Group Travel

I’ve mentioned here before that I am often a solo traveler.  I would estimate that my travel for the past decade has fallen almost entirely in 3 categories.  

1. Solo travel
2. Visiting someone in my friend or family base.
3. Travel for work/education - often venturing alone. 

This spring though I deviated from my typical pattern and traveled 3,000 miles from my current home to spend time with people who live very close to me … and in one case, I was traveling a quarter of the way around the world to spend time with my upstairs neighbor.  The experience was entirely foreign to me.  In fact, I think the first thing I said when I got off the plane and saw my three friends waiting for me at the end of the gangway was something like, “This is so weird.  I shouldn’t know you people.  This is a layover. I should be alone.”  

Traveling with other people creates a whole new set of experiences in addition to those provided by the venue that you’re visiting.  Want to get coffee?  Cool.  

Solo traveler:  Stop at the next acceptable shop and buy yourself a coffee according to your needs and whims. 

Group traveler:  Check in with the group.  Do we also want food?  Coffee to go or sitting preferable?  When you say coffee, do you mean pour-over or espresso/latte drink?  Oh sure, iced coffee …. ummmm that may take some more work.  20 minutes later 75% of your group may have what they were looking for.

Reading through that it seems so much harder, but it’s also a great challenge.  During past layovers my greatest challenge was to find a place where I could either sleep in relative security, or figure out a way to stay awake until my boarding time.  With a group that’s not really an issue.  If we’d wanted to, we could have cordoned off an area and slept with security in numbers.  In reality our greatest concern was not spending so much time joking and making fun of each other that we ended up leaving a trail of belongings behind us. 

Things in jeopardy of being left behind: one fitbit, two wallets, an entire carry-on bag, and one passport.  

It is possible that jetlag played a part in this as well.  

The beauty of traveling with friends is that you see a side of them that you otherwise might not.  It’s not like these new traits are wholly unexpected or in any way out of character, but everyone is out of their element and does not have access to typical coping mechanisms.  

Easily distracted?  Well, there’s no normal routine to keep you mostly on track.  

At one point, we were on our way to dinner, wandering through a section of a city where I used to live.  Two of the people in our group were a little bit ahead of the other two.  I was part of the group in back.  When we passed an alley that led to where I used to live, I got distracted and led the two of us in the back off on  a parallel street to check out my old home.  Of course, after venturing off, it DID occur to me that the remaining companions may miss us, but I also knew that at the end of the block the two streets converged again.  Worst case scenario, we were all headed to the same restaurant and would meet up there. By the time we met up again at the restaurant, there were stories of searching for lost travel mates, meeting points set and plans for how long to wait before calling the police (only about 20 minutes had passed).  

There were also several instances involving people who are exceptionally prone to losing things.  The assumption was always that if you couldn't immediately locate an item it MUST have been left behind.  This assumption wasn't without merit, however large amounts of time ended up being spent to locate phones, wallets, fit bits and an errant parking ticket that was usually in the person’s pocket the whole time.

The best part of all of this is the stories.  We have a huge list of inside jokes which only we will ever understand, but an equally long list of stories that are entirely relatable to anyone who’s ever been away from home and outside of their usual surroundings.  

It was such a good experience that I’ve decided to do it again in June.  Next stop:  Island life!

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Blizzard Bliss

 Today seems like a good day to announce that this blog-o-vel will soon be approaching the equator.  Today is the best day, because so far today I’ve spent 2 hours shoveling snow.  By the end of my last round of shoveling, my clothes were soaked through and I was frozen to the bone.

It was wonderful.  I haven’t been that thoroughly cold, wet, and entertained by the snow for a very long time.  As much as I’ll be pleased if this is the last big storm I have to shovel, I was glad to have one more big day this year.  

Hot Cocoa is 20% more enjoyable on days when you're cold*. 

I’m reminded of a time approximately 10 years ago when I was traveling with a very good friend of mine.  She and I had been living in a desert climate where temperatures often soared above 100 °F (37 °C).  I can’t tell you for certain what the temperature was; it was so hot that all of the thermometers being sold in the local bazaars had broken because the climate exceeded their heat tolerance.  Community members told stories boasting temperatures over 50 °C, which seemed a tad hyperbolic.  Later, I scoured internet records and find at least one day there was a recording of 55 °C (131 °F).  That’s hot.  My little temperate brain never learned words that adequately describe that kind of heat.

She and I had dreamt of cooler temperatures.  We’d been in the heat so long that we couldn’t even imagine anymore what it would feel like to be cool.  We wished for it.  We dreamt of it without really being able to conceptualize it anymore.  Then we crossed a border. 

We had left the desert and it happened to be monsoon season in one of our destinations.  Neither of us had fully researched the local weather patterns and - it only being the first storm - we decided to push on through the rain.  In a mad dash we raced through the mud and the torrent of water and arrived sopping wet, covered in red clay at the border crossing just as the rain petered out.  It had stopped raining 30 minutes after it had begun.  Apparently that was the norm.  Clear all day.  30 minute cloud burst in the afternoon.  Clear or cloudy in the evening.  Brave tourists that we were, we carried on despite the monsoon and arrived 5 minutes before the rest of the border crossers, just that we arrived a hot mess.

Once we got to the other side, we found a cab and paid our fare to head back to the capitol. That’s where we encountered it.  Glorious.  Idyllic.  Air Conditioning.  It had been so long since either of us had been cool.  It was a marvel.  For a solid 15 minutes in the back of the cab we celebrated.  For the next 15 minutes we relaxed and enjoyed, and for the following 3.5 hours we froze. 

When we finally arrived at our destination, I couldn’t stop shivering and remember being so cold that my muscles ached, and it was hard to get out of the car.  She and I talked after the car ride and there were two things keeping us miserable for those 3.5 hours.  One was a very real language barrier.  The cab driver imagined himself a fluent English speaker, but neither of us was able to understand him nor he us.  That was really only a half excuse though as she and I are both adept at communicating even when we do not share a common language with the other person. The real reason we both sat in pain in that car, with very real physical responses to the cold, was that we knew it could be a very long time before we experienced such a marvelous chill again.

It is with this story in mind, that I try not to wish away the last remaining chill before heading to 2+ years of equatorial bliss.  

 *not a real statistic 

Feiertag!

I've struggled over the past few weeks as I've tried to plan the publishing of my posts - not to mention grocery shopping trips.  Spring in Germany is chock-a-block full of holidays, mostly religious, but not always celebrated in that way.  It can get a little confusing.  

Even though many of the holidays are the same or similar to those recognized by the church where I grew up, the names are different and they are official state holidays so sometimes it's hard to figure out which is which and what we're celebrating today.  

A few weeks ago I was warned that another holiday was coming (and therefore we needed to go grocery shopping for the apartment because we were going to have a succession of days in which nothing would be open).  I asked what the holiday was observing and the conversation went something like this (para-phrased and interpreted):

Me:  Nice!  What are we celebrating this time?
Friend:  Jesus is going to heaven. 
Me:  Umm .... we celebrated that last week ... are you sure?
Friend:  Oh, well, then this one must be when he comes back down.

Granted, this is not my most religious friend, and he wasn't far from the truth, but I think this is sort of indicative of the problem of having so many holidays in a succession.  To keep myself informed I created a list: 

Easter - 3 days after Jesus died, he rose from the dead.  Kind of an impressive feat.
May Day - Celebrating the beginning of the spring season usually with food and dance and often celebrated with a fire on the eve leading into the day.
Father's Day - Celebrated the Thursday before Mother's Day, and a day in which fathers band together and take to the streets pulling carts, wagons, or self-manufactured derby cars to transport their beer.  The children do not seem to be part of the tradition, it is more of a day to celebrate the father and give him a break from the responsibilities of parenting.
Mother's Day - I think this is celebrated differently family by family but seems to include some meal or cake and coffee sometimes including extended family.
Himmelfart - this is the day on which Jesus ascends to Heaven.
Pfingston - This is Pentecost - when the Holy Spirit descends on the disciples of Christ.  Seems to be a bigger deal here, but that's partly because it's a Monday which means that grocery stores will be closed for two days in a row and since a lot of people don't like grocery shopping on Saturdays, it means that people REALLY have to plan ahead a whole 3 days.  
Fronleichnam - The mere name of this holiday makes a lot of younger Germans giggle because it sounds like "Happy Corpse."  It's actually a feast celebrating the last supper, and the first time communion is given after Easter.  

While religious holidays have never been my focus at home or abroad I will also state that there are probably a fair amount of misinterpretations or subtle differences between what I've written and what is observed.  What I can say is that regardless of the level of religious observation or value attached to these days, there is a real cultural respect to holidays and the opportunity that they present to citizens and visitors alike to remember to relax and take care of themselves and their neighbors.  If for that reason alone, I stand behind their existence regardless of how clustered they may be here in May.  

Although it's not celebrated here, I would be remiss if I didn't mention Memorial Day.  This post was held a week so as not to interfere with a day of observance held by many of the Worlds and Lands readers. 

Today, however, for those who are currently experiencing it - let's just enjoy summer!  

I object!

It's a little before eight in the morning here, and I'm sitting listening to the morning sounds.  There are cars going by.  A rooster somewhere sounds quite put out that the world hasn't gotten up and started the day yet, but is doing his best to make sure that we do.  In the next room, coffee is being ground.  And oddly as I started typing this someone started play some kind of horn ... which clearly isn't something they are practiced at, and they know it, as they burst out into laughter after every bravado note.  

Today feels good.  

I've been reading in the news lately about the success of Donald Trump and been disappointed that as I set out once again on my travels and attempts to create more good in the world, I'm not home to help fight that which I see as evil.  I know that the work that I do is important and makes a difference, but like most things, it sometimes leaves me wondering if it's enough.  

Today though I will do something more.  Today in a strange throw back to years of teen activism, I will go to one last rally.  It's not my country.  I can't vote here, but I can play games, wear bright colors and stand in the path of Nazis.  There are few truly political things in which I will involve myself in someone else's country, but an Anti-Nazi demonstration seems about as universal and in the realm of world citizenry as a cause can be.

So though the protest is intended to be a disruption of pro-nazism.  I'm going out into the city today to smile, give hugs, wear bright colors, and spread the love.  

Who knew I'd grow up to be a flower child?!  Given that there's a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war and a time for peace, I'd just like to linger in that first time as long as we can.  

Paradies

In order to provide the pictures for last week's post I went for a little walk.  A few months ago, as we drove by, I had noticed what looked like it was an old parking lot that had been abandoned and was being reclaimed by nature.  That alone I find pretty compelling.  As you'll see from the pictures below, it turned out to be a part of the railway system for the coal mining that hasn't been in use since at least the 1960s*.

What I found most compelling were the manmade structures with the trees growing up through and the contrast between the two worlds fighting to exist in the same space.

Along my path, I came across an older gentleman.  I tried to pass him at one point, because I walk faster than he does. It seemed to be disturbing him when I was walking behind him.  Further along the path, as I took this picture:

he caught up with me and moved up the walkway (aka the ramp designed to inspire mischief in adults):

Seriously - who wouldn't want to go soaring down this thing on a bicycle?  It doesn't even lead to traffic or anything dangerous.  Best part:  That's what it was designed for!! (I'm pretending that's true even though I'm sure I will soon be informed that there's some rule making RIDING down "Verboten")

When I finished taking a series of pictures, I moved ahead and found him waiting for me at the top of the last curve.  He called me over to the railing and pointed.  German wasn't either of our first languages, but he was insistent that I take this picture:

I happily agreed to and then showed him the result.  His face beamed and he excitedly explained how this was paradise.  It doesn't get better than this.  The water.  The trees.  I tried to tell him how I saw it and explain that's why I was outside taking pictures, but he was less impressed with the contrast of man vs. nature and mostly just content that we both had the opportunity to see this view.  I'm still kicking myself for not asking to take his picture but am glad to at least have his story and enthusiasm for Paradies!

Here are a few more photos I took that day.  I also want to point out that at no point did I leave the city.  That is one thing I love about this place.  Nature has claimed its corners. Partly due to remnants of war and partly by choice, man has allowed and fostered that presence within this proud city.  

*It could have been the 60s, or the 80s, or maybe the 70s ... my source on this is a little less certain than the first time I heard this explanation, however, in order to maintain truth in perception and storytelling I've decided not to research it, but simply let the story be as it began. 

Sights and Sounds

Hanging out in an old (mostly abandoned) mining town, I often come across neat little treasures of a time gone by.  Now that the weather has started to warm up a bit, the windows are open bringing in the sights and sounds of the town around me.

Yesterday, as I sat at my table writing, I heard what sounded like a shift change bell.  I thought that it was rather odd that the shifts change here at 2pm, but also thought it was nice that some of the local factories still use the old bells.  It creates a neat atmosphere of times gone by and still serves a functional purpose.

Today as I sat writing and heard the bells again, a friend of mine went running to the window, "Der Eiswagen!"  Apparently what I was hearing wasn't the end of a shift at all.  It was the ice cream truck.  A steady electronic bell sound, reminiscent of the bell signaling the end of a school day is played as the truck drives down the road.  The bell lacks any real festivity or lightness to it.  I thought perhaps that is mostly due to the sentiment that I have placed on the sounds of the ice cream trucks where I grew up.  I quickly located a YouTube video to demonstrate the jaunty Turkey in the Straw melody I was more accustomed to.

Apparently here, that's the kind of tune that is used to let the old men who recycle copper and other metals know that the collection truck is on its way!

Running, running, running ... Shiny thing!

Some of you may know that I run sometimes, but I'm not really much of a runner.  Of late, injury from over-zealous training has resulted in more interval training and fewer running miles, and therefore more photography.  I present to you, my motivation for running: 

Dusk along the trail - best part of my run = it's mostly unpaved.

Because it oddly feels like home even when I'm very far away.

Sometimes the cherry trees, daffodils and tulips (not pictured here) are in bloom.

Okay, maybe not, but "kopf kino" always helps.