Rapid Reflections

Okay okay okay! I have been falling behind on keeping you up to date on my whirlwind adventure. I am alive, and seeing something new every single day! In 13 days I was in 6 different countries. For each of these nations I could tell hours of stories recreating the experiences with speech. Although for now, if I write about each moment that deserves a description I will be missing the world around me. Therefore, I will give you a small taste of where I have been and the full meal will come when I can sit down with you and keep you at the edge of your seat.  


My Last Day in Italy

The ending of the Avidano Family Reunion was the beginning of the cow feast. I daringly ate the brain, liver, tongue, lung, and face of a poor, finely prepared, cow. This is the kind of thing you only do, with a smile on your face, when family has served you the animal parts. It doesn't matter that the family is separated by many branches on the tree and an entire ocean. Familial love knows no distance. 

My Dream-like Week in Amsterdam

The grey haze that surrounded the city the entire time I was there gave the feeling of a dream, or maybe it was finding (on purpose) an old college roommate in Amsterdam that gave it the dreamy feel. 

 Or maybe it was this local construction worker, un-phased by the flock of pigeons as he drank milk on his lunch break, in front of the I Amsterdam structure as if to say HE is the spirit of Amsterdam. 

This lone bee also gave the feeling of fantasy. 

And where else do you find an adult size jungle-gym than in a dream. Oh yea Amsterdam!

 All you can eat, Dutch sheep and goat, cheese samples, Dreamy!

If this floating crane, plucking bikes from the canal like tulips from the garden, didn't create the illusion of a chimera, I must have been actually sleeping the whole time. 

One and a Half Hours in Frankfurt 

1.5 hours outside the train station in Frankfurt, Germany is not enough time to do anything, except have a beer and bratwurst at the near-by pub. Yes it was before noon, but when else can I do as the locals do, and the locals do drink before noon.  Actually there seemed to be a group that had been there for a while before I strolled in. I was fully loaded with my pack and travel gear and the old men seemed to be fully loaded in another way. Even on the search for this pub I saw a young man well dressed drinking from a liquor bottle getting on the bus. Maybe I am making a judgment, maybe I am wrong, but my short time in the German streets was accompanied with a somber mood. Was I picking up on some cultural pain within the people? Is there some kind of inter-generational guilt laying in the land?