Category: In Retrospect

Yet some more photos from 2,000, taken in Skagway, Alaska. I think Skagway was my favorite of the whole trip, just because it was so much smaller, and we got a chance to get away from the other tourists. We’ve not been on a cruise since, and doubt that we will, if only because hanging out witn 2,000 other tourists doesn’t let you see that much of the way things really are.

And, after a long patch of not taking pictures on August 25, here are two taken while we’ve been in Glasgow. These aren’t from the same year – the orchids were in 2009, and the sweet-potato bread from 2008. Funny to think that we’ve already been in this current flat for a whole year, and, despite its foibles, we really do like it here.

-D

Two years ago at this time, we were just finishing our time in Tallinn, Estonia. It was a rainy day there, so there weren’t too many pictures taken, as visibility was poor. We took a tour bus around the town, listening to the commentary until we got tired of being slightly damp. We’d just finished our first full year in Glasgow, and were enjoying a bit of a break in the midst of D. writing his Master’s dissertation / thesis. We loved the red-tiled roofs, and the mixture of old Europe with modernity we found in Estonia. We also enjoyed seeing a different ethnicity and realizing that, yes, Estonians are a different ethnic group, despite being fair of skin and hair. For Americans, it was a big difference; that’s just now how it is in Ye Olde melting-pot of the U.S., and it’s rare to see such a strong set of features repeated across such a large group.

Last year at this time, we were just wrapping up our trip to Oban and Mull. It was, again, a rainy day, yet we’d enjoyed some glorious days of absolutely stunning sunshine and marvelous company. We weren’t quite ready for the return to rain, but we at least felt that we’d gotten a decent amount of sunshine, and had experienced a taste of The Islands.

This summer as D. buckles down for this last year of the PhD – data analysis, writing, rewriting, more reading, and more writing – we’re thinking back on our time, here in Scotland, wondering where we’d like to end up. We really have no idea what doors will open, so we’re trying not to hope we’ll end up anywhere in particular … but we’re sort-of looking around, saying, “where have we enjoyed being?”

Just about everybody we know or meet asks us whether we’ll be going “back home” when this is done. We think … we think we’re still up for an adventure, but perhaps one which doesn’t include quite so much rain, nor quite so much cold, nor quite so much darkness. On the other hand, we’re also told that one gets used to the snow: our Norwegian friend claims that, “they know how to deal with the snow, there!” And with full-spectrum bulbs in just about every room of the house … well, we’ve come to deal with the darkness, if not the rain or snow.

And the Norwegians believe in hot tubs. And saunas.

So, where will it be? Probably nowhere which has bagpipe bands practicing in the firehouse, due to rain. But possibly somewhere just as small, and quaint, and quiet. Or not.

-D & T

June 7, 2009 found us back in Glasgow, wondering why we’d only bought a single book of postcards from the Castello del Buonconsiglio, in Trento (on June 3). Such a fabulous castle, and we only bought a single book of postcards (which we still have, being greedy that way). Rather than send the postcards out and lose them, we planned to photograph them and turn them into our own postcards (via Moo.com). We still haven’t done so. Perhaps it’s time to make some postcards again?

When we first came to Glasgow we sent out postcard after postcard, trying to stay in touch with people back home. We’ve stopped, though, for some reason. Probably because we’ve run out of postcards, for one thing, but … somehow, it just doesn’t seem necessary: we connect with people via email and skype, and have somewhat adapted to living away from home. I miss the postcards, though, if only because they’re such a personal thing – they’re a reaching out in a very tangible way to someone far off, saying that they’re important enough to compose something in ink, on paper.

Expect a postcard, people. Moo.com will be sending us a package soon, and then we’ll be dangerous.

-D

In 2000, we were beginning our second summer in Santa Rosa. We’d not really gardened the first summer (we had a pool – we swam a lot). This summer, though, we began to garden in earnest, renting the big rototiller, having soil amendment brought in by the truckload, and … growing things. Santa Rosa was truly home: we stayed in that house for close on 4 years, and only moved out because the landlord was an idiot and divorced his wife, so had to move back in (the jerk). Just when we’d gotten the soil right, too!

In 2003, we were still living in the same house, in Santa Rosa, and I was getting ready to graduate from USF with my first Master’s degree. USF was a truly fabulous school. I’m glad to hear that they’re incorporating their “professional studies” back into the business school, rather than having it as its own college: it being “professional studies” meant that I couldn’t get into a PhD program, so had to go after a second master’s degree, one which was “academic” rather than “professional.” A word of warning to anybody out there who thinks they can do a degree in the evenings, or online, or what have you: that degree may be a stopping point in your education, because “academia” doesn’t see those kinds of degrees as being proper degrees. They’re just learning a skill. They may as well be tradesmen certifications.

Ahh, 2008. We’d been away for 9 months, and were very eager to get back to California (we’d forgotten the heat). We saved £50 on our tickets by flying through Minneapolis. It wasn’t worth it, as we had to wait an extra three or four hours because of the rain in Minneapolis (they won’t let anybody out onto the runway if there’s been a lightning strike within the past half-hour … and we saw several huge strikes). A couple we talked to (waiting at the same gate) were off to a Neurology conference. Their luggage was abandoned upon the tarmacadam, just outside of the paltry shelter offered by the jet’s wing. They were wearing very casual clothes for their travel, and doubted that they’d be able to do any better, as their luggage was not waterproof. Gotta love mass transportation.

And, again, more pictures from the Dolomites, from 2009. We stopped on the way down the mountain (oh, the mountain) to take a few pictures of the local graveyard. There were some marvelous headstones (yes, we’re strange like that). We spent the day in Bolzano, just wandering around, enjoying the place. I think we may have gone to coffee there, and been confounded by the idea of putting a credit card into the garage exit-machine. We don’t drive, in Glasgow, and … well, let’s just say that Europe is mad for automatic things. In California? Well, they’d have an attendant. In Bolzano, you just put your card into the little pillar and it charges you. No need for a person to sit around, and all that’s required is that you understand the system.

So many of our travel experiences have been about learning the way that locals do things. I wonder: what do people find strange and intimidating about the USA? So many of the things that we’re accustomed to seem to change from country to country, I wonder what it’s like for others. Do they understand the “exit” sign, rather than seeing the “little green man” everywhere? Are they confused at having to actually interact with a person to get out of a parking garage?

-D

Once upon a time, in 2007, we were the kind of people who gardened. Boy, those were the days… we broke up the monotony of rainy winter mornings, having a good Sunday morning sit-down with a seed catalog and a cup of tea. Every year we got a kick out of planting something we hadn’t before — gorgeous yellow and brown pollen-less sunflowers, amaranth, garbanzo beans, and this one particular year, birdhouse gourds.

They were wildly successful… to the point where we were machete-hacking the vines back. They took over EVERYTHING! And they were a gorgeous, strong vine… and the sap just REEKED. It was horrible — they got their revenge for being cut back. We finally stopped trying to cut them back and simply re-routed them and strung them up — and stopped watering them. They dried out in late October, and we picked the gourds, most of which were slightly discolored by sun and dirt, and heavy. Thanks to the usual last blisteringly hot dog days of summer, a few weeks of curing them on the back porch was all it took to dry them out. They were hollow — still weird smelling — and ready for the next step.

D.’s power tools, which he sold before we moved, were quite handy for the finishing process. Gourds aren’t the lovely smooth things they appear to be in their final incarnation — they have warty exteriors, and they took a wire brush, two grades of sandpaper, and a lot of time to get them smooth and ready to be painted. We had a great time making posh birdhouses, though. The only drawback to these beautiful things is that they are fragile; a windstorm utterly destroyed one of them (the green one – the purple one is still with us) just a few weeks after it was made.

Like Buddhist sand sculptures, things you make out of natural materials are transient; someday we’ll again plant gourds (far, far, FAR away from everything else) and try again.

Did you know American pumpernickel bread has cocoa or coffee in it? We didn’t, either, until this bread recipe. We made it the German way… with rye and caraway, and a sourdough starter. It was dense and sourish, and probably genuine, but didn’t find as many fans among our bread tasters as it could have had.

2008, and we’d just moved into our tidy little church flat. We had more pillows than we knew what to do with, and ended up piling them on the guest bed. I think we piled them on the couch first to count them.

We were truly prepared to love that flat and stay there forever — even with its cramped, weirdly laid out kitchen, its dim lighting, privacy-free loft bedrooms – and with the hourly vibrating growl of the city lightrail going under the house, (which started at 5:30 a.m.). It was charmingly imperfect, and it was close to the library — what more could we want?

A lot more, it turns out. We probably stayed so long simply because it was a church. Someday, perhaps we’ll find a sanctuary in which to live without obnoxious neighbors in the basement…

Hard to believe that this time last summer we were zipping through the Italian countryside, scaring roosters (actually, more like being STALKED by roosters; that dude had spurs and looked like he wasn’t afraid to use them), stopping in random towns and riding trams up mountainsides to discover tucked-away restaurants and wonderful views, and carefully deciphering Italian signs to buy candy (and still managing to come away with some TRULY NASTY stuff). The marzipan “rock” candy was a particular favorite.

And this year, June 4 – we have guests coming soon, dental appointments (aargh!), and T’s last Little has moved beyond junior high and is now a rising freshman. Congratulations, JC!

-T

Ahh, 2007. We arrived in Glasgow, and settled into a shiny, clean flat. As to this being June: I think something was amiss with the photo scanner, because we didn’t really get here for another few months. I was still shooting film back then, so am not responsible for that.

In any event, the flat was beautiful, yet remote from school and any place to go grocery shopping. We enjoyed it for awhile, but are much happier to be away from it. 2007 really was a rough year of transition, for us.

2008: the first sign of the heater evil. We were so traumatized by the whole incident with the boiler in our Angel Building flat. Carbon monoxide, endless workmen, no central heat. When we first found out about the issue, the gas man told us to just leave. He said that it’d take months to resolve. We couldn’t believe him. Oh, woe. Months without heat later, we finally gave up.

In 2009, though, we were happily ensconced in a new flat, and were off to the Dolomites for a vacation. For those of you who don’t know us very well, you have to understand: we usually drag someone else along. This is probably part of our upbringing (well, my upbringing), and has to do with vacations being learning experiences, carried out in a large group (3 siblings, here). So, it was an odd thing for us, going off somewhere by ourselves, just … seeing things, going where we wanted, and not being obligated to be anywhere for any reason.

-D

It’s time for another In Retrospect post, a “remember-what-we-were-doing-then” type of thing that serves to remind us of where we’ve been, and how far we’ve come (or gone, as the case may be). We’ve traveled far in the past ten or eleven years – in retrospect:

Taken June 1, 1999. We’d made our way out to Rouge et Noir, on the Marin coast. We loved to visit them because of their wonderful cheese factory, where, if you were lucky, you could watch them making Brie and Camembert. The factory had been around since 1865, out there in the wilds of Marin. Sometimes we’d visit just to sit on the benches and look at the ducks, other times we’d buy some cheese and a loaf of bread, and carry away the makings of our picnic further up along the coast.

4 years later, June 1, 2003, found us at the University of San Francisco to pick up D’s graduation gown. We took the opportunity of the emptiness of the cathedral to stop and take a few pictures. There’s a certain loveliness to this vast old space, isn’t there? D. didn’t have a tripod back then. Or, at least, he wasn’t dragging it everywhere as he does now. *Ahem.*

D. had finished his first Master’s degree (or would within the month), and we were so relieved to have the long slog be over. If only we’d known! Although he did apply to a few programs before and after graduating from USF, it was to take us another four years to finally get D. back into school, and this time to stay on for the PhD!

Another 4 years go by, to find us at June 1, 2007. We woke up early to take pictures of the sunrise and to get to the garden well before the blasting heat of June in California. T.’s little succulent, rescued from a “refrigerator pot” (some idiot had decided that a plant would look good stuck to a refrigerator, so glued it into a pot – yes, glued, soil and all) had sent up its first wee flower. We’d never seen it flower, and didn’t really know when we would again: D. had applied to Glasgow, and we were waiting to see whether anything would come of it.

Just a year later found us moving into our second flat, here in Glasgow. D. had already committed to doing the PhD, and we moved into what we hoped would be a better flat. Regular readers well know it didn’t turn out that way, but we loved it anyway, if only for its stained-glass windows. The neighbor with the six food speakers, the boiler troubles that left us without central heating or hot water for three months, the darkness … well, how could we have known?

And, finally, June 1 last year found us in the Dolomite Mountains of Italy, taking a tram up the side of the mountain near Bolzano to eat … well, food which was more Austrian than Italian. It was a wonderfully stormy trip, with lots of rain and wild wind, yet not too chilly, either. The sky above the Dolomites was nearly as dramatic as that above Glasgow, and we truly enjoyed the trip, for all that it was a strange place to people unfamiliar with Northern Italy. In the old stone castles, in the sun-drenched town squares, over cups of thick hot chocolate and overlooking miles of vineyards, it was blessedly peaceful: the perfect antidote for deadlines and hurry.

Who knows what we’ll do today? Happy June.

On May 20, all we seem to have is the year 2008. How distinctly odd! Well … D. wasn’t always snapping away with hundreds of photos a day. Sometimes he must have had to study or something. Maybe look for a new flat? On May 20, two years ago, we found what we thought would be a wonderful flat. It was in a converted church which had for years been a bookstore. Or had stored books. Or something. In any event, the place still had the stained glass windows, and it looked clean, and was quiet.

This was such a change from the Cranston Street flat that we leapt at the offer. We were so wrong about the silence, it’s not even funny. Not to be bitter about it all, but … well, if you don’t own your flat in the UK, you don’t really have much leverage when it comes to getting people to shut up.

Our neighbor downstairs was “studying to be a sound engineer,” which meant that he had massive speakers in his living room and would start to party when his girlfriend got home from working at the pub. So, come 4 a.m. and the party would start, the speakers would rock … and we’d call the police. They’d tell us to call some other public office, who would come out and measure the level of noise. They’d then ask – every single time – if we were the owners of the flat. When we said that, no, we were only renting, they’d apologize and say that there was nothing they could do.

Owning property makes you something special in the UK. So much for feudalism.

Yes, it’s the end of the (school) year, so the “in retrospect” posts are coming fast and furious as things wind up (and as D. gets tired of carrying about all the camera gear as well as his laptop). Today, here, D. is off to have his “end of year review,” wherein he has to give a presentation & then accept criticism about what he’s done this entire year. He considers it a prelude to the “viva” examination next year, but with a time limit (thankfully).

So, 3 years ago we didn’t know that we’d be selling everything we owned to leave the country. We were happily baking olive bread (some of which D. baked just last week), having a new heater installed in the flat (we only wish that a new boiler would be installed in this flat, rather than us having to reset the thing periodically – so much for that wooden spoon). We were settling into our condo in Benicia, California. We’d planted our amaryllis in a wonderfully large pot outside the front door, we had replaced all of the floors, we’d removed the asbestos (!!!) from the heating system, and were seriously preparing to stay indefinitely.

So. What changed?

Well … we threw it all away. We packed our things into 225 cubic feet of shipping space, selling everything else. We sold or gave it all away, packing away certain beloved things (teddy bears, pillows, kitchen implements – you know) to be shipped overseas, to the land of the Scots.

It hasn’t made a difference to our lives, really. What, you say? Well, what did we do before we left?! T. wrote books – and still does – and D. did some computer programming and whatever else took his fancy. Now we’re settled onto … the same things, except that “whatever else took his fancy” is carried away with “doing a PhD.”

Except that, well, it really has changed our lives. We live in a completely different world over here. It’s been enlightening.