovely food--all very reasonable, especially compared to Switzerland and Denmark. I bought a beautiful head of broccoli, for example, for 25 cents. And Geo thought the $4 Hungarian wine was not bad at all. We might have stayed longer, but we only had the apartment for six nights, and we were sick of cold, damp and rainy weather. We booked a flight to Turkey.

We had mostly rainy weather, so museums were a refuge. We liked very much the Ethnographic Museum in yet another grand 18th century building where Hungary’s rural history is presented in rich detail. There are reconstructed house interiors, clothing, farm implements, household tools, photos, and lots of English text to help us out. We both suppose we have ancestors centuries ago among the hard working surfs of this area, so it is interesting to think about what their lives were like. In spite of really primitive living, with lots of mud and grime to contend with, they managed to dress ceremonially in the most colorful and exquisitely wrought clothing. The museum has done a great job in presenting this aspect of the country’s past.

Because of the weather we missed out on Danube cruising and outdoor bathing in thermal pools, nor did we make “Memento Park” where a collection of imposing communist era statuary has been dumped and which has become a big draw. We did get proficient at riding the underground, and were amazed at the speed of the escalators. The first time you hop on you think “Whoa, this is fast!” and then you worry about getting off without stumbling or having someone crash into you. They must move at two or three times the speed of “normal” ones.

The city is easy to get around in, with the metro and many buses and trolleys, and they run until late at night. It’s lovely in the evening when the bridges and major buildings are lit, and you can walk along the Danube and take it all in. It’s a sidewalk café town, and when the weather is good, tables are full.

One disconcerting thing is the amount of graffiti. It is actually bad in much of Europe--freight cars in Denmark, concrete walls even in Switzerland. But in Budapest even lovely historic buildings do not escape the spray can. We saw someone using a power abrasive brush on the windows of a stately bank in an effort to remove the stuff. Geo noticed that the windows on the trolleys and the metro were scarred with scratched graffiti--a new low. I’m reading Paul Theroux’s terrific book Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, and he traveled a night train to Budapest as we did. He remarked about the graffiti in Budapest as an outpouring of a long-oppressed people not able to express their protests for years, but it seems more complicated and more widespread in Europe for that to be the explanation. Seems to me it’s one of those issues that comes back to respect. The taggers are just plain disrespectful, and ought to know better, and behave better. It’s a modern day plague.

We were stymied by the weather in our photographic efforts. It would have been nice to show the opera, the dear trolleys that run by the river, the pedestrian streets lined with shops and cafes. Instead we have interiors of churches--which are gaudy in the extreme. The contrast with the austere Swiss and German churches we saw was so interesting, and reflective of cultural differences. Exteriors also can be colorful and fancy. The bright tile roof on the St. Matthias Church in Buda, is an example, and a technological museum that is bizarre in its design--both are pictured.

We’re now almost two weeks in Turkey, with wonderful summer weather. We’ll be posting.

Switzerland

Bruno and Judith's house, Panoramic viewing train

Jungfrau, Trail to Brumlisalphutte, Gimmelwald valley,
Tidy wood pile in Murren

Foggy descent

Glaciers below Brunlisalphutte

SWITZERLAND

August 31, 2010 Gimmelwald Gimmelwald must be an example of the iconic Swiss mountain village. I wonder if there could be a girl named Heidi here, for the place looks exactly like I thought it should when I read the book at 10, or however old I was. Even getting here is like something in a storybook. A train to Interlaken, then a smaller train that climbed to Lauterbrunnen, then a post bus up the valley to Stechelberg, finally a cable car to Gimmelwald. Then we walked a short way among the chalet style houses to one called Mountain Hostel, and that was to be home for a time. We’d found it in an online story about this area of the alps, and the author mentioned that it was popular with Americans because of a story by Rick Steves. Sure enough, Americans outnumbered everyone else at the hostel. Partly I suspect that was because the hostel was the only reasonably priced place to stay in the whole area and the dollar does not go far in Switzerland, and partly also because the village is so darn cute and there’s nowhere else much to stay. Nearby is the resort town of Murren, also difficult to access, but full of Swiss style but new and big hotels. Gimmelwald feels like a real village still. A calf was born this morning just before we walked past its pasture on our way to hike. Belled cows graze the steep slopes. There are steeply pitched vegetable gardens behind every house, and firewood is stacked tidily against buildings for winter. Geraniums fill window boxes--that’s a given--and old hollowed out log water troughs are filled from running springs. Paths climb up and up toward scenic snowy peaks, or you can hike to Murren for groceries, an hour’s walk away.

We’ve enjoyed our time here, but we left the hostel after two nights because the very loud bar scene there goes on until midnight, and we are too old and cranky to appreciate that.. So we moved to Walter’s Mittagshorn Hotel just up the path. We don’t know the story, but 86 year old Walter shuffles about and runs the seven room place with a woman helper, and we think it will be quiet. It’s more expensive, but it will be worth it. There probably won’t be any English spoken at dinner tonight, which we’ll miss. The Swiss German speaking guests can usually speak English, but get them together, and German is what they much prefer, of course. At the hostel everyone spoke English, even the German speakers, because we outnumbered them.

We’ve been in Switzerland since August 4, staying part of the time with Bruno and Judith, El Morro Ranches property owners and our friends. They have a country house an hour northeast of Zurich, and they are there weekends. They live in their Zurich apartment during the week. We spent a nice weekend with them, then set off for a hike in the mountains that Bruno had researched for us. We took trains to Kandersteg, a pretty alpine town, then hiked up to a gorgeous lake called Oeschinensee. I could never say it right. There we’d booked a room at a chalet hotel, and it was a sunny, warm day. We were pretty sure that was a lucky break. The next morning we began an almost five hour climb to Brumlisalphutte--an impressive stone mountain hut set well above timberline on an exposed ridge at 2840 meters. There we stayed the night: $144 for dorm beds, dinner and breakfast. There were many dorm rooms, and ours could hold 22 people in two rows of double decker beds, 11 each row, and one exactly next to the other. Cosy. You had to rent a sheet, and down comforters were furnished. From the hut it was a short walk to venture out onto a glacier, if you had crampons, which we did not. Many climbers were at the hut, planning to ascend a peak the next day. Also there were guests dressed in odd wool pants with suspenders. Turns out we were there on the 150th anniversary of the construction of this hut by the Swiss Alpine Club. Some celebrants re-created the climbing attire of 1860. Our plan was, in the morning, to drop down into the next valley and then climb up again to another pass and another hut. Alas, it was not to be, which was probably a good thing. We awoke to a totally fogged in hut, and blindly hiked down the other side of the pass toward the town of Griesalp. The descent was as steep a drop as anything we’ve ever hiked. There were chains and ropes to hold on to, and there were sturdy steps made of logs and cross boards. It went unrelentingly down for 4,000 feet. I worried that my thighs would get really sore. In fact, the next day I could hardly walk. About 2/3 of the way down it began to rain. Before we could get our rain pants on, we were soaked. And it seemed to be getting colder. We soon concluded we were not going to climb over another pass that day. We made our way to a guest house where we and other hikers peeled off wet clothes, put on dry ones, and went inside for hot drinks. It was heated in there, and we could hardly bear to leave, go back out into the rain, and hike the last hour down to the village where we could get a post bus to the nearest town with a train station. We were calling it quits for a day or two. By late afternoon we were back in the comfort of Bruno and Judith’s place, grateful for the retreat.

A couple of days later we decided the forecast looked promising enough that we’d make another go at walking among scenic snowy peaks. At 6:30 am we set out for Gimmelwald. But we did it in a round about way. We wanted to see as much mountain scenery as we could with our Eurail pass. By the time we’d reached Interlaken, we’d been on nine trains. A feat like this could only be pulled off in Switzerland. It is well known that Swiss trains are a marvel and it’s a cliché to say that the system runs like a fine Swiss watch. But if you experience it you’ll believe it. There are trains departing once every hour all over the country. Each time you get off one train, there is another either waiting for you to board, or only minutes away. We barely had time to poke our heads out of a station and look around. We had only one surprise, when for two trains we could not use our Eurail pass but had to buy tickets. “These are private trains,” the conductor told us. They looked the same to us, but the difference was they were traveling over particularly challenging and scenic stretches, so they could call them things like The Matterhorn Express, and charge more. But some of the regular trains were even nicer, with huge curved windows giving great viewing up to the peaks. The Golden Pass was one, from Lucerne to Interlaken. A Swiss rail pass is worth having, for the rail system is so fabulous. Part of the reason it all works is that there are 7 million people traveling about in a country about the size of two counties in New Mexico. And even though most of them own cars, they use their trains a lot.

September 4, 2010. We are back with Bruno and Judith after four nights in Gimmelwald and two days of spectacular weather there. I could finally walk again without pain when we did an eight hour hike up to Rotstockhutte, another pretty stone hut above timberline at 2,000 meters where six inches of fresh snow had just melted. There we had our lunch on the sunny patio, enjoying beer brought up by a self propelled hauling device on a cable. No wonder it cost $6.00 a mug. There were flowers, deep blue skies, fresh snow on the peaks, and the Eiger, Monck and Jungfrau summits in full view to exclaim upon. It could not have been more perfect, and we walked another route back to Walter’s, marveling over the multiple trails, all clearly signed, to choose from. We didn’t even mind the cows along the paths. With their big bells, it seemed somehow they belonged.

Walter’s hotel is also popular with Americans, but an older set, so indeed it was quiet and comfortable. By Swiss standards it is a great value. For $43 per person you get a private room, private shower (in a stall in your room), shared toilet down the hall, and breakfast. The heat is on from 10:30 pm to 8 am, and we needed it as it got down to freezing one night after the skies cleared. For another $15 each you can order dinner, but you must do so by 10 am. With dinner, Walter provides Italian wine. The dinners were simple, but ample and good. One set of guests from Hawaii was on their third or fourth visit to Gmmelwald and Walter’s hotel.

From the trains you can see a lot of the Swiss character revealed. Community gardens, for example. They are called Schrebergartens after a 19th century German physician who thought people should eat more fresh vegetables, With people crowding into factory towns, there were fewer gsrdens, and so the idea of publicly owned garden plots rented out to local citizens was born. Since they can have it as long as they like, and usually it’s about forever, they build small garden sheds or greenhouses on their plots, and some even heat them with wood stoves or fireplaces. But you are not allowed to stay overnight! Most have flowers as well as vegetables--dahlias were in bloom this season. The plots are, naturally, totally tidy. Acres and acres of these little gardens---not a hair out of place. Trains aren’t late, and weeds aren’t allowed to grow.

I wonder if we’d study the way a county handles its trash we’d be able to make some interesting generalizations about the place. Here the trash is handled as you might expect. There is none lingering along roadways. Litter is unthinkable. On trash days, it’s all bundled, tied, wrapped and covered. Highly mechanized trucks move it here and there, and then it’s gone. There are no landfills. Glass is sorted by color, and some is ground and put in asphalt. Plastic is bundled by color: we saw bales of it waiting to be shipped somewhere. Some is composted, some incinerated, the ash put to use. It’s a lesson in what is possible, with determination.

Yesterday we took a morning to explore Zurich on foot. A helpful tourist info center at the train station offers maps with a walking tour--stops described in English. A good sized river runs through the middle of town, emptying into a huge lake that Zurich spills out around. The tour goes along one side of the river, then back up the other, and there’s charm and pedestrian friendly streets in abundance. Church towers, all with huge clocks, dominate the skyline. Two of the churches are particularly interesting. One, the Fraumunster, contains five stained glass windows by Marc Chagall. They are as colorful and interesting as any he has done. The other, the medieval Grossmunster (begun in 1045 or so), also has some modern stained glass--these windows made of thinly sliced, colorful agate rounds leaded together. Stunning! We were not supposed to take photos, but being rebellious Americans, we snapped off one. That church was the seat of some of the major reformation action in the 1500’s, and the building itself felt the consequences of the purging of suddenly unacceptable ornamentation, losing statues and frescos and more.
Halfway along we stopped for a picnic by the lake: grilled wurst and bread, with swans and ducks trolling for crumbs below.

Tomorrow we take a train to Budapest. We have rented a small apartment, and “Thomas” will meet us at the train station with a sign saying “George.” Chapter Three: Hungary. It will be hard to leave Bruno and Judith who have been so generous and kind. Judith is a gifted cook, and enjoys presenting beautifully constructed as well as fabulous tasting meals. One night she made a lasagna that was so good we wanted to eat it all. I apprenticed at helping with the risotto our last evening, and got the task of layering the prosciutto on veal for saltimbocca. Bruno produced lovely wines from his cellar, and we often talked late over cheese, fruit, and a dessert wine. You can see why we hate to leave.

September 5, Munich. We planned a stop of a few hours in Munich, which seemed like a good idea at the time. We did enjoy the afternoon: beer at the noisy Hofbrauhus, a visit to the towering brick cathedral, a walk through the modern art museum (five wonderful Emil Noldes and three interesting early Picassos) and a hearty German supper at Augustiners. But then it was 7:00 and our sleeper train isn’t leaving until 11:40. Starbucks had wireless and offered a home for an hour, but now, very sleepy and weary, we wait on track 12.

Denmark

August 12, 2010

Hjerting, Denmark
It's lunch time. There is an arrangement of hydrangeas on the table: purples, blues, pinks--all arranged in a sphere; low, stunning. A platter of assorted open sandwiches is on offer: pickled herring, smoked salmon, arranged on slices of toast, with toppings of thinly sliced cucumber, a splash of meat gelatin, some gratings of a spicy radish, lettuce, tomato and there are other dabs of this and that we do not recognize.. Small glasses wait to be filled with aquavit, and a beer mug brims with Carlsberg. We toast with the aquavit, as we eat the herring first. Skol! We are in Denmark.

This house on the sea, built over 100 years ago and added to now and again to ramble here and there, is the home of Tove and Soren Bak, ages 60 and 70. (the Os in both their names have a back slash through them, one of several extra letters in the Danish alphabet and pronounced something like “uh.“) They traveled to the USA in 2005and stayed with us three nights at Ranchito Chupaflor, our homemade house on the mountain side. At that time they invited us to visit them some summer in Denmark. “You must come in August,” they said. “It’s the best chance then for good weather.” And so, of course, we have come. We learn so much about the country from our time with them--their work, play, families, friends, government, politics, customs, ideas. They speak English with ease. They have been unbelievably kind and generous. First they took us, on a rainy day, to see an historic town to the south, Ribe, and the home of the wonderful German painter Emil Nolde, just over the border into territory that was once Danish, but after some conflict with Germany which Germany won, is now German. All this land in southwestern Denmark is very flat, once home to many windmills like Holland, but now full of wind mills that generate electricity. More than 10% of Denmark’s power is now from wind. Nolde’s work is startling, colorful, imaginative. I had not seen any before, but he is well known in the world. He died in 1956, and was an amazingly prolific painter. The exhibit constantly changes at Seebull, his country home now a museum, so Tove likes to go often. He was forbidden to paint by the Third Reich, so he surreptitiously painted in watercolors that did not smell, so were not possible to detect as he worked at home. He was considered subversive as he painted dark skinned people with admiration and flair, among other subjects perhaps as controversial. He also loved to garden, and a flower garden remains, a bright pallet of color and a jungle of growth. Things grow so very well here, in a light soil, with lots of rain, the sea moderating the temperatures, and long summer days of light. The whole country is a garden.

The next day we were off on a small adventure. Tove and Soren drove us and their sea kayaks north to the town of Varde where it is possible to put boats in the Varde River. They hadn’t done this trip, but they were certain that it was a quiet and navigable river to the sea, about 12 miles along. When we hit the sea, we were to turn left, follow the coast, and land at their beach. It sounded simple, and things actually worked as planned except that we hadn’t paddled in a year--or more, in my case--and we ended up paddling 25 kms over the day. We paddled steadily down the river as the current was slow, then even harder once we hit the bay, though at least the tide was going right. My arms were really tired by our 4 pm arrival. This was not a wilderness trip. There is no wilderness in Denmark. The country has been farmed for centuries, and its resources harvested for centuries before that. (There was a giant elk that was hunted to extinction.) So we paddled past fields, cows looking up at us while chewing on the never ending supply of greens. But there was no road access for more than 10 miles, and we saw only a couple of fishermen and one yacht on its way to the sea. The river was bordered by thick stands of a reed that is harvested for roof thatch. Modern buildings here are roofed in tile or metal, but originally all were protected by a thick thatch, and many old buildings are still done this way. A good thatching will last 50 years, but it must be a major job to replace it. The old farms had a sturdy brick house, and then a huge brick barn, for all the animals had to come indoors in the winter--and I supposed still do. Many of these old barns remain, and they are often quite handsome.

The next day we had fair weather, and Tove and Soren took us for a picnic to an island just a mile or two from their beach. They have a small motor boat with a cabin to get out of the weather if need be. Soren always brings the same lunch, says Tove. Small northern lobster tails and whole shrimp, wine, bread. It was a feast to us. Each tiny crustacean was clasping in its little legs great masses of roe. It is easy to see how one can grow a lot of shrimp, but I’m not sure if these lobsters can be farmed. The island was covered in flowers--mostly unfamiliar though there was a marguerite sort of daisy and a purple flowering mini-shrub that grows only on these tidal islands. The bay is really shallow, and so at low tide you have to know where you are going to avoid getting stuck. Kayaking we had to be well off shore for any depth at all.

Tove and Soren loaned us a car and camping equipment so that we could set off exploring Jutland--the westernmost portion of Denmark, which is actually attached to Germany--for a few days. We went north up the coast, enjoying the scenery: old farm houses and barns, rolling fields of ripe oats, seascapes in the distance, incredibly tidy little brick-house towns every few kilometers. And, every town has a public toilet carefully marked with a sign, WC, and these places always have hot water, soap, plenty of toilet paper, either paper towels or an electric hand dryer and are impeccably clean. Each town also has a “bageri” or bakery, and the Danes know how to bake bread. We would buy fresh rolls and make lunch with cheese or salami and cucumbers from Tove’s garden. Each town also boasts a very old brick or stone church, always with a big square bell tower at the rear. They are beautifully maintained, with attached manicured cemeteries, most graves planted with flowers. Many rural Danes, like Tove, are living close to where generations of their families lived, worked and died. One of the prettiest of these towns was called Ydby. I could not imagine how one would say this word. To complicate matters, the Danes swallow or ignore many consonants. So the town of Skagen, which I guessed might be pronouned “skay-gan” is said “Skay-n.“ And Jutland, You-lan. No t, no d to be heard..

George wore his wool shirt to the beach. We didn’t even get a toe in the water. We’ve heard the sun does come out at times, but we think it must be rare. We got all the way to the northern tip of Denmark, where the North Sea and the Baltic collide, a place of pilgrimage for Danes, it seems, for the place was thronging with visitors, most walking the three kilometers or so out to the point, though there was a bus-like conveyance pulled by a 4X4 tractor for those will to pay for a lift.

A day or so later we were ready to head for Copenhagen. We’d been cruising the internet hoping for a Couchsurfing place to stay. (Free sleeping in guest quarters, however basic.) Hotel rooms in Copenhagen are stratospheric in price, so in the interests of frugality, we were looking for alternatives. But no offers of a free bed turned up. Course we were being a little picky. We kind of wanted a bed instead of a couch. So we found Rosie. Rosie had a listing with Couchsurfing that stated that she had a room for rent. We wrote to her and made a deal. It’s another example of spending less and getting more. Rosie has given us another perspective on Denmark, from the point of view of an immigrant from Ivory Coast, a student, and the ex-wife of a Dane, mother of two teens now living with Dad in Jutland. We’ve been cooking dinner together each night (eating out at a moderately nice restaurant costs $100 each or more), and Ivory Coast, with its French colonial roots, has some culinary flair. Or at least Rosie does. And now it’s dinner time.

Copenhagen is a town rich in fabulous museums. We bought multiday passes which saved a little on the cost (most museum tickets are about $10) and did three days worth of museum tourism. There were lots featuring Danish royalty and their dwellings and riches, others with world class collections of art and artifacts, and the incredible National Museum which attempts with great success to chronicle the history of Denmark from the Stone Age. We spent an afternoon there, and felt we could have gone back several times to get a grip on it all. We’ve had really rotten weather (so much for coming in August), so that was disappointing. No beer sipping at charming waterfront cafes for us. Well, a beer costs $10 there anyway, so we’d not have been able to enjoy it much. We did have coffee ($20 for three) at a great outdoor plaza café with Jeff, a friend of Cammie and Loren’s who is living in Denmark, working for Unicef, and is the father of five year old Danish/American twins. He absolutely loves the city and his life here, though sadly he and his wife have divorced. We’ve gotten comfortable on the metro and with the buses. Rosie lives just a few stops from downtown (she has a spacious two bedroom apartment on the third floor of a nine story building for which she pays over $1,000 a month), so it’s been easy to get around. In Denmark rules are posted at relevant points ( beaches, city parks), and for the metro a long list appears in Danish and English. One that I liked best said that you may bring your dog on the metro, but it must have a ticket. However, you can buy the dog a child’s ticket. You may only bring one dog, and it must be on a leash. If the dog is so small that you can carry it, however, it does not need a ticket.

Speaking about the metro reminds me how honest the Danes must be. There is no turnstile stopping you from entering the train unless you put in a ticket. You just get on the train, and no one ever looks at your ticket. Yet, everyone buys a ticket, “clipping” it at a machine that enters the date. The only control is that a conductor might ask to see your ticket, and if you don’t have it, you get a very large fine. But we never even saw a conductor. It seems to me in the US we are always thinking of ways to beat the system, and thus, we must always be thinking of ways to prevent people from cheating, whereas here, the assumption is no one will cheat. At the campgrounds--another example--you pay in the morning, after you’ve spent the night. Which further reminds me that at campgrounds each evening the office takes order for fresh bread or rolls to be delivered in the morning by the local bageri. Camping cost almost $40 a night for us and our tent, but one morning I saw a woman pay a bill of $800. Many visitors are in campers or camping trailers, so I suppose that costs more. Perhaps she had been there a couple of weeks, but that seemed like a lot of money for camping. Or maybe she had a big bakery bill!

We’re always on the lookout for Danish design and innovation. There’s no doubt these are clever folks. Has anyone been at another bus stop where an electronic sign tells you how many more minutes you have to wait before your bus will show up? From door entry systems (we swipe the apartment number with a wafer to open the downstairs door) to water faucets, every thing they do is simplicity, functionality and beauty. I love that about this country.

Today near a museum I asked a worker guy in the area a question. First I said, “Do you speak English?” It seems rude to presume, even though most all Danes do. “Of course,” he said. Of course. So he then clarified for me how to get into the Christiansborg Palace, which is Copenhagen’s government house, used for business and ceremonial occasions. The fact that English is so commonly spoken, and so well, makes Denmark a great destination. You are about to jump on a train. “Is this train going to Copenhagen?” you ask desperately, hoping someone around you will answer. “Yes, yes, this is it. Get on.”

Despite the rainy weather, Copenhagen’s bicyclists were out in perhaps their usual numbers. You see moms with two smaller bicycles behind them, escorting children to school. Dads may be riding a bike that has a double child carrier placed in front. Grandma and grandpa are off to shop. Tour groups cruise on rental bikes with matching waterproof satchels. Workers, dressed fashionably, ride to their jobs. What makes biking so appealing in Copenhagen and other cities in Denmark is that each street has a wide one-way bike lane on each side between the sidewalk and the roadway. As a pedestrian you soon learn not to stray into this lane. I almost got run over our first day as I wandered into the bike lane trying to pass three walkers who were too slow to suit me. I failed to look behind me for bikes and suddenly heard a shout--no doubt a Danish curse word. I leaped back to my right and felt the speeding bike brush my side. All over the country many roads have parallel bike lanes well off to one side, often completely separated from traffic. I suspect bike-car accidents are low here, in spite of the large number of cyclists. If only the weather were better.

We ended our Copenhagen stay by taking the train a short ride to the west of the city to the very old town of Roskilde, once the major port and market town in Denmark. There archeologists have raised five Viking era boats--900 years old--that were probably anchored to protect one route through the fjord into the harbor, and had sunk and been somewhat preserved by the cold water. The museum there has become a research center into the Viking explorations and boat making, and they have made many new boats based on the designs gleaned from these raised ships as well as other found in Scandinavia. They have sailed the largest of these ships to Ireland, Scotland and England, and there is a great film shown at the museum of these voyages. On stormy days, you would probably not want to be along. Everyone gets wet, and the seas tower over this low-to-water boat. They sleep out in the open, curled up on the floor in foul weather gear.

There are only 5 million Danes, and they are determined, it appears, to maintain their language, culture, identity. There’s controversy about how much “non-western” immigration to allow, and the generous social welfare system may be in trouble, though unemployment is only 5% and the place seems totally prosperous. Tove estimates that only 5% of Danes are really religious, though lovely old Protestant churches are maintained in part by taxes, and everyone baptizes their kids and is married and buried with help from the church. No matter what you make you are paid a stipend for each child you have (maybe not much different from our tax deductions, but I don’t know), and of course there is free health care and free education through college for all. Oh, and a pension too. Old folks can stay at home and get home care from visiting professionals.

I am finishing this first posting on August 20, just as we are about to leave Denmark. As we walked this morning I thought of a couple of details I wanted to add. Here in the seaside town of Hjerting there are wild roses growing along the beach. They are not native, but grow prolifically. They are huge husky shrubs--over six feet tall--bloom with pink or white flowers, and make rose hips the size of small tomatoes, and about that color--a bit more orange. Locals make a wonderful chunky jam from them that is tasty. Some folks want the shrubs removed as they are invasive. Others point out how lovely they are, and what great natural fencing they provide.

As we walked this morning we were passed by dozens of children pedaling off to school. They were on bike lanes--no cars. This is a great small town for kids.

Otto Frello is a local artist whose work we saw yesterday at a museum in Varde, his home town. He is so unusual. He places humans, portrayed with Rockwellian detail, in most all of his pieces. But they are phantasmagorical instead of reality based. Painting in oils, he creates Gaudi like buildings, bizarre plant and animal backdrops, and often a sort of wasteland seems to be encroaching. It’s a post apocalyptic universe, but with visual connections to an ancient past. I’m not sure if he’s on line, but some of you artists out there would like to see his work, I know. It is fascinating. He is 86.

There are no bags given away at grocery stores. Unless you bring your own, they cost 40 cents each. And recycling is the norm. Garden waste is picked up one day. Glass, paper, cans another. General waste is separate. One man drives a truck and does all the work: the bins are automatically dumped after the man fits them into a slot. Two or three can dump at once.

And, new mothers get six months off from work with pay, and an optional second six months leave allows them 80% of the unemployment benefits. Tove says most women take a full year. Tove and Soren have a brand new grandboy named Julius, and they are helping out with the older child, Tilda, who is two.

Two Weeks Until Departure

July 19, 2010

Last year after receiving one of my lengthy emails from Argentina, a friend asked why I didn't set up a blog instead of going through the process of emailing friends with my posts. Lazy or intimidated or both, I guess. But now I've done it, and we'll see how it works. Maybe I'll go back to the old method if this doesn't feel okay. So I'll send my travel group an email announcing the existence of the blog, and then I guess I'll send emails whenever I write a new one. However, if you have a google or yahoo email account, you can ask to be notified any time I post a new entry. Wow.



In some ways it is good that we are leaving home so soon. We've been plagued with bear visitations. It's my fault: I can't do what I'm supposed to do, which is stop putting out bird seed and suet at the first sign of a visiting hungry bear--one that came in the night, ripped open a wire suet cage, and ate. (My excuses are that feeding birds is what I DO--it's part of who I am, dang it, and I don't want to be forced into changing. Also, all the summer birds are bringing their new fledglings to the feeders. They are hungry too!) I keep trying to outsmart the bears, which is not actually as easy as you might think. First we tried bringing in the food at night. Mr. Bear came at 9:00 in the morning--visible from our breakfast table, smashing a seed feeder before our eyes. We chased him off--a shot from a 22 rifle over his head. Next we thought we'd bring in the food at night and any time we weren't home to run off the bear. 'Course we forgot one morning when we went hiking in the Malpais. The bear had a second suet cake AND wrecked a seed feeder. We hung the suet on a high wire, but a bear wrecked another seed feeder when he couldn't get the suet. We hung a misshapen seed feeder next to the suet, on the wire 9 feet off the ground. Then yet another bear leaped and swatted down (I saw him standing on his back legs to do this, jumping like a child after a pinata) both the suet and the seed feeder. I shot him on his retreating backside with the 22 with bird shot, as George had shot another one a week or so earlier. Still they returned when I put a stronger fastener on the hanger. Bear must have hung from the suet feeder until the screw eye pulled out. Impressively determined (hungry) bears. So now the wire is 12 feet off the ground, and a birdfeeding man in Connecticut reassures me by website that if the bears cannot get the food, they will stop coming around. But by August first, there will be no more food for several months, so for sure that will end the circus for this year.



We've talked to state game guys, and they will help us if we need bear removal. But it is likely a death sentence for the bear, and we don't want to have that on our heads--particularly since it is not the bears' fault they are pestering us. So we'll hope the latest ploy works. Too bad I had to drain my little fountain/pond also. No bear attractions allowed. We've lived here for 13 years and have never even seen a bear on the place, and only had one previous night-visiting suet-snatching bear who was easily discouraged when we brought the suet in at night. What's with this year? Geo thinks maybe there is an unusally high number of bears in the forest this year, since we've had two moist winters with good crops of acorns and probably other foods.

But we must turn our attention from the bears to packing. A trip of almost four months, including a mountain trek in Switzerland, boating and biking in Denmark, city life in Berlin, Prague and Istanbul, modest attire for me in Turkey and possibly Iran, and a 14 day cruise at the end from Barcelona to Galveston. All to be covered with one ulta-light backpack. I'm not sure I've ever faced a more daunting packing task. A friend, Carol W., gave me a slinky pair of black pants. That and a couple of tops will be my entire dress up wardrobe. Long zip-off pants (khaki/nylon/cotton quick dry) provide shorts and long pants. One pair khaki colored capri pants. Assorted shirts/tops. A rain jacket. Trail shoes and wool socks. Maryjane comfy black shoes. A warm layer: a pile jacket. Swim suit and, Rebecca A. reminded me, a sarong. Warm black tights. Wool hat. Sun hat. If there's room, a skirt. Yikes. I still have to select, buy and load books for my Kindle. I used it in Argentina on a three month trip, and it was fabulous. The charge lasts for days, and I did not run out of books. It weighs only 12 ounces with a homemade cover, measures 6 by 8 inches, and is less than 1/2 inch thick.

Next post perhaps from Denmark, or on the train from Hamburg to Esbjerg. We fly Dallas to London, then a flight to Hamburg, then the train to the west coast of Denmark where Servas friends will host us for a couple of weeks. Then a visit to Copenhagen, and the train south to Zurich where we'll connect with ranch friends who live in Switzerland. They have helped us plan an excursion to hike near some peaks and glaciers, but stay in "huts" which we expect will be more like hotels.

July 27 After visits from grandchildren, children and a brother, we have four or five days to fit in packing and seeing lots of friends and tidying up all those odds and ends. Like, we were told we could vote electronically. So we are trying to track down that notion. So far no luck. And do we have all the phone numbers we'll need in Europe, and the country access codes so we can use our Verizon international calling card? Next time maybe an iphone. Call in vacation pauses for magazines. The list of tasks seems endless. Last time we left I mailed in a hold mail request to our PO. In the past, they've held our mail for months. A new postmaster did not like this casual approach. I was supposed to physically show up (21 miles away) and fill out the form on site. As punishment for my failure, they sent back all our mail until we got an email alert from a friend. We enlisted help from other friends who did their best to reverse the situation. We had to fax our signatures authorizing someone else to pick up our mail--from Argentina. We're still suffering from the consequences of that. This time neighbors will get our mail from the mailbox. Such are the chores when you plan to be gone for three or four months.


When we tried to use our newly purchased Eurail passes to make a reservation for our first train ride, we learned that the system in the US is set up so that before you leave home you make ALL your train reservations, and a packet is sent to you Fed Ex. We of course have no definite idea when we'll take the train the second through the 10th time. (We bought ten days of travel in two months, three countries.) The woman Geo talked to seemed incredulous. No planned itinerary? So, we must make our reservations at train stations wherever we can in Europe. There are no e-ticket reservations for Eurail pass holders. Surprising and annoying. Another challenge for the independent traveler.