2023 Olympic Peninsula - Day 3 - Forks, WA

Rain, rain, go away. Today it rained, off and on, for the entire ride. It never got so bad as to be miserable, but it definitely made it a lot harder to take pictures. I suppose it’s appropriate for the Pacific Northwest. We got so close to Canada that at one point my cell phone welcomed me to there, but it’s across the water. The terrain increasingly looks like Vancouver, which is not surprising. It’s logging country; you can tell by the logging trucks on the highway, and by the clear cutting. It makes a really great smell; smells like christmas.

We had some mini-adventures today; met a bodega cat named Albert, ate at a mediocre home cooking diner (where Kurt’s dad Jeff picked up the tab), but largely the story of today was rain, and more rain.

Oh, and Forks is apparently known for being the setting of the Twilight films, which is one of those things that I just can’t get that excited about. Instead I went to the local Timber museum, where….they had a bunch of stuff about Twilight.

A good day, a nice day of riding, but somewhat forgettable, mostly because of the rain.

https://www.biketheusforms.org/olympic-peninsula-bike-tour/

2023 Olympic Peninsula - Day 2 - Port Angeles, WA

Today was a good day of riding - about 60 miles through the peninsula, with a majority being on bike paths. We rode for a good while on Highway 101, which, yes, is the same 101 that goes through the Bay Area.

One thing I thought of this morning, and it’s not the first time I’ve had this thought, was how nice my morning routine is when on these rides. When I get up and am getting ready in the morning, my process is just to look at one individual thing at a time and say “yes, I need to do that.” I look at my socks: yes, I need to put them on. No matter what else is going on in my morning, in my life, in the universe, I will be closer to completion, and happiness, if I put on my socks. Next I see my jersey; it would be better if I took off my t-shirt and put that on. It would be better if I deflated my sleeping pad. And I may as well do it right now. In mathematics we call this “local optimization”; the idea that, if I make a locally optimal decision, and put enough of those together, it will also be the best solution, period. Unfortunately, in both real life and in computer science, this doesn’t always work. If I always make a turn that gets me closer to my destination, I might end up in a dead end road and have to turn around. But on a bike ride, this strategy is usually enough. Just put one foot in front of the other, and eventually, life works out.

The weather has been cloudy and grey, which is honestly great for biking. And it’s been fun to reconnect with folks like Tony and Kurt. I got to meet Kurt’s dad Jeff, who is a nice dude. Other old-time alumni are here, like a gentleman Kevin who rode in 2013. And there’s a couple of new folks too. The Olympic Peninsula reminds me - not surprisingly - of the Oregon coast and also maybe Upstate New York.

Oh, and I tried to swim. But it’s too cold!!

https://www.biketheusforms.org/olympic-peninsula-bike-tour/

2023 Olympic peninsula - Day 1 - Fort Townsend, WA

A new bike journey begins! This one only a week long but full of old friends and new adventure: a brand new route for us through Washington state, starting and ending in Seattle. I started out with a bit of an adventure by chipping a tooth last night so I had to go to the dentist today. I felt very grateful and lucky because I found a dentist on the route that had an appointment and got me in and even took my insurance. So I played catch up on the bike most of the day. My calves are tired and cramping. Met two cool new people, a brother and sister named Robbie and Nikki, friends of Cassie’s. Very cool people and it was Nikki’s birthday. Robbie told me about working on Chinooks for the national guard. The bike is working great and the weather is perfect for riding. Tonight we’re in a state park.

https://www.biketheusforms.org/olympic-peninsula-bike-tour/

Northern Nights - Cook's Valley Campground, Humboldt County, CA

This weekend I went to a music festival - Northern Nights - in northern California, about 3 and a half hours from Oakland. I went with my brother and his girlfriend Starla, his friend Haley and their two friends Julia and Tom. Their friend Stephan was also there. They are all super cool people. I had a pretty amazing time (with a couple of caveats). I should set the stage for you, no pun intended; Northern Nights is a particular kind of music festival that I guess you could loosely say is a sort of direct descendent of the Woodstock brand of music festival, at least in my mind; a lot of ambient music, a Redwood grove, a river you can lazily float in while you listen to music, some yoga, and …well, you can probably imagine the rest. I won’t go too much into my brother’s lifestyle choices because that’s his story to tell, but suffice it to say that there are a lot of alternative lifestyles on display there.

The entrance to the festival (literally) was pretty rocky; the festival organizers made some poor choices that caused me to spend over 3 and half hours in my car, in the heat, and for no good reason, while I watched other folks sail right past us and into the festival. It reminded me of a character flaw of mine that, while I can be patient when required, I have a really hard time with situations that strike me as being unfair. It didn’t bother me nearly as much that we had to wait so long, as it did that it was strikingly and bald-facedly unfair. I pretty much had a nervous breakdown and had to spend a few minutes gently rocking back and forth. But then I got over it.

The actual music at the festival was a mixed bag, but that’s OK. When it was good, it was very good, and when it was bad we just ignored it. I saw two bands I really liked: Steamy Windows, which was led by a friend of Jason’s named Jeff on the saxophone, and High Step Society, which was a sort of Voodoo Poppin Daddies hopped-up brass band mixed with electronic dance music and was very rockin’. They both had something in common which is something I’ve definitely noticed before, which is that they were very present and passionate in their performance. By contrast we saw another band, Night Tales, that was supposed to be popular but basically consisted of a dude pressing buttons and another guy lip syncing and it was a total snoozefest. Gotta be there for me to care.

The river was the highlight for me; tubing on a river, hanging out with friends, drinking a beer, is something I could do all day, every day. Finding and stealing different animal-shaped floaties is a mood, as the kids would say. Camping under the redwood trees was also amazing. That alone was worth it to me. The music was just a bonus.

I spent a lot of time sleeping actually, and even more time just hanging out at camp talking to Jason and the rest of them and watching them interact with each other. Their crowd is not my crowd exactly, but I admire and value them and enjoyed hanging out with them for the weekend. It was very relaxing and energizing and made me want to be creative and I appreciated it very much.

Whitewater Rafting Accident - North Fork American River, near Auburn, CA

Yesterday I went whitewater rafting with my friend Heather. We had intended to go on a shorter, easier trip, at least partially because she had never been rafting. But the company had nobody else sign up for the trip we booked and so they asked me if we would go on a longer, more intense trip, and Heather agreed, and so off we went at 6am towards Auburn. The trip was a 4-5 hour trip on class 3-4 rapids and was advertised as “ok for adventurous first timers”. For anyone who doesn’t raft, class 4 is basically “hey, you might fall out of the boat but basically usually everything is fine”, and it’s generally considered pretty safe for commercial rafting. I had actually done this trip last year, but the flow was much more intense this year, at about 2500 cfs or cubic feet per second.

Things started out relatively normal. We got assigned a raft guide who, while he seemed experienced, definitely was a bit of a hippie and a goofball. He seemed nice but out of his element and even talked about how we didn’t enjoy leading or being on point, which seemed like a weird thing to say. He kinda half-heartedly went through the safety briefing and I filled in Heather on a few more details. There were 3 boats. The first few rapids were fast but honestly pretty manageable and we were both just starting to think this would just be a fun, exciting day.

Then, almost out of nowhere, we hit a certain class 4 rapid called Bogus Thunder. It wasn’t advertised as being anything special and we weren’t given any special instructions. We paddled forward into it, 6 of us customers and the guide in the back. Then, in a split second, it was over. I was seated in the back but on the leading edge as we went into the slight drop with the boat aligned from shore to shore. The boat started to yawn over and before I knew it, I was underwater. This by itself didn’t shock me; I’ve fallen out of a boat in rafting before. But I watched, as I went under, the person in front of me go over as well. It seemed to happen so fast, then everything slowed down to a crawl. I went under for just a brief moment and when I came up I was at the mercy of the river. I saw other swimmers out of the corner of my eye. I looked around frantically for Heather but I spotted instead another woman with her fiance. She was bleeding out of the side of her head and was hysterical, screaming that she couldn’t swim and that she couldn’t see and she was flailing. I looked for the boat but couldn’t find it. I started swimming for shore, holding my oar. A small tree came into view; I grabbed for it but missed. I spun around and saw Heather, still vertical, looking calm but struggling against the current. I think I yelled something. I swam again towards shore and an eddy. I missed it. The river was very fast. The woman kept screaming and I started having to fight down my own panic. We had already gone several hundred feet downstream and I knew there were more class 4 rapids ahead of us. I started again, this time more seriously. I caught the edge of an eddy and slowly dragged myself into it. I heard Heather call out and spun around just to see her drift past me, agonizingly. There was nothing I could do. I turned to help the couple. I crawled to my knees. My adventure was mostly over, but the day was just beginning. It turned out that Heather had, after several more close calls, been rescued by a boat about 300 feet further down the river, but around a bend and out of sight. I focused on the injured woman; me and her fiance trying to calm her down as blood streamed from a small cut near her eye.

After what seemed like an eternity, a guide came climbing over the rocks. We had to climb and move down river, he said. I was shaking like a leaf and I realized I had on my terribly old sneakers with no tread. But I climbed, up and over the rocks, about 30-50 feet above the river, to the next boat. Eventually we all got reunited. Only one problem: no boat. It was gone.

I’ve been told since by many people how rare this is. So rare, in fact, that the guides had no plan for it. Our guide was despondent and while he was physically fine he looked severely mentally shaken. The woman had stopped screaming but was now woozy. There was, really, no way forward except in the boats, but now they would be dangerously overweight, and we would have to ride in the middle with no paddles. After 10-15 minutes the guides succumbed to the inevitable and put us in the 2 remaining boats but told us we would only go until the next class 4 rapid and then beach again. I think they were hoping we would see the third boat. We did not.

At the next rapid, they decided to send enough of us hiking over the rocks and around the class 4 rapid so that they could run the boats with the normal number of people; splitting us up. Heather understandably did not want back in the boats so I agreed to hike again up with her. We were wearing tons of safety gear and I was in a full wetsuit and it was hot and dry and I started to get a little antsy, but we all made it. About 2 miles further down the river we found the third boat; another company had rescued it. Then came one of the worst parts; we had to get back into the boat, with our original guide. I never wanted out of a boat more. An hour or so later we made it to the pull out.

The experience taught me a number of things. I’m definitely going rafting again; I’m not scared. But I am mad at myself because, having some outdoors training myself, I recognized that things weren’t right. There’s no way to predict an accident like this, because there’s always a strong element of chance, but the guide I had in the boat, and the system around me, was not set up for success, and was not set up to process the event when it happened. The lead up to the accident felt wrong and I should have listened to that gut voice. As a first timer, Heather shouldn’t have been there at all, and our guide was not mentally prepared to lead the boat that day. Everyone came out of it OK, but it’s a reminder that activities like this are not amusement parks, and nature always gets a vote. We should have been much better prepared, mentally and physically, and that includes me.

My Sister

Yesterday was my mom’s “funeral”; really a celebration of life. There was no priest, there was no formal procession or anything; just a sort of party/opportunity for my Dad to speak. They were planning for about 30 people to show up but around 100 came. Some of the were friends of my Mom but most people were just local residents or people that were there to support my Dad. There’s a lot that I can say about the experience, but the thing I want to focus on is also the main reason that I came: my sister. Many of you who know me will be surprised to learn that I even have a sister. She’s not my full sister; she’s my half-sister from my Dad’s previous marriage. She is 53 years old, so 7 years older than I am.

And I had never met her. Well, strictly speaking, that isn’t true; apparently we met once when I was 12 and she was 19. But I don’t remember that. It was, after all, 34 years ago. Now, you may ask how that could possibly be. It isn’t like I didn’t know she existed. And there wasn’t any bad blood between the two of us or anything. But my Dad - who overall is an awesome person - just had made this life decision simply not to be part of her life, and as a consequence she also wasn’t part of mine. There’s a lot to unpack there, and that may happen someday, but I don’t know if I will talk about it publicly, and most of that work has to happen between my Dad and her.

She also has a son, Owen, who is 22, and he came as well. So I guess he’s my half-nephew.

Anyway, they decided to come to the celebration. Which is, to be honest, slightly odd at first glance, because my Mom, the person who died, is not related to either of them at all. My sister - Denise - had only even met my Mom a handful of times. But she came anyway, and when I asked her why, she just said “because that’s what we do”. My personal theory is that she wanted Owen to meet his grandfather. It’s very strange to think of my Dad that way, as a grandfather to this person I’ve never met before and don’t know. But it’s the truth, and the truth is always more compelling than fiction.

And, of course, it turns out that they are good people, both of them. It was a fun trip, if such a thing can be said.

There is something poetic here, that I can’t quite put my finger on, about how my Mom’s death kicked something loose that allowed me to meet my sister for the first time as an adult. There’s something here about new things sprouting from the old. I know that my Mom, of all people, who loved connecting people together, would be happy to know that her passing is the thing that made this event happen.

There may be more to say in the future about my Mom’s passing. But for now I’m focused on a new beginning, and it was nice to meet my sister.

My Mom

Last week, my mom died. I have a lot of thoughts about that, and I’ll be honest with you I’m not going to share 100% of those because first of all it’s a public forum and secondly I’m not sure all my thoughts are fully formed because I’m still going through a lot of grief.

She died last week but I haven’t said much to most of my friends because I feel this kind of pressure to feel a certain way about it. Like, I told my work about it and they told me about their bereavement policy and how I could take up to 20 days and I realized, in that moment, that they, and a lot of people, would expect me to just be really overcome with grief. And I do feel grief. But maybe not exactly in the way that a lot of other people might feel about their moms. My relationship with my mom was, and is, a really complicated thing.

I guess the first thing to understand is that this has been a long time coming. My mom has been sick for the better part of 8 years. She had Alzheimer’s. I went to visit her right before she died, and she was already gone, unable to talk or recognize anyone. So it wasn’t a surprise when it happened. And I had a lot of time to get ready for it, not that you can ever be truly ready.

My mom was, in her own way, the most powerful influence in my entire life, for good and for bad. She was a really strong woman. She was pretty, and she was smart, and she lived a life that was mostly pretty easy. Until the end, she was hardly ever sick. She was good at her job, becoming one of the first female computer programmers back when she worked at RCA. She was a chef on TV, on All in Good Taste. She had lots of friends. She loved to teach, and did it well. People always liked her at the grocery store.

She was raised by a woman - my grandmother - who I think of as a very kindly and friendly soul but who I have since learned was a pretty hard mother and pretty hard on my mom and had high expectations. So I guess it’s not a surprise that my mom had high expectations of me. I was the oldest son, and from my earliest days the thing I remember most about my childhood is the expectations. Back when I was born and raised, the US still seemed like this place that operated according a set of rules, what I will call the White Picket Fence rules. Good people did X, bad people did Y. Good people got married, bad people smoked cigarettes. Good people studied hard, bad people took a year off before college. Good people got a good grade on the SAT, bad people didn’t even take the SAT. Most of my mom’s expectations centered around academics. I remember being told that I should be on a sports team because it would look good on my college resume. I picked swimming. I was really bad at it, but I still love to swim.

I don’t have a lot of fond memories of my mom. I don’t have a lot of what you would call “motherly” memories. I don’t remember being held by her, or comforted by her. I can remember giving her a hug as an adult, but never really as a kid. What I do remember are the moments of shame. I remember feeling awful when I left a pen in my pants and ruined a whole load of clothes and she was so upset. I remember crying when I was 14 and I still had to come home by 10 pm and I felt lost and alone and like I had no friends. I remember sitting with her and learning how to balance a checkbook. I remember fighting about doing the dishes.

I remember sitting with a copy of US News and World Report with her and going through all the top 20 schools and applying to as many of them as I could. The one time I remember spending time alone with her, really, is when she took me on all my college visits. She paid for me to take the SAT 4 times so I could get a perfect score. I remember after that perfect score they came and took my picture and put it in the paper, and I remember when they did that they told me I couldn’t carry my duffel bag, so they borrowed some other kid’s backpack. She was very proud of me and showed the picture to everyone, but every time I see that picture I think about that isn’t my backpack, and how people - and mostly my mom - always wanted me to put on a show. I remember not really feeling like I was ever a kid.

I had a lot of anger about my mom, for many years. I probably still do. I realize now, in my middle age, how imperfect we all are, as people. I realize that I feel abandonment, and I feel that lack of love. I realize that I look to other people to try to fill that gap from my mom, and of course they can never do it, because they’re not her. I would love to go back in time and just have her look at me, one time, and know that she was just proud of me for being exactly who I was. I would love to have been a kid.

But that time is done, and now she is dead, and the person she was is now just a person, in the past. She’s not really my mom anymore, I guess, and now that I see her as a person, I see that she really was just doing her best with what she knew. I see now how hard she worked; the long hours in the snow in Buffalo while she had 2 kids. I see the fact that they bought my computer equipment and let me play games. I see the loving extended family I had when I was little, and how much everyone loved me and my brother. I see the beautiful houses I grew up in, the delicious food she cooked, the fact that I went to the best schools and my mom and dad paid for me to go to college, and even bought me a car. I see how much pain she was in all the time, always having these expectations of people that they could never meet. I see now that I think she wanted to love me, but honestly didn’t know how.

I hope she is finally at peace. I forgive her. I hope in heaven they find her a table at a restaurant where the air isn’t blowing on her.

And I’m sorry, mom. I’m sorry I wasn’t perfect, but I did my best.

Tulum, Quintana Roo, Mexico

Just got back from spending 7 days in Tulum with Nataly. It was a very challenging trip for reasons which I don’t entirely want to get into here (at least not all of them), but there also were some very beautiful things and some cool stuff to write about, so here I am writing down the good (and a few of the bad) things for posterity. I also really want to save all these pictures! Pictures always look better in tropical areas. I’d never been to Tulum or to this part of Mexico before so it was a new experience all around. The idea of the trip was to relax so I booked us an all-inclusive resort called Bahia Principe Grand Tulum. One of the best parts of the trip was the food; they had an amazing buffet that was basically open all the time, with everything you could ever want. My favorite part was all the grilled and broiled fish dishes; from Grouper to Mahi Mahi to Sea Bass and everything else, grilled with butter, and olives, or tomatoes, or broiled; all of it super fresh and moist and amazing. The rest of the food was good, too, and free drinks of course. Saved a huge amount of money and time.

The ocean was nice but they are having a serious problem with seaweed. I don’t know if it’s seasonal or global warming related or what; the ocean was extremely warm, and there was just a ton of seaweed. They were trying to get rid of it with tractors and what-not but falling absurdly behind. But we did get out once or twice for some light snorkeling and saw a bunch of cool fish, including a “Ukraine fish” with a yellow bottom and blue top.

My second favorite part of the trip was the Cenotes, which are basically underground caves formed out of the limestone that are now filled with water and a running river. We went to 6 different ones and they were all cool in different ways. My favorite was Jaguar because they had platforms you could jump off of into the water and they also had an included zipline, which I loved. It was fun to go back to my old days of youth jumping off bridges in Florida. The second best one was probably Segundo Ojo, the second eye, which was part of Dos Ojos park (as was Jaguar), because it was huge and we had a good snorkeling mask and you could really see down into the caves. Next time I go I’m going to scuba dive. We also went to Cenote Azul, which was fun because it was cheaper and there were more locals and more fish. Nicte-Ha and the first Ojo were also cool; Nicte-Ha had beautiful lily plants. The only one that was a bit of a dud was Gran Cenote because it was really expensive and touristy and hot.

We also went to the ruins at Tulum and that was OK but it was super hot. We only went into Tulum twice and didn’t get much of a feel for it; it seems cool but we were trying to relax at the resort.

I did have a few mishaps including cutting my foot open on a glass at the pool at the resort (fortunately, the last night we were there). I also got pulled over by Mexican police on the highway and they searched me and Nataly and the car, which was pretty terrifying although they were fairly nice about it and eventually just let us go, because, you know, we weren’t doing anything wrong. Kind of made me connect with how people of color feel in Oakland.

I had a lot of fun but it was a challenging trip. The heat was intense during the day and sucked the joy out of certain activities. And we just ran into some challenges. But still it was a fun and memorable trip. I always love travelling and this was no exception.

Eastern Europe 2022 - Day 21 - Kyiv, Ukraine

I don't want to obsess about the war. I'd rather talk about the amazing calamari dish I had, or the beautiful beach on the Dnipro I sat on. But I guess I need to get it out of the way.

I knew when I decided to come to Kyiv that there would be some risk. I knew that it was naïve to think that I wouldn't experience some small piece of the war; and, it turns out, I did. All of the air raid alerts up until the last day had been scary but ultimately largely they didn't affect me; either the Ukrainian air defense shot everything down or the impact wasn't felt much in Kyiv. But on my last day, Kyiv's luck ran out. Russia apparently decided that Ukraine was having too much fun because they went all out with presents for New Year. Which is how I found myself cowering in Natalya's hallway while we heard explosions rock the neighborhood. Several missiles made it through, and one of them blew a good chunk out of a hotel not more than 2 miles from where I was staying. It's hard to put into words how terrifying that is. One of the aspects of this war is how modern technology changes it, and one of those changes is that we were getting information, in real time, from the Ukrainian government, about where the bombs were landing and what the damage was. Which is both very comforting and oddly terrifying. Every Telegram message that came through I would quickly copy and paste into the translation app: fire in this district. An elderly man died over here. Police are responding.

The air raids are the most visible impact of the war but they aren't the only one. The lights are often off in public places, for example, which definitely can be creepy. And on my last day, sitting in the train station, I watched a couple embrace while she left and he went off to war. On the train itself, I watched as an entire family - wife and two kids - left their husband behind and she kissed him. The son cried.

So, yeah, the story of my time in Kyiv is definitely to some extent a story of war.

But the thing is, Ukrainians are not defeated, nor are they exhausted. And they are not all thinking about the war all the time. This is not a society at the end of its rope. Civil society still exists. The train shows ads for cell phone upgrade packages and 40% off Scandinavian furniture. The metro is clean and efficient and on time. Whole chunks of the country, which my train is currently going through, are largely unaffected. There is actually a lot of traffic on the roads. Uber works. Gas stations are open. The mall is busy.

And the restaurants and bars are very much open and very delicious. For New Years Eve, I stumbled around looking for a place that was open (a lot of places were closed, not because of the war but just because it's a holiday) and ended up at a Chinese fusion cuisine restaurant which was very, very upscale and very, very good. I sat at the bar so I could chat up the bartenders; one guy in his 20s and another in this 30s. I asked about their experiences. The older guy said that when the war started he and his wife fled to Ivano-Frankiv; they spent the first night in Kyiv in a bunker and then couldn't stand the stress. But after 2 months, he started calling his old friends and boss and they said yeah, come on back, so they did, and now they just live life day by day; they both work, they're thinking about having a kid; they're just waiting for the war to be over. I asked the younger guy if he was worried about being called up for service and he gave me a weird look and said that he had already volunteered, but they told him they didn't need him yet.

I did a lot of walking again today as well; at one point I spotted a far away beach on the other bank of the Dnipro and decided to walk over there; I ended up crossing a huge, beautiful walking/cycling bridge and there were a lot of people out jogging. Nobody was at the beach, of course, because it was way too cold, but I went down there anywhere and sat and listened to some meditation tapes. Then I solemnly stuck my hand in the water - it was freezing - and then walked back. It felt very quiet and pleasant and safe.

So yeah; not an exhausted people. Maybe tired, yes, but far from exhausted.

Oh, and the calamari dish was fried calamari mixed with caramel popcorn, which sounds weird but was incredibly delicious.

Eastern Europe 2022 - Day 20 - Kyiv, Ukraine

I thought yesterday’s post was going to be hard to write, but today’s is even harder. I want to write about the events of yesterday, and I will, but first I have to get the events of the last few hours out of the way. As I sit and write this at 4:49 PM, the air raid sirens stopped going off about 30 minutes ago. But unlike the last few times, this time was bad. Sitting in the hallway of my AirBnb with the owner, we could hear the explosions. They were loud. And, quickly, we were informed: a hotel in my district of Kyiv had been hit. An elderly man died, 6 more were injured. That’s why it was so loud.

Anyway, I will write more about that soon, but for the moment I want to focus on yesterday, which was momentous enough in its own right. First there was the air raid at 2 am, which lasted about 2 hours, but very little happened. Then throughout the day there were several cool and fun things that I did, but before I get to those, I have to talk about my trip to the Ukrainian Museum of the Great Patriotic War (what we call World War II). My host recommended I go and check it out, so I started walking in that direction. I first stopped in at a cafe, called The Life of Wonderful People. It was awesome, and such a contrast to the fear I’d been feeling. It’s a beautiful cafe that wouldn’t look out of place in New York City or San Francisco. I sat next to a woman with a little beagle that curled up right next to me. I had a latte and a dish of dumplings in a truffle sauce with fried mushrooms and spinach and it was amazing. Then a second latte and a piece of Napoleon cake. The music was great, the service was excellent, and the whole thing was like $20. And while I was there, the woman’s car almost got towed, which was hilarious and felt like such a “normal” event. Like, even in the middle of a war, you can park in the wrong spot.

Then I started walking to the museum, and promptly got super lost and wandered around a park for miles. Then the air raid went off again, and I was like well, shit, I am totally exposed and out in the open. I was walking along the Dnipro in a deserted but beautiful park, and I just didn’t know what to do so I kept walking. Fortunately again, this one seemed to be mostly a non event (in Kyiv, anyway). When I finally made it to the museum, I walked around and looked at their display of WWII era tanks and guns and ended up next to a smaller building that said it was an exhibition on the “Ukrainian Crucifixion”, a reference to the current war. A woman was standing on the steps and she saw my confusion and said, in English, that they were reopened from the sirens, and I should come inside. I said I wanted to make sure I had time for the main museum and she smiled sadly and said that the main museum had been closed since February because it was a wide open space overlooking Kyiv and they were worried about saboteurs. But, she said, she would give me a tour of the new exhibit in English if I wanted.

And so for the next 2 hours I had a private tour by one of the museum curators named Alle of one of the most immediate and moving exhibitions I’d ever seen. She told me that it was the same display that they show to journalists and visiting dignitaries to help them understand what was going on. I felt very lucky. Usually museum displays are about the distant past, and they can feel very remote. But this one was about March, and it was not remote at all. Everything was right out in the open for you to feel and touch. All the items had the feeling of having been collected just last week, and in some cases that was because they had. They had displays of captured military IDs, military rations, a room full of weapons such as the remains of a Buk missile and grenade launchers.

But then she took me down into the bomb shelter. Ironically, it is in fact the real bomb shelter for the museum staff, but they had decided to “redecorate” it, using some source photos, as a replica of the bomb shelter where 140 people spent 37 days in Hostomel, under the control of the Chechens. They had taken all the real items from the shelter (which isn’t that far away; Hostomel is a suburb of Kyiv) and brought them there. There were makeshift beds, mattresses, blankets, children’s toys, Russian army rations given to them by the Chechens. She showed me a handwritten plaque written by a grieving husband who buried her 78 year old wife who died of pneumonia. She told me how they missed having bread. It is hard to even know how to write about that experience, because it was so raw. I could say it was heartbreaking, for example, but that hardly seems to cover it. I could say it made me angry but that doesn’t even really fit either. I think the thing I kept thinking, as she calmly and professionally showed me her countrymen being held hostage, was “this really, really has to stop”. Like, as an engineer, I just started thinking “how can we make this stop”. Because it just has to stop. It has to stop. There is nothing more important than getting this whole thing to stop.

Anyway, after wandering around dazed by that experience, I eventually ended up at a delightful Ukrainian restaurant called Tsars’ke Selo, where I overate again. Due to a miscommunication I ended with 3 beers, and Chicken Kyiv, and some delicious Daruny (a sort of potato pancake) with salmon, and a Kyiv cake, served by some charming men in very traditional costumes inside a recreation of a Ukrainian farmhouse. It was all very touristy, actually, and in a way I found that relaxing, like normalcy had returned. At one point during my meal the power went out, but they didn’t even blink, bringing out candles until it came back on 15 minutes later.

Then I came home, talked to my host about my day, surfed the web, and went to bed. The next day would be New Year’s Eve, and my last full day in Kyiv.

Eastern Europe 2022 - Day 18/19 - Kyiv, Ukraine

This is going to be one of the most difficult blog posts I’ve ever written. It also may end up being one of the longest, so I applaud any of you that stick around to the end. In many ways, I don’t know if much of what I have to say will be as meaningful to my audience as it might be. I have no “shock conclusions” to make, no counterintuitive insights. What I saw is largely what I expected to see, and yet it felt no less meaningful for being predictable. And there were definitely a lot of unexpected moments, to be sure.

I think one of the reasons this blog post feels so difficult to write is that I’m aware that, as with any written work, it needs a narrative structure. There should be a beginning, a middle, and an end. There should be conflict (OK, that one’s pretty easy). There should be a hero’s journey, a challenge to overcome, something to take away, something to learn. And I struggle here because, of course, real life doesn’t always give us these things packaged up as neatly as that. But I suppose the best place to start is with the air raid alerts.

Living in the capital city of a country at war has its disadvantages. One of them is that you can’t have peace. That might seem obvious, but the reality of it is jarring. My first experience of Ukraine was waking up on the sleeper train to Kyiv, putting away my belongings, and then having my cabin mate, a Ukrainian man named Roman who looked to be my age, ask me, in broken English, whether I was meeting anyone in Kyiv. When I said that I had an AirBnb, he shook his head. No, he said, that wouldn’t do, because, you see, there is an air raid. What, right now? I asked, and he said, with sad eyes, yes, right now.

So that is how I ended up following a man I’d never met as we raced from the train terminal down into the Metro at Vokzalna, where I hastily met his brother and his family and we sat, deep in the tunnels, for the better part of 2 hours. He installed some apps on my phone that told me - in a voice both comforting and deeply jarring - when there was an air raid. I’ve heard that voice 2 more times since. He stood with his friends, talking in Ukrainian, while I sat, and stared at my phone (which didn’t work underground), and wondered - not for the first time - what I was doing there. It was scary for 10 minutes, and then, surprisingly, it was kind of boring.

But, eventually, as with all crises, that crisis ended. First Roman left - and yes, the air raid was still on, and this was my first lesson in Kyiv: life must go on. He was ready to go, and so off he went, with little more than a handshake, leaving me to wonder what the heck I was supposed to do. So I waited another 15 minutes, shrugged, and then I left, too. And just as I did, the air raid siren expired. I wondered: had anything been hit? (Answer: yes). Was the power out? (No.) Could I still get an Uber? (Yes.) My Uber driver asked me where I was from. When I told him, he laughed, and asked me if I worked for the CIA. I think he was kidding.

And so, an hour later, I was talking to Natalya, my AirBnb owner, a charming woman perhaps in her 60s of some sort of obvious Jewish descent, inside her tiny but warm flat somewhere near downtown Kyiv (don’t ask me to explain where it is). She asked me how the air raid went (Fine.). She asked me what I was doing here (I awkwardly explained my cover story about my ex-girlfriend and her sister). She talked to me about the war, and her Russian friend who said they “all had to be saved”, and how she heard the explosions this morning (even when they shoot down the missiles, they still have to land somewhere). She told me her daughter didn’t want to celebrate Christmas; it was too sad. Apparently 2 kids had been injured on a playground. She told me to take a shower while they still had water. I did.

And then, I went out. I had no idea where I was going. Truth be told, I had no idea what the heck I was doing here, and that was becoming painfully obvious. Nothing tourist-y would be open. The best I could do was walk, and so walk I did. I set my map for the Maidan, the square where the revolution happened. Over the next few hours I would walk 7 or 8 miles, visit an upscale shopping mall, sit and drink a Coke Zero on the Maidan, get scammed by a man who owned pigeons for $40, and generally experience life in Kyiv for the day. I tried (and failed) to get into St. Sophia. I ate at one of the open McDonalds (I had a Big Tasty, and it was both Big and Tasty). I stared at people and wondered what they were thinking. I felt wildly out of place. I walked along a pedestrian bridge next to the Dnipro. I started wearing my headphones because I didn’t want anyone to talk to me. I felt a profound sense of hope, and fear, and joy, and discomfort all at the same time. I stopped in a very nice shopping mall along the Maidan and I bought some things from a store called Made In Ukraine, where they had shirts that said Russian Warship, Go Fuck Yourself right next to dinner plates with traditional Ukrainian patterns. I stared at prices in Hryvnia and tried to figure out what the heck they meant before realizing, perhaps unsurprisingly, that everything was really, really cheap.

And I walked. I walked, and walked, and walked. I tried to visit several cathedrals, but nothing was open. I felt incredibly conspicuous, in my Stanley knit cap and my Fjallraven jacket and my extremely American face. Did they know I was from a country that wasn’t at war? Did they resent it? Were they happy I was here? Then I remembered the truth of the universe: nobody gives a shit. I took a deep breath (and then started coughing; I’m still sick). I walked up to the monument of the founding of Kyiv by Prince Volodomyr, but it - like many monuments - was covered in scaffolding. I saw a long display about the war, but it was all in Ukrainian, and I realized: this place is not for me. They do not care if I can read these signs. This is a private party. Yes, Kyiv wants you to know about itself, but that is not their priority right now. They are finding out about themselves. This is not a museum piece for international consumption. These people are busy; they are not here for me, or for you. Lead, follow, or get the heck out of the way.

At some point my subconscious processed the sound of a plane overhead, thinking that it was just commercial air traffic, until my thinking brain reminded me: there was no such thing. I looked up, suddenly frightened. Nobody else cared. I never could see what it was; too high, too cloudy.

Kyiv is a study in contrasts: it is alive, and modern, and fun. It is at war, it is mourning, it is depressed. It is cold, it is dark, it is scary. It is happy, it is ready for the future, it is in love. Your Apple Pay works (mostly), but all the museums are closed. You can go to McDonalds; at least, the three or four of them that reopened. The shops are open, but the escalators in the mall are turned off to save power. I walked past the tanks they have on display near the central square; burned out husks of Russian and civilian vehicles; you may have heard about them on the news. I started to take pictures and then I felt uncomfortable. There were, you see, no tourists. Everyone here is from here. Nobody is taking pictures. They already know what it means.

I came back, at around 5:30. It had gotten dark. I meant to write in my blog, maybe read a book. Instead, exhausted, I slept.

And then at 2 am I was awoken by another air raid. But that’s a story for the second blog post.

Eastern Europe 2022 - Day 17 - Przemysl, Poland

Przemysl - pronounced “Preh-sem-ish” - is just basically a way stop on my journey into Ukraine; I came in last night and I go out on a train tonight, so I was only here for the day. But that’s kind of a bummer because it turned out to be a really cool spot. I started out with a walk along the San river, where I visited what turned out to be a section of town that was reserved for people’s gardens. Basically you can buy a plot of land that you don’t live in but is just a place to go visit and maybe to grow things. Of course the weather right now is pretty poor so it was largely empty, but beautiful. Then I stopped and had a Polish breakfast and a great restaurant called Routyn; it was so good that I ended up going back for lunch.

Then I just…wandered around town. I went to several museums; the coolest of which was the National History Museum of Przemysl, which was immediately awesome. The first room I went into was this amazing collection of medieval and early 20th century artifacts; lots of helmets and halberds and chainmail, extending up into muskets and long barrel rifles. Presented largely without commentary and available to just look at, not behind glass or anything; I mean, you weren’t supposed to touch (and I didn’t), but they were just…right there. Then there were a bunch of more traditional history displays, extending up through WWI and WWII. Getting a polish perspective on these events, such as the invasion of the Nazis and the roundup of the Jews, was pretty fascinating.

Then a museum about bells and pipes, then a beautiful cathedral where I stopped to pray, and then a long walk through an urban forest that reminded me a bit of the one in Portland. Then back to that restaurant for a second lunch.

Poland in general has been very cool and impressive; I’m not sure what I expected, but it’s a very clean, modern and upbeat country that’s easy to get around, and everyone is very nice. I sit and type this in a clean coffee shop/cafe that wouldn’t look out of place in any town in America, except maybe it’s even nicer.

I’m kind of sad to leave, but it’s time to move on.

Eastern Europe 2022 - Day 16/17/18 - Czarny Bor, Poland

Wow, how to sum up the three days I spent with Kaska’s family in Czarny Bor. I guess hospitality, hospitality, food, and christmas movies! It was, first of all, an amazing trip, as I thought it might be, and worth the whole trip just to see and experience that feeling. I felt a profound sense of belonging. Part of that was how welcoming Kaska’s whole family was. They gave me a place to sleep, meals, conversation, even showed me around some of the sights. It felt very natural and like I belonged there. My whole time in Poland I felt very comfortable actually. No offense to Germany, but as I sit here and type this in Hauptbahnhof in Berlin as I wait for my train, I find that I can’t wait to get back into Poland. Everyone there was friendly and kind.

The town of Czarny Bor, or Black Forest, is small but very nice, quite polished and clean. All the houses would have fit in fine in a nice upscale New England forest town. We took a trip to the local castle, called Zamek Ksiaz, where we walked through a cool light show and I had hot chocolate. Everything just felt very casual and friendly; even the ancient castle didn’t feel stuffy at all, it just felt like friends hanging out in the central square. Kaska has two brothers, Sylvester and Voitek, and Sylvester and I went on a walk/hike around the town and he showed me the place. One of the highlights was this world class biathlon track which is designed for year round use (using skis with wheels). I honestly would love to come back just to try that out.

We also watched a bunch of dubbed American christmas movies. For some reason they are huge fans of Home Alone. We watched both the first and second one, which I was only barely aware existed.

A brief note about the food; there was a ton of it. For christmas eve dinner, we had 12 separate dishes which is ceremonial; there were several soups, including a beet borscht, mushroom borscht, a fish soup, and then various potato and cabbage dishes. (No meat for Christmas Eve). We sang christmas carols, and recited a bit from the Bible. The next few days switched more to meat and desserts; there was sausage, of course, and a mayo based salad that was particularly delicious. I still have some cookies in a little box. And plenty of wine, though drinking wasn’t the focus, which was actually kind of nice.

I will be forever grateful to Kaska for letting me see her town and hang out with her family. Being around so many generations who were all getting together for Christmas brought a tear to my eye, because it’s something I can’t do anymore. Grandma was there, and mom, and Kaska, and two nieces; the whole spectrum.

In general, Poland really impressed me. Everyone is nice, it’s a very modern and clean country, and they are very grateful for where they are and what’s going on there. We talked a lot about Ukraine, obviously, and the past of the division of Poland by Russia and the Austrian Empire, not to mention the Germans and Ukrainians and basically everyone else. I think for the people my age, the existence of modern Poland as a vibrant European economy is not at all something they take for granted. Voitek and his family for example were big board game and Star Wars fans, and the room I stayed in had a ton of board games and computer equipment.

The world is smaller sometimes, and while there are downsides, in this case, it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. Thanks, Kaska!

Eastern Europe 2022 Day 8/9 - Stuttgart Part 2

I realized that there’s a whole gap of the last two days that I spent in Stuttgart with my friend Matt that I haven’t posted pictures of talked about, and there were some definite highlights.

We went on a nice long 9 mile hike with Matt and his cattle dog Toby, up into the mountains near Stuttgart. At one point we took an incredibly old funicular up the side of the mountain that took forever to get going, driven by an old man who was terribly unconcerned by anything in life! We stopped and bought candles and honey from a tiny “honor system” set up along the trail, and we ate afterwards at a Brewery where I had a “meat salad” consisting of strips of baloney, pickle and other things just kind of bunched up in a pile with a light oil sauce on top. It was odd but the beer was delicious. The hike put me right over the top into being sick, though, unforunately.

The night before that, we went out to a vinyard that Matt had volunteered at crushing grapes and they were having a small celebration with a three piece German band. We met the owner and drank his gluhwein all night while our table full of older German women convinced us to sing along. They had a book of German songs that also, oddly, included a bunch of American 80s tunes and so we were forced to sing while we stood up and sat down to oompah. It was awesome.

I really liked Stuttgart, it seemed like a very livable place. Matt has a good life there. I much preferred it to Berlin, if I’m being honest.

Eastern Europe 2022 - Day 15 - Wroclaw, Poland

Wroclaw was another temporary stopping off point I decided to spend a night in, in-between Poznan and Czarny Bor. I had heard from my friend that it had a beautiful town square, or Rynek. I basically just drove in to Wroclaw, parked, ate dinner, spent the night, got up, ate breakfast, and continued on to Czarny Gor. But I stayed directly on that main downtown square and it was a beautiful night. Compared to America, of course, Polish towns are very different in their geography, with a tight downtown area which was often walled in, dating from medieval times. So the center of town has these tall beautiful building facades which enclose gigantic center areas, and that’s where I stayed, on Plac Solny. I ate at a restaurant called Konspira which prided itself on being themed to the history of resistance in Poland, especially the branch of Solidarity called Fighting Solidarity. Unsurprisingly given current events, they had turned a portion of the decor over to information about the Ukraine invasion, and their stance on it was not subtle! They had a giant sign out front with Putin portrayed as Hitler and text that read “Nuremberg for Putin”. I ate some golabki with tomato sauce and they were quite good. In the morning I went to a tiny brasserie and had avocado toast with eggs and sausage, a latte and some sparkling water and the whole bill including tip was $13 USD. Which is insane.

I also got a chance to chat with Nataly on the phone for a while; she’s headed home soon.

I also strolled around a souvenir shop and learned that Wroclaw is a city of islands, and that for some reason they are obsessed with gnomes. But I didn’t get much time to learn more about that.

Everything about Poland (except, perhaps, the weather) has been very impressive. It’s a very modern country and the influence of the EU is clear; the roads are in great shape, everything is clean and the people are very nice. I will definitely have to come back and ride my bike.

Eastern Europe 2022 - Day 14 - Poznan, Poland

Poznan was one of the locations that I originally “circled on my calendar”, so to speak, because at one point during my ancestry search, it came up as a location that some of my ancestors might have lived in and even been buried in. This dream eventually died or at least was diluted a bit, as I discovered that most of my ancestors only traveled through Poznan, and might not even be from there. But I still decided that it was somewhere I wanted to visit. Seeing the name scrawled on passenger manifest was enough to get me looking online at cemeteries and at Google Street View. I will admit: from my western perspective, and because of the context, I expected it to be some sort of backwater tiny Polish village. But of course, it’s a huge vibrant modern city, and even the cemetery was very modern and nice. And I only found one potential ancestor; but who cares, I had fun anyway.

I had a very pleasant and small AirBnb right near the central town square, which was beautiful but also unforunately under heavy construction. There was a croissant museum - closed for the holidays. I ate at Fat Bob’s Burgers in honor of my dad, and it was acceptable, if a bit salty. The weather has not been cooperating so there wasn’t much to do. I did go out to a single cemetery, and like I said I found one distant relative, but I don’t consider it a loss at all.

I visited a cathedral which apparently is the oldest in Poland, dating from the 11th century, and it was easy to imagine my ancestors visiting the place and praying there, like I did.

I also got to visit Decathlon, the French sporting goods store that we used to have in Oakland before they closed their only 2 US locations. Man, I miss that place. I bought some cool pants.

i also drove to Poznan central station where an awesome employee helped me buy tickets to and from Kyiv. She was amazingly helpful.

So all in all, a good day.

Eastern Europe 2022 - Days 10/11/12 - Berlin, Germany

Ahh, poor Berlin. I’m afraid you’re going to get short shrift in this particular story. Partly because, as I left for Berlin, I was already feeling pretty ill. Flying to Berlin from Stuttgart was kind of the last gasp for my body before it shut down for a day or two and I had to crash in this AirBnb apartment that I rented for Domi and I to share. I might not even have gone at all, but A) I needed to get out of my friend Matt’s hair and B) Domi needed a bit of a rescue. My friend Domi had spent the last month in a hospital and recently gotten out, but had nowhere to stay for a few days to recuperate before heading home. So away I went!

Much of my time in Berlin would end up getting spent on a couch, but I’ll focus on the few things I did get to do there. The one thing I wanted to see more than anything was the Berlin Wall. For some of you that may seem like an odd choice, but I’m old enough that the wall still stood when I was a kid, and it was a hugely important symbolic part of my childhood. I always told myself I’d go see it if I had a chance, so the second day there, still sick, I set out to find some restored pieces of it. I made it on foot to the first site, which turned out to just be an art installation with a couple of chunks of the wall. Cool, but time to move on. Right up that street turned out to be Checkpoint Charlie. This was (one of the) famous checkpoints where citizens of the West could, if they wanted, head into the communist Democratic Republic of Germany. It was staffed by rotating American, British and French soldiers on one side and Russian and East German soldiers on the other. The site itself is well preserved but there’s not much to it. The gift shop has some nice stuff but overall the whole thing was underwhelming and there’s no wall really left there.

At this point I was starting to fade physically but scooters saved the day. They have the same Lime scooters we had back home, and that worked great and soon I was zooping along the last 2 miles to the real prize, the Berlin Wall Memorial and Bernauerstrasse, where they have kept one of the last remaining chunks of the wall intact. This turned out to be exactly what I wanted and it was very moving; several blocks of the wall are still intact, and interactive displays give you a sense of what it would have felt like.

And this is what it felt like: the raw petulance of our worst impulses. A random wall, built across nowhere, serving no function except to delineate one side from another, splitting up families and creating division. The wall randomly splits two random blocks - so randomly that some apartment houses ended up with their front doors in one side and back doors in another. I went to a memorial to one such house, where they showed how people of course used the buildings to sneak from east to west, until they boarded up the back doors, at which point they climbed through windows, then climbed to higher windows, then eventually climbed to the roofs and jumped off into nets that the West Germans installed waiting for them. 131 people fled this way through one such house until the East Germans gave up and just had the whole building torn down. Tunnels were built under the road. A cemetary was located right in the no man’s land and for years people couldn’t visit their family graves, until eventually the gravesites themselves were dug up and relocated. This went on for 28 years, from 1961 to 1989.

What strikes you about the wall is that nothing strikes you about the wall. It is random and pointless. It is not located in a particular geographic feature. It is not a wall for defense so it has no need to be round, or to follow a river or a hill, or really to do anything interesting or important, and so it doesn’t, simply winding randomly around like a child’s pencil scratching on a map. It is not aesthetically pleasing. It looks temporary, like a wall you might build simply to briefly hide other construction.

After I had enough of wandering the wall - which, by the way, is now next to a very nice park where lots of folks were walking their dogs - I went to the Berlin Wall Memorial, a free museum installation that gives some context. While I didn’t learn anything groundbreaking from that, it was well put together and walked through the history of how it came to be and how it came to be torn down.

Anyway, enough about the wall: one of the other things I got to do, which was way more fun, was go to a sparty, or a spa party. This was called Liquidrom, or “liquid room”, and that’s, well, pretty much what it was. Imagine a high end wet spa, with steam saunas, dry saunas, and a large floating pool - except instead of a high end spa aesthetic, imagine blue lights, a DJ, and a hip crowd of hot young people, complete with a bar you can sit at (half naked) and drink high end cocktails and eat avocado toast. Swimsuits were weirdly mandatory for some parts and explicitly disallowed for others, so you kept disrobing and then, uh, re-robing. It was very cool, though I think it would have been way better if I was a) there with a partner, b) attractive, and c) 25 instead of 45. The floating pool, which was kind of a salt pool inside an aesthetic pleasing concrete echo chamber, was the most interesting part. Unfortunately, and for obvious reasons, you couldn’t take pictures or video inside, so you have to use your imagination, but yeah it was cool.

The food in Germany was….well, not great. You couldn’t drink the water - when I went to fill up the bath in the aribnb, it was, well, brown. So you bought bottled water. And I was sick, so I wanted American comfort food, but I couldn’t really find it. I ended up drinking orange juice and eating a lot of strawberry yoghurt.

And the poor Deutsche Bahn. I had always thought that European trains were this amazing world of bliss, but Domi set me straight. She was dreading the trip to Berlin Central Station, and she turned out to be right. Visually it was a very impressive building, but in practice it was useless. We tried to use their website and failed, and so we took an Uber there to talk to them in person, but after waiting 15 minutes in their pull-a-tag-and-wait queue, we figured out that there were no tickets until 6 PM and after considering a few options decided to just rent a car, which was very expensive but turned out to really be the best choice. Also, who builds a train station with nowhere to sit down???

We also sprinkled in a couple of trips to Domi’s favorite smoothie place called Daluma, which had a very high concept aesthetic, and a trip to the supermarket where I got corn flakes wrapped in chocolate. I can’t say I had an amazing time in Berlin, but I guess it really isn’t the city’s fault; bad timing.

The main point, of course, was to meet Domi, and that was worth the trip by itself of course. Meeting her was great; she was exactly what I expected and hoped for, but an even better conversational partner and just all around a great person. I wish her the best of luck in recuperating from her time in the hospital, and I hope I didn’t get her sick.

Eastern Europe Day 13 - Zielona Gora, Poland

[Editor’s note: Apologies for being gone for almost a week; I got quite sick, which I’ll talk about in these posts. I’m only now starting to recover. And I’m going to most likely be doing these in reverse order just because it’s easier for me to think that way. Don’t worry; I’ll be covering in all the days in between.]

Today I’m in Zielona Gora - or Green Mountains, Poland, with my friend Domi. We drove here late yesterday afternoon and I’ll be heading out this afternoon. It’s the first stop on my return trip to Poland after being in Germany, and I have to say, I’m pretty happy to be here. I’m here because I’m taking Domi back to her apartment, and I stayed with her in her place on the couch last night. She’s got an adorable and cozy little attic-style apartment in an older building right next to the downtown area. Today we got up and headed out to first do a little shopping. There’s an unmistakable phenomenon on her street; the older buildings she lives in are immediately juxtaposed with one of the most luxurious and upscale malls you’ll ever find. Malls, as a whole, are on the decline in the US, but not here; this mall was huge and very upscale and very busy. We stopped at the food court so I could get some quick service Polish food from a sort of buffet place, and I thought I was in heaven. Then we went to the Apple dealer and I bought a phone charging cable for $35 (!) because the car here only has USB-C slots. Poland feels like a weird mix of super futuristic and really old, put right next to each other.

When we first drove into Zielona Gora last night, I was struck by how much it reminded me of Buffalo, where I grew up. Partly I think it’s the weather, which is Buffalo to a “T”: cold and wet and grey. And the buildings in Buffalo almost look like they were built to remind people of Poland, which for all I know they were; lots of brick and cobble. I like Poland, everyone is very nice and there’s enough English to go around. And the food is so much better than Germany. I still am choosing to not drink, though. Too sick.

Another thing I noticed was the way the border worked. First of all, there really is no border. I mean, there’s no control there; you don’t even stop. Which is awesome. And you would think that, because of that, there would be a lot of blend, between in this case Germany and Poland. But it’s the opposite. We stopped right inside the Polish portion of the border and it was just instantly Polish. We were in a gas station and all the signs, for example, were in Polish and English only - no German. Everyone spoke Polish and looked Polish. It was instantly Poland, 100%. As someone who lived near the Mexico border, I wasn’t expecting that. I asked Domi about it but she just shrugged and hinted that maybe some Polish people…well, didn’t like German. I don’t sense any open hostility, but I also don’t see a lot of German restaurants in Poland, if you know what I mean. I wonder if it’s like this with other borders.

Staying with Domi was really nice; I’ll miss her when I head out. Having a pen pal like that for so many years and then meeting up is often a crapshoot, but Domi is awesome and we had some great conversations. I hope she gets to come visit Oakland some day.

Next I’m on to Poznan to look around for some ancestors, about 120 miles away.

Eastern Europe 2022 - Day 7 - Stuttgart, Germany

As I write this, it’s almost 1:00 PM and I just woke up! I knew at some point I would crash from all the travel, and this was the day. But yesterday was incredibly fun. I got to my friend Matt’s place about lunchtime, and after catching up a little bit, he took me to a great neighborhood restaurant called Gasthaus Baren, where I had a great Hefeweizen and some noodles with cheese and onion. The Google Translate app that does automatic translation of what the camera sees was invaluable. :) Then we went to the local Stuttgart Christmas market, which was OK and I had a glass of hot wine and took home a really nice mug. We swung by the Finnish christmas market as well and watched them roast some salmon over open flames. But little did I know that the fun was just beginning.

After that, we just sort of walked around a bit and I took a nap, and then we headed out on the train to a Christmas Market in Esslingen. When we got up out of the train station, my head was spinning. The christmas market in Stuttgart, while pleasant, was nothing compared to this tour de force. By 3 or 4 hours later, I would have: eaten sausage, gotten 2 more mugs, watched a man shove passion fruits into his mouth and juggle flame, pounded some kind of meatloaf, and drank enough hot wine to float away. I had been told about the christmas markets, but this thing was outstanding. Sort of one part renaissance fair, one part county fair, and one part obsessed neighbor decorating for christmas. Esslingen is very cool and looks exactly like what you’re imagining, with the old German buildings lining tiny streets and large plazas. Apparently it was neutral during the wars so it didn’t get bombed to the ground. Stuttgart, while nice, feels like any modern city but Esslingen does not; it feels like you went back in time into a cartoon.

The way the drinks were is interesting; you pay for the drink and then an extra fee, a deposit, for the mug. Then you can just go home with the mug if you want, or you can bring it back and get your deposit. Or you can just keep drinking out of that mug. Pretty cool.

Then we went out to a bar and had one or two more drinks in a fancy setting in the basement of a building, and we sat and had a political conversation with two German men we sat next to, mostly about the war in Ukraine. They were nice and pleasant but the guy I sat next to had some views on Ukraine which were not surprising but were pretty abhorrent; he said he didn’t support what Russia was doing but was far more concerned about Germans and about energy prices. But I tried to gently persuade him that history would not be kind to anyone who allowed the kind of barbarism that Russia precipitates, and while I don’t know if I persuaded him, at least we had a civilized conversation.

Can’t wait for more, having a great time.

Eastern Europe 2022 - Day 5/6 - Warsaw, poland

The last 36 hours have seen me fly from Jacksonville to Miami to Heathrow to Warsaw and now I’m in a hotel at the airport in Warsaw. I’ll be here about 8 more hours and then it’s back across the street to fly to Vienna and then Stuttgart. I’m exhausted. Travelling like this is so intense; I’ve only done this a few times in my life. But everyone here is super nice. I went to McDonalds and had a burger with cranberries on it and bought a power adapter. The world really is smaller; it was easy, almost trivial, to use my credit card, talk to people in English; honestly, it’s been so easy. I think we take that for granted in 2032, and especially us native English speakers. I’m sure it will get more interesting as I get away from the cities…