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One year later

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Crazy times. Getting ready to come back. Return Aug. 28, a year to the day since we left. Prospect of job-hunting exciting and frightening.

Here’s where we spent the last month or so:

MALMO

What Malmo looks like; that’s a bike counter on the right

We were in Sweden when Bergman died. I saw the news on BBC that morning and actually broke it to my friend’s girlfriend and her mother, with whom we were staying. Eighty-nine is old enough, the mother said. Later I read Woody Allen in the New York Times hoping Bergman had died in flat grey weather, the favorite shooting weather, he said, for all great directors. Woody wouldn’t have been disappointed. It rained all that week.

In fact it’s rained all summer in Sweden. The rain perfectly underscored the country’s sepulchral mood following Bergman’s demise. Soon newspaper stands all over Malmo and Lund carried pictures of the auteur under blaring headlines: Bergman Dood. It was the same in Copenhagen which historically at least is practically the same place.

COPENHAGEN

Rain, rain, rain, every afternoon it rained. We asked for it when we got to Sweden by claiming we were so sick of hot dry weather — the kind that pursued us from Turkey to southern Poland — that we wanted rain. Our friend Steve, with whom we stayed in Sweden, said we were in for it and he didn’t lie.

On the right that’s Steve, Tess and Marc in Copenhagen

AMSTERDAM

Houseboats; row houses; Rembrandt’s Night Watch, sculpted

It wasn’t until we got to Amsterdam that the weather improved. It improved so much the locals couldn’t believe it. Our first weekend there — which happened to be Gay Pride weekend — was three straight, I should say consecutive, days of cloudless warmth such as Hollanders never see, not even in August, usually. We took advantage by visiting most of the city’s many parks: Vondelpark, Rembrandtpark, Flevopark, many others. And by walking everywhere.

That’s a working windmill on the left; it’s also a brewery

In the Stedelijk Museum

GENEVA

That’s the Jet d’Eau to the right (459 feet high); and speaking of eau …

These are all over town, and the eau is potable

We spent three days in Geneva before hopping a train to Sion to meet our friends Flora, Uli and Martin for a four-day hike in the Dents du Midi. But that’s another story …

Geneva is beautiful and cosmopolitan. The Lake is blue and black and flows up the middle of the city to become the Rhone. Water is all over and gives the city a clean feel.

And of course there are the clocks … This one is famous:

In the end it was good to know Nashville (and Montana) were just around the corner …

Neptune

It finally started to get cool when we reached the top of Poland. The wind off the Baltic Sea mitigated the unusual heat. The sun never stopped shining. As a last stop in Eastern Europe, Gdansk was just right.

Green Men are everywhere

So are the amber shops

We’ll be in London in about 10 days, so we’ll miss the chiming … 😦

See story …

Left-right: coming into Krakow in the morning; old town in the early morning; tongue of the church bell at Wawel

Birds flock around the central square

Three views of Krakow from church tower of Wawel

Sculpture outside Dragon’s Lair, Wawel; water spouts; more birds

Statuary; Lisa downtown; synagogue

It’s possible to walk across Krakow without leaving the shade of large trees. Parks are everywhere. The city is covered in birds, mostly pigeons, who swoop wildly around church spires and natter excitedly in the treetops.

Nunpacker!; two more views of the city

Oh, and Copenhagen too …

It hit 40 degrees while we were in Budapest, and for the first time in a long time we wished we had air-conditioning. We wandered the streets in a humid daze. The food was good — I think. The people were nice … I think. The city was beautiful.

See story here …

Brasov city

Brasov square

In the mountains above Sinaia

There are 935 bears in the Carpathians — someone counted — and weeks before we got to Sinaia, a ski village with a Romanian-Aspen feel, an American woman hiking with five others was mauled to death nearby. No safety in numbers. They are brown bears and ornery like grizzlies, if slightly smaller, which is trivial information if one is chewing you. We mustered the courage for a short hike. No bears — but plenty of wild dogs, birds, weird and colorful spiders, and delicious greasy sausage. In Romania, expect the wurst: it’s hard out there for an Eastern European vegetarian.

Around Peles Castle, Sinaia

 
Goodbye Romania