Nein.  Not only am I not bitter, I’m very grateful to my friend Thilo for showing me the amazing history and culture of Berlin, to the extent that was possible in a few days.  Not knowing just how far we would be walking I got blisters the first day, but I did remember to wear my more comfortable shoes when we resumed our intense sightseeing.  In these pictures there are a few buildings that survived the bombings at the end of WWII (very little of the city did).  There are also wonderful contrasts between the eastern and western parts of Berlin, although very little of the actual wall remains and with each passing year the ability to recognize one side or the other will get harder.  There are these cute little cars they have for rent which are made out of some kind of treated cardboard.  Bears are the symbol of the city of Berlin (like peaches for Atlanta and apples for New York).

I didn’t even know that the TV tower existed in Berlin, but I went up it.  There were also a few war memorials, including the Holocaust Memorial which I made sure not to smile while posing in (it is indeed somber, but abstract).  I just didn’t have the energy to get to the gay memorial for the war.  I did make it to Brandenburg Gate, where Michael Jackson’s baby was dangled in the nearby hotel, and where they were celebrating a French holiday, as that was part of the French-occupied Berlin.  You will see the Sony center which is designed to look like Mount Fuji, and nearby there was a Lego giraffe.  Lots of interesting things and some poignant commemorations to the people who lost their lives attempting to cross that damned wall that was there for decades.

In addition to getting a lot of culture in, I also enjoyed the gay night life mostly in Schoenberg, where I stayed.  I was trying to pronounce things in German, even if I will never speak it.  I also translated successfully the sign I’m standing below which advertises Teddybears as “a friend for life.”   Like Iceland, pretty much everyone spoke English, which was almost too easy for an Anglophone, but on the last day when I was anxious to find my way back to the airport alone since Thilo had picked me up and I hardly had paid attention, no one at the closest train station, Wittenbergplatz, claimed they could speak English.  In fact, they all told me this IN ENGLISH.  Fortunately a nice guy walking around the station who apparently also worked there saw me looking at the maps and asked me in English what I needed and helped me get to the airport in plenty of time.

[Show as slideshow]

1 2 ... 6 ►

In my various trips to Europe I have more and more frequently visited England.  At first I wasn’t all too keen on it, because there were so many other places in Europe I found more intriguing and exotic, but like before, I decided to at least spend a few days getting to know America’s “mother country” a bit better.  I think my daughter’s infatuation with London during her relatively brief two visits here with me  a few years ago made me look at it in a different light.  She was fixated on every moment we were there at how beautiful the city was and how European it was, yet she was not intimidated by the fact that they speak English (her “language” although she’s pretty darn fluent in Italian.  I am actually fascinated by the intensity of London, which reminds me very much of New York, and it’s use of the English language in subtle ways that vary from how Americans use it.  I also love seeing the variety of people, which nearly meets the variety one sees in New York.  I don’t think it was quite this diverse thirty years ago.  It is an expensive place, but I did have a great time meeting some great people and hanging out in the hot tourist spots like Waterloo and Soho.  As you will see some of the local bears I’ve known in person or from the Internet invited me to their gatherings.  At least ten of us went to the birthday party of my friend Richard Whent.  It’s great how you can feel so at home in the bear community and how many people know each other from online or from their own travels and relationships, despite the distances and, in some cases, language barriers.

The place I rented was a little bit further out of central London than I would have preferred, but relatively simple to get to.  I am a little disappointed at how early the nightlife seems to end here, as compared to other European places, even on the weekends in the summer.  The weather was wonderful and where I stayed in Surrey Quay was very quiet, perhaps too much so, but lovely so close and convenient to stroll along the River Thames.  This was my very first Airbnb.com experience and my host was great meeting me on the street on the way to the Tube to introduce me to his place and even providing me with the converters that I would need with my American appliances as I had neglected to remember that the UK does not use the same electric plugs as the continent of Europe (which even Iceland uses).

One of the cool new things I saw this time is the skyscraper called the Shard.  I’m not sure of all of the history in the making of it yet, but it was quite a site to see rising from the skyline.  In the video below you will see my Sardinian friend Marco giving me a bit of a tour.  My little brother was born in Calgary where Marco is from and I met Marco several years ago when I was in London, so it was great to see him again and have him be one of my tour guides.  I also got to practice my Italian with him, of course.

[Show as slideshow]

1 2 ►

Ironically, when I was in Vancouver, British Columbia, my intention was to take the train down to Seattle to catch my flight to Iceland without having to do the San Francisco-Seattle portion of my trip.  I also hoped to spend a day or two in Seattle itself, but the fascists at Iceland Air or Kayak or whoever is responsible for their Draconian policy, said that if I did not pick up my flight at San Francisco (where there had just been a major airplane crash), then my entire itinerary to Europe would be cancelled.  So, ridiculously I interrupted what was supposed to be five weeks of solid travel to fly back down to the Bay Area for one night, slept in my bed and saw my dogs, and then got on another flight to go basically exactly where I was the day before (Washington State), and because of all of the chaos from the still littered runway at SFO, my flight to Seattle was late and I almost lost my connection to Reykjavik.  I ran like the dickens and actually huffed and puffed to the gate, where I had nine minutes before departure (although the gate had actually been closed), but they were very sweet to re-open it for me and help me not ruin my entire itinerary and connection to London which would have been a day later and which would have had me miss my visit to Iceland almost entirely. I must have looked like a loon, but the flight to Iceland was so pleasant and roomy.  It was like a dream that I actually made it, because if the Iceland flight hadn’t been delayed just as I had strongly hoped, I would have had a completely different trip to Europe with the rental car and airbnb reservations all collapsing in on me, not to mention the flights I would have had to rebook.

I had been thinking about going to Iceland for several years after hearing about a bear event hey had there in the geothermal pools, but I also knew that it was a quick flight from the Northwestern U.S. to get to Europe (probably the quickest) and a photographer friend of mine was fixated on taking some pictures of the landscape for good reason (not to mention the round the clock daylight at this time of year) which makes it a great place for films like Prometheus to be shot there in their other-worldly surroundings.  I did some homework on driving in Iceland knowing that I could cover a lot more ground, in the company of my gracious online friend Jonni who hosted me and with whom I had a great time intellectually discussing the problems of the world with.  He had lived in England and is very well-read, so he really was an ideal tour guide and wonderful person to show me around Iceland efficiently, although I know we just touched the surface.  We did the “musts” like the Golden Circle and at least stopping by the outside of the Blue Lagoon (which he correctly noted was a tourist trap), but he also graciously took me to the coast and at least one small town so that I could see how “real Iceland” is, not to mention all the wonderful things the city of Reykjavik itself has to offer, as the cultural center of the people.

He had told me that he would wait for me if I went into the Blue Lagoon, but if I were to embark on such a task I think I would have rather done one of the other geothermal sites in town, although we ended up not going in.  What I did find interesting was that they have to add cold water to keep the temperature of the geothermal pools down.  As you will see, the weather turned a little blistery nearer the coast and we did at least stop by the outside of the Blue Lagoon and got some good shots of the less treated water and that was sufficient for me.

Besides the flies that I ate while talking at the various tourist spots (you’ll hear me after consuming at least one, but it didn’t get me to shut up enough for a few more to fly in), I did enjoy some of the more exotic things to eat.  While I maintained my newly instituted vegetarianism while there, I enjoyed certain things like Skyr (a sort of yogurt textured culture that tasted great and apparently has been around over a thousand years) and some of the Icelandic candies like these licorice dots covered in chocolate.  My host Jonno had never heard of edamame which apparently was part of the pesto and truffle popcorn truffle selection of appetizers we had al fresco around midnight in broad daylight in downtown Reykjavik, so I was able to teach him a little something that was prepared by the chef who was a woman from two difference countries that were very far from Iceland (I believe France and the Philippines).

I didn’t have time to visit the famous penis museum, but it sounded a bit cheesy anyway.  Did I really say that?!  We did take an amazing walk all over downtown by where Jonno lives, and I got a wonderful taste of some up close foliage and the amazing variety of architecture.  Of course there is the famous vertical airplane shaped church that is the landmark of town where I attempted to pose like the statue out front and where within we were just in time for a great organ player to commence, so I got that on video, but there were other churches (none Catholic, interestingly) and a variety of other structures, including the ultra modern all glass concert hall I took pictures in front of and within.  Lots of the buildings had wonderfully bright colors, although they were shielded with metal if you look really closely.  There was art and graffiti everywhere, as well as professional murals and creative use of bikes as fences, and plenty of abstract art to go with it.  I tried to notice everything, including the unique crosswalks.  When walking downtown we saw Iceland’s famous musician (not Bjork!) who is a rapper of mixed heritage walking right in front of us.  While the lesbian prime minister they had is no longer in office, it was interesting to note (on the tourism info I read) that all Icelanders can trace their roots to the originally settlers in 780 A.D. and everyone uses their first name, including the president.  At their very large gay pride festival, which is mostly attended by heteros, the hetero mayor of Reykjavik goes in drag.  A third of the entire country of 300,000 attends.

I do remember some things that I found interesting about the little town off the beaten path that I liked.  First of all, the drivers there are very courteous, but I do advise anyone going off the main roads at all to look at some YouTube videos on safe driving in Iceland, even in the summer, as they have a lot of gravel roads.  I had an accident many years ago in California because of gravel on the side of the road, so I was nervous, and I guess it makes more sense for them to have a lot of gravel roads because of the extreme weather conditions between summer and winter.  In any event, we went for coffee, because I was driving (an automatic hybrid vehicle which startled me because at the time I did not know the power shut off when you came to a standstill) and the time change was not helping me stay awake at all.  The young woman at the coffee shop in this little town probably had very little chance to use her English so she quietly asked me if I wanted the coffee to “take with” in a little mousy voice.  I smiled and said “Takk” although Jonno was there if I had really gotten stuck linguistically.  What was disappointing, though, was the Domino’s Pizza and other chains that were all over the place.  It’s no wonder that a lot of people say that Iceland looks more commercially like America than Europe.

So you will see the Geyser (the only word in Icelandic to ever become an English word) and the famous waterfall and continental divide (where Europe is splitting from America) where the oldest and still active parliament started meeting in European history.  I made sure to include some signs that were in Icelandic to demonstrate the uniqueness of the language.  I found the people to be so wonderful and accommodating (unless you are talking to Iceland Air customer service on the phone when your cell phone battery is about to die and you are about to miss your flight and you are roaming so all bet’s are off).  Dionne Warwick was in town when I was there and she was bitching on the news about how she couldn’t sleep because it was so bright out.  Give me a break.  Even when I realized that it looked like noon and we were eating dinner close to midnight, I chocked it up and figured I’d only sleep a couple of hours before I had to drive back to the airport, return my car and catch my flight to London.  It was an adventure and it was cold (considering I didn’t bring any heavy clothes with me because 99% of my trip was going to be in warm weather).  I found a gas station outside of the airport and continued to use my GPS to find my place to the car rental and returned it with a full tank.  Because of the banking crisis everything, including the car rental, was dirt cheap anyway, so even if I had to pay the extra fuel fare I would have been fine.

One of the coolest moments I had was not hearing Italian spoke by the tourists downtown, but as we approached the entrance to the Blue Lagoon I observed a woman who had dropped a piece of paper.  I picked it up and handed it to her and she instinctively said, “grazie” to which I replied “prego” and then I asked her and her husband in Italian where they were from (Genova) and they in turn asked where I was from.  When I said “California” they asked how I spoke Italian so well to which I explained it was my first language and my mother is Calabrese.  What a weird connection, though.  Of all of the types of tourists with all of the cruises there, and all of the languages to have heard that day, that I would have an encounter with an Italian who spoke in Italian to me, before even seeing my very Italian-appearing face, outside of Reykjavik (albeit at a tourist spot).

What I didn’t anticipate on my way back through Iceland a month later was that there would be an asshole on my flight to Seattle who would start throwing punches at all of the flight attendants an hour into the flight.  He was a drunk man of Icelandic heritage who they had to turn the plane around for and so I actually landed in Iceland three times during the trip, so they could arrest him after restraining him with plastic handcuffs.  It was in the news and everything, but it caused me to miss my connecting flight to San Francisco (irony of ironies) and miss another day of getting to sleep in my own bed with my dogs.  At least they paid for a hotel for me to stay in with my overnight stay in Seattle.  It was really cool seeing the space needle immediately below as we flew over.  I couldn’t sleep, though, so I basically checked my email and then took the shuttle to the airport to catch my early flight, where my friend picked me up and we kept on driving after I repacked with the dogs all the way to Guerneville for the last leg of my journey!

[Show as slideshow]

1 2 ... 5 ►