The Big November road trip day 4 - Home again

We nearly didn't make the ferry.

As chief naviguesser, I was in charge of the map to get us out of Berlin. The route I picked snaked through city streets rather than along the expressway so it took longer than anticipated. We did however get more impressive views of Berlin wall remnants.

It rained. You can't fly along the highway at 160 on wet pavement.

There were big trucks on the small secondary roads and nowhere to pass them. Noon came and went. 12:15 came and went. We made it to the check-in for 12:30 and were the last car loaded on before the 12:45 departure.

There are so many things I just don't tend to think about. e.g. it's November. We were sailing on the Baltic Sea. Didn't the Edmund Fitzgerald sink when the gales of November came early? And that was only Lake Superior. Rough seas. Everyone on board walked in zigzags. Kinda funny actually once you got over the lilt.

We made it home the rest of the way wishing we could still drive at German lightspeed. Our Salem was glad to see us. Milles mercis to Michele and Loïc for taking care of him while we were away.

The Big November road trip day 3 - Back to Berlin

The stories about the German autobahn are true. The MINIMUM speed limit on dry pavement is 130km, so you set your cruise at 150 and they still fly past you. The weather report said ‘fog’ and I thought they were kidding. In Canada, the sun burns off fog in a couple of hours. Not here apparently. We had ‘fog’ and overcast all day.

In 1988, I did the Eurail pass trip with Michelle and Natasha for our Easter break from Université de Nice. I voted to go north and see Berlin. I got outvoted and we went to Corfu instead. After wandering Berlin today, I don’t know what we would have done here 20 years ago during the occupation. I remember wanting to see the wall. Today, I saw it. It’s smaller (shorter and less imposing) than I imagined it would be. There are pieces of it at Potsdamer Platz. The outline of the line the wall followed is inset into streets and sidewalks. The biggest piece of the wall is at Zimmerstrasse & Niederkirchnerstrasse. It’s been turned into a really good sunken (lower than street level) museum about the rise of the 3^rd Reich, the Nazis, the occupation, and the wall.

There is a lot of interesting architecture, most of it modern when you think about it because it has only been 20 years since the end of the Occupation. What is most impressive is looking at photographs of the results of the bombing of the city at the end of the war, then comparing it to what we saw today. I think the kids will remember the things we saw: the Russian monument, the Reichstad, and the Brandenberg Gate, Checkpoint Charlie and the wall, the Sony Centre and the Tiergarten. I don’t think they grasped much of the story: that the wall only came down 20 years ago, that people died HERE, that there weren’t the freedoms we expect. I need to teach myself more about the war and the German / Soviet history.

We got a taste of Berlin in our afternoon here. Andrew’s favourite thing is that they have cobblestones representing where the wall used to stand. Peter and Elizabeth’s was the Wall museum on Niederkirhnerstrasse (and the schnitzel), as was the mine. As you walk from Potsdamer Platz to Checkpoint Charlie, there’s a big empty field. Makes you wonder if it’s a left over piece of the death zone, the empty space beside the wall, left empty so the East German guards could spot you and shoot you faster if you tried to escape.

The Big November road trip day 2 - Exploring Prague

Prague is beautiful. It feels very relaxed. It’s steeped in history (isn’t everywhere on the continent?). There’s the old Old Town and the new Old Town, the Charles bridge where King Wenceslas (yes, that Kind Wenceslas) threw a priest off the bridge because he wouldn’t share his wife’s secret confessions, the Jewish ghetto that Hitler had planned to turn into a museum after he triumphed in the war (and we know how that turned out), and the castle. It would have been a great place for shopping if only we’d had the time.

Here are a few tidbits:

One of my default tv programs at the cottage is “Rick Steeves Europe”. He’s a travel guy that goes everywhere. I’m quite sure I saw a RSE about Prague and the astronomical clock. Kinda cool that I’m getting to see the stuff from the program. Prague’s Stare Mesto Clock was built in 1410. It works according to the movement of the stars and moon and measures sunrise and sunset, what day it is in the year (in Czech name days), phases of the moon, and the signs of the zodiac. Statues of the 12 apostles rotate through windows, and the skeleton rings his bell to remind us that time waits for no one (so profitez-en!)

We only had 1 day in Prague, so I signed us up for a 4 hour walking tour. Our guide Gaston (from Chile) was terrific and very knowledgable. There were 2 Indian ladies in our group – the wife of the attaché to the Defense Minister and her friend.

The Charles Bridge was built in 1357. Shortly thereafter, King Wencelas threw John of Nepomuck the royal priest and confessor off the bridge to his death because John wouldn’t tell the king what his queen talked about during her confessions. Prague was Protestant, then it was Catholic. Then the Russians moved in and no one practiced organized religion. Churches were claimed and re-purposed as living space, office space or storage space. After the Occupation ended in 1990, very few returned to formal religion although many churches remain.

There was a large jewish population in Prague. They lived within the walls of the Jewish Ghetto. Before the war, they numbered between 80 & 90,000. 77,000 were exterminated. Only a couple of thousand orthodox Jews live in the city now.

The reason we went to Prague was so that Peter could go to a ‘real’ Czech beer hall. We went to U Flecku. It originally opened in 1499. They brew their own beer (13%) on the premises. Waiters walk around with trays of beer or Becherovska shots (40%), happy to replace your empty glass as often as you'd like. Becherovska is smoother than you’d expect, kind of sweet, and cinnamon flavoured. We’ve become big fans of Czech dumplings and goulash.

After dinner, we did a ghost walk. This was our Halloween. For a bit under an hour, we wandered the streets listening to (invented but plausible-ish) stories. And we did manage to sneak in a bit of shopping – there’s a new pair of red gloves. These ones have fluff.

The big November road trip day 1 - Getting to Prague

The keys to my blog just came up in czechoslovakian! Wild!

Anyway. It's been a long day. We were up at 1am Gborg time in order to be on the road for 3am. Now I know why the streets are so quiet at 6 or 7 - everyone was still out on the Avenue at 3! we drove through some wicked peasoup fog but still managed to arrive at the ferry at Trelleborg really early - even earlier than anticipated actually because we didn't know that the time changed last night, so our 3 am departure was actually a 2am departure. The ferry left at 7:45 as scheduled, and we slept, wandered, read our way for the 4 hour trip across the Baltic Sea to Sassnitz, Germany. About 10am, I decided it was time for coffee, so Peter, Andrew left Elizabeth to stay with the stuff, and went in search of morning snack. Coffee in hand, I wanted to sit with it for a bit, so I directed the 3 of us to the "quieter section", which turned out to be full of Slavic truckers well into their 2-4s of cheap dutyfree shop beer. So much for quiet. One of the truckers had trimmed his beard in what can best be described as the shape of a paper coffee cup. I kid you not!

Northern Germany is very flat. We were on a two lane road for a good while, and I kept imagining Snoopy as the World War 1 Flying Ace crawling through the countryside. I didn't have to use German (yet), which is good because there is a wicked language soup in my head at the moment - a mix of German and Swedish. Kinda wild.

We got to the Czech Republic under cover of darkness, but from what we could see, it's much hillier than the part of Germany we saw. We had to trust the road signs (looking for Praha and the E55 or D8) because we only have a city map of Prague, and that trust took us down a long country road beside a river. Very pretty - looking forward to seeing more of it with daylight. For a country that was occupied until 1990, it didn't seem any the worse for wear, but we were looking at it all in the dark.

So here Elizabeth and I sit, in the breakfast room of the Antik Hotel on Dlouhá street in Prague, she wifi-ing on her computer and me on mine. Our hotel is beautiful and very centrally located in the Old old town (as opposed to the New old town - more on that tomorrow). We have a busy day tomorrow - lots of walking around town. I promise to fill you in on all that, including Peter's pilgrimage to a Czech Beer Hall, after we get some sleep.

Small triumphs

Today hasn't been a great day. Suffice it to say that when I think back over the really hard days I've had since the move, and honestly there haven't been that many, they have tended to be Fridays. Most people rejoice over Friday. For some reason, I don't. There are lots of reasons I won't go into why today was low but the big one is that today at home would have been a special day for me. Day #2 on my top 5 list of favourite days at Hawthorne. But you don't need to read about that. Let's get on with the triumph.

Sunday v-e-r-y e-a-r-l-y, (3am? 2:30?) we're leaving on our superquick driving trip to Prague and Berlin. I wanted water soluble markers to write on the plasticized maps. You know, the washable kind you use for overheads. So, I hopped on the tram to Nordstan, tried Staples. Permanent markers only. Went to Akademibokhandler. Found what I thought were water soluble pens but wanted to check. Here's the triumph: I asked the clerk all my questions in swedish! I didn't do the language panic flip. I did the entire conversation in swedish. Was it perfekt? Probably not, but he understood me, and I understood him. And that, after all, is all that matters.

Enjoy Halloween. With luck, we'll celebrate a belated Halloween with a haunted walk in Prague on All Saints Day.

Lights in Alingsås

Tonight we drove 50 kms out of Göteborg to the town of Alingsås to see the lights. Every Oktober for the past 10 years, they have creatively lit the Swedish night. During the day, there are workshops and conferences about the impact of light, the environmental aspects of lighting, lighting design, and the future of lighting populated spaces. It's something to be seen.

This is what I consider to be typically Swedish - any excuse to be outside. Tonight was cold (3C) and rainy (boots and umbrellas), but many people were out. There were 6 major installations and several minor ones done by townspeople creatively lighting objects in their own yards. One was a shadow play beside the river. Another was a series of coloured lights dancing in the windows of an old factory building. A third was a street scape with uplit trees and 'rocks' made of wire. The fourth was a pedestrian tunnel which alternated between orange uplighting from under benches and blacklight hearts and snowflakes. Number 5 was a magical playground, complete with lights dancing in bushes and a coloured bottle chandelier suspended between the trees over a couple of benches. Our favourite (though Andrew would argue for the playground) was probably the canalscape of red trees and strings of lights suspended over the water in the canal. The light strings changed colour between white, yellow, green, purple, and red.

It was a really yukky night to be out, but with boots and umbrellas, ski jackets and mitts, it was still a great, memorable evening. I'm sure we'll return next year to see what's new.

Home is where the heart is

This entry may appear to be all about ego, but those of you that know me will know it's really about insecurity.

I used to be important.

important to 1300 people every day. Then I moved to Sweden.

They say that moving to a new country is #3 on the most stressful events list behind death of a loved one or a messy divorce. If you've never done it, if you've never been the one who has to follow and make it all work, not the one for whom the move is designed, but the one who is required to surrender her identity and start all over, then you won't appreciate that #s 1,2,&3 on that list are just about equal as far as I'm concerned.

I didn't know how it would go, coming back. Sometimes when you try to go back, to revisit, it's a disaster. But this hasn't been. I've been celebrated. I been made to feel important, to feel I still have a place, that I still matter, that my special friendships are still just as special. And it has been wonderful.

I leave for Sweden (home?) day after tomorrow. I'm sad, but not regretful. Alice doesn't belong here at the moment. Alice is supposed to be in Sweden, experiencing a new world. I'm ok with leaving in spite of the tears. Because I know that my special friends are constants.

Right, Voyager?

Oslo

I'm in love. With Norway.

My love affair started at Disney World. The Norwegian tourist board made a movie called "the Spirit of Norway" so powerful that it made me dream of the fjords. So, 2 Saturdays ago, we loaded up the car and drove to Norway, to Oslo, to see, among other things, the Viking ship in the movie.

Norwegian radio stations are a lot better than Swedish ones. We had to do passport control at the border. Unlike going through to the States, this was a casual affair. The border guard thought we were Swedish and was going to wave us through until Peter gave her the passports. We chatted about Canada and were on our way. All this under a carport. Nothing like the fortress you pass through at Niagara or Detroit.

We found Fall in Norway. Crispness to the air. Coloured leaves on the trees, gently floating to the ground. The Viking ship in the movie is called the Oseberg. She's the first thing you see when you walk in the door of the museum. She almost brought me to tears because I couldn't believe I was actually there. The museum houses 3 Viking ships and some artifacts, all dating from the 9th century. It's a piece of architectural sublety because the arched ceiling echoes the murmurings of the visitors, bringing a sense of community. It's surreal, and I'm not explaining it very well, but it was very effective.

Food. I had found a recommendation for a place in the hills overlooking Oslo - Frognerseteren - Kafé Seteren known for its apple cake. Of course, the driving directions downloaded from the internet didn't match the street names and it took far longer to find the place than anticipated, but it was worth the hassle BECAUSE we found the Hollmenkollen ski jump on the way. Originally built in 1892, it is currently undergoing massive renovations to be ready for the World Cup Nordic event at the end of February. It's enormous. I can't imagine what it must be like to stand at the top of that ski jump, overlooking Oslo, the bay, and the sea. We're going back for a day of events in March - 3 nordic skiing races topped off by the Mens' final for ski jumping that evening.

Frognerseteren is a big wooden nordic chalet built in 1891. We found a table upstairs with a terrific view of Oslo and the sea. Again, I was almost brought to tears because I couldn't believe I was there. It was grey and cloudy, but it didn't matter. It was still incredible.

We will see many amazing things over the next 2 years of the Shepherd European Adventure. There may be something that tops our day in Oslo. I can't imagine what.

p.s. the apple cake? Filo pastry bottom and top crust. In the middle was 3 inches of applesauce filling, topped off with another 3 inches of whipped cream. Insane.