Rome in Ten

Rome is arches.
Roman Forum
Arch of Constantine

Rome is antiquities and imagination.
Circo Massimo - once a chariot course
Palatine Hill

Rome is marble.

Rome is frescos.
 And strained necks from gazing skyward.

Rome is the start of running into people more than once.
The boys from France

Rome is fountains.
We dunked our feet.
(Young women from Seoul, Korea and San Diego, CA)
Piazza Navona

Rome is remains and story.
Colosseum

Rome is death.
John Keats death mask
He died of TB. An English Romantic along with Lord  Byron and Percy Shelley.
He met Fanny Brawne when she was 18 years old. They met in the fall of 1818 and he realized how love would change his life, writing:
"Ask yourself my love whether you are not very cruel to have so enthralled me, so destroyed my freedom."
He later writes in a letter to her mother (words to Fanny):
"Goodbye Fanny, God bless you."
They exchanged locks of hair and he left for Italy. He died in the small room by the Bernini fountain at the base of the Spanish Steps.
He was 25.

Rome is columns.
Temple Adriano

Rome is squares, obelisks, statues, and churches.
Piazza Popolo

A Run-Down Home

At the Board Meeting in Slovenia

Eight Countries, Ten Weeks

(The Great Race it wasn't)

1) ITALY
Rome - 7 nites
Florence - 7
Highlight: Michelangelo's David - not an ounce of disappointment from over-saturation in the media. The cathedral in Florence and Underground Crypt at St. Peters at the Vatican.
Significant memory: meeting the two Aussie girls from Australia. One received a call that her mother was killed in a car accident.
A day with three generations of Italians in their olive orchard and simple villa.
Riding on cobblestones on a motorcycle (it wasn't a Vespa; bigger bigger bigger!)

2) SCOTLAND
Edinborough - 3 nites
Melrose - 4
Glasgow - 3
Isle of Arran, Lochranza - 8
Highlights: hiking with Sandra from Germany, 11 miles in the rain and wind. Loved it! Seeing Haley Berry in a movie shoot. The friendly smiling Scots. Riding a city bus with the school children!!
Significant memory: the Melrose Youth Hostel, in big bold red letters, had more older people staying at it than any hostel encountered. Met absolutely unforgettable real-life people. "A Diversion" - Phyllis and I took this incredibly long out-of-the-way detour, called a DIVERSION. We believed it was meant for walkers. It was not; it was meant for cars! We walked four miles out of our way to end up right back where we started! While catching our breath, a horse decided to attack. He actually stepped on the corner of my shoe - partially grazing my foot. The charming Russian professor, the expert in Leo Tolstoy, ran the other way while the horse had my backpack in his teeth (with apple inside). So much for academics!

3) ENGLAND
London - 4 nites
Highlight: the streets of London. My sister married a Brit and she has lived here. I missed her.
Significant memory: hostel from Hell. Free entry into Madame Tussauds - lots of laughs and photos. Dinner in St. Martin in the Field crypt. The history of Parliament and Westminster Abbey... Darwin buried in a church...

4) NETHERLANDS
Amsterdam - 5 nites
Highlight: Van Gogh Museum. His father a minister. Always been the allure...
Significant memory: Dave's Coffee Connection and Dave. A spirited entrepreneur.
Red Light District, men, drugs and drunks.
Anne Frank House. We walked on the same streets where people were rounded up by the Nazis.

5) GERMANY
Augsburg and Munich - 2 nites
Highlight: Oktoberfest - the energy, singing with the Swedes to a German band playing John Denver.
Significant memory: running into Travis (again); he was visiting whiskey distilleries in Scotland; I learned to appreciate the Scottish distillery.
Riding the rails home with mostly locals from Oktoberfest.
Dachau Concentration Camp - profound to stand in the square where 1000s stood for roll call and asundry cruelties. Standing by the blood wall and hedge where people were shot execution style. The endurance of the human spirit is beyond expression for it is eternal and internal.

6) AUSTRIA
Salzburg - 2 nites
St. Gilgen - 2
Highlight: a wonderful hostel with large private room, bathroom, view, and television (CNN English); huge common area.
Significant memory: Phyllis and I went our separate ways between Salzburg and St. Gilgen. After traveling together for five weeks, I had to re-discover my solo traveler strength. It was a nurturing and growing balance of five weeks with a friend and five weeks alone.
The music-less Sound of Music tour. We had to be the only group of the entire tourist season that had no DVD or audio on the Sound of Music tour. The tour guide felt horrible and was profusely apologetic and frustrated (in addition, he couldn't sing); it was not his company or bus. Hey, things happen...

7) SLOVENIA
Ljubljana - 4 nites
Highlight: meeting up with Joni's friends from Rotary. They live part-year in Ljubljana.
I love Ljbljana - there is a river ambience; it is safe, comfortable, inviting, romantic. It is a shared memory with oldest daughter because she as well, has visited and loves it.
Significant memory: approaching a man from the Netherlands and sharing several hours of walk and talk.
The funniest life-size display of men in suits, board members.
Watching and listening to the noise-interactive Slovenian street dancing.

8) CROATIA
Zagreb - 4 nites
Zadar - 1
Plitvice National Park - 2
Split - 5
Dubrovnik - 5
Highlight: hypnotic sea pipes in Zadar
Significant memories: running into Su Jin again on a most unlikely corner not in Old Towne, the colors of Plitvice Lakes, private accommodations vs hostels.
Spending the last two days of the ten weeks with Phyllis and Yellowstone Kathy and her friend Jean. We rendezvoused in Dubrovnik and shared the all-day boat to three islands (with wine in day-packs). When we met 2 seasons ago in Yellowstone, who could have forseen a joint travel venture in Croatia?

It was a fine finish to my trip.

Along the blue Dalmatian Coast on the bus to the airport, I was surprised at my overwhelm of emotion. It was the end to a trip that won't happen again in this manner, in this style. I am privileged to have journeyed in the way and with the people I did; once again, riding alongside, sneaking into, sharing life stories with, and in a setting generally reserved for the young.

All was not easy, but all was sacred...

I wouldn't change a thing. It is not the way for most people of my generation to travel anymore, but it was my way. The way that allowed me to take ten weeks and the way that I could interact and be fed by others journeying along life's pathway.

Kathy Charly Phyllis - Dubrovnik, Croatia

To the Elaphite Islands

Lovely Su Jin from South Korea - we met in three towns.

Dalmatian Coast - Croatia - Adriatic Sea

Plitvice National Park - Croatia has 8 national parks.

Not Ordinary for the U.S.A.

Modern fashion, medieval marble. Streets and curbs are marble-laid.
Caution: slippery when wet.
Dubrovnik, Croatia (named after the dubrava, holm oak tree)
Fall of 1991 to Spring of 1992, Dubrovnik was hit with over 2000 bombs and missiles by Yugoslav troops.

FKK = nude beaches
Lopud, Kolocep, Sipan Islands - Croatia

Our captains and servers on board - two handsome young brothers
Croatia

In the village Mukinje, outside Plitvice National Park, Croatia, this is the sole means of advertisement for the market.

Not politically correct in the U.S.

Pink toilet paper everywhere. In the 60s, my mother bought hot pink teepee.

When it doesn't fit, they have a solution. Bathrooms can be so tiny that the faucet overshoots the sink. Solution? Bend it backward.

Along Dalmatian Coast, the signage would sport both English and Croation, "No Shampooing." And I had brought my shampoo and toothpaste to the beach....

What a day...

Each and every time I think there is no one to talk with, a surprise blows in.

1) A young man from Ft Collins in my room. Recent graduate from Colorado State University with a double major in marketing and management. Pleasant pleasant pleasant guy. He was surprised to meet a Summit County resident sleeping in the same hostel, room, and bed next to his.

2) Lunch at a local's restaurant: I am asking the waiter about fish. From three tables away, I hear, squid is good. The man and I start talking. He was a high school graduate of my rival high school (South Hills High) in West Covina, CA, and graduated one year after me. He lives in Santa Barbara today and first visited Croatia in 1975 under Tito. 

People my age are amazed that I have not traveled to Europe before. I explain this apparent gap by saying, I have always traveled south of the border to Mexico, Central and South America, like I have to make up for the life-gap. It is an ongoing competition - who has traveled the most, the furthest, the longest, the cheapest. lol

3) I am watching the sunset over the Adriatic in Split and a woman bounces down on the bench. I almost teeter-totter up because her exuberance is BIG. What a lovely woman from Switzerland. We share the evening. She has a 20 year old son, is married, and biking from Switzerland to Dubrovnik in southern Croatia. Road-biking and camping in her tent along the route! She has ferried and traveled by bus as well.

Bikes are welcome on ferries, trains, buses - bike friendly nations in Europe. She shared some of the journey with her husband but most of the time went it alone. A bubbly delightful woman who relishes the physical sport of seeing a country by road-bike. Did I mention she speaks 5 or 6 languages? I couldn't keep up. She also learned enough Croat to speak the basics. I am envious!

Thus, this is a typical day. I meet and encounter. Life is good.

Geography/History/Politics 101

I just put salt in my coffee because I cannot read Croat labels.

Croatia visits: Zagreb (the capital), Zadar on the sea, Plitvice National Park, Split (on the Adriatic also), and Dubrovnik (the farthest south city in an oddly shaped country).

I am so glad to have taken this trip. I would not have done it this way without the pain of divorce, the circumstance of loss. I would not have done it at all because the former spouse does not travel. 

Loss. Each person goes through their life tunnels of darkness. I have too many friends processing cancer presently. It is not right nor fair. Life is such an odd mixture of what does and does not happen. Is there conclusion or summary to life? I do not know.


I have learned of geography, history, politics. I learned how little I know of the world except the United States. Without question, citizens of other countries know  world history and present-day politics. They know more about North America. Perhaps they learn because European countries are smaller and interface with each other through invasions, marauders, wars, relatives, and cultures. 

Historical length of the region is vast and embraces Neanderthals, Illyrian tribes, Rome, neighboring countries they loved - then fought in civil wars. The split of the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s into six countries. The birth of the EU as well. They dramatically live history today. 

These countries are modern in many but not all ways. A seemingly insignificant example, they use a flush toilet system that delivers with a whoosh. It is better than ours with a ball and chain in the tank. In Germany, Austria, Croatia, bottles and cans are recycled and can be returned for the cash deposit. Each country has significant recycling programs in place. And the prevalent use of small engines and cars! Shame on us! They drive fast and have highways (with far less potholes). It is not speed we are addicted to.


I am repeating thoughts of previous posts but I reflect.

Education. In Ljubljana, Slovenia, university students pay 60 euro a year to attend. $90. The rest is paid for by the state. This beats the quarter of a million dollars my child will pay for a veterinary degree. International vet students are SHOCKED to learn what an American student pays and how long they must attend school because American students must obtain the undergraduate degree as a prerequisite to beginning veterinary studies.

Thinking can be more embracing and accepting of different lifestyles than our own. Not Muslim countries of course - as a solo woman, I have stayed away from those areas.

People do care how America performs because it has a world effect and in general, they like Americans.


I wonder if America does not relish its past glory a little too much when it should be asking and acting on different questions about America's future - educational system, health-care, our people, our emptiness, our materialism and consumption.


We are a friendly nation. We are easy to smile and laugh. We are willing to help throughout the world. 

Yet we are not alone. And time has moved on. So must the United States...

Call me Ordinary

I have 10 days of 10 weeks left of my journey. There is a pattern to the travel.

Two days this week, I stepped off the bus not knowing where I would sleep that night. One was at Plitvice National Park. I knew the bus would drop me, not outside a town, but at the entrance to the Park. I was correct. I was at the forest edge.

Plan was to walk to one of the Park lodges. Very expensive but maybe they could help... I did not even get that far. There stood a Croatian retired married couple who said they had a room. Very clean, very close. 10 minute walk to the village Mukinje. There was something about them I trusted. We took to one another. I did ask the price and it was very reasonable compared to the Park lodges.


Luck paid off. It was the most clean, private, safe, and spacious room thus far. Bathroom was luxurious and it was mine! It was also a room with a view. I looked out my elevated window to behold stars and forest. They rented out two rooms in their own home (apartment) and had a door separating the two areas. I was the only renter for two nights. Oh safe haven! 

Very sweet people. She taught me something, saying, "you are normal. this is good. you are normal person."

The word may not sound complimentary, but when traveling like this, normal, ordinary, average is really a compliment. It translates to trustworthy. And I will take that word any day of the week!


Two years ago, their very first renter was from Colorado. The prize this summer for the millionth visitor to Plitvice National Park was a 10-day all expense paid trip to Yellowstone. They were delighted at the serendipity and I was a small celebrity. For the first time in ten weeks, my accommodation and stay wears the word, lovely...

The Museum of Broken Relationships

WHAT IS EXPERIENCE WITHOUT BIOGRAPHY?


As the European journey winds down, I enter the last two weeks with a different day's agenda than at the beginning. No longer controlled by sites to see, museums to consume, history to absorb, I spend more of the day observing and talking to people.


The most creative museum I have seen: The Museum of Broken Relationships. It is a touring exhibition, collecting from many countries. Some letters and mementos were from Bloomington, Indiana. The exhibition reflects a universal experience more so than any antiquity or Michelangelo... 


...for we have all loved and lost.


People wrote a sentence or paragraph and sent in a tangible memento of a former love or lover. There was everything from the entire wedding album to shattered glass. On a pane of glass, the forlorn had written and glued a poem to the former beloved. Then she shattered the heartfelt masterpiece and artfully collected the pieces in a glass jar. The words could no longer be read, but oh, the meaning was clear...


As one who punched out a large plate glass window in my mother's kitchen in West Covina, California, long ago, I felt the pain.


Stories were represented by everything from a pair of hiking boots, a tiny glass dog, broken beads of a gifted bracelet, an entire novel (written by the forsaken), clothes left behind, pressed flowers, sex toys...


People from all over the world shared their hurt. Some times people met on a journey, and what was true in passing, a miracle of the moment, did not meet the reality of long-term.


There was another written by a woman similar in age who had a relationship with a man 30 years younger. I believe a reader knows who can relate...

Profiling

When I stayed two nights in a regular hotel for lack of availability at hostels, I did not meet a soul. My aloneness was announced at breakfast. There were name placecards. Not being use to elegance or service, I sat down at the wrong table. Quickly the kitchen was alerted!! I was guided to another table and the 2nd place setting whisked away.  

BRANDED that I was the only non-couple in the hotel!! 


This is the reason I stay at hostels. One meets others. It may be a simple conversation in the common area or getting to know better those who linger a few days. 


I do things I would never do in America. NEVER. Last night, while eating a half-salad with roasted vegetables and drinking a liter of beer, I noticed a man close to the age back in the day. I could tell he was not Slovene. Perhaps American? After an hour of observation (he could not see me), I went up and started a conversation. It lasted two hours. He wasn't American but from the Netherlands and travels to the US on business.

Traveling makes one accessible, out of need and challenge. Traveling provides opportunity to exercise my risk factor.


People Rundown

20 year old who has papers from three countries. Born in Germany, moved to Australia. Parents divorced. His dad is American. What a pleasant young man.


Aging hippie couple have traveled hostel and camping style all their married life. Raised three children and have grandchildren. He is a musician. She a nurse.


A recent graduate who is a water engineer, applied to Peace Corps and waiting. Nerdy and smart.

A German engineer in his thirties who worked and lived in Shanghai for two years. World traveled. Jolly German guy who consults.


Four girls from Hong Kong. I don't know what they said but we kept running into one another.


Young woman from Switzerland who works at a group home for the mentally disabled. We shared dinner and wine. 

A young man in his mid 20s from Serbia. He went to school in Santa Barbara his last two years of high school. He mentioned Isla Vista where there are many apartment buildings. I lived there when attending UCSB. 

A note about Serbia... there are many children born of Serbian mothers who do not know their fathers, a result of war years. I met another young woman, the same, who wants to search for her father.


A bright lit-up young girl from Canada who sparkles as she walks. Trying to figure out what to do with the rest of her life. Travel is teaching her about people and self. She wears the pride of a young woman who is becoming. She has two degrees but has the sparkle of a 16 year old.

Met a Canadian older couple who travel with their fold-up bikes. We met on a path. If I had seen them elsewhere, I would never guess they travel in such a light and outdoor manner. Of course, when a couple leaves me, I hear the woman say to the husband, she is traveling alone...

RED BULL MAN - not someone I met but to ad-happy Americans, his method of business is unusual. He's Austrian and the company is outside Salzburg. I passed the company complex four times. There is not one sign that even shows the name of the company at the entrance. The owner is a Taurus; thus, the red bull logo.


Former Prime Minister of Slovenia - I saw him closeby when I was on the city free tour. He walks alone with cell phone to his ear. No body guards or entourage. He was the man elected in the transition of 1991 when the country gained independence. (former Yugoslavia to Slovenia) He is pictured with political heavy-weights. Unprotected, unassuming... Amazing...

Word Descripts

OKTOBERFEST IN MUNICH:

dazzling lights

county-fair-like festivity but with community

flying and swinging rides

music, singing
linked arms swaying to music while standing on benches

raising and clanging glass beer mugs - "cheers"

hats, feathers

heart-shape chocolate cookies with frosting called LEBKUCHEN worn as necklaces (given in place of stuffed animals at our county fairs?)

giant pretzels

sugar-coated nuts in pointed paper cups

accordians, drummers, German bands

meat meat and more meat

sweets sweets and more sweets

butter butter and more butter

salt salt and more salt

long tables in Biergartens

train ride home: men sleeping or passed out in wives/girlfriends laps

chickens on rotisierries

brats twice as long as buns

liederhausen and checkered shirts and dirndel dresses with aprons COSTUMES

GERMANY AND AUSTRIA

clean neat orderly tidy

mild-mannered

contained controlled

flowers, gardens, window boxes

color and design as part of houses and architecture

perfect postcard alpine villages

skinny steeples or orthodox onion-bulb

tended graveyards that explode with flowers and plants
fizzy water from bottles - one must ask for water from the pipe or pay 2.50 euro for water at a restaurant

Unusual adjustments for Americans:

surcharge on food if you dine in the restaurant (Italy)

showers from cold to water that stays on 5 seconds before one has to push the button again and again and again.

water that drips down the wall vs shooting out. 

shower water that doesn't drain and pools in room.

sleeping with strangers in a coed mixed 6-bed dorm. (you say you cannot or would not do it but know what? anyone can do it. it is choice. Okay, so you don't choose. By choosing, I have been able to go on this trip.)

sleeping on top or lower bunk. I like lower because I hang my sarong and make a private cubby.

customer service - not generally American standards

only last night did I learn that it is considered rude to bring the bill when done eating. That is American style to scoot us out for the next round of customers. Europeans expect you to stay the evening and linger. It is rude to bring the bill before one asks.

paying to use the toilets. I have paid up to 1 euro ($1.50). It kills to pay for the bathroom!

not looking people in the eyes as one passes. not smiling. Americans smile and look!

What Americans don't have

public transportation

trust: I have been on buses that transport children to school. Children from elementary to high school ride public buses with workers and tourists. There is a trust and code of behavior that is minimal in America.

adults seem to parent the whole village and it is allowed. Americans are afraid of being dragged into court.

minimal anger - are Americans angry? 

relaxed and holiday time - our culture is work oriented, driven, crazy mad and then we die - money money money - we stand on it.

we are not number one period. we are one culture among many. we don't have as many "greats" and freedoms as we think we do. other countries have more freedoms than we believe they do. (I am super generalizing! Don't yell at me! I know about barbaric countries.)

Austria has been one of the cleanest countries. Very little litter. One can feel the pride in the land, gardens, houses, lakes, mountains, and sky!

beautiful prams! I love how they transport the babies!

When our Presidents say God Bless America, it has irritated me from little girl on. It should be God Bless Everyone.

The Slovene national anthem, written by a poet as a poem, is one of the few national anthems that closes with a blessing and peace for all people.

Traveling Solo Again

After five weeks traveling together, Phyllis and I parted yesterday in Salzburg, Austria. A quick pivot on the sidewalk and we were headed in different directions. Our time together turned out well. Five weeks with a companion and five weeks alone - two at the beginning in Italy and three at the end in Austria, Slovenia, and Croatia. I worked a whole day in a non-hostel to book the next leg of the trip and I am still dangling over water the last week.

I love the universe when it happens. At Munich Central Station, the right moment presented itself. Down the center food aisle of a shop-roundabout in a station with 100s, if not 1000s of people, there was Travis from Seattle who we met in Scotland. Within the previous 24 hours, I'd mentioned I would like to talk to him about a book he loaned. (on universe, science, big bang, dimensions beyond-beyond) And, there he was. Phyllis and I had a series of mishaps or delays earlier, yet it all came together at the right moment in time. He even has the brain-blip where one cannot recognize faces. I have only heard about this on TV within the last year. He compensates with voices and in my case, heighth. We watched the famous Glockenspiel with life size figures. Watching people with their cameras posed was the fun part. Laughing all the way.

These random moments drop in everyone's lives.

Life and its spontaneous offerings...

Hostels are the worst to the best. We had two in a row that were excellent, even rooms to ourselves. New, cleaned everyday, beds made, self-catering kitchens. Hostels are wonderful when traveling alone because it is the way to meet people. Because Salzburg was booked and I needed to extend two more nights, I had to go to an outlying town and a regular hotel. I have not met a soul!! Breakfast was isolating. Everyone was a couple. One language spoken - or they sounded the same and it wasn't English. Gud Morgen. I don't know how to spell it but that's what it sounds like in German and Austrian.

The last night at the Salzburg Hostel we were cooking in the tiny kitchen quarters. A German guy glared at us for taking up space until I invited him in to share the space. We made fast friends when I began talking about food. Our plate was in a mound of yellow, red, orange, green, white, brown and ALL VEGETABLES. We starve for vegies and salads when traveling, especially in bread, potato, and meat-laden Germany. His pan was full of processed and pressed beige meat. Our wok was in glorious technicolor. We laughed about the different kinds of food. He spoke little English - actually never said a word, but the food spoke and laughter came. He continued to make eye-contact. I like little progresses!

We are good to be on our own again. Loved the company and laughter, was grateful for it, but the time comes for other challenges. My timing does not work with friend Kathy from Yellowstone. Phyl and she will meet in two weeks time. I am off and running the same course but 10 days sooner. There is a challenge I fear and like as a solo traveler.

I heard English today from some women and interrupted their walk to talk! I hadn't spoken until four o'clock except Gud Morgen. They were three friends from California traveling three weeks, not in hostels and not using public transportation. It was a peppy-conversation and I was renewed.

Solo-stretching. Never thought it would be me. But it is. Life is what it is.

A I enter countries like Slovenia and Croatia, I will know the fear and excitement. But not like I felt the weeks before leaving for Rome. I have learned.