An Extra Banana

It was late one evening in Istanbul, and we were trying to buy a few breakfast items for the next morning.  We saw a small market run by an older Turkish gentleman.  When we stepped into his cozy store we could tell that he was prepared to ignore us.  We were just off the plane from Munich, excited to be in Turkey, and would not be denied a potential local interaction, so Steve greeted him with his best good evening in Turkish - “ee yee ahak sham lar”!  At first he looked startled and stared at us, then a grin appeared on his face.  A very welcome “Ee Yee Ahk Sham Lar” came back our way.  It was clear that he did not get many tourists in his shop who attempted to speak a few words in his language.  In the most friendly of gestures, he grabbed Steve by the arm and proudly gave us a tour of his beautiful assortment of fruit.  We pointed at a bunch of bananas, which he selected, weighed and bagged…smiling the whole time.  Before we could leave, he grabbed an extra banana and dropped it into the bag.  Breakfast was secure and a pleasant encounter was had during an otherwise mundane errand of buying bananas.

In Argentina practicing casual greetings in Spanish made our daily exercise regime more entertaining.  We found a great steep hill to climb in Salta to a magnificent view point of the valley.  It became our routine for a few days.  At first no one hiking in the opposite direction would pay any attention to us.  Steve started initiating greetings to our fellow hikers (more then boring ole buenos dias).  Oh boy, did the climb change.  We received smiles and gracious greetings in return.  All just over a few common words.
 
In every place we go we start a cheat sheet with about 5-10 basic expressions in the local language.  So far we have learned these phrases in a dozen or so languages. 

The first few days are always a memory test trying to remember and figure out how to pronounce the words.  We always bumble our way through it with anyone that will listen, and ask for guidance of how to pronounce the words correctly.  People are proud of their language and love to correct us.  By the time we are ready to leave a place, we can actually say them pretty well.  Will we remember them a year from now?  No.  But while on the road, it has given us many memories above and beyond 'the sights'. It has paid off handsomely in smiles, laughs, and sometimes…..an extra banana.

Salta, Stuttgart, Sting and Beveridges

How did we make the decision to add Stuttgart, Germany to an itinerary that is focused on South America, Central Europe and Africa? 

It starts in Salta, Argentina of course. 

Little did we know that chewing coca leaves, riding in an open air bus at 13,000+ feet and eating “goat” (most probably rabbit) stew would lead us to Stuttgart.  Reading that Sting was going to be in concert there, right when we were going to be in the area, sealed the deal.  Stuttgart was added.  We could see our new coca chewing friends, the Beveridges, yes the Beveridges (you gotta like people with that name) and see one of the most talented musicians around.    

We met Philip and Gisela Beveridge on a day tour to a high altitude area outside Salta.  We sucked on coca leaves together, stuck our head out the top of our bus to take in the unbelievable geography and then, fast forward a few months, ate Gisela’s home cooking.

It was a fantastic time reminiscing about our day together in Argentina, discussing local politics, learning about their lives and meeting their daughter.  We were surprised when this talented young woman showed us a huge American flag hanging above her bed.  It was moving and a bit weird to see our stars and strips in a Stuttgart bedroom.  But she had a great experience in Wisconsin as a foreign exchange student.  Yet another great German young person!  Their son is too by the way.

The next night was the Sting concert!  At the Posche Arena!  He was touring with the London Symphony Orchestra and the show an amazing display of musicality.  It was one of the best we have ever seen.  But the crowd was really different then we’re used to.  Even with Sting’s divine vocals they were quiet and they showed only a little excitement over his fabulous songs.  We were wowed by the strings, horns and antics of the orchestra but the Stuttgart audience was a bit stoic.  For us it was an unforgettable evening.  We were alone in our seat dancing and yoo hooing but we didn’t care.  We showed our enthusiasm as only a couple of middle aged Americans can. 

From being high on coca leaves to enjoying the home and company of our friends from Stuttgart it was great journey.  A couple of Beveridges with Sting as the cherry on top made for a worthwhile worldly detour.   

Family Tree

When you were a kid, would you have hung around with a couple of strangers who called themselves family,   chatting for hours in a foreign language?  Or would you have, like we would have, spent the obligatory few minutes saying hello then left it to your parents to entertain the couple from the United States?

These German young people, Amy’s cousins, not only didn’t make excuses and leave, they hung out, told stories, listened to our stories, asked and answered questions and seemed genuinely interested in us.  Such good kids.  All eight of them, from 14 to 26 years of age.  Well there was one exception.  But he had a good excuse….he had to moderate a Social Democratic meeting.  If memory serves us right, the topic was raising taxes.  He’s for it.  We were impressed with all the kids, to say the least.

We spent two fabulous evenings with these distant relatives in and near Munich.  On the family tree, Amy is the same generation as these awesome kids.  Our great grandpas were brothers.  Amy’s great grandpa migrated to the US in the late 1800's.  Maybe the German cousins got all the polite behavior genes??  From musicians to a PhD student to a Prima Ballerina in the making to a future community leader all of the “kids” were not only pleasant conversationalists but also intelligent and self motivated. 
Their parents (and grandma Eva) are equally as incredible.  Our hats are off to them, even though they are humble about their kids, we know the influence they have over these rising stars. 

And they are generous hosts….treating us to Bavarian food, luscious desserts and wonderful conversation.

 
It was a real honor to see them again and have Steve get to know them.  We wish we didn’t live so far apart.  
It was another local encounter, this time of the family kind, that is making our journey better then we ever anticipated.  And, Hildegard gets special mention as she is keeping the entire clan straight by documenting the family tree. Great job and Thanks!

Venice is Sinking, So What?

Take a naturally protected lagoon averaging approximately 6 feet in depth, pound sturdy posts in concentric circles 30 or so feet into the sand bar, pile upon it large stones for a solid foundation, then construct a beautiful ornate building.  Do this thousands of times linking everything together with  countless bridges to walk between them.  Then dominate Europe for 400 years or so, accumulating the wealth you have “borrowed” in order to decorate your city built on sand, and what do you get………Venice!

  

Yes, it’s sinking; yes, it’s expensive; yes, it’s overcrowded with tourists; yes, it’s old and decaying and past it’s prime…..so what?!?  The magic, beauty and uniqueness trumps all of the reasons not to go.

Before we relinquished our good friend, Francois, (our rented Renault), we thought….why not.  Italy wasn’t originally on our itinerary, due to it being very expensive, but we got creative and figured out a way how not to spend our remaining budget in 4 nights   We made our way to Venice!

We’ve visited many picturesque places on our trip and Venice was no exception.  Our shutter didn’t get any rest.  We snapped picture after picture as every turn of our strolls through the city revealed another…”That’s so cool” moment.

 

 

We water taxied and walked our way through the city for 4 days loving every minute of it.  We saw the touristy stuff, but we also got off that beaten path and headed into the sections of town where real Venetians go to the market, the kids go to school and, most importantly, tourists don’t go – yes people actually still live there.

    

Las Vegas and The Venetian Hotel, with it’s artificial canals and San Marcos Square look-alike, can’t capture the finely aged ambience of one of the great cities in Europe. 

Go to Venice if you have a chance and get lost in its streets and charm.  It may not be with us forever. 

 

 

Believe it or Not: Belgrade

Our nerves were a bit on edge heading into the bully of the Balkans.  After witnessing the damage of war in Bosnia & Herzegovina, inflicted mainly by Serbs, we were a little raw.  It was hard to know what to expect in a country that was the former Yugoslavia’s political and power capital.  Not only had Serbia fought and lost to all of it’s neighbors, but they are currently struggling and failing to hold on to it’s latest foe, Kosovo.

 

 

Belgrade is trying hard to help tourists understand and enjoy their experience.  We found a delightful organization, Belgrade Hosts.  Their volunteers personally meet visitors and spend time answering questions, making recommendations and sharing historical important sights and information.  Our host was a smart, energetic young woman.  She is studying international economics and has no interest in traveling to the US.  We found it curious to learn that Russia is where she wants to spend more time.  In fact, we found that Belgrade as a whole seemed to be aligned with Russia far more then the western world.  She led us on a great walking tour of the old part of Belgrade, but we really wanted to hear her views on the current strife between Serbia and Kosovo.  We were disappointed when she gave a politically correct answer and changed the subject.  In fact, everyone we asked about the Kosovo situation wouldn’t engage.  We weren’t sure if it was because we are Americans or because it was a highly personal topic. 

We had no idea that Belgrade has been at war for nearly 2,000 years with only a few short periods of peace.  It is beautifully located at the confluence of the Danube and Sava rivers on a natural limestone hill amongst an otherwise flat area.   The position made it very obvious for the city’s location and attractive to invading enemies.  It has been raided and rebuilt dozens of times.

   

The architecture showed all the influences of the various powers.  Very modern building, ornate Viennese decoration from the former Hapsburg times, bulky communist era buildings, and war damaged structures all exist together.  Quite a site.  A work in progress you might say. 

       

  

One of our most stressful times so far happened in Belgrade.  And it didn’t have to do with their use of nor our struggle with the Cyrillic alphabet.

It’s not a typical goal for us, but in Belgrade, we decided to find the US Embassy.  We were curious because we’d read that it was attacked in 2008 over the Kosovo issue and in a few days, Secretary of State Clinton was visiting.  We walked through the city until we found the US Flag flying on a building.  Seeing the stars and stripes made our pride inch up.  We hadn’t seen it in a few months and it looked good.  As we got closer though, our moods slowly dampened.  We noticed that all of the windows facing the street were covered.  There were gigantic cement planters in front in which the plants and flowers did nothing to take away the real purpose of these garden barricades.  It was a sobering sight.  It was a business day but it looked shut up as if awaiting a not so pleasant situation. 

Being the tourists that we are, we started snapping pictures when all of a sudden, three extra large Serbian guards from across the street started yelling.  We were pretty sure they were hollering at us, but we ignored them.  Then they screamed at some people near us to stop us.  After the 3rd forceful shout directed at us, we thought we’d better go find out what they wanted.  We explained that we are US citizens and just wanted a few pics of our embassy.  They demanded that we delete the photos and pointed to a tiny sign, behind a leafy tree, that indicated no pictures were allowed.  When we rolled our eyes, they said these are “your” rules not ours, and that if we didn’t delete, we could all go “visit” the police for questioning.  We were scheduled for a tour of the Nikola Tesla museum so we consented and deleted the pictures. 

After walking a few blocks, trying to shake off our brush with Serbian men in uniforms,  we found and photographed several destroyed buildings that NATO forces had bombed in 1999.  If it wasn’t for a few weeds growing out of the ruins, you would guess that the bombings took place only yesterday.  Keep in mind that these buildings are in the business and political heart of Belgrade.  Prime real estate.  Why have they left the shell of former large military offices unchanged for 11 years?  A reminder to the working stiffs to hate NATO?  We can only guess but it seemed like some sort of statement was being made. 

Between the encounter with the huge Serbian guards and seeing the striking war damaged buildings made for a very intense afternoon. 

 

On a positive note, the Nikola Tesla Museum was lots of fun.  It was the perfect distraction from the earlier events of our day.  Nikola Tesla is the inventor of alternating current and single handedly changed the way the world is powered.  He helped George Westinghouse create and store hydro electricity created by Niagra Falls.  You might remember him from a role in The Illusionist, a decent movie about a couple of magicians.  We had seen the movie so it was really enjoyable to know more about the man behind the character.  He is the real magician!

Visiting Belgrade, Serbia was a last minute decision.  We’re glad we went, but we don’t want to go back.  We wanted to experience a little of the country that we’d heard so much about from Croatians and Bosnians.  We know that with any story, there are two sides, and we wanted to get the Serbians perspectives.  Unfortunately no one would discuss the 1990’s war or the current situation with Kosovo.  When a powerhouse goes down, it probably uses the best coping strategy around; denial.  Could it be that the U.S. is using this same strategy?