After every summer vacation, I remember having to write a paper, essay, composition or whatever you want to call it on: What I did on My Summer Vacation. Even though I do not have to write and or correct papers anymore, I still want to write about what I did on my summer vacation. It is a tradition and a habit, so…this summer we took our daughter and our granddaughter on a trip to Europe.

I am reminded why summer travel is so different from other times when kids are in school and mom and pop are working. Crowds. Huge enormous crowds everywhere hurrying from one spot to another. Lines, lines, lines. The street corners are 10 and 20 deep. If you wish to see an attraction, like the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace you literally have to be 6ft. 5 tall or more and have very good eyesight for distance. The lines for attractions snake around for blocks and blocks.
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Dear God,

We leave Thursday for Amsterdam and my mind is filled with memories of the last time we flew.

Get me out of here. I can’t stand it. Maybe if I just close my eyes it will be less stressful. I can’t shut out my ears. I tried, but somehow all of my senses are screaming to see, hear, and feel. I spent many years unraveling what I learned, replacing it with new learning, re-learning, re-programming and re-hashing, getting the wrong, right and now I want it straight like it is, but this is unexpected.  I was taught constructive ways to relieve the stress, but I have to tell you all of us here are on over load.

I am in an airport waiting room. The television is blasting with enough snow to cover a mountain range in the Alps.  The lady next to me on the right has been coughing for the past 5 hours. Some of kids are sleeping on the floors leaving small snaking pathways to and from the restrooms. The ones that are not sleeping are whining, screaming and driving everyone around them crazy, especially the harried and tired parent/s.  I just want them to shut up. Hey, just for five minutes. More

An Exotic Day in Rio

An extra day in Rio can be the most brilliant day of you trip or not. It is up too you.  We contacted Favela Tour-Rejane Tourism Workshop and I am including the email address because you will be extremely pleased with the tours they offer and very pleased that you have gone beneath the surface where the regular tourists do not have the knowledge or privilege to travel.

Contact info for Rejane: favela@favelatourismworkshop.com

We were picked up at 8:00 A.M. and delivered to the airport to make our midnight flight. What happened in those hours in between would be the making or the breaking our trip. After we spent a rather mediocre trip we met with pulsating and energetic success. We met Rajane and her partner. We were driven to a small hotel to drop off our luggage and check in for just the day and early evening.

We enjoyed a Brazilian coffee and then began an extensive tour of downtown Rio. It was early in the morning. I mention this because when we circled back at night to the same district there was a dramatic change.  All of the corrugated doors hiding nightspots were closed on our morning drive, only to be opened transforming into exciting and alive places full of people.  Before our journey to the airport, we were able to sample a bit of the nightlife. People wanted to talk with us and there was no means of communication except smiles, eye beams, touches, handshakes, and the sharing of the same space.

After looking through several downtown antique shops we found some semi ancient treasures from Brazil to bring back to sunny Southern California. We climbed with the help of a cogwheel train and an elevator to the top of the Christ Redeemer (Corcovado) The crowds were thick and the statue is so grand, you almost had to fall off the cliff to get a photo with the image totally captured. Of course we went to the famous beaches of Copacabana and Ipanema. I was urged to purchase Haviana footwear. So I did. Then we traveled to Sugar Loaf and Maracana Stadium with lots of sights to see along the way. We went for lunch in the rainforest and let water from the trees drip down onto our bodies.

My most memorable experience lies in our trip to the District, Favela Rocinha which is, an other worldly place, a place you cannot imagine. The favelas are Brazil’s shantytowns or slums. There are many of them, about a million people live there, they say about 40% of the population, and mostly they are built into the mountainsides.  These favelas started to become cites unto themselves years ago.  The country had a plan where they would give free land to farmers. So people squatted on land telling the government they were farms therefore receiving the land free and no taxes were required on this land. This no taxation, free water, and electricity is still in existence to favela dwellers. There are many shantytowns in many countries, but the ones in Brazil stand out because they are perched on mountainsides with the best views and in full view of the paying Brazilian middle class and rich.  I had no idea that the regular tax paying Brazilians hated the favelas so much, but when we excitedly told an airport official we had been to Rocinha, he said,

“ Oh you are brave of heart, we hate them because they rob us, they kill us and we pay taxes and they live off of us.” Okay…

We were picked up by a favela dweller and taken on a walk through the settlement. It was remarkable and amazing and more astounding than I have words to explain. The photos taken underground do not contain the smell, the sounds, and the depth of the experience.  You enter through streets barely wide enough for a truck to pass. Then, you are veered off into a darkness that is still light enough to pass for day.  These dark winding pedestrian paths keep you vigilant where to step, all the while twisting your neck from side to side, not to miss seeing something. The streets inside are about 3 feet wide and houses or places of business (if you can call it that) are on either side.  The cavernous dampness is profound. The people pass sideways. It is hot and steamy. It reeks in places and never quite passes for fresh. Life is being lived in the semi subterraneous place.

If you want to call it free water you can. It comes about 3 times a week and if the pumps are not working it has to be hand carried to one of the 4 levels. You have to have a strong back and powerful legs to live there. Everyone watches out for each other. No one steals within the favela city limit or death is a certainty. Electricity is free and the wires are everywhere and rival photos sent from India with wires of unbelievable tangles. Yes, electricity is free if you can hook up and if someone can fix the wiring to your house if it should need adjustment. (photo of wired fixer to follow). As a favela dweller our guide says everything is free. To me there was a heavy price to pay, one that very few reading this would want to pay. It was an honor to learn about this part of Brazilian culture and to learn both sides of the story.

Watch a video or two: http://technorati.com/videos/youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DEDYwWKVJ3xU

http://technorati.com/videos/youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D_xO_PaZsfKk

We rested awhile and were again picked up by Rajane and taken to another wildly exciting event. We went to the rehearsal for Carnival.

You do not sit in the stands, you stand in the stands and watch the parade of Samba schools dance, sing and wave in unison. You are immediately caught up in the sound of the music and start to dance even though you are not trained. There was a feeling of joy, exuberance and camaraderie throughout the evening of Samba. The music crawls in
side of your bones and dances.

We are home and there is jet lag, unpacking and mail among other things to attack and do.

Would I recommend the cruise or cruise line? Call me.

Would I recommend our day in Rio? What do you think?

HOW DO YOU FEEL WHEN YOU ARE AT THE TOP OF THE WORLD?DIZZY, BREEATHLESS, WEEK-KNEED, AND ELATED.

Today we went to the top of Europe. 11,333 ft. Whenyou are in Switzerland, you go to the Alps, right? We went to Jungfraujoch and on the way we went through the magnificent Bernese Oberland mountain worlds. We had a short time in Interlaken, and then drove to board a train to as nearheaven I am going to get before the real time. We began at the foot of Eiger,North Face and then up, up, up. I was overly anxious and worried about the trip for Skip and for myself.

Switzerland is having an early winter and it wasraining and all of a sudden it was snowing. Flakes came down softly, thenswiftly, and soon everything was heavy with white. We continued up the mountaintaking pictures and loving the trip. Train stopped and we were taken out andput onto another train for the actual pull to the 11,333 ft. mark. Ears do begin to stuff and breathing becomes shallow and difficult, plus there is alittle dizziness. Now I am really, really anxious. More

YESTERDAY’S RAINBOW

Yesterday’s rainbow experience really set the stage for highlights in Switzerland, land of beauty extraordinaire. The organ. Oh my goodness, what an opportunity the organ concert was for us. I just can’t stop thinking how we were the only two privileged guests for this soulful performance. I will never forget that performance for the two of us. It was a gift from a higher place or more than likely it was his time for practice; who knows.

We had all Asian travelers on our bus today. They passed around a sign up and we read countries of origin. So, I could see the countries were Korea, China, Japan (they do think they can go to the head of the line, be late for the bus, and think nothing of it) India, Bhutan and Taiwan. Some of them brought sick coughing little kids. It was awfully annoying. I had to move my seat to the back of the bus because the kids kept kicking our seats and coughing. Our guide was especially well versed in languages and did the tour in 3 languages. Of course, you know who talked and disrupted our ability to hear the English part. ARHHHF.

It is autumn here in Switzerland and the changing of the leaves is in full swing. It is so beautiful and something so unexpected for us as visitors from a place where leaves do not change. The farms, valley areas, the mountains and the cities are all in full transformation of variegated colors. You feel this is a set design and you are a player on the stage. The reds are brilliant, the yellows are staunch, the oranges are hot, the hues blend as nature intended in this part of the world at this particular time of year.

I also roused myself out of bed to tell you this. I kicked myself around the corner many times before and during the first days of our trip thinking we should have done Switzerland at the beginning of the cruise. Now, I see that if we had chosen the earlier time, we would not have seen autumn colors and would not have been in two snowstorms. Being a west coast, Southern California kid, I didn’t see those little white softly falling flakes until I was fifty.

Many of the houses in the cities and valleys of the parts of Switzerland we saw have window boxes in full bloom. This is the time of year where the flowers have been growing all season and now they strain their last effort before they are taken over by death. Full bloom is a strain.  Some of the houses have 8 or more windows facing front and ALL of them have window boxes full of flowers in full straining bloom. I didn’t have my camera ready for most of them so I will have to impart a feeling about one of them in particular that sticks in my memory.  The house was brown and the shutters were red. There were 8 windows in all. Each had a window box the exact size of the window opening. Each box had red hanging flowers, all straining with full bloom, and all striving to be the best. It was a sight I want you to picture.  It made me groan with ecstasy. It was the house, the flowers and the countryside, the quaintness and the sheer beauty of the terrain that brought the groans. Do you think these Swiss ladies have secret, unuttered contests on window boxing?

Rain, Rain, Go Away

The rain, rain go away and come again another day is exactly the forecast for our stay in Zurich. We have tours planned that will show us many spectacular sights; only they will be covered in shrouds, surrounded by pelting rain and gently falling snow.  Off we go…

It was raining on and off, mostly on all day. It produced the most stunning rainbow any of us had ever seen in our lives.

The colors were perfectly delineated and the arc went from end to end, exactly how you see them in paintings and in re-created art. It was the perfect rainbow, too perfect to be true, maybe the most perfect of all time. The pot of gold was at the end of it, but we were on the bus and no stopping until we came to Mt. Pilates, then Mt. Titlis,  Engelberg, (Angel Mountain) a beautiful mountain resort where Skip and I walked to the Benedictine monastery and had lunch in their Cheese factory. More

IN GREECE ONLY THE MEN WORRY. REALLY?

Today I bought worry beads.  Now the man who helped us in an antique store said I should not get them that they were for men and the Greek women do not worry; it is the man who worries and frees the woman for other things.  I said,” Yes, but I worry all of the time and if I get these worry beads I may not worry. You see in my culture EVERYONE worries.”  He just shook his head and said ok.  I wanted to get the ivory ones at a bigger price, believe me.  But then, I thought that if I bought worry beads from a poor elephant that had to loose his life over the beads I would worry even more, so I settled on camel bone. Yeah, sure, there are no camels in Greece. They are probably cow or sheep bones, but to tourists if you say camel bones, well, now you’re talking exotic.

In Greece, 85% of the men have worry beads in their pockets and would not think of leaving home without them. Ever since I bought the worry beads, I saw drivers using their beads when riding in city busses (high seating).  I saw the men flipping them and moving them one by one in slow motion. Men flip their beads while sitting and talking with each other. I think it is an unconscious habit. It is interesting how one becomes more aware of some things in a culture when you learn about it.  In the buying process, I even stepped away from the store in thought and turned to go back in to get the beads. What an important decision.  Now the entrepreneur told me that it was for the man and I just shrugged and smiled and took my beads out into the world.  Within ten minutes I kid you not, Skip had them and was just like all the Greek guys. He has them in his pocket and flipping, and swinging them and really enjoying; I thought they were mine, but they are Skip’s. The man in the store imparted important Greek Culture to me and I wanted to give it to you. Remember fellows it does take practice to flip the beads certain ways to remove your anxiety and worries. More