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one day at Oxford, England

The train ride from Scotland to Oxford was pretty long; I was on the train most of December 7th. But this brings up an important element to all these journeys -- the books I´ve been reading during all these plane and train rides. My godparents suggested several books for me to read which I ordered from Amazon while I was still in Wuerzburg. I brought along one great book Truman, by David Mccullough, which one the Pulitzer Prize in 1993. It´s a really wonderful book; in my opinion, Truman is one of the most interesting, significant, and human presidents in American history. That book really affected me, how I feel about leadership, about people in general, and how to lead a full life. Truman accomplished an awful lot in his life, and he didn't even have a college education.

I´ve also been reading books in the Sharpe series by Bernard Cornwell. This series, suggested to me by the infamous Pat Barry, are about a gruff British infantryman in the Napoleonic wars; sort of like the Patrick O'Brian series, except on land. I also ended up reading a rather silly book called Prep by Curtis Sittenfield, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, Saturday by Ian McEwan, the very interesting Crisis of Islam by Bernard Lewis, and a little bit of Barry Gordon´s Intelligent Memory. As you can see, inbetween visiting all these places, I had a lot of free time to read.

But anyway, that evening I arrived in Oxford to Jamie Butler, who had fallen asleep waiting for me in a plastic chair at the train station and had to be awakened. Soon he was showing me around; we slipped into a few of the colleges that were closing just as we arrived. There are 39 different colleges at Oxford, all with their own traditions and history. Jamie is at St. Catherine's, which is one of the newer ones. I think some of the colleges he showed me that night were Christ Church College and New College. Jamie is at St. Catherine's College -- you can see their coat of arms to the right.

Afterwards we went to a great bar packed with students, and then we met some of Jamie´s American friends for dinner in the dining hall of St. Catherine's. Usually, all the students file in after the dons and then can't start eating until the dons have or something like that, but by that night, unfortunately, Oxford had already finished classes and exams, and most people had left, other than the teems of prospective students who chatted nervously. It was an interesting experience -- we were served a three course meal by waiters -- and then we went out to a club.

At the club we were with two of Jamie's friends from the lacrosse team, both Americans, one at Gettysburg College and one at Boston University. You can see them in the picture with Jamie on the right side. A pretty wild group. We stayed out late, but Jamie and I woke up at 5:00am -- he was flying back home for Christmas break, and I was taking a bus to a London airport for the next adventure. It was a great bus ride, early in the morning, Oxford students around me talking and reading books. Finally, I got to the airport, boarded my plane, and flew to Florence, Italy.

three days at St. Andrews, Scotland

My flight brought me to Glasgow, from there I took the train to Edinburgh and from there to St. Andrews. I was quickly impressed by how friendly people in Scotland are when I struck up a forty minute-long conversation with the first person I asked for directions. He was a middle-aged Scottish man who had been living and working in the Netherlands for the past three years with his large family (I think he had three or four children). We had a discussion about life on the European continent versus life in Great Britain, and we shared a strong preference for the "Anglo-Saxon" social model over the "Franco-German" one. He explained that his family would be moving back to Scotland when it came time for his children to pursue higher education; like me, he did not approve of the education system in many continental countries like Germany and Holland. Among other things, we agreed on our dislike of the early decisions forced on students in these systems -- at a very young age, the quality of teenagers is assessed by the state, and the teenagers make decisions about their careers, all with wide-ranging consequences for the rest of their life. But anyway, you can read more on my opinion about education in Germany towards the middle of the page here.

After catching brief but wonderful glimpses of the cities of Glasgow and Edinburgh, I arrived in St. Andrews and met up with my cousin Alex Ames, who is a junior here. On the bus ride over, and then at a nearby bar, we were soon sharing gossipy details about different parts of our enormous family.

The town of St. Andrews is beautiful and so is the university. Comparisons to Hogwarts are inevitable and appropriate; there are lots of towers, castles, and ruins -- all in all a very magical place. There is also, of course, a very nice golf course and several very wealthy citizens. For me, maybe the best part about St. Andrews though was that it's right on the ocean. There are seagulls and great big waves crashing against long piers and fishing ships and clean-smelling air.

Alex has two great roommates, Natalie (from England) and Ya'ara Barnoon (from America). Unfortunately, I arrived just in time for exams, and most of the time Alex, Natalie, and Ya'ara had to write papers, but I still had a great time. Alex and Ya'ara are majoring in international studies, apparently one of the strongest departments at St. Andrews, and they were working on interesting papers about very interesting topics. It was great to hear a little about what their studying and what their opinions are.

Alex introduced me to several other interesting people, including one student applying to law school in London who explained a little bit about the very old, complicated, and intruiging way that law is set up in that city. I also got to meet a medical student who grew up in the British overseas territory of Gibraltar and explained a little bit about the history there. There are a lot of interesting people studying at St. Andrews.

There were also some very nice Americans studying there, like Alex's boyfriend Jack and his group of friends, which included a guy named Henry. Most people named Henry are very nice and thoughtful, and this Henry proved no exception. One night, Jack invited us over to play beirut in his apartment (which, by the way, is right on the ocean) and we all got pretty tipsy and had a great time. After the beirut died down and most everyone had left or gone to bed, Jack introduced me to some of his favorite television shows -- The Office and Extras, both originally created by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. Both series have become cult classics in the United States (the original The Office was already a hit in the U.K.).

Earlier that same evening Natalie, Alex and I had a drink with another Alex -- Alex Huggins, a St. Paul´s alumnus from the year after me. Alex was not the last (or the first) St. Paul's person I bumped into in Europe over the course of my travels, as you will see. But anyway, we sipped on some very good, very expensive beers and talked about Baltimore and his philosophy major, and it was very nice.

But eventually it was time to go. To sum up -- St. Andrews is beautiful, the students are interesting, and everyone is really nice. Not a bad place at all to spend college. The morning of December 4th I boarded a train to England; my next trip would take me to another place of higher education at the other end of Britain -- Oxford University, where Jamie Butler is studying.

at the beginning - one day (by accident) in Brussels

To be honest, I still struggle to understand exactly why I was so unhappy in Wuerzburg -- was it ultimately my own attitude? the people around me? -- but I do know that within hours of leaving, a big grin spread across my face and, so far as I know, it hasn´t left there since.

I left Wuerzburg on a 3:30 a.m. train having furiously packed and distractedly prepared a last-minute schedule for my travels over the next five weeks. I also left a note saying goodbye to my roommates; I had not even taken the time to explain to them that I was leaving. I´ve felt bad about not leaving a note ever since.

The series of trains took me, through the night, to Brussels, where I planned to catch the first flight on my grand tour of Europe. I had planned things poorly, so I wasn´t all that surprised when my bus to the airport arrived about forty minutes too late and I missed my flight and found myself stranded in Belgium with a small backpack and no one to turn to. I was exhausted and felt defeated, yet somehow I didn´t care, and the grin persisted -- I was just so glad to be someplace else.

The map shows every major city I visited over the course of this great month. There is at least one story from each city, and I hope to write down as many of them here as I can. Mostly, I visited friends and family. It is so much better to visit a city because you know someone who lives there. Not only do you have at least a floor to sleep on, but they will introduce you to the people there, show you where the best bars are, and help you find the must-see sites. Cities may have lots of concrete, stone, metal and glass, but ultimately they are made of people; if you see a cities buildings and museums without meeting any of its people, you are missing out.

Along the last leg of the trip to Brussels I met two Brazilian girls who had been studying in Belgium for the year. They were very nice and easy going, and talking with them reminded me that it was not so difficult for me to meet interesting people as being in Wuerzburg, for whatever reason, had made me think. For a while, everything after Wuerzburg was a reminder of things like this. Before long they were telling me about the differences between Brazilian and Belgian weather and culture -- Brazilians, apparently, are much more friendly, and Belgians are rather stiff -- and soon we were discussing South American languages and the Treaty of Tordesillas; Spain's non-enoforcement of the treaty is the reason Brazilians speak Portuguese. They were very pleased to hear that a friend named Taylor Ansley, who has been studying all over South America, had been to Buenos Aires and snapped a picture of their World AIDS day celebration (you can see the picture by visiting Taylor´s blog).

But anyway, to get back to the story, I was stuck in this little Brussels airport having missed the only flight to Scotland that day and I really didn't know what to do. I considered abandoning my trip to the U.K. and maybe going to visit Jarred in Tours; I did not consider returning to Wuerzburg. But then I asked the pretty Belgian girl at the airline ticket desk and she told me that I could buy another ticket for the flight tomorrow (€49 is a lot of money, but not all that much) and so I did, and I caught the crowded bus into Brussels -- the girl selling bus tickets, by the way, was also very pretty.

Brussels is a beautiful city, although like most cities it looks muddy and dark in the winter. I asked a nice French-speaking woman where a good hotel was. Ultimately, the hotel I slept at was one she had warned me against and described as "not fine." It´s true that the inexpensive hotel proved to be nothing special, but I suspected later that the real reason for her disapproval involved the owners (they were Turks) and the guest list -- most of them were black. Brussels felt like a very international place; many, if not most of the people I saw or overheard on the street did not seem to speak French or Dutch (the native languages in Belgium), and there were a lot of British people, as well as Turks and Africans.

After sleeping in my room until around nine in the evening (I hadn´t really slept since the night before in Wuerzburg) I walked around this section of town -- clearly an immigrant section -- and stopped at an internet cafe. Inside, everyone stared at me. I must have looked very out of place, I was certainly the only white person inside. But they were very nice and fair to me. I was still wearing that grin I mentioned, and eventually they grinned back. Most people are nice, I thought, and you have to be careful about judging them based on what they look like.

Afterwards I stepped into a cab at the train station and asked for him to take me to a bar. After driving for ten minutes, I suddenly entered another world. Around my hotel it was dark and empty, but here were dozens of little streets brimming with restaurants, bars, young people, and christmas lights strung across rooftops. At a main square in front of an important-looking building there was even a light display and an outdoor art presentation of giant glass Christmas ornaments. I went to a little bar (the first one the taxi driver had taken me to) and asked the friendly waiter what the best beer there was. As I drank the dark, very heavy beer he had brought me I ate a platter of tiny sausage, cheese, and olive appetizers for dinner and listened to the couples and groups sitting around me. Of course, I didn´t really understand the ones speaking Dutch or French, but there were several English people sitting nearby who seemed to be having a good time. Even though I was on my own, I had a good time too.

Afterwards, I wandered around the city, took the subway to the big park and palace in the middle of town, and then caught a taxi back to the hotel around 1 a.m.

The next day, having been scared into behaving by missing yesterdays flight, I woke up early, arrived at the airport three hours too soon, and flew to Glasgow, Scotland.

vrolijk Kerstmis!

---------------------------------

Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him.

He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon the Total Abstinence Principle, ever afterwards; and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!

Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

Merry Christmas

AND

Happy New Year

from the Netherlands!

as the sun sets on an adventure, a new one is born

MY DECISION
Yesterday I concluded the longest and most torturesome decision-making marathon in my life: I decided that I will return to Davidson College for spring semester 2006 rather than stay here in Würzburg, Germany.

I suppose by one measure the back-and-forth on this decision has lasted since my freshman year of college in 2003-04 as I sat in Dr. Henke´s German 201 course; in other words, I had been debating this decision for about two years when I decided to go to Würzburg, and now, even though I´ve been here for four months, the debate has somehow continued. Until now.

As I have found repeatedly at other potentially critical junctures in my life, I am extremely bad at decision-making. I am massively cautious; I scrape together a superabundance of evidence and carefully balance my options on crammed sheets of paper with long lines running down the middle. For every decision, I search for an almost mathematically explicit "solution." Worst of all, when all this fails, as it usually does, I end up leaning heavily on the advice of my friends, who understandably have grown deeply weary of my perpetual ambivalence and pleas for them to, well, make the decision for me.

This of course all bodes very poorly for my future, because important decisions are, well, important, and going back and forth a hundred times is surely worse than just choosing a path and following through on it. A few weeks ago on the phone, my dad put it exactly the way it is: sometimes you just have to make a decision and stick with it, even though you aren´t 100% sure that it´s the "right" one. The most successful people, he said, are the ones who get it right just 51% of the time.

There are a lot of good reasons to stay, and sometimes, glancing over the list, I am still moved by it: the ever-present chance, hope, faith, dream that it will all work out for me here somehow; the chance to see all of Europe; the desire not to abandon a plainly unbelievable and rare opportunity; the chance to achieve fluency in German; the spirit of adventure, because, who knows what would happen next semester?; and finally, the belief in not "giving up" -- as Harry Truman once put it, "I´ve had a few setbacks in my life, but I never gave up."

But then, after all that, I remember: I am sad and lonely here, and the people around me do not stimulate my interest, or seem interested in the things that I interest me. And it´s really just that simple, because all those other things don´t matter very much if you aren´t doing them with people you care about.

WÜRZBURG WAS WORTH IT
There´s snow in Würzburg today, and it´s beautiful.

To those who say I was a fool for ever coming, read this: I will never regret coming here. The chance to be alone with your own thoughts for a long period of time is, I think, a much rarer opportunity than one might imagine, given our world that is beeping and buzzing and vibrating with cell phones, blackberrys and instant messages. I rediscovered a patience and simple love for books that I had forgotten in the hurricane of lectures and essays and internship possibilities. I remembered how much I care about people and how much more sensitive I am than I sometimes choose to seem.

I decided I don´t want or need my life to be about waiting to achieve some magnificent accomplishment that will elevate my status in the eyes of other people. I decided I´m just as much a Romantic as an "Age of Reason" man, and just as much of a bleeding-heart Pascal as a rationally analytical Bacon or Descartes. "Does one need to love?" Pascal wrote, "don´t ask -- feel it."

Moreover, as is so often said, by temporarily giving up so many things that I care about -- my family, my friends, my professors, my college -- I won a deeper appreciation of them forever. Lying in my room in Würzburg, and just thinking about stuff, changed a lot about me. I´m a better man for coming here. Nobody can tell me that one semester in Würzburg was not "worth it."

A NEW ADVENTURE IS BORN
It is 5:59 in the morning December 2; I have one month and four days to see the rest of Europe. Until now, restricted by courses, the trips mandated by the program, and my own weirdly self-imposed sentence of imprisonment here, I had not even escaped to a non-German speaking nation. But informed that my decision to return home annulls my Würzburg course credits anyway, I´ve decided to abandon them and spend the next month traveling to as many friends and family as I can in the short amount of time I´ve got. In about 21 hours -- at 3:36 AM tomorrow -- I will begin yet another adventure that should take me to Edinburgh, Oxford, Florence, Madrid, Tours, Paris, Rotterdam, Berlin, Copenhagen, London, Switzerland, and finally Davidson, North Carolina. I don´t know if it will all work out -- if any of it will work out -- but it´s time for me to go now. The original mission statement I typed here in June, six months ago, explains that the purpose of this blog was "to keep track of my time abroad in Taiwan, China, and Germany"; that motivation to write here will cease tomorrow when I leave the last country on the list. I will have to come up with a new mission statement.

DOING THE RIGHT THING
Leaving Würzburg behind is hard for another reason -- over the course of all my constant back-and-forth decision-making, several professors stood by me, patiently tolerating my spoiled, self-important nonsense. And now, by leaving, it may seem to them that I have abandoned everything they wanted me to find here. But they would be wrong. If rediscovering how much I love my family and my friends and my Life is not what it´s all about, then what is it about anyway?

Every week I´ve been meeting with a German woman named Karin who meets with several students in our program to help them improve their German. Karin, a true lady and a wise person, had this to say yesterday: "big personal decisions like these can´t be made because of what you owe to professors you respect, or because of what they believe -- you have to make a decision like this for yourself."

And for once, tossing aside my sheets of pros and cons and bringing my head up from the tired shoulders of over-relied on friends, I am casting my fate to the wind and making my own decision. Maybe, on top of the other things I´ve learned here in Würzburg, I am finally learning how to make decisions, too.

the good times - a German fraternity meeting

It wasn´t long before Mauricio was convinced by the brothers in his house to join the fraternity in which he was already living, and soon the campaign was on to get John and I to join one, too. There were two big problems from the outset. The first problem was that John and I are Episcopalians. Mauricio, who is Mexican and Catholic to the bone, explained to us that we might consider converting, and noted that being a Catholic wasn´t "all that bad." Besides, he said, we could do a year of Catholicism as "you know, a sort of test run." He also argued that the Episcopal church is a lot like the Catholic church and little more than the result of the cantankerous Henry VIII, which has some truth to it, but becoming Catholic seemed like a very big step, and to convert in order to become eligible for fraternity membership -- especially as a "test run" -- would have been obviously ridiculous.

But on top of it all anyway, as a member of SigEp back home at Davidson i swore I wouldn´t be joining any other fraternities after I joined SigEp so as not to dilute the system and so on. So you see, joining Mauricio´s fraternity was out of the question on several levels.

Nevertheless a German gentleman named Sebastian Krems from another fraternity across the street -- they´re called Studentenverbindungen, by the way -- decided that he wasn´t going to be dissuaded by silly things like these, and what followed was a flurry of invitations to functions at his house. John and Mauricio and I attended several of them. But the best one, depicted in the photo, I attended by myself.

The history of the Studentenverbindungen goes back to the early 19th century, especially that year 1848 when everybody in Germany became a communist and the mobs in Austria forced Metternich to resign. All the links lead to articles about the histories of these subjects in Wikipedia, in case you´re interested in them further.

In any event, it was at one of these Verbindungen that I was invited to observe rituals, which date back to those heady days in the 19th century. Getting all dressed up like old-fashioned German soldiers, singing roaring songs, drinking great flasks of beer and playing with big swords is really what they meant by "rituals." I had a blast. There are some great traditions and some not so great ones: for example, if you don´t take care to close your song book as soon as everyone´s finished singing, all your neighbors will set their beers on the open pages until you notice you´re mistake; then you have to drink them all. But the not so great tradition is that you may not go to the bathroom for long stretches of time due to an obscure fraternal law that was put in place to prevent members from getting atrociously drunk during this sort of semi-serious event. Unfortunately, no one bothered to tell me about this rule until half-way into the evening; later I only avoided the most appalling of accidents by the narrowest of margins.

These were good times.

the good times - parties at Mauricio´s "bar"

Two or three times in the last few months my friend Mauricio has thrown terrific parties where he lives. Mauricio, you see, couldn´t find a room in student housing. Instead, he lives in the basement of an amazing German Catholic fraternity house.

In some ways, it may not look like the most desirable of living conditions, but in fact Mauricio has got it very good. He has a very nice handful of rooms, and although there can be quite a ruckus from time to time, it´s the sort of ruckus that tends to happen on weekend nights when ruckus is really welcome. Moreover on the main story is a massive refrigerator that gets restocked weekly with literally hundreds of beers from the best German brewery´s. Mauricio has been told he should never hesitate to help himself.

But anyway, Mauricio often has the four story house -- really a mansion -- to himself, and the brothers declared long ago that he was more than welcome to throw parties whenever he saw fit. The best part is that in the basement of his house is a large but cosy room completely decked out like a German bar or Kneipe. This
room is no joke -- there is a full bar, bar stools, dark wood paneling, a piano, old German paintings on bar-room type themes, a glowing chandalier -- but not too bright -- several tall wooden barrels carefully positioned so you can place your drinks there, and even an ancient stuffed fox -- you can see him on the left-hand side in the picture to the right. All in all, a room best described with the German adjective gemütlich which means cosy but much more. Most young hosts could only dream about having a room like this to throw parties in.

So we did. And it was great. The assembled guests were an unusually diverse group because when the first parties commenced we had only just recently completed our DSH course and Prüfung - exam - which is a pre-requisite for admission into the university. And a crash-course in the German language means exchange students from all over the world because, well, who else is going to be studying German grammar?

So at the parties were students and acquaintances from Germany, but also from the United States, Mexico, the U.K., Paraguay, Brazil, South Korea, Japan, and Eastern Europe. Ashish can be seen above on the left near one of the barrels.

These were good times.

the good times - wine tasting

There have been some very good times for me here, and recording them has now become a goal of mine.

Well over a month ago, Mauricio, a Mexican Law student here who speaks excellent German, invited several of us to a wine tasting hosted by the wonderful Herr Dr. Schlagbauer and his wife, both of whom can be seen to the right. Dr. Schlagbauer is an older gentleman, but he remains hard at work as a dentist, bursting with energy, hosting parties and flattering young ladies. He and his wife, both of whom constantly wear big grins, are such an open-hearted, free-spirited couple -- they get life, and they always seem to be having a blast.

Certainly Mauricio, myself, and the other friends Mauricio invited were the youngest in attendance at the party; for the most part, everyone else there were older adults. Würzburg in Autumn is the perfect place for a wine tasting, as the city and the surrounding hilly vinyards are famous for wine. There were four wine servings, along with an assortment of fine cheeses, little salami pieces, and bread.

We all grew merrier as the evening progressed. Inbetween servings Dr. Schlagbauer would lead us in singing roaring songs, and his wife would recite beautiful poems about Autumn and life. My favorite song from that night is "Die Gedanken sind frei." A website I found describes the song´s history as originating as "an old song of protest that goes back to the German peasant wars of the 16th century." Banned by the Nazis, the song is wonderful to sing and carries a powerful message: "Die Gedanken sind frei" means "The thoughts are free." The first two stanzas of the German lyrics are as follows:

Die Gedanken sind frei,
wer kann sie erraten;
sie fliehen vorbei
wie naechtliche Schatten.
Kein Mensch kann sie wissen,
kein Jaeger erschiessen;
es bleibet dabei:
Die Gedanken sind frei.

Ich denk was ich will,
und was mich begluecket,
Doch alles in der Still,
und wie es sich schicket.
Mein Wunsch und Begehren
kann niemand verwehren,
es bleibet dabei:
Die Gedanken sind frei.

It´s difficult to translate songs of course, but I found one translation online that isn´t really a translation so much as English lyrics that possess the same tone as the German ones. But you get the idea:

"Our Thoughts Are Free"
Die Gedanken sind frei
My thoughts freely flower,
My thoughts give me power.
No scholar can map them,
No hunter can trap them,
No man can deny:
Die Gedanken sind frei!

I think as I please
And this gives me pleasure,
My conscience decrees,
This right I must treasure;
My thoughts will not cater
To duke or dictator,
No man can deny--
Die Gedanken sind frei!

The picture shows wine being poured for Claire, an English exchange student also studying in Würzburg for the year. The last line of the song is practically yelled, especially by the third or fourth round of a wine-tasting, and the energy is magnificent. Then his wife would read a poem, as can be seen to the left. She very kindly gave me the list of all the songs and poems sung and read that night. But my favorite one, about wine and Autumn, is called "Oktoberlied" by Theodor Strom, and reads as follows:

Der Nebel steigt, es fällt das Laub;
Schenk ein den Wein, den holden!
Wir wollen uns den grauen Tag
Vergolden, ja vergolden!

Und geht es draußen noch so toll,
Unchristlich oder christlich,
Ist doch die Welt, die schöne Welt,
So gänzlich unverwüstlich!

Und wimmert auch einmal das Herz -
Stoß an und laß es klingen!
Wir wissen's doch, ein rechtes Herz
Ist gar nicht umzubringen.

Wohl ist es Herbst; doch warte nur,
Doch warte nur ein Weilchen!
Der Frühling kommt, der Himmel lacht,
Es steht die Welt in Veilchen.

Die blauen Tage brechen an,
Und ehe sie verfließen,
Wir wollen sie, mein wackrer Freund,
Genießen, ja genießen!

I won´t try to translate it, except sort of the first stanza:

The fog it grows, the leaves they wither,
Send on the wine, let´s drink it!
We want to take this dark gray day,
And turn it golden, yes, golden!

Anyway, you can imagine how merry things got. Afterwards, I had a long conversation with a German investor about lumber prices, and the surprising fact that, at the moment, Germany is exporting timber to the United States -- I think it has something to do with American tariffs on Canadian wood. Anyway, if you´re interested in little facts and curiosities like that, then we can discuss it further, but I won´t write any more of it down here. The picture here shows Mauricio, who invited us, and also had a great time, I think.

It was a fine party and a fine evening; Dr. Schlagbauer and his wife know how to throw a good wine tasting. I will never forget it. If someday I can throw half as good of a party, with friends and family all gathered around enjoying themselves, I would count myself very lucky.

These were good times.

a dreary day in Dresden

Visiting Dresden in early November several weeks ago was not one of the "good times" for me -- in fact, it was one of the lower moments, when my loneliness and heavyheartedness were intensified by drizzly gray weather. But Dresden is a beautiful city, and Í have a few pictures, so I decided to write a little bit down.

John, Jesse and Chris were also there with me, but I´m sad to say that in my despondency I treated them poorly; I was just a downer during these times, you see.

Preferring to spend time on our own, we saw most of the city sites independently. One of the more important ones is the "Zwinger" which is a rectangular palace with green gardens in the middle and four large museums housing several large and relatively important collections of art, medieval weapons, and scientific -- mostly astronomical -- instruments from the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries.

The weekend I was visiting also happened to be the first Sunday of services open to the public at the newly reconstructed Frauenkirche cathedral. The Frauenkirche, a truly magnificent building, was destroyed by fire bombs, like the rest of Dresden, on Valentine´s day, 1945, during World War II. The cathedral is impressive and unique because it has many, many levels inside -- maybe ten stories -- where you can sit and observe the service; it´s a completely vertical experience. This having been the first public service since 1945, the line stretched forever, but fortunately Chris and I, arriving early, were able to get in without too much trouble. I sat next to an older couple, the wife spoke to me extensively about her experiences as a little girl in the Cathedral before it was destroyed; this was the first time she had entered it since 1945.

Sometimes in Europe when you sit at a table in a crowded restaurant or cafe the waiter or waitress will seat a group of strangers at your table. I wish it was the same way in the United States, because it´s really a wonderful custom, especially if you´re alone -- odds are, in that case, you will soon be striking up a conversation with them, and then you´ve met someone new.

This happened to me in Dresden. Reading and sipping hot chocolate by myself in an elegant cafe, as rain battered against the awning, an elderly couple sat down at my table and ordered coffees. For a while I didn´t say anything, because, as I´ve rediscovered, I´m really a rather shy person, and most of the time I wait for people to engage me in conversation, rather than taking the initiative to engage them. But on this day as I twiddled my thumbs waiting for them to speak to me, I decided that wouldn´t do, and I started asking them what they happened to be doing in Dresden on this miserable chilly day.

As it turned out, they were Dutch, which of course got me very excited (my heritage is Dutch, by the way) and before long we were talking about all kinds of things, like their five children, one of whom had moved to Warsaw and started another big family after falling for a Polish woman. The old Dutch man was full of energy and questions and excitement. I felt from the way that they spoke happily of their children that they were enjoying a very rewarding life, with a great big family that they had created and nurtured.

Chris and John and I gathered together briefly to attend an Opera by Richard Strauss, which was in the handsome Dresden opera house, which used to be quite famous. You can read more on the history of Dresden here.

Later, under a dark causeway, I paused for several minutes listening to a group of excellent Russian street performers who had drawn a small but devoted crowd. I guess they were a woodwind quartet -- a flutist, a bassoonist, and two clarinetists. Anyway, they were so professional, during a pause between Mozart´s Turkish and Strauss´ Radetski march I went up and bought their CD from them for €15. Afterwards I was extremely tickled with myself, convinced that I had become a magnificent patron of the arts.

And so that was Dresden for me. But you see, I was all alone for these little adventures. And that´s what made me sad; Dresden could have been a blast. It´s not where you are, it´s who you´re with.