I left my heart in Central Europe, part 1

Ed and I have been back from our latest travel adventure for almost three weeks and I need to fill you in. In truth, I need to fill myself in; if I don't blog about our travels, my memories blur and I have a hard time recalling the details of our trips. And I want to remember every single moment of this one, so bear with me...

We spent 16 days exploring the heart of Europe: Austria, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Slovenia, countries that stretch from the Baltic to the Mediterranean seas.  And, it appears, I left part of my heart there -- or perhaps a part of "there" is now a part of my heart. I find this often happens when we travel to far-off lands...

Lake Bled, Slovenia

Of course, the best part of the trip was traveling with Jack and his girlfriend, Kasia. Jack is living in Berlin and finishing his master's degree in Global History. Kasia lives in Krakow, Poland and is finishing her Architecture degree. We met up with both of them in Krakow and then traveled together for a week.

Austria

But let me back up and start at the beginning. Ed and I flew to Vienna in late April and spent three days exploring this beautiful and rather fancy imperial city on the Danube. From the hotel where we stayed, to the museums that we explored, to the castles and gardens we covered, to the food we consumed, every moment was delightful.

We stayed at the boutique Hotel Alstadt which features hundreds of pieces of contemporary art in a historical residence in the Spittelberg Quarter, just a 5-minute walk from the Museum Quarter, the subway station, and at least two great restaurants and a bakery-turned-quaint-bar that we checked out. The Hotel Alstadt offered a fabulous breakfast, a cozy library for an after-dinner schnapps, and a most helpful staff.

Hotel Alstadt

I've concluded that whatever Vienna does, it does very well, in many cases, world-class well. Take the Viennese coffee houses. We visited two: quiet Café Spurl and bustling Central Café. Both offered a place "where time and space are consumed, but only the coffee (and pastry) is found on the bill."

I'd put the Schonbrunn Palace and the Belvedere Palace (and art museum) also on a world-class list. We took a train out to Schonbrunn and wandered the gardens of the Habsburg Dynasty's summer residence for the better part of a morning. That afternoon, we headed over to the Belvedere and were taken by its impressive collection of art, including several Klimts. 

The grounds at Schonbrunn Palace.

A picture of a picture of The Kiss, by Gustav Klimt

I'm pretty sure that when Vienna's Natural History Museum opened in 1889, it qualified as world-class. Today, the building is fantastic, but the exhibits are looking a little dusty and decrepit. Nevertheless, we enjoyed a rainy morning inside looking at fossils, dinosaurs, butterflies, birds and mammals of all sorts.

Let's talk meals. We had some great ones. All of Europe seems to celebrate asparagus season and Vienna was no exception. We had big bowls of hot asparagus soup at Gasthaus Zur Eisernen Zeit, the oldest restaurant in Vienna market: the Naschmarkt.  

Gasthaus Zur Eisernen Zeit

Other memorable restaurants: 

Schweizerhaus, the beer garden in Prater Park.

Weiner, traditional Viennese fare.

Glacis Beisl, Viennese and old Austrian cuisine with a modern touch. 

On our fourth morning, we travelled to Krakow, via train. What a pleasant way to get from one place to the next!

Poland

Jack met us at the train station and we made our way to our two-bedroom apartment, Riverside Aparthotel, located just across the bridge to Krakow's Old Town.

Reuniting with Jack was the first great thing about Krakow.

Spending time with Kasia was the second great thing.

Meeting Kasia's mom, dad and brother for dinner was the third great thing.

We spent three days getting to know our way around the charming old town, watching the Wawel dragon breathe fire every few minutes, eating alfresco on the large medieval town square, and strolling through Planty Park to admire the blooming Chestnut trees.

Memorable restaurants in Krakow:
Chimera, located in a 14th-century cellar and featuring a buffet of Polish cuisine.
Goscinna Chata, met Kasia's family for a regional specialties dinner (Lemko cuisine)
Morskie Oko, sat outside on a warm spring night in the Szczepanaki Square. I'm determined to reverse engineer the mountain-style grilled sheep cheese served with cranberry jelly.

I suppose a trip to Krakow is not really complete without a visit to the somber Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration and Extermination Camps, where 1.5 million people, among them a great number of Jews, were systematically starved, tortured and murdered. I understand the importance of remembering this cruelty; nevertheless, it was markedly unsettling to see.

Auschwitz-Birkenau

On a brighter note...

We picked up a rental car on our fourth morning, stopped by the village where Kasia lives with her family to pick her up and hit the road for the far southeast region of Poland. We were headed for the Bieszczady National Park in the Carpathian Mountains.

At the Obarzanowskis

Along the way, we stopped at an ethnographic park in Sanok, Poland's largest open air museum (think Shakertown goes to Poland).

Our ultimate destination for the night was the tiny town of Lutowiska where we had reservations at the Stanica Kresowa, a quaint (I believed) agriturismo inn. Instead, we found a very strange, large, newish hotel filled with cheesy and a bit creepy wax figures dressed in traditional Polish warrior attire. Not what we expected, but we made the most of it, heading out for a short hike in the mountains...

Well, it wasn't short, but it was exquisite and definitely worth the effort. We climbed up through pine and then beech forest. The maps said it was 3.5 kms, but it seemed like we were hiking uphill for a very long way. Almost to the top, we slushed through wet snow before arriving at the meadow peak, where we stopped for a picnic. 

The next morning, we were off for Slovakia. But I'm getting tired of writing and I'm pretty sure you must be getting tired of reading, so I'll save the rest of my trip report for another time/another day....

Put a Poem in Your Pocket

Did you know that April is National Poetry Month? I'm not sure I would have known if I hadn't been trying to add more poetry into my life.

My favorite part of the month-long celebration is the Poem in Your Pocket Day, celebrated on Thursday, April 26. On this day you are encouraged to select a poem and carry it with you, sharing it with others that you meet. (hashtag #pocketpoem). There is just something I love about handwriting out a poem, tucking it into my pocket and then sharing it with others. It requires some thoughtfulness to select the perfect poem and then some courage to pull it out and share it.

Poem in Your Pocket Day was first celebrated in April 2002 in New York City. In 2008, the Academy of American Poets spread the celebration to all fifty states and in 2016, the League of Canadian Poets joined in.

I've been thinking of what poem I want to tuck in my pocket on Thursday. At first, I was sure I'd pick one from my three favorite living poets: Mary Oliver, Billy Collins or Wendell Berry. I was leaning toward one that I've shared with you before: perhaps Mary Oliver's Green, Green is my Sister's House or maybe Billy Collins' The Lanyard, or maybe Wendell Berry's To Know the Dark.

But instead, I think I'll share one from a poet that I recently discovered: Jeanne Lohmann.

Questions Before Dark

Day ends, and before sleep

when the sky dies down, consider

your altered state: has this day

changed you? Are the corners

sharper or rounded off? Did you

live with death? Make decisions

that quieted? Find one clear word

that fit? At the sun’s midpoint

did you notice a pitch of absence,

bewilderment that invites

the possible? What did you learn

from things you dropped and picked up

and dropped again? Did you set a straw

parallel to the river, let the flow

carry you downstream?

I love the part about finding one clear word that fits and the one about whether my corners are sharper or rounded off. And of course, the last line reminds my of playing Poohsticks.

So, my question for you is what poem will you pick to put in your pocket?

Something new at fish camp

This spring marked the 20th year that we have gone fishing at The Juniper Club, on the Silver Glen of Lake George, just east of Ocala, FL. I've written about this special place on a number of occasions: here, here, here and here.

And, because almost nothing ever changes (except maybe the weather), I don't have anything new to report. Except for one thing...

Meet Caroline, Juniper's youngest fisherperson. Even though she has red hair, I can't claim her as my own. She is the first granddaughter of our friends, Jackie and Paul; and daughter of Katie and Andrew. I'm pretty sure she had a blast at camp; I know we loved having her there. She fished. She swam at the Boil. She ate cheese grits and blueberries at breakfast. She even peered at fish through the glass-bottom boat at Silver Springs.

Mom and daughter

Reading a book with "Babby" and Ed

Out for a boat ride with Aunt Claire and her dad. 

Getting a ride on mom's shoulders and attention from "Pa"

Constantly in a good mood and happy to be passed from camper to camper, Caroline represents the fourth generation of her family to catch the Juniper Spirit. I'm hoping next year an anticipated sibling and a new cousin will join her at Spring Break camp. Then maybe, just maybe, there will be enough babies to share. 

Walking in a springtime wonderland

About the time I posted my last entry, snow started to fall, and fall, and fall. I awoke to find 6+ inches of snow, the deepest snowfall of the year – and remarkable that it fell on the second day of Spring. I pulled on my boots for a walk through our springtime wonderland. Mostly so I can remember the remarkable beauty of this sure-to-not-last-long snowfall, I offer these photos from my walk.

Note: These photos have an added filter in Photoshop to posterize them.

Turn of the seasons

Today marks the Vernal Equinox – an occasion of perfect celestial alignment – distinguished by a day of light and dark of equal length. The sun rose this morning at 7:43, precisely in the east – and will set 12 hours later, precisely in the west. A few minutes after noon today, the sun crossed the celestial equator, signaling the official turn of the seasons. Winter be banished; Spring be welcomed!

T. S. Eliot claims April as the cruelest month; I beg to differ. I nominate March. For it is this month that has me groggy from hibernation – desperately seeking sunshine and time outside. Instead, I'm greeted with only short snatches of sunshine, followed by long stretches of grey skies, freezing drizzle, cold winds and random snow showers.

Heavy wet snow is expected tonight in Shelby County. It could be worse: in Brooklyn, Mary is bracing for the fourth nor'easter in less than three weeks, and Jack in Berlin is looking to overnight lows in the teens.

I'm itching to be outside all day: planting my spring garden, inspecting our trees for breaks of dormancy, picking early daffodils and greeting the returning birds of Farm Dover. Instead, I find myself pulling on another sweater, wishing that Ed would build a fire, that a Netflix disc will arrive in the day's mail, or that I can crawl under the covers well before 10 p.m.

On my brief ventures out, I do find signs that spring is arriving, albeit slowly. I spot a mama woodcock sitting camouflaged atop her four spotted eggs, the red shoots of my peonies unfurl, daffodils hold off blooming by staying insulated in drifts of snow, and Grandmommy's sedum plants send up tiny succulent rosettes.

_____________

I'm not the only one wishing to hurry up spring's full arrival. My good neighbor, dear friend, and creative genius, Sandy, turned her talents as a weaver into a masterpiece as she waited for a warmup. This past week she wove a beautiful bird-seed basket from grasses, branches and vines that she collected from her next-door-to-us farm.

Once woven, she brought it over as a gift for us to fill with bird seed/suet and hang in the tulip tree in our bee garden. It's made from wisteria, honeysuckle vine, raffia, broom corn, red dogwood stems, and Japanese bittersweet, with bits of Shetland wool tucked into the cracks for birds to use for nests.

It's amazing – a work of fine art – almost too lovely to hang in the elements. But hang it we will, and know that the birds will enjoy it as much as we love admiring it. Thank you, Sandy. Happy Spring. Happy Equinox.

Why collect?

I'm a collector. There, I've said it. None of my collections are valuable; but all are priceless.

I do understand that there is a fine line between collecting and hoarding. If I start to waver on that point, Maggie stands ready to remind me – and her dad – in no uncertain terms that she does not want to be the one to someday have to deal with all our stuff. We hear you, Maggie, but sometimes it is hard to resist a new treasure.

I started thinking about this concept of collecting last month as I was setting our table for my bookclub luncheon. I started wondering why I collect what I do, and what will happen to my collections down the road. Will they end up with a child or grandchild? In a quirky museum? In a yard sale? Or scattered to the four winds?

I digress. Back to my table setting...to the trio of glass vases filled with branches and bulbs, I added a large glass paperweight that had belonged to my grandmother. Then I searched in various cabinets for two oval paperweights that I inherited from my great aunt Melta, the small Venetian glass one that Ira Lee, Ed's dad, carried back from WWII as a gift to his bride, and the one that Ed bought me years ago. All of a sudden, I had amassed a collection. And now that they are gathered together, I can't seem to tuck them back into their cabinets or give them away. I'll catalog this collection as 1) collecting with memory by association. 

Then there's my Natural History collection that resides on our back porch. It is a mishmash of odd items that we have picked up on our wanderings around the farm: a bleached turtle shell, deer skull, fossils, a horseshoe, glass medicine bottle, fungus conks, a snake skin... I don't need to keep any of these items, but they seem to capture the attention of young visitors and squeamish older ones. This collection I claim as 2) farm history. 

Let's move on to my collection of pottery – which I do love, but which may be getting out of control. I recently gathered many of the pieces and arranged them on our mantle. They are too many. I mean, really, how many bowls, pitchers and vases does one need? (They did, however, come in handy for Maggie and Nate's wedding.) Let's put them in the category: 3) practical.

In that same category, I could put my wooden spoon collection. I use one or more of them everyday. Most of these spoons come from our travels; they make great souvenirs and are easy to pack. I think they deserve their own category: 4) souvenirs.

Let's move on to our collection of wooden horses. It started with one that we found 30 years ago in an antique/junk shop in Windermere, Canada. Once we had one, the others just seemed to follow and now we have nearly a dozen. I'm not sure why we collect them: perhaps because we live in horse country; perhaps because I was a horse maniac as a 10-year-old; perhaps I just like how they look, individually and collectively. Let's call this collection 5) just because.

And finally, our art collection, especially the paintings that hang high above our bookshelves. All of these are by self-taught artists, many are family portraits, and most feature red-heads. It's a weird collection, but one that sets the tone for the quirkiness of our home. 6) Home-making.

That's enough about my collections for one day. Even though Ed keeps asking about the whereabouts of his antique shaving mugs, I'm not ready to start digging through the boxes that are still unpacked in the basement. 

But I'm curious, what do you collect? And why? What do you think will become of your collections once you are no longer able to tend to them? Will they end up in a museum or a yard sale? Do tell.