Amsterdam and Cologne with Granddaughter Alli

Alli loves Amsterdam! At Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh; around the Dam, the town center; walking the neighborhoods; having pancakes and great food, with Andy and with Kaaren, Jeff and Parks, our fabulous hosts, having the time of our lives. 

What a special trip this was!  Alli's first trip to Europe, beginning in the beautiful cities of Amsterdam and Cologne.  A college graduation gift, to open her eyes to the world. And she was ready. "The advance team for your next trip, and many trips thereafter," I said to her as she jumped with joy in front of the Rijksmuseum. "I'm ready to go back, Nana!" she exclaimed, after a few days in Amsterdam and a train trip to Cologne. She was already thinking about an itinerary.

The Concertgebouw, the famous concert hall, near the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh.

Our base was the modern urban home of my niece Kaaren and Jeff, creative geniuses both of them, and their precious son Parks, right on Saphatipark. Up several flights of stairs, way up, like almost all Amsterdam houses, unless you live on a houseboat on a canal. It's a lovely part of town.

From there we walked or took a tram wherever we wanted to go, seeing the sites and the highlights, experiencing the spirit of the Netherlands, absorbing the culture, avoiding determined bikers, the major mode of transportation in this bustling city. I love the canals, the Museumplein area, and the Dam, the center of town where the Royal Palace and the Nieuwe Kerk dominate. I went to a wonderful exhibit at the church, "We Have a Dream," featuring the lives and messages of Mahatma Ghandi, Nelson Mandela, and Martin Luther King, Jr., so needed once again in our times. The exhibit seemed to come alive in the spiritual glow of the church, with its vaulted gothic ceilings and stained glass windows.

We also took a train to Cologne to spend a few days in Germany, a small but tantalizing taste of this diverse country. Getting off at Central Station, after an interesting ride through German countryside and small towns, we were immediately greeted by the enormous, towering 13th-century gothic Cologne Cathedral with its intricately carved weathered facade and twin spires reaching to the heavens.  We went inside the next day to see its fabulous craftsmanship, art and architecture. It's the tallest Cathedral in Europe, and now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It inspires awe and hope.

In Cologne, we stayed in a small but nice hotel, the Mauritius Komforthotel. From there we strolled to a nearby square in search of adventure and dinner. That's how we happened upon Heumarket Square and the historic Malzmuhle restaurant, famous for brewing the Cologne beer known as Kolsch since the 1800s.  We enjoyed an authentic German meal of wiener schnitzel and bratwurst, along with many glasses of Kolsch, of course.

We were happy campers by the time we left the Inn, conversing with a group of guys who were as jolly as we were! They were happy to meet Americans and joked about Trump. Actually, just about everyone we met joked about him. "How could this happen? What a buffoon! What an embarrassment!"  Yep, the USA is now the butt of lots of European jokes. But people to people? No problem at all. Wonderful as ever.

So we walked leisurely through Heumarketplein, relaxed at one of the many colorful and lively cafes around it, and people watched. The night sky was cloudy, but we were filled with wonder and joy.  Alli liked the German beer, and even my sister Andy and I, not usually beer drinkers, joined her to salute Cologne, the largest city on the Rhine river. The next day we took one of those City Bus Tours, getting off and on to explore the sights, including the Chocolate Museum where we had espresso and rich dark chocolate cake. Yum. We also took an enjoyable and relaxing boat tour on the Rhine, the river that starts in the Swiss Alps and ends in the North Sea in the Netherlands. It all seemed connected. I have lovely visions of strolling the promenade along the river.

Bikes and public art near Kaaren's neighborhood.

Full harvest moon over Amsterdam
October 5, 2017

Then it was back to Amsterdam to explore more of the Netherland's capital city. Alli spent more time with Kaaren and Jeff, taking long walks along the canals and enjoying the special places around the town that is now their home. Andy and I went at a more leisurely pace, stopping often to have a drink, sit at a corner cafe, enjoy good coffee and sisterly talks.

On our last day, Alli and I went to the large Amsterdam Market (one of the largest in Europe we were told) to browse and shop and enjoy. We walked between the rain drops and rejoiced when the sun broke through. We bought souvenirs, scarves, hats, tee shirts, whatever caught our fancy. Alli was practical and wise in choosing gifts, while I went for the magnets, shot glasses, and trinkets. I could see she was thoughtful and open to learning new things, to having new experiences. My lovely Millennial granddaughter, confident, tolerant, upbeat, a pragmatic idealist, optimistic about the future. Every once in a while she'd give me a big hug and a big smile. "I love it. So Awesome. I love it!"

It was thrilling to watch Alli on her first European tour, to see my granddaughter absorb the adventure of a lifetime, knowing in my heart that she will cherish the memory and that there will be many more travels to come.

Sister Andy, granddaughter Alli, and niece Kaaren

Egypt Unveiled: Form Cairo to Luxor- July 21, 2017

Egypt Unveiled: From Cairo to Luxor

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We were up at 6:00 am to catch the 8:00 am train from Cairo to Luxor. We chose a day train because we wanted to see the Egyptian countryside. We wanted to see Egypt unveiled. And we did.

The train station is behind a lot of rubble, I think because it's under construction. Lots of things are hidden from Western eyes, like the veiled women in burkas. We stood bewildered, bogged down by baggage and void of our morning coffee fix. Fortunately an elderly man offered to help carry our luggage and get us to the station. There was no path but the one he made. It was good enough. We tipped him 5 pounds and agreed that it was the most worthwhile tip we'd given so far. Sometimes Egypt provocative is just what we needed!

We met a lovely couple as we boarded the train, Leo, from Austria, and Lucia, from Melbourne, Australia. They were a 50ish couple who had known each other 25 years ago, met up again in Cairo, and are on their way to Ethiopia. How wonderful is that?! We chatted off and on during the train ride. I hope I hear from them again. We also met some friendly English-speaking travelers who were curious and helpful. One woman asked where we were going and when we said Luxor she told us how beautiful it is. "You should go to Aswan, too," she said. "We're thinking of a day-trip," Jud said. "You should make it a 2-day trip!" Ah boy, we don't have enough time to do all we'd like to do.

The train was clean and comfortable; a waiter or steward came through our first class car from time to time offering tea and coffee and biscuits. The whistle, however, never stopped blowing, so if sleep came it was interrupted by the constant announcement of the train going through one Nile river town after another. I caught a name every once in a while, first in Arabic, which is such a beautiful script, and then in English. A darkening sky and gray haze followed us for several hours from a small town called Matti to another larger city called Assuit. And then the heavens opened up and the rain fell.

People on donkeys, which are still the predominant beasts of burden and main source of transport in rural Egypt it seems, rushed hither and thither. A man stood with his hands outstretched, as if welcoming the rain. At one point it hailed, large stones almost the size of golf balls, falling hard on the dry ground. How odd to see hail, or rain for that matter, in the desert! At one point it rained so hard water came pouring through my window and I had to move.

We were rewarded with a beautiful rainbow in the Eastern sky as the rain subsided and the sun set. It seemed to start in Cairo and end in Luxor, the end of the rainbow! The eastern landscape glowed in stunning golden light. Oh how I tried to capture the magic, but rain-streaked windows on the moving train made it difficult!

From the windows of a train, the Cairo countryside along the river and canals looks very green and pretty, miles of fertile fields, of what I'm not sure. Fields of wild grasses, some corn, alfalfa, other vegetables, herbs maybe, some sugarcane. The means of farming looks pretty traditional, sythe and sickle, but the irrigation systems, canals and ditches carrying water from the river to fields seem to be effective. We learned only later that some of the canals are polluted and we were warned not to put even a finger in the water. Except for the donkeys and minarets, the Egyptian countryside looks a lot like Florida, with many varieties of palm trees.

After being in the bustling and chaotic city of Cairo, the rural scenes seem calm and serene. The palms compete with the minarets in reaching for the sky, lovely pastoral scenes in pastel.

Stacks of hay are bundled into humps with stalks reaching out from them, making them look like camels sitting in the desert.

And yet poverty is evident too. People live in stick huts, dank hovels and crumbling buildings along the canals and the railroad tracks. Donkeys, cows, goats, and chickens run around muddy yards. There's little to no protection against the elements, or the harsh sun. Nothing in the way of material possessions, which seems ridiculous even to note. Material possessions? For people living in huts, tents and stick structures with only a few palm fronds for a roof? It's survival.

Still, women did laundry and hung it out to dry on posts and falling fences. Boys kicked a soccer ball around a muddy field. Young children in ramshackle buildings next to the train tracks smiled broadly and waved as the train passed, so close to windows without glass that I could almost touch them.

Sometlmes Jud's side of the train had the prettier views, while mine filled with the gray-brown of poverty and slum dwellings. Sometimes I had brilliant green fields on my side, with swaying palms, while Jud had row upon row of brown brick dwellings surrounded by brown dirt paths and fields.

You have to look out of both sides of the train to get the whole picture, to process all the images, the conflicting views and visions, the beautiful and the ugly, the rich cultural overlays and the gray-brown underbelly.

On the train from Cairo to Luxor I could see both sides of Egypt.

The train was almost three hours late and we arrived in Luxor in the dark, the lights of the city shining brightly after the unusual rainstorm. We found that out later: how rare the rain and how welcome, no matter the damage it may have caused or the activities it slowed down. Rain in the desert is a gift, like the huge clear rainbow we saw over the landscape of Egypt, a sign of good luck I thought.

The train ride from Cairo to Luxor shows daily life over the patina of antiquity. It’s Egypt in the now, an unfolding panorama of rural and urban landscapes, grace and poverty, green and brown, palms and minarets reaching for the sky, people going about their business, farming, buying and selling, seeking tips and advantages wherever they can, heeding the Call to Prayer, heeding the call to survival and daily life. It's Egypt unveiled.