FrankGoldstein

Costa Rica Quest – July 16-25, 2010

2010-08-14T13:04:00.000-04:00

Costa Rica Quest is our third trip with GAP Adventures. GAP trips get you close to the culture and people of the country. The accommodations are local rather than international chains. The people on GAP trips are really fun to be with.

Costa Rica is about seeing the rain forest, the cloud forest, and the beaches. July is winter in Costa Rica, which is their term for the rainy season. It is the time Costa Rica is greenest. We arrived in San José and spent a day seeing its Central Market and Jade Museum. Our next stop was La Fortuna at the edge of Arenal Volcano National Park. One reason to visit Costa Rica is to see wildlife. We saw enormous iguanas,

and sloths,

and caiman,

and alligators.

Here is a colony of bats resting on a tree. When they perceive a threat, even in their sleep, they vibrate in unison, which looks like leaves on the tree fluttering in the wind. The threat thinks they are just leaves and goes away.

We hoped to see red lava flowing from the volcano on a night walk, but it was cloudy and rainy. We did see the volcano blowing off ash.

Our next stop was Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve. The roads are windy and very bumpy. Chuck went on a 13 line zip lining course. The last line was 1 km.

We import tropical plants, but the ones naturally in Costa Rica are 10 times bigger than ours. The annual growing season is 12 months long. Here a tree is the host to a large number of different plants.

Here a tree has been almost completely taken over by vines. You can only see a very small part of the tree trunk; the majority of it is the vine.

Our next stop was the beaches of Quespos and Manuel Antonio National Park. Here we are in the Pacific while the rain stopped for a few minutes.

The moneys at the beaches are looking for handouts. They have learned that people keep food in baggies. So a monkey grabbed a baggie out of one of our bags and it only had shoes in it! One of our tour mates ran after it and retrieved the shoes.

The beaches are beautiful for swimming and riding the waves.

Here is Jan on the way to snorkeling in the Pacific. We saw lots of colorful fish.

All good things have to come to an end. This is our GAP group’s farewell dinner in San José.

Romania Tour with Rachel & Emily

2010-05-21T10:07:00.026-04:00

We wanted to show Chuck’s daughters Romania. We also wanted to see more of Romania before we returned to the US. The Romanian tourism industry is not well developed. There is no Rick Steves’ guide. It is not an easy country to drive in. So we hired a van for an eight day tour of UNESCO sites from http://www.visittransilvania.ro/. Dan, our driver and guide, speaks excellent English and was very patient and informative.

Our tour started with the steep wooden churches of Maramureş County. These are mainly from the 17th and 18th centuries, but the Church on the Hill in Leud dates from 1364. Their interiors are decorated with frescoes.

The Merry Cemetery of Săpânţa is unique. The many blue wooden crosses feature a carved scene and humorous verses that endeavor to capture essential elements - both the good and the imperfections - of the deceased’s life. There was one person responsible for the idea and creation of these informative head stones. He carved them all. When he died, his son and apprentice took over. The second picture shows the deceased with his red Mercedes Benz car. The picture showed he was rich. The poem on the headstone said in a humorous way that he worked hard at the peril of his family and friendships.

We were visiting the Maramureş Women’s Museum in Dragomiresti when Emily sneezed. The man in charge of the museum insisted that she and Rachel put on the traditional (and VERY warm) jacket and hat to warm them up. And if that didn’t do it, he served them Horincă, a homemade plum brandy.

Among the most picturesque treasures of Romania are the Painted Monasteries of Bucovina (in northeastern Romania). Their painted exterior walls are decorated with elaborate 15th and 16th century frescoes featuring portraits of saints and prophets, scenes from the life of Jesus, images of angels and demons, and heaven and hell.

We crossed the Carpathians Mountains several times on this tour. We hiked along rapids and waterfalls during one of our crossings.

We saw Elie Wiesel’s house in Sighet.

A nice woman walked us to the Synagogue in Piatra Neamt. The caretaker with his grass cutting sickle in hand took us to the Jewish cemetery. This is where a friend’s grandfather is buried. It is difficult for the remaining 230 mostly elderly members of the Jewish community to maintain this cemetery. It was overgrown with vegetation. The caretaker opened a shed to show us the horse drawn hearse.

Agriculture is very traditional in Romania. We saw horse drawn plows and people using hoes in the fields. Horse drawn wagons are common.

A trip to Romania would not be complete without a visit to the 14th century Bran Castle (Count Dracula, Vlad Ţepeș's castle). Even though Vlad the Impaler only visited it for a short period of time and the story of Dracula is mostly fiction, the castle was interesting because it was a working, medieval castle.

We also visited Peleşand Pelişor castles. These castles were show palaces for the Romanian kings.

In Brasov, we visited the narrowest street in Romania, the central plaza, the black church, and the synagogue.

The Prejmer Fortified Saxon Church is 500 years old. The church is at the center of the fortifications. When there were attacks, the village families came into the walls and lived in apartments that surround the church. The walls are 2 meters thick with slots to defend against attacks.

We toured the medieval town of Sighişoara, the fortified German city of Sibiu, and the capital of Burcharest. And, of course, we enjoyed Romania food and beer. The first picture includes our guide, Dan. We all got these savory filled crepe-like things that were pretty and delicious. The last picture is of Rachel’s fish soup. It came with the head of the fish sticking out, with a chili in its mouth!!

Budapest, Hungary

2010-05-19T10:13:00.013-04:00

Budapest reminds us of Prague: beautiful old buildings, bustling with people and very clean. We stayed across the street from a McDonalds (our spot for internet), and we saw employees cleaning the sidewalks and gutters on all sides. While walking around, we saw private people and city employees cleaning the streets and sidewalks. We’ve seen the same thing in Cluj. In both cities, there are small trash cans every 50 feet or so, and they are used by the public. The pictures are of beautiful buildings in Budapest.

Chuck’s mastery of public transit systems got us to the hotel easily. We came up from the subway on the square in front of our hotel. There were about 10 police officers standing around so Jan took the opportunity to ask if any of them would trade police patches for her son, Jon. The first two looked at her like she was crazy, even though she was holding out a University of Kentucky patch to exchange. At the same time, another officer ripped his Velcro patch off with a flourish. And another officer looked disappointed because he was trying to unpin his patch. Luckily Jan had two to trade and received two different Budapest police patches. Again, it was a fun encounter with side conversations about where we were. The city has buses, trams and subways that connect all over the place. The picture is of the oldest line in Europe (originally horse drawn!!) This is the Opera stop.

For Jan’s birthday, we went to Bor La Bor (Wine Lab) a romantic, cellar with a very friendly waiter who recommended delicious food and really good wine. We began with hot camembert over a fried biscuit on a bed of yogurt tossed shredded veggies. Then we had Crispy goose leg with mashed potatoes and red cabbage (very Hungarian). Our waiter suggested a dry white wine which we shared. Jan was a bit tipsy but in food heaven. For dessert, we shared an apple dessert that was equal to the meal. It was one of the best birthday nights for Jan.

Our sightseeing included walks around the old Grand Market. We had lunch there of traditional foods and ate with the locals. We toured the Great Synagogue, the second largest synagogue next to one in New York. The synagogue was fascinating. It was built in 1859 deliberately to look like a church to prove how assimilated the Jews were. As you can see in the picture, the outside has two towers and a rose window, very similar to a Catholic church, not a synagogue. The sanctuary has “pulpits” half way in the middle on the sides. We have seen this in a lot of Catholic churches but never in a synagogue. The synagogue was recently renovated using funds that the old actor, Tony Curtis raised. (His family is from Budapest.) The last picture is of a metal tree sculpture. It has small leaves of people who died in the Holocaust.

On day 3 in Budapest, Chuck’s daughters arrived for a 2 week visit. Highlights of our time in Budapest with Emily and Rachel include—besides the luck of not being rained on—eating at the Grand Market, swimming at the Széchenyi Baths in no less than eight baths and pools filled with natural hot springs ranging from 86 to 104 degrees, eating goulash at a great little Hungarian pub, climbing the hills of Buda (Budapest is the combined cities of the flat city of Pest and the hilly city of Buda) to see the citadel and freedom monument, a class I relic of Saint Istvan’s hand (fourth picture), and the hospital in the rock (a crude but clean for the time, hospital used during WWII and during the Russian invasions). The last picture is of Rachel and Chuck in the Agricultural Museum.

A bit of explanation about why we see relics: Relics in the Catholic religion are in three classes: the first is an actual body part of a saint, the second is something belonging to a saint (unless it’s Jesus i.e. the shroud of Turin which is first class) and third class is something used by the saint. Chuck gets a kick out of relics. Jan doesn’t believe they are real. Part of what makes the person a saint is the fact that part of their body didn’t decompose as it should have. We saw the head of Saint Catherine when we were in Italy. It still had hair and skin. This hand still had nails and skin on the fingers.

The Hungarian State Opera House is an architectural treasure. We attended Puccini’s Tosca and Strauss’s Elektra. Both operas were excellent. Here are two pictures of the beautiful opera house.

Tour though Turkey

2010-04-30T00:02:00.017-04:00

It turns out we both really like Turkish food. We split most of our meals so we could also try the soups and salads. The first picture is a woman making a “pancake” which is a very thin type of crepe (not as eggy) filled with whatever…we had cheese and spinach. The stick in her lap is her rolling pin; she’s looking at one cooking on the grill, and preparing another one. We found that they were always made in a restaurant but open to the street so people could buy them and eat them on the run.

The next picture is of a very typical method of cooking. They cook a variety of food from veggies to all kinds of meats and stews in clay dishes. The food doesn’t burn to the dish, but come out piping hot. The second picture is the same thing with a twist. The bread is used to seal the top to the bottom and the bottom is more the shape of a soup bowl. Jan drank apple tea (hot apple juice) while Chuck chose the more traditional Turkish coffee (with little or no sugar!) Many of the shops we entered offered us one of the drinks and they were brought by someone like the guy in the 3rd picture.

Every minute of the trip was something new either culturally or geographically. We are going to pick and choose, or it’ll take you two weeks to read what we did. On our way to the region of Cappadocia (we stayed in the town of Goreme) we stopped at the second largest lake in Turkey, Salt Lake. The pictures are of Chuck and our friends Kath and her mom, Nina standing on a walk and a rock covered with salt. Notice all of the white to Chuck's right and behind them.

The area of Cappadocia was all under water millions of years ago. According to our guide, the rock is very soft until it’s exposed to oxygen. Over time, the water cut into the rock, leaving lots of unusual rock formations. Then, people began carving them to make caves and homes. Here are a few of the rock homes. Some pictures were taken from the hot air balloon ride that we took over the area (which was absolutely fantastic!) The second picture in this series is of the rock formation when it had a hard rock layer on top. They lovingly call these fairy chimneys. The last picture is of (left to right) Nina, Jan, Stacey, Kath and Chuck…to prove we actually went for a balloon ride. You can even see the rock formations in the background.

We learned how silk comes from the silk worm to silk material including how the silk is “farmed”, gathered, spun etc. The next picture is of the cocoons. They are boiled to kill the silk worm inside, and then unwound. In the picture, the man took a brush and picked up several by the silk threads (which Yuli is touching). It was fascinating.

We visited Derinkuyu, an underground city built around 700 BCE. It was used to hide from invaders. There were rooms for food storage, kitchens, churches, stables, churches, wine presses and ventilation throughout. The whole thing was quite remarkable. The stables were in lower levels than the people so the ventilation wouldn’t bring the smell through the rest of the rooms. The picture is of Jan and Yuli coming through a tunnel. There is a large stone off to the left that would have been used to seal off the tunnel in case they were invaded. Many of the upper tunnels had the rock gates that could only be opened by the lower side, trapping the invaders.

Our next stop was the hot springs of Pamukkale, which weren’t hot but they were very interesting. The water has calcium carbonate in it, which settles, turns into jelly and then eventually hardens on the rocks. It’s quite beautiful. Chuck found tad poles in the one of the pools. You can see one in the middle picture.

Turkey has snow covered mountains, lots of beaches on the Mediterranean, arid and rain forest climates and lots of ruins in pretty good shape. We went to Ephesus and there were great ruins. But the thing we’ve never seen before was the public bath. It was only for men, had constant running water beneath the seats and had many places for incense and perfume underneath too. We’re sure this is not what Ephesus is known for but we were impressed. The picture is of several members of our group. The next two pictures are from our dinner the last night.

Random thoughts about this impressive country: The country has been occupied by many. But in 1923, it became a state and education became the goal of the country. They have a 96% literacy rate. The country is VERY clean, even the public bathrooms. When our bus stopped for breaks, someone at the gas station washed the buses. Parts of the country were dusty but cars, trucks and buses were spotless. The roads and sidewalks were in good shape. The people were very warm and friendly. Even the people trying to get you to come into their shops help you out.

Istanbul

2010-04-26T09:27:00.022-04:00

We went to Turkey on a G.A.P. tour but got there early to see more of Istanbul. We arrived in the beginning of tulip season and when we returned two weeks later, they were still beautifully in bloom. The city is big (14 million people), bustling, has beautiful buildings (in a different way than Paris and Prague.) There were people everywhere we went and always very nice. We’ve found most of the European cities we’ve visited, including Cluj, Romania, are much more densely populated than we are used to in the United States.

We ate breakfasts of a round bagel like bread with sesame seeds, and fresh pomegranate juice (delicious!) We snacked on a sticky ice cream served by an entertaining man who stole a customer’s cone out of his hand with the whole glob of vanilla ice cream.

We saw Haghia Sofya, a church turned mosque—Turkey is 96% Muslim but is a secular country. The rural or older women wear scarves, but you see VERY few face and body coverings— It is huge…large enough to put Notre Dame inside of it. When a church, it had beautiful mosaics and paintings on every inch. As a Mosque, the faces had to be removed or covered, and they added the large wooden discs with writing on them. To give you a bit of the scale, the second picture is standing on the bottom floor. The third picture is workers renovating one of the wooden discs that you can see in the second picture.

We went to the Basilica Cistern, also incredibly large…and wet. It is larger than two football fields. It was built in the 6th century CE and has 336 columns.

We met fellow tour goers, Nina and her grown daughter, Kath a day before the tour and saw Topkapi Palace and the Grand Bazaar. Both were wonderlands. The palace and its grounds were beautiful, as shown in the picture below of Kath in the flower garden. Besides the splendor, we saw land deeds (2nd picture) and many relics (Chuck was delighted) like Joseph’s turban, Moses’ staff, Abraham’s pot, St. John’s arm, Mohamed’s beard.

We were listening to a concert on a small outdoor stage when this guy on his motor cycle drove up to listen. Jan took these pictures as he was driving away.

We saw the Blue Mosque, the only Mosque in the world with 6 minarets. The Mosque in Mecca had 6, but when Sultan Ahmet I commissioned the Blue Mosque and recognized the problem, he paid to have a 7th minaret added to the Mosque in Mecca. The other picture is of a Muslim man washing his feet, lower legs, arms, hands and face before he goes into the mosque to pray. The faucets and benches were on the side of the mosque.

This is a brief description of our time in Istanbul. We will write about the rest of our Turkey trip soon.

Cluj Jewish Community

2010-03-28T09:09:00.004-04:00

Today we are going to the office of the Jewish Community to pay for tomorrow’s Seder.

It's as hard as converting. They are too small to have a presence in the temple so they have a small hidden office staffed by old people. This is significant for two reasons: only those under 40 typically speak English, and we were told that the 300 Jews left in Cluj are all senior citizens.

To get in contact with the Jewish Community, Jan went to the tourist office. They made three relatively lengthy calls and found that there are no Friday night services, Saturday morning services are held at a small building in the city center (downtown) and that there is a "dinner before Easter" that we can come to. So Jan walked to the small building as told--no sign, all locked up and all windows covered by curtains.

The next day Jan went back to the tourist office (they speak English and have access to a phone), and they called again. This time they were told Jan should come to the Jewish Community Office, also in the city center but about 3 blocks from the location of services. They told her that it is at the back of a courtyard, through an alley.

Jan went there and found a person who asked that she come back tomorrow morning because there was no one who either spoke English or who could take our reservation. Jan is not sure which.

The next day, Jan went back, walked in the door, but all 3 doors leading from the front hall were closed. People were briskly walking in and out of the doors and out of the building, there was talking behind all 3 doors. Jan didn't know what to do so she waited until a young person came, asked him and he ushered her into the main office.

It was all old wood, desks and counters in several places, at least 5 people working there and lines in front of most of the people. Jan walked up to the line with no people. You guessed it, he didn't speak English.

The young man who brought her in was recruited to see what she wanted. Jan explained, he explained and Jan was sent to the back of the room, which is where the young man was going too. He finish his business but sort of hung around for a second to help Jan. After about 5 minutes of explaining who Jan was, why she was here, yes she was Jewish (remember, this poor young guy was translating all of this), the staff explained that they knew they were having a Seder, probably on the first night at 7 p.m. but didn't know the location or how much until everyone signed up. Either Jan should come back later or they would get back to her.

While Jan had her "personal translator" with her, she asked if she could make an appointment to meet with an English speaking person to explain the local Jewish community and Temple. The woman told her translator to take her across the hall, which he obediently did. The man across the hall spoke English and was very busy but was interested in Jan’s story so he wanted to talk to her on the spot. Jan thanked her translator and tried to say good bye, but the Director said the young man should stay in case he couldn't find the right words! Jan explained that she didn't know the young man, but the Director said that's ok, he should stay!!

We chatted for a few minutes where Jan learned that there were 80,000 Jews in Cluj (now a city of 300,000. We don't know what it was pre-WWII) They were all deported (a word used everywhere we have been in Europe for what happened to the Jews.) After the war 8,000 were still alive. Most emigrated to Israel. The rest started over here because nothing was left of their land, homes or belongings. He explained that there are no young Jews because there are mixed marriages and children are not being raised Jewish, or the younger ones are moving out of Cluj.

Then he asked if Jan needed to buy matzo and wanted to come to the Seder. He walked her and her translating buddy back to the other office, got our names down on the Seder list, and put her in the line to buy matzo. It turns out that was the line she was in earlier and that's why the place is so busy. They sell matzo, kosher wine and kosher grape juice from their office.

Jan finished her visit and walked out with her buddy, her matzo and instructions to come back the Sunday before the Seder and pay for the Seder. She asked her buddy if he was Jewish. He told her his grandfather was, and he had just come to buy him a box of matzo!

P.S. We went back this morning. The women in charge of the Seder said “Jan Goldstein!!” with a thick Romanian pronunciation and both of us received double kisses as we left.

Eggs Aren’t Always for Easter

2010-03-28T08:35:00.012-04:00

We’ve connected with the English speaking community through the Lutheran Church. We went to a wine-tasting through one of the groups. Jan has gone to a couple of women’s events and is making friends. When she was in Romania eight years ago, she brought back beautifully hand painted eggs. They are typical of Eastern European crafts but Romania is the only country still painting and selling all year round. The other countries only sell them around Easter. Jan’s women’s group met with an egg painter, who demonstrated, then taught the group how to decorate.

The artist uses a “paint brush” that her husband makes by wrapping stiff copper wire around the end of a stick with a 1/4” sticking through the whole at the end. She dips the stick into melted wax and paints on the egg shell.

She usually starts with black wax, melted in a red tin cup, sitting in a can with a light bulb in it to melt the wax. She has a fine “brush” and a thicker “brush”. After the demonstration, Jan got to try her hand.

Tada!! The one I did is the white egg on the left.

We learned that it takes almost 1 hour to make an egg. She paints 30 with the black wax, then melts a different color and fills in some in that color and continues until the egg is done. The red egg is died red (important egg color in Romania) and then painted with white wax. She and her husband live off of her pension of 400 Lei/month (about $133) plus the money they make from selling the eggs. The eggs that I bought (traditional chicken size) was only 10 Lei. So she makes about $3.33/hour.

March 2010 in Cluj

2010-03-27T09:21:00.000-04:00

The most recent pictures of Cluj were snow covered and that was about 20 days ago. Everyone kept saying that the 30-36 degrees that we were experiencing was colder than normal. Last Thursday it was high of 36. This Thursday is the second sunny day with a high of 68! The birds have arrived, the trees are budding and the people are out!

There are small strips of park with playground equipment every couple of blocks. Everywhere we walk, we see multi-generational groups (men and women) pushing babies on swings. Preschoolers are wearing jackets and pants for spring weather, but they ALL have knit caps covering their heads and ears.

We were invited to a presentation for the international students and staff of Babes-Bolyai U. All we knew was that it was to tell us about the Romanian Orthodox Easter and some of the traditions surrounding it. The presentation began at 5 and was to include dinner. It lasted 3 hours and 25 minutes!!! We learned about the Orthodox Easter, some of the art representing the holiday, listened to the university choir sing traditional songs and watched very talented classic dancers perform traditional folk dances to Romanian folk music. The performances were top notch, and the dinner gave us a good taste of typical Romanian. Although the evening was too long, it was a great learning experience. The University takes its international exchange with students and professors very seriously.

Pictures of Prague

2010-03-27T04:51:00.003-04:00

We attended a Czech Pilharmonic Orchestra concert in Dvorak Hall in the Rudolfinum.

The Jewish Quarter. We weren't allowed to take pictures of the Old Jewish Cemetery. It is a relatively small area with 12,000 people buried, litterally on top of each other with head stones within one foot of each other. During the years where there was no Jewish Community to take care of the cemetary, many of the stones toppled.

Each synagogue is used for the community Shabbat service. This is Old-New Synagogue built around 1270. There are candles near the Torah arc for the upcoming service.

The Charles Bridge has many statues of saints.

The plaque is about St. John Nepomuk who was thrown off the Charles Bridge in 1393 for not telling the king his wife's confession. The shiny parts are rubbed by everyone to make a wish come true. What is Chuck wishing?

The statues are near the Prague Castle. They start with a whole man and as they go up, lose part of the person until there is nothing left...a commentary on communism.

The Astronomical Clock in Old Town Square is an unbelievable clock. It is 500 years old, still works. The clock maker was blinded so he could not make another one.

Four Days in Prague

2010-03-27T03:08:00.004-04:00

Prague is a beautiful city. The buildings are incredible. Each seems to be different from the other. Most that we saw have statues over or next to the entry. Many have statues around windows or on top of the building. Buildings that were not painted had the black from coal soot. Buildings that could be painted were painted all shades of earth tones or light colors. Most painted buildings had different color trim. We were really awed by the beauty of the city. The sidewalks and roads were frequently new cobblestone or brick in nice patterns.

We were in Prague 4 full days and saw lots of the old historic sites. The city has five areas that made it very easy to navigate: Castle Quarter, Old Quarter that had the Jewish Quarter in it, New Quarter and Little Quarter.

There are some similarities in the Czech Republic to Romania.

• Menus have measurements for each item…100 mg of meat, .41 liter of beer. The cups and glasses frequently had the measurement on the glass. We read that this is left over from Communism where everything was supposedly open and exact.

• There is a very extensive tram, trolley and subway system. It is well utilized in both cities. We never seemed to wait more than 5 minutes for our train regardless of where we were going or when.

• Lots of people were on the streets walking…to the grocery, bakery, work, home. Everyone was walking.

• Most under 40 speak English.

We read that goulash and different dumplings are traditional Czech food. So we ordered that for our first meal. Chuck got the goulash with bread dumplings and I got stuffed dumplings. We were both surprised. Chuck’s was beef with gravy and the dumplings were boiled or steamed bread dough. Jan’s was more like a dessert. It was bread dumplings stuffed with sweet strawberries with cheese and cinnamon-sugar on top.

We decided to venture into other foods for our other meals and were more successful. We found a nice little bakery for breakfast that had seats and hot drinks. Jan got hot chocolate and was in heaven. It is more like a combination of dark hot chocolate and chocolate pudding. The ad for it was a straw in a chocolate chunk and that was what it was like.

Our last night we ate a pub and shared a table with a couple from Moscow (they didn’t deliberately put the tourists together.) Nina spoke a little English…more than the Russian that Jan remembered. And now we have friends who have invited us to stay with them when we come to Moscow.

Jan’s cousin Ricki lives in Prague and suggested we visit the Franz Kafka Museum. It was well worth it but the reason it’s in the blog is because of the fountain in the courtyard. Their hips move back and forth and their penises go up and down.

The last picture is of Ricki and us. She works at Radio Free Europe and is creating and training for the inclusion of video feeds in the 20 countries that RFE services. She took us on a tour of the facilities, headquartered in Prague. It was really interesting to learn about this organization that we’ve heard about but don’t need in the US. It provides unbiased news about the country in which it broadcasts. And Ricki is developing RFE’s entrance into online videos.

Sibiu, Romania

2010-03-17T02:21:00.001-04:00

We took a 3½ hour bus ride to Sibiu. The bus and roads were in good condition. The route is so busy that there were three buses on our return trip. Sibiu is a regular town, but one that was able to maintain its original walled in medieval town center. Since it isn’t tourist season, we were the only guests in a charming hotel. They proudly gave us their best room, with a patio overlooking a very small courtyard, instead of on the street side. They had a restaurant on the premises and offered to prepare a traditional Romanian dinner for us. We had stuffed cabbage rolls, polenta, sliced sheep’s milk cheese, bread, tea/coffee and tzuika (traditional liquor made out of plums) for about $5 per person. The woman running the desk, kitchen and dining room spoke Romanian, German and Italian. Jan speaks some Spanish, Chuck speaks French, German and some Romanian. So Chuck and she communicated mostly in German. It was a very fun evening.

The town was great fun to roam around. The following are pictures of Jan’s favorite part: the vents in the steep roofs look like eyes. She tried to find the reason on Google but didn’t get anywhere. She asked about it and was told they are just vents.

The next few pictures are of the wonderful buildings. Notice the first one—the dark roofs are medieval, the reddish roofs are renovated on medieval buildings, and in the distance, the regular city with high rises. The next picture is looking down at a “block” of houses. We know that as in many countries, the style is to build up to the street and have what we would consider their yard within the wall. You can see here how little room there is and how houses were just built every which way.

The last couple of shots of the city are of the wall and tower that protected the city way back when. We didn’t find dates but these buildings and wall are hundreds of years old.

We spent our second day at what is called an open-air cultural museum. It’s the largest in Europe. They went around Romania and dismantled fine examples of houses, workshops and farm buildings typical of people who worked in the common trades of old. Then they reassembled them in the park. It was wonderful to see the styles beginning with log cabins with rock or dirt floors and thatched roofs to what looked like pretty modern houses and workshops. But even the 20th century ones differed between the different states. Most churches were built out of stone. However, there is a region known for their wooden churches to allow them to be dismantled quickly. As we were wandering around, we saw several dressed up people all going the same direction. It turns out one of the wooden churches brought to the park was being used for an Eastern Orthodox service. We were invited in and stayed long enough to understand that the service was in Romanian, mostly sung by the priest with little participation from the congregation, who knelt or bowed occasionally. It was very interesting for us.

The first picture is of an older home with a typically tall pitched roof. The next is a similar building, but insulated with mud or concrete and paint. Next is also something we found typical, at least to this park. Almost all of the work was assisted by hydraulic power. The workshops were either built right next to the river or actually on the river, to make use of the flowing water power. The last picture is of what we assume is one of the first Ferris wheels. The literature called it a swing.

We spent the day in the park and were finishing up our last 45 minutes when this old guy who only spoke Romanian picked us up and started explaining the exhibits. Since we gathered most from just looking, we were uncomfortable and couldn’t figure out how to dump him without being offensive. He was VERY persistent so we followed him to a couple more exhibits. It turns out that he works at the park and really knew his stuff, which he amazingly was able to explain to us. He showed us three or four different types of sunflower oil presses: animal powered, human powered (kind of like a stairmaster) and several that had levers so that the seeds could just be pressed really hard. He also explained how 32 horses walked in a circle, 2 by 2 and ground grain. He insisted he take our picture inside one of the houses and it turned out, not only did he know how to tell us about the oil presses; he also knew how to take good pictures. Below are the pictures of the end of our fun day.

Welcome to our new home

2010-03-11T01:29:00.002-05:00

We’ve been in Cluj-Napoca Romania for a little over a week now. The city has a population of about 350,000. Again, everything is different than what we’ve experienced at home, France or India. To us it seems densely populated. There are hundreds of communist era apartment buildings that are either all alike or look very similar. Even the newer apartment buildings have a similar look. Most are out of concrete and have no decoration or uniqueness to them. At first it was difficult because it wasn’t pretty and we couldn’t find landmarks. But we have gotten used to the buildings and are figuring things out.

We are staying in a relatively new 10 story building. The blue on the building is actually a deep sky blue although it doesn’t show up well on the picture. It’s kind of a hybrid between a hotel and student housing owned by the university, located in a park dedicated to sports.

Our studio is very spacious with lots of storage. We have an entry hall, bathroom, kitchen with hot plate and fridge, big room with beds, shelving and a desk, and a small patio. We love our large window that looks over the sports fields and then hills. All of the trees will be beautiful when spring comes.

The first order of business was to outfit our studio. It came with sheets, towels and one roll of TP. We spent 4-5 hours shopping at mega stores during our first two days. Things are different here. They don’t have the plastic that we have in the US. We could get disposable plates and flatware, but nothing in plastic that could be washed. Also, groupings that normally come in sets of 4 in the States, come in sets of 3 here. We ended up with nice and cheap that we are using creatively. Hopefully we can donate to a shelter here when we are done.

The next order of business was figuring out the public transportation system. Cluj has inexpensive taxis, trams (hooked to overhead electricity and on tracks), trolleys (buses hooked to overhead electricity) and buses. But as far as we can tell, none really intersect. Chuck, with his good sense of direction, found his way to the university and his office. Jan, with her lousy sense of direction but ease of asking questions, took a little longer but is getting the hang of it.

Babes Bolyai University, where Chuck is working, is also a good looking newer building. He shares an office with five others, although they are rarely there because of their teaching and other duties. He has been invited to meet with the dean, go to a student internship fair, and is included in the weekly staff meetings. But he is mostly reading since the computer at work is probably at least 10 years old.

Both March 1 and March 8 were some kind of women’s day holidays. The tradition for the first holiday is for any men to give a small gift to all women they know (they work with, they’re friends with, family, etc.) The gifts are small broaches, figurines (½”). They each have a small ribbon hanging from them. The women at the front desk of our hotel showed us one that she received from the man who brings the newspapers. The women traditionally wear them for the first week. We only saw two women wearing them. One of them said it was because her young son gave it to her. Then on March 8, the women receive flowers. Again, not like in the US. We saw only one flower being given in most cases. Chuck asked a male colleague when Man’s Day was and was told that the other 363 days are man’s day.

Last weekend we went to the opera, Rigoletto at the Opera house. The building was elegant in its heyday. But its paint was a bit faded. The voices were really good, as was the orchestra. We really enjoyed it and will go again.

This weekend we are taking a bus to Sibiu, about 3 ½ hours away. We’ll post again soon.

Senior Life Article

2010-03-05T02:12:00.001-05:00

There is an article about our travels in the March 2010 issue of Senior Life, Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky Edition. Here is the link. The article starts on page 4. Notice on page 5 the location where they think we are riding the elephant.

BELIEVE IT OR NOT, WE’RE ON THE ROAD AGAIN

2010-03-04T04:25:00.004-05:00

We made it to Madrid early Friday morning on a knock-down gorgeous day. So after checking into our great little hotel, we went out to explore. Madrid is full of beautiful buildings and doors that are different looking than the ones in France, but just as beautiful, making the city as beautiful. The city also has lovely plazas that serve as a congregating point, or just as a short cut from point a to point b. But they are ALWAYS full of people. We’ve come to the conclusion that people come to the beautiful areas and walk just to see, be seen and as a family activity. Walking seems to be the way free-time is passed.

We chose a hostel that is near the center of the city and were able to walk to the

• Prado Museum (well laid out, full of light and spacious, full of Spanish artists like Goya, El Greco, and Gris.)

• Reina Sofia Museum (where Picasso’s Guernica is on exhibit-this is a museum of modern art, housed in a renovated hospital. It had no elevators so they built beautiful glass elevators on the outside. It is really classy.)

• and the Royal Palace of Madrid (Jan loves palaces and castles and was not disappointed by the splendor of this one. The king still resides in the upper floors.)

Our hotel room was small but comfortable with a traditional bathroom. We’ve found in our travels that bathrooms aren’t always what we expect.

The first picture is of Jan standing in front of the Madrid “mascot”, a standing bear trying to get the berries on the tree. In addition to the statue, the symbol is on the police uniforms and even made out of chocolate (hmmm, wonder if it tastes like chocolate berries?)

An example of Spanish aesthetics is the street sign. Not only is it large enough to see, but it’s beautiful. Each picture on the sign has something to do with the name of the street. Each sign is built into the building (they don’t change names of streets very often!) and has nine tiles.

We were also able to walk through several of the plazas, which as we mentioned are just full of people interacting at all times of the day. They are really a place of community. The next picture shows a night scene full of couples of all ages and families. We saw fewer children at night but during the day the families were often multi-generational.

This next picture is from within Plaza Mayor. We had lunch at an outdoor café and watched life go by. The square looks like this on all sides. As far as we know, there are some offices, but mostly apartments. If you look through the arch, you can see the building is about 10 or 12’ wide. So we are guessing that the apartments are several rooms in a row connected by hallways, but we are just guessing whether they are multi-story or just one story. At any rate, it would be a neat place to live if you like light (windows on both sides) and to people watch. Also in the picture, you can see a sidewalk restaurant, similar to where we had lunch, and one of the many artists selling their works. Jan really enjoyed the grand arches and the views to the rest of the city through them.

In the second picture, above, there is a man wearing a blue/white hat with two sticks tied with two yard-long ropes, expertly creating large bubbles. He entertained the children for hours this Sunday afternoon. It was entertaining for us too.

Lastly, the Plaza Puerta del Sol—where the bear statue is located—is larger and busier with street performers and with people offering to buy gold. Many of them were the “statues” being unflappable to tourists trying to taunt them into losing their composure. Pictured here is a couple that was motionless until someone dropped a tip into their basket. At that point they would slowly move for a minute, like a mechanical display, choreographed so they ended in a different position but touching again after the movement. They never opened their eyes. And this is real mud. We saw them earlier when much of their outfit was still wet. Dry, it looked very statuesque. We saw them in the same spot several days in a row, that’s probably where they work every day.

We arrived in Romania late Monday evening and are getting settled quite well. More about Cluj-Napoca in our next blog entry. Please keep in touch.

Another Tribute to our French Friends

2009-12-04T16:11:00.000-05:00

Prof. Alain Bretto has visited Northern Kentucky University twice. Alain invited me to spend part of my sabbatical in Caen, France.

Alain invited us to a shell fish dinner at his apartment the night before we flew home from France. Here is a picture of Chuck, Alain, Monique, and Michel.

This is a picture of Alain and Marie.

This is a picture of Michel, Alain, Chuck, and Monique.

Some Americans wrongly believe that French are unfriendly towards Americans. We miss our good French friends.

Tribute to our Caen Friends

2009-11-29T06:55:00.004-05:00

Here is Chuck’s office space at GREYC - ENSICAEN.

Baptiste is defending his Ph.D. on December 2nd. He picked us up at the Caen airport. Chrystel is Baptiste’s girl friend and one of Chuck’s office mates. She is a graduate student. They went out of their way to help Chuck fit into the research lab.

Christophe is head of the lab where Chuck worked. He is a world class researcher in biometrics. He has created a wonderful work environment.

Jean-Claude is another of Chuck’s office mates. He retired from a French telecom and now directs graduate research. We enjoyed having dinner at Jean-Claude’s house.

Marc directs graduate students and entertained us. He helped make the lab a fun place to work.

Romain, Vincent, and Mohamad are graduates students that worked with Chuck. They made Chuck’s stay at the lab a very enjoyable experience.

Joëlle is the secretary of the building in which we live. She helped us with all of our living needs. Jan continually went to her for help with little things and she not only helped. But she became a special friend. She frequently invited Jan to have coffee or lunch with her friends and her. Jan learned so many things during the lunches. We discussed politics, religion, culture and food.

Joëlle introduced Jan to Subha because Subha is from India and speaks English. The funny part is that Subha has lived in France for four years (working on her masters and now PHD) and had to think hard to speak in English. She is a wonderful sweet person. She never tired of Jan interrupting to ask how to say something in French. Subha, Chuck and Jan went out to dinner and discussed India and France.

Joëlle also introduced Jan to Joanna, Joelle’s 21 year old daughter. Joanna is studying to be a lawyer and is in her 6th year of English. Jan helped her practice her English and they occasionally went shopping together.

We became friends with many people that went to the synagogue. We met Pénélope, who always has a warm smile and a double-cheek kiss when she sees us. We had dinner with her last night and she is a delight.

We met David, 13, who lived in Israel until 4 years ago. He sits next to Chuck and helps him with the prayer book page.

But the best was Rabbi David Serero, his wife Rachel and their two babies, Tehilah and Naomi. The Rabbi invited us to Friday night dinner two times, and Saturday lunch twice. We were around their house so much that their girls became quite comfortable with us. The 9 month old even let Jan hold her. Rachel had to translate for us because although the Rabbi spoke some English, he wasn’t comfortable using it but wanted to learn all about us. David and Rachel are really special people and made us feel part of their community.

Tracie's Visit

2009-11-29T05:05:00.010-05:00

We are in our last week here. The two months seem to have gone faster than in India. It was an easier life in a more civilized country. However, there were still lots of cultural and physical differences that made the visit quite interesting and wonderful.

Last week we had company. Tracie came to Caen with us for the week after the weekend in Paris. We toured the city, visited the Normandy beaches and went to Honfleur for a day. Honfleur was a leading port and its beauty has attracted many famous painters. Their church is different than the many we’ve seen. It is built completely out of wood by ship builders. When you are in it and look up, the ceiling/roof looks just like the bottom of a boat. Because wood is not as strong as stone, the bell tower is actually across the street. It’s a very quaint town and we enjoyed taking pictures of the houses and doors.

Tracie and Jan hit the Friday market by 9:30 and still missed some of the baked goods we were looking for. We did manage to buy three cheeses, fermented cider, two kinds of bread, macaroons, madelines and apples (to go with the cheese.) The first picture is of the couple from whom Jan buys every market day that we’re in town. The woman speaks English and has helped her with all kinds of questions. The other two pictures are of fish vendors. One is expertly shelling very large scallops. (Jan was excited to see these types of shells on Omaha beach because they can be used to serve appetizers.) The other picture is the fish vendor standing in front of a large mound of mussels.

It was fun viewing Caen through Tracie’s fresh eyes. We’ve gotten used to some of the views. For instance, there is Saint-Pierre Church, whose steeple you can see from almost everywhere in Caen. Jan frequently uses it to figure out where she’s going. There is a major restoration on the façade of the church. Notice in the picture that the protecting tarp covering the scaffold always looks like the building that it is covering, trying to make even construction a bit more beautiful. And the many bicycle stands set up where you can either use your monthly pass or rent by the day and ride anywhere. Then you just drop off the bike at the nearest stand. We’ve seen these in almost all of the towns, including Paris. There are many bike paths too. One of Jan’s favorite buildings caught Tracie’s eye too. This building was built in the 1400s and seems to have office furniture in it. Maybe Jan will find out its use by the end of the trip.

We have been so incredibly lucky during our visit here. We went out to dinner last week and the wine of the day was Beaujolais Nouveau. The three of us enjoyed the bottle and had a traditional meal that is kind of like a shepherd’s pie, mashed potatoes on top of shredded seasoned beef. Then we found out (you all probably knew this but we didn’t) that the wine happens only once per year and it’s a big deal. The office in the same building in which we live had a Beaujolais Nouveau get together before lunch. Courtesy of the University there were the wine, cheese, and cheese curls in different flavors. Every time someone else came into the café they got their glass of wine and clicked with every single person already there. We had to keep refilling so we could toast everyone as they came in.

Eating Mussels

2009-11-23T08:21:00.000-05:00

We are now pros at eating mussels! The first time we ordered them, the server sat them in front of us and we looked at them and they looked at us. Then we watched others in the restaurant. Since they don’t offer the small fish forks that we use in the US, the French pick out the first mussel with a fork and then use the shell from the first mussel as pinchers to pick the rest out of their shells. It works very well. We were even able to scoop up the fresh cream at the bottom of the bowl. We’ll probably use this method from now on. Who needs to worry about those little forks!

Ellie & Tracie Invade France

2009-11-23T02:49:00.002-05:00

Our third and final trip to Paris is over. It’s very tiring and hard on the body to do so much sightseeing and we’re lucky we could break it up into three trips. This time, we met Ellie Crawford for two days in Paris. She’s studying in London and squeezed in a trip. She brought the first sunny days that we’d seen in Paris. Thanks Ellie!

We took the underground Metro and exited near the Seine to catch the Bateaux Mouches boat tour. Ellie’s mouth dropped open because the first thing she saw coming out of the underground Metro was the Eiffel Tour. We couldn’t have planned it better if we tried. We took the tour around the city on the boat and were pleasantly surprised how interesting it was and what good views we had. The bridges are all adorned, adding to the beauty of the city. Then we went to the top of the Eiffel Tour. I think Chuck was disappointed; he wanted to climb the 800 steps! The monument and its views are really magnificent. Later we saw it lit up with a fancy light show.

On to Notre Dame and to Jan’s favorite crêpe place for a fresh crepe Nutella (a chocolate spread). Obviously Chuck and Ellie liked it too!

Friday, we split up. Chuck met Tracie Mrakich, a visiting friend from Indy, at the airport. Ellie and Jan had breakfast along the Champs-Elyseés and we all met up at the Arc de Triomphe. Chuck and Tracie learned the Metro system, taking 4 trains from the airport to the hotel and another two to the Arc. Tracie was finally glad to see the light of day in Paris! Jan and Ellie didn’t go far enough around a roundabout and missed the Champs-Elyseés for a half hour. However, they got to see even fancier stores and did eventually walk the Champs-Elyseés.

We had lunch on the …you guessed it… Champs-Elyseés and took off for the Orsay Museum. It is a large wonderful museum full of famous impressionist paintings and sculptures. Jan likes it a lot better than the Louvre. Outside the Orsay, we stopped for a snack of roasted chestnuts. They are easy to peal and pop in your mouth. But, they’re big and Ellie popped the whole thing in. It took a few minutes to get it all down and she didn’t want any more!

On to Sacre Coeur (Sacred Heart) on Montmartre. We were supposed to get there late afternoon so we could see the sunset on one of the only hills in Paris. We were a bit late, but just in time for a service at the church. It was beautiful, with the nuns singing to an autoharp. The acoustics were wonderful. This is the only area where tourists are bothered by independent vendors. You should have seen Ellie shake one of them off so she could get to the shops.

It took Tracie less than 24 hours to buy a “chapeau” (hat) and scarf and look just like the other French on the Metro. She really fit in well.

The three of us (Ellie went back to London) went to Versailles to see the palace that was built by King Louis XIV because he didn’t think the Louvre was spectacular enough. (it is!!) You can see the reflection of us in the mirror, along with the other opulence of the room. The palace was big and heavily adorned with art. It was really very similar to the Louvre!

Jan just realized we only have 2 more weeks before we come home. It’s gone very quickly. But two weeks is more than most get here so we’ll make the best of it.

Life in France

2009-11-17T04:21:00.000-05:00

We haven’t written in awhile because we’ve been so busy being French. One week before we came, I was told it rains in the fall in Caen, but it isn’t as bad as spring. It has taken almost this long to understand it always rains in Normandy. There are tourist trinkets showing all four seasons with someone wearing a raincoat. So when we have beautiful days, it is an event and the whole town comes out. The first picture is at the chateau in Caen. We walk or take the tram by it every day. People cut through it to get to the other side. It’s just part of living in Caen, living next to a chateau and relaxing on the lawn when the sun is out!

We packed a lot into our second trip to Paris, beginning with climbing the 400 steps to the top of Notre Dame. Beautiful views of the city, (even though, you guessed it, it was raining) and scary views of the gargoyles close up! Then we took a train to Giverny, where Monet lived. We saw his house and studio. But most remarkable was his garden. We were told that he planted and maintained it. We were there on the second to last day that it is open because it eventually stops blooming. You can imagine how beautiful it is during the spring and summer. Actually, you don’t have to imagine because it is in many of his paintings. It was truly one of the most beautiful man-made places we’ve seen. It was cloudy so our pictures do not do it justice, but I hope you get some of the idea of the beauty of this place.

We visited many museums, all quite wonderful and then to a traditional café lunch. It was freezing but we really wanted to eat outside (at least we were under the heat lamps.) The experience of living like the French is a big part of the visit. Actually, we did a lot of eating. Surprise, surprise! We had falafel sandwiches on the street in Marais, the Jewish section of the city. They weren’t French, but they were delicious. As you can see in the window, he had all kinds of things to put in the pita besides the falafel and we asked for it all. It was jam-packed. We also tried the gelato. Although it was melting, can you see the pretty flower that they made out of Chuck’s gelato?

Then weekend before last, we visited Mont Saint Michel, the fourth Christian pilgrimage site. It’s a granite island surrounded by very fast tides (18 feet latterly per second.) So the fact that this incredible abbey and was built from rock from off the island is pretty fantastic. We spent a couple of days there just poking around. They have several herds of sheep that graze on the plants that live off of the salt water, so their meat is saltier. We tried that last night. Then Sunday we enjoyed moules (mussels) crème fresh (heavy cream) for the first time, also a delicacy of Mont Saint Michel.

Jan went to Friday market for the 3rd or 4th time and found out there is a friend/local discount. The wine was 2.50 instead of 3 Euros marked, and we got 8 madelines for the price of 6. Kind of fun being a regular! She’s really going to miss the weekly markets. The food is fresh, the crowd is fun and the vendors are very interesting. Last time Jan got into a discussion about Obama with the flower vendor who spoke very little English, but enough to discuss politics. By the way, he liked Obama.

We took our third and final trip to Paris this past weekend. We have been so lucky to take three shorter trips and see so much. It’s very tiring and hard on the body to do so much sightseeing and we’re lucky we could break it up. This time, we met Ellie Crawford, whose studying this semester in London, for two days in Paris. She brought the first sunny days that we’d seen in Paris. We took the tour around the city on the boat and were pleasantly surprised how interesting it was and what good views we had. We also added a trip to the top of the Eiffel Tour. It really is magnificent.

Paris Visit - Oct. 17-19, 2009

2009-10-22T03:20:00.003-04:00

Our most recent outing was three days in Paris. Yes, it’s rough to live just a 2 hour train ride from such a beautiful city. We were on our own Saturday and Monday, and spent Sunday with Franck, Kate and Bob. Franck lives in Paris and Fort Wayne, IN. Kate and Bob are friends of his, visiting for a couple of weeks. And Kate is a friend of Jan’s from high school that she hasn’t seen since then. So besides being in Paris, we spent one of the days with friends.

Paris, like what we’ve seen everywhere in France is beautiful. The people who live in the city live in large buildings, usually 4 stories, in small apartments. But the buildings are beautiful; most have black iron railings and beautiful doors. There are a few examples in the pictures, because we couldn’t resist.

Everywhere you look is beauty, not only in the Arc de Triomphe and Notré Dame, also pictured and beautiful.

Saturday we arrived early and had breakfast at a small bar, all wood, with a mom, dad and son working the counter. Very charming and the chocolat chaud (hot chocolate) was great for the 300 steps we climbed to the top of the Arc de Triomphe. It was well worth the climb. The weather cleared after we came down which was good, but our pictures from the top aren’t as pretty as they would have been with blue sky.

We took a walking tour of Champs-Eylsée. We felt very posh, lunching at an outdoor café, buying a watch (Chuck bought Jan a Swatch at a store on the Champs-Elysée.) We also went to a couple of museums, although we’re saving the Louvre, Orsay and Versailles until the next trip. A couple asked us to take their picture in front of Rodin’s “Kiss”, so we decided to play along too.

We stopped near the very heavily-guarded American Embassy to ask the military police for a police patch. My son, Jon, collects them and we have had fun asking different police for patches. We approach a group of police, so hopefully one speaks English. And after we’ve explained what we wanted, most of the time one of the officers just rips (Velcro) off his/her patch and hands it over. We also hear some of their stories. The police across from the Synagogue in Rouen were there guarding the synagogue during every service. The military police guarding the American Embassy are there for one month tours. They come as a unit from various parts of the country. While they were looking for an extra patch (they couldn’t go patchless) and explaining their rotations, one of the officers added that they were “the best”. Each interaction has been very fun.

Back to Paris. We came up from a subway to hear a relatively heated discussion. We looked around and found the 4 men in the picture, with their hands clasped behind their backs talking about who-knows-what! We had read that the French are very reserved with strangers but equally passionate with friends and love a good debate.

The next picture is City Hall. Below the clock are the words Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité (Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (Brotherhood)) from the French Revolution. This building, besides being huge, is really beautiful. We keep saying that, as stated earlier, there is a lot of beauty in France. This has become an epic so we’ll save some for the next installment and the next trip.

Thursday, October 15, 2009 – Tour of the battle of Normandy.

2009-10-16T09:42:00.004-04:00

We began the day with about 3 hours in the Caen Memorial (sculpture of the gun with the muzzle knotted is here (blurry picture-sorry.) It includes from the end of WWI to the present with a concentration on the German aggression in both wars. But we saw a movie about wars, protests and the hope of peace. Th part about war had way too much US involvement, including Bay of Pigs, Viet Nam (& protests), both Golf Wars, etc. Then after a homemade lunch of French baguette & cheese plus yogurt (we’re so very French), we went on the guided tour of the beaches and cemeteries. We saw where the British landed, Omaha beach, German pill boxes, bomb craters, American and German cemeteries. It was a very sobering day. I’ve included some pictures.

Blow up the Omaha beach picture. There are some people in the foreground. Look near the water. There are people there too. I took this picture to show how hard it must have been for the people to come off the boats and run the distance of this huge beach before reaching any kind of cover from the guns built into the hills (called German pill boxes shown in another picture.) It’s truly a good thing that Jan didn’t have to go to war, because she would have been hard pressed to do any of this.

There is also a picture of the beach with a cliff in the background. This is straight up, probably about 6 or 7 stories, that, after they ran the across the beach (narrower at this point), all wet, they had to climb up this cliff in less than 30 minutes. Doesn’t sound like fun either. In the foreground of this picture is what looks like reverse hilly terrain. This is one location that the French maintain, but didn’t “fix”. The holes in the ground are the bomb craters made by the bombardment from the Allied ships landing. It was pretty amazing to see the damage that was done, yet there were enough enemy to kill so many boys and men.

Which takes us to our last two pictures. We visited the British Cemetery in Bayeux earlier. We visited the American and German cemeteries during this tour. The American one (9,500 bodies) has one marble marker (cross or star of David) for each killed soldier. We asked why there was such a Jewish presence in the chaple when there were only 149 star markers. The answer was that Jews didn’t feel comfortable putting Jewish on their dog tags because of the consequences if they were caught by Germans. So it is assumed that many more were Jewish and chose not to put anything on their dog tags (defaulting to a cross for a marker.) The German cemetery (21,000 bodies) didn’t have enough room, so it has one marker (squares in the ground) for each two killed soldiers. Their names are on the markers. All three cemeteries were impeccably kept and very moving.

To get to the beaches, we drove through country, farms and small villages. As far as I can tell, every village has a beautiful old church with a tall spire or bell tower. I didn’t get a picture of these, but included one of 16 in Caen, that we walk by almost daily. Back to the country…the farms are old, stone farm houses with stone walls attached to the side of the house closest to the road, enclosing a courtyard or play yard. Very charming. They also divide their land from the next farm by either dense trees or perfectly trimmed hedges, or dirt (with grass and brush growing on it) mounded about 6 feet high.
Life is still very good. We would love to hear from you, and can host you to a “local” visit if you can come.

Random Thoughts about the Culture

2009-10-14T10:37:00.003-04:00

We are living on one of the actual campuses in a spacious studio. When we first saw it, we were a little unsure since it was one big bedroom with a table, sink & frig. But after adding a few things to make cooking easier we are more comfortable. One of the best additions is a side chair so we aren’t either sitting on the bed or in the upright kitchen chairs. According to the book we read about the culture, this is a typical size place to live which is why the French like to sit at sidewalk cafés and watch the world go by.

The people are reserved in public, even the children and adolescents. Everyone seems to be taught at a very young age the proper behavior and rules. Consequently, there is almost no littering. An exception to this is on campus, Friday or Saturday night there is usually evidence of an outdoor party in the common area. But it’s completely cleaned up by early Monday morning. Along with this, the country has subtle trash and recycling cans all over. They seem to recycle without even thinking about it. The trash bins where we dump our own trash/recycling has 2 trash containers and 8 recycling containers.

Another consequence of this behavior is that on the buses and trams, people who might be blocking the electronic ticket reader will always take your ticket, use the reader for you and give your ticket back to you. If they are in your way, getting to a spot, most will move to let you squeeze by and then go back to their spot. If someone from the inside seat leaves, the person on the outside seat scoots over so someone else can easily sit down. This is not 100% but it is much more apparent here than in the States. Of course, during rush hour, everyone is just jammed to the gills.

And everywhere is quiet. We were at a lunch of about 25-30 people at long banquet tables, at the Synagogue and we could talk to people several chairs away. Restaurants, offices and all public places are like that.

But along with this reserve comes the reason that we in the States think they are cold or aloof. They don’t look at strangers when walking down the street. They don’t say hi or pardon when crossing paths, not only to us, but to other French either. They don’t stop to coo over a baby or dog. (Jan has stopped a couple of people with big black dogs (she couldn’t help herself) and the owners were visibly shocked. After they realized we were foreign and non-threatening, they let her pet the dog and talk to them.) In general, they don’t “hawk” their wares. Twice we saw someone ask a restaurant employee if they were open. The answer was “no”, not no but we will open in an hour or but please try us again.

On the other hand, when entering any kind of establishment, you always say bonjour madame or monsieur to the employee, as they do to you, even if they are waiting on someone else. If it’s someone you know, you shake their hand or give the double cheek kiss. If you are entering your office, you shake hands/kiss and say bonjour to everyone who is already there. There are frequently lines waiting to be served and people just stand quietly and wait their turns. There is no watch-checking or shifting from foot to foot in impatience.

We hope this gives you some insight into where we are spending our two months. We truly love each and everything about our time here. The offer is still open to anyone who can come. We’ll even pick you up in Paris (the 2 hour train ride from Paris to Caen is €34 until November 16.) You’ll love it here.

Life in Caen

2009-10-14T03:29:00.000-04:00

I've taken some pictures from around Caen but have to organize them and explain them. I'm loving it here. Chuck is enjoying himself too, but he still has to work and all I have to do is walk to the bakery daily to get fresh bread, or to the post office or theater, etc. I'm walking all over town and it's really great.

At least half of the women are really dressed up, even to go to class, or lunch with a friend. The fashion is all about legs, maybe because it's beginning to be fall weather. They are wearing opaque tights, ankle boots with high heels (I don't know how they walk on the coblestone, but they have no problems), long tunic type dress that looks like a raincoat but is really a dress. It's very smart looking. I guess I'll have to snap some pictures to show you. But it is really making me feel underdressed. I may come home with a pair of the boots.

Jan & Chuck

Rouen – Saturday, October 10, 2009

2009-10-12T03:45:00.000-04:00

We took train from Caen to Rouen, the town where Joan of Arc was burned alive at the stake. The train was clean, quiet, fast and comfortable. Once in Rouen, we saw examples of the half timbered buildings that were smaller on the first level than the second level, because the buildings were taxed on their footprint not total square footage. Some of the buildings really lean, but they looked secure and are in good shape.

We visited the Eglise Jeanne d’Arc (Joan of Arc Church), a really modern, Scandinavian wood and glass structure. The ceiling looked like a ship’s hull and the stained glass windows were salvaged from a bombed church. Thenk we went to the Joan of Arc Museum and learned how this 19 year old girl is credited for instilling loyalty and motivation to fight for France’s independence. Because she said she was inspired through voices of saints, she was burned at the stake as a heretic. The museum was in a creaky old building which definitely added to the ambiance.

On our way to lunch we stopped at a chocolate shop and bought dark chocolate candies and macaroons. They really are macaroons, in 20 different flavors, and good. The chocolate is really good. After lunch we went to the Big Clock for a tour of the inner workings. It ended with a nice view of the city from the top of the tower. By the way, the clock only has an hour hand because it was built in the 16th century and they didn’t keep track of time to the minute. On the end of the hour hand is a sheep, both because it is a port town exporting sheep’s wool but also religious as a reference to the good shepherd.

The Hall of Justice is a beautiful Gothic building on Rue Aux Juifs (Street of the Jews – 11th to 13th century Jewish quarter). Then we went to the massive Notre-Dame Cathedral that inspired 30 of Monet’s paintings. Jan couldn’t say the cathedral is beautiful, but it is definitely magnificent and intricate.

A bit about our religious adventures. We came to Caen thinking Jan might make some friends if we went to the Synagogue. We’ve visited a lot this weekend. Friday night services in Caen, Saturday morning services in Rouen just to see the Synagogue in Rouen, Saturday (Simcha Torah/Smini Atzeras) evening in Caen, and then again Sunday in Caen for a service & “community lunch”. Jan is upstairs with the other women and little children. The 2-year old daughter of the Rabbi kept saying “hi papa” because she could hear his voice while he was deep in prayer down below. Saturday, the women made room for Jan at the railing then continued their chatted though the service. Sunday was a different larger group that stayed for lunch. Chuck learned to wear a kippah and tallit, but he didn’t daven. We both learned how to religiously wash our hands before breaking bread. It seems most people under 40 speak some English. They seem very gracious and welcoming to us.

Bayeux October 4, 2009

2009-10-08T07:57:00.001-04:00

We went to Bayeux by train last Sunday. It was great fun. We took the tram to the train station and took a 15 minute train ride to Bayeux, a small town near the Normandy beach. It was the first town liberated by Allied forces in 1944, the day after landing on the beach.

We haven’t described the transportation here yet. Because in general the French are very reserved in public, everything is pristine. The French speak very softly to each other, especially in public. We can be in a crowded restaurant or grocery store and the noise level is like being in a library. The mass transit is also somewhat crowded during rush hour, spotless and quiet. We’ve ridden 20 or so rides and only heard one person on a cell phone. The trains and trams are powered by electricity so they are quiet too. The rides are very smooth. Yes, I’m jealous.

So, back to Bayeux. Our first stop was to see the 11th century Tapisserie de Bayeux (Bayeux Tapestry). It’s a 70-meter history lesson about William the Conqueror’s rise from duke of Normandy to king of England, probably from the French point of view. It’s hung behind glass and with English (or about 8 other languages of your choice) headphones, we walked along its length as the story and art was told. It is truly wonderful. If you’re interested in reading about it, here’s the link. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayeux_Tapestry

Then on to the first of many cathedrals. (There are at least two in Caen that we have to see). This one was beautiful, built in 1066 and getting a badly needed cleaning and restoration. But it is huge, paintings and carved wooden furniture all over, really awe inspiring. You can see its towers from the whole town.

Last, before the train ride back, we went to the World War II British Cemetery. It was sobering to say the least. There had to be more than 2,500 grave markers, almost all identical, lined up as you can see in the picture. Most had names, rank, branch of the armed force and age. But there were lots that had no name on them.

First Days in Caen, France

2009-10-06T11:24:00.002-04:00

The flights here were uneventful, complete with easy immigration and no customs. Caen is charming, clean, reserved, and definitely a college town. It has lots of brick houses with flowerboxes and tile roofs, but it is very modern with a great public transportation system. We are living on one of the four campuses that make up Université de Caen in a spacious efficiency with a bed, small table and desk, two desk chairs. The kitchen has a microwave, small fridge, silverware and dishes for 6 and not much else.

The tram and bus stops are near where we live, and we are an easy walk to the city center. We managed to get two-month passes for the Tram/Bus and found that we can walk to the Laundromat, boulangerie (bakery) (which Jan has done daily!), lots of shopping, meat and vegetable markets, lots of wonderful restaurants, and the synagogue! We took our backpacks and extra reusable shopping bags and rode the tram to Carrefour, a Meijer type mega store. It was a great adventure. We bought some odds & ends (like a paring knife, extension cord, hangers) and food to try to cook at home. After our first dinner at home, we found that we need a bit more…like a cutting board and serving bowl. Jan's “find” yesterday was a 2€ Store, like our Dollar Stores, but Europe style. We’re now the proud owners of a cutting board, serving bowl and other odds and ends to make life more fun.

The food here is incredible. Our first night we stopped at a bakery and picked up chocolate croissants for the following breakfast. We’ve eaten dinner in two marvelous restaurants, and stopped for a baguette filled with brie for lunch on the grass in front of a castle.

SEPTEMBER 2009 - Month at home

2009-10-06T11:19:00.001-04:00

For those of you not watching our life this September, we were back in Fort Thomas. But it was anything but quiet. We came back to a small pipe leak from the upstairs bathroom. To make a long story short, we are having the hardwood floors of the downstairs, steps and upstairs hall refinished. In addition, we are having all rooms except the bathroom and kitchen painted. It is great that this is being done while we’re in France, but we had to pack all belongings into boxes so they and the furniture can be moved during the work. So, in addition to my son Jon getting married September 12, we went through the motions of moving and then packed for France.

August 29, 2009.

2009-09-09T21:55:00.000-04:00

To appreciate this picture, double click on it to blow it up. It is a view of a crowded market street in Delhi. Please note all of the electrical lines.

We flew home on August 29. We left Dehli at midnight and arrived in Paris at 6:00am. We flew from Paris at noon and arrive in Cincinnati at 4:00pm.

The Delhi Airport was on backup power since we were there during the daily power outage. There was no air conditioning. The airport was a sauna.

In India, a cup of coffee costs 30 cents. At the Paris airport, a cup of coffee costs $4.30. An Internet cafe in India charges 60 cents a hours. At the Paris airport, one hour on the Internet costs $7.50.

August 27, 2009

2009-09-07T08:32:00.000-04:00

New Delhi is a modern city with fairly good roads. It is the capital where the politicians live in nice government provided bungalows. The roads to Agra (Taj Mahal) and Jaipur are also fairly modern to cater to the tourists. This is in sharp contrast to the roads of the rest of the country. Even though, New Delhi is modern, it still loses electricity and water pressure for a several hours a day.

We visited to Sarajini Nagar Market. This is an open air market where you can buy clothes for a dollar or two. These clothes might have been returned as rejects from the United States so they have labels like Gap and Old Navy. Sometimes US discount stores buy them and send them back in the US.

There are a number of craft shops in Agra and Jaipur for textiles, inlay marble, and miniature paintings. The inlay marble craftsmen are necessary so they skill is not lost to make repairs on the Taj Mahal. India provides tax advantages to these shops to keep the crafts alive.

August 18, 2009

2009-09-01T09:34:00.001-04:00

Hi All,

TRANSPORTATION (first 3 pictures) The buses don't really stop, they just slow down and people hop on and off. In some cases, there isn't really room, so they just "hang on". The 3-wheeler (also called auto rickshaw or meter taxi) seems to be the most common. Again, in this picture, people are crammed in. This is the vehicle that carried 7 children to and from school every day. The motor cycle (called 2 wheeler) is blurry but shows a family with the kid in front, dad driving and mom with purchases in back. I have seen mom, dad and three kids on one bike a few times. The last pix is of a typical shopping market in a big city of 4 million people. We bought 2 pomegranates for about $0.60. We wish we could figure out how to get them home!
EDUCATION Today, when we arrived at the college in Hyderabad for Chuck's lecture, the gate was locked. Students who had arrived late were waiting outside. They could not enter until the start of the next class. Attendance is taken. They go to class from 9-5 daily. At most colleges, students wear uniforms. "Girls" sit on one side of the classroom and "Gents" on the other. Students stand when their professor enters the classroom. Kids start school at age 3. They all wear uniforms, but not all wear shoes. The schools are regimented by our standards. Children stand in lines, at attention to listen to announcements, practice dances, go into their classes, etc.
Yesterday, we went to the Birla (Hindu) Temple. We have never seen so much white marble in our lives. The sculptures and lattice work was most beautiful. There were sculptures and verses from Confucius, Judaism, and Christianity in keeping with Hindu acceptance of other religions.
Hyderabad has many Muslims. There are many women dressed in black with only a slit for their eyes. The Muslim men wear western clothes just like most men in India.
We met a women and her children at a Hyderabad restaurant. She speaks excellent American English since she works for a call center. She invited us for dinner at her house tonight. We are going to take a 3-wheeler to her house. Experiences like this are how we are seeing India.

Off to Dehli tomorrow morning for our last leg. We are still really enjoying this experience of a life time, but miss you all and can't wait to talk to you when we get back. Thanks for the emails.

Love Chuck and Jan

August 15, 2009

2009-09-01T09:31:00.001-04:00

Hi All,

This has to be short and sweet. We leave Hubli for Hyderabad in 15 minutes. An AC bus that leaves at 7 p.m.and gets in at 6 a.m. It's the way they travel here. I'm getting better at sleeping on the bus, this is our 4th overnight bus trip.

I am sending the picture of the ferry from the previous email. If the other three pictures load, you'll see how we spent our last two days. We were the International part of the International conference Violence Against Women. By the way, my info said I was from Germany! Chuck was from the US though. The first pix is Chuck with other dignitaries at the lighting ceremony. The woman lighting the candle is our host (and chair of the event), Shrimati Das.

Next is a picture of me in a sari. I was not happy about wearing one since I had read that foreigners look really funny in them. But Shrimati insisted and I wanted to make her happy. I wore it the second day and thrilled everyone. Even the men complimented my "ability" to wear it. Originally Shrimati said to wear my western clothes the first day since I was the third speaker that morning. Another example of Indian time...I ended up being the 7th speaker on the second day. She had 27 speakers scheduled over two days. Originally all were told to speak for 45 minutes, then she asked us to cut it to 20. Most did not. Poor Chuck was second to last on the second day. I think most people were too tired to listen any more, although his talk was more interesting and informative than most of the others.

The last pix is an example of the cast system. We thought these were girls serving us our meals and Chuck loved making them smile as we went through the line. Now I think they are probably young adults (one with a toddler). But lighter skinned and taller are revered (even commercials to lighten your skin) here, so smaller darker people do menial labor. At any rate, they loved Chuck and called me "auntie" and were absolutely thrilled to have their pix taken with Chuck.

All for now. Hope to tell you more on our next stop.

Love Jan and Charles

August 12, 2009

2009-09-01T09:30:00.001-04:00

Hi All,

We're back in Hubli after two days in Hampi (pronounced Humpi) for the big conference on Domestic Violence Against Women. Hampi was fascinating, described as a second Rome (a UNESCO heritage site). It's 13th-15th century palaces and temples in pretty good shape.

The most fun was getting over the river. The government spent tons of money building a bridge over a river. Then it collapsed and killed 8 people in the process. The bridge is still just sitting there in the river. So the villagers went back to the original transportation. (I can't show the picture of the boat because the Internet location we're using doesn't have usb ports, but I promise to send it later) The boat is a large round shallow basket, maybe 10 feet in diameter. They used woven bags (like those that large amounts of rice, onions or potatoes come in) on the underside of the basket, then painted it with tar. One of the roarers bails the water out before anyone boards each time. On our way back to the main side, we were with 8 other people and 3 motorcycles! It was wild and we felt amazingly safe.

All for now until we get a better Internet connection.

Love Jan & Chuck

August 7, 2009

2009-09-01T09:29:00.000-04:00

Hi All,

Just a brief update since we have visited the Internet cafe frequently.

We were supposed to fly to Chennai on the east coast Sunday, but the talk was cancelled, so for a variety of reasons we cancelled Chennai and are busing back to Hubli overnight Saturday. We're relieved not to have to be cool in 100+ degree weather.

We have traveled from village to village and town to city and have seen vast green space with mature trees, brush, plus cultivated orchards of Coconut palms, banana plants, pineapple, sugar, tea and a bunch else. (The houses that have land, grow most of their own vegetables and fruit and have a cow for milk.) So we were wondering where are all the people when there is so much green. But seeing any village or city, we can answer. The people are densely packed into the living areas. Many are out walking to run errands, so we always see people around towns no matter what time of day. Bangalore is huge and congested. But there aren't fights, everyone just moves to where they need to be. They pack in to buses and anything else that moves.

We went on a "safari" today. I think at home it would be called a natural zoo. We were on a bus and entered habitats for bears, tigers, and lions. Each habitat was separate from each other. It was actually quite fun.

Love Jan and Chuck

Picture - August 6, 2009

2009-09-01T09:17:00.001-04:00

Hi All,

I hope you can all open these. They are smaller than my last try.

The first is of Chuck taking part in a lighting ceremony (we think it's Hindu, but it seems to be for everyone) that brings light upon whatever activity follows. We had one the day earlier before his talk. This was prior to a concert. Some of the band members and other dignateries were up there too.

THe second is of two elephants with dusted trunks blessing people who put a coin (offering to the gods) in the trunk. After the elephant gave the coin to the trainer (happening in the farther away elephant) he then took his trunk and fairly gently rubbed the head of the person or persons (the closer elephant). It was really neat.

The last picture is of Chuck and me "helping" some fisherman pull rope that was attached to a large limb attached to fishing nets in the water. As we pull up, the net comes up with what ever fish were swimming by at the time. This process is called Chinese Fishing.

All for now. Hope you are all healthy, cool and enjoying your summer.

Love Chuck and Jan

Bangalore/Mysore - August 4, 2009

2009-09-01T09:15:00.001-04:00

Hi All,

We are in the Bangalore/Mysore area and are doing a lot of sightseeing and car riding. We saw the beautiful Mysore Palace. Gold paint, gold and gold plate everywhere, columns and grandeur.

Other than that, we thought we'd share some observations with you (in no particular order.)
• The middle class and above houses have no yards to speak of. They have a solid wall in front, pretty grill work on the gate, occasionally painted advertising on the wall and bars on all windows. All living quarters have balconies/railings/cords to dry laundry on.
• Some cows and oxen have painted horns, usually blue. This is consistent with everything here...very colorful and decorated including the semis and taxis.
• Young children wear ankle bracelets, bangles and earrings. Sometimes they are made up to confuse the evil spirits.
• Elephants bless people by gently touching their heads with their trunks
• Stores are mostly the width of a single garage. When closed, they roll down the metal garage door. I originally thought there were garages in front of all the buildings!
• Driving...no traffic lights except in the big cities (4 million or more people), they don't use seat belts, don't use lane markings (3 lanes of vehicles out of two lanes, etc), they pile people in anything that moves (I saw a family of 8 in a car the size of my old Insight, and 8 children on the way to school in an auto-rickshaw which is a 3 wheeled motorcycle) The drivers in the cities use their horns to mean "I'm coming through".
• The roads are mostly pot holes from the monsoons with tons of widening projects. But we've never seen workers. They block the road they are working on by placing softball sized rocks every 2-3'.
• It is typical for a young family to own a motorcycle for their transportation. The father drives, the middle child sits in front of the dad, the mom is on the back (side saddle because of the sari) with the baby on her side, and the oldest child sits between the mom and dad.
• There are beautiful huge old trees (trunks 6-8' in diameter) on the sides of most roads except where they are widening the roads and have to cut down the trees...by hand
• Farm workers and their families live in plastic tents on the farm.
• Animals walking attended or by themselves down the streets: Cows (no calves because all the cows roaming around belong to someone and the calves are taken care of at home), boars, pigs, dogs, monkeys, oxen, houses, elephants, sheep and goats
• They have a small pick up with the back about 4' x 4'. The women going to work squish into the back, standing up. I think there are about 30 in there.
• In the villages, water is from wells. The families go to the wells daily with two or three plastic gallon jugs for their water. The women put one jug on their heads and carry the other two on their hips and very gracefully walk home. We have also seen the women carrying large branches, bowls of construction materials and about anything else on their heads.
This may sound depressing and we hope it's not. It's a fascinating country with differences every place we look. The people are happy if they have family, food, work and water.

Love Chuck & Jan

Ujire - July 30, 2009

2009-09-01T09:09:00.000-04:00

Hi from the not-sunny city of Urije. It has the distinction of being the second rainiest part of India, and we're here during the rainy season! It's amazing how everyone just goes about their business. Many just stop wearing shoes and roll up their pants. Many carry very good umbrellas, almost all black with white shiny insides.

We want to share some of the culture that has been consistent throughout our visit. I think I mentioned that time is relative. Besides choosing a time or day that is auspicious, they are just laid back and don't have the stress of starting or being somewhere on time. We were to go to Manipal at 10:30 a.m. At 9:30, we were all packed and eating our breakfast when we got a call from Commissioner Dileep (whom we've never met) inviting us to stay in Mangalore until that evening so we could see a concert and that he would take care of everything. That was fine with us, actually kind of exciting.

But an hour later, one of the instructors from Manipal showed up for us. We had him call the Commissioner. At the end of the conversation, the Manipal teacher apologized for disturbing us and said he'd be back for us at 7:30 p.m. He then rode the 2 hours back to Manipal! By the end of the evening, he had spent 8 hours in the car on bad roads and we only saw a bit of the concert because it started 45 minutes late. (the neat thing is that Chuck was asked to assist in the lighting ceremony at the beginning of the concert, a great honor...one of the attached pictures).

We got to Manipal University the next morning to give a talk. Chuck asked what his audience would be because he had a talk for programmers and one for general computer students. The Director responded that the talk would be for general users, then directed the faculty to get the programmers together for a second talk in 90 minutes. Chuck gave his two talks like a trooper. He is also being really flexible.

Then to Urije and Dharmasthala, a pilgrimage village and Naturopathy Clinic for 3 days. We were both afraid that we'd be at a spa getting massages for three days. It turned out to be a fascinating trip. The President of SDM which we thought was just a series of colleges, is wealthy, smart and has his heart in the right place for India. We saw schools for poor 7th & 8th graders to teach them life skills and confidence, training for 20 something to be entrepreneurs, and mass feeding of 2,000 pilgrims (the second picture) where the food is served and cleaned up for the next batch in 13 minutes and nothing is wasted.

I know this is getting long so we'll tell you all about it when we get home, but the last few days have been mind boggling.

Have a great week,

Love Chuck & Jan

July 25, 2009

2009-09-01T09:08:00.000-04:00

Thank you for all of your emails. We are having a fantastic time, but miss everyone. So it's great when we get to the Internet and can see mail from around the world.

We have had our day on the houseboat through the back water of the state of Kerala. When we first planned it, I was picturing Humphrey Bogart on the African Queen, having to duck through tight passages in the jungle. This was a beautiful, roomy one bedroom with a western style bathroom (toilet instead of hole) and toilet paper. Oh, the simple things in life. The waterways were large, open and developed. There are straight pieces of land through out the backwater, that have really nice houses on them. They have the water in the front and thousands of acres of rice patties in the back yard. They go to work or school on boats. Here, the pictures will be better than the description.

Our first meal was lunch served on a banana leaf instead of plate. It was a beautiful presentation and tasted delicious. We sat at the table in the front of the boat, facing out as we floated along. There are thousands of banana trees, pineapple plants, cashew trees, coconut palms, so everything is fresh. Suffice it to say, we had a great, relaxing time.

We had a brief stop in Cochi and visited Jew Town, went to the oldest Synagogue in India and met Sara Cohen, a store owner, who Chuck read about in one of his books on India. It was a strange experience having all of the signs say "Jew Town".

We are now in Mangalore where Chuck gave his fifth talk. I think this was the best so far. And we are still being treated like very important people. We are going to be so spoiled when we return. And we will be enunciating well, and talking very slowly too. It's become pretty natural.

Gotta get to dinner before it gets too late.

Love Chuck and Jan

Kerala - July 20, 2009

2009-09-01T09:06:00.001-04:00

Hi All,

We are on our second day in the state of Kerala, writing again because we've had a jam-packed day of firsts. We drove out of our hotel this morning and the workers were already pruning the tea plants, I'm sure it's a constant process. She (they were all shes) had a wooden box 12 x 12 x 4 with the 4" edge hinged and a knife blade at the bottom of the hinged door. She just took the box and door, slapping it closed, and cut the new growth off which went into the box. When the box was full, she emptied it into the bag on her back. These went to the factory to be dried and packaged.

Then we took an elephant ride through trails in the forest. She (the elephant) was very sweet, slow and sure footed, but Jan was still very nervous when she was going down hill. The trainer was taking a movie of us during this time and it needs to be edited or deleted because of the "scared to death" expression it caught. Other than that, Jan loved it and Charles laughed and enjoyed the whole thing. We have attached a picture.

Our next "first" was pedal boating around a lake for a half hour. We actually made it back to the second since Charles used his stop watch and we pedaled fast at the end!

We were supposed to visit the tea factory, museum and store but it was closed for maintenance. We will go tomorrow morning. So instead, our guide suggested we visit a massage place because of the local oils used. We decided to try another "first" and both got head-to-toe massages for 60 minutes for $14! Jan was a bit nervous at the immodesty of the whole thing...and Charles hoped the guys at work don't find out that he got a massage. We were covered by a 4" by 12" piece of cotton tied on by strings (sort of like a sumo wrestler) while they rubbed and beat on us.

Hope everything is going well with each of you.

Jan and Charles

July 19, 2009

2009-09-01T09:03:00.000-04:00

India is both a very beautiful country and a challenging place. The toilets and the showers are next two each other without a curtain. You need to make sure the hot water tank is turned on before showering. The toilets have a spray hose next to them instead of toilet paper. How do you use the hose while wearing clothes? The things our mothers forgot to teach us! Fortunately, we've learned to take toilet paper with us. While writing this email, we lost power temporarily. This happens regularly.
We had a driver take us to Mundgod where we visited some beautiful Tibetan temples and to Jog Falls, the highest in India. The roads were mostly one lane with two way traffic, herds of water buffalo and goats, lots of people walking, and holy cows wandering. Of course there were pot holes and speed bumps. Our driver drove quickly through this all honking often as he went. Chuck got motion sickness. Jan swore he passed out. Chuck said, "I feels fine". Jan said, "You are lying".
Last night we boarded a bus in Hubli at 10pm to Bangalore. We got off at the right stop even though the name did sound right when the assistant shouted it in Kanada. We stepped off the bus into a swarm of three wheel taxi drivers. Fortunately, our scheduled driver came running to us and shepherded our baggage and us to his car to drive us to the Bangalore airport. We caught a Go Air flight to Kochi where we were met by another driver who will be with us for four days in Kerala state. We finally got a driver that doesn't have to be the fastest and honkiest on the road. Nascar should come here for their drivers.
He took us to several beautiful waterfalls (It is the monsoon season) as we drove up the Western Ghat coastal mountains and to a spice garden for tourists. We now know what many of the spices we use look like in the wild. We also walked around a tea plantation.
We are spending the night a Misty Mountain Resort (www.mistymountainresort.in) in Munnar. It is cool enough here that the Indians are wearing jackets. The temperature is comfortable but not jacket weather by our standards.
Jan took a cold shower. Chuck is waiting to see if hot water shows up. p.s. it did after the barefoot employee ran it for 20 minutes.

This may sound like complaining, but we laugh about it. It's just a very different standard of living because of a very poor infrastructure.

July 15, 2009

2009-09-01T09:02:00.001-04:00

We are at Global College in Hubli for the third talk. As we got out of the car, we were each presented with a rose. Then as we walked in, they took our pictures, introduced us to the Principal (like the dean of the college) served us tea, a sandwitch and biscuits, and gave us a standing ovation as we walked into the lecture hall. Then we were presented with boquets and a gift of appreciation. This has been typical at each of talk. Indians are very warm and friendly people and treat us as visiting dignitaries. The Indian university gets credit for accreditation by hosting a foreign scholar.

After the second talk, Shrimati took us on a whirlwind trip on our way back to Hubli. We went to see the Gol Gumbaz (big dome) in Bijapur. The sultan build it as a crypt for himself and his family. It has an unsupported dome second in size to St. Peter's in Rome. Quite an architectural achievement. We took the stone stairs up to the chamber at the top of the temple and could whisper to each other across the room and still hear.
We visited where the 12th century saint Basaveshwar received enlightment. It is where three rivers come together. It is quite a large site for his Hindu devotees. This was my first trip inside a Hindu temple. We also visited the Durga Temple in Aihole, Pattadabal temples, and Bidami. Badami has five temples carved out of the rocky hill side. It is similar to Petra in Jordan. It was really a fascinating place. Finally, we visited another Hindu temple Banashankari near Badami. Since Shrimiti is Hindu, she participated in the rituals at the temple. Most for the women are to ask for health, prosperity and long life for their husbands. On the surface, that seems funny to not ask for the same for the women, except that widows do not typically remarry in India, so the wishes indirectly help the women too. What a day of adventure this was.
The drives during the previous two days have taken us through many small villages and farms. It is fascinating to see the goat herds, the oxen pulling wagons filled with people, the water buffalo wandering down the road, and people walking and visiting on the narrow highway. The villages take us back to how India has been for centuries.
One interesting thing is that most men wear western style clothing even in villages while women almost always dress in traditional Indian clothing.

Hope this is not boring or too rambling, but their is so much to share.

Love Jan and Charles

You wouldn't recognize me - July 12, 2009

2009-09-01T09:01:00.001-04:00

Hi All,

We are now in Hubli, staying at Shrimiti's house. It's colorful, full of gods and very interesting. I can't possibly describe it but I'll take plenty of pix. We got a lesson by Vasanth (her husband) on his prayer ritual which is fascinating.

Our bathroom has a sink on one end and about 5 feet away is the toilet on the other end. In between is a faucet with hose near the toilet for cleaning yourself. Then there are three sets of hot and cold handles with two shower heads and a faucet on the wall (no shower curtain or difference in floor). Near the faucet are two big buckets and a plastic two-cup measure. I have no idea how it's supposed to be done, but I poured water into the bucket and used the measure to pour over me, soap up and then rinse. I got the job done. Still haven't figured out the shower.

Then Shrimiti was entertaining five colleagues, all female professors. One wanted to go shopping so I joined them (Charles was incredibly relieved and went to the Internet cafe on his own). It may have been a bait and switch because within minutes, I was wearing a cotton tunic and pant with matching shawl out of the store to the delight of all who helped me. By the way, it cost about $7.50.

Then to the sari shop. What an experience! We all took our shoes off before entering. It was a very large shop, maybe the size of a Gap with the walls lined with folded "bolts" of different colored material. There are wooden benches coming out from the walls dividing the areas into spots of about 8' x 8' that had a single covered pillow covering the whole area. We all walked through to the back, behind the glass doors where the "good" saris were. So several of our group were telling 3-4 men what they wanted all at once. The guys took 5-10 saris (what I thought were bolts of material) opened each up to their glorious 6 meter length and waited for the women to narrow what they wanted. It was a wonderful experience of sight and sound. In the end, one woman bought two, another bought one, both very different, both silk. And I bought two identical silk ones because it was a good way to choose the material for the dress I want made.

India is everything I've read, full of people, sounds, sights, cows, pigs, goats and water buffalo roaming, no driving rules...and it's wonderful and exotic. Everyone we've met has been kind and genuine.

All for now, Love Jan and Dr. Charles

Goa, India - July 9, 2009

2009-09-01T09:00:00.001-04:00

Hi All,

Unbelievable trip so far. Goa is on the sea and is a resort town. But since it's monsoon season (not just season, it's raining a lot!) it's not populated. We went to Bom Jesus, a Jesuit church, which houses the actual body of Saint Francis Xavier, who died 450 years ago but who still has skin and hair and hasn't decomposed. He's a bit thinner though.

The highlight of the three days, besides the wonderful, hot food (Wendy, you'd love it!!) is trying Paan. It is a beetle juice leaf, painted with oils,spread with spices and folded to a triangle about 2" x 1 1/2", made at tables on the street. You put the whole thing in your mouth at once and chew and suck to get the flavors. The leaf is sweet and the different spices are very exotic. However it's a huge mouthful and you don't swallow. Both times we tried it, we got into the car and drove for at least a half hour. I figured out to stuff as much into my cheek but still couldn't talk or do much of anything else but look forward to the next trash can! People who are addicted to it have stained red lips. Who needs lipstick!

Charles (he's called Mr. Charles here) and I went for a walk along the beach and got caught in a downpour. As we were walking home, two men called "come" to us to join them under an awning. The people are ALL warm, generous and very helpful. We were looking for a certain restaurant and stopped to ask for help. The man started to give directions but said it was very complicated, just go to this different restaurant that is as good. We did and it was good.

We are currently at an internet cafe where Charles is reviewing his first talk that is this afternoon at 3. I'll write all about it next time because we can tell there are many different traditions for teachers here.

And we leave for Hubli, our host's home, tomorrow.

All for now, Jan & Chuck

We made it - July 8. 2009

2009-09-01T08:54:00.000-04:00

Hi All,

We made the trip easily, if not long. We are here in Mumbai at an incredibly fancy hotel, just for an overnight until we catch our local flight to Goa to meet our host, Shrimati Das and begin our journey. We landed about 10 p.m. and there were people and 3-wheeked cars all over the place. It has been raining with no wind and a constant 82 degrees since we got here.

We had our first Indian breakfast, which was similar to what we would have had for dinner at an Indian restaurant in the States. In the lobby was a man sitting on a mat playing different sized bowls filled with colored water that sounded very much like wind chimes. It was lovely.

Will write the next time we have internet.

Love Jan and Chuck