2004 Archive
Medieval fantasy: Steyr, Austria
Last year when Christian and Sabine tried to take us on a little walking tour of their nearby city, Steyr, it poured with rain. Instead of sightseeing, we ate cookies and read books to their little girls and frittered away the afternoon in a gemuetlich (cozy) way. This year we did that too, but in [...]
Driving a Seattle Bus on Christmas Eve
Photos byUschi Gerschner. *** Today I am cooking a breakfast roll. It is Yugoslavian and called Poteca. I love it with the Christmas breakfast Mom used to make with sausage, eggs, and fried apples. She would make Swedish Tea Rings but I didn't like the nuts and dates. I always wanted cinnamon rolls. So this [...]
Philadelphia Election Day 2004– or was it 1976?
Philadelphia election day 2004 was a study in contrasts. What got me there was decidedly newóinternet political organization. But when I got there it felt more like campaign 1976óall that were missing were the Jimmy Carter signs. The organization effort was immense, fully harnessing the power of the internet. I volunteered with a group called [...]
The Malling of Leizen
I hate the EuroSpar. I hate the parking lot and the building and the way the store is laid out inside. The EuroSpar reminds me of one of those Escher drawings where you start out at a white bird and you end up as a black bird, but you're never really sure of what's happening [...]
Visitors to My House
One thing I love about Costa Rica is how nature comes directly to your door. I'm not in a particularly isolated area, near Parque National Manuel Antonio on the Pacific Coast, but I get daily visitors from nature right to my front door. That's my house there, a short little walk through the jungle and [...]
If there are cockroaches, it must be Christmas!
A schabe is a cockroach. A strohschabe is a cockroach made of straw. Or perhaps one that lives in straw, I'm not sure. The arrival of the these creatures signifies that the Christmas season has begun, naturally. After all, when you think Christmas, you think cockroaches, right? Um, yeah. We got to Krungl early enough [...]
Los Abuelos del Volcán
Fotos porSergio Tapiro Velasco. *** 'Hemos olvidado que hay muchos como nosotros, dispersos y aislados' Octavio Paz El volcán por la noche de Yerbabuena Como recuerdo de viaje, el que es nuevo en Colima siente la tentación de tomarse una foto con el famoso volcán como telón de fondo, y hay quienes logran una imagen [...]
The Elders of the Volcano
Photos by Sergio Tapiro Velasco. Translation from Spanish by Doug Dosdall. We've forgotten that there are many like us, scattered and isolated. Octavio Paz The volcano at night from Yerbabuena Anyone arriving in Colima feels the need to have a souvenir of the moment and take a photo with the famous volcano in the background. [...]
Coat racks make great IV stands
I am back in Kurdistan for 11 days to visit friends. Things are mostly very peaceful here although there is a marked increase in security in the streets of Erbil/Hawler. This is a very low-key trip for me, and I would be hard pressed to explain what I have "done" in the past seven days: [...]
Circles
8/27/04 9pm Amtrak Train enroute Vancouver-Seattle What is it about circles that are so irresistible? To return from a trip the same way you came seems like a failure of imagination. Even better if you can vary the mode of transport as well as the route and pickup multiple destinations for at least a figurative [...]
