Tulum, Quintana Roo, Mexico

Just got back from spending 7 days in Tulum with Nataly. It was a very challenging trip for reasons which I don’t entirely want to get into here (at least not all of them), but there also were some very beautiful things and some cool stuff to write about, so here I am writing down the good (and a few of the bad) things for posterity. I also really want to save all these pictures! Pictures always look better in tropical areas. I’d never been to Tulum or to this part of Mexico before so it was a new experience all around. The idea of the trip was to relax so I booked us an all-inclusive resort called Bahia Principe Grand Tulum. One of the best parts of the trip was the food; they had an amazing buffet that was basically open all the time, with everything you could ever want. My favorite part was all the grilled and broiled fish dishes; from Grouper to Mahi Mahi to Sea Bass and everything else, grilled with butter, and olives, or tomatoes, or broiled; all of it super fresh and moist and amazing. The rest of the food was good, too, and free drinks of course. Saved a huge amount of money and time.

The ocean was nice but they are having a serious problem with seaweed. I don’t know if it’s seasonal or global warming related or what; the ocean was extremely warm, and there was just a ton of seaweed. They were trying to get rid of it with tractors and what-not but falling absurdly behind. But we did get out once or twice for some light snorkeling and saw a bunch of cool fish, including a “Ukraine fish” with a yellow bottom and blue top.

My second favorite part of the trip was the Cenotes, which are basically underground caves formed out of the limestone that are now filled with water and a running river. We went to 6 different ones and they were all cool in different ways. My favorite was Jaguar because they had platforms you could jump off of into the water and they also had an included zipline, which I loved. It was fun to go back to my old days of youth jumping off bridges in Florida. The second best one was probably Segundo Ojo, the second eye, which was part of Dos Ojos park (as was Jaguar), because it was huge and we had a good snorkeling mask and you could really see down into the caves. Next time I go I’m going to scuba dive. We also went to Cenote Azul, which was fun because it was cheaper and there were more locals and more fish. Nicte-Ha and the first Ojo were also cool; Nicte-Ha had beautiful lily plants. The only one that was a bit of a dud was Gran Cenote because it was really expensive and touristy and hot.

We also went to the ruins at Tulum and that was OK but it was super hot. We only went into Tulum twice and didn’t get much of a feel for it; it seems cool but we were trying to relax at the resort.

I did have a few mishaps including cutting my foot open on a glass at the pool at the resort (fortunately, the last night we were there). I also got pulled over by Mexican police on the highway and they searched me and Nataly and the car, which was pretty terrifying although they were fairly nice about it and eventually just let us go, because, you know, we weren’t doing anything wrong. Kind of made me connect with how people of color feel in Oakland.

I had a lot of fun but it was a challenging trip. The heat was intense during the day and sucked the joy out of certain activities. And we just ran into some challenges. But still it was a fun and memorable trip. I always love travelling and this was no exception.

Eastern Europe 2022 - Day 21 - Kyiv, Ukraine

I don't want to obsess about the war. I'd rather talk about the amazing calamari dish I had, or the beautiful beach on the Dnipro I sat on. But I guess I need to get it out of the way.

I knew when I decided to come to Kyiv that there would be some risk. I knew that it was naïve to think that I wouldn't experience some small piece of the war; and, it turns out, I did. All of the air raid alerts up until the last day had been scary but ultimately largely they didn't affect me; either the Ukrainian air defense shot everything down or the impact wasn't felt much in Kyiv. But on my last day, Kyiv's luck ran out. Russia apparently decided that Ukraine was having too much fun because they went all out with presents for New Year. Which is how I found myself cowering in Natalya's hallway while we heard explosions rock the neighborhood. Several missiles made it through, and one of them blew a good chunk out of a hotel not more than 2 miles from where I was staying. It's hard to put into words how terrifying that is. One of the aspects of this war is how modern technology changes it, and one of those changes is that we were getting information, in real time, from the Ukrainian government, about where the bombs were landing and what the damage was. Which is both very comforting and oddly terrifying. Every Telegram message that came through I would quickly copy and paste into the translation app: fire in this district. An elderly man died over here. Police are responding.

The air raids are the most visible impact of the war but they aren't the only one. The lights are often off in public places, for example, which definitely can be creepy. And on my last day, sitting in the train station, I watched a couple embrace while she left and he went off to war. On the train itself, I watched as an entire family - wife and two kids - left their husband behind and she kissed him. The son cried.

So, yeah, the story of my time in Kyiv is definitely to some extent a story of war.

But the thing is, Ukrainians are not defeated, nor are they exhausted. And they are not all thinking about the war all the time. This is not a society at the end of its rope. Civil society still exists. The train shows ads for cell phone upgrade packages and 40% off Scandinavian furniture. The metro is clean and efficient and on time. Whole chunks of the country, which my train is currently going through, are largely unaffected. There is actually a lot of traffic on the roads. Uber works. Gas stations are open. The mall is busy.

And the restaurants and bars are very much open and very delicious. For New Years Eve, I stumbled around looking for a place that was open (a lot of places were closed, not because of the war but just because it's a holiday) and ended up at a Chinese fusion cuisine restaurant which was very, very upscale and very, very good. I sat at the bar so I could chat up the bartenders; one guy in his 20s and another in this 30s. I asked about their experiences. The older guy said that when the war started he and his wife fled to Ivano-Frankiv; they spent the first night in Kyiv in a bunker and then couldn't stand the stress. But after 2 months, he started calling his old friends and boss and they said yeah, come on back, so they did, and now they just live life day by day; they both work, they're thinking about having a kid; they're just waiting for the war to be over. I asked the younger guy if he was worried about being called up for service and he gave me a weird look and said that he had already volunteered, but they told him they didn't need him yet.

I did a lot of walking again today as well; at one point I spotted a far away beach on the other bank of the Dnipro and decided to walk over there; I ended up crossing a huge, beautiful walking/cycling bridge and there were a lot of people out jogging. Nobody was at the beach, of course, because it was way too cold, but I went down there anywhere and sat and listened to some meditation tapes. Then I solemnly stuck my hand in the water - it was freezing - and then walked back. It felt very quiet and pleasant and safe.

So yeah; not an exhausted people. Maybe tired, yes, but far from exhausted.

Oh, and the calamari dish was fried calamari mixed with caramel popcorn, which sounds weird but was incredibly delicious.

Eastern Europe 2022 - Day 20 - Kyiv, Ukraine

I thought yesterday’s post was going to be hard to write, but today’s is even harder. I want to write about the events of yesterday, and I will, but first I have to get the events of the last few hours out of the way. As I sit and write this at 4:49 PM, the air raid sirens stopped going off about 30 minutes ago. But unlike the last few times, this time was bad. Sitting in the hallway of my AirBnb with the owner, we could hear the explosions. They were loud. And, quickly, we were informed: a hotel in my district of Kyiv had been hit. An elderly man died, 6 more were injured. That’s why it was so loud.

Anyway, I will write more about that soon, but for the moment I want to focus on yesterday, which was momentous enough in its own right. First there was the air raid at 2 am, which lasted about 2 hours, but very little happened. Then throughout the day there were several cool and fun things that I did, but before I get to those, I have to talk about my trip to the Ukrainian Museum of the Great Patriotic War (what we call World War II). My host recommended I go and check it out, so I started walking in that direction. I first stopped in at a cafe, called The Life of Wonderful People. It was awesome, and such a contrast to the fear I’d been feeling. It’s a beautiful cafe that wouldn’t look out of place in New York City or San Francisco. I sat next to a woman with a little beagle that curled up right next to me. I had a latte and a dish of dumplings in a truffle sauce with fried mushrooms and spinach and it was amazing. Then a second latte and a piece of Napoleon cake. The music was great, the service was excellent, and the whole thing was like $20. And while I was there, the woman’s car almost got towed, which was hilarious and felt like such a “normal” event. Like, even in the middle of a war, you can park in the wrong spot.

Then I started walking to the museum, and promptly got super lost and wandered around a park for miles. Then the air raid went off again, and I was like well, shit, I am totally exposed and out in the open. I was walking along the Dnipro in a deserted but beautiful park, and I just didn’t know what to do so I kept walking. Fortunately again, this one seemed to be mostly a non event (in Kyiv, anyway). When I finally made it to the museum, I walked around and looked at their display of WWII era tanks and guns and ended up next to a smaller building that said it was an exhibition on the “Ukrainian Crucifixion”, a reference to the current war. A woman was standing on the steps and she saw my confusion and said, in English, that they were reopened from the sirens, and I should come inside. I said I wanted to make sure I had time for the main museum and she smiled sadly and said that the main museum had been closed since February because it was a wide open space overlooking Kyiv and they were worried about saboteurs. But, she said, she would give me a tour of the new exhibit in English if I wanted.

And so for the next 2 hours I had a private tour by one of the museum curators named Alle of one of the most immediate and moving exhibitions I’d ever seen. She told me that it was the same display that they show to journalists and visiting dignitaries to help them understand what was going on. I felt very lucky. Usually museum displays are about the distant past, and they can feel very remote. But this one was about March, and it was not remote at all. Everything was right out in the open for you to feel and touch. All the items had the feeling of having been collected just last week, and in some cases that was because they had. They had displays of captured military IDs, military rations, a room full of weapons such as the remains of a Buk missile and grenade launchers.

But then she took me down into the bomb shelter. Ironically, it is in fact the real bomb shelter for the museum staff, but they had decided to “redecorate” it, using some source photos, as a replica of the bomb shelter where 140 people spent 37 days in Hostomel, under the control of the Chechens. They had taken all the real items from the shelter (which isn’t that far away; Hostomel is a suburb of Kyiv) and brought them there. There were makeshift beds, mattresses, blankets, children’s toys, Russian army rations given to them by the Chechens. She showed me a handwritten plaque written by a grieving husband who buried her 78 year old wife who died of pneumonia. She told me how they missed having bread. It is hard to even know how to write about that experience, because it was so raw. I could say it was heartbreaking, for example, but that hardly seems to cover it. I could say it made me angry but that doesn’t even really fit either. I think the thing I kept thinking, as she calmly and professionally showed me her countrymen being held hostage, was “this really, really has to stop”. Like, as an engineer, I just started thinking “how can we make this stop”. Because it just has to stop. It has to stop. There is nothing more important than getting this whole thing to stop.

Anyway, after wandering around dazed by that experience, I eventually ended up at a delightful Ukrainian restaurant called Tsars’ke Selo, where I overate again. Due to a miscommunication I ended with 3 beers, and Chicken Kyiv, and some delicious Daruny (a sort of potato pancake) with salmon, and a Kyiv cake, served by some charming men in very traditional costumes inside a recreation of a Ukrainian farmhouse. It was all very touristy, actually, and in a way I found that relaxing, like normalcy had returned. At one point during my meal the power went out, but they didn’t even blink, bringing out candles until it came back on 15 minutes later.

Then I came home, talked to my host about my day, surfed the web, and went to bed. The next day would be New Year’s Eve, and my last full day in Kyiv.

Eastern Europe 2022 - Day 18/19 - Kyiv, Ukraine

This is going to be one of the most difficult blog posts I’ve ever written. It also may end up being one of the longest, so I applaud any of you that stick around to the end. In many ways, I don’t know if much of what I have to say will be as meaningful to my audience as it might be. I have no “shock conclusions” to make, no counterintuitive insights. What I saw is largely what I expected to see, and yet it felt no less meaningful for being predictable. And there were definitely a lot of unexpected moments, to be sure.

I think one of the reasons this blog post feels so difficult to write is that I’m aware that, as with any written work, it needs a narrative structure. There should be a beginning, a middle, and an end. There should be conflict (OK, that one’s pretty easy). There should be a hero’s journey, a challenge to overcome, something to take away, something to learn. And I struggle here because, of course, real life doesn’t always give us these things packaged up as neatly as that. But I suppose the best place to start is with the air raid alerts.

Living in the capital city of a country at war has its disadvantages. One of them is that you can’t have peace. That might seem obvious, but the reality of it is jarring. My first experience of Ukraine was waking up on the sleeper train to Kyiv, putting away my belongings, and then having my cabin mate, a Ukrainian man named Roman who looked to be my age, ask me, in broken English, whether I was meeting anyone in Kyiv. When I said that I had an AirBnb, he shook his head. No, he said, that wouldn’t do, because, you see, there is an air raid. What, right now? I asked, and he said, with sad eyes, yes, right now.

So that is how I ended up following a man I’d never met as we raced from the train terminal down into the Metro at Vokzalna, where I hastily met his brother and his family and we sat, deep in the tunnels, for the better part of 2 hours. He installed some apps on my phone that told me - in a voice both comforting and deeply jarring - when there was an air raid. I’ve heard that voice 2 more times since. He stood with his friends, talking in Ukrainian, while I sat, and stared at my phone (which didn’t work underground), and wondered - not for the first time - what I was doing there. It was scary for 10 minutes, and then, surprisingly, it was kind of boring.

But, eventually, as with all crises, that crisis ended. First Roman left - and yes, the air raid was still on, and this was my first lesson in Kyiv: life must go on. He was ready to go, and so off he went, with little more than a handshake, leaving me to wonder what the heck I was supposed to do. So I waited another 15 minutes, shrugged, and then I left, too. And just as I did, the air raid siren expired. I wondered: had anything been hit? (Answer: yes). Was the power out? (No.) Could I still get an Uber? (Yes.) My Uber driver asked me where I was from. When I told him, he laughed, and asked me if I worked for the CIA. I think he was kidding.

And so, an hour later, I was talking to Natalya, my AirBnb owner, a charming woman perhaps in her 60s of some sort of obvious Jewish descent, inside her tiny but warm flat somewhere near downtown Kyiv (don’t ask me to explain where it is). She asked me how the air raid went (Fine.). She asked me what I was doing here (I awkwardly explained my cover story about my ex-girlfriend and her sister). She talked to me about the war, and her Russian friend who said they “all had to be saved”, and how she heard the explosions this morning (even when they shoot down the missiles, they still have to land somewhere). She told me her daughter didn’t want to celebrate Christmas; it was too sad. Apparently 2 kids had been injured on a playground. She told me to take a shower while they still had water. I did.

And then, I went out. I had no idea where I was going. Truth be told, I had no idea what the heck I was doing here, and that was becoming painfully obvious. Nothing tourist-y would be open. The best I could do was walk, and so walk I did. I set my map for the Maidan, the square where the revolution happened. Over the next few hours I would walk 7 or 8 miles, visit an upscale shopping mall, sit and drink a Coke Zero on the Maidan, get scammed by a man who owned pigeons for $40, and generally experience life in Kyiv for the day. I tried (and failed) to get into St. Sophia. I ate at one of the open McDonalds (I had a Big Tasty, and it was both Big and Tasty). I stared at people and wondered what they were thinking. I felt wildly out of place. I walked along a pedestrian bridge next to the Dnipro. I started wearing my headphones because I didn’t want anyone to talk to me. I felt a profound sense of hope, and fear, and joy, and discomfort all at the same time. I stopped in a very nice shopping mall along the Maidan and I bought some things from a store called Made In Ukraine, where they had shirts that said Russian Warship, Go Fuck Yourself right next to dinner plates with traditional Ukrainian patterns. I stared at prices in Hryvnia and tried to figure out what the heck they meant before realizing, perhaps unsurprisingly, that everything was really, really cheap.

And I walked. I walked, and walked, and walked. I tried to visit several cathedrals, but nothing was open. I felt incredibly conspicuous, in my Stanley knit cap and my Fjallraven jacket and my extremely American face. Did they know I was from a country that wasn’t at war? Did they resent it? Were they happy I was here? Then I remembered the truth of the universe: nobody gives a shit. I took a deep breath (and then started coughing; I’m still sick). I walked up to the monument of the founding of Kyiv by Prince Volodomyr, but it - like many monuments - was covered in scaffolding. I saw a long display about the war, but it was all in Ukrainian, and I realized: this place is not for me. They do not care if I can read these signs. This is a private party. Yes, Kyiv wants you to know about itself, but that is not their priority right now. They are finding out about themselves. This is not a museum piece for international consumption. These people are busy; they are not here for me, or for you. Lead, follow, or get the heck out of the way.

At some point my subconscious processed the sound of a plane overhead, thinking that it was just commercial air traffic, until my thinking brain reminded me: there was no such thing. I looked up, suddenly frightened. Nobody else cared. I never could see what it was; too high, too cloudy.

Kyiv is a study in contrasts: it is alive, and modern, and fun. It is at war, it is mourning, it is depressed. It is cold, it is dark, it is scary. It is happy, it is ready for the future, it is in love. Your Apple Pay works (mostly), but all the museums are closed. You can go to McDonalds; at least, the three or four of them that reopened. The shops are open, but the escalators in the mall are turned off to save power. I walked past the tanks they have on display near the central square; burned out husks of Russian and civilian vehicles; you may have heard about them on the news. I started to take pictures and then I felt uncomfortable. There were, you see, no tourists. Everyone here is from here. Nobody is taking pictures. They already know what it means.

I came back, at around 5:30. It had gotten dark. I meant to write in my blog, maybe read a book. Instead, exhausted, I slept.

And then at 2 am I was awoken by another air raid. But that’s a story for the second blog post.

Eastern Europe 2022 - Day 17 - Przemysl, Poland

Przemysl - pronounced “Preh-sem-ish” - is just basically a way stop on my journey into Ukraine; I came in last night and I go out on a train tonight, so I was only here for the day. But that’s kind of a bummer because it turned out to be a really cool spot. I started out with a walk along the San river, where I visited what turned out to be a section of town that was reserved for people’s gardens. Basically you can buy a plot of land that you don’t live in but is just a place to go visit and maybe to grow things. Of course the weather right now is pretty poor so it was largely empty, but beautiful. Then I stopped and had a Polish breakfast and a great restaurant called Routyn; it was so good that I ended up going back for lunch.

Then I just…wandered around town. I went to several museums; the coolest of which was the National History Museum of Przemysl, which was immediately awesome. The first room I went into was this amazing collection of medieval and early 20th century artifacts; lots of helmets and halberds and chainmail, extending up into muskets and long barrel rifles. Presented largely without commentary and available to just look at, not behind glass or anything; I mean, you weren’t supposed to touch (and I didn’t), but they were just…right there. Then there were a bunch of more traditional history displays, extending up through WWI and WWII. Getting a polish perspective on these events, such as the invasion of the Nazis and the roundup of the Jews, was pretty fascinating.

Then a museum about bells and pipes, then a beautiful cathedral where I stopped to pray, and then a long walk through an urban forest that reminded me a bit of the one in Portland. Then back to that restaurant for a second lunch.

Poland in general has been very cool and impressive; I’m not sure what I expected, but it’s a very clean, modern and upbeat country that’s easy to get around, and everyone is very nice. I sit and type this in a clean coffee shop/cafe that wouldn’t look out of place in any town in America, except maybe it’s even nicer.

I’m kind of sad to leave, but it’s time to move on.

Eastern Europe 2022 - Day 16/17/18 - Czarny Bor, Poland

Wow, how to sum up the three days I spent with Kaska’s family in Czarny Bor. I guess hospitality, hospitality, food, and christmas movies! It was, first of all, an amazing trip, as I thought it might be, and worth the whole trip just to see and experience that feeling. I felt a profound sense of belonging. Part of that was how welcoming Kaska’s whole family was. They gave me a place to sleep, meals, conversation, even showed me around some of the sights. It felt very natural and like I belonged there. My whole time in Poland I felt very comfortable actually. No offense to Germany, but as I sit here and type this in Hauptbahnhof in Berlin as I wait for my train, I find that I can’t wait to get back into Poland. Everyone there was friendly and kind.

The town of Czarny Bor, or Black Forest, is small but very nice, quite polished and clean. All the houses would have fit in fine in a nice upscale New England forest town. We took a trip to the local castle, called Zamek Ksiaz, where we walked through a cool light show and I had hot chocolate. Everything just felt very casual and friendly; even the ancient castle didn’t feel stuffy at all, it just felt like friends hanging out in the central square. Kaska has two brothers, Sylvester and Voitek, and Sylvester and I went on a walk/hike around the town and he showed me the place. One of the highlights was this world class biathlon track which is designed for year round use (using skis with wheels). I honestly would love to come back just to try that out.

We also watched a bunch of dubbed American christmas movies. For some reason they are huge fans of Home Alone. We watched both the first and second one, which I was only barely aware existed.

A brief note about the food; there was a ton of it. For christmas eve dinner, we had 12 separate dishes which is ceremonial; there were several soups, including a beet borscht, mushroom borscht, a fish soup, and then various potato and cabbage dishes. (No meat for Christmas Eve). We sang christmas carols, and recited a bit from the Bible. The next few days switched more to meat and desserts; there was sausage, of course, and a mayo based salad that was particularly delicious. I still have some cookies in a little box. And plenty of wine, though drinking wasn’t the focus, which was actually kind of nice.

I will be forever grateful to Kaska for letting me see her town and hang out with her family. Being around so many generations who were all getting together for Christmas brought a tear to my eye, because it’s something I can’t do anymore. Grandma was there, and mom, and Kaska, and two nieces; the whole spectrum.

In general, Poland really impressed me. Everyone is nice, it’s a very modern and clean country, and they are very grateful for where they are and what’s going on there. We talked a lot about Ukraine, obviously, and the past of the division of Poland by Russia and the Austrian Empire, not to mention the Germans and Ukrainians and basically everyone else. I think for the people my age, the existence of modern Poland as a vibrant European economy is not at all something they take for granted. Voitek and his family for example were big board game and Star Wars fans, and the room I stayed in had a ton of board games and computer equipment.

The world is smaller sometimes, and while there are downsides, in this case, it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. Thanks, Kaska!

Eastern Europe 2022 Day 8/9 - Stuttgart Part 2

I realized that there’s a whole gap of the last two days that I spent in Stuttgart with my friend Matt that I haven’t posted pictures of talked about, and there were some definite highlights.

We went on a nice long 9 mile hike with Matt and his cattle dog Toby, up into the mountains near Stuttgart. At one point we took an incredibly old funicular up the side of the mountain that took forever to get going, driven by an old man who was terribly unconcerned by anything in life! We stopped and bought candles and honey from a tiny “honor system” set up along the trail, and we ate afterwards at a Brewery where I had a “meat salad” consisting of strips of baloney, pickle and other things just kind of bunched up in a pile with a light oil sauce on top. It was odd but the beer was delicious. The hike put me right over the top into being sick, though, unforunately.

The night before that, we went out to a vinyard that Matt had volunteered at crushing grapes and they were having a small celebration with a three piece German band. We met the owner and drank his gluhwein all night while our table full of older German women convinced us to sing along. They had a book of German songs that also, oddly, included a bunch of American 80s tunes and so we were forced to sing while we stood up and sat down to oompah. It was awesome.

I really liked Stuttgart, it seemed like a very livable place. Matt has a good life there. I much preferred it to Berlin, if I’m being honest.

Eastern Europe 2022 - Day 15 - Wroclaw, Poland

Wroclaw was another temporary stopping off point I decided to spend a night in, in-between Poznan and Czarny Bor. I had heard from my friend that it had a beautiful town square, or Rynek. I basically just drove in to Wroclaw, parked, ate dinner, spent the night, got up, ate breakfast, and continued on to Czarny Gor. But I stayed directly on that main downtown square and it was a beautiful night. Compared to America, of course, Polish towns are very different in their geography, with a tight downtown area which was often walled in, dating from medieval times. So the center of town has these tall beautiful building facades which enclose gigantic center areas, and that’s where I stayed, on Plac Solny. I ate at a restaurant called Konspira which prided itself on being themed to the history of resistance in Poland, especially the branch of Solidarity called Fighting Solidarity. Unsurprisingly given current events, they had turned a portion of the decor over to information about the Ukraine invasion, and their stance on it was not subtle! They had a giant sign out front with Putin portrayed as Hitler and text that read “Nuremberg for Putin”. I ate some golabki with tomato sauce and they were quite good. In the morning I went to a tiny brasserie and had avocado toast with eggs and sausage, a latte and some sparkling water and the whole bill including tip was $13 USD. Which is insane.

I also got a chance to chat with Nataly on the phone for a while; she’s headed home soon.

I also strolled around a souvenir shop and learned that Wroclaw is a city of islands, and that for some reason they are obsessed with gnomes. But I didn’t get much time to learn more about that.

Everything about Poland (except, perhaps, the weather) has been very impressive. It’s a very modern country and the influence of the EU is clear; the roads are in great shape, everything is clean and the people are very nice. I will definitely have to come back and ride my bike.

Eastern Europe 2022 - Day 14 - Poznan, Poland

Poznan was one of the locations that I originally “circled on my calendar”, so to speak, because at one point during my ancestry search, it came up as a location that some of my ancestors might have lived in and even been buried in. This dream eventually died or at least was diluted a bit, as I discovered that most of my ancestors only traveled through Poznan, and might not even be from there. But I still decided that it was somewhere I wanted to visit. Seeing the name scrawled on passenger manifest was enough to get me looking online at cemeteries and at Google Street View. I will admit: from my western perspective, and because of the context, I expected it to be some sort of backwater tiny Polish village. But of course, it’s a huge vibrant modern city, and even the cemetery was very modern and nice. And I only found one potential ancestor; but who cares, I had fun anyway.

I had a very pleasant and small AirBnb right near the central town square, which was beautiful but also unforunately under heavy construction. There was a croissant museum - closed for the holidays. I ate at Fat Bob’s Burgers in honor of my dad, and it was acceptable, if a bit salty. The weather has not been cooperating so there wasn’t much to do. I did go out to a single cemetery, and like I said I found one distant relative, but I don’t consider it a loss at all.

I visited a cathedral which apparently is the oldest in Poland, dating from the 11th century, and it was easy to imagine my ancestors visiting the place and praying there, like I did.

I also got to visit Decathlon, the French sporting goods store that we used to have in Oakland before they closed their only 2 US locations. Man, I miss that place. I bought some cool pants.

i also drove to Poznan central station where an awesome employee helped me buy tickets to and from Kyiv. She was amazingly helpful.

So all in all, a good day.

Eastern Europe 2022 - Days 10/11/12 - Berlin, Germany

Ahh, poor Berlin. I’m afraid you’re going to get short shrift in this particular story. Partly because, as I left for Berlin, I was already feeling pretty ill. Flying to Berlin from Stuttgart was kind of the last gasp for my body before it shut down for a day or two and I had to crash in this AirBnb apartment that I rented for Domi and I to share. I might not even have gone at all, but A) I needed to get out of my friend Matt’s hair and B) Domi needed a bit of a rescue. My friend Domi had spent the last month in a hospital and recently gotten out, but had nowhere to stay for a few days to recuperate before heading home. So away I went!

Much of my time in Berlin would end up getting spent on a couch, but I’ll focus on the few things I did get to do there. The one thing I wanted to see more than anything was the Berlin Wall. For some of you that may seem like an odd choice, but I’m old enough that the wall still stood when I was a kid, and it was a hugely important symbolic part of my childhood. I always told myself I’d go see it if I had a chance, so the second day there, still sick, I set out to find some restored pieces of it. I made it on foot to the first site, which turned out to just be an art installation with a couple of chunks of the wall. Cool, but time to move on. Right up that street turned out to be Checkpoint Charlie. This was (one of the) famous checkpoints where citizens of the West could, if they wanted, head into the communist Democratic Republic of Germany. It was staffed by rotating American, British and French soldiers on one side and Russian and East German soldiers on the other. The site itself is well preserved but there’s not much to it. The gift shop has some nice stuff but overall the whole thing was underwhelming and there’s no wall really left there.

At this point I was starting to fade physically but scooters saved the day. They have the same Lime scooters we had back home, and that worked great and soon I was zooping along the last 2 miles to the real prize, the Berlin Wall Memorial and Bernauerstrasse, where they have kept one of the last remaining chunks of the wall intact. This turned out to be exactly what I wanted and it was very moving; several blocks of the wall are still intact, and interactive displays give you a sense of what it would have felt like.

And this is what it felt like: the raw petulance of our worst impulses. A random wall, built across nowhere, serving no function except to delineate one side from another, splitting up families and creating division. The wall randomly splits two random blocks - so randomly that some apartment houses ended up with their front doors in one side and back doors in another. I went to a memorial to one such house, where they showed how people of course used the buildings to sneak from east to west, until they boarded up the back doors, at which point they climbed through windows, then climbed to higher windows, then eventually climbed to the roofs and jumped off into nets that the West Germans installed waiting for them. 131 people fled this way through one such house until the East Germans gave up and just had the whole building torn down. Tunnels were built under the road. A cemetary was located right in the no man’s land and for years people couldn’t visit their family graves, until eventually the gravesites themselves were dug up and relocated. This went on for 28 years, from 1961 to 1989.

What strikes you about the wall is that nothing strikes you about the wall. It is random and pointless. It is not located in a particular geographic feature. It is not a wall for defense so it has no need to be round, or to follow a river or a hill, or really to do anything interesting or important, and so it doesn’t, simply winding randomly around like a child’s pencil scratching on a map. It is not aesthetically pleasing. It looks temporary, like a wall you might build simply to briefly hide other construction.

After I had enough of wandering the wall - which, by the way, is now next to a very nice park where lots of folks were walking their dogs - I went to the Berlin Wall Memorial, a free museum installation that gives some context. While I didn’t learn anything groundbreaking from that, it was well put together and walked through the history of how it came to be and how it came to be torn down.

Anyway, enough about the wall: one of the other things I got to do, which was way more fun, was go to a sparty, or a spa party. This was called Liquidrom, or “liquid room”, and that’s, well, pretty much what it was. Imagine a high end wet spa, with steam saunas, dry saunas, and a large floating pool - except instead of a high end spa aesthetic, imagine blue lights, a DJ, and a hip crowd of hot young people, complete with a bar you can sit at (half naked) and drink high end cocktails and eat avocado toast. Swimsuits were weirdly mandatory for some parts and explicitly disallowed for others, so you kept disrobing and then, uh, re-robing. It was very cool, though I think it would have been way better if I was a) there with a partner, b) attractive, and c) 25 instead of 45. The floating pool, which was kind of a salt pool inside an aesthetic pleasing concrete echo chamber, was the most interesting part. Unfortunately, and for obvious reasons, you couldn’t take pictures or video inside, so you have to use your imagination, but yeah it was cool.

The food in Germany was….well, not great. You couldn’t drink the water - when I went to fill up the bath in the aribnb, it was, well, brown. So you bought bottled water. And I was sick, so I wanted American comfort food, but I couldn’t really find it. I ended up drinking orange juice and eating a lot of strawberry yoghurt.

And the poor Deutsche Bahn. I had always thought that European trains were this amazing world of bliss, but Domi set me straight. She was dreading the trip to Berlin Central Station, and she turned out to be right. Visually it was a very impressive building, but in practice it was useless. We tried to use their website and failed, and so we took an Uber there to talk to them in person, but after waiting 15 minutes in their pull-a-tag-and-wait queue, we figured out that there were no tickets until 6 PM and after considering a few options decided to just rent a car, which was very expensive but turned out to really be the best choice. Also, who builds a train station with nowhere to sit down???

We also sprinkled in a couple of trips to Domi’s favorite smoothie place called Daluma, which had a very high concept aesthetic, and a trip to the supermarket where I got corn flakes wrapped in chocolate. I can’t say I had an amazing time in Berlin, but I guess it really isn’t the city’s fault; bad timing.

The main point, of course, was to meet Domi, and that was worth the trip by itself of course. Meeting her was great; she was exactly what I expected and hoped for, but an even better conversational partner and just all around a great person. I wish her the best of luck in recuperating from her time in the hospital, and I hope I didn’t get her sick.

Eastern Europe Day 13 - Zielona Gora, Poland

[Editor’s note: Apologies for being gone for almost a week; I got quite sick, which I’ll talk about in these posts. I’m only now starting to recover. And I’m going to most likely be doing these in reverse order just because it’s easier for me to think that way. Don’t worry; I’ll be covering in all the days in between.]

Today I’m in Zielona Gora - or Green Mountains, Poland, with my friend Domi. We drove here late yesterday afternoon and I’ll be heading out this afternoon. It’s the first stop on my return trip to Poland after being in Germany, and I have to say, I’m pretty happy to be here. I’m here because I’m taking Domi back to her apartment, and I stayed with her in her place on the couch last night. She’s got an adorable and cozy little attic-style apartment in an older building right next to the downtown area. Today we got up and headed out to first do a little shopping. There’s an unmistakable phenomenon on her street; the older buildings she lives in are immediately juxtaposed with one of the most luxurious and upscale malls you’ll ever find. Malls, as a whole, are on the decline in the US, but not here; this mall was huge and very upscale and very busy. We stopped at the food court so I could get some quick service Polish food from a sort of buffet place, and I thought I was in heaven. Then we went to the Apple dealer and I bought a phone charging cable for $35 (!) because the car here only has USB-C slots. Poland feels like a weird mix of super futuristic and really old, put right next to each other.

When we first drove into Zielona Gora last night, I was struck by how much it reminded me of Buffalo, where I grew up. Partly I think it’s the weather, which is Buffalo to a “T”: cold and wet and grey. And the buildings in Buffalo almost look like they were built to remind people of Poland, which for all I know they were; lots of brick and cobble. I like Poland, everyone is very nice and there’s enough English to go around. And the food is so much better than Germany. I still am choosing to not drink, though. Too sick.

Another thing I noticed was the way the border worked. First of all, there really is no border. I mean, there’s no control there; you don’t even stop. Which is awesome. And you would think that, because of that, there would be a lot of blend, between in this case Germany and Poland. But it’s the opposite. We stopped right inside the Polish portion of the border and it was just instantly Polish. We were in a gas station and all the signs, for example, were in Polish and English only - no German. Everyone spoke Polish and looked Polish. It was instantly Poland, 100%. As someone who lived near the Mexico border, I wasn’t expecting that. I asked Domi about it but she just shrugged and hinted that maybe some Polish people…well, didn’t like German. I don’t sense any open hostility, but I also don’t see a lot of German restaurants in Poland, if you know what I mean. I wonder if it’s like this with other borders.

Staying with Domi was really nice; I’ll miss her when I head out. Having a pen pal like that for so many years and then meeting up is often a crapshoot, but Domi is awesome and we had some great conversations. I hope she gets to come visit Oakland some day.

Next I’m on to Poznan to look around for some ancestors, about 120 miles away.

Eastern Europe 2022 - Day 7 - Stuttgart, Germany

As I write this, it’s almost 1:00 PM and I just woke up! I knew at some point I would crash from all the travel, and this was the day. But yesterday was incredibly fun. I got to my friend Matt’s place about lunchtime, and after catching up a little bit, he took me to a great neighborhood restaurant called Gasthaus Baren, where I had a great Hefeweizen and some noodles with cheese and onion. The Google Translate app that does automatic translation of what the camera sees was invaluable. :) Then we went to the local Stuttgart Christmas market, which was OK and I had a glass of hot wine and took home a really nice mug. We swung by the Finnish christmas market as well and watched them roast some salmon over open flames. But little did I know that the fun was just beginning.

After that, we just sort of walked around a bit and I took a nap, and then we headed out on the train to a Christmas Market in Esslingen. When we got up out of the train station, my head was spinning. The christmas market in Stuttgart, while pleasant, was nothing compared to this tour de force. By 3 or 4 hours later, I would have: eaten sausage, gotten 2 more mugs, watched a man shove passion fruits into his mouth and juggle flame, pounded some kind of meatloaf, and drank enough hot wine to float away. I had been told about the christmas markets, but this thing was outstanding. Sort of one part renaissance fair, one part county fair, and one part obsessed neighbor decorating for christmas. Esslingen is very cool and looks exactly like what you’re imagining, with the old German buildings lining tiny streets and large plazas. Apparently it was neutral during the wars so it didn’t get bombed to the ground. Stuttgart, while nice, feels like any modern city but Esslingen does not; it feels like you went back in time into a cartoon.

The way the drinks were is interesting; you pay for the drink and then an extra fee, a deposit, for the mug. Then you can just go home with the mug if you want, or you can bring it back and get your deposit. Or you can just keep drinking out of that mug. Pretty cool.

Then we went out to a bar and had one or two more drinks in a fancy setting in the basement of a building, and we sat and had a political conversation with two German men we sat next to, mostly about the war in Ukraine. They were nice and pleasant but the guy I sat next to had some views on Ukraine which were not surprising but were pretty abhorrent; he said he didn’t support what Russia was doing but was far more concerned about Germans and about energy prices. But I tried to gently persuade him that history would not be kind to anyone who allowed the kind of barbarism that Russia precipitates, and while I don’t know if I persuaded him, at least we had a civilized conversation.

Can’t wait for more, having a great time.

Eastern Europe 2022 - Day 5/6 - Warsaw, poland

The last 36 hours have seen me fly from Jacksonville to Miami to Heathrow to Warsaw and now I’m in a hotel at the airport in Warsaw. I’ll be here about 8 more hours and then it’s back across the street to fly to Vienna and then Stuttgart. I’m exhausted. Travelling like this is so intense; I’ve only done this a few times in my life. But everyone here is super nice. I went to McDonalds and had a burger with cranberries on it and bought a power adapter. The world really is smaller; it was easy, almost trivial, to use my credit card, talk to people in English; honestly, it’s been so easy. I think we take that for granted in 2032, and especially us native English speakers. I’m sure it will get more interesting as I get away from the cities…

Eastern Europe 2022 - Day 3/4 - Jacksonville, FL

Days 3 and 4 of my journey saw me wake up in Jacksonville and hang out with my parents at their facility. Every day my Dad wakes up, has coffee, then goes and gets my mom out of the memory care home, brings her home, we would hang out for a while in the house, then go get lunch at a restaurant, hang out for a while, then he would take her back up there to eat her meal, come back and get me, we would go have dinner, then go visit her for half an hour or so before she went to bed. It’s a very odd routine. Some parts of it feel very normal while other parts feel extremely odd. I was asked often if it would be hard to see my Mom this way and the answer is, of course, yes, but not all the time and not equally. Parts of it felt almost like regular life, and other parts felt bad and very weird. The home is pleasant and safe but it doesn’t feel like a place to live. And I was surprised at just how…disturbed…some of the occupants are. There is the “TV lady” for example who is quite healthy and walks around very fast and aggressively asks you to do things like fix her TV or find her socks. She only goes away if you are very firm and basically yell at her to get out. That part I didn’t enjoy. But the weather was great, and it was awesome to just sit with my Dad and talk about our lives, and even the parts with my mom were good in some ways; she still knows who I am and wants me to stay all the time. She even still gives me a hard time about getting married. :)

Eastern Europe 2022 Day 2 - Jacksonville, FL

As I mentioned, before jetting off to Europe I’m spending a few days with my parents in Jacksonville. It makes geographical sense anyway because I’m headed east towards the Atlantic. Stopping in here always feels restful, which is a nice break before the chaos. We ate lunch at Seafood Kitchen, I swam in the pool and the hot tub, and my Dad and I watched The Hunt For Red October (RIP Sean). Things are starting to feel Christmas-y; we watched the Army-Navy game over at the bar because the facility my parents are in caters to ex-Navy, so it was a big deal. It also is helping me get used to the time change; I can deal with the first 3 hours of it here, like a mountain climber pausing at base camp.

We also went and got a Christmas tree; tomorrow we’ll decorate!

Eastern Europe 2022 - Day 1 - San Francisco

I am going on a grand adventure! Most of you who know me in person know this already, but it’s time to let blog-land know: I am going on an adventure to see some friends, rediscover some roots, and a lot more. The adventure starts today; as I sit here I am in the airport in San Francisco ready to hop on a plane. Don’t get too excited; my first stop is Jacksonville, to visit my parents, before jetting off on Monday to points East. After Jacksonville, I’ll be heading to Poland, then Germany, then back to Poland before visiting Ukraine and returning on or around New Years Day, a trip of about 3 weeks or so. In Germany I’ll be visiting my old cycling friend Matt Garza, and then back to Poland where I’ll visit my pen pal Domi and my friend Kaska at her parents’ home, as well as just hanging out in Poland. Then it’s on to Kyiv, where I hope to get a sense of what the war has been like and visit the Maidan and the other sights of Ukraine’s capital.

But first, for today, some basic domestic travel. The American Express lounge is closed, which is a bummer.

I’ll be updating various social media: you can follow me on Facebook, here on this blog, and also on my YouTube channel, which is at (58) Adam Hunter - YouTube. I’ll be trying to post (almost) daily updates there. You can also follow me on Instagram at @calmofinfinity.

AirBnb

Well, I finally buckled down and listed my basement on AirBnb. As some of you know, I bought a house that came with an unfinished workshop-style basement which had some potential but was in really bad shape. It had the remains of a bathroom down there and some power outlets, but most of it was pretty ratty, the concrete floor leaked, etc., etc. But over the last 9 months, I got it fixed up and now I’ve been renting it and the response has been great! I’ve had 3 folks book it; one is down there right now, and someone has it booked through the weekend. It’s been really easy so far, cross my fingers! I priced it very low so I’m sure that’s part of the reason; I plan on upping the price until it doesn’t get booked 100% of the time. I need to do some more improvements, like installing a keypad - but so far so good!

Planet Fitness

As some of you can tell from my recent Facebook posts, I’ve gone back into trying to get my 5k times down. As part of that, I looked for a gym locally that could help me with that goal and I ended up deciding to go with Planet Fitness, and i’ve been so far very happy that I did. I think for some reason I had been looking down on them, but actually it’s a great gym for me. They have a ton of locations including one very close to me, they’re absurdly cheap and they have nice, clean equipment and plenty of it. Yes, they lack some of the perks of higher-end gyms, but that turns out to be stuff I don’t care about anyway. They have very clean showers, too. The only thing I miss honestly is the hot tub, but I bought one of those for my house (more on that when it shows up).

Anyway, if you have one in your area and you need a nice clean safe place to work out for cheap, give it a shot. I was happy I did.

(And you get used to the purple).

Chronic Pain

Every since my bike accident almost two weeks ago, I have been in chronic pain. My shoulder is having difficulty healing, and even more so my right wrist. I’m likely to be in this situation for at least another month to come.

The pain is never unbearable, but it’s there all the time, and it gets worse from time to time. It’s been an interesting experience; it makes me really feel a lot more empathy for those who have back pain or other chronic issues. There’s a few things that I don’t think I ever realized about this kind of pain. One is that it just sort of makes you tired all the time. I’m not surprised that pain would be annoying or make you irritable, but I am surprised at how physically tiring it is to be in pain.

The other thing which is much more insidious is that the pain - and in particular the kind of pain I’m experiencing right now - serves as a sort of “tax” on doing anything. Some things I just can’t do yet, like swim. But for those things I can do I’ve made an active decision to keep living my life and to push it a little bit. But everything I do I know will incur a cost of pain. Even typing this blog post hurts, and I will have to take a minute and let my wrist “cool off”. And so the inevitable temptation is to just stop or slow down doing things. And that sucks.

I don’t have any deep conclusions here. It just sucks.

Steve Mould

Every now and then, I like to highlight one of the channels that I watch on YouTube that I think anyone who is reading my blog might also be interested in. I’ve been back lately to binge watching all the new episodes of a YouTuber I find fascinating by the name of Steve Mould. He’s sort of an edutainment person; his videos always teach you something, usually something about some kind of real-world phenomenon, often but not always involving simple physics. The last few I watched were about the way a stream of water from a faucet ripples when you touch it and also about how to hack into your own car if it’s old and uses a digital key. I always get the sense that he’s genuinely interested in the topics that he covers and his style never feels condescending but always teaches me something. Anyway, check it out, you might like it!

https://www.youtube.com/c/SteveMould