I have not always loved reading.  When I was little, I used to see letters backwards and flipped all around. Sounding out words was torture; I wouldn’t have minded though if my classmates hadn’t seemed to grasp it so easily.  They were off and reading in no time while I knew that I couldn’t read. I was successful at hiding it for a while though as I was good at memorizing so I would ask someone to read a book to me and then I would pretend to read it when someone asked me to do so.  They caught on though because sometimes I would “read” words that were on the following page before I got there.  

My mother and father read for several hours every single day, that is what they do for entertainment.  Aside from that, I grew up on a farm in a remote part of California in the 70s so there was no TV, no radio, no nothing except a bookmobile that used to drive all the way up our dirt road once a month.  Reading was what we did for fun so I muscled my way through the torture of sounding words out untill every single word was a sight word and I could read without struggling. Then I could enter all of those worlds that were so different than the desert that surrounded me.  I most vividly remember going to Narnia via war-torn England.  

Since then, I have traveled to many parts of the world physically, always with a book in hand. Join me as I take you on a literary journey across the globe.

​

The day I arrived in Colombia was the day Pablo Escobar escaped from prison.  He was on the run from house to house the entire year I was there. It was a violent time for this beautiful, diverse country but for me it was a year of discovery and learning.  As my Spanish became more fluent, my feet became more graceful on the dance floor. I met a presidential candidate and a hit man, I bathed in rivers and listened to a pilot from Texas try to land a plane in the dead of night in a remote area from the little radio near my bed.  I became confident in my ability to survive and travel and began to believe in my own sensuality. Living in Colombia was thrilling.

The Sound of Things Falling is a book that takes place in Colombia after I left, after Escobar had been shot down off a roof in Medellin, but I felt so many connections with the story.  The protagonist is a young American woman volunteering in Colombia just as I was, she too had a host family and fell in love. The difference was, she got married and stayed there while I left.  I learned so much about the Colombia that is growing out of all of those years of violence.

Lydia at Cluttered Genius

It is a glorious morning!! Why? Because I just lit a fire in the wood stove on the first try. I grew up in the country and plenty of fires have been lit around me, but it has never been my job to light any of them. On the rare occasion I have found myself having to light a fire, I have struggled. I know the principal ideas, make sure you stack the wood with the smallest pieces on the bottom and in such a way that the air can get through to provide that essential oxygen; they have just never sprung to life for me like they did for other people. This one did though and I am expecting to reap the benefits any minute. It is a grey, soggy day, as expected, so I thought a nice cozy fire to start off with might be nice, especially because the stores aren’t open yet. I can’t get any food or replace that charger cable for the phone. I guess it is more quality time for me and “Sexing the Cherry”. So far, no sex and no cherries have made appearances in the book but I am only 20 pages in so there is still time.

Mission Accomplished!
I braved the wet and found both a bank, so I could get some cash out, and a charger cable in the third store I tried. I then got one arm completely soaked because my umbrella is a bit to small. I couldn’t find a cafe that looked inviting so I just stopped by the little food market across the street and got stuff to make a Spanish breakfast, namely bread, cheese and chorizo.

I tried to take some pictures of the local castle that looks like it is out of Game of Thrones but the rain just wouldn’t let up so I just took pictures of raindrops on trees. ​

After making and eating breakfast with hot tea, I started eyeing the beautiful big bathtub. Spanish bathtubs are long, like lay down flat with your legs all the way out long. The hot water in our house has to run all the way through the walls from the balcony all the way past 3 rooms to the bathroom and since the pipes are not insulated, by the time the water gets to the bathroom it is luke warm in the winters. In the summers it is scalding hot of course, but right now when the temperature in our house seems to be in the 40s (you can see your breath) so a really hot bath would be amazing. 

Anyway, I had this beautiful bath tub right in front of me so I fired up the hot water heater and drew a bath so hot it took my breath away as I sunk into it. Then, properly warmed up, I got some blankets and snuggled up to read more of Sexing the Cherry. I had just gotten up the part where the hero of the story meets all of the 12 dancing princesses except the one he was looking for (Still no sex and no cherries), when my friend called and we had a nice long, uninterrupted chat. Well, actually it was uninterrupted on my side, she had to go when her kids got up. Just as we were wrapping up our conversation, the rain stopped so I strapped on my boots again and headed out to take some pictures of that castle. I was almost there when it started to rain again and it really started coming down. I was determined to get to that castle though so I did and got really wet. ​

T he small round scab on my elbow doesn’t look like much but every time I turn over in bed or put my elbows on the table I get a quick stab of remembrance. On Friday night while I was playing volleyball I dove for a ball and smacked it soundly on the floor. It is a small gift from my cousin Joy’s unicorn wedding; an event so wonderful and wild it will forever skew my idea of what a wedding is. 


It started a week before when her brother (also my cousin) arrived from Utah with his family. I got to meet his partner, her mother and their toddler. What a fun, open, honest and expressive group they made! After a few days at the house of a friend in the village, they moved into my living room and my house became a lively place full of tea and a toddlers love of early mornings.


Most weddings simply require guests to find an acceptably formal outfit and show up, but not this one. My cousin had requested unicorn shaped cookies and since my recent cookie making efforts had not strayed from the relatively easy drop variety, I had to practice. I found some unicorn cookie cutters and my daughter entered the kitchen to try her hand at it. Just by looking at the dough I could tell the flour to butter ratio was off but I didn’t want to state this issue too strongly, so after gently suggesting she add more flour and meeting with indignant resistance, I let the matter drop and let her give it a try. They puffed up to unrecognizable blobs on the tray and while they tasted fine, they simply were not going to cut it for unicorn-shaped. It was time to try again and my daughter deciding that she didn’t really have a deep interest in cookie-making, washed her hands of the task. She would later take up her interest again when it came time to decorate. Cookies can’t really be made that far ahead because they become stale, so that mean that the day before the wedding, a not insignificant number of hours were spent baking and the morning of was devoted to icing rainbow mains and tails.


In addition to cookies, we all had to make horns to adorn our heads. I thought it might be fun to throw a little horn-making party, so Nika and I spent a morning shopping for supplies and discovering the delights of the “chinos” in Granada. Somehow while thinking about this gathering, I failed to consider that lots of children and a hot glue gun might not be the best of combinations so after putting out lots of styrofoam cones, ribbons, felt and other festive frills, I spent the entire time holding the gun and doling out appropriately sized dabs of hot silicone trying my best to avoid scalding tiny fingers. At first I was fretting that I was not getting to make my own horn, but soon I just started enjoying how creative everyone else was being with their horns. Of course that meant that I had to take a break from icing cookies the next morning to make my own horn, but it was totally worth it.


Now, with all of my appointed tasks completed, I was ready to head up the hill to my cousin’s house for a strictly woman’s getting ready party. No men were allowed to see the magic that went into turning us all into sparkly unicorns and when my husband Kerem showed up to ask us for tape to put up the signs for directing people between the two venues, he was promptly chased out.

The getting ready took hours, a feat for me because my complete getting ready routine rarely exceeds 10 minutes. The more time we had, the more jewels and sparkles we felt like we needed to add to our faces and bodies. Glitter was running rampant as was colored hair spray and lipstick! Towards the end I looked down and realized my cleavage was totally naked so Alice promptly applied a galaxy of stars. 


Now that we were suitably transformed, we just had to wait for the bride to put on her dress, this took a while so people started bouncing.

Finally the moment had arrived and Joy emerged, she did not disappoint! The dress, swirled around her; she was all that a unicorn bride should be! And I felt a little ting of pride because I had found the dress and brought it to her.

K erem and I had found the dress in a crazy dungeon used-costume store in Istanbul that claimed to be the biggest used costume store in the world. I am not sure if that is true, but it was the biggest, most interesting one I have ever been in. The dress was hanging up somewhere near the front of the store and I snapped a picture of it and sent it to Joy just for a lark. Fortune was with us as I had just enough internet reception for it to send before I plunged deeper into the store. Joy happened to be between classes in Spain when it arrived on her phone and she loved it. She had just been talking about her dress with our friend in the village and she sent the picture on to her. They both loved it and sent me messages that I should defiantly buy it. I didn’t get the messages until I emerged from underground and got reception and my phone started dinging. I went back in to see how much the dress was, thinking it must be pretty cheap since the other dresses I had asked about were between 50 and 100 dollars. The sales woman said that this particular dress would set me back 1000 dollars, waaaay to much for our budget. I sent the disappointing news to Joy but thought that maybe they would have something else that might fit the budget. I told the lady all about Joy and why she needed a special dress. We headed for the wedding dress section but they were all too ordinary and then, seemingly for no reason at all, she offered to sell me the 1000 dollar dress for 150 dollars. Sold!! Now, I just had to figure out how to get this huge, heavy dress from Istanbul to Spain in our already overstuffed luggage. Luckily I know how to game the luggage weight system so it made it into my carry on no problem. 

We all walked to a meadow, locally known as “The Mandala” overlooking the lake and after horsing around for a few minutes, we lined up according to plan to enter the wedding which was to take place at the skate park. Why the skate park? Well, the bride and groom share a love of skating and she had been one of the principal organizers of getting the skate park built a little over a year ago. 


N ow, for some reason I decided that this was the perfect occasion to wear my heels. I had hardly worn them since I broke my leg almost 2 years ago and my leg had already started to protest when I realized that not only was the wedding at the skate bowl, it was in it! I was not prepared for this and I balked but everyone was looking and it was my turn to go in so I did my best but ended up on my butt sliding down trying to maintain my balance with my elbow thus creating that little circular scab. I righted myself and managed to get in line where I was supposed to be. 


The master of ceremonies gave a funny, moving and altogether entertaining lead up to the vows and the bride and groom kissed and then they mixed two kinds of alcohol, symbolizing the mixing of their lives or something and we all drank out of the cup. My first thought was, is this hygienic? But then I drank hoping that the mix of alcohol would kill any stray viruses.


The next challenge was to get out of the bowl. my husband  was worried and got into position to catch me but I got a running start and made it no problem. The newly married couple then skated around the bowl for a bit in their one and only dance as the rest of the wedding was spent in a whirlwind of socializing for both of them.

Just as I was getting mentally prepared for the 30 minute climb up to the next venue and changing my shoes to flats because my leg was simply not going to hold out with the heels, Kerem came trotting up to tell us we had been offered a ride. My daughter and I piled into the van but Kerem decided to walk because he likes walking. To each his own, I was more than happy to ride! 


The celebration was held in an old house with a huge terrace overlooking the village. Guests were treated to tacos and paella made by cooking artists, amazing wedding cakes, food brought by all of the guests and of course, my cookies. Sadly, I didn’t get any pictures of them because I totally forgot and my fingers were usually covered in sticky blue and pink frosting, something that is not allowed anywhere near my camera.

At about 10:30, just as I was getting my groove on after several homemade spicy ginger beers, the music was pumping, I was under the disco ball, and my daughter began tugging urgently at my sleeve. She was tired and wanted to go home. I resisted the urge to brush her off and continue dancing and took her home and helped her to bed. She was sorry about taking me away from the party but I assured her that I would be thanking her tomorrow when I didn’t have a hangover. Internally I was not thanking her but I have to be motherly sometimes and this seemed like the moment.


I n spite of eating and drinking too much, I did make it to the next day with no hangover. I headed back up the hill to help clean up with my husband and daughter but no one was cleaning up, instead, the party was still going. By then, the tequila with the ghost chili in it was making the rounds. My husband’s OCD side was taking over and he began to clean up the bottles and trash and organizing it into nice neat recycling piles. I couldn’t let him do that all by himself, so, between slugs of hot tequila straight out of the bottle, I pitched in and it was super satisfying. My cousin and his family had to go off to the airport so everyone said goodby and then I ate some more cake and went home again.

The next day it was raining in earnest when whatsapp notified me that the cleanup and a BBQ were happening so I donned a raincoat and went back off up the hill. My husband and daughter decided to stay put in their pajamas at home. We cleaned and ate a lot of that we were able to grill in the massive fireplace inside. Things were beginning to wind down but then the rain let up and a friend started to DJ with some great 80s music. So we all went back outside and started to dance again until the bride reminded us not to make any more mess because we were supposed to be cleaning up. Somehow everything did get cleaned up and I was one of the last to leave. The owner of the venue complained that the kitchen floor was not clean enough so Joy and I mopped it an extra two times in front of him just so he could see we did it. The place hadn’t been cleaned in years before we got there so I am pretty sure he just wanted to see us mopping but whatever, he seemed happy after it was done so all is good. 


I would like to say that this is when the party ended but no, it continued into the bars of Guejar for several more days until all of the wedding guests had to go back home and we were all able to sleep for several days.

When we moved from Los Angeles to a tiny town in the desert, I was too young for my parents to consult with so my opinion of the move went largely ignored.  As an adult, I understand why but as a child it seemed terribly unfair. When we drove through the nearest “city”, Bishop, and I remember my parents pointing it out. I didn’t understand where the city was, it only took 15 minutes to drive across from one end to the other and to my eyes, used to seeing only LA, it didn’t even register. Then they announced that that wasn’t even where we were going to live and they kept driving 45 more minutes before arriving at an unmarked sand drive that seemingly disappeared into the dessert, this is where we were going to live. It was hot, it was dry and it was absolutely devoid of human inhabitants, my heart sunk. What was I supposed to do out here in the land of endless sagebrush?

My parents however were enthusiastic and set about becoming a part of the community (it wasn't actually devoid of human inhabitants, it was just that the nearest one was over a mile away) and we soon began to explore the Inyo/Mono region of central California. We started by taking hikes around our new land but soon we were driving to attractions unheard of in the city of angels. One of my favorite places to go was Bodie Ghost Town, an abandoned mining community that once boasted around 10,000 citizens and around 6 killings a week.   Apparently it was what you think of when you think of the "wild west". To get there, we had to drive over what my brother and I called “the rollercoaster road”. It was a straight, little used, highway that would send our stomachs up over our heads in a series of ups and downs that were simultaneously thrilling and nauseating. We yelled for my father to go faster and faster absolutely ecstatic when our small bodies were lifted off of the bench seats of our wood-paneled station wagon. In these moments, our father was a hero, capable of making a boring drive into a trip to an amusement park and since safety was not exactly the prevailing concern of the mid-seventies, we were unrestrained by seatbelts or car seats.

Turning off the black top of the freeway, the road to Bodie was at that time unpaved. Our tires kicked up dust as we were rattled along an endless series of curves and straights to the ghost town. I am sure I must have peppered my parents with questions like “Why is it called a ghost town?” “Are there any actual ghosts there?” “What should we do if we see a ghost?”. My mother tells me that I asked so many questions when I was little, my aunt was shocked that she would bother to respond to them at all. She always did her best to answer though, even after I discovered that any answer can be followed up with “Why?”, such is her love of and respect for curiosity.

Finally we bounced into a bare patch that served as a parking lot and proceeded into the old mining town. There were houses, a church, a school and a huge processing plant towering above the town. We were alone most of the time as few bothered to drive all the way out there. We were free to enter abandoned houses, sit in old school desks, and imagine trying to sleep on the dusty, threadbare mattresses.

I especially loved the cemetery where old headstones gave the names, dates of birth and dates of death as well as sometimes providing a bit of information about who they were related too. I still remember a large granite angel hovering protectively over a particularly small grave with a little wooden fence around it. It was the grave of a child. I wondered why she died so young and if she wanted to go to the school I had just been exploring. Maybe she had brother or sisters who went there. She must have walked up and down those dusty streets with her mother before she ended up here on the hillside.

I don't have any photographs of the cemetery but I found some excellent ones here.  The article even includes some of the ghost stories about the cemetery and more information about that little girl I always wondered about.

 I found this excellent article from the New York Times 1975 about what Bodie was like back then. It is true, things were in total disrepair and if allowed to continue that way there would probably be nothing left of the place today but for the dusty roads.  

A few years ago, I took my little family (my husband and daughter) to see this part of my childhood. We went over the same “rollercoaster” road, this time just as a rainstorm was rolling through. It was beautiful and thrilling and just like I remembered it. Then we found the turnoff for the ghost town but this time it was well marked and paved. I kept waiting for the pavement to run out but it never did and we were now deposited into a large, well-maintained parking lot full of RVs. Signs directed us to the visiter’s center where we had to pay an entrance fee. Most of the buildings were locked, we could just look through the windows and walk around the streets. There was a museum now and lots of information. There were plaques full of names, dates and stories from the town as well as park employees on hand to answer questions. Everything was organized and protected.

​We enjoyed our trip but not once did I see it spark my daughter’s imagination the way it had sparked mine way back when information was hard to come by and more was unknown than was known. All of those unknowns were blank spaces on which I could paint my own stories. I now have both memories of Bodie to visit in my mind, but more often I go back to the one of my childhood, when my parents were searching for ways to help us love our new strange, home out in the middle of nowhere. 

Karen of Baking In A Tornado
 Peanut Butter Brownie Graveyard
https://www.bakinginatornado.com/2019/10/peanut-butter-brownie-graveyard-boo.html
​

 Melissa of My Heartfelt Sentiments
 https://mlisrobinson.blogspot.com/2019/10/boo-blog-with-friends.html

 Lydia of Cluttered Genius
 Boo-tastic Cat House
http://www.clutteredgenius.com/boo-tastic-cat-house/

 Dawn of Spatulas On Parade
BOO! Treats
https://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com/2019/10/boo-treats-oct-bwf.html

Two years ago, while wandering the streets of Bilbao in northern Spain with my cousin, I impulsively bought a scratch-off world map. I was traveling with a backpack that couldn’t hold such a long cylindrical object making the rest of my trip a bit awkward so I dropped it off in Istanbul, at my in-laws place, on my way back to Tokyo where I was living at the time. There it sat for a couple of years until I found myself back in Istanbul for several months waiting on a Spanish residency visa. I found it shoved into the dark recesses of an armoire and decided that it would make a nice teaching aid while I homeschooled my daughter for a few months.

I started to scratch off all the countries I had visited in my life. Purple, green and blue emerged from behind the gold that covered the entire world. As I was scratching off countries, I began to think about what qualified as having been to a country? At first, I felt pretty comfortable scratching off Russia because I had traveled all the way across it on the Trans-Siberian Railway but I felt less comfortable scratching off Canada because I had really only been to Quebec and Victoria and only for a really short amount of time. I scratched off all of Brazil because I had been there for a whole month but I had only really visited 2 cities, Rio and Salvador. I also scratched off Turkey and Japan because I had lived in each of those countries for 4 years but I felt a bit bad because I had failed to learn either Turkish or Japanese to acceptable levels. I had however married a Turk and had close personal relationships with lots of people in both places. Colombia on the other hand I had only lived in for a year but I lived with a Colombian family, had lots of Colombian friends and learned to speak Spanish fluently. Then there came more ambiguous situations. I had traveled all the way through Bulgaria in a day on 4 different trains but had only emerged from the various train stations to buy lunch at a grocery store. I decided this did not qualify me to scratch it off even though I had a stamp in my passport proving I had been there. The same goes for the Ukraine.  This map does not allow me to distinguish “how much” I experience in a country, either I scratch it off or I don’t.

I finished scratching off all of the countries I felt comfortable with, and I stepped back. The map still looked overwhelmingly gold and my daughter, upon looking at it, decided that I must go to Antarctica as soon as possible because that would enable me to scratch off a lot of gold in one fell swoop. 


I love going places and experiencing things, so much so that I became an English teacher just so I could live and work abroad. I have been traveling since 1988 when, after high school, I spent a month in Amsterdam and a month in Yugoslavia (that was when Yugoslavia existed, on the map I had to scratch out Croatia however, even though that country didn’t exist when I went there, so technically I have never been to Croatia). but for the first time, gazing at my largely still covered map, I had a feeling I had never experienced before. I felt that I had somehow failed to travel enough. How could I possibly have decided to go to Bali for two summers in a row and neglected to go to Vietnam? If I had gone to Vietnam, I could have scratched off another country. I have spent years in Turkey but haven’t ventured into Iran or Iraq. Suddenly I felt like I should have gone to all of these places even though I had never felt that desire before I started scratching that map.

I felt like maybe I should make a “bucket list” so I could make more progress on scratching off countries. Who cares what kinds of experiences I was having, who I was meeting, what I was learning, suddenly it seemed more important to go to more places. 


The map seemed innocuous enough when I bought it, but now it was making me feel incomplete.


I belong to a facebook group about traveling in which people ask questions about where they should go, what they should do, and describe what they have done. I often find the language on these posts unsettling because it seems like the world is being packaged as a thing to be consumed. Posts declare that someone has “done” France or Cambodia. I wonder what that means to the person who wrote it. What do you have to have seen, learned or been exposed to to have “done” a place? People, including myself, show pictures of themselves in front of this monument and that natural wonder, beautiful dresses fluttering in the wind and smiles on happy faces.

Every once in a while someone will wonder what is wrong with them because they saved up to go somewhere and now that they are there, they are not having fun, they just want to sit in the hotel and watch Netflix. If you don’t like a dress, you can take it back to the store and get a refund, but how do you return a trip that fails to satisfy? Some travelers admit that while they are smiling in pictures, every night they are crying and are desperately lonely

My scratch-off map fell to the floor as the weather got warmer and the tacky stuff holding it up began to pull the paint off the wall, so I rolled it up and put it back in its tube. I feel better now, the pressure is off. I don’t need to consume the world. I am not failing. I am going where I want to go even though I have been there before, because after 7 months, my Spanish visa has been granted. If I decide to hop over to Morocco it will be because I am curious about Morocco, not because I need to cross yet another country off of a list.

 Although my grandmother ate it all year round, ice cream lies firmly in the domain of summer.  Cold, sweet, creamy and ephemeral, if you savor it for too long in these hot months, it will melt on you.  

Turks however have found a way to make it last just a little longer by adding Salep flour, traditionally made from orchid root.  The orchids are getting rare these days though so now it is often made with alternatives.  Salep is similar to cornstarch in that it doesn't have a strong taste and it is used as a thickening agent.  In the winter it is used to make a delicious cinnamony drink appropriately called Salep.  In the summer however, it makes the ice cream chewy, sticky and stretchy and it makes it melt more slowly so you don't run the risk of it dripping down your cone and onto your hand as easily.
 
Click here for a recipe that doesn't even require an ice cream maker.

Ever creative and fun, Turks have used these unique properties to turn ice cream into a show.  The vender stands at his post (I say his because I have never seen a woman ice cream vender but now that this has occurred to me, I will keep an eye out for one) ringing his bell and calling out to potential customers.  While he waits he may play with the ice cream with a really long pole with a flat end pulling the ice cream in and out of the pot as a whole stretchy mass.  

As soon as a customer approaches and orders a cone, the show begins!  The vender will slice off a bit of ice cream, put it on a cone and offer it to the outstretched hand only to yank it back, twirl it around, and generally tease the expectant ice cream eater never letting them actually taste it until everyone is laughing.  By the time you get your ice cream, a small crowd will have formed and the vender will have his next victim, eagerly awaiting his or her turn to be a part of the show.  

For this video my daughter graciously agreed to costar in the event while I held the camera.  
​

I arrived at the train station an hour and a half early this morning because I didn’t want to stress if anything went wrong. That meant that I had to wait in the big open area. I chose a seat, recombobulated all of my luggage that had gotten in disarray after the exray machine and started to sit down. Before I could even get my butt in the chair, this gentleman in his 80 came up to me, pointed at my suitcase and said something in Russian. I explained that I didn’t speak Russian but either he had trouble hearing or he didn’t care. He sat opposite me and told me stories for 45 minutes without stopping. At this point I realized that my inability to speak the language made me the perfect listener. I looked into his kind eyes, mirrored his expressions, nodded encouragement and found that I even understood a couple of things. He was talking about cataracts, some kind of knee problem and some kind of gastrointestinal problem. The rest of it went all over my head but I loved the way his ears were bigger than you see on most people, his eyes were expressive and he used his hands to emphasize his points. I also realized that it wasn’t important if I understood exactly what he was saying, he wanted human connection and so did I. Because I am spending most of my days in silence it was nice to have someone to listen too. I don’t know if he ever understood that I didn’t speak Russian but I do feel like we saw each other’s humanity.

So, now I am on to Moldova, a country I couldn’t have located on a map yesterday. It is according to the internet, the poorest country in Europe and when I checked out the map just now, it has no coast line. It looks as if the Ukraine has the coast that would most naturally belong to Moldova. I wonder how that happened and how it affects relations between the two countries.

While riding peacefully along reading a book, my mind relaxed just enough to allow a non peaceful thought in.  This thought was that while I had checked that I didn't need a visa to visit Moldova, I had totally forgotten I had to pass through the Ukraine to get there and I had not checked if I needed a visa for the Ukraine.  I scrambled to locate my phone but alas, I had not internet so I couldn't check.  The train halted a good distance from the border and Russian immigration officials boarded and looked at our passports.  My official was a very large man with a serious expression who looked at me and said VISA!  I had a Russian visa so I wasn't really worried about him, it was the Ukrainian official I was worried about. He kept repeating VISA though; I just kept looking at him not understanding what he wanted.  In hindsight, maybe he was trying to intimidate me into giving him some money or something but then decided it wasn't worth the trouble of trying to make me understand so with a larger than necessary motion, he slammed the stamp down on my passport and left.  I thought that would be it, but then he came back a few minutes later and sat next to me in a chummy kind of way, as if I was some sort of lost child and motioned that I should open my purse so I did.  The first thing he found upon opening up zippers were my feminine products. He hastily closed that and abandoned the search.  Then he asked to see my backpack again he struck gold with my toiletries right off the bat and zipped everything back up.  Apparently all of these things were just too much for him and my suitcase went untouched as he quickly left the cabin.

I thought the Ukrainian officials would come on next but we were still an hour away from the border so I had to sweat it out worrying that I would be detained at the border for lack of a visa.  It was Friday night and images of having to sit at the border until offices opened up on Monday morning flashed through my mind.  Would they give me food and water I wondered.  When the super large Ukrainian immigration official all dressed in khaki filled the doorway I was nervous but I tried to play it cool and handed over my passport quietly.  He looked at it briefly, stamped it and walked away, and I was left looking at the entry stamp in relief. 

 I think the next stop is Kiev. Someone just came by with giant meat sticks, they look tempting but must remember, running out of money and a 2 day fast is not that bad. If only someone would come by with a modestly priced meat pie or something.
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Last night before going to bed I checked our progress to Moldova and thought wow we are making really good time. I can’t believe that it will take until 7 tomorrow evening to get to Chisinau. Today I believe it. We have taken a very circuitous route through this small but beautiful country.  I am happy that I got to see so much from the window. Some of the things that struck me are that spring has arrived here. Everywhere the ground is covered in green and the trees are flowering. It is beautiful after the stark brownness of Siberia. There is also a lot more life going on along the train tracks here. Instead of endless forest, much of the way has houses nestled close to the tracks and I even saw families having picnics. It is the Easter season and people are out visiting the graves of relatives.  Houses continue to have outhouses and now they have wells too.

I am beginning to get very thirsty. I have rubles, yen and euros but I don’t have leu. It strikes me how arbitrary things like money are. I am on the same train I bought juice on yesterday but today because we have crossed several borders, I can’t buy anything anymore. When I do get to eat and drink again I am going to savor it. I am surprised by how not hungry I am.  It has been almost 48 hours since I last ate and really I am not feeling it much at all. I think it is all a mindset. When I got on this train I knew I was not going to eat much and because it is not in front of me I am not having to resist it. This makes me wonder if the pain of being hungry I usually feel is sometimes not so much a physical feeling in the gut but rather a mental exhaustion of not being able to resist what is available any longer.

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I have also almost finished my last book today (Why Buddhism is True). Luckily this book was about meditation so maybe instead of filling my head with more books for the rest of the trip I can practice meditation. It certainly sounds like it can lead to a happier more fulfilled life if one actually practices it. I would love to get rid of the rollercoaster of negative feelings and wants.

Moldova itself wasn’t so great. It was rather hard to find anything to eat and I had to walk long distances for everything making my leg throb. I did manage to get a taxi without being ripped off this time though because when the first driver said he would take me to my airbandb for 16 Euro, I just said no and went outside. They then said they would do it for 100 Liu so I said 50 because that was all I had taken out of the ATM machine. I had no idea how much it was but when I checked it was like 3 dollars which is about right for the length of the ride and the fact that the driver got kind of lost. I was a bit confused as to why none of their map programs seemed to show them where the actual address was and all of the drivers spent a bit of time just trying to locate the address on the map. My phone brought it right up, no problem. 

Arriving in Moscow I had absolutely no expectations, I hadn’t researched anything, I hadn’t read any novels taking place in Moscow and it had never really occurred to me to come here. In my experience, this is the ideal way to arrive at a place because I can’t possibly be disappointed. I am open to anything, and everything is interesting. Some of my worst travel experiences have been to places that I obsessed over before going. If I have spent years thinking about a place, it can not help but disappoint because every experience that is not over the top, is lacking in my mind. Moscow however, was a delight. 


My train pulled up in the morning, too early to actually check into my AirBandB but I decided to take a taxi there anyway in the off chance I could get in. I probably could have walked since I purposely chose a place close to the train station but I still wasn’t sure of my injured foot and I had a suitcase, a bag, my purse and a camera bag so I decided to splurge (at that point I didn’t know how much of a splurge it was going to be).


Upon emerging from the train after 8 days, I was confronted by a bunch of taxi drivers offering their services, wanting to get to my lodging quickly I took one of them up on his offer. We tromped across the rough, pitted parking lot to his car and I got in. He spoke a bit of English and we chatted a little. Upon arrival, 5 minutes later (the apartment really was very close), he charged me 20 Euro! This was more than twice what I had been charged to go over an hour in Vladivostok and was waaaaaaay more that it should have been. I said no, and he locked the door so I couldn’t get out. He then proceeded to say Ma,am in a demanding way so I retorted with Sir and we did that for quite a while.
Ma,am!
Sir!
Ma,am!
Sir!
Until finally he got tired of this exchange. The price should have been just a few Euro but unfortunately my lowest bill at that point was a 10 and there was no way he was giving me change so he took the 10 unlocked the door and let me out.

Welcome to Moscow! I wasn’t really that upset though because these things do happen while traveling, it is not the first time a cab driver has ripped me off and it won’t be the last.

I got ahold of my host and she was able to let me in an hour later, I cooled my heels at the little parkette across the street and read a book. The first thing I noticed after getting in, was the amazing huge bath tub. After 10 days of not being able to bathe, I spent the whole morning in the bath tub soaping up and rinsing off, it was heaven.

Happily clean, I headed out to explore the city. I decided that I didn’t want to take any transportation other than my own 2 feet that first day and since one of those feet was not working quite properly yet, I explored the neighborhood and found a big park just around the corner. Easter season was in full swing in Russia and spring was beginning to show its face just a little. Almost everything was still brown but the snow had melted and people were in high spirits.

The next day I had one goal, to get train tickets for the next leg of my journey, Moscow to Chisinau, Moldova. I gave myself the whole day because, not knowing what I was doing, where I was going or any of the language, the probability of messing up was high. I had to get to the central train station on the other side of the city. I had Google maps and I found the subway station, figured out how to get a ticket and arrived at the platform where I encountered my first challenge, which side of the platform was going in the correct direction? All of the signs were in Cyrillic. Cyrillic is a bit of a tease, it is not as foreign looking as Japanese and some of the letters are the same as the Roman alphabet but they are pronounced differently. This meant I couldn’t really figure out what they were saying any more than I could in Japan but unlike in Japan, where they usually had Roman letter translations next to the Japanese, in Russia, you are on your own. I ended up walking up to random people, showing them my google maps directions and having them bundle me onto whatever train I was supposed to get on. Happily everyone was nice and got me on the right trains even thought we couldn’t communicate beyond that. 

It was on the subway that I encountered my first happy surprise, the subway itself is a destination. Every station was unique and spectacular. There were vaulted ceilings, stunning architecture, murals, mosaics and sculptures. I couldn’t wait to arrive at the next stop to see what it had to offer. My favorite was the Revolution Square stop where every pillar had a more than life sized statue of a soldier somewhere around it brandishing a gun. It was as if there was a fierce battle going on in the station but it had been frozen and the rest of the world was just going about its business not even glancing up at it. The war among us was unacknowledged.

The next day was my last day and I absolutely couldn’t put off shopping any longer as people were expecting gifts so I checked out where was the best place to buy handicrafts and found an interesting looking market that was way far away. After my previous successful forays on the public transportation system I felt ready. This time it was much more challenging because not only did I have to go on the metro, I also had to figure out the bus system and change busses several times. After much marching back and forth in confusion, I managed to find the correct busses and got off at the correct stop only to walk in the wrong direction for about 45 minutes.

The directions said something about the market being in a park and I was in a park, covered in trees with a little amusement park along the way. It was beautiful and peaceful but I saw absolutely no sign of any market. Finally I gave up and retraced my steps back to the bus stop and went the other way. There it stood, like an amusement park, crazy in its exuberance. I began to wander the stalls filled with nesting dolls, felted slippers and leather goods. At first I wanted to buy everything but then the familiar shopping paralysis started to set in, there were too many things, I didn’t know what to buy. I was tempted to turn right around and march out but I needed gifts so I took a little detour through the used book stores and that calmed me a bit. There is something about books that makes me feel centered and happy, especially dusty leaning stacks of books.

Shopping round two was more successful and I was able to find a set of nesting Ataturk dolls for my father in law, a stone necklace with a kitten painted on it for my daughter and several other small things that would fit in my already overstuffed luggage. I even got into a great conversation with one of the venders about growing up in the 80’s him in the Soviet Union and me in Russia. I ended up buying a hat from one guy and his friend, a guy around my age started joking with me and wanted me to look at his stuff. I went over, he had a great sense of humor and we started talking politics because a lot of his dolls were political figures. I ended up buying an Ataturk set and a Harry Potter set. Usually once you buy something, the vendor looses interest but not this guy. He kept ignoring his other customers because we were having so much fun talking. Finally after talking for like a half an hour, I asked him his name and he tested me. He said his father was a super communist so what was his name? I ventured Lenin and he got a big smile on his face and said yes, Lenin’s first name. It was so nice to talk to him! He said he liked talking to me because my smile was real, not fake like most Americans. This struck me as interesting because I had been thinking so much about smiling in Russia. It also made me think about how we perceive things like smiles. I could see why he thinks most Americans have fake smiles but I would put it a different way. I wouldn’t say those smiles are fake but rather they are “social smiles”. By this I mean that while they don’t show happiness necessarily, and in this way are fake, they signal to the other person that we are open and can be approached without fear. Those smiles, given to strangers don’t show emotional state so much as availability. His interpretation of American smiles were that they make us untrustworthy, exactly the opposite of what is intended. This jived perfectly with my initial interpretation of the lack of smiles, that people didn’t like me. 


Moscow left me wanting more, I feel like I barely scratched the surface of this fascinating city!

There are several types of ice cream Americans are familiar with: regular standard ice cream like what we would get at 31 flavors, soft serve pumped out of a machine, usually vanilla, chocolate or swirl, and if we are feeling exotic, gelato from Italy. 

None of those are anything like Turkish Ice Cream (dondurma in Turkish). How different can it be you ask? Well, Turkish Ice Cream is chewy for starters. It includes two special ingredients called mastic, a resin from a tree that is a bit like gum, and sahlep flour made from orchid root. It globs together and stretches in ways you have never seen before. Venders are able to lift out a whole tub of the stuff on a stick and catch it before it stretches all the way down to the hot pavement. They play with their customers giving and taking, swirling and ducking, not unlike a cat plays with a mouse.

Crowds gather around laughing and clapping, the sale is an event, a street performance, complete with costumes.  If you haven't tried Turkish ice cream yet, I recommend you come on over and join the fun!  

For this particular ice cream my daughter and I headed for Istklal Caddesi, just up from Taxim Square.  We were going to get the ice cream before watching a movie but discovered that the movie (Spiderman) was about to start so we put it off until after.  After graciously agreeing to be my model for this post, she also grudgingly shared the ice cream with me as we headed home.  We decided that it was delicious and hit the spot!  

OK, so last week I finished off with myself getting on a midnight train out of Vladivostok, Russia after a day of not finding a shower and being assured that I would be able to shower on the train.  This proved to be not possible as the train I got on did not, in fact, have a shower.  So, the story continues...
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On the positive side I have a whole package of wet wipes and so far I have a cabin for 4 all to myself. I am sure this is going to change because we were told the train was all booked up. Every time the train stops, which is frequently, I attempt to shift my stuff around to accommodate other people but so far I am alone. This is good since I can’t find the dohickey that goes in my headphones to connect them to my phone so I can listen to podcasts.

Another good thing is that the outlet is right outside my cabin so I can keep an eye on my stuff while it is charging. So far, aside from the no shower thing, I am super happy!

Continuing adventures of day one on the train. I got my two cabin mates today. They arrived with a bang! First a young man poked his head in and threw a duffle bag on the top bunk opposite me. He was followed by a couple drinking wine straight from the box and spilling it all over the floor. She started to come at me in Russian obviously indicating that I should move from my bottom bunk and give it to them. I started to protest but the man waved her away and said no. I then used the translator to tell her that my leg was broken and that was why I was on the train so she grabbed my ankle and my hand and did some kind of prayer over my foot taking the injury out. My leg still hurts but it was a sweet gesture. Then they spilled a bunch more wine on the carpet while I quickly scrambled to get all of my stuff off the spilling range. They then left to throw the dripping box and bag away and she never came back. I was a bit worried to see that my two new roomies were both men. Curses, why can’t I be a man, then I wouldn’t have to lay here worried that I will be attacked in my sleep.

The first few hours I was a bit standoffish. Then I decided I should probably try to connect with them better in spite of the language barrier. Both of my mates are farmers a younger one and an older one and by older I mean three years younger than I am which is just crazy. When did I become the older one? Actually I am really glad that I am not 16 right about now because I would be even more scared of being attacked in my sleep than I already am. The younger one speaks a bit of English while the older one does not. They spent the afternoon drinking 3 more boxes of wine while I read my Game of Thrones book and tried to listen to a podcast. Finally I gave up because the older guy just kept putting his hands all over my injured leg. It seems to fascinate him and he really really wants to talk to me. We reached a compromise in which he stopped touching my leg and I listen attentively to him and reply in whatever language I feel like, none of which he understands and I can’t understand a word of what he is saying but we laugh and gesture a lot. This seems to make him happy. Right now he is not happy with me because I am typing this and the younger guy has gone to sleep. This leaves him with nothing to do as he doesn’t like reading or writing and declined my invitation to watch a movie. He keeps laying down and then popping back up in the hopes that while he was laying down I suddenly became fluent in Russian. Sadly I have not. 


I really hope he goes to sleep soon but I have my doubts. I think I will have one more go at watching a movie.

OK, so I find it disconcerting to have someone watch me while I am trying to watch a movie so I invited him to watch again then he watched for a while tried to grab my ass. I slapped his hand away and then he finally went to sleep. I guess that is what he was waiting around for, a clear signal that I am not interested.

The second day on the train has dawned and I am happy to say I am safe and sound. My bunkmate went out for another beer, I finished my movie and went to sleep. When I woke up they were both sleeping but soon woke and had some tea. They seem to have produced a tea cup out of no where, I wonder if they are available. I will have to check it out. 


Seeking some alone time, I am now in the dining car. It is nice and I am the only person here at the moment. I asked about a shower again but got the same answer but she was helpful in that she suggested I pour water over my head in the bathroom. I am not sure where to get a whole bucket full of water but I will try.

The landscape continues to be brown and bare but there is more snow on the ground today. I am told we should reach Lake Baikal in 2 days time. Meanwhile, more books, podcasts and writing. I have to charge up this computer though. I wish there was a charge here in the dining car but there isn’t. 


Well, we reached the lake but it was the middle of the night so I didn’t get to see it.


I was finally unable to stand it anymore and I washed my hair under the tap in the sink, now I feel a bit better but my body is beginning to get a bit ripe in spite of the wet wipe “showers” I am taking.

After 4 days, my cabin mates have all left. They were really kind and found me a tea cup which is proving my salvation. They also liberally shared their soviet cookie biscuits with me but refused to take any of the things I offered them. I think they were traveling for work. For me it was a lesson in trust as I am not used to sleeping in a cabin with men I don’t know and it left me feeling vulnerable the first 2 nights. The first night one of them was very drunk but the next day he was sober and he refused to look me in the eye. It was a bit unsettling but the younger one was super nice and always tried to put me at ease. By the third night I trusted them and slept much better.

Oh, I forgot to mention that on the second day they were there my younger bunkmate got pulled out by the police who were staying in a cabin at the end of the car and held for over an hour. When I expressed concern the older one assured me that it was normal. They brought him back, had him sign a paper in a bunch of places and that was that. I still don’t know why he was singled out.

And there ends my writing on the train.  I spent 8 days in my little cabin.  I read voraciously, slept whenever I felt like it and had lots and lots of time to just sit and think.  Sometimes my thoughts were good and hopeful, other times I would worry and obsess about things in my life that bother me.  my mind would circle around and around sore spots trying to find solutions or  justifications for things that have no solutions or justifications.  By the time I got off the train my mind and body were ready for movement.  I was excited to be in Moscow!