[Fwd: Just landed in detroit and]

Just landed in detroit and feeling strange in a strange land

chaz

Turkey in August

Erma writes:

Oh, the trip to Turkey was amazing! Albin and I had so much fun, and we saw so many things. Site-seeing around Istanbul, and going to different beaches down in Ismir and Fethiye. We went on boat trips, and then something called jeep safari where you go on an all-day tour of some of the most popular sites around Fethiye. Ermis and his girlfriend were excellent hosts, they have a really nice apartment in a student area of Ismir . . .

Poor Little Solta! Going to Hell!

(Ed. Solta is a small, largely unspoiled island only a kilometer or
two from Milna, Brac.)

First european rotating hotel is going to be build near Split, Croatia.
The total cost of building is 90million euro. The 3 storey high hotel
will make a total rotation during a day so all the rooms will have view
to sea.

The first european rotating hotel will be placed on Solta island around
35kms from Split, designed by Richard Hywel Ewans. The original
conception was to build a hotel where from all guests have seaview.

The hotel will be three storey high and will be quite slow, make only
1.3 rotation per day, so everyone can enjoy adriatic panorama. The
center of the hotel will stand by, as there will be placed the
elevators, reception.

Not only the hotel will be a new development, but the whole area as new
guesthouses, apartments, restaurants are going to be build around the
unique hotel.

The rotating hotel will stand on the center of a huge pool as an island,
so the hotel is gonna look like floating on water.

Development will start 2010

http://centraleasteurope.com/blog/?p=997

UPDATED: Home

Man, I've only been home a week and already Julia has made me a plum pie from my Mom's trees, a pumpkin (squash) pie from Lori's garden, and an apple pie from the neighbor's trees!!! (Isn't Eason cute?)

PaHurd's Say!!!!

We walked in Gettysburg yesterday since we were all together and wanted to do something fun as a family for Tim's birthday, since he will be in Washington for the date.

Here are some shots of our day, it was a gorgeous early fall day as you can see!

Dateline Alger

Kinda anti-climatic, since y'all know I'm home, but . . . I am home.

I had a last drink of pivo with Slavko on the job site on my last day. Then Wednesday, Slavko and Nada were kind enough to rise one hour early in the dark to drive me to the ferry to Split.

Short flight to Vienna after waiting around in Split, arriving about 2:00 p.m., walked to my "Pension Mozart" - thank you, MapQuest - and checked in, then walked around the old center of town. Nicely enough, the pension was almost in the Museum Quarter and directly adjacent to the old center with its government buildings, museums, cathedrals, palaces, sculptures, and squares.

Spent 8 Euros (senior rate!) to see an Impressionist exhibit at the Palace Albertina, then found a 20th century exhibit downstairs which I enjoyed even more, especially Joan Miro. Spent a little time lost in the dark in a large park trying to find my way back to the pension.

Interesting place, for a big city. Famous Austro-Hungarian architecture (of course!) with mythological trimmings, tons of cultural events and venues, sculptures and monuments everywhere - (musical or military themes) - parks, lots of bicycle paths, pedestrian sections, great old electric trolleys just like Zagreb or Sarajevo (since Austria supplied the trolleys to those places when it ruled them), buses, and the Underground, plus the wonderful City-to-Airport electric train, super-quiet, convenient, and only takes 16 minutes one way.

The next day, 9 hours to Toronto, 5 hours to Vancouver B.C. and - thanks to Julia - one-hour to Alger. Almost like magic!!

My first impressions now that I'm back:

1. Wooden houses seem so flimsy compared to the stone ones of Dalmatia.
2. Colored walls seem strange! (All white in Dalmatia.)
3. The sprawl in the U.S. seems obscene. (Flying over Austria and Vienna, I could see again the European planning which keeps the villages and cities so tight with farmland running right up to them.)

(And a tip: if you ride a newer 767 with Air Canada, you can adjust the headrests up or down for a comfortable overall fit in the seat, as well as wrap them to fit your head. I discovered this 5 hours too late while stretching my cramped body in the aisle waiting to exit the plane.)

Last Day, Dateline Milna

Last day. Beautiful, sunny, slight breeze: this has been a very good
season for me and a bad season so far for the olive trees. They need
rain to plump the olives.

My house is all tucked in, tho, everything cleaned, covered in plastic
or packed away in the closet with a few mothballs, and if my roof
repairs did any good things should be sound when we return next year.
Water bill paid, electric bill paid. Most good-byes said.

Tomorrow, 10/07, Slavko will drive me in to Supetar and I will catch the
7:45 a.m. ferry to Split, then a 12:20 flight to Vienna. Stay there
overnight at Pension Mozart. Then onwards the next day to Toronto,
Vancouver, Alger!

Today, however, everything is a little sad. Even the palm trees are
waving good-bye.

Peeling Away the Mask Reveals a Radiant Being of Pure Light

or Heraclition Fire.

[Fwd: living in america]

I hope the cement patching of the rough is going well
there is something harder to do than what
i am going through
what is harder is helping melanie pack things up:
scientific, emotional, i think this is like death
only i am still alive in another place i'm done in here and you walk
into the room and say did anything change and then there is I'll be back
in three weeks to finish or i need to run to the knitting store and then
i want to go out in a few hours and let's go for a walk in the arboretum
i leave at noon tomorrow and you know you, the husband, are left with
mountains of things to do only you can't do them really because if you
do the choices you make will not be what your wife would like but she
leaves you no choice but to break her heart throwing something away she
did not have the heart to throw away herself so you are the one who has
to choose and right or wrong you are on husband island. I see all of
this coming but there is nothing i can do about it because every little
item has to be processed by some idiot and that idiot is looking more
and more like me.

all that i really hope for is to find my favorite pair of glasses that i
misplaced last summer. i know they are here somewhere. funny i never
thought of glasses as plural before but i guess they really are.
Remarkably that is what the extra s is for at the end of the word. One
item (your glasses) being plural. Amazing the twists and turns of
language. I could be
lost in that issue all day.

I have decided, once i reorient myself, i am devoting my personal time
to the study of phythagoras. he is the man. i think he lived just across
the water from you. we'll sail to
his hometown and walk the streets he once walked.

like i said, stay on milna, duck under the covers and instead of being a
weekender go through the winter there... i'll bring provisions in the
spring. This recession in america is not going away and might get worse
sooner than later.

also another thing to ponder, the right wing in america has truly gone
crazy in the head... how are they ever going to govern this country
again if they all sit around and clap
that chicago lost the olympic bid to rio, brazail... the last time i
looked chicago was an american city. obama losing is more important that
america losing. these crazies
are going to choke on their crazy. who would ever vote for republicans
to lead us as a nation ever again... let's hope the percentage of crazy
people doesn't go up too high
or we are lost.

dateline queen anne 10/3/09