feldmanlarry

Due to severe winds, the train had to detour off the 300 KPH (almost 200 MPH)  tracks from Amsterdam to Brussels but they could get up to speed from Brussels to Paris. Usually a one-hour delay causes me stress due to connections, short time available, etc. With one full week in an apartment in Paris, one hour really didn’t matter.

The Gare du Nord was crazy. I went to buy a carnet of 10 Metro tickets but the machine wouldn’t take US credit or debit cards because we’re about the only country that doesn’t have smart chips in our cards. It took cash but no bills. I needed 14.20 euros and had about 12 euros in coins. Finally I got that figured out and got to the Chatelet Metro stop. The owner of the airbnb.com apartment told me to take exit #16 from the metro stop but it was under construction and none of the exits were numbered. I was thrilled to be able to speak French and get some help.

I met up with Patrice and he showed me the apartment. WOW! I’ll talk about it later. The location is also (insert superlative here). My planning paid off.

Patrice recommended a restaurant just one block from my apartment in the massive pedestrian district, les Halles. There was a salmon appetizer that melted in my mouth. I’m not sure if it was some kind of sushi, which is unlikely in French cooking.

The main course was lamb with swiss chard.

Finally, millefeuille for desert.

After a long walk, I felt like I feel as I’m writing this. It’s now well after midnight and I’m done.

Sometimes I wonder whether I should be writing about what I previously did or just do new stuff. What if you had a webcam on your head that followed you around all day and you played that back in full the next day? The next day you could watch yourself watching what you did the day before. The possibilities are staggering.

I did too much yesterday. Today I wanted to do too little. I spent a lot of the morning working on the blog and putting stuff away. I had a great lunch at a local pub. Unfortunately at the table right next to me three American women were talking loudly about all their health problems. I don’t blame them for talking about it, but it didn’t add to the ambiance. I dislike talking about my health problems to anyone except doctors and with friends for a few minutes before moving on to something more interesting. I could talk a long time about my health, having had a shoulder replacement and heart surgery but this sentence is the end of talking about it.

I learned about the difference between a “café” and a “coffee house”. Coffee houses are for marijuana, which is totally legal. Apparently you can get coffee at a coffee house but you might get a buzz from the smoke while drinking it.

I got busted at the Van Gogh museum for using the owner of my apartment’s museum card. It saved me some money at other museums but the cashier asked for my ID and figured out that I’m not a Dutch woman. One reason I like Van Gogh so much is that his colors are so vivid that even with my “color dullness”, I can feel his colors. I thought of my father when I saw the famous Sunflowers painting. He really loved that painting. There were several self-portraits in a row that got to me too. These are not my pictures since I respected the no photo rule, especially after getting busted once.

The fact that Anne Frank and Van Gogh never knew they would become famous made me wonder who the people are today who will be famous in the future. Maybe some musician who has a small following today will become the defining artist of our time in the future.

I took a canal boat trip and shared a booth with a woman who was a bartender from Australia and traveling around Europe by herself. People tried to rob her twice but she was able to stop them. This is the second young woman I had fairly long conversations with who is backpacking around Europe. As a male I can go out at night much more safely and I can stay a level or two above hostels. But the freedom these two women expressed very eloquently reminded me of what an amazing opportunity I have right now in my 60’s.

A cab driver I had yesterday recommended to me a Moroccan restaurant in the area of Amsterdam he lives. He invited me to call him and take me there. We drove way out of the tourist area. The food was really good. The Moroccan spices were different from other ones I have had. The meal was called Tagine Kip, which is chicken with vegetables and rice. After dinner I went to a local bar and had a drink then called the cab driver to pick me up. It was a good feeling to be in an area with no other tourists.

I failed at not doing much today but I was able to do much less than yesterday. I feel very satisfied with my trip to Amsterdam. In 3 nights I had seen a lot, just enough to feel I don’t absolutely have to come back although I could see spending a week or a year here someday. It’s a beautiful city with lots to offer. Holland always ranks high in happiness surveys. The bicycle culture, the beautiful canals, the many museums, the freedom for marijuana smokers, and so on but mostly the attitude of live and let live make it a relaxed and wonderful place.

I hope not to have as busy a day as this maybe until I get to Italy in about 2 weeks. This was a day of contrasts, going directly from celebrating my favorite non-Canadian beer, to feeling the horrors of the holocaust, to a beautiful 18-dish meal.

Yesterday, I couldn’t find a place to buy a European sim card so I was using ATT on my old phone. I was directed to a grocery store to get a sim. A Muslim woman was working the desk and walked me through what I needed to do to get started. I asked her if she had something like a paper clip to open the sim drawer on the phone and surprisingly, she gave me the pin from her scarf. This gesture will stick with me a long time (pun unintended at first).

Often people (Margaret) tell me how wonderful the mornings are when it’s so peaceful. One of many reasons I’m not a morning person is that NOTHING’S OPEN IN THE MORNING, for a good reason – no one wants to work in the early mornings. I had to pass by several great looking cafes that were all opening at 11.

I loved these escalators that had a ramp instead of steps. It was a little disorienting at first to be leaning forward or back rather than standing vertically.

I won’t bore you with my next two excursions – a one hour bus tour and a canal boat. The heavy rain kept me from fully enjoying them even though I’m really glad to have done them.

I got off the boat at the Rijksmuseum stop with the intention of going to the nearby Van Gogh museum. It was a ten-minute walk through brutal blowing winds and rain. When I got there, there was a 45-minute line and they were closing soon after. Apparently a rainy Sunday is about the worst time for museums since the locals are looking to do something indoors.

I’m not colorblind but maybe I’m “color dull”. Colors don’t stand out as much for me as for others. My world doesn’t have many shades, just a handful of basic colors. I don’t think it’s a medical condition that warrants me getting handicap parking (although that would be nice).

Given this “color dullness”, I find it hard to really love art but I can enjoy going through a museum seeing pictures for their story line but not so much for what the artist does with color. I went to the Rijksmuseum and appreciated Vermeer’s Milkmaid and Rembrandt’s Night Watch.

I then fought the ridiculous rain and the even more ridiculous umbrella to get to the “Heineken Experience”.

I enjoyed tasting Wort, the sweet water and barley mixture used in the early part of brewing.

There was a tame ride where the ground shook while we were being beer that got mixed and packed among other activities. It was hard not to gulp down our small sample when they were teaching us the proper way to do a beer tasting. Fortunately, we were given two full beers to drink at the end of the tour.

At this point, I was done with sightseeing. It was 6:30 or so and I figured out a tram to get back to my apartment. Unfortunately, it closed its doors when I was a few feet away while fighting the wind and rain. I gave up and took a taxi. My plan was to relax a little then go out to dinner.

Someone had given me the advice to try to get Anne Frank tickets online to avoid standing in line for 2 hours or so. I laid down and checked my computer and no tickets were available until May. Just before shutting my computer, I clicked on the more info link on today’s date and surprisingly, there were 3 tickets available for 7:30, which was 30 minutes away. I filled my credit card info in, ran out the door, got a taxi, and was inside the museum at 7:30. Eating can wait.

I was moved by seeing the bookcase that hid the stairs, climbing the stairs, and walking through the rooms.

I couldn’t keep back tears watching the videos of people describing what Anne Frank’s story meant to them. I was born only 7 years after she was killed. If I had been born earlier and lived in Europe, most likely my fate would have been the same as hers. At Yad Vashem in Israel, I saw several Feldmans on a train list going to an extermination camp.

From there, I got a taxi to go to dinner. The taxi driver translated a message about my phone data plan that was in Dutch. It was a little scary that he was driving while reading and translating. I bought 1gb of data for 10 Euros (about $11). ATT charges $30 for 120mb.

I had wanted to get an Indonesian Rice Table for decades. They said they normally don’t make a rice table for just one person but they did it anyway. It cost 45 euros (about $50) and it included about 18 dishes. Here’s the list.

I had been preparing for this. My only food since breakfast was French fries in the train station around noon. The food came close to 10 PM. After the appetizer, these 17 dishes came out.

Here’s what was left. I was able to eat maybe 3/4 of it. This may have been the best meal I’ve ever had!

I was going to walk back to the apartment but the tram was right there. I got off after one stop and felt like an idiot holding it up since I didn’t know that you have to press a button to open the door.

I walked more in this day (11,276 steps) than any day in at least the couple of years I’ve been keeping track but this is a just a below average day for Margaret. My mind, emotions, and stomach were churning with too much input.

I was sad to leave Iceland. I’ll always have a fond spot for it. It’s very unique. There is such a thing as an island culture, the feeling of being a small area that is separate from the rest of the world. The natives I spoke with really love the place. They seem to have it all together. I didn’t see it all by any means. I’d like to come back with the main goal of seeing the Northern Lights in its full splendor, but also to eat in the revolving restaurant where I got my act together, go on the two-day South Shore trip, and hang out more in restaurants and bars.

One lesson I learned from Iceland is that it’s worth going to the out of the way places, perhaps even more than the famous places. Indiana, PA where I live is certainly an out of the way place and does not have the same level of attractions as Iceland but it is also worth the effort (to spend 30 or so years there).

Getting up at 445 AM is Margaret’s thing, not mine. Even she wouldn’t like it though with just 2 hours sleep. My attitude is just to be happy that I’m traveling and save the complaints for another time, preferably never.

A young guy picked me up at the guesthouse who also works at one of the massive aluminum factories. He works 8 shifts compressed into 5 days, working sometimes with just a few hours between shifts and then gets 5 days off.

When I got to the airport, my flight was the only one of about 15 that was late. The business class lounge was a great benefit. On the plane, I sat next to a Dutch paratrooper. We totally agreed on our politics. He admitted that most paratroopers were not like him. He was just coming back from an exercise north of Edmonton, Canada. He was one of the most interesting people I’ve met so far.

I realized I hadn’t really done my homework about Amsterdam. I couldn’t find anyplace selling a sim card to avoid ATT roaming prices. Looking back, it would have been easy to take the rail into town but I took a taxi.

My apartment was in an excellent location, right on a canal, just a 3 minute walk to a metro station. Here are some pictures from outside the front door. My door was the one between the flower pots. Right across the canal is the Amsterdam branch of the Russian Hermitage Museum.

The following procedure is very dangerous in Amsterdam as a pedestrian — come to an intersection, look both ways for cars, and proceed. It’s almost guaranteed that you’ll get in an accident if that’s all you do. Here is the correct plan — come to an intersection, look to your left for bicycles, advance beyond the bike path, look both ways for cars, advance to the next bike path, look to the right for bicycles.

I asked a taxi driver to put the following in order of priority — car, bike, pedestrian. As I suspected he said it’s clearly bicycle #1, pedestrian #2, and car #3. Occasionally I saw a nice shortcut path to get somewhere and realized of course, it’s for bicycles only. Probably you’ve heard about Holland and bicycles before but believe me, it’s real. The taxi driver was complaining but I asked him what it would be like if all those bicyclists had cars like in the USA. He groaned a little and agreed.

I had some sleeping to do so I took a nap, then went for a long walk, which ended up in the center part of the city. I walked by the prostitutes in the windows as every tourist has to do. The nightlife was a little wild since Holland was playing Turkey that evening in Amsterdam. When I took a picture of a group of drunks wearing the orange Dutch color, they got a little aggressive towards me.

Early to bed. The transition from tours arranged in Iceland to nobody taking care of me in Amsterdam was actually a little bit of relief. I’m feeling the tension of relaxing on the one hand and getting to see everything possible in 2-3 days. Probably I’ll try to see everything and recover some in Paris.

My vision of this trip was relaxing in Paris; going out to my favorite patisserie in the late morning, a leisurely visit to a museum or walk through a neighborhood in the afternoon, followed by dinner at a favorite café and a walk ending up in a bar. This day was way too busy but with only two full days I was able to see a lot (except for the disappointment of the last bus tour).

Bus Tour 1 — The city of Reykjavik.

We went by the Laugardalshöl stadium where Bobby Fischer won the world chess championship from Spassky in 1972, called the match of the century. Iceland gave Fischer citizenship when the US tried to extradite him for tax evasion. They seem really proud of standing up to the world and giving a home to this troubled genius.

We went by the Höfði house where Reagan and Gorbachev had their summit in 1986, which was a major part of the ending of the Cold War.

When we were at the President of Iceland’s residence, we happened to see the President walking his dog. He’s just a speck in front of the building in the back. He is able to walk his dog with no security detail. This could never happen in the US although with the security problems at the White House maybe there isn’t much of a difference.

We went to Perlan, an architecturally stunning hot water storage tanks building with a revolving restaurant at the top, which I want to go to next time I come to Iceland

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I had a coffee and after a few minutes I got it back. Suddenly I was my old self. At that moment I was done with time change problems. My sense of well-being was back. It felt wonderful.

A staircase inside the hot water storage / revolving restaurant building.

We passed a brewery, fireworks factory, and prosthetic factory that were very close to each other. The guide joked that if you start at the brewery, then buy fireworks, you could end up as a customer of the prosthetics factory.

The church right by my guesthouse is by far the most impressive structure in the city. If I ever got lost walking around I could just look for the church. The guide said only about 2-3% of Icelanders attend church regularly. Many attend only at Xmas or Easter. Everyone has to pay part of their tax to a church. It used to be only to the official church but now Icelanders have a choice. Some give it to atheist societies or wiccans or the religion department at the university.

I rushed back to my guesthouse to get some rest then had another of the “healthy” hot dogs. I call them healthy because my rule is that if any part of a meal is healthy then the whole meal is healthy. It had onions, which I think are healthy.

Bus tour number 2 — The Golden Circle

This was the longest tour, about 6 hours.My favorite part was when we were standing on the edge of a small ridge, which was the very end of the North American Plate. Right in front if us was a narrow Rift Valley. Just beyond that was the European Plate. This was the spot where North America ended and Europe began.

Icelandic Horses have not been bred with other types for 600 years. They are supposed to be very friendly. Iceland has about 80,000 of them or about one for every four humans. They are used mostly for riding but also for meat. I asked a taxi driver if they really eat the meat of these beautiful horses and he said he does and it is truly very common. (Sometimes like this my pictures don’t come out well so I just use one from the Internet)

I definitely felt like it was winter but for the Icelanders it was a mild spring day, about 35 degrees and windy. They rarely get to the upper 60’s in the summer. The average temperature year round is 4 Celsius or about 39 Fahrenheit. It’s not appealing to me but they told me that Iceland has a very young average age because people tend not to emigrate and women have children early, often without marrying.

The lava fields are everywhere and it is a very beautiful but stark country. American astronauts were sent to Iceland near here since it’s similar to the moon. The guide told the joke that if you’re lost in an Icelandic forest, all you have to do is stand up.

Amazing waterfall.

Their famous geyser is called Geysir. The guide said many people asked why they came up with such an uncreative name. The reality is that our word “geyser” comes from this very geyser, named “Geysir”. It was a strange scene because dozens of people including me were all standing transfixed on Geysir with their cameras ready to go at any instant. It does not have a regular interval like Old Faithful but it goes off every few minutes. I took this shot holding my iPhone for several minutes. I was getting bored when all of a sudden this whoosh happened and I’m panicking to press the camera button.

Bubbling hot springs near Geysir

Another amazing highlight was seeing a black fox, which is such a tiny speck on my picture that I couldn’t include it (even smaller than the president of Iceland in a previous picture).

I had some Icelandic lamb soup, which means I got all of the 3 famous foods (cod and the hot dog are the others). There are also shark and whale meat but … ugh.

Bus tour 3 Not seeing the Northern Lights

The tour company that I had a voucher with to see the Northern Lights asked me to call between 5 and 6. They cancelled the tour since either it was going to be cloudy or the conditions didn’t look good for the Northern Lights. However, they announced on the bus that their company was going ahead with their Northern Lights tour.

I have seen the Northern Lights three times, once at a drive-in movie in the 1950’s, once on a train going from Vancouver to Montreal in the early 70’s, and once in Montreal itself in the late 70’s but I really wanted to see it again.

The tour left at 9 PM and had maybe 8-10 buses, each of 50-60 people. We overran a lighthouse that had a snack bar and waited hopefully for the show. I spoke with a guide who said a powerful show was taking place behind the heavy clouds. We were able to see a tiny bit of color. Later on in the evening the clouds left but the Northern Lights also left. Some people wanted to stay a little longer just in case, while others were begging them to go home since they were tired. I was in favor of staying longer since this was possibly a once in a lifetime chance. We left at 12:30 AM.

My ticket is good for 2 years and I’m hoping to get back to Iceland some day to see the Northern Lights. In a sense we did see the edge of them but not really. The bus brought me to the guesthouse at 2 AM. I was going to be picked up at 5 AM to go to the airport. I had to pack. Ugh.

Day 2 Lovin’ and Hatin’ It I’m always fascinated by times when people hate and love something at the same time. The flight out of Boston left at 9:30 PM and with the 4 hour time change I arrived in Iceland at 6:40 AM. A few hours after barely sleeping on the plane, I found myself in the Blue Lagoon of Iceland. From the neck down I loved the feeling of the very hot water but from the neck up, I was hating the 35 degree air and my sleepiness. Staying in a guesthouse instead of a hotel also invoked love and hate. To get to my room I had to: open a door to an area with 4 rooms that shared a bathroom, go outside through an icy balcony, then climb two flights of stairs. I had a real key and had to remember to shut every door since none of the doors closed automatically. It took me a while to find the heat controls, which were on the bottom of each radiator. The love part is that it was a refreshing change from cookie cutter hotels. The place had personality. As a side note, several people in Iceland talked about how proud they were of their plentiful and cheap thermal energy that is non-polluting and renewable. A guide joked that Icelanders take one hour showers just because energy is so cheap. I loved Iceland but I hated that I just didn’t seem to have my act together. It struck me that I usually have a very happy feeling wherever I am. I’m always looking for ways to make connections, learn, and find humor. Today was one of the few days I didn’t have it. A little afternoon sleep and a wonderful meal helped a little. The crucial part of the meal was the crunchy fried onions but the famous Icelandic cod mixed in with turnips, broccoli, and cauliflower over mashed potatoes were wonderful. When I got back, I found out the Northern Lights tour was canceled either because it was unlikely they would be out or because of clouds. I went for a long walk through funky Reykjavik and got the second of the 3 crucial specialties of Iceland, the “Pylsur”. This is a hot dog with again the crucial crunchy fried onions, also raw onions, ketchup, mustard, and a mayonnaise based sauce. Bill Clinton went to this famous tiny stand that sells nothing but pylsur and soft drinks. It usually has a long line. I have to admit I came back here. More than once. Delicious. Next to the hot dog stand I saw an ad for one of the most famous things to see in Iceland. I’m not sure if there are any other museums in the world dedicated to a single bodily organ. At the end of this day, I find myself back where I started — loving it and hating it. Iceland was treating me really well but I wasn’t feeling it. I had hopes for tomorrow. Maybe a little sleep.

Identity Crisis at 63?

You’re “supposed to” be done with your teenage identity crisis and know who you are by the time you’re 30 or so. That was true for me. I figured out a career at 26 and had an amazing job in my field at 34. I retired in June of 2014 at 63 years old and am once again trying to figure out who I am.

For people like me who are lucky enough to have a good long-term job, our identity becomes closely linked to that career. When someone asked me who I am, I usually responded “math professor at Indiana U. of PA.” But is that really who I am? How do I answer that question today? This is a time to explore, much like when I was a teenager. What else do I like besides math teaching? Have I done enough of math education in my life? Do I have many other interests that have disappeared over the years?

I would encourage the reader to think of whether “who you are” is represented by what you do with your job. Have you taken one interest among many and turned it into “who you are?” For me, considering that in college I took only 2 semesters of math and no education courses, maybe math education took a larger part of my life than it should have. Or maybe not.

My IUP career reached a truly wonderful conclusion last Saturday when I had a retirement party at the Coney in Indiana, PA. My wife Margaret made a list of everyone who attended and counted over 80 people. The party was exactly what I was hoping for, very short speeches, lots of interaction among people who maybe didn’t know each other really well, and plenty of Labatt’s Blue and chicken wings. The traditional retirement party is a sit down dinner often without alcohol and with very long speeches. This works for some people but definitely not me. I think I got to talk with every one of those 80+ people at some point. It brought together so many facets of my time at IUP – K-12 teachers, math professors, students, friends, and lots of others.

I’m writing this in Boston waiting for my flight to Iceland. I’ll be home in 34 days. Lots of blogs upcoming.