Alla Bolognese, con Cinzia e Sergio

Bologna is an exciting place, a bustling commercial center since the Middle Ages, where there's always something going on: shops large and small sell everything from luxury jewelry and designer clothes to €1 housewares, market stalls offering heaps of Christmas trinkets and cheap clothes line busy thoroughfares, long queues wait to enter trattorias and gelaterias and hole-in-the-wall al taglio pizzerias, street performers and political protestors sing and shout to get the attention of passersby, and always there are people out and about early and late.

Bologna is not always pretty. Graffiti is everywhere, some buildings are hundreds of years past their use-by date, and the city has its share of unsavory characters. There are times when you think the whole town needs a thorough power-washing and repainting.

I first visited Bologna in 2001 and was immediately attracted to its gritty, edgy energy. We came again in 2003 and 2005, and now in 2011 the appeal is as strong as ever, which is a little surprising since Bologna doesn't seem to care if I visit or not. The central tourist office is unhelpful and uninterested. There are no museum passes, but then there aren't many museums. The infrastructure for visitors is tied to the many trade fairs held here, so at least it's relatively easy to get to and from the airport.

We've started each day by getting out the map, picking a direction or area unfamiliar to us, and head out that way. An old guidebook and Google have helped narrow down our options, but mostly we're exploring to see what we can find. An old palazzo, a church courtyard, another piazza full of street vendors, a slice or two of pizza and maybe a gelato and by late afternoon it's time for a break. We head back to the hotel and have a lie down before deciding where to go for dinner.

Friday night, however, was something special. Years ago, I started using Flickr to share my snaps, and one of my first contacts there was cinzia_t, who lives near Bologna. As Terri and I planned this trip, I was excited by the prospect of finally meeting Cinzia in person. We exchanged emails and made arrangements to get together for dinner.

Cinzia and her husband, Sergio, took us to Trattoria del Pellegrino just outside the city walls near Porta Santo Stefano. The place was packed with Italian families enjoying the beginning of the weekend.

Terri and I wisely let them do the ordering for us, and we were treated to several different kinds of pasta and meat dishes, all Bolognese specialities, washed down by vino rosso della casa and followed by zuppa inglese. More important than the food, of course, was enjoying the company of our friends. Cinzia is the most bilingual of the bunch, fortunately knowing some English, while Sergio spoke a little English and Terri and I stumbled through our Italian. The language difficulties just added to the fun, however.

After dinner, we went for a long walk into the city. We strolled up Via Santo Stefano as Cinzia and Sergio told us about the churches and markets and piazzas we passed. The walk ended in Piazza Maggiore, the wonderful central plaza of Bologna, and sometime after midnight we finally said arrivederci, with many hopes and plans of seeing each other again soon. The perfect end to a perfect evening.

Today is our last day in Bologna. We had to do some rescheduling because of an Iberia pilots' strike, but we must have had a large balance in our travel karma account because the new schedule is better than the old one. The only bad part is that we have to leave on the first bus to the airport at 5:20 a.m. We are due to be home a mere 20 hours later. Goodbye Italy, Hello Texas.

Here's my Flickr photos from the trip. For those who would rather sit back and let the computer do the work, here's the slideshow version.

The Other Italy

To most travelers, Italy means Rome, Florence, and Venice, with perhaps day trips to Siena or Cinque Terre. There are good reasons for this: those cities are wonders, with enough art, food, history, and charm to beguile the most cynical. But there's another Italy that I love just as much, an Italy that too few people take the time to see.

When we left Venice, we took a regionale train to Vicenza, where we spent three nights. Another regionale to Ferrara and another three nights, then on to Ravenna for three nights. These mid-size Italian cities (and there are many more like them, Parma and Perugia and Verona, for example) have great food with local specialities, fine art and museums, festivals and events. Each one has a population of around 100,000, so a few tourists like us can wander in and not be noticed.

We usually arrive on an early afternoon train, which means that as we walk into town (yes, they're small enough that you can walk from the stazione to the centro storico) around 2 p.m.; the streets are deserted, a ghost town with only a few stragglers and dogs roaming the narrow streets. It's the afternoon break, when all the shops are closed and everyone goes home for a few hours. We check into our hotel and put away our bags before heading out again.

By 4.30 p.m. or so people are starting to come outside and by 5 the shops are re-opened and the bars are again serving coffee and prosecco. By 6 or 6.30 the passeggiata is in full swing: everyone is walking up and down the main streets, window shopping, talking with friends and neighbors, running errands. At this time of year there are Christmas markets in the plazas, merry-go-rounds for the kiddies, and temporary ice rinks for the teenagers. Some of the happiest moments of my life have been wandering around within these evening promenades, seeing and hearing and smelling life in Italy.

Here's Corso Palladio in Vicenza just the other night:

And here's Perugia from a trip back in 2005; different city, different year, same ritual:

By 8 or so we're off to dinner somewhere, eager to try local specialities like baccalá in Vicenza or cappellacci with zucca in Ferrara. We sit down and wrestle with the menu and drink and eat and wonder whether we should get dessert. We leave by 9.30 or 10 and again the streets are dead, no one about, the city gone to bed for the night.

Altogether it's a pleasant and appealing rhythm of existence.

We'll be ending our trip in Bologna, La Grassa, La Rossa or The Fat, The Red. "Fat" because Bologna is known for being wealthy and prosperous as well as having the greatest food in Italy -- mention "Bologna" to an Italian and their eyes will light up as they speak of great dishes -- and "Red" both because of its distinctive red tile roofs and its leftist politics. Several of Bologna's mayors have been card-carrying Communists.

These photos and more over on Flickr.

Wandering Around Venice

It is an amazing thing that within 24 hours one can go from an apartment in Texas to a hotel in Italy. The amazing becomes depressing when one realizes that this time has not improved in over 50 years since the introduction of jet airliners.

This trip we didn't get vaporetto (water bus) passes, so we're walking everywhere. There is no better place in the world to wander; if you've never been here, Google "venice map" to see what a maze it is. There's no grid, no plan, no organization: major thoroughfares may be barely wide enough for two people to pass while some large squares sit empty and silent. Of course there's no wheeled vehicles of any sort except for baby strollers and grocery carts that need to be wrestled up and down the bridges. A walk of five minutes from hotel to restaurant may twist and turn up and down a dozen streets and across several canals. The shortest distance between two points is never a straight line, always a zig-zag.

On Thursday, our first full day in Venice, we revisited major sites and old favorites. We walked from our hotel in Castello near the Ospedale to Campo S. Maria Formosa, then on to the tourist madness of the Rialto Bridge. We wandered through S. Polo on the far side of the Grand Canal and eventually made our way down to Dorsodouro, where we had a delightful lunch at Taverna San Trovaso. We had a gelato as we walked along the Zattere, then headed back over the Accademia bridge to return to Piazza San Marco.

Friday was a day to explore new areas. We headed east through quiet old neighborhoods of Castello, past Arsenale, then along the bustling markets of Via Garibaldi. We visited S. Pietro on its little island, then wandered through eerily quiet residential neighborhoods. Parks, trees, block after block of apartments with no bars, no restaurants, no shops -- it was a Venice we had never seen before. We walked back along the fondamente to the tourist madness of Riva degli Schiavoni and had lunch at a little place down a side street behind the Bridge of Sighs.

Today, Saturday, has been gray and misty. We went to the Correr Museum (where we discovered that the paintings we most wanted to see, masterpieces by Carpaccio and Bellini, were on loan to Tokyo) and a guided tour of the renovated clock tower overlooking Piazza San Marco. Later this evening we'll head out to try a new neighborhood place for dinner.

Tomorrow we'll wander some more and then on Monday we'll head off the beaten path.

These photos and more over on Flickr.

Italy #9

After we went to Florence for our honeymoon in 1999, Terri and I made a habit of returning to Italy every year: Tuscany in 2000, Emilia-Romagna in 2001, The Marches in 2002, the Veneto in 2003. We skipped 2004 because that was the year I had to put Momma in the nursing home, but in 2005 we were back with a grand sweep from Rome through Umbria and Tuscany to Bologna and Venice. Then we got sidetracked by retirement and moving and trips to other places, although we made it back to Rome in 2008 and 2009.

(Six years may not sound like so long ago, but consider this: on that last long trip to Italy in 2005, I was still taking snaps with a film camera, we wandered down dark side streets looking for Internet cafés because we did not own a laptop, and my very first travel report was sent out after we returned home via a primitive communication technology called 'email.' Now I carry several digital cameras, we require WiFi for our MacBook and iPod, and I am a real-time location-services-savvy Facebooking blogger.)

It's time to go back. We leave in a couple of days, flying to Madrid then on to Venice. After several days in La Serenissima, we'll go to Vicenza, Ferrara, Ravenna, and finally Bologna, three weeks altogether. The Italians will be getting ready for Christmas, with roasted chestnuts on every corner and tortelli di zucca in every restaurant. Mostly we'll be eating and drinking, but we'll make time for some looking, too.

While you look at this snap from our last trip to Venice in November 2005, I'm going to start packing.

Next post and snaps from Il Bel Paese...

Almost Time to Go

As I write this, the temperature here in Buenos Aires is 75° while back home in Fort Worth it's 69°. In other words, it's almost time to leave.

Since we did all the touristy things in years past, this time we decided to focus on simply getting to know our neighborhood better and enjoying it more.

One of the most pleasant results of this new approach was that we've eaten really well. I've complained before about the lack of variety and spice in Buenos Aires cuisine, but either the food has gotten better or our attitude has changed. With one or two exceptions, we never ate at a restaurant more than two or three blocks from our apartment. We found places we had never noticed before and stopped in at places we had often walked past. The restaurant fare was so good and still relatively cheap that we only cooked at home a couple of times. Some particular favorites were vacío at La Cholita, sorrentinos at La Parolaccia, sorrentinos at Rigoletto, lomo a caballo at Rodi-Bar, lomo at Melo, pizza calabresa at Güerrin, and milanesa napolitana at María de Bambi.

We brew our morning coffee here in the apartment. The stuff sold in supermarkets as 'coffee' is nasty and imported coffee from Brazil and Colombia is expensive, so we brought a couple of bags of Aldi coffee in our checked luggage. There's no half-and-half in Argentina, but we did just fine adding a spoon or two of crema to our morning café con leche. (There's a lot of cream for sale in the groceries: I wonder what people use it for?)

We've yet to figure out a reasonable way to exercise during our month here. It may not look like it, but I have a regular routine that I go through every day, mostly stretching, light weights, and brisk walking. Here, though, it's hard to do any of that. Walking in the city, dodging cars and buses and jostling through crowds, is not as satisfying as a fast five miles on the Trinity Trails. We're losing our tans.

Last night on the local news we saw a report about a large truck that had overturned on an overpass, dumping tens of thousands of pounds of yerba maté on the ground below. Crowds of men, women, and children rushed in to pick up the packages to haul home.

The parks are getting cleaner and nicer every year; Plaza Vicente Lopez is still our favorite. I can think of few things in life more pleasant than sitting on a park bench on a sunny spring day, watching people come and go: that little boy chasing his ball while his older sister rollerblades past; the young couple intertwined on the grass and in each other's eyes; the elderly woman, elegantly dressed, being helped to a bench by her young companion; the suited businessman on his cellphone making florid gestures in the fresh air. Stories unfolding simultaneously before one's eyes: life being lived.

Every year we come to Buenos Aires we have a bout of respiratory ailments. Cold, allergies, air pollution? All of the above? The last several days we've both been coughing and sneezing; it's not enough to keep us away but it's annoying.

Packing for return is so much easier than packing to leave. Beginning a trip means having to decide which shirts? Cold weather or warm? How much underwear? How many pairs of jeans and slacks? Which pointy kitchen implements in the checked bags? But returning involves no decisions at all: pack everything!

During past stays in Buenos Aires, I've written about things we missed back in Texas. Now, I can't even remember what they were because this year I've missed... nothing.

Before you know it we'll be through DFW customs and boarding the TRE train for home, wondering whether our car will start after sitting in the parking garage for a month. And as I put the key in the ignition I'll wistfully remember being able to live happily and well for a whole month with no car at all.

Here's my snapshots of this trip. Or you can go to the slideshow version.

Surviving in the Third World

Today was another difficult day in Buenos Aires. We eased out of bed around 9.30, had our coffee and facturas (pastries: apple or quince? croissant or cinnamon scone?), and took our time showering and getting dressed.

Around 1.30 we made it out the door to start looking for lunch. We strolled through the neighborhood, browsed some menus posted in windows, and eventually made it to María de Bambi a few blocks away.

We had eaten here two years ago and thought it worth trying again. Terri had spinach crepes and I had milanesa a la napolitana (breaded cutlet with tomato sauce and melted cheese on top), accompanied by a half bottle of vino tinto. Tasty and satisfying, all of it.

Full of lunch, we ambled over to Plaza de Vicente Lopez and sat on a bench. We talked about the gorgeous, almost too warm weather, and commented humorously on each person who went past. I suspect that at least some of them made humorous comments about us.

Bench sitting completed, we headed to the Disco supermarket to take advantage of our 15% discount coupon. We used our VISA to buy bread and butter and liters of Stella Artois and a bottle of sauvignon blanc and some dark chocolate alfajores for dessert later.

We walked back home with our groceries and safely re-entered the sanctuary of our apartment. It's a warm day, so we turned on the air conditioner. I'm pondering watching some cable TV (BBC or Al Jazeera? Turner Classic Movies or Canal 7?) before taking a nap.

Want to see more? Here's the growing set of snapshots of this trip.

Less Writing, More Looking

The weather in Buenos Aires is pleasant, perfect, gorgeous: highs in the low 70s, lows in upper 50s. We walk around during the day in shirtsleeves and I can sit on the balcony in the evening in shorts. The skies are blue with an occasional flourish of wispy cloud.

In other words, it is too warm. I came down here for winter but instead got idyllic spring.

(I should note here that most Argentines, like their Italian forebears, dress by the calendar rather than the thermometer. If the calendar says September -- March in Northern Hemisphere terms -- they will wear coats and scarves even when the temperature suggests less clothing.)

We are having a wonderful time. I could tell you more about it, about get-togethers with our old friend Robert and our new friend Ben, about how good the food seems this trip, about visiting Teatro Colon and Belles Artes, hot dogs in the park and ice cream cones, but I don't feel like writing much now. Instead, you can look at snapshots of this trip.

There's a slideshow version, too.

Big Mac Inflation Index, Argentina Style

As a way to compare official inflation figures with real-world prices, The Economist magazine devised the Big Mac Inflation Index. Comparing worldwide prices for McDonald's signature sandwich, the Big Mac, gives a sense of the true relative purchasing power of various currencies. In an article early this year explaining the index, The Economist pointed out that Argentina's official inflation rate was only 10% while burger prices had actually gone up twice as much, 19%.

Argentina's response to this is fascinating and fiendishly clever.

Walk into any McDonald's in Buenos Aires and look up at the big lighted menu board and you will find the usual stuff: Cuarto and Angus Tasty and McPollo and McNifica and all the rest. Look again, a little more closely, and you'll notice there is no Big Mac. No Big Mac at McDonald's? Huh?

Why isn't the Big Mac advertised on the menu? The rumor is that the Argentine government has asked (perhaps even paid?) McDonald's to keep the price of that particular item artificially low because of the inflation index. McDonald's has complied with the request but, to avoid losing money selling an item below cost, has taken the Big Mac off the published menu to discourage customers from ordering it.

We temporarily suspended our aversion to McDonald's to test this out. We walked up to Palermo to enjoy the Thays Botanical Garden; it was lunchtime and we were getting hungry, so we stopped in a McDonald's on Las Heras near the park. All the listed combo meals (sandwich, fries, and drink) ranged from A$32 to A$42 (US$7.75 to US$10). There was no Big Mac on the menu board but we asked, and sure enough they had it, at A$21.90 (US$5.25), a half to a third off the price of any other meal. We also discovered that ordering a Big Mac ensures that you get a freshly prepared burger, since they don't make them in advance and stick them under a heat lamp.

The other big surprise was that the Big Mac was -- dare I say it? -- tasty. Burgers are hard to come by in Buenos Aires, and the Big Mac meal made a pretty good, and pretty cheap, lunch.

Here's my snapshots of this trip.

Struggling Against Familiarity

On the first visit, a new city in a new country is an exotic destination. Every sight, every sound, every smell is strange and entrancing. On the second and third visits, the excitement is more subdued but there's still a thrill in revisiting famous places and resampling favorite foods. By the sixth visit, it's like being home again and the main concerns center around the daily routine: do we get our groceries at Disco (closer but more expensive) or Carrefour (an extra block away)? Steak for lunch at La Cholita or steak for dinner at Restaurante Melo? One piece of toast or two for breakfast?

We walk down the same streets and see the same buildings. Buenos Aires is a big city, however: just yesterday we were re-familiarizing ourselves with the neighborhood, walking along a nearby street, and saw several shops and restaurants we had never noticed before. Ah, a new place for lunch, perhaps.

I have identified the problem, and it is not Buenos Aires. My brain, dulled by familiarity, has trouble seeing new things to photograph and to write about.

On our first trip, when all was new, one of my favorite (in)activities was to stand on the balcony, glass of malbec in hand, and watch the traffic roar by. On this, the sixth trip, I still stand on the balcony, relishing that glass of wine and the sounds of the city. Perhaps the familiar is not so dull after all.

I am starting to post a few snapshots of this trip.

To the escape pods! ¡Nos vamos!

I hate the Texas summer. Every year seems hotter and this has been the hottest: day after day over 100°, made even worse by the record-setting lows in the mid-80s. The relentless heat is more than my brain can handle: I'm sour, lethargic, and indifferent. I don't smile, I can't think, I don't want to do anything.

But at last, this Friday, we escape.

For the sixth straight year, we're leaving for a month in Buenos Aires, where it's late winter. For the fourth straight year, we're renting the same one-bedroom apartment in a high-rise near the corner of Callao and Pacheco de Melo. For the first time in months, I'll wear long pants, real shoes, and a coat.

We arrive Saturday morning, when it is forecast to be about 50° and overcast.

Imagining a Photograph

When we're traveling, I post travel reports.  When we're not traveling, I make stuff up.  Like this.

An instant of light — a hundredth of a second, maybe more, perhaps less — is all it took to freeze forever that moment. Days months years pass, but I can hold the photograph in my hand, look again at the face looking at me, ponder that smile, wonder what happened to her.

I stare at the print, my eyes’ attention darting from center to edge and back, from detail to detail. From somewhere within my consciousness her smell comes to mind, uninvited yet not unwelcome, then the sound of her laugh, the feel of her shoulder, even the taste of her tongue. That moment so long ago, our laughter and happiness, the warmth of a spring sun, comes alive again. All the complexity of our world, our hopes and fears and expectations and the tension between what was and what would be, was distilled into these colors onto this small rectangle of paper.

That moment was followed by other moments not photographed. Spring turned into a scorching summer, laughter faded to tedium, and there was less feeling of shoulders and tasting of tongues. We endured thousands upon thousands of instants of light and even long bouts of darkness but none captured in a camera.

She smiles still, in that frozen moment. The mouth hasn’t yet voiced goodbye, the body hasn’t turned to walk away. I put the photograph away, back into the dusty box. The memories fade as quickly as they came and I return to the present, the now of years later, where she is long gone and mostly forgotten and entirely imaginary.

Mere Mirror

I wrote this ditty around 40 years ago and recently rediscovered it.  The questions remain but answers are elusive.  I still get a funny feeling when I look in the mirror.

          Mere mirror on the wall
         
          Who is he      
         
          Looking back at me?  
         
          And also, tell me true,
         
          What does he ask of you?

At First Sight

In January 1999, Terri and I were married by Travis County Justice of the Peace Scott Davis in his office in a strip mall off South Lamar.  A few hours later we were headed to Italy for our honeymoon, my first ever trip to Europe.  We've been traveling ever since.

_____________________________________________

Finish stuffing more things in our suitcases then drive over to the JP's office. Wait in line behind someone paying off a traffic ticket, noisily and reluctantly.  I do, she does, we're married.  Rush back home.  You have the passports?  The cab's here.  Off on a honeymoon:  Austin to Chicago, Chicago to Milan, Milan to Florence.  Almost 50 years old and at last I would see Europe.

On the flight across the Atlantic, free Champagne, Chablis, claret, port, Italian beer, grappa.  Delay at Malpensa.  Too much booze.  Too little sleep. Too much excitement. Everyone speaking Italian.  Weird bathrooms.  Don’t understand the food.

For almost fifty years, thinking about Europe, longing for Europe, desiring Europe, craving Europe, the center of my universe, literature, art, music, philosophy, history, everything led back to Europe.  At last to replace countless imaginings of Europe for the simple physical sensation of walking down a cobblestone street.

Tired, hungry, hung over, disoriented, but I was in Florence, of all places.  My first meal of real Tuscan food, at Mama Gina’s in the Oltrarno.  Then sleep, not sleep more like passing out, in our hotel off the north end of the Ponte Vecchio.  No more dreams of Europe, no more anticipation of what it might be — look out the window and see it there below, open the window and hear it and smell it.

The first morning, in the hotel breakfast room.  The coffee is different, different food, how does one eat this? and all around us are windows and beyond the windows are red-tiled roofs and steeples and television antennas and laundry hanging out to dry.

After breakfast, out into the streets, awake now and not hung over and marveling childishly at every sign, every passerby, every moto speeding past, the food in shop windows, fragments of conversations in another language.  People going to work, greeting friends, talking on cell phones, setting up stalls in the markets, narrow streets and narrower sidewalks, and here I am in Europe stepping around puddles from last night’s rain.

We went into a tabbachi to get stamps and postcards.  Ten minutes, so many cards, we must tell others about this place, how many stamps?  Oh look at this one.  How about this for Momma?  Your parents would like this one.  Here’s one for the kids.  Fumbling with lira, how many thousands?  Thank you, grazie, and back out into the street.

Still fumbling with the bag of cards and stamps and change, oddly shaped brightly colored bills each one with a bit of Italian history engraved thereon.  Stop for a moment, crowds jostling by, let’s stand here for a bit until we get it all put away.  Look up again, turn the corner to the right, and there it is.  I stop.

The Duomo.  I see it with piercing clarity, my mind willingly, forcefully ignoring all else.  Awestruck, speechless, I stand and stare, trying to take it all in, wanting to stop my life and the world then and there, freeze this second, forever be here facing the Duomo in this exact moment.

But the world does not cooperate.  The sidewalk is crowded, someone needs to get by, a tour bus pulls up and blocks the view, we must start thinking about lunch, the moment is gone.  Or is it?

Scenes from My Playlist

While YOU CAN'T ALWAYS GET WHAT YOU WANT, it's also true that YOU CAN GET IT IF YOU REALLY WANT.  Me, I WANT IT ALL NOW but I'd settle for ALL I NEED.

I admit, I'm ADDICTED, but at least I'm ADDICTED TO LOVE.  Really, every time I turn around I'm BACK IN LOVE AGAIN.  DO YOU LOVE ME?  GIMME SOME LOVIN'!  WILL YOU LOVE ME TOMORROW?  If not, where I can find some LOVE FOR SALE?

I'M A MAN.  Since I'M THE MAN, I'd be lying if I said I'M A WOMAN.  I'M TOO SEXY.  AIN'T THAT PECULIAR?  I guess I was BORN THIS WAY.

The animal trainer boasted to the circus audience, "I can make this BABY ELEPHANT WALK!" but they were not impressed.

COME AS YOU ARE when you COME AND GET IT.  Afterwards, you can COME GO WITH ME.  Or DON'T GO, whatever.

SHAKE YOUR GROOVE THING, SHAKE YOUR MONEY-MAKER, SHAKE IT UP.  If we can GET THE PARTY STARTED there will be a WHOLE LOTTA SHAKIN GOIN ON.  When I was younger, I could SHAKE IT ALL NIGHT but now for my SAFETY DANCE is not such a good idea.

I love DANCING IN THE STREET but unfortunately I'm usually DANCING WITH MYSELF.

TAKE ME TO THE MOUNTAINS or TAKE ME TO THE RIVER, we can even DRIVE MY CAR, just get ON THE ROAD AGAIN and take me to the LAND OF 1000 DANCES.

Excuse me, the phone, it's LONDON CALLING.  HELLO IT'S ME.  MY NAME IS JACK.

STAY.  STAY AWAKE.  STAY UP LATE.

MY BABY.  MY GIRL.  MY WIFE.  MY GUITAR WANTS TO KILL YOUR MAMA.

WALK HARD.  WALK LIKE A MAN.  WALK LIKE AN EGYPTIAN.

LIVING DISASTER.  LIVING FOR THE CITY.  LIVING IN A MOVIE.  LIVING IN THE U.S.A.

WORD UP!

If you'd like to leave a comment, please incorporate titles from your own playlist -- thanks!

Hello Esther Mae

July 27, 1945: Wiley is in the Army and far from his Galveston home, training in Chicago but sorely missing his girlfriend Esther Mae, his sweetheart from high school. He goes to the Chicago Servicemen's Center to make a record to surprise her, titling the finished disk with a simple handwritten "I LOVE YOU." After the war and service with the occupation forces in Japan, Wiley marries Esther Mae.

It so happens that Esther Mae had two older sisters. One of them was my mother; Wiley and Esther Mae are my uncle and aunt. In the late 1950s, a group of us cousins found this record in their closet and played it. And played it, and played it, and played it, to our endless entertainment. Even after hearing it so many times over the last 50 years, I still smile every time I listen to it.

A lot of things have changed in the 66 years since this record was made, but Wiley and Esther are still sweethearts, still making the best of it.




Announcer: This record is coming to you from the Chicago Servicemen's Center.

Hello Esther Mae,

I told you that I was going to try to get you a record and so I finally found one. I'm at the Chicago Servicemen's Center, in Chicago, and on the way home.

I, uh, you ought to appreciate this thing 'cause I ran up seven flights of steps for this! And this place was closing, too.

I didn't tell you about me coming home because I wanted to surprise you. But, uh, even though everybody teased me, they said I was going to be sorry, because you'd be out with Otto or somebody. But I told 'em that you wouldn't.

When I get home I'm going to have ten days and ten nights, so, uh, we, make the best of it, huh?

[long pause]

I just about ran out of things to say. I just wanted to make you a record before I went home. I hope that you haven't found out about this already, because I told my mother but I didn't want you to know about it.

That's enough.

________________________________________________
Many thanks to Radio Dismuke for excellently digitizing the original record.

Flying to Nui Ba Den

I began this blog in 2009 to replace the email travel reports I had started in 2007. Long before any of that, though, I had tentatively begun a very different kind of Glimpses, a collection of short fragments that I had written now and then over the years. Lacking the perseverance and focus necessary to be a Writer, I occasionally give in to the urge to put words to paper long enough to finish a page or two. I was never sure what to call them: verbal snapshots, essayettes, micro-short stories? I settled on calling them Glimpses and left it at that.

This Glimpse, for example, was originally written about fifteen years ago. It is set in June 1969, when I was a U.S. Army warrant officer flying UH-1 (Huey) helicopters in Vietnam. It is about a resupply mission to the top of Nui Ba Den, the Black Virgin Mountain.

It was near the beginning of the rainy season, when the cumulus clouds began dotting the sky around lunch time. The cloud bases were 2,000, maybe 2,500 feet, and it was almost a child’s game of hide-and-seek, setting up a steady climb in the UH-1H, weaving in and out, over and under, the inviting cottony whiteness almost palpable, until breaking through into clean air above the newly-formed clouds.

It was a routine run to Nui Ba Den, the Black Virgin mountain, 3,000 feet of jungle-covered rock dominating the countryside northwest of Saigon and east of Tay Ninh. We would land on the Huey pad, a small ridge that jutted out from and below the eastern side of the peak, drop off and pick up some passengers and their equipment, then fly down to Dau Tieng in time for lunch.

Landing at Nui Ba Den could be tricky. Conditions at the top often and abruptly changed between clear skies and cloud cover, with powerful gusts of wind, updrafts colliding with downdrafts. Timing was everything. Descend smoothly, nothing abrupt, carefully watch the overcast and mist accumulate on the upwind side of the pad; the clouds would grow fitfully until rising up and over the pad, obscuring it completely before a gust of wind blew them away and all was clear again. There was a critical, unseen point at which one had to say either yes, I am landing no matter what, or no, I am breaking this approach off to try again.

We began the descent. The clouds rose, the clouds dissipated, and I knew I was alone. The co-pilot and the crew chief and the gunner and the passengers were mere observers now; there was nothing they could do but watch and hope I outmaneuvered the mountain. Close in, just as I decided yes, we were landing, a cloud rolled in and covered the pad. The last few feet of descent were blind, and I banged it down a bit harder than I would have liked. But we were on the ground, undamaged. It would be a few minutes before we unloaded everything and got our new cargo, so it was pitch down, throttle back, shut down.

The crew chief opened my door and pushed back the armor plate, and I got out to walk around. The air was cool and clean and dry, giving no hint of the steamy heat far below. The troops who lived on the mountain went about their business, accustomed to their rarified existence above it all, seemingly oblivious to the incredible horizons in all directions. Miles and miles, as far as one could see and further still, no noise save the whistling of the wind.

Soon it was time to go. Climb back into the seat, strap in, plate and door closed, the co-pilot cranks up the turbine. Ready for take-off. The crew says we’re clear; I take the controls and pull us up to a hover. No clouds now, and a strong, steady wind right in our faces. Our airspeed is almost 30 knots, we are flying without moving, and I push the cyclic slightly forward.
In the blink of an eye we leave the protection of the mountain and are 3,000 feet above the paddies below, going 100 knots, an earthbound, clumsy machine becoming the powerful master of movement in all dimensions. One split second marked the boundary between earth and sky, between stillness and motion, between matter and energy. The ground fought our leaving and reluctantly let us go, and then we were high and free and caressed by sky.

A Lullaby of Dinosaurs

It's been a couple of weeks since we returned from San Francisco and the next planned trip is several months away; I have no photos to share and no links to click. Now, in late May, the tourist season is beginning in most of the world, so any place worth visiting will be hot, crowded, and expensive.

We'll pass on that and instead do a bit of traveling in place. We bought a membership in the Fort Worth Botanical Garden, which means free entry to their Japanese Garden and a small discount at the restaurant. There's a new show opening at the Kimbell focusing on Braque and Picasso and their period of Analytical Cubism, and there's always something worth seeing at the Amon Carter and the Modern. The Kimbell and the Modern are both fine places for a leisurely, heavily air-conditioned lunch, too.

There's the Trinity Trails, where we walk five to seven miles several times a week. Unlike Austin's Town Lake Trail, the trails in Fort Worth are mostly deserted, with only an occasional biker to interrupt the quiet. Each walk involves a big decision: do we go north, past LaGrave Field towards the stockyards? West, past the recycling yard and Greenwood Memorial Park? Or southwest, to Trinity Park and University Drive? North is the shortest and has a water fountain. West is the longest and loneliest and there's no water. Southwest has the most shade and several water fountains.

The Fort Worth Public Library has begun another free jazz concert series. We walk there frequently anyway -- why buy books and movies when you can get them for free? -- so we'll linger a bit every third Thursday and listen to some smooth sounds. There's free cookies, too.

For all of you who think that Apple Macs are too expensive, let me tell you about the computer project I've just finished. We bought our iMac five years ago (about $1,000) and our refurbished MacBook laptop four years ago (about $900). We've had no serious problems or costs with either one, although on our last trip to San Francisco I noticed some network problems because we are still running an old operating system, Tiger 10.4. Using an older OS has also prevented me from running a few programs like Chrome and the Kindle emulator, and not having the latest iTunes meant that Terri's beloved iPod Touch couldn't have all the latest and greatest stuff.

I considered getting new computers -- five years is an eon or two in computer time -- but decided in the end to stick with what we have. For less than $150 I upgraded the laptop's hardware and the OS to Snow Leopard 10.6 on both computers; not only was it cheap, it was easy and I had it all done in a single afternoon and evening. (Every so often I had to click OK but most of that time I was just waiting for files to be copied from one place to another.) This should keep us going for another three to four years, and by that time I assume we'll be doing all our computing on a teeny telephone and I will need much more powerful reading glasses. Until then, I think that getting seven to eight years or more of use out of a couple of computers for about $1,000 apiece is a bargain.

Fort Worth is a major railroad town, with lines converging here from all directions. At all hours of the day and night you can hear the rumble of trains and the blare of horns; fortunately for us we're just far enough away from the closest tracks that these sounds are mournfully romantic rather than annoying.

Windows open or closed, I'm usually lulled to sleep by train horns, long and short, high and low, near and far. One night, after hearing a particulary long blast nearby, I got a mental image of ancient dinosaurs, huge plant eaters like brontasauri, lumbering through swampy marshes, calling out to their mates and offspring. Short, high-pitched horns were young searching for their parents. Deep, insistent tones were males looking for females. And a lot of horns going at it at the same meant that a meat eater was near, threatening the herd of sauropods.

Ever since that image popped into my head I haven't been able to shake it. When I hear a train horn and feel the ground shake, I know that a dinosaur is afoot, and that I will soon be asleep.

Memo to AA Marketing: We're Falling For It

Dear American Airlines Marketing Dept.:

I just wanted to let you know that your almost daily emails and notifications of sales, bonuses, and special offers really do work. Thanks to one of your recent promotions, for example, we flew to San Francisco on short notice even though we had just visited there less than three months ago.

Please keep the emails coming.

Sincerely,

Last Saturday, May 7, we flew to San Francisco and came back Wednesday, May 11. We stayed at the Kimpton Harbor Court Hotel right on Embarcadero, a block from the Ferry Building. The only annoyance of the entire trip was faulty Internet service at the hotel -- despite the best efforts of their IT support staff, their ISP did not play well with our older MacBook. We're back in Fort Worth now, so instead of receiving live, as-it-happens reports from the scene you will have to settle for an after-the-fact blog post and snapshots from the past.

A highlight of our trip to San Francisco back in February was reconnecting with friends we haven't seen in years, even decades. Because of an AA special offer (see above), we were able to surprise these same long-lost friends with "Hey! Guess what? We're back!"

We ate well this trip. In particular, we had a great Italian dinner at Firenze By Night with Val and Ron, and an equally great Peruvian dinner at La Mar with Jim. Terri and I also had our first ever In 'N Out Burger, at Fisherman's Wharf. In 'N Out is good -- we went back the next day, and are looking forward to their new location in Fort Worth -- but it will never replace Whataburger in my affections. California burgers tend to have a 'special' sauce that is really runny Thousand Island dressing, which to me is not very special at all.

The weather was gorgeous the entire time. By 'gorgeous' I do not mean 'pleasant' but really gorgeous: bright sunshine, an occasional puffy cloud, crisp winds, and temperatures in the 50s and 60s. Just standing around and breathing in this climate gives one a sense of inner well-being and contentment.

We bought transit passes. When we buy transit passes, we make sure to get our money's worth: we rode both running cable car lines end to end (the California line is down for repairs), streetcar F from end to end (Fisherman's Wharf to Castro), and buses here and there. One of the greatest pleasures of traveling, for me, is riding public transportation in cities with good systems. I don't care much where we go so long as I get to hop on a bus, streetcar, or subway. (Note, however, that San Francisco Muni bus route #18 really sucks.)

Thanks to Val and Ron, we got a tour of some scenic highlights: the Golden Gate Bridge and Fort Point; Lincoln Park, Cliff House and the Pacific Coast; lunch at Beach Chalet and a meander through Golden Gate Park; a drive up Twin Peaks with an overlook of the Bay; and Alamo Square and the Painted Ladies. Gorgeous, all of it.

We also did some exploring on our own. The City Hall is so gaudy it's suitable for burying Napoleon. Westfield San Francisco Centre (a pretentious way of saying 'shopping mall') is so huge we never found the food court. The de Young Museum is so cool you won't mind getting lost inside.

And now it's time for snapshots. Some of the snapshots refer to places and events discussed in the blogpost. Some of the snapshots are not referenced in the blogpost at all. Not everything in the blogpost has a corresponding snapshot.

With those caveats in mind, here's my Flickr photos from this trip to San Francisco. Or, if you prefer a quasi-filmic experience, the slideshow version.

Jetlagged and Custardless

We're back home, jetlagged, waking up very early, looking for lunch at 9:30 a.m., frequent naps, wanting breakfast at bedtime.

Our last couple of days in Lisbon were like the first couple of days, lots of walking around. Sunday we again went to Belém, this time to see the monastery and church and to visit several museums. All that walking and visiting is hard work, so of course we had to have more pastéis de Belém. The weather was warm and the tourists were out, so there were crowds everywhere.

Monday, we did more walking tours, around the Castelo de S. Jorge, then through Baixa, Alfama, Bairro Alto, and Chiado. We ended the day with a relaxing beverage at the rooftop terrace of of the Hotel do Chiado, with fine views of central Lisbon.

Tuesday, we visited the Museu Calouste Gulbenkian, a wonderful building set in beautiful grounds. I was particularly impressed by the collection of Oriental art as well as by the amazing Art Nouveau decorative pieces by René Lalique. I had never seen anything quite like his Libélula, or dragonfly woman.



Gulbenkian himself is an interesting character, one of the richest men of his day, and his statue with the Egyptian god Horus behind him stands on the museum grounds.



We ended the day by walking towards the center, down lovely Avenida Liberdade.



Walking, walking, and more walking. We also realized that we were getting tired of walking and that it was probably time to go home. Next time we might have to rent one of these:



Wednesday we left Lisbon and headed to Madrid, where we stayed at the NH Barajas Hotel near the airport. We didn't do much except visit the huge Plenilunio mall ("the largest commercial center in Spain," with over 200 stores) before going early to bed to rest before the long flight back to DFW on Thursday.

One thing we noticed is that the second most common language in Portugal was English, both written and spoken. We heard lots of Italian, some German and French, very little Spanish. In Spain, there was much less English and no Portuguese.

And what about those custards, eh? After all, that's why I went, right?

I had at least two custards a day, sometimes more. (Terri thought my reason for going to Portugal was silly, but she put aside her misgivings and graciously helped by eating almost as many custards as I did.) I bought them at famous old shops, at the mall, in the airport, at a museum, at neighborhood pastry shops across the street and around the corner, in department stores. They were all wonderful, passing my critical taste tests with flying colors. The best of them all, I'd have to say, was the pastéis de Belém, when eaten at the counter, still warm from the oven with plenty of cinnamon and powdered sugar sprinkled on top.



Never content to sit still, we're off again on Monday, on a short road trip to visit family in East Texas. But that's another blog post.

Enough of writing and reading, it's time for pictures. Here's my Flickr photos from Lisbon. Or, if you prefer, the slideshow version.

P.S. The main advantage of having access to the AA Admiral's Club is that you get to go into other airlines' lounges (Iberia, BA, Blue Lounge), all of which are much better.

Ana and Manny

On our first night in Lisbon we went to dinner at O Pitéu, a small restaurant around the corner from our apartment. The food had to be good because the place was packed at 8:30, and after waiting ten minutes we got the last table for two.

We pored over the menu, struggling to make sense of the Portuguese descriptions of various dishes. A gentleman sitting next to Terri saw our difficulty and offered to help us. He explained the menu, helped us decide what to get, and then ordered for us. He introduced himself as Manuel and even posed for a photo with Terri.

As we enjoyed our dinner, the conversation with the gentleman continued, and by the end we knew him as Manny, a retired business executive, and had met his dinner companions, his wife, Ana, and their son, an opera singer. At the end of the meal, Manny and Ana invited us to their apartment for a drink.

Over glasses of fine old vintage port, we enjoyed the dreamy nighttime view of Lisbon from their large terrace, and heard about their times living, working, and visiting London, New York, Washington D.C., Paris, Luxembourg, and many other places besides. The meal at O Pitéu had been excellent, but this nightcap afterward with Ana and Manny made the evening very special.

After an exchange of emails over the next few days, they invited us for a drive along the coast. So Saturday noon they picked us up at the door of our apartment building and we were off. The day was gray but the Portuguese coast was lovely, and we had our own personal tour guides to explain it all along the way: former royal residences, modern apartment buildings (some pretty, some not so much), shopping malls, and surfers. We went through Oeiras then Cascais and on through undeveloped natural areas to the small town of Azóia, where we had lunch at Pão de Trigo.



After a tasty Portuguese meal of fish and vinho verde, we went on to Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point of continental Europe. From here, beneath tall rocky cliffs, the blue Atlantic stretches uninterrupted to the New World.



It is a humbling experience, to stand there with the wild, rocky hills at your back and the rolling ocean spread out before you. One could stand there for hours, contemplating the meaning of it all, but you must be quicker than that because a tour bus will pull up and you will find yourself in a sea of tourists boisterously enjoying their scheduled five minutes at a Famous Place.

We made it away from the newly arrived crowds at Cabo Da Roca to have a coffee down the coast at a converted stone fort, now the hotel and restaurant do Guincho. Our table was set beneath large windows overlooking the Atlantic, and I could see the slow ocean swells roll in as we sipped our coffee and enjoyed each other's company.

After a pleasant drive back into Lisbon, this time by a slightly different route that showed us parts of the city new to us, Manny and Ana dropped us off at our apartment, seven hours after we had begun.

Terri and I have had many memorable travel experiences, but there's nothing quite like making friends in a new place. To Ana and Manny, thank you so much for your gracious and generous hospitality. We hope to see you again, soon.

To see more snapshots, my Flickr photos are here.

Walking Around

I can summarize our time so far in Lisbon by simply saying, "walking around." Well, mostly walking; we've taken the tram a few times, too.

I suppose I am too easy, but I have a habit of falling in love with each new city I visit. Lisbon is no exception, as I have fallen in love again. The weather is gorgeous, warm days and cool nights, with intensely blue skies. The colors are striking: so many buildings are painted in bright pastels. The city is hilly, which means there is a new vista around every corner.



Another nice thing about those miradouros, or scenic overlooks, is that there's usually a restaurant or kiosk where you can buy a beer or glass of wine to enjoy with the view.

We've walked from our neighborhood, Graça, down Rua de Sao Tome to Alfama, then on to Baixa, the commercial center. We walked to Rossio and up Avenida Liberdade, then to Socarro. We got on Tram #28 and rode it all the way from one endpoint, Martim Moniz, to the other, at Praça São João Bosco.

We took Tram #15 to Belém and went to the top of the Monument to the Discoveries. We walked to the Torre de Belém, through the park, along the waterfront, and back to the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos, where we caught the tram to come back home.



One thing we've noticed is that so many people here speak English. We try our few phrases of Portuguese, but we're always able to switch to English. The only real difficulty, as usual, is translating menus; fish dishes often have no exact English equivalents.

Another thing we've noticed is that food is inexpensive here. Restaurant meals are half what they were in Belgium, where we visited in January, and grocery prices are ridiculously cheap.

And about those custards, I will save all that for another blog post.

If you're wondering what it all looks like, my Flickr photos are here.

I Want a Custard

Being retired means not having to work. Not having to work means doing pretty much what I damn well please. What I please often means traveling to see or do something I've never seen or done before. Sometimes, to taste something.

I love custard and seek it out wherever we go (click on each link to see what I am talking about): flan in Buenos Aires, tarts in San Francisco's Chinatown, crema catalana in Barcelona, crème aux oeufs in Paris, Boston's cream pie.

For a long time, however, I've longed for the ultimate in custard, the legendary pastel de nata of Portugal. As one writer observed, these custards are to Portugal what wine is to France. And of all the pasteis de nata, the greatest are from the Pasteis de Belem in Lisbon.

No longer able to resist the urge to gorge myself on these tasty little suckers, I decided it was time to go to Portugal. And so we are off, flying today to Madrid and then on tomorrow morning to Lisbon, where we'll spend eight days in an apartment in the Graça neighborhood.

If you think me silly for this, look at this photo and tell me that you do not want one. Open wide to take another bite.

I haven't posted any snaps because we're not there yet. Soon.

To Seattle or Not?

I was born in Texas and have lived here ever since. After an incident last year, I panicked at the question, am I going to die in Texas, too?

I want to live in a real city, which Texas does not have. Terri and I love Chicago but don't have the courage to face the winters there. New York City is the greatest city on earth, but Manhattan is too expensive and who wants to live in Queens? We could emigrate to Western Europe but are too lazy to fill out the paperwork.

So our trip to Seattle was partly to answer the question, do we want to move there? As for most questions in life, the answer is complicated.

Seattle is a beautiful city. There are lots of apartments downtown and in nearby neighborhoods like Belltown and South Lake Union, and lots of residents means lots of shops and restaurants, even shopping malls, that are not dependent on customers in cars.

It rains in Seattle. It's generally not a heavy rain, just a drizzle, but it's enough to get you wet. We never broke out an umbrella, although we used the hoods on our coats a lot. If we lived in Seattle I would lose my tan and become very pale.

Every April in Texas we close up the windows and turn on the air conditioner, and it stays on until October. In Seattle, anything over 80° is considered a heat wave, even in August. Few residences have air conditioning.

There is no Whataburger in Washington State.

We are bored in Texas. Boredom is not always a bad thing.

Chicago has the Art Institute. New York has the Met and MOMA. Fort Worth has the Kimbell, the Amon Carter, and the Modern. Seattle has, well, not so much.

There is no income tax in Texas and the sales tax is 8.25%. There is no income tax in Washington and the sales tax in Seattle is 9.5%.

We moved to Fort Worth, in part, to be close to DFW airport. We can get there via TRE train and two shuttle buses for $3.50 per person, in about one hour. We have non-stop AA flights to London, Madrid, and Buenos Aires, and connecting flights to Europe from O'Hare (ORD) and JFK. Non-stop DFW to LHR (London Heathrow) is 4,750 miles, or 9 hours.

Seattle is not a AA hub but has non-stop flights to DFW, ORD, and JFK. The train from downtown to Seattle/Tacoma (SEA) airport takes about 30 minutes and costs $2.50 per person. Non-stop SEA to LHR is 4,801 miles, or 9.5 hours.

We were surprised at how few pick-up trucks we saw on the road in Seattle. Our Honda Civic would feel more at home there, but we would have to replace the windshield wiper blades more often.

For our long walks, Fort Worth has the Trinity Trails, forty miles along the Trinity River. Seattle's shoreline has a three-mile walk along Puget Sound and through Myrtle Edwards Park.

"Liberal" is not a curse word in Seattle.

Moving is not as easy as staying still. Easier is not always better.

Our lease in Fort Worth is not up until September, so there's plenty of time to ponder this.

Here's my Flickr snaps of Seattle.

Still in Seattle

Seattle is very hilly. The first trudge up Seneca from the train station to our hotel was challenging. The walk downhill back to the station will be very fast, I think.

Seattle has fewer people than Fort Worth and half as many as Dallas. Yet downtown Seattle is much more urban than anything in Texas.

Wherever we go, we see more and more homeless people. Is this because we are going to the same places the homeless go, or are there more homeless everywhere in the U.S.?

If you think there are a lot of Starbucks where you live, come to Seattle, where they're at least two on every block. High-rise office buildings have several, conveniently placed on intermediate floors. We've seen one McDonald's.

In the mid-1980s, there was a move to make the Kingsmen's "Louie Louie" the official Washington state song.

Unlike Texas, Seattle has topography.

Seattle is clean: little trash, no dog poop.

Public transportation here is extensive but expensive. There are many overlapping systems -- it's difficult and confusing to switch from bus to train to streetcar to monorail to ferry. There are no passes for visitors. Because of all this, we've decided to walk.

On a clear day there's a beautiful view of Mt. Rainier from the top of the Columbia Center, Seattle's tallest building.

I'm still snapping for Flickr.

Gone Seattle-ing

It's been a long time since I've been in Seattle, and Terri has never been, so here we are. The forecast is for cold and rain, and for tomorrow more cold and more rain, and for the day after, and for the day after that, and for every day while we're here.

It was raining at the airport when we landed and we could see the drizzle as we walked to the train station. Once we got onboard and headed north, to downtown, the rain stopped and we haven't seen another drop, not yet. At least for now, the weather is gorgeous: cool and partly cloudy, with brisk winds coming off Puget Sound.

We spent our first afternoon as we always spend our first afternoon in a new place, walking around the neighborhood. My first impressions are all good: we are in the middle of downtown, and within three or four blocks we've found a Belgian waffle shop, a gelateria, several Thai restaurants, three supermarkets, twelvety-seven coffee shops, and more fresh seafood than I could eat in a lifetime. People actually live here.

The train from SeaTac airport to downtown costs only $2.50, and it took us to within a block of our hotel. Buses and trains converge in the downtown area in a large underground tunnel, making it very easy to transfer from one line to another. A public transportation system that is logically designed and efficiently run -- it's enough to make an old Texan like me weep with joy.

For our first dinner we went to Mae Phim, a Thai restaurant a few blocks from the hotel. It's everything a great hole-in-the-wall restaurant should be: small and unpretentious, family owned, and good food.

We've had our coffee and breakfast, I've blogged and posted a few photos, and now it's time to get out on the streets and see what adventure awaits us.

Here's the Flickr snaps so far. Not many yet, but it's early in our trip.

Revisiting Baghdad by the Bay

Last weekend, Terri and I went to San Francisco for three nights, flying in on Friday and leaving Monday. I've been there many times, beginning in 1967, and Terri's been there, too, but it's been a long time for each of us and we've never been together.

We stayed at the Omni downtown, in the financial district. We did some of the usual touristy stuff: a walking tour of historical sites in downtown San Francisco, shopping in the market in the newly restored Ferry Building, strolling along the Embarcadero, gawking along Grant Avenue into Chinatown, Union Square, and lots of trudging up and down hills. In Portsmouth Square, I saw an interesting approach to meditation by a Falun Gong follower.



The highlights of this trip, however, were get-togethers with old friends.

On Saturday, we met up with Valerie, whom we both worked with at the Comptroller's office. She left in 1997 and moved around a lot afterwards, to Louisiana and Georgia and Michigan and more places than I can remember, before settling in San Francisco five years ago. We went to lunch at Francis Ford Coppola's Café Zoetrope on Kearny Street in North Beach, then Val led us on a walking tour of the nearby neighborhood. We visited her lovely apartment, which had the most incredible view on an incredibly beautiful day: Coit Tower on the left, the Bay Bridge in the center, and downtown with the Transamerica Tower on the right, all laid out before us through her living room windows. We also got to meet Ron, her boyfriend, and we heard the exciting news that he proposed to her last month. Congratulations to you both!

On Friday night, we went to dinner with Jim. Now, the last time I had seen Jim was October 1968, when we graduated from Army helicopter flight school. A few weeks later we were both headed to Viet Nam, he to one part, I to another, and afterwards we went about living our lives for the next four decades.

We're both older and grayer and heavier than we were back then, but it's amazing how much of a person, and a personality, stays the same. We talked a little about the old days, but mostly he and Terri and I described how we each ended up where we are now, in 2011. Good food, good wine, good company, what else could one ask for?

On Sunday, we took the ferry to Sausalito. Jim, who is from Northern California and now lives in Mill Valley, picked us up and gave us an all-day tour of Marin and Sonoma. We had a very tasty lunch at Grilly's, a restaurant that Jim owns and operates. We visited the houseboat dock where Jim used to live, which provided a perfect opportunity for Terri to take our picture. We made a few stops at Sonoma wineries then headed towards the Golden Gate Bridge to see the city at night.



Monday morning, our friends were back to work and the weather, which had been brilliantly clear, was back to its usual foggy drizzle. We braved the rain for a while and walked around downtown, but it was obviously time to go.

Here's all my Flickr snaps from the trip. Or you can sit back with popcorn and see the slideshow version.

P.S. I finally realized that long hair just does not look right on old, fat, balding guys, so I had a major haircut today.

Just say, "Oops!"

Terri and I have been frequent travelers since we got together in 1998. I quit counting several years ago at 30 trips, mostly international but with an occasional jaunt inside the U.S. We've gotten good at it: we can pack quickly and lightly, negotiate smoothly through security and customs, decipher transit schedules in several languages, and tell what's chicken and beef and what's organs or horse on foreign menus. But we have our moments, proving once again that being good at something doesn't mean not making mistakes -- we all make mistakes -- but how well and quickly you recover when something goes wrong.

Our first day in Brussels we walked from our hotel through the Grand Place, past the central train station, then to Place Royale, where we could catch a tram to the Horta Museum. Victor Horta was one of the founders of Art Nouveau, a favorite interest of ours, and his home, now a museum, was away from the center. We were eager to use our new transit passes to start getting around town.

Although it was cold I started sweating walking up the steep hill from the train station to Place Royale. When we got there I looked around and did not see any trams, only cars and tour buses. I looked at my map to make sure we were in the right place, then looked at another map, then a guidebook -- they all said there should be trams in this very place.

Not only did I not see any trams, I did not see any tracks where trams could run. Completely perplexed, we decided to walk back down to the train station and see if we could find a tourist information center. We asked someone on the street, but they did not understand the English word 'tram.' The info center was closed. We went across the street to the Le Meridien hotel and asked for help there. The young lady at the desk explained how to get to the tram stop, but her directions pointed us back to where we had already been. I was getting angry now, muttering about unhelpful Belgians and erroneous maps. We walked around the neighborhood, went down several streets that seemed to promise trams or tracks, but had no luck.

Finally we decided to walk back up that very steep hill to Place Royale. Perhaps we just didn't go far enough. Maybe the trams were around a corner. Up, up, up the hill, sweating and peeved, we got back to the square and the first thing we saw was a tram rumbling right through the center of the same plaza where we had been standing an hour before. We asked a Belgian standing next to us if there was a tram stop nearby, and he said, of course, right there at the corner, by the waffle truck.

The maps were all right. The directions we had been given were correct. The tracks were there, right in the middle of the street, where I had not seen them before. We laughed and bought a waffle to eat while we waited for the next tram.

When we got to the museum we went up the door labeled Horta Museum and tried to open it. It was locked. We double-checked the hours posted, looked in the guidebook. It was supposed to be open. Next to the door was a buzzer labeled 'museum' so we pressed it. Nothing. As we were standing there trying to unravel this latest dilemma, I glanced to my right and saw a very large placard not five feet away labeled ENTRANCE with an arrow pointing to the door next to the one we had been trying to open. Terri and I looked at each other and started laughing.

There's more besides. I lost our museum passes, Terri lost a glove, we couldn't get off the tram because I didn't know which button to push to open the door, and we had a silly disagreement over which building was the Hotel de Ville and which the Maison Royale. Every time we lucked or improvised our way out -- we got replacement passes contrary to the terms and conditions, a kind Belgian found and returned Terri's glove, we got off at the next stop, and we eventually agreed on the orientation of our different maps.

In other words, we had our share of Oops! moments but luck and adaptability saved us every time -- all that work for good karma paid off. And no matter what happened, there was usually a waffle cart nearby.

The whole set of Flickr snaps from Belgium is here.

Or if you'd like to sit back with a bowl of popcorn, here's a slideshow of our snaps from Belgium.

P.S. We're off and away for a three-day weekend beginning next Friday. Stand by.

At last, Brussels

We're in Brussels now, where our advanced waffle research program requires that we continue testing at every available opportunity. To date, no waffle has failed the test; in fact, every waffle has passed with flying colors. These clever Belgians!

Brussels is many things, but it ain't quaint. Ghent and Bruges were charmingly and obviously Belgian, but Brussels is another big city, always in motion, trams and buses and metro and cars and lots of people. Sometimes it reminds me of Paris, sometimes Buenos Aires, sometimes Barcelona, but underlying it all is the common big city atmosphere of jostling, of always having to work one's way through crowds.

Here we've heard mostly French. Unlike our experiences earlier in the trip where I had no idea what language was being spoken, I now know I am hearing French. Since I do not speak or read more than ten words in French, I have no idea what is being said, but at least I know it is French.

The grandest part of Brussels is Grand Place, the central plaza of the city. The old city hall faces the old king's house, and the rest of the square is ringed by guild halls mostly rebuilt after a French bombardment in the late 17th century. It's physically smaller than I expected but it is nonetheless very grand and imposing. The Wiki link above and a Google search will give more information and images about Grand Place, but it cannot compare with standing there and taking it all in.

Last night's dinner was Italian, at a little restaurant run by a family from Portugal. Terri had pizza, I had spaghetti carbonara, we drank a bottle of Bardolino, and through it all we listened to the same salsa song over and over and over. I kid you not: they were playing a Latin American dance number when we walked in and ninety minutes later the same song was still playing as we walked out.

We've stayed busy, leaving our hotel in mid-morning and not making it back until dinner time: the Royal Museum of Fine Arts (Ancient), the Royal Museum of Fine Arts (Modern), a James Ensor exhibition at the ING Cultural Center, the Museum of Musical Instruments, the Beer Museum (free samples), the Atomium, the Basilique Nationale du Sacré-Coeur, all punctuated by tram/bus/subway rides, extemporaneous walks through new neighborhoods, visits to chocolate shops, and the occasional waffle.

We only went to the Museum of Musical Instruments because it was included in our museum pass and was on the way to someplace else, but it turned out to be a lot of fun. The museum is housed in a fabulous Art Nouveau building that was a department store 100 years ago, and their audioguide is the first that I really like: no talking! At selected spots in front of the exhibits, you hear music from the types of instruments you're looking at.

I could write more but I am tired. We've been freezing (daytime temps seldom above the mid-30s), I am full of waffles and beer, and today I am another year older. I'll write one more blog post about our Belgium trip after we get back to Texas.

The growing set of Flickr snaps is here.

Goodbye Ghent, Hello Bruges, Goodbye Bruges

Ghent was a pleasant surprise. We weren't expecting much, as the city is so often overlooked in favor of Brussels and Bruges, but we really liked it. The largest car-free pedestrian zone in Belgium, lots of restaurants and shops, enough people out and about to feel pleasantly energetic without being overcrowded, some interesting museums, and cool trams to get you around -- just the sort of things we like, and to top it off, it's a pretty place.

An unexpected pleasure of our stay in Ghent was seeing a special exhibition of works by the Belgian artist James Ensor. There's a wonderful painting of his, Skeletons Warming Themselves, at the Kimbell back home in Fort Worth, but we had no idea he had done so much so well. His view of the world is unique and often hilarious: skeletons galore, doing such things as fighting over a smoked herring, and cartoonish, colorful drawings of crowds of Belgians swimming at Ostend or welcoming Christ into Brussels. It's unsettling to realize that these pieces are contemporaneous with Monet's water lilies and Renoir's garden portraits.

Late Sunday afternoon we left Ghent and took the train to Bruges, where we're staying at the Crowne Plaza in the historical center. Ghent is quaint but real, while Bruges is so picturesque and storybook as to seem almost like a Disneyish MiddleAgesLand. Everywhere one looks there are charming views, and lots of tourists enjoying them, even now in a drizzly January. Bruges has fewer pedestrian zones and more cars in the city center than Ghent -- several times we've almost been run down on narrow cobblestone streets by speeding Citröens and Volvos.

This quaint storybookness has strange effects: I've got a sudden urge to take lots of snapshots of doors, many with bicycles, a couple of which I've posted on Flickr.

A big surprise of this trip has been how good Belgian food is. I mean, it's really good, with every meal better than the last. I've been trying to think of the best way to describe it but all I've come up with is beef or chicken with some sort of sauce. It's not spicy or elegant or even pretty, but it is delicious and filling, with the quality matched by quantity. (Most every main course comes with a huge bowl of fries.) We've been going to small local places recommended by our hotels and have never been disappointed. (Travel tip: when looking for places to eat, rely on hotel staff and ignore the places that inevitably ring the popular tourist sites.)

We were lucky to catch the last week of a big exhibition, Van Eyck to Dürer, a stunning display of Flemish Primitives at Bruges' Groeninge Museum. The one annoying thing about the show was the large number of people stumbling around with those stupid audioguide thingies stuck to their ears.

Our hotel room in Bruges comes without breakfast so we've been going out for a coffee in the morning. Quite by accident we found a nearby HEMA store, which is somewhat like a small Target with clothes and household goods. They have a café on the top floor that every morning from 9 to 10 offers a cup of coffee, a croissant, and a bacon and egg sandwich for €1. Yes, you read that correctly, one euro for coffee, croissant, and an egg/bacon sandwich. And it's good, too.

The weather has been cold and wet but we're plodding onward. Tomorrow we spend our last morning in Bruges before leaving for five nights in Brussels.

Flickr snaps are here.

P.S. Belgium has windmills.

Suddenly, it is Belgium

Terri and I are suckers for travel deals, so if there are any airline marketing people reading this, let me tell you, your special offers work. We got an email from American Airlines that trumpeted "Double Miles to Fly to Brussels!" -- we looked at each other and thought, hhmmm, Brussels. We've heard the food is good (mussels, fries, beer, chocolate, and waffles), they have some paintings worth seeing, plus we've never been there before, so why not?

We came for ten days, arriving on Friday, January 21 and are in Ghent for two nights. Then Bruges for three nights, and we'll finish up with five nights in Brussels before heading home on Monday, January 31.

I had quite a jolly trip over here: an upgrade to first class for the DFW to JFK segment (champagne!) and the Admirals Club (free wine!) in New York. We landed on time, breezed through Belgium customs, took a train to Ghent, then hopped on a tram to get to the city center. Confused by untranslatable and conflicting directions from locals along the way, we got a bit flustered looking for our hotel but did our own spontaneous walking mini-tour of the old town before finding it right where it was supposed to be.

I had no idea Belgium was so, well, quaint. The architecture is all of a distinctive style, charming and harmonious, often staid but with occasional flourishes of color and flair.

In Ghent we had our first encounters with Belgian food. Having worked up an appetite walking around, we stopped for hot waffles from a street vendor. As you can see from a snap of my reaction on Flickr, I had no idea plain waffles could be so good! Then in the evening, following a recommendation of the hotel, we had dinner at a nearby restaurant, Du Progres. Terri had chicken breast in pepper cream sauce, I had a beef filet with 'James Bond' sauce (pepper, whiskey, and tarragon), and with every meal they bring a huge metal bowl of hot fries. We had the waiter give us whatever beers he thought we would like. It may not sound like much, but it was one of the best dinners we've had, and all for under €50.

We love our hotel in Ghent, the NH Gent Belfort. Terri recently joined the rewards program for the European NH hotel chain, and they upgraded us to a large executive suite. The complimentary breakfast buffet is mouth-wateringly wonderful: a half-dozen coffee machines that produce any brew you can imagine, delicacies such as prosciutto and smoked salmon, crepes with real maple syrup, fresh-squeezed orange juice, fifteen different kinds of breads and rolls, all provided by an attentive staff.

The highlight of our first day was viewing Van Eyck's "Adoration of the Mystic Lamb." I am not sure I can add anything to what has already been said about this set of paintings, but I will say that it is almost too much. There are many small stunning masterpieces within this one huge work and putting them all together in one presentation can be overwhelming.

Our limited foreign language skills, in Spanish and Italian, are completely useless here. Not only are we baffled by almost anything written or spoken, we often don't even know what languages are being used. For example, in the elevator, level 0 is marked as 'RECEPTIE' or reception, in French -- I can deal with this. But that is followed by three alternative translations: VERGADERZALEN, DE DRAKE, and VAN ARTEVELDE. I am completely mystified by all three and am only saved by the fact that so many people here speak English.

Language problems aside, I can sum up my initial response to Belgium with a question: why did it take me so long to get here?

Flickr snaps are here.

La Dolce Far Niente

We flew to Barbados on January 6, celebrated our anniversary on January 7, continued our celebrations for a few more days, and returned home on January 11. I like to blog while we travel, posting updates as we go along, but this time I could not gather enough will and energy to sit down at my laptop and write. Lethargy and inertia ruled the day, and the night, too.

We were able to use our upgrade credits to get into business class, both going and returning, so instead of paying $10 for a little can of Pringles in the back we had champagne and an elegant meal on real plates, with real silverware, up front. We arrived late, around 9 p.m., and checked in to our third floor room overlooking the pool and restaurant . A few guests were dancing to the loud and lively sounds of a steel drum band but otherwise the place was quiet. We unpacked and went to sleep.

The next morning the sun was up and bright by 6:30 a.m. and a quick glance out the window showed us what we were in for: a white sand beach, swaying palms, and beautiful blue water. We went to the beach soon after breakfast and spent most of each day just, well, sitting there. Every once in a while I'd get up from my lounge chair and walk slowly into the water, going out far enough to let the cool, refreshing surf drench me. I'd stand there for a bit, get drenched a few more times, then walk back up the beach to my lounge chair to rest up for the next go round. La dolce far niente -- the sweetness of doing nothing.

Oh my, what a beach. The water was cool enough to startle you when you first went in, but after a few waves crashed over my head I knew I had never felt anything so relaxing and inviting. The sky was blue, the water was blue, the sand was white, and it was all gorgeous.

The sun set before 6 p.m. and we'd go back to our room for a shower. By 7:30 we'd be out on the street trying to decide where to eat dinner. By 9:30, we'd be walking back up to our room, ready for a nice lie down before starting over again the next day.

We stayed at Southern Palms Beach Club, one of the older Barbados resorts, located in St. Lawrence Gap, on the southern coast about midway between the international airport and Bridgetown, the capital. It is on Dover Beach, undoubtedly one of the nicest in Barbados, and there are many restaurants and shops within easy walking distance. Breakfast was usually bacon and eggs or banana pancakes, and dinner was always seafood. I had fried flying fish, a national dish, every night but one.

We considered a tour of the island but a woman at the hotel recommended hiring a cab for an afternoon. The cost of a taxi for three and a half hours was less than that for two tour tickets, and we got our own guide to take us all the way around the island. (Barbados is about 21 miles long and 14 miles wide, with a population of about 270,000. For more info on Barbados, check Wiki.)

While I was too lazy to write while we were there, I did manage to take a few snapshots. There's a set on Flickr or you can sit back and watch a short slideshow.

Terri and I also posted some snaps on Facebook. Here's my Facebook photos. And here's Terri's Facebook photos.

Fortunately we brought along our heavy coats because when we got back it was in the 20s at DFW. We're home and unpacked now, but we can't put away our luggage just yet. In another week we're off again, in a completely different direction.