Archive for Rants and Random Reflections
Theft in Poland Stirs Memories of Travel to Dachau
Posted by: | CommentsThe Associated Press reported in this story that the infamous “Arbeit Macht Frei” (Work Sets You Free) sign above the entrance to the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz has been stolen. The story caught my attention because the same slogan appears above the gate at the Dachau concentration camp outside Munich, Germany.
I have toured the camp which is now a memorial to the victims who suffered there at the hands of the Nazi regime. Words like sobering, haunting and troubling do not begin to describe the camp and the exhibits of torture and malice. My visit was on a sunny, warm fall day but I vividly remember the chill, real or imagined, that descended when I toured the camp. Hard, cold concrete buildings, the crematorium’s ovens and hard-packed, bare earth stick out in my mind.
Dachau, the Nazi’s model concentration camp, served as a “school of violence” for the Nazi SS. During its 12 years of operation, more than 200,000 prisoners passed through it’s gates, and 41,500 were murdered.
It is important, in my view, that we preserve these terrible monuments of pain and suffering and use them to educate ours and future generations about the evils of hatred.
It’s on the House, er Plane, at Southwest Airlines
Posted by: | CommentsMy lovely wife recently received a happy anniversary greeting from her “friends” at Southwest Airlines. She flies Southwest on occasion when she travels to business meetings and is a member of the airline’s frequent flier program. This anniversary card contained a drink coupon for a free beverage on her next Southwest flight.
Not a bad bit of public relations. Freebies are always appreciated by business and leisure travelers alike, especially since we are nickled and dimed to death every time we board a commercial flight. I tip my hat to Southwest’s pr/marketing folks.
Oh Tannenbaum – Travel Memories Decorate Tree
Posted by: | CommentsMy lovely wife and I decorated for the holidays yesterday and our Christmas tree made its triumphant return after a five-year attic hiatus.
It took us longer than I expected to decorate the tree. As we unwrapped and hung ornaments we found ourselves reminiscing. When we travel to a new city, we buy a Christmas ornament so each and every decoration that adorns our tree is attached to a special memory.
Now our tree is an evergreen aggregation of the journeys we’ve taken since we married 10 years ago. Some of our St. Nick knickknacks are quite pretty and others quite cheap; but each one, whether a plastic piece of junk or carefully-crafted handmade treasure, reminds us of a place we’ve been or a person we met along the way.
I remember the cozy little shop right on Edinburgh’s Royal Mile where we bought our Scottish bagpiper and the huge department store on Beijing’s Wangfujing where we fought through a crowd of shoppers for a bit of Beijing Christmas bling. We have a lace ornament from Brugges and Buddha from Kamakura, a cardboard cutout from Mostar’s Stari Most and a cruise ship from the Royal Caribbean onboard shops. The Eiffel Tower that graces our tree is actually a keyring.
Whether “made in China” or by an artist’s hand, each ornament and the memory that accompanies it is a part of our shared past. I can’t help but feel comforted by those tree trinkets and what they represent as they twinkle in the bright white Christmas lights.
Home Repair Projects – A Journey of Survival
Posted by: | CommentsThe lovely wife and I recently embarked on a different type of journey, one for which we are completely unprepared. The skills we acquire when we travel to foreign lands are proving useless. Our experience, so beneficial to past explorations, is worthless.
For this trip, we didn’t pack the typical items or buy the usual guide book. Instead we have filled our bags with a healthy dose of patience, long-forgotten tools, bravado and false confidence. An instruction manual is guiding our trek.
The road upon which we trudge is long and onerous. It is ripe with expensive mistakes and hardware store side trips. It tests our creativity and the strength of our bond. Where its twists and turns will lead us, we have yet to determine. There’s no end in sight.
Thus far we’ve seen highs and lows. We have scaled the heights to the top rung of the ladder, we have stooped to the depths of the baseboards. We have failed. We have triumphed. We have relied on the kindness of friends. (Thanks Kelly and Randy.) We have smiled and we have frowned.
We have wanted to quit.
Instead we hoist our home repair dreams upon our aching backs and make yet another trip to the hardware store forgetting to consult our map, thus adding to the frustration and costs of this most-intolerable journey.
Thanksgiving Travel Blessings – A Top 5 List
Posted by: | CommentsSince this is a day of reflecting on the things for which we are thankful, I’ve put together my top 5 list of travel-related blessings.
5. Frequent Flier Miles – Business class upgrades. Enough said.
4. Digital Camera - Our photo dreams are limited only by our imagination, battery power and the size of our digital storage.
3. Diversity – If every place were just like home, why go anywhere?
2. Internet – Information at your fingertips. The greatest travel guide ever invented.
1. Travel Buddy – Hands down the greatest thing about traveling to a new place is being there with my wonderful, beautiful, intelligent wife. (I hope she reads this)
Sitting at the Feet of the Travel Master
Posted by: | Comments
I fulfilled a travel dream today. I met travel guide guru Rick Steves while attending a talk he was giving about budget travel.
Con “Artist” + Cocky Traveler = Embarrassing Lesson
Posted by: | CommentsI don’t fall for travel scams because I’m too smart for that rubbish. When I travel to a foreign city, I don’t need a travel agent or travel guide because I’m a smart guy, a world traveler if you will.
Or so I thought.
My lovely wife and I like cheap travel, so we usually go it alone. When we arrived in Beijing, our first time to travel to Asia, we promptly became super lost looking for the Forbidden City. I, of course, deal with the process of getting lost in a new travel city by getting mad. Thankfully, cooler heads (hers) prevailed and we kinda figured out where we were going and stumbled on down the road.
Soon after, a polite young Asian man on a bicycle asked if we were looking for the Forbidden City. When we replied affirmatively, he generously offered to show us the way. (You can see this coming now, can’t you?) A chatty Cathy, the young man took us down a side street talking all the while about how he was an artist, and wouldn’t you know it, we just happened to be passing right by his studio. Then he invited us in for a look.
Like a sheep to the slaughter, I headed for the door.
My wife, wise to the scheme the entire time, let me get to the middle of the street before she called out that I was being duped. That polite young man was an artist alright – a scam artist. Shaking his head at the one that got away, our young guide headed back to the main road in search of his next mark while I hung my head in shame.
The moral of the story, aw crap, there’s no moral only embarrassment.
Travel to London: Nothing Wrong with a Female Beefeater
Posted by: | CommentsThe Tower of London is a great travel trip. Every time I travel to London I at least stop by the Tower.
I stumbled across this story about how Moira Cameron, the first female Yeoman Warder, has been harassed by her colleagues. Evidently, some of the boys don’t appreciate Ms. Cameron joining the club.
My take on the situation: you go girl, and God save the Queen.
Metallica Musical Memories -or- Ghostly Oslo
Posted by: | CommentsThe human mind fascinates me, especially how music can spark memories of seemingly unrelated events. Just the other day I was driving home from work when a Metallica song came on the radio and I immediately thought of Oslo, Norway, Norwegian friends and ghosts.
Strange combination I know. Well, here’s the story.
We were visiting Oslo as part of a travel trip I call our Nordic capitals tour. By this time, we had been in Scandinavia for about 10 days and we were way-past tired of pickled herring. Jonesing for a hamburger and fries, we dipped into the Hard Rock Cafe on Karl Johans Gate for an American fix. The rock group Metallica was playing a gig that night in Oslo, so the place was packed with long hair and black clothes, tattoos and piercings. It was good to be back among my people. The restaurant manager put the Metallica music on a loop so the whole place was rockin’ to the beat of pounding drums and screaming guitars.
So now when I hear Metallica, I think of Oslo. But there’s more
Cherri and Knut Dohlen are Norwegian friends of my grandma-in-law who generously volunteered to show us around their city during our visit. Turns out that Cherri is a writer who authored a fun little book about the haunted place of Norway called Gray Zone Wanderers.
So obviously, Metallica = Oslo = Cherri and Knut = ghosts.
Makes perfect sense, right?
Rock on.
