10/12/2017

Bird Park December update

It can be confusing first thing in the morning determining just which peanut is the biggest and best and, while sleep is still in your eyes, it's hard picking up two or three nuts at a time, especially when other birds are fussing all around but it can be done. Today is our fourth morning home and the Bird Park is in full swing.

We've been gone for six months but, as usual, Maggie the 7 o'clock Magpie, showed up the first morning we were back. She's always got half an eye on the place. The little birds, doves and quail appeared a couple of days later. They are out there now pecking away at apples and seed. Today was the first time a whole tiding of magpies came. Grackles showed up about 20 minutes in. I hope they stick around after breakfast and chat awhile. Their conversations are enchanting. Oh and seems Rosie the skunk is still here. She woke me up two nights ago fighting with someone. She sprayed the hell out of them. I believe she may have taken up residence under the house in what was BoB's old place. The horrible neighbor cats may have gotten him but, by the smell of things, they won't be getting Rosie anytime soon. This will be interesting. We'll have to relocate her at some point, just not today.

The only guys I haven't seen yet are the crows. They're always the last to arrive. Very careful, the crows. Smart. We might not see them before we leave for Oregon on Wednesday but we'll be here this winter so, I'm sure at some point, they'll make an appearance as well as a hawk or two. They come to the valley for calving season but that's another story. The tiding is gone now but Maggie is still here. How do I know it's her? She's my girl, the fat one . . . first to arrive, last to go.

05/12/2017

Stewart Lee and good-bye

Leicester Square Theatre - London

Last night we saw Stewart Lee at Leicester Square Theatre. A wonderfully outrageous fellow, I've been wanting to see him perform live for a few years now so this was a real treat. Tomorrow we leave London for the US thus ending this odyssey which began in London last July.

Angels on Regent Street - London

03/12/2017

A Christmas reminder

🎄Pets aren't just for Christmas🎄

This one brought tears to my eyes. Luckily, it has a happy ending.

30/11/2017

Junction of the ages

Back from Africa and in London for the next week. I woke up dreaming about the animals again. Seeing them in their wild state was life changing. After a week in the bush, I was grateful to not see a giraffe or elephant in the game reserve just outside Johannesburg. The 4m electric fence separating it from the freeway, separating the Holocene from the Anthropocene, made the rift between the ages sadly all too clear.

14/11/2017

Moving on

Let's see. My last post was a month ago. Since then I tried writing something about our two weeks in Berlin but got bogged down so I'm moving on. After Germany, we spent a very cold week in very expensive Copenhagen then stayed two weeks in Egypt. Like Berlin, it was a shock and overload but of a different order. Since childhood, I've been fascinated by the mystery of Egypt, its pyramids, mummies, camels and cats. Being there only deepened the mystery. I also tasted Egypt's bitters. Maybe more about that later. Maybe more about Berlin later. This post is just an ice breaker because I backed myself into a corner trying to write about Germany and stopped posting altogether.

We are currently in Cape Town, South Africa and today we're going out with the hope of seeing some whales and penguins. Tomorrow, we'll try to catch up with a few of the native baboons that live here. If we do see any, I'll try to avoid their tricky ways. Seeing as monkeys manage to snatch things from my hands, I'm sure I'm no match for baboons. Also, haven't seen much of the night sky yet but I hope to get a good look at it before we leave this continent. Being that we're now (finally) in the Southern Hemisphere and a good distance from the equator, there should be constellations I've never seen before.

16/10/2017

Balkans good-bye


Brasov, Romania - Train to Budapest
Brasov, Romania -  train to Budapest

I didn't post much about our summer train tour of the Balkans while it was happening and now it's over. That's how life goes, isn't it? One day, you're just starting out and the next you're looking back. It all started last winter in Bangkok. M. Lee got the crazy idea we should check out Romania this summer by the most indirect, meandering, roundabout route he could devise and, well, that is what we did.

photo by M. Lee
Romania anytime in the last 1000 years
~photo by M. Lee~

We left London in July on the Eurostar and, to date, have taken 16 trains, one plane, one bus, lots of undergrounds and trams, rented one car, and walked hundreds of miles exploring some new-for-us old worlds in northern Italy, the Balkans, and now northern Europe. We're done with the train part of the journey now. It's hectic being so much on the move but it's been fun. Plus, we both love trains anyway, even Balkans trains which are pretty funky.

Swami viewing "Dracula's Castle" in Transylvania
Swami viewing "Dracula's castle" from afar

As M. put it, “comparing trains in the Balkans to the Eurostar is like comparing skateboards to rocket ships”. OK, an exaggeration but that's how it felt after being on a train averaging 25mph for 13 hours . . .  with no dining or café car, no vendor with water and snacks, and no toilet paper. However, experience has prepared us for days like this. We brought our own sandwiches, apples, cookies, water, and tissue.


The medieval town of Sighisoara - Romania
Vlad Dracul House, birthplace of Vlad the Impaler
in the medieval town of Sighisoara

But trains aside, seems M. really was inspired when he came up with this trip. Romania is a special place. Of course, Transylvania is in Romania so, yes, we drove out to the village of Bran to see "Dracula's Castle", a hot tourist spot in the Transylvania mountains. Its real name is Bran Castle and it was built by the Saxons at the end of the 13th century. Some claim it was Vlad the Impaler's (aka Vlad Dracul) castle during the 15th century and that Vlad Dracul was the inspiration for Bram Stoker's Dracula but the history is unclear. Whether Vlad Dracul ever lived at Bran Castle or Bram Stoker knew anything about him is up for debate.

Inside the walls of a medieval fortified church - Romania
Inside the 16 ft (5 m) walls of the fortified church in Prejmer
The town's people took refuge there when invaders attacked the village.

What is clear is that Vlad the Impaler was an all too real, brutal sadist, as well as a prince and wartime leader. For example, I read that when he was imprisoned he amused himself by torturing rats. And a Romanian fellow we met along the way was only too happy to tell us that, according to legend, knowing that the Ottoman army was approaching, Vlad Dracul personally impaled 1000 Ottoman soldiers and laid them out row by row as a way of greeting and that upon seeing the carnage, the army turned around and left. We only did a drive-by at "Dracula's Castle". The tour gets horrible reviews.

Outside the inner walls of Viscri,
a medieval church in Romania
~photo by M. Lee~

What we did do, and really loved, was exploring a few of Transylvania's amazing medieval fortified churches and villages. Romania has been an out of the way place for centuries which means many of its historical sites have survived intact to the present day.

Outer walls of a Viscri - a medieval fortified church - Romania
Outside the inner walls of Viscri,
a medieval church in Romania

Of its over 300+ fortified churches built between the 5th and 15th centuries, over 150 well-preserved sites remain and many are listed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. We rented a car just so we could visit a few. Also amazing is that we were free to wander around the 1000+ year-old churches on our own. Sometimes we even had the place to ourselves. That is positively as good as it gets.

Romania good-bye from the train

Balkans good-bye
~Horse, colt and wagon along the railroad tracks~

And Romania's countryside was the most pristine and beautiful I’ve ever seen. Shepherds and dogs still tend their flocks on the mostly open (no fences) gently rolling hills and horse and wagon are still a regular means of transportation. Now it has already been a month since we left Romania and the Balkans behind. I took this picture (Balkans good-bye") from the train the morning we left. As it has been since humans and horses first worked together, the colt is running along beside his mother as she and another horse pull the wagon. Romania, the land where time goes to get away from itself. 

Medieval Romanian castle in the countryside
Romanian countryside

So 15 cities and 12 countries later it's autumn. Though I haven't written much about it here, I took hundreds, maybe 1000s of photos along the way and even managed to post a few here, on Instagram and Flickr and will continue to. We've been in Berlin a week now and are leaving on the bus Saturday for Copenhagen and with that, this episode comes to an end. Next, Africa.

Asha in Vienna
Vienna, Austria