It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Wurst of Times

  

Glockenspiel in Munich

Germany and Austria are incredible countries to visit, just a two hour train ride apart between Munich and Salzburg. Both cities have Old Towns and more modern areas. In both, as is our pattern, we got really turned around walking from place to place, even with GPS. 

There are some differences. Munich is near Dachau (where we visited the concentration camp, so sad and powerful). Salzburg isn’t near much except more Alps. In Munich it is necessary to take trams to get from one side of the city to the other; Salzburg is eminently walkable. Munich has a famous glockenspiel in Marienplatz, with figurines that move around on the tower face every few hours. Salzburg has The Sound of Music, which everyone seems to adore, but about which we are lukewarm. We prefer the city’s Mozart everything—his birthplace, his residence, the cathedral where many of his works were performed. Mozart square and statue too. But yes, if you want, you can see the spot where “Do-Re-Mi” was filmed. Whatever floats your boat.

Salzburg Old Town

Many similarities as well. Such as, beer. Beer is available everywhere, all the time, and it’s both delicious and really cheap. At our first Munich lunch at an outdoor café, we asked for regular size beers and were served large steins; we later noticed that there was another, much larger size, favored by the young people eating and drinking near us. Language: German, though everyone speaks decent-to-great English. Food: lots of schnitzel (veal and pork) and wursts--sausage of all kinds, from Munich’s weisswurst to Salzburg’s bosna (curry sausage)—to the point where I do wonder how vegetarians navigate in these Lands of Meat. 

Other very local specialties include Germany’s döner kebap, actually a Turkish dish with lots and lots of grilled meat (surprise!), wrapped in a special bread. Then there’s Salzburger nockerl, a dessert found only here. I ordered it for dessert in a restaurant one night, and learned to make it the next day at the Edelweiss Cooking School. Nockerl’s a kind of souffle shaped like the three mountains of the city, and even eating one “mountain” is overwhelming. 

Making nockerl

I’m writing this in Salzburg on Tuesday. We just toured Mirabell Palace and gardens, and we’re back at our Airbnb taking a break. Our days have been full, but we’ve learned about the value of a little pacing, and afternoon naps (or maybe we’re just getting old.) Later we’ll attempt a hike up Mönchsberg (Monk’s Mountain), before dinner and a Mozart (natch) concert up at the Fortress Hohensalzburg overlooking the city. 

 

Tomorrow we leave for Vienna, the next stop in our magical mystery tour. We anticipate more museums, palaces, concerts and beer. And meat. Lots more meat. Good thing we’re averaging many miles of walking per day (my Fitbit thinks it’s attached to the arm of an entirely different person).

 

Do I miss home and fam? Of course. But would I have missed this phenomenal experience with Steve? Not on your life.

 

Auf Wiedersehen!

My favorite traveling buddy!

Anticipation

Together in Florence, Italy April 2018

I don’t really do anticipation well. Even as a kid, when all around me little guys and gals were waiting, thrilled, for Santa’s descent from his sleigh, I was stressed. Stressed about the fact that our NYC apartment didn’t HAVE a chimney. Stressed about the North Pole travel conditions, the reindeers’ state of health, the very real possibility that I was not going to get a pony (see NYC apartment, above.)

In later years, my anticipation of future “great events” was always tempered by that little Eeyore deep inside (“Nope. Probably not gonna happen. And if it does, it’ll be terrible. Usually is.”) And then I’d get so nervous that I’d forget to enjoy the happy moments when they did occur. This applied to events like my wedding, the birth of my children, every wonderful thing that happened in the lives of said children, etc. It’s all, unfortunately, a blur: newlyweds and newborns, violin recitals, soccer triumphs, college graduations. 

 

I never did get the hang of pure, positive excitement, that tingly feeling that amazing experiences were just around the corner. It’s a shame, because I hear anticipation is pretty cool. 

 

Well, gang, here we go again. Steve and I are mere hours from our departure for our thrice COVID-postponed trip to Europe. I have been doing my best over-the-top nutty travel agent impression, jumping around from website to guidebook, frantically booking the heck out of Viennese palaces, Salzburg museums, Munich restaurants. I pride myself on handing these myriad details without assistance. This leads to snafus like yesterday, when I scheduled a concert in Prague for the same night and time I’d gotten tickets for a “black light” theatre performance. And, of course, though 99% of my bookings were refundable, this one was not. I look forward to sitting in a theatre next week, knowing our concert seats across town are empty, and my purse is 80 euros lighter. Score, Elise!

 

Julie and I were on the phone Monday night, talking about my trip, and reminiscing about her own three-month, multi-country solo European backpacking adventure at age 18. She sent me photos of her younger self in the exact same cities we’ll be visiting, standing on a mountaintop with some new buddies from a hostel, navigating a mirror maze, at the opera. As far as I recall, she did very little micromanaging of her schedule—yet she still had a wonderful, life-changing time. 

Julie and friends in Salzburg, Austria October 2013

I pay lip service to the notion that I’ve learned valuable lessons from the pandemic, lessons about letting go of worry—"carpe diem” in spades, right? And maybe I have. However, my grateful, hopeful, anticipatory new self, forgot to tell my inner Eeyore, and Eeyore’s still pretty darned skeptical.

 

And so I spend this, the morning our journey begins, trying to banish the “what ifs,” in favor of the “oh, wows.” The world is opening up again, and we are so, so lucky to be traveling in it. 

 

“Anticipating” the inevitable problems, may I also anticipate much joy. 

Getting Carded

Family photo from retirement party (only missing Evan)

My retirement party was back in June, but you’d think it happened just yesterday. You see, I have yet to redeem 90% of the amazing gift certificates I received from friends and family. It’s not (just) a matter of wanting to spread out the enjoyment. I am mostly paralyzed with indecision when I spread out my bounty. From experience I know that once I get going, my Amazon dollars will dwindle quickly, and soon I will have recipient’s remorse, realizing that I absent-mindedly used a chunk of my balance to buy a new dustpan, or the Kindle edition of a book that sounded intriguing, until I find out it sounded intriguing because I already had it in paperback. 

 

I have been gifted with over $100 in cards for Starbucks, which is lovely. I used to go to my local shop and sit upstairs for hours, writing and nursing a chai latte. Alas, since the pandemic they have eliminated all of their seating permanently, and writing in my car in their parking lot isn’t quite as satisfying. But I’m determined not to spend my Star-bucks on the family ground coffee supply, so I’m looking for a more distant location that might still have chairs and tables. 

 

Additionally, there are generous certs for spa treatments, dinner at a fabulous restaurant, The Philadelphia Orchestra, even Airbnb! Should I combine all of these in one splurge day? Mani-pedi, dinner, concert, ending with an overnight at a center city apartment? Or should I spend them gradually? Or should I (as occasionally happens), let their eventual expiration dates make my decision for me? 

 

As bad as I am about redemption, I’m worse when the giving shoe is on the other foot. For many years, we thanked our teen and tween VBS volunteers at church with a little something at week’s end. One of the moms would just give out bags of candy, which I thought showed a real lack of creativity. So, when I took over, I opted for gift certificates to, first, good old Amazon, and later, Rita’s Water Ice. The problems were both the paltry amount of the gifts ($5), and the fact that our young recipients were pretty underwhelmed by printed pieces of paper exchangeable for future treats. In other words, they really preferred the candy.   

 

So is it better to give and receive actual items, and not glossy promissory notes? But I struggle with gift registries too, ending up buying the wedding couple six hand towels because that’s all that’s left in my price range (ditto the multicolored sippee cup set if it’s a baby shower). And if I can just get my act together, I really do love pondering how to spend gift cards I’m given.

 

The bottom line is: all presents are gifts from the heart, equally to be cherished because of the messages they send: you matter. I care about you. I wish you well. 

 

That settles it. Logging on to Amazon right now. TWO dustpans this time!! Woo hoo!!

Hurricane Watching

It’s been a minute since I was last under an official hurricane watch, but weather reports suggest this may be a bad season for them, and October’s off to a windy, rainy start here in Oreland.

Naturally, I’ve been following the story of Hurricane Ian’s deadly progress, through Florida and up the Atlantic coast. It’s raining here today, the storm’s last gasp. Though the name “Ian” conjures up a gentle Scottish lad in a kilt tending sheep while playing bagpipes, this is one nasty weather system. Many Floridians who stuck it out lost everything. Bridges and causeways have collapsed, isolating places like Sanibel Island. Alligators and snakes are everywhere. No one is sure when power will be restored. 

 

“Hurricane Season” factored into my childhood, because my Nana and Aunt Rose insisted on staying in their rental cottage in Normandy Beach, NJ, through the end of September. If a hurricane was brewing, they were evacuated--which meant my dad, the only driver in the bunch, had to leave NYC and go fetch them. There were occasional big storms, but our part of the Northeast was usually spared. 

 

It wasn’t until our church mission trips that I understood the full impact of hurricanes. In 2009 we went to New Orleans, four years after Katrina. I remember we repainted an elderly couple’s home (they had finally returned from staying with relatives in Baton Rouge). The owner showed us where the highwater mark was; it was amazing there was a house left at all. The same was true after Harvey in Houston. There, folks shared pictures with us of houses in their little town of Vidor, submerged up to the roofs. Our 2019 trip to Puerto Rico reminded us of the struggles after Maria (and we were so upset when these good people had to deal with Fiona recently). 

Vidor, Texas--house submerged

So who the heck would choose to live near the water?

 

Me, if I could afford it. 

 

While I wouldn’t be foolish enough to build along the beach itself, I can definitely see us in coastal Lewes at some point, at least part-time. Even seeing pictures this week of the Ian-sparked flooding in town, I’m still not dissuaded. Though I am by nature fretful, on some level I guess I don’t really grasp that a natural disaster could involve me personally. Why do I think I’d be spared? I don’t know. But that false sense of invincibility is part of who I am, who many of us are.

 

As our climate rapidly changes, it’s clear that there’s really no “safe” place; tornadoes and typhoons and blizzards are only getting worse. I pray we humans will wake up before it’s too late, that we (myself included) realize that no one is magically immune from disaster. 

 

This is the only world Aiden and Peter have ever known. How fair is this to them?

 

The alarm bells are sounding, everywhere. Will I listen? And act? 

 

As I write this, the rain’s tapering off. We’ve dodged a bullet. This time. 

Lewes Beach sandbar with the boys