venice for the first time

sparkles in the water. sunshine. a winding maze of streets. earthy tones, laundry on lines hanging overhead. gondolas. glass. coffee. pasta. buffalo mozzarella. bacalao. art, architecture. canals. dead ends. did i mention the sunshine?

venice is spellbinding in its beauty. it's been there so long, you feel it resting in itself, rather oblivious to the hordes of tourists. and yet still overrun by them. there's no escape really. i myself was acutely aware of the excess noise my suitcase made as i wheeled through the ancient pavement towards my hotel. i wanted to be quieter, more gentle than that. to step lightly, and i did, after stowing my bag at the hotel.

once again, i had that sense of awe in the face of the first time. this was it - my one and only first time visiting venice. i may go back, but that will be with this experience under my belt. i'll never see it again as a venice virgin. i'll never feel the duality of the weight and the lightness of that experience again in exactly the same way. and i did my best to be conscious of it. to look around, observe, enjoy, savor, bask. there is so much beauty, so much history, so much awesome coffee. i tried to just take it all in and just BE in it, no filtering, and no processing, just enjoying. i think that for a change, i was able to do that.

and on that cloudless autumn day, venice must have been at her very best and it made me feel that i was too.  what an amazing experience it was.

changes in attitude, changes in latitude

it's kind of ironic that those who most love to travel and experience the world can be the most closed and protectionist of their personal tribe once they get back home. i wonder why that is? i've been thinking about it all day and i can't come up with an answer.

a magical toy shop in berlin

back in september in berlin, just a couple of doors down from the apartment where we stayed, there was a magical little toy shop.  it was stuffed from floor to ceiling with toys new and old. in the back was a bearded man who sat in a lair repairing toys. he was surrounded by drawers of supplies - eyes, little screws, small wheels, any bit or bob that a toy might need. did you get that? someone was repairing toys? instead of throwing them away! isn't that magical?

the proprietor was a real toy geek. he was intense in that way that only a geek who really burns for his particular geekdom can be. he was such a geek in fact, that i suspect he lived in the back of the shop. and he seemed harmless enough, tho' when he tried to usher us into the basement through an alice-sized tiny door to ostensibly see his collection of east german toys, he did seem slightly less harmless.  we declined.

my favorite bit was his wide selection of little tin replicas of the old-fashioned mechanical toys. i bought several robots and this magical little ferris wheel. it has a key that you wind and then it turns around.

it was the kind of store that gives you hope for the world. hope that it won't all be taken over by the giants - toys r us, wal-mart and the like - hope that there is a place still left in the world for magic. and wonder. and a bit of geekiness. and where they repair toys instead of throwing them out. but maybe that's just berlin.

philippine dreaming

late afternoon sun shone on my jar of shells and coral gathered over the years on various philippine beaches. my little pieces of a tropical paradise, right here in the low-ceiling-ed living room of our old farmhouse in denmark. i'm sad to say that it's been two years since i've been in the philippines. but next sunday, i will remedy that. make that monday, as it takes awhile to get there. i really need a change of scenery and manila is just the place. old friends, good food and a bit of shopping squeezed in between a few meetings here and there. i. can't. wait!

if passports could talk

yesterday, in the flickr group, kristine had a shot of her passport and used it to tell the story of how she was soon moving on to her next assignment. i didn't have any idea what i was going to do for my photo, so i did one of those tribute shots, as they're called when you blatantly copy what someone did and give them credit. i located my old passport and my current one and, as can often be the case with these daily photos, took a little trip down memory lane.

old on the left, current on the right

my passports are fatter than your usual passport. and that's because both of them have had pages added to them. twice. you'll also notice that my old passport was green. it was my first one and i didn't know that most americans have a blue one. i was "lucky" and got the green one during a very small window when they issued ben franklin commemorative passports. it's actually thanks to benjamin franklin that we all have passports at all, as it was his idea. the unusual green passport caused me no end of grief when i was traveling a lot in the balkans in the late 90s. border guards constantly questioned its authenticity and one guard at the turkish-greek border actually said, "green passport, very bad, very bad," and made a slicing motion across his neck. i was quite alarmed, but the conversation stopped there as that was apparently the extent of his english and my turkish was nonexistent. i've survived to tell the tale, so i guess it wasn't really very bad. and i never did ever meet anyone else with a green one.

as an american, you get stamped everywhere you go and you often need visas. the first passport filled up because the macedonian visa took a whole page every time and i had to have a new one if i popped down to thessaloniki for a weekend or up to belgrade for a coffee. it was early days after macedonia found themselves, rather to their surprise, with their own country, and it took them awhile to realize they could issue multiple-entry visas. i eventually got one of those, but not before they had used up ten pages of my passport.

a number of countries - china and india come to mind - think nothing of taking up an entire page of your passport for the visa. and the visas are elaborately colorful and often feature shiny holograms. i guess they want you to feel you got your money's worth. on the bright side, they're usually good for a least six months, so you don't need a new one should you be sent those places again.  i did use up two whole pages on indian visas, as i had to go there frequently enough that one expired and i needed another. (audible sigh.)

the bulk of my travel occurred during the bush administration and i clearly remember standing in lines at passport control, concealing my passport, as i felt a little sheepish about being american during those years. i happened to be in the philippines when obama was elected and i very clearly remember the sense of relief (tho' bush was still president) when i realized that i no longer had to hide my passport while i stood in line. on that occasion, people in line saw it and several actually smiled and gave me a thumbs up. with the incomprehensible debacle of health care reform (who would seriously not want to limit the influence of insurance companies on their personal health?) going on in the US right now, i'm not sure i wouldn't actually begin to conceal my passport again if i were queuing today.

many of the pages are covered in stamps that say "københavn" because i get stamped every time i come back into the country if it's not from scandinavia or the schengen countries. it tapered off because eventually, i knew all of the guys at passport control and convinced them to not to stamp me every time.

i've loved the travel opportunities i've had through my various jobs. the job i'm starting in april will not have so many travel opportunities, but i've been thinking about it and i'm really ok with that. looking at all of these stamps exhausts me a little bit. when i see the dates for the convoluted trip i took from copenhagen to singapore to heathrow to gatwick to budapest to constanza and back to copenhagen in one crazy week, it makes me tired. i hope companies today are using the possibilities afforded by electronic meeting software, rather than sending someone to give a 30 minute presentation in singapore on monday and the same one in romania on wednesday. i remember thinking it was all very exciting at the time (tho' having to switch from heathrow to gatwick was madness and an example of how bad the travel agent was). but today, i wouldn't even want to do it. and i would probably have the good sense to say no, but in those days (sounds like long ago, but it's not even three years ago), i actually quite liked it and of course, felt i had to do all of the things that were asked of me.

these stamps document for me how far i've come not just literally, but metaphorically as well. i think i've learned to say no to such madness today. and i hope that one good thing to come out of economic crisis is that employees aren't asked to do trips like that these days, because companies think twice before spending 40,000 ($7,300) kroner on such a ticket. i'm going to lose my gold status on both SAS and KLM here in the next couple of months. and tho' there was a time, not so long ago, when that would have panicked me, i'm resting quite easily in the knowledge. the world is changing and times are changing and it's no longer environmentally defensible to pop over to london for lunch or take a private plane back from newcastle like we did in the mid-noughties. i loved those times and am grateful for all the places i've been, but i'm quite ready to stay a bit closer to home for awhile. and besides, taking the train down through europe is quite romantic.

dreams of istanbul

i wander the house, camera in hand, looking for something to photograph as my photo of the day. today, the light seemed good, so i tried for the umpteenth time to photograph the beautiful little turkish shadow puppet i bought last autumn when i was in istanbul. today, i finally got a shot i liked. one that seemed to show the luminescence of the painted leather of which the puppet is made.

i love this aspect of the 365 project, tho' i will admit i'm otherwise in the throes of a february malaise at the moment. but, the fact of the need to find something to photograph every day at times takes me on a pleasant trip down memory lane. in fact, i was quite transported by this one.

i didn't have much time in istanbul last autumn, but at nearly 10 p.m. on the one evening i had, i was wandering the streets and i happened upon a used book market near taxsim square. one of the stalls was selling these shadow puppets. i must have been so caught up in talking to the artist who made them that i didn't take any photos of the stall itself. he told me about the plays which feature characters named karagöz and hacivat. the figures are stock caricatures, but of the type that say something amusing and true about those they depict - albanians, armenians, jews, greeks, turks from anatolia and turks from instanbul. i wanted to buy a whole set of the puppets, they were so beautiful, but i settled for the one with the boat. it's from a traditional story in which karagöz and hacivat are kicked out by their wives and take a job ferrying across the bosporus.  i'll admit i was just charmed by the boat. you can read more about the turkish shadow plays here. this website is run by the artist who i bought my puppet from.

i was charmed by other sights at that market as well...

i bought a book there on ottoman navigational charts, but i'll have to save that one for another day. i'm certain to be lacking something to photograph again in the near future. but for now, i'll just go on dreaming of istanbul.

last visits

"we own time, but time also owns us."

i will miss the poetry on the streets of oslo.

sometimes when you leave a place, you know it's your last visit, at least for the foreseeable future. when i left oslo a week or so ago, it was with a light heart for that fact. i'd enjoyed the city for nearly two years, but commuting via plane will wear you down. especially if you don't get what you need from those around you when you're there - intellectual stimulation, exciting tasks, being included, being consulted on areas of your expertise, drawing on your knowledge and network, positivity towards your ideas (for which they claimed to hire you), managerial support, belief that you are capable of your job despite your gender, i could go on, but i think you get the idea. so leaving oslo, i felt happy that it would be the last time i would be there, at least for the foreseeable future. sometimes life is like that.

but other places, you don't realize that you won't be back anytime soon. like the philippines. i've been there 16 times since december 2004. so it feels really strange that i didn't go there at all in 2009. and i find myself really longing for it. it feels like something has been missing in this year (singapore was NOT close enough and is definitely NOT the same) because i haven't been there. it makes me wonder whether i enjoyed it enough when i was there last november. did i realize that it might be the only time i ever buy a fresh coconut from a young boy who paddled up on his coconut-laden surfboard? did i fully appreciate the uniqueness of that experience at the moment i had it?

and although i returned to manila many times after my visit there in september 2005 with husband and sabin, did i appreciate how great it was to be there together with them? and did i realize it might not happen again? i don't think so. tho' i loved the experience, i didn't place anything extra in it, thinking it might be a once-in-a-lifetime thing. i took for granted that we'd go again. and probably we will, so maybe this angsty feeling is for nothing. and maybe i just have this overwhelming sense of nostalgia  because i keep thinking of that house we looked at on sunday and how sadly frozen in time was.

i know one place that i didn't appreciate enough because i definitely didn't think it would be my last visit and that's Cape Town. of course, there's still a chance that i will go back there at some point, but when i was last there, i didn't realize it would be later rather than sooner.  i didn't realize how very long it would be before i was lounging at moyo at the spiers winery, chatting away on the phone and enjoying a fabulous glass of wine. sigh.

i worry a little bit that the world is changing so much with all of this talk of climate change and that long haul flights (except perhaps to the US), are largely behind me. and i'm changing too. i no longer want to have a job where i travel 150-200 days a year, where i'm away from my home and my family. i want something different from life now. i had great experiences, but maybe now they are just memories. memories of times i wonder if i appreciated enough.

of course, there are places that you hope you don't visit again, despite how colorful and amazing certain aspects of them were. like chennai. honestly, it's quite possibly the most uncharming place on the planet and if i never go back there, i'll be quite ok with that. phuket is another one of those for me. they can keep phuket. tho' i had a fantastic afternoon there, playing in the waves that had so cruelly killed so many less than a year before. it's one of those memories where i was conscious at the time that it was a wholly unique experience that could never be duplicated.

when we left singapore this past summer, husband was quite clear-eyed about it not bothering him at all if he never went back. i feel a bit that way too, since singapore is disneyland with nationhood. tho' if remain in shipping (which i wouldn't rule out), i will likely go there again. but i guess the whole point of these musings is that we never really know what the future holds and where it will take us.

the potato holiday

no real posts 'til sunday when we get home. we're on the kartoffelferie - potato holiday - the traditional autumn holiday that kids in denmark get from school because once upon a time they had to help gather the potato crop. now they don't do that so much, they get dragged around from one cultural experience to the next. today, i landed from istanbul and we headed off immediately for the wilds of jutland (that bit of denmark that's attached to germany). the ceramics exhibition at koldinghus was actually pretty cool. fantastic exhibition space that does that ultimate danish thing...combining old and new in a fresh, new way. tomorrow, the west coast.

and if i haven't been by to visit you lately, please forgive me. i'm on deadline at work and trying to sell the house and go to istanbul and then be on holiday and all.....but i haven't forgotten you and i'll be by soon!

in the meantime, another shot of the amazing light and the amazing space at koldinghus...

energetic istanbul

despite having only a little bit of time to wander and have a look around istanbul, i was overwhelmed by a sense that it had changed dramatically in the two years since i'd been here. there's a feeling in the air that turkey is a speeding, unstoppable train. i don't feel even a whiff of economic crisis in the air here.

in the cafés, which are full, everyone is sitting around with their trendy mini net PCs on the free wireless, sipping cups of sweet tea or strong coffee. there are very few women wearing muslim head scarves and those who are seem to be making a fashion statement rather than a religious one. although the pulse is undeniably exotic and byzantine, istanbul (or at least taxsim) feels decidedly modern and progressive and despite the occasional wail of the calls to prayer from the many mosques tucked here and there, it feels very secular.

the sounds and the pulse of the café-lined side streets are hard to convey in words. music pouring forth, the sound of voices, the sweet scent of the sheesha pipes, so many impressions hitting you at once, it can be almost overwhelming.

i have this feeling that turkey's desire to join the european union has given it an energy that feels unstoppable and dynamic. it feels to me like it would recharge the EU and give it a momentum that it seems to lack.

it's interesting how the ancient and the modern exist here side by side, giving a sort of dynamic tension that feels electric, vibrant and alive. even if you've only got a few hours, istanbul is worth the trip.

landed in istanbul

i just landed at my hotel in istanbul. it is late and it was dark and rainy as i came in (hence this picture from 2007), but istanbul is so full of impressions, i had to share a quick list, if only to capture them for myself...

~ turkish airlines is now a member of star(ve) alliance (think SAS, united, lufthansa, singapore airlines, thai), but yet there is a round of applause on landing and people get up immediately to take their stuff out of the overhead bins while the plane is still taxiing the runway and no one says anything.

~ the food was brilliant, even in premium economy on turkish airlines. and i feel a little weird saying that, but it really was good.

~ istanbul is changing and modernizing. i could see that already in the airport, but you can also see it in the shops and cars and the billboards. it gave the sense of an unstoppable force.

~ the visa on entry thing is a money-making scam. but you get a pretty stamp in your passport.

~ it's amazing to be speeding along a big multi-lane highway and it suddenly goes under the arches of a third century roman aqueduct.

~ even in the dark, through pouring rain, all lit up, the ayasofya will take your breath away.

~ the driver apparently thought i looked like i would adore turkish techno, as he had it blaring the whole way from the airport and kept offering to take me to discos.

~ being here, even in the dark and without really seeing anything but my hotel, makes me feel that the world isn't all exactly the same and that seems like a really good thing.

more tomorrow...

reflections on the blogosphere and real life

it's back to school time. back to work (tho' technically i was working in singapore last week). back to daily routines. and back to the airport - tho' today it's husband who is going (to north carolina, via chicago, oddly enough). me, i don't fly 'til friday, when i head for blog camp 1.5 in london.

looking back on the past month, i realize how busy it's been. i didn't really have time off, since i haven't officially earned any yet, so our small holidays were sneaked in here and there along with work. but we did manage to add three new starbucks mugs to our collection, so three new places were visited - KL, amsterdam and dublin. i didn't get a new singapore mug, tho' they had some that match this new series, because i already got singapore years ago. it's rather fun to have the style of the mug reflect the period in which you first visited the place. and i won't at all devote any reflection to the implications of the cultural imperialism of starbucks in places as different from one another as KL and dublin. me, i'm just grateful for a grande latte, loungey, comfortable seating below the herstal lamps and free wifi, wherever it's found.

* * *

over the past couple of weeks, where i have been largely away from the blogosphere (at least from the reading blogs side of it), i realized a few things. the blogosphere isn't as different from real life as i thought it was. there is lots of drama, catfighting, petty annoyances, pettier obsessions and women being hard on women (why do we do that to ourselves?). happily, that negativity is easier to avoid than in real life, since you can just stay away from the places where it's going on and there's no danger of actually running into someone you'd rather not run into. and there's so much goodness going on in the blogosphere--things to inspire, make you laugh, things to learn, things that make you think there is hope for the world--that it more than makes up for the negatives. maybe it's just normal that in cyberspace, as in real life, we make friends, keep some of them, grow apart from others, move on and make new friends. i'm not sure why i thought it was any different online than offline, but somehow i did.

* * *

and speaking of new friends, in singapore, i got together rather spontaneously for a quick drink with a blogger who i haven't known for that long...kim of measure of all things. kim is a south african who lives and works in singapore. she very good-naturedly allowed herself to be subjected to our questions about how on earth she can take living in the plastic world that is singapore. and she did confirm my suspicions that singapore is a great place to be an ex-pat. it's safe, clean, it functions very well and there are cheap flights to more exotic, real destinations in the region. i still have half a mind to spend some time there working at some point. it is difficult for me to imagine being from cape town tho' and wanting to be anywhere but there, but on the other hand, i do love a good adventure, so it was great fun to meet kim. and for that opportunity, i am very grateful to the blogosphere. and if you really want to both crochet and be really inspired in a really brainy, deep way, you must read kim's latest blog post. and take the time to watch the video. it's blow-you-away amazing.

* * *

this time of year, as summer transitions to fall, i always feel reflective. and i think that transition is an apt word. also here in the blogosphere. when i look back a year, things have changed a great deal. that's partially due to BoN, but i think it's more natural and organic than that. i think that here in cyberspace as in life, we make transitions. new interests that we write about bring new readers and we make new friends. some of the old friends drift away because at the same time, they have moved to different interests and have new readers and new friends on their own blogs. some blog friends endure and sadly, some do not. some go to a place that you simply can't follow. but the beauty and wonder of it to me is that there are always new blogs to discover, new connections to make. and i've noticed that i have a lot of new people leaving comments and i'm really happy for the discoveries of new blogs and new perspectives that gives me. this is not to say that i don't love comments from the old crowd too--i'm just trying to say that i love the expanding sense of community. so thank you ALL for your comments, they're wonderful.

i have found some really good friends here in this bloggy world. and i've drifted away from others. but there are a few, that although we've drifted apart, i know our relationship would prove to be cat love and at some point, something will again strike a chord and we'll be back to our wonderful, deep level of friendship that we had developed. because in some sense we do get to know one another quite well here, don't we? the medium of the blog is very personal and diaristic at times (sometimes nauseatingly so, admittedly). we simply reveal so much of ourselves through our words and pictures, even if those pictures don't necessarily show us. the things we choose to share (or not share) speak volumes and in many ways, we are laid bare for all to see.

maybe that's why failed friendships in the blogosphere hurt as much as they do. we've revealed ourselves, left ourselves vulnerable and open. and when we're rejected or worse, ignored, it hurts that much more. or maybe i'm being too deep and philosophical - forgive me, it's a rainy monday - maybe real life simply intervenes and it's so much more compelling than online life that people just drift away. or maybe it's just that sometimes you feel all vibrant and sometimes you feel like earth tones, so as i said, more natural and organic than anything else.

* * *

at the end of the week, i'll go to blog camp 1.5 at Bee's house in england. Bee is one of several soul sisters i've found in this bloggy world. she and i are the same age, we both married a european man and uprooted ourselves from the land of our birth. we both abandoned Ph.D. studies before the dissertation stage. she has daughters and so do i. strangely enough, we even have an LNG thing in common. i feel i already know her so well and i know that from the minute i see her this weekend, we'll be completely at ease together and we won't even come close to running out of things to talk about. i have that wonderful feeling of anticipation of meeting her. the one where you want to capture that first time moment because you only have a first time once and you want to treasure it so you can mull it over later.

so i'm really looking forward to the bloggy world and the real world converging once again this coming weekend when B, polly, seaside girl, kristina, spudballoo and me get together at bee's house. and i'm certain that i will not be disappointed.

looks like we made it

i'll admit it was touch and go for a little bit there in amsterdam. nerves were wearing thin after 10 days of non-stop togetherness and 12 hours cramped together on the plane. there was a bit of snapping. and husband showed himself to be rather prissily annoyingly danish rule-oriented and admonished me for taking the next picture, snarking, "you know it's illegal to take photographs in an airport," in a neah-neah-i-hope-they-haul-you-away-and-we-never-see-you-again voice.

but i think it turned out pretty well, despite what he said. morning sunshine on a shiny, clean plane that's just waiting to take you home is a lovely sight indeed.

then just to be defiant of husband and his grown-up rules and stuff, i took this shot of the pilot's feet as he went by.

and nobody said a word to me about taking pictures. legal or not. so neah-neah yourself, husband. yup, i can be very mature.

then we got home at last and the day is completely glorious and the garden is beautiful (if fading a little, with hints of autumn here and there) and that (and a shower) made things better. as did hanging out in the garden with a book, relaxing and getting acquainted with little guys like this one...i think he's a moth, not a butterfly, but he's pretty anyway.

and soon, there will be cold white wine and charcoals starting up and yummy tarragon mustard potato salad and grilled ribs. and all that long journey will prove to have been worth it if only because it makes us appreciate home.

will be back soon with many of the impressions and stories i've been collecting over the past week or so...in the meantime, happy weekend!

EDIT: i have since looked into the question of legality of taking photos in airports...it seems that it varies by airport and some (like AMS) actually have areas where they allow/encourage it. however, where they generally don't encourage it is at security, so do be careful when photographing in airports! the photos i took were probably quite ok, since there's no security facilities in sight, tho' they might have objected to the detail of the activity around the plane itself in the shot of the plane being loaded at the gate.

stars in my eyes

here's what i got to see of kuala lumpur today. i spent the whole day in this building that's covered in these starlike thingies. so the entirety of what i saw of KL (other than the airport, which for reasons unfathomable to me, claims to be the world's favorite (just not sure what world)) was through this starry lens...

look, it's the petronas towers!

and some kind of tower thingie that's even taller (i'm really tuned into the sights of KL, eh?)

the architecture was all over the place

but it looked charming from the 17th floor.

entire building covered in this stuff.

and strangely, the main entrance was through the car park.

i think they may have blinded the architect BEFORE he built it.

more tomorrow....
wishing you an adventure-filled weekend.
wherever you are.

sights and well, sights...

several things about the journey. long layover in amsterdam due to optimization of ticket prices. happily, we decided to take the train to amsterdam and walk around. it was a beautiful day and that was wonderful. and no doubt fortified us for the horrendously long flight ahead. because it is a horrendously long flight. and there is a world of difference between monkey and business class (which i will regale you with tales of another day, when i don't have to get up early and fly to kuala lumpur for the day). in the meantime, here are some snapshots of the journey thus far...

totally adore these retro-painted SAS planes. SAS has class. too bad we flew KLM.

love those silver converse all-stars

mmm, frozen hazelnut coffee in (you guessed it) amsterdam

and little pancakes with lovely, tart lemony sauce.

worth the 7-hour layover alone.

playing drawing games in the sunshine.

an interminably long time later, cut to a japanese restaurant at clark quay, singapore

a fountain to play in and keep the sleepies at bay.
crocs are good for something, they can be wet.

and a couple of martinis for the folks.

plus a shirley temple for the pooka.

yes, that's outdoor air conditioning. indefensible.

sneaked a self-portrait in the fitting room of miss whatever while sabin tried on a dress.

gee, i don't look tired at all, do i?

keeping the jetlag at bay with a grande latte.

sorry, i just gotta do starbucks when i see it.

i adore this system of wooden clothespins used by the waitresses
at bi feng tang in the wisma food court.

also adore the sambal kung kang, but failed to photograph it.

will have to go back.

seen in the window of some telecom provider.

loved it.

and it seems like a good note to leave on...

see you soon...

p.s. blogger cutting off the right edge of my photos strangely and i don't have the energy to figure out why, so just know that i'm aware they're kinda cut off, but the originals aren't...i promise to fix it later.