Archive for Work and Adventure – Page 18

Thinking About Travel…

I love this sign and the idea behind it. I love the design, the pop of the black and white letters, and the shape. It says a lot about the business and the people who run it. It’s attached to the wall outside a “simple” organic café next to our apartment in Mallorca. SIM–PLE. Yes, it’s a café sign, but I’ve taken it as an expression of my travel philosophy.

Simple, in this case, doesn’t exclude the complex; it merely strives to keep things uncomplicated. For example, we’re on the island of Mallorca, the largest of the Balearic Islands, and we’re here for a month. Basically, we’re hanging out, watching people, sampling foods, visiting markets, and reading about the island’s history. It’s “simple” travel. We have the luxury of time, something most tourists don’t have, so if we want to take a day off, we take a day off. Nothing is lost. We’re here to relax, enjoy, and learn, not maximize or quantify the experience. read more

At Home in Palma…

I’m sorry Seattle… I’m really tired of long winters, gray skies, and the rain that’s coming soon. When we left Saigon four years ago I put together the Surviving Seattle blog in an effort to cope with it, but in my heart of hearts I’ve always been a blue sky, warm water, palm trees kind of guy and this month I’m falling in love with Palma de Mallorca.

I don’t want to oversell it. We just spent a month in Berlin, and I’m easily seduced. It’s not really apfels and oranges to compare Seattle and Berlin to Palma. They’re both northern temperate climates and though our Berlin weather was seasonably good outside dining wasn’t really in the cards. On the other hand, stepping off the airplane in Palma on Thursday – the day a storm nearly blew Berlin away – the early evening sky was dark blue, and it felt like Santa Monica. Indeed, parts of the taxi ride from the airport into Palma looked like Marina del Rey. I immediately thought of tapas and wine at an outside table. Sidewalk cafes were tugging at me. I’ll own it; Southern California has always felt like my natural habitat. Berlin was a treat, Seattle is exciting, but I could live in Palma. read more

Other End of the Telescope…

I’m always astonished at how time and space collapse when viewed through the other end of the telescope—how, as our lifelines expand, we see changes that weren’t evident as they were happening, of cycles we thought were one-offs repeating themselves, and how overseas travel helps us see beyond the forest of our everyday surroundings. The riverside restaurants in the picture above have taken the place of The Berlin Wall that stood here in 1989.

Being in Germany today heightens these reflections. I had the incomparable experience of working and living in Berlin for almost 10 years when it was an island in the East German sea, when the only ways in and out were the three air corridors or the three restricted highways between West Berlin and the rest of West Germany. I was there and walked through the Brandenburg Gate on October 3, 1990 when the two Germanys were officially reunited. All of this in my lifetime. Astonishing. read more

He’s Back…

No, not The Terminator; this time it’s Sebastian Lukacs Gorka, the red faced, bespectacled, Mephistopheles-like, Hungarian troll. Truth to tell, he never left; though on May 1, 2017, under pressure, the White House announced his imminent departure. Today (August 15), three and a half months later, four minority caucuses in the House of Representatives are again calling on the White House to fire the Deputy Assistant Advisor to the President – for his remarks in the aftermath of the Charlottesville tragedy. read more

Joe Diedrich (1927-2017)

Yesterday would have been his 90th birthday. He had been in poor health for almost a year and in September when I spoke to him for the last time he acknowledged that the end was in sight. Two weeks ago I sent him an email. His wife responded with the news that he died the day after he received it.

Men aren’t particularly good at grieving though we commonly talk about it when a friend leaves us. Still, Joe wasn’t like anyone else and grieving doesn’t really describe my feelings. Regret is probably better. Regret that I won’t see him in Mallorca as planned this fall, and regret that I won’t hear more of his self-deprecating stories and biting commentary on the world. read more