Packing List (of Wales and Whales)

Dear friends, this is what I'm desperately curious to know:

Who added to my packing list (relevant to know here is that I don't write out a whole new packing list every time I travel, but rather just check myself quickly against whatever lists have hung around from past trips; in this case "California, Sept. 2012"), below such compartively normal travel items such as "hat" and "sunglasses," the following --

"RUBBERNOSE"
"SPY DISGUISE"
"whale (actual whale)"

Clearly it was a friend (someone with access to my life and apartment) and presumably someone here in Berlin (because why would I have taken my packing list along with me to California?)

Even more intriguingly, I must have been aware of these additions at the time, because below them, in my handwriting, I see I've added "TRAVEL PILLOW."

Seriously, who was it?? I have no memory of this happening, so it made for a hilarious surprise when I reached the end of the list just now.

I only wish I had a whale and a spy disguise to take with me to Wales.

Starts with W

Next up: Wales!

This trip has been in the works for a while (on my timescale of travel planning, that is; not necessarily "a while" on a German scale) and it's been largely organized by Kat, the same friend who instigated our fabulous hiking trips in Scotland and then last year to England, so it's pretty much guaranteed to be awesome. And rainy, and stunningly beautiful. (That being the norm for my experience of British countryside.)

Tomorrow all six of us meet up in Manchester, then drive over to Wales, where we have a rental cottage in the village of Llandrillo. (Trip goal: Learn how to pronounce this and similar place names. Hint: It's not pronounced like it looks.)

Hopefully a bunch of hiking and national-park-going will ensue; then at the end of the long Easter weekend most of the others leave, but I'm going to stay on and work from there for a couple days. (The world is still my office!)

At the end of the week, I'll head on alone to Angelsey (the northwest tip of Wales) for a couple extra days (youth hostel near the coast!) then fly back from Liverpool, a city that already feels like a bit of an old friend, after I bookended last year's hiking trip in England with two short stays there.

Wales!

Now, who wants to learn Welsh with me?

At the Lake

Birthday weekend at the lake!

50 Things

Please have these "50 Things You Must Do Before You're 30," a.k.a. John Finnemore (creator of Cabin Pressure) is still the awesomest:

Dogs in Blankets / Thoughts from a New Decade

Dogs out for their morning walks dressed in blankets. Cold March days in Berlin!

Now if only a blizzard had come through last night and left us with three feet (one meter!) of snow, this would be just like my 10th birthday exactly 20 years ago.

Now there's a nice thought – a 10th birthday. I remember so clearly how big that felt, turning from single digits to double ones. Is 30 as big a deal as 10? Probably not.

Oddly, I can't remember my 20th birthday at all. I mean, I think I remember it, but I don't remember it feeling as momentous.

Anyway, here's to each decade being better than the last!

Cinque Terre in Pictures

Cinque Terre, beautiful despite the rain.
(Click to see the album)

Cinque Terre

Leaving Pisa

From Riomaggiore, I checked train schedules and worked out a connection that would get me to Pisa Aiport comfortably in time for my flight. It included a change in La Spezia, then another in Pisa for the extremely short trip (just five minutes) from Pisa Centrale to the Pisa Airport.

So we took the train to La Spezia, only to find...the train I'd planned to take to Pisa was cancelled.

Dumb, dumb, dumb! As a veteran traveler, I know better than this. You never take the last connection that gets you there comfortably in time, you take the one before that. But the thing is, the more you travel, the less patience you have for getting there early and ending up hanging around the airport two hours longer than necessary.

(Just look at my perpetually traveling journalist friends, who – since work is paying anyway – are in the habit of simply hopping in a taxi to the airport just in time for the flight. I once traveled with a journalist friend who did just that, got a taxi at the last possible just-barely-comfortable time – and then got stuck in traffic. I was already boarding as she was still texting me in a panic from the backseat of the taxi...but thanks to Tegel Airport's fantastic, practical layout, she still made the flight!)

So, we had an hour to kill in La Spezia, then I spent a rather nail-biting train ride to Pisa sure that I was going to miss my flight: The connection I was now on, even if everything went perfectly as planned, would get me to the airport at 1:43. My flight left at 2:15. Yikes!

In Pisa I dashed off the train and ran for the airport connection; as soon as that train arrived at the airport (precisely at 1:43) I hurtled off it and made a beeline for the terminal. Thank goodness for small airports: There were only two people ahead of me at security, and the airport employee overseeing the line took a look at my boarding pass and waved me to the front anyway.

Threw my stuff in the trays on the conveyor belt, grabbed it off the conveyor belt and threw it back onto me, flat out ran for it... and at 1:50 I was on line at the gate, still in plenty of time to board.

I love small airports!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Here, have a bonus happy picture of my parents and me over breakfast in Cinque Terre.

Pisa + Cinque Terre

Also, yes, I saw this!

  That's some lean ya got going on there, eh?

- - - - -

And apropos the constant, at times quite heavy, rain the entire time we've been here:

Today in a cafe I overheard another American telling her friends, "I miss thunder and lightning. I miss that over here. In France, it rains all the time, but it never thunders."

I hear you, sister!

(And I'll see you an it-never-thunders, and raise you an it-rains-all-winter-but-never-snows.)

But the parents are enjoying themselves, and that was the point of this trip. I am too: Cinque Terre is gorgeous even under rain, everybody is friendly, there's pasta and wine and espresso - and I can just never express enough how much I love a good, stormy sea!

Cinque Terre in the Rain

Cinque Terre under steady rain. Hm, hm.

It actually doesn't matter much to me, because I've been working half days while I'm here, so I just sit in the cafe/bar beneath our rented rooms, work and drink espresso and watch the locals come and go. It's not a bad life!

("The world is my office," latest version)

It's funny how clearly this falls out: My impression coming here was that pretty much all Americans have at least heard of Cinque Terre (a string of five picturesque villages along the Ligurian coast) but next to no Germans have. This, I have to tell you, is entirely because of travel guide writer Rick Steves. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say the man single-handedly turned a set of sleepy villages into a top tourist destination for the entirety of a certain segment of the American middle class.

Then, confirming my impression, indeed all the tourists we've seen here except for one French couple have been Americans. It cracked me up to sit in the bar, working but also listening to the various American couples exchange their stories, telling each other how they'd "done" Milan and "done" Rome.

What can I say, especially without offending the Americans among you, and most especially since I am one too?

It's just that Americans are so noticeably ...American. That's not a bad thing, it's just a thing.

It's hard to describe, until you've been outside it for a while. Actually, it's hard to describe even now, but here's how far I've gotten so far: There's a certain kind of brash self-confidence and well-meant oblivious that mark Americans tourist to me. Or maybe I should just say a certain way Americans talk that's both eager and a little naive... ("done" Milan, "done" Rome)

It's just a little bit strange to me to watch all these busy, time-pressed American tourists approaching these towns as if they were more personal playground than actual, living towns, exchanging tips about exactly how to get to that certain spot where you can replicate exactly that photograph you saw in that one travel guide. But at the same time, they're also respectful and eager (and the towns live from their business), so I'm not gonna complain.

Besides, I believe firmly that it's terrible form to complain about the tourists when you yourself are one!

(And don't worry, Americans, if anyone else had heard about this place, they would also be here enacting their own national cliches. For example, I believe the Germans would be over in one corner, muttering and complaining to each other and acting as if they're not allowed to make eye contact with anyone else. Then they would strap on their extremely sensible hiking boots and go climb a mountain!)

- - - - -

Thoughts about Italy so far...

Oh, the cold, cold marble floors. I remember this from my visit to Venice, the American couchsurfer we met up with saying that the floors in Italy are always cold, and his Italian friend countering, But beautiful.

I love sitting in the bar, working and watching people come and go. Yesterday they was a very good-humored older guy sitting at the table next to me for a bit; when an acquaintance of his came in, the man greated him with an enthusiastic, "Ciao, Lucca, ciao, ciao!"

When the guy left, it was exactly the same, just as enthusiastic, "Ciao, Lucca, ciao, ciao!"

The Italian espresso culture fascinates me endlessly. In Germany, going for coffee is an excuse to sit and linger over it, chatting, for hours. In Italy, people pop in and have their espresso served to them right at the bar, standing. It's just as social a ritual - half the point seems to be chatting with the guy behind the bar, who of course is a friend, because everyone knows each other - but it's simply a shorter one, a brief espresso break before heading back out to whatever it is they do.

Also, at noon folks were already coming in for a glass of wine.

Also, the array of small nibbles set out at the bar (again, wine is often drunk standing at the bar, not at a table), the same as in Venice with its cicchetti, the same as in Spain with its tapas.

Cinque Terre is a string of villages set into the steep hill along the coast; we'd meant to stay in the first of the five, Riomaggiore, just the first night and then move on to Vernazza, which several people had recommended. (First impressions of Vernazza: vineyards and cactuses! Intriguing. And an old church that felt more like a stone grotto, with a heavy weight of history in the air.)

But after hunting down and viewing the few rooms available in Vernazza right now (still the low season, with many places not open yet) we realized just how cozy and friendly our current place actually is.

So Riomaggiore it is for four nights, which is fine with me. In addition to the convenience of the friendly bar downstairs (a good place to work despite the constant blaring of Italian MTV), Riomaggiore itself is charming, a steep main street (the street is actually a covered river) with little stone stairways that branch off and lead to interesting nooks and crannies, or even open out on piazzas when you least expect it.

(Riomaggiore at dusk)

(In another cafe where I worked here, the guy running the place spoke very good English and asked  me about my accent. "Not American?" he asked, and when I said yes, but I've lived in Germany for a number of years he said, "That explains it." Yes, folks, at this point I apparently have a noticeable accent, some sort of  international and hard-to-place mixture of North American and Continental. "It's nice," the guy said. "You could be from Sweden, Germany...")

Today, no work, so I'm off to explore other towns. In the rain. Wish me luck!

And the sea here, the sea, crashing waves against craggy rocks, a stormy sea. Good for song-writing!

Days in Italy

Goodness, getting far behind myself here yet again. I've been so busy preparing for other things (my soon-coming birthday, my parents' visit, a small "not-concert"that a friend and I put on in my apartment, of songs we'd been practicing together like mad over the previous weeks) that I've barely even registered that I'm, er, going to Italy tomorrow.

Italy!

It'll be fun.

The intrepid parents (that should be their new tag, perhaps: the Intrepid Parents!) like to also travel somewhere else in Europe each time they come to visit me. This time they picked Cinque Terre as their destination and it sounded so nice, I decided to go too. We meet there for a few days, then I come back to Berlin first and they arrive here a couple days later.

The poor Intrepid Parents. They just finally took off on the first of three flight connections, after an entire day's worth of delays, and will be arriving in Pisa tomorrow evening instead of morning. At least this way I can be there first to meet them!

Italy, go, go. Presumably I'll have some pictures and some things to say about that afterwards.