feldmanlarry

Getting around by Metro in Paris is amazingly fast and easy. The owner of my apartment showed me an app that finds your current location and you type in anywhere in Paris and it gives the Metro routes and just as important how to walk to the stations. The most I waited for a Metro train to come was 3 minutes, which is really incredible considering that I must have taken 25 or so trains in this whole week.

The car traffic didn’t seem that bad although I’m sure there are bad traffic jams somewhere. Possibly it’s because the Metro is so good and goes everywhere. They say the furthest you have to walk in Paris to find a Metro stop is 500 meters or about 1/3 of a mile and usually it’s much closer.

I have an app called Moves that is recording “every move I make” just like the song I was going to hear Sting sing the next day. To get from the Pere Lachaise Cemetery to my apartment, I walked 8 minutes to the Metro train, was on the train for 9 minutes, walked 2 minutes to the connecting train, 7 minutes on that train, then 2 minutes to my apartment for a total of 28 minutes. Not bad for getting way to the end of Paris.

Going to the Pere Lachaise Cemetery is an unusual trip in both meanings of “trip”. It’s a quirky cemetery with unique tombs. I went mostly to see Jim Morrison’s tomb but was surprised how interesting other ones were. I invested $1.99 in Rick Steve’s iBook on the cemetery, which gave me a big edge over most of the other people there. It gave detailed directions on a map and told stories for each of the main people buried there.

When I entered the cemetery, I started playing the Doors first album, which is still one of my very favorite musical experiences. Just as I got to Jim Morrison’s grave, the song “The End” started, which was perfect. There were only a handful of other fans at the site. I spoke Russian with two guys in their twenties and they took a picture of me after I said I had seen the Doors live in Montreal.

There was an area dedicated to holocaust victims with some stunning sculptures.

When I was an undergraduate at McGill, I studied the history of communism and one of the key events was the Paris Commune of 1871. Workers groups took over the city and ran it like a commune. They were overthrown and the very last of the Commune fighters were lined up at this wall and shot.

Oscar Wilde is an icon of gay culture and an important playwright. His statue for some reason has his genitals missing. It’s a tradition for women to kiss the glass with heavy red lips

Interesting that they call him “Fred Chopin” Fred doesn’t sound right, given his French and Polish roots.

No one is associated with French culture of the 20th century than Edith Piaf. Her song “La Vie en Rose” is the ultimate classic French song. I hated somewhere seeing it in its translation, “Life in Pink”.

Keeping with my theme of French Colonial Food, I went to a restaurant of food from Mauritius, called “Comme Une Isle”, which was listed as one of the top 10 international restaurants in Paris. I thought the red spice was going to be the really spicy one but the grey one was the killer.

I was surprised how much I enjoyed the cemetery and how little I got into a boat ride on the Seine I did later. You never know what is going to work when you travel.

It’s hard to understand how people travelled before the existence of GPS systems on phones. In the past, I would have taken more public transportation and spent more time planning my route than today. It’s so much easier to walk aimlessly, knowing that directions back are just a couple of clicks away. Sometimes it doesn’t work well such as Apple Maps for some reason wanting me to go the wrong way then walk through KFC a couple of times, and then return to where I started.

In 2003, Margaret, Keith, and I spent a week in Paris and one of our highlights was going to the ice cream maker that some call the best in the world. The chocolate is especially well known which Margaret and Keith wisely had. I chose some other flavor just to be different. Today I finally got my chocolate ice cream from Bethillion on Ile St-Louis near Notre Dame Cathedral and just 5 minutes from my apartment.

Another item from the 2003 trip that I needed to wrap up was to walk all the way through the Place de la Concorde. I have a history of terrible things happening near where I am when travelling. In 2003, the municipal workers were on strike so the Metro was closed. We had to walk a long ways and ran into a massive demonstration going on at the Place de la Concorde. My plan was to walk through the square to get to our apartment. When we got through to the other side, the exit was barricaded by the police to keep the demonstrators in so we had to go all the way back. When we got back to the apartment, I turned on the TV and they showed water cannons being used against the demonstrators right where we were. We just missed being water cannoned by a few minutes. This time, in 2015, it was calm fortunately.

The Borough Council of Indiana, PA had a massive fight over whether to allow restaurants to serve on the street. The idea that having people eating and drinking in the street would be controversial in Paris is absurd. Perhaps my favorite part of the day was eating at a restaurant recommended by the owner of my apartment called Le Pave. Here is a picture of my bifsteak with pommes de terre frites (steak with fries) with some people walking on the street.

My last main activity of the day was seeing a trashy romantic comedy in French. The movie was called “A trois, on y va”, which means something like “here we go with three of us”. It sounds much better in French. Basically, the story line was that a husband and wife were both having a secret affair with the same woman. At one point, the wife is in an upstairs window motioning the woman to go away before he would catch her. At the same time, the husband is in the downstairs window also motioning to the woman to go away. The husband and wife couldn’t see each other. Just to save you from running to see it, the husband ends up with the woman and the wife goes away. She didn’t like her husband that much and she was okay with letting the woman go.

It was a dumb film but it was something I had wanted to do in Paris. The language was a little beyond my knowledge. I can speak quite well with people that I meet in a normal conversation. Sometimes I have to get them to repeat something or speak a little slower but in the movie I couldn’t understand when they spoke quickly with puns and slang. I could understand the big ideas especially since there were none. So now I know my limit.

April 1 begins a new phase of my trip. For the last 30 years or so, I’ve imagined myself just living in Paris without rushing to see the tourist sites. Soon after retirement, I began planning to make this a reality. It’s here and it is truly my dream come true.

I’ve been speaking very little English although more often then not, French people respond to my French in English. I then respond in French and they switch over. Many people have told me that the French are stuck up and refuse to speak English. My experience is just the opposite. Maybe it’s because I speak French to them and they appreciate the effort. A book seller on the bank of the Seine said exactly that. He was telling me about how awful Americans are except for people from New York City. He then asked me where I was from. He had no idea I was American and seemed a little embarrassed.

My advice to English speaking travelers to France is to learn a handful of simple French phrases and on the rare occasion they don’t switch to English when they hear your accent, apologize and ask them to please speak English. They understand that the vast majority of visitors to France speak English and not French.

There were three memorable visits for me on April 1. One was to the Georges Pompidou Center, which is a massive ugly building that sticks out badly in its neighborhood. Its ugliness is what makes it work. It’s not trying to be another Parisian palace and apparently it’s quite well loved by most Parisians. I was surprised to also like it, because it is so ugly and inappropriate.

They had a modern art exhibit by Jeff Koons with this dog as what seemed to be the best known piece.

I liked this set of three mirrors. My “color dullness” that I discussed in earlier posts makes me appreciate art like this since the focus is not on subtleties of color but on a story line.

The Picasso Museum and the Pompidou center are both just a few minutes from my apartment so I definitely had to get to the Picasso Museum. This is probably the best picture I’ll take the whole trip. The Facebook caption was “Picasso’s ‘Head of a Bearded Man’ next to a head of a bearded man”. Hopefully, you can tell which is the Picasso and which is me.

One of favorite trips was to Korea (the blogs are way below). The South Koreans have gone through so much, being destroyed by the Japanese and Chineese and suffering through the Korean War. The country today is a really wonderful place. It’s amazing what they have accomplished. This painting by Picasso was created on January 18, 1951 just a few months before I was born and is called “Massacre in Korea”.

Here’s a closeup.

French colonialism extended far around the world. I spent some time in the former French West African countries. I arrived in Dakar, Senegal (which is the furthest west point in Africa) on a ship in 4th class. I and one Frenchman were the only non-Africans in fourth class. The hundred or so of us slept in bunk beds in a massive hold several levels below the surface. We were given water from garden watering cans and most days we were fed cous-cous from big vats. I ventured into the first class one day, which of course the Africans couldn’t do, and discovered a world of swimming pools, deck chairs, jazz bands, and fancy bars. Never have I felt the class system more.

When we arrived in Dakar, I immediately felt a strong smell permeating everywhere I went. It didn’t take too long to realize it was peanuts. I bought some peanuts from a street vendor and had to spit them out since I was expecting them to be roasted. The point of this story was that near the Picasso Museum was a restaurant called “Le Petit Dakar”. Of course I had to come back and get the peanut beef dish, called “Nafe (boeuf et ses petits legumes, beurre de cacahuete”). It was excellent but not spicy enough.

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.