Steves Comments 10
The myth of the unfriendly Frenchman. === We had very nice experiences with French people, and mentioned how helpful people had been on more than one occasion. Our friend Brigitte said, “We French people don't even like each other.” We stopped to see Brigitte and Paul, the people we met on our tour to Africa last year. We took them to lunch in Nice one year, and we had dinner in their high-raise condominium, high on the mountain side overlooking the city of Nice and the Mediterranean Sea, another year. === And another sample == Tried to find the Paris campground where we stayed before, but found nothing. We saw a French family, complete with dog and kids, starting out for a drive. We asked if they could direct us to the campground. The son was happy to use his High School English, the father signaled, “Follow me,” and drove to the campground. The whole family, including the dog, got out and shook our hands. Yes, including the dog, that was cute. There are two rivers just south of Paris, I knew we were on the right street and knew the campground was on a river bank, we were just at the wrong river.
Posted by: Jim Humberd - Jul 07, 2008 10:46 AM
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You are my second favorite travel writer. Mark Twain is still number one. Humberd is number three.
Posted by: Ken - Jul 09, 2008 1:24 AM
After that comment by Ken, how could I not add my 2¢ worth? As for Mark Twain, for an amazing story of Travel, read “The Innocents Abroad.” === How to explain a city like Bath, England? The old Roman bath, dating from about 2000 years ago, fed by Britain’s only hot mineral springs, is below street level. There is a swimming-pool-size hot tub, a sauna and steam room, and other rooms from Roman days. Kings Bath was used until 1939, the water is still hot, but no longer used. We read somewhere they plan to open it again. A restaurant is called The Pump Room. The Pulteney Bridge, crossing the River Avon, is called the Italian Bridge. It contains stores, as do the Ponte Vecchio in Florence and the Rialto Bridge in Venice. The Cathedral can be seen while standing one level down, next to the Roman Bath. Thomas Gainsborough, English painter of portraits, landscapes, and fancy pictures, painted one of his most famous pictures, “The Blue Boy,” in 1770, while he lived in Bath. That painting can be seen at the Huntington Library in San Marino, CA., next door to Pasadena. (1980)
Posted by: Jim Humberd - Jul 09, 2008 9:09 AM
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Among the problems of driving on the wrong side of the road in England, Scotland, and Ireland, is that each morning we must figure all over again, how to do it. The passenger just can't remember it's her job to see what's around the next curve. Sweetie does serve other very useful, and really delightfully curvy functions. ==== We have driven an RV 87,000 miles in about 29 European countries. If someone says, “Let's play a game,” the first thing you do is find out which game; chess, checkers, baseball, or football. Once you recognize the game, you now know the rules. Same thing with driving in Europe. Once you know which country you are in, you must now drive with their rules, and their driving habits. Or else. === Watch the drivers in Paris, Berlin, or Rome, and you can see exactly how their Armies acted and reacted during WW II. ==== Most Countries have “Traffic Laws and Regulations.” Italy has “Traffic Hints and Suggestions.” When our driver (me) does something in the RV that causes, or results from a traffic complication, or that results in a driving problem, we get the feeling some Italian is saying, “That looks like fun, I must try that some time.”
Posted by: Jim Humberd - Jul 11, 2008 9:49 AM
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Karen, what a wonderful expression. One of my brothers fought in the Battle of the Bulge, was awarded the Bronze Star, but in his visits to Europe, he would never visit near a place where he fought, from Normandy, to Luxembourg. I had to “badger” him to get him to write at least some of that story for the Humberd Chronicles, that I insisted each sibling write. Another brother, a Navel Officer, sank several ships all over the So Pac. He told his wife not to worry, he was never more than a mile from ground -- straight down. One Brother-in-law fought in North Africa, landed in Italy, and fought till the end of the war. Another fought in the So Pac, then served as a guard returning Japanese prisoners to Japan, then served as a guard at the trials for Japanese General Homma's and General Yomasheitia's trials. The most wonderful, most amazing thing is, none got even a scratch. I always accused my mother of being anti-war, she made sure my one brother and I were both born too late to serve during hostilities, but we both did our part at the end of the war. My international travels started at age 17, on a troop ship that visited Manila, Calcutta, and was in Singapore harbor on my 18th birthday. When I was at Fort Sill, OK, after the end of the war, there were men in my barracks who would scream and cry during the night. Many were in such poor shape, that they were of little value to the US Army, but my commanding officer said he would not discharge them, because their problems resulted from service in the Military, so he felt responsible for them, and covered for their lack of work. I am sure there could be 20,000,000 stories just like this one. Oh my, just one more. Since my older brothers were at war, I, as a young teenager, had to throw around bales of hay, and cans of milk, and hurt my back, and it still hurts. The VA doctors laugh when I call that my WW II injury.
Posted by: Jim Humberd - Jul 12, 2008 8:56 AM
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Rick, I realize you are in Europe on business, and please keep doing the favors for your customers, that you have done so successfully over the years. In our 30 years of extensive travel, we didn’t have as many problems total as you had in Bath. When we travel we know it is their home, if we don’t like it we can leave. We are there to learn about their home and way of life, and we try not to tell everyone that our home is best, even though we are positive that it is. ==== Blackstone I agree up to a point. Those actions that you blame on corporations should be treated as crimes, not as a golden parachute for someone who didn’t read the warning on the pack of smokes, or who hadn't heard the comment “coffin nails” for the last 100 years. The problem is we don’t have a Justice System, we have a legal system, built and operated by and for the wallet and ego of the lawyers. If a guilty person is freed, or an innocent person found guilty, shoot the lawyers involved.
Posted by: Jim Humberd - Jul 15, 2008 9:59 AM
Again I say, " Humberd for the Common Sense Party candidate."
Posted by: Ken - Jul 15, 2008 10:53 AM
Ken, all those good things you say are appreciated, but I am still awaiting my first campaign donation from you. With no pay, there can be no play.
Posted by: Jim Humberd - Jul 15, 2008 11:23 AM +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I don’t understand at all what “Thank you Jim - Jul 15, 2008 2:34 PM” was talking about. Certainly nothing that I have ever said or ever written, on Rick’s Blog, or anywhere else. We are not Pollyannish about our travels, but there is really no place where we have visited in 70 countries and Islands that we would not be happy to revisit tomorrow. Of course some are more interesting than others, but when we travel we know it is their home, if we don’t like it we can leave. We have never been mistreated, we have never rushed to get away from anywhere. We are there to learn about their home and way of life, and we try not to tell everyone that our home and our culture is best, even though we are positive that it is. We have been asked a thousand time, what is your favorite country, what is the best place to visit. My answer, “There is no best, each is unique, there are many differences.” ==== “Thank you Jim,” please explain your point. If your point was that I dislike people who move, not travel, to some country, then complain about everything, that I agree with.
Posted by: Jim Humberd - Jul 18, 2008 9:33 AM
When we first visited the Abbey, in 1970, I don’t remember an entrance fee at all. We’ve been there other times also. Sweetie had expected the coronation chair to be some fancy kind of thing, and while the Queen likes it, it's a very old and very rough looking board bench that looks like children carved their name in it years ago. We haven’t attended an Evensong in the Abbey, but we did visit a chapel service in St. Paul's Cathedral conducted by the chaplain to the Queen. I hope this is not against the rules, but for the best photo ever taken of London, by anyone, see http://www.travel-tidbits.com/tidbits/002245.shtml. I believe those are the Abbey towers on the far left.
Posted by: Jim Humberd - Jul 15, 2008 6:34 PM
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During the approximately 1,500 nights my Sweetie and I spent together away from “home,” we so often said: What a fascinating place for these people to live! What a fascinating place for us to visit! If we had ever found we had stopped saying that, we would have just stayed at home. And our travels obviously included much more than a 1,000 nights in Europe. (I also spent at least 1,000 additional nights on business trips in the USA.)
Posted by: Jim Humberd - Jul 19, 2008 10:07 AM
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Can you imagine the billions of dollars spent at McDonald's restaurants each year, by people who just stopped to use the “McDonald's.” ==== McDonald's seldom cooked my burger well done enough, and kept it plain. On August 28, 1983 in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, I told my Sweetie, “No more.” Over the years Sweetie said, “Why not?” But I never ordered another. I said, “Who else knows when they ate their last Mikky burger?” Sweetie often ordered a Burger, and we both had Egg McMuffin, Fries, and Carmel Sundaes in most states, a couple dozen countries in Europe, across Canada, and on Islands in the Pacific. And in Europe they were always happy to furnish us a big cup or two of ice, so we could enjoy Iced Tea American Style, in our RV.
Posted by: Jim Humberd - Jul 21, 2008 9:37 AM
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In ‘79 and ‘85 when we visited Denmark, we found it a paradox. We met and talked with the nicest people, but found the ideas of many to be troubling. The hate the young people expressed for the USA seemed to be on the level with their lack of knowledge of our country. We had a large “coffee table” book about the US that we had purchased in Vienna. The young people could not imagine the photographs were real. They said they had never been told that the US looked anything like that. One man told how terrible it was, the way we treated our immigrants. Then he said, “But this is Denmark, we don’t want immigrants.” Another man, who told us that families in the USA did not spend enough time as a family, and we were going to suffer for it, then admitted his two daughters were attending school in the USA, not in Denmark. We were told more than once, and this was confirmed by Danish friends in the USA, and former members of the German military, that when WW II ended, many Germans, stationed in Norway, had to cross Denmark to get home. Dozens or hundreds, depending on which story we wanted to believe, were shot by the now brave Danes, who put up no defense when Hitler invaded Denmark early in the war. But each of our visits, we found most Danes to be friendly, and helpful, and we enjoyed our visits, including Legoland, the Lego Company’s version of Disneyland, in Billund.
Posted by: Jim Humberd - Jul 23, 2008 9:43 AM
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Just a few examples of our experience with the friendly people of Denmark. ==== One evening the girls’ High School band in Helsingor marched through the shopping district. They had visited the US and Disneyland the previous year. My love of band music (and girls) easily persuaded me to walk all over Helsingor listening to the band, and watching … . The campsite is near the water, and we can see the lights of Sweden, just a short distance across the Øresund Strait. I’m the driver, Sweetie’s the cook, but cooking is the least important of her real duties, I mean her enjoyments! ===== The ferry M/F Prins Henrik is clean and neat, and has a large restaurant, cafeteria, snack bar, conference room, gymnasium, duty free shop the size of a supermarket, complete with butter, cheese, candy, tobacco, liquor, and shopping carts. There are people, trucks, cars, buses, and railroad cars on the boat. === The Fredrikshaven campground was new and the facilities were about the best we have seen anywhere, including most hotels. The facilities included everything we could want — washers, dryers, showers, plenty of hot water — very clean. The first year we stopped here, there was no one to collect the money, but the next visit, we paid, but only for that year, not the previous one. We kidded them about that, and they laughed and said, “No cost for years gone by.” ======= This morning the man from the office of the campground in Horsens came over with some hot fresh baked bread for our breakfast. He told us that just as we arrived last night, he and his wife were ready to leave for their home, after closing the campground in Horsens for the season. They decided we looked too tired to look for another campground, so they changed their minds and stayed another night, just for us. Amazing what nice people we find in every country.
Posted by: Jim Humberd - Jul 26, 2008 11:19 AM
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We left the SS Odysseus at 8:00 AM to sight see on our own. Outside the port building, a long line of busses were waiting for those who paid for a tour. Before we crossed Galata Koprusu, the bridge over the Golden Horn, we walked past a line of sidewalk vendors selling bread and other kinds of pastry, fishing boats offering fish for sale, and there's a ferryboat terminal, disgorging crowds of people. On the “other” side of Galata Koprusu, the Yeni Cami (Mosque) has a maybe a dozen curved stair steps. Our photo shows a thousand pigeons perfectly lined on the edge of each stair, and on the wires above, almost as if placed there by a drill sergeant! When we returned a few hours later, some of the pigeons had been fed, others were still hopeful. We re-crossed the bridge over the Golden Horn on the way back to SS Odysseus. It was nearing lunch time, the restaurants were becoming crowded, the fishermen were still selling fish, the street stands were still selling pastries, the ferryboat terminal was still disgorging passengers, a thousand pigeons were eating, others waited to be fed. Those same street scenes will continue until we return, some day soon. The bridge, Bogazici Koprusu, that crosses from European Istanbul to Asian Istanbul, is crowded with vehicle traffic. They said that before the bridge was opened it took 20 minutes to cross by ferryboat, and now it takes 45 minutes to cross by vehicle. I was unusually tired this day, unbelievably tired, when I consider my usual travel-energy, and amazingly tired when I remembered that we are in Istanbul, and for the first time! I had an awful ache in my back, in the muscle just above my wallet. I thought it must be from reaching for it so often. Sweetie thinks the soreness is because my wallet muscle just hasn't been exercised enough, in the Grand Bazaar, Istanbul, Turkey.
Posted by: Jim Humberd - Jul 28, 2008 3:04 PM
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We have sailed into and out of a dozen major ports in various parts of the world, and we believe Istanbul must have the most breath-taking setting of any harbor. Sweetie was shocked to see how hard the laborers had to work to move huge carts loaded to overflowing with carpets, clothes, pots and pans, and the other thousands of products that are sold at the 4,000 shops in the Grand Bazaar. Many times the huge pile of “goods” were just loaded on the back of some hardworking man. No way motor vehicles could be used, and thousands of stores must be stocked with things to sell. The Bazaar burned in 1546, 1618, 1652, 1660, 1695, 1701, 1750, 1791, 1826, 1954: there were earthquakes in 1766, 1894. The famous Süleyman Mosque (Sultan Ahmed), is best known as the Blue Mosque, for the blue tile in the interior. Before we entered the Mosque, we had to take off our shoes and leave them on a shelf at the entrance, with hundreds of others. Wonder if everyone always takes the same shoes when they leave? Inside, the Süleyman Mosque (Blue Mosque) is huge, and huge, and huge! We don’t know how else to describe it. The floors are covered with hundreds and hundreds of rugs, (would you believe Turkish rugs?) and there is blue tile everywhere. That just is not a sufficient description! But what can we say? The St. Sophia Mosque, originally a Byzantine Christian church, became a mosque in 1453, and the mosaic murals of saints and angels were covered with colored plaster. In 1935 (500 years later), the plaster was carefully removed when the Turkish government declared it a museum. The dome of St. Sophia Mosque is huge, and high, and old, and so large that building engineers say it can’t be built, and will not stay in one piece if it were. Another one of the “bumblebee” buildings that has existed ‘lo these many centuries. The green marble columns inside are said to have been moved here from Ephesus.
Posted by: Jim Humberd - Jul 30, 2008 9:07 AM
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Trish: My favorite Quotation is, The Eye can See and The Heart can Love, What the Word cannot Describe. ===== At the Sultan Ahmet Camii, the (Blue Mosque), there are several domes (counting the little ones, perhaps a couple of dozen), and six tall, slender minarets. Tourists are in awe as they walk here and there in this fantastic place. We could have spent days just to see a summary of the interior, but if we spend more than 30 minutes today, we will miss too many other splendid things, especially being back to our ship before it sails. There was one more bit of blue in the Blue Mosque, information not discussed in other tourist books, not found in Rick’s books, a scoop for this Travel Journal. I bought two blue sun-visors in Athens, I looped one on my arm as I took photos, and it was lost somewhere in the Blue Mosque. We didn’t miss it until we were on our way to St. Sophia Mosque, and time was short. When we got back to the ship, we were told that one of the tour leaders found a blue sun-visor, and had tried to find its owner. The other one was “lost” then “found” after the wind blew it off Sweetie’s head, as we walked the Wall in Dubrovnik, and we still have it after all those years.
Posted by: Jim Humberd - Jul 31, 2008 4:48 PM
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Near St. Sophia Mosque there's a block or so of wooden row houses that look like they belong in San Francisco. We talked to some people who were just leaving one building, and they told us the houses were originally built by an English Company, for their workers. The buildings have been remodeled, and now serve as a hotel. We went to visit Topkapi, the huge palace where 4,000 people once lived and worked. Didn't find it too appealing, at least not as interesting as the other things we saw in Istanbul. The building was not nearly as interesting as many of the castles and palaces we have seen in Northern Europe. We were here in 1989, nearly 20 years ago, and were told that apartments or houses along the Bosporus can rent for as much as $10,000 per month, while in a more normal location an apartment will rent for more like $200. It's considered a status symbol to have a large chandelier in a home, and as we rode through Istanbul on the bus the other night, we could see plenty of them through large windows in homes, and in stores with a couple of floors with large windows, with fabulous chandeliers on display. d
Posted by: Jim Humberd - Aug 03, 2008 8:55 PM
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Along each side of the canals there are places to park cars, some without a rail to help keep the car out of the canal. There are schools that teach people how to get out of the car when it goes into a canal. Why not teach them how to park, instead? Houses along the canals have a beam sticking out at the peak, to hold a rope and pulley to help move the furniture through the windows. I used a beam, rope and pulley, just like that to put hay in the haymow, years ago. Large windows are on the first floor for furniture of adults, smaller windows on the second for the children, and smaller yet on the third floor, for the maid's furniture. A man was talking about the blue lights. He said that some restaurants (including McDonald's) use that light to keep the drug users out of their place. Dark blue is the color of the vein in the arm of a druggie, and in these rest rooms they can't find the vein. We had seen those blue lights and wondered. While looking for a campground we talked with the driver of a restaurant supply delivery truck “parked” in the traffic jam in the next Autobahn lane. He said to follow him, he had one more delivery, then we could follow him to the campground. I soon recognized the Olympic Stadium, with the 30 or 40 feet high sign with the word CAMPING positioned vertically on the sign. We thanked the truck driver, spent the night next to the 1928 (the year I was born) Olympic Stadium. It rained 10 times today, maybe more, this countryside is attractive in the rain. It rained so hard for about five minutes we almost had to stop right in the middle of the Autobahn. We know it rained hard while we were in another famous city one year, but at least the flooding of the "streets" in Venice weren't a problem, as it was on the Dutch Autobahn.
Posted by: Jim Humberd - Aug 06, 2008 12:27 PM
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This is not about Amsterdam, but it is about using the camera you carry with you. With today's Digital technology, it most likely takes “movies.” Back in the early ‘90s, not that long ago, a video camera was rather large, used a reel of tape, had just a tiny B & W view finder, and you could not replay the day’s tape, to see and hear what you had done. I carried a transformer and a small TV, so I could plug it in each evening, and review the tape. I recently was reviewing the tape taken 15 years or so ago, and heard me make a statement that I had forgotten. We were at Oradour-sur-Glane, France, a town whose buildings and people had been destroyed by the Germany Army, soon after the Normandy invasion. I was surprised to hear me say the following, edited here of course. I had not thought of it since, and have not included it in any of my writings, but I think it tells a story worth reading. ==== “In Paris, Rome, Venice, Vienna, the Swiss Alps, and all those other beautiful places in Europe, we keep the Video Camera running because what we see is so beautiful. In Dachau, Buchenwald, Auschwitz, Birkenau, Oradour-sur-Glane, and all those other horrible places in Europe, we keep the Video Camera running because what we see is so horrible.”
Posted by: Jim Humberd - Aug 07, 2008 9:28 AM
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Since I don’t care for restaurants, and have never even tasted beer - the smell is too much for me - I will never write about the same subject that Rick mentions in his Blog. ===== During our visit on Sunday August 24, 1980, as we walked toward downtown Brugge, we found hundreds of people in costume and medieval dress, along with flocks of sheep and many horses, waiting for a parade to start. This “Pageant of the Golden Tree” (the next edition of this event takes place in 2012), recreates the showy marriage of Charles the Bold to Margaret of York (sister to the English King Edward IV) in the summer of 1468. More than 2000 actors, six choirs, and 100 horsemen paraded through the heart of Bruges' historical center, telling the history of the town in about 90 scenes. Dancers, singers, horses, flocks of sheep, and hundreds of people in costumes, were organized in one parade scene after another, as they “marched” through the city. It was very interesting, although we learned more than we needed to know about Brugge’s history. Several years we stopped in enchanting Brugge, Belgium, crossed and recrossed by canals that are lined with magnificent buildings. It’s about the most charming city in this part of Europe. We think it might be fun to take a boat ride on the Brugge canals sometime, but while we walk, we can look up, down, around and inside the buildings, while in a boat all we could do is look up at the buildings. Brugge’s campground was easy to find the first year, and easier yet in the years to follow. One year while Sweetie’s German Cousins were traveling with us, they slept in a Brugge Motel room two nights, we slept in the RV in the Brugge Motel’s parking lot.
Posted by: Jim Humberd - Aug 09, 2008 4:30 PM +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
We drove and parked and walked around Brugge with Sweetie’s elderly Cousins, Hugo and Maria. We ate breakfast in our RV in the center of the main parking lot, right in Brugge’s main city square, surrounded by very impressive buildings, and the fruit and vegetable market. === A few years earlier I climbed to the top of the main tower in the market square. They only let people visit as a group. They let a few people go up and spend some time, and they must come down before others are permitted to go to the top. Traffic control for the narrow steps. === They have a lot of horse drawn carriages, and unlike some other cities where we have seen horses and carriages, they have a plastic sheet, like a diaper, extending from under the horses tail to a little storage place, and it keeps the street of Brugge (and shoes) clean. === McDonald's had a cleaning lady who is tipped when the washrooms are used. Most McDonald's do not charge for restrooms, but this does provide income for some old ladies, and the restrooms are spotless. === I forgot to mention in the earlier comment, that there was a brochure that gave information about each scene In the “Pageant of the Golden Tree.” We didn't have a brochure, but I read the English subtitles from a brochure held by a little girl in front of us. === It's the purpose of our Journal to tell a little of what we do, and since there are libraries filled with information about the places we see, there isn't much use in trying to really describe them in great detail here. In our garage there are boxes and boxes of maps, books, receipts and descriptive literature about all our trips, so if more than sketchy detail is needed, I have a place to look. At the end of some trips, we paid $100 postage to get all that information home. (We still have the receipt for $2 for two nights in Rome for four people in 1970 -- 25¢ per person, per night.)
Posted by: Jim Humberd - Aug 11, 2008 9:40 AM
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