Split
Croatia
May 30 2015
I adopt three distinct strategies to avoid the teeming hordes streaming through the streets of the Old City of Split.
The first strategy is to avoid them altogether by wandering towards the port and then up the cobbled streets and stairways to the hills above the city. Great scenery…well worth the climb....
Aarde Villa
Sääritsa
Lake Peipsi
Estonia
August 21, 2014
“How did you find this place?” Thomas asks me. “With great difficulty,” I respond.
Since this is my very first day driving with a GPS device, I am having some trouble learning the subtleties. Plus that sweet lady up in the satellite hasn’t a clue when, unexpectedly, a main road is closed on the route to my destination. Even my maps have no indication of this small town that lies somewhere between Mustvee and Kallaste. So I read my guidebook, follow my nose, and ask directions of a couple of teenage boys who speak good English. Eventually, I find my way down a narrow country lane to the Villa.
“No, no, that’s not what I meant. How did you know about this place?” asks Thomas, an astonished Estonian.
At Sea
MV Nordstjernen
August 9, 2015
“Logodile”
I first heard the word logodile on a motorboat trip on the New River in Belize. Our destination was Lamanai, the archeological site of an ancient Mayan city deep in the jungle. Along the jungle river route we encountered what you might expect at 17 degrees north latitude in Central America: a thick green canopy of variegated flora and several species of birds.
One bird in particular remains vividly in my memory: a slight creature that gingerly scampers across the water atop the lily pads. Who can remember the proper name of this species? But the nickname is unforgettable: the Jesus Bird!
Plants and birds are fine, but somewhere out there lies an ancient, yet elusive reptile species. We search and search and search. Suddenly a passenger excitedly shouts, “I see one! I see one just over there!” The passengers scamper over to see. The tour guide takes a look and calmly responds in his oft repeated nonplussed manner, “Sorry folks, it’s only a logodile.” (A portmanteau word if there ever was one!)
There are no reptiles and nothing green here in the Arctic Ocean, at 78 degrees north latitude. There’s plenty of black and white and blue - a very special beauty. Plenty of sea birds too who make a living in the frigid north and surely some of the passengers aboard ship are counting and cataloging them.
Binoculars, however, are mostly focused on the surface of the sea and on the distant shorelines. We search and search and search.
Searchin' The Coasters. 1957.
Palanga
Lithuania
September 16, 2014
Chat
Several years ago, while on a trip to London to visit my English cousin Dorothy and her equally English husband Roger, I attended a theatre performance where, by chance, I met a lovely woman from South Africa whose name was Jocelyn. Together we planned some sightseeing for the next day.
When I mentioned my encounter and my surprisingly unplanned plans, my somewhat astonished cousin Dorothy queried, “Jan, how did you meet her?” (According to British polite society, Jocelyn and I weren’t “properly introduced.”) Roger immediately intervened and responded, “Jan chatted her up!”
Bukhara, Uzbekistan
June 2, 2009
Dear Family and Friends,
"How's the food over there?" you ask.
Here's today's menu:
Breakfast at the Komil Hotel: cherry, apple or apricot juice, raisins, almonds, peanuts, chocolate, fresh apricots and cherries, omelet, slices of cheese, rolls, butter, honey and home-made preserves, coffee or green tea - the national beverage.
Alfresco Lunch today in Nurata: cold salty yogurt soup with scallions, tomato and cucumber salad, bread, and tender, tasty chucks of grilled spicy lamb with onions, green tea.
Alfresco Dinner at the Lyabi-Hauz: noodle soup with small balls of minced lamb, bread, and mimosa salad that includes layers of sliced fish, chopped egg, chopped cabbage, mixed greens with a light mayonnaise dressing.
Sandwiched between my meals were several worthy sights;
Beijing
China
August 7, 2010
Dear Family and Friends,
From Bangkok, en route to Ulan Bator, Mongolia, I decided to stop over in Beijing. I wanted to see my friends and to visit one or two sights I had missed two years ago.
Actually, my first stop was a return to the small village of Chuandixia. My friend Diego, his friend Miland, and I rode the Beijing Red Line subway for almost an hour to the last stop. Diego then negotiated with a driver and we took off for the 90km ride through the hilly green countryside west of the city.
