In mid-February, we spent four days in Sicily. How does one begin to describe this complex, independent place? Decaying, proud, chaotic, beautiful, home of the Mafia? It’s all of the above, plus heavy memories of the Spanish Inquisition thrown in. On such a short visit we were only able to scratch the surface of this place. We must return.
We just returned from a 10-day trip to the US; Jay to visit friends and family and Tanya joining Jay for the 56th Annual Monterey Jazz Festival. The longer we’re away from America the country seems more foreign than wherever else we’re living. It’s familiar but never the same as when we left. Hard to explain but we seem to always have our feet in two (or more) different places at once.
Two observations during this last visit: First, the most obvious is how big America is. The people, the distances, the food portions, the stores, the highways….all BIG! The second observation is the behavior of drivers. German drivers seem to be impatient, ready to use their car horns at a moment’s notice whenever there is any possibility that they will be slowed down or inconvenienced at all. By contrast, US drivers, especially in Oregon, seem to be downright lackadaisical. I think this all makes sense. Our theory is that since American highways are so big—the lanes are bigger and they actually have shoulders one can pull over onto—and the speed limits are lower than in Germany, so there is no great rush to get where one is going. Traveling at 55 mph (88 kph), compared to the more normal 100 to 130+ kph in Germany seems positively leisurely. Since Germans can only go so fast in their more congested urban areas, they get this need for speed out of their systems by zooming down the autobahns. We didn’t sense this same feeling in California, for example, even when cars were traveling down the freeway at 65 mph (only 104 kph).
Closing out January this year we took a weekend trip to Germany’s oldest city, Trier. There seems to be a bit of a dispute about whether Trier really is the oldest city in the country. Worms and Köln also are vying for this distinction. In any case, Trier claims to have been founded in–or before–16 BC, which is really old no matter how you want to slice it.
The most impressive monument in Trier is the Porta Nigra, or Black Gate, which was built by the Romans, is the largest Roman city gate north of the Alps, and is a UNESCO world heritage site. A couple of other sites we visited were the ruins of the old Roman amphitheater and the Roman baths. The baths were built over 1,600 years ago and are an impressive remnant of Roman civilization in Germany.
The first eight months of this year have been filled with adventures, but no postings. Well, let’s fix that right now. In mid-January we spent a 3-day weekend in Vienna. Of course….January…the perfect time to visit. No crowds, no lines at the main attractions. And, of course, our visit just happened to coincide with the biggest snow storm of the season, shutting down the Frankfurt airport, delaying trains and simply slowing things down a bit. But, hey, that’s one of the joys of travel…meeting the unexpected head-on and enjoying the experience.
We started out the new year in 2013 with a trip to Berlin to celebrate at the Brandenburg Gate. We had heard this was the biggest New Year celebration in the world, with about 1 million people crowding the area around the gate and we just had to be part of it. Glad we did it but we can probably cross that event off our “bucket list”, at least for now. We knew it would be crowded, drunken and noisy but, hey, that’s what New Year’s is all about, right?
The hardest part however was staying up late enough to drag our butts out of our nice warm hotel room and brave the cold to get down to the street leading to the gate, where all the action was. This led us to ask ourselves, “Why do we need to wait until midnight to celebrate the new year?” Unless we’re in Palau or somewhere like that, the new year will have already happened no matter where we are. We’re all for celebrating it despite the fact that the outgoing year’s challenges will still be there on January 1st. But we think we may celebrate the new year 2014 walking along a quiet beach somewhere as we toast our good fortune.
Recently, we took a trip to Cortez,
Colorado, a place most of you have probably never heard of. I certainly hadn’t until a couple of years
ago when Tanya’s brother moved there.
It’s an hour and half flight from Denver via Great Lakes Airlines and
about 40 miles from the “Four Corners” where Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and
Utah meet. Cortez’s claim to fame is
Mesa Verde National Park, a vast area that was once the home of up to 50,000
ancient Puebloan people, often referred to by the Navaho word “Anasazi”.
Despite the harsh climate conditions and
rugged terrain, these people once raised crops and survived on the plains and
mesas of what is now southern Colorado/Utah and northern Arizona/New Mexico. About 800 years ago, several groups of these
people decided they’d had enough of the windy tough conditions up on the
plains. They started building cliff
dwellings below the mesas and plains. The
idea was to provide better shelter and better defensive positions from their
enemies. There are hundreds of these “apartment
complexes” in the park and each one housed about 100 people. Many of these
dwellings are relatively easy to access today but they certainly weren’t when
they were occupied by the Pueblo peoples.
The Tancheon River and developing neighborhood next to our officetel building.
Surfer statue outside our building.
Socks, anyone?
One of the joys of living in Korea is the constant juxtaposition of East and West in everyday life.
Here’s an example: It was a beautiful morning here in Bundang and Jay went for his early morning walk along the river. Along with the usual assortment of walkers, joggers and cyclists a common sight is people doing push-ups, sit-ups or a variety of exercises we don’t usually see in Portland; hand clapping, stomach slapping or just walking backwards.
But this morning Jay saw a man sitting in the full lotus position, facing the horizon and meditating. OK, nothing much unusual there. But directly in front of him was a McDonalds drink container and at his side a Mac burger bag. My conjecture was that perhaps he had developed a new mantra on which to meditate. “Frrrrrrrriiiiiiizzzze” maybe. Or possibly “Mmmmmmaaaaakkkk”. Anyway, whatever works.
People from Portland often ask us, “Is it difficult to make new friends in Korea?” To which we have to answer that it can be just as easy as in Portland. Of course, the language barrier is always an issue, but people always face all kinds of communication challenges even when they’re both using the same native language.
Never Left Home 