Good lord, it's been awhile! I guess Facebook has taken care of my need to broadcast too much information about my ubernormal life, so I haven't written in whole paragraphs for too long. Maybe I can remember how.

I'm going to create a series of posts that will be a travelogue of the trip I took to Budapest and Prague with my sister, Alice, under the auspices of the tour company, Road Scholar, formerly known as Elderhostel. Lots of praise for that company, BTW. I strongly recommend it. (And if you wind up signing on with it for a trip, tell them Carla List-Handley sent you; I think I can get credit towards another tour. Okay. Shameless self-advertising done. Sorry about that but I would love to take another trip.) I'm going to post photos I took; if I can restrain myself, I'll only put up the best ones. I missed a few highlights because my phone malfunctioned but I did get some from each day.

This post will be short (and by the end of the 9, you'll be saying, Thank God!), covering only my travel from Cadyville, NY,  to Budapest, Hungary.

No photos of the beginning of the trip. It was the "wee hours of the morning." It was pitch dark. Not conducive to snapshots. My sainted husband, Bruce, volunteered to drive me to Burlington, VT, the airport closest to me that is served by major airlines. This involves a 30 minute drive to Plattsburgh Bay on Cumberland Head where we take a ferry across Lake Champlain to Grand Isle, VT. That's followed by another 30 minute drive through the islands to Burlington's airport. And Bruce really is a saint: I was hoping to take the 3:25 A.M. (!!) ferry and we actually just caught the 2:45 a.m. one. Obviously I sat in the airport for awhile with surprisingly many other sleepwalkers who helped fill (fill!!) a 6:00 a.m. flight from BTV to Atlanta. (How could there have been that many idiots up that early who needed to go to Atlanta? Of course, it was a Delta flight and Delta makes even God go through Delta to get a connecting flight, I'm convinced.)

I spent the next 6 hours in beautiful ATL, convincing myself I did not need a $350 Coach bag, or $13,000 Movado watch, or any Swarovski tchotchkes. Nor did I need to fall asleep and miss my transatlantic flight, so dozing was out of the question. It's amazing what adrenalin can do for you, given a little caffeine bump from time to time. There were no glitches in the travel at all with an on-time departure for Amsterdam. Yay! And I actually slept on that 8-hour flight! (I'll give a small plug here for a travel device called a Trtl. It's a neck wrap with a plastic brace inside it that prevents your head from dropping to your chest thus encouraging the giraffe segment of your evolution, elongating the back of your neck. The Trtl does wrap so it also enables you to cover your mouth, preventing fellow passengers from witnessing the copious amounts of spit you drool in your sleep.) And I woke up shortly before descending to Amsterdam airport.

These photos I took as we departed from Amsterdam, heading southeast. And I say we because this is where I hitched up with my sister. We had been directed to put our shiny new RoadScholar luggage tags prominently on both checked and carry-on bags so that we could spot fellow RScholars; we saw none.

So here is the Netherlands, or at least the area around Amsterdam, from the air. I find this perspective fascinating: what ARE some of those structures anyway? And if any of you think our Midwest is flat, you're wrong. The Netherlands are FLAT. But pretty neat to look at, I think you'll agree.

A few more photos from Guernsey seem to be required because I put so many of London on that last post. We were on Guernsey for 7 full days, after all. So here you are:

On my first day there we saw these cruise ships as soon as we came out of our B&B. There was a delightful "Taste of Guernsey" fete going on in downtown St. Peter Port and we were asked repeatedly, "Are you from the boat?" We loved answering no!

This is the "Town Church." It's Anglican, old and beautiful, and sits right downtown in St. Peter Port.

London isn't the only place with row houses. What fascinated me was the number of flues in these chimneys: the ones in the center had 16 each! When you realize that each connected to a fireplace you realize how much nicer central heating is!

We were a little lost when we came upon this home. We were walking, after having stumbled on the Dehus dolmen, looking for another very old site so we were in the north of the island. This was a stable, we discovered, but it had been a veg-grower in the past. The island covered with glass greenhouses: Guernsey used to grow zillions of tomatoes in them. Then the market went kaput in the 1970s and they now all stand abandoned. The interior of the island is slowly (probably not so slowly soon) being bought up by the uber-rich who shelter their £s there; Guernsey is the Cayman Island for England. But the people who have houses with a greenhouse just let them fill up with weeds, some of their windows are missing, and we were wondering if there wasn't some way to use the greenhouses somehow.

A parrot tulip about 10" across. Because of its island climate, plants grow like crazy here.

An okay shot that shows just what a bustling port St. Peter Port is. There was constant boat traffic; it was so much fun to be there!

A bit of a bay on the isle of Herm. I loved the tchotchkes that had "Herm is where the heart is," and "There's no place like Herm." (But I didn't buy any. Should have, I think!)

This was on Herm. We had no idea what it was; it had a little window opposite the door but nothing else. Just another old, weird construction. It wasn't alone!

These little alleys serve as streets in the oldest part of St. Peter Port. This shot was taken a few steps down from the top of a stairway with landings that led down to the main street that ran along the water. The sign is for a bakery/sandwich shop called The Roll Bar. Pretty clever.

This building was the market in St. Peter Port for a long time. When it was no longer used for that, the unwise city fathers sold it to private interests who immediately closed it up and the public no longer has access to it. Too bad; it would be a very nice covered market again.

A small garden on Victor Hugo's property. There is apparently another very large one nearby. We missed it.

The "Cup and Saucer" fort. It now houses The Shipwreck Museum, which was very interesting. Circular, of course. It's known for being a place to take great photos of the area.

My attempt at a great photo from the grounds of the Cup and Saucer.

From the other side of the roadway leading to the Cup and Saucer.

And my last shot posted of Guernsey. Now you can go to bed and sleep like a baby; the slide show of "My Vacation" is over. Thanks for looking at it!

My fabulous UK trip included not only the isle of Guernsey, which is apparently a "bailiwick" of Britain, but also a short visit to what was called in my youth, Swinging London. The difference in places could not have been greater!

Alice and I had been some of the only Americans on Guernsey; we encountered one other couple. As such, we felt a bit like rock stars because the Guernseyans (Guernseyites? I think they are/were actually called Sarnians after the old name for the isle) were so impressed that Americans would want to visit their little home. And when they asked why we were there, all we had to say was, "The book," and they knew. It was fun. Most of the other tourists came from Germany, France or England.

In London that was definitely not the case. That city is even more of a melting pot of cultures than NYC! There were so many different languages going on all the time. We stayed in Kensington--great location (1 block from Tube, walking distance to so many sites)--and ate at very good restaurants: Indian, Lebanese, Italian, and passed up Chinese, Japanese, and English. As on Guernsey, however, almost all the waitstaff came from other countries, Eastern Europe most commonly. But the owners/chefs came from the countries of the cuisines. And all the restaurants within a very short walk of our hotel.

Ah, our hotel. This was our street and the navy blue awning was our hotel.

The Internet is a wonder for enabling us to book and pay for our room in advance but for allowing us to see the room, not so much.

We definitely paid for location, location, location. We did not pay for space. My right hand, above, is about 2" from one wall and the other is maybe 8" if I'm being generous. There was no closet, no dresser, nowhere to put our bags. There was a teakettle on a tiny nightstand (not pictured, but at the forefront of the picture), an ingenious method of energy conservation, a television and a fan--2d (American 3d) floor could get very hot and stuffy. The en suite did include a shower and you could turn around carefully in it. The included breakfast we only included one morning because there were better ones to be had close by!

And again we walked. A lot. I'm a huge fan of urban architecture and London does have that. And not the modern NYC type, 

(although I really liked the "sail building!)

but the old-huge-city type: row houses and tucked away little beauties and churches that take your breath away. 

I loved this street. It wasn't far from our hotel.

I decided I could live in this one. Obviously I'd have to be a kept woman.

Construction was everywhere but the powers that be try to be oh, so considerate about covering it tastefully!

St. Paul's, of course. Talk about breathtaking ...

And this is the House of Commons. I'm thinking "Commons" here is NOT the same as "common!"

We walked through beautiful Hyde Park, which reminded me of Central Park, of course: very green, lots of paths to choose from, and lots of people and lots of languages. We ended at Selfridge's department store, of BBC series fame. We wanted just to get a bag with the name on it for a "Mr. Selfridge" fan but they had no idea what we were asking for. So I looked to buy something to get the bag. We were, um, out of our league is the kindest thing to call it. A darling t-shirt for one of my daughters was £75! We did not buy anything.

On to Harrods we bravely went, wanting to find the wonderful food department that's touted in descriptions of the store. Too many people. Too rich for our blood. The decor was amazing: the Pyramid escalator/landing was exquisite. In a store. ??? And we didn't find the food department. Curses.

We did go to the Tower, having been advised that it was worth the trip to see the Crown Jewels. Unfortunately, we estimated the waiting line to be about 4 hrs. long, so we looked at other things. One exceedingly small spiral staircase again set this claustrophobe outside to wait for Alice; apparently that was a good choice on my part! But the feeling of being in the Tower enclosure was indescribable. Oh, history!

And on to more modern themes. The Churchill War Rooms Museum was fascinating. Those who worked there did so for five years, all underground. Dedication, bravery and patriotism kept them there. (I think there was no photography allowed. At least I think that's why I have no pictures of it.)

There was one thing I wanted to see the minute Alice suggested we add a few London days to our trip: the London Eye. (And apparently you always say the whole name, not just "the Eye." I learned.) It was terrific.

A quite large structure, wouldn't you say? The film of it being raised up to vertical was truly impressive! The oddest part of our "rotation" was the fact that you get into your egg--or whatever the compartment is called officially--while the wheel is moving. 

 A little unnerving, but really very smooth. We planned this one right: we were there for the first rotation and wound up with only 3 other people in our egg! The views were magnificent. 

And even acrophobes might be able to manage it because there is absolutely no sense of motion. Alice and I were both sorry that we didn't buy the photo (that is taken of every egg) of us on the way down, because later the £15 didn't seem like so awfully much. C'est la vie.

It feels like we did so much more in London but I really think these are the main points. If we had been there longer we would have gone to a play in the rebuilt Globe theatre; our river cruise narrator said that the production of Titus Andronicus that is playing this summer is so gory and bloody that people have fainted and have needed to be transported to hospital! Maybe another time. :)

So London does what NYC does: old and new seem to coexist happily

but London's old is something NYC won't ever achieve! We loved our visit and decided this is another place we could come back to. 

But there's so much rest-of-the-world calling. Hmmmmm.

This is my lovely sister, Alice, on the waterfront across the street from our B & B in St. Peter Port, Guernsey. Guernsey is one of the Channel Islands, and is unique in that it's far closer to France than to England. But there's no doubt that it is a part of the United Kingdom!

Alice and I went to Guernsey because we both had read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer. It's a delightful book, even though it's about the Nazi occupation of the island 1940-1945; I listened to it as an audiobook and just loved it. While Alice read it, I went online to find Guernsey. At least I knew where the English Channel is, so the hunt was shorter! I highly recommend looking at the Visit Guernsey website because that's what absolutely convinced me we needed to go there.

Travel was a nightmare for me, but I think I have it out of my system after writing to United Airlines. And I did get to see the Munich airport; I'd never been in Germany before! Suffice it to say that Alice arrived, as planned, on Friday, and I on Saturday, NOT as planned. So we started our adventure on Sunday.

We walked. A lot. Someone said it was too bad we didn't have a pedometer but I'm glad we didn't. That had the potential for making our forays into quantifiable items, risking them being judged by the number of steps rather than by what they were. We loved every step. St. Peter Port is the biggest city on the island and we walked up and down that city, mostly up. It has what's called The Cliff as part of its topography. The harbour is at the foot of the cliff and the town just kept filling in the space between the water and the rock with buildings. Eventually people began to build on the high part, too. The result is a darling small city with buildings just cheek-by-jowl, many of them dating back 3-6 centuries! Walls are often 2-3 feet thick. And rock retaining walls are everywhere.

I have no idea how old this particular wall is but you can see it wasn't built yesterday. :)

The age and history of the island fascinated us. There have been humans on Guernsey for thousands of years; I think we were told that artifacts have been found dating back to 8,000 B.C. Castle Cornet, somewhat a "newbie" given the age of so many places, has been there since the 13th century and is used up to this day.

There were so many places to see that I think we both could spend another week there. We visited: the Guernsey Museum--small, lovely, well done, AND there was a band concert there the afternoon we were; (We were sure it was just for us.) 

Vale Castle--come upon by mistake, quiet, very old: "evidence suggests has a history stretching back to the Iron Age" (from www.visitguernsey.com);

the Le Dehus dolmen or "passage tomb"--small, pitch dark, impressive (3000-2500 B.C.) but not easily found, and this claustrophobe couldn't enter it; (I put a water bottle against one of its stone to give some perspective, sorry!)

Victor Hugo's home--large, over-decorated (by him) to the nth, great inspirational views, very worth the visit;

 

Castle Cornet--a fortress from the 13th century that is still a military site and which houses museums devoted to various segments of Guernsey's history and its military forces;

the Occupation Museum--small, filled with such interesting materials and information! and the reason we had come to Guernsey at all;

the beautiful nearby isle of Herm--not big enough to be an island (1.5 x <0 .5="" apologies.="" beaches.="" car-free="" for="" formations="" great="" holding="" local="" m="" mi="" my="" of="" one="" p-r="" p="" paper="" prehistoric="" s="" shots="" stone="" the="" those="" tranquil="" walking="" where="">

My photos bring back all the happiness of this trip. I won't bore you with more because one person's travelogue is another's insomnia cure. 

The highest praise I can give to this vacation is that it was everything I hoped it would be. 

Visit Guernsey. (Maybe read the book first.) With or without the book, you really will be glad you did.

P.S. I could add a bit about what we saw in London but as I said, I was trying not to bore you to tears. Let me know if I should add a short post about that bustling city. Thanks!

Okay, so the last time I posted here was, apparently, August 2012. Something momentous must have happened then! I'm not going to look. What I will do is use this space to provide a short summary (I hear you all out there, you know. Saying: Carla short? How much stronger an oxymoron can you make?) of my trip to the isle of Guernsey and to London. I'm here right now just to make sure I can still post here and provide this as a link for you. You're thrilled, right? That's the spirit!

I'll be back later, either tonight or tomorrow.

A malevolent thunderstorm rolled through here early this morning. No. It didn't roll. It pummeled, pounded, marauded through here. Having grown up in the Midwest I'm used to big thunderstorms. And I love thunderstorms. Until this one I've thought the NY storms are mostly wannabes.

This one had the fiercest lightning I've ever experienced. I felt like I was up in that storm as I watched it out my sunroom windows. No, that's not really right. I felt like it was down on the ground trying to absorb the earth. It was powerful!!

I had awakened a bit earlier hearing a pretty good downpour. But I knew that all our at-risk windows were closed (nothing vital would get soaked) so I went back to sleep. Then through closed eyes there was a HUGE bluewhite flash that literally lifted both me and Bruce from our mattress. The crack of thunder was simultaneous so it was a bluewhite flashcrash. Bruce said immediately, "We were hit." So we got out of bed to look for fire. Weirdly enough, we never lost power. ?

No fire anywhere but a strong smell of ozone near the bedroom. Big surprise. That's when we stood and just watched the storm envelop us. It was the most violent-feeling storm I've experienced. It was just furious! We got 3/4" rain in about an hour, so I thought maybe since it couldn't electrocute us it was trying to drown us. (Not really, but it did RAIN.)

This morning I went out to assess damage ... and to see if we really had got hit. I found a piece of the white trim from the back of the house on the ground about 8' from the house. And then saw the corner it came from.

There are shreds of that shingle on the stones, too. And I could NOT figure out how it had gotten under the eaves. We have a 28" overhang on the sides! Finally, when Bruce figured out it was the exit point, it made sense.

We can't find the entry point. We do have a metal roof, but for heaven's sake, we're a one-storey ranch surrounded by 80' trees. How did the lightning find the space directly over the house where there are no branches???

I told Bruce we were lucky that neither of us had been touching our brass bedstead!

Fresh Bread!

I love making bread. I didn't always. The parts I didn't like were the mess it made on the cupboard (flour going everywhere when I kneaded the dough) and my uncertainty about whether I'd kneaded it enough, too much, used too much flour, too little. That's why I made sweetrolls more often than bread. Then I used the recipe that came with my first Cuisinart. Perfect. No mess, no fuss, no kneading, no guesswork. Loved it.

Friday I used my new Cuisinart for the first time and made the recipe for Classic Wheat Bread that's in the booklet that came with the processor. Lovely loaves. Lovely! And even though I think the water was a little too hot and almost killed the yeast. I was patient enough to let the dough rise properly and was graciously rewarded for that. We're already in need of more loaves so I have dough rising right now. This is another experiment because the only yeast I had in the house was the rapid-rise type. The dough was stickier. We shall see how it turns out. And I'll put a photo with this as soon as it comes out of the oven.

Then I'll invite you all over for fresh bread and butter. (NOT butter substitute. Never. Not on homemade bread.) Coffee? Well, I think tea goes better but I'll allow coffee. Better give me a call to let me know you're on your way so that I turn on the heater in the porch; it's so nice to sit out there.

See you soon?

Politics as Usual ... or Worse

I'm so tired of hearing analyses, predictions, poll results, statistics, negative ads. For the first time since I turned 21 I actually don't feel like voting. I will, but my heart isn't in it.

Our country has become meaner. Too many are unwilling to see nuances, shades, possibilities; too many want everything to be in high contrast, black & white, yes or no. It makes for much easier decision-making when you don't have to take any mitigating circumstances into consideration. Shoot the bastard. He done wrong.

When Air America, the liberal talk-radio station, began a few years ago I heard or read why there had never been (and no longer is) a such a thing. The commentator said that liberals feel it's their duty to listen to all viewpoints and that kills the anger that listeners and callers are looking for. And then I heard Al Franken on Air America and he was doing exactly that: presenting three viewpoints on a topic. How can you have a good heated argument with THREE people? You need only two, and it's best if they hate each other. Needless to say, Air America folded ... last year? Anyway, it's gone.

I want the media to leave me alone in a political season. I want our political season to mimic Canada's: candidates campaign for 6 weeks. No more. I'm sure there's fundraising going on before that period but the actual campaign is 6 weeks. I don't want to move to Canada (partly because I haven't paid attention to their political system and don't have much of a clue as to how it works). But I don't want to be here either.

I'm tired. But I'll vote.

Walking

My daughter runs. My other daughter does the elliptical. I walk. (I would be the oldest one here.) But I walk pretty doggoned fast, if I do say so myself--2.5 miles in about 42 minutes. I've walked for exercise for years and years and have decided that I simply love to walk. People say that runners become addicted to running and maybe I have the same affliction. If I don't walk, I don't feel out of sorts, but I definitely don't feel "in sorts." Walking makes me feel good. I know, I know, it's the endorphins. But I prefer to say that it makes me feel good.

These days I'm walking in "Adirondack fall foliage."


Saranac Lake, about 45 minutes into the mountains from me, was reporting that this past weekend was peak colors for leaf peepers. It's still fun to think that I'm living in a "destination" for downstaters who come up here just to drive around! And I'm sure that many of my readers (I believe I've added a few occasional peepers of my own--up from my 2 original readers, my daughters who read it occasionally out of obligation [But hey, that's what offspring are for, right? To be there for their addled elders.])--who live in equally beautiful parts of the world. But out here, New Yorkers, and even more so, New Englanders, make such a big deal out of it! So I try to appreciate the bejeezus out of it.

So go for a walk. It makes you feel good.

Top Ten

Starla's top 10 reasons not to surround your house and yard with 50-100-year-old oak trees:

10. Acorns


9. The size of the mulch pile that never seems to decrease because it's made up almost entirely of oak leaves, which take about 30 years to biodegrade, and acorns, which apparently never do.

8. Big acorns

7. The bunker mentality one enters when the sound of acorns pelting down from on high and hitting the metal roof on the house creates the sounds of an artillery target zone

6. Little pointy acorns

5. The tiny caterpillars that rappel down by the hundreds from the oaks in the summer--even the county extension people don't know what they are--and that probably feed on acorns

4. Chenilles, which is what my husband calls the lame-o "flowers" oak trees produce, precursors of acorns, which, if not raked (like one is some serious OCD patient) will mat in the rain and create a walking surface much like that of a greased cake pan.

3. The need, aside from one's normal OCD needs, to rake acorns because it becomes impossible to walk across the acorn-studded grass, which is akin to walking on marbles--even in shoes it's not fun.



2. Injuries caused by acorns rocketing down from 60-80 foot trees any time a breeze stronger than 2 mph blows

And the number one reason not to surround your house and yard with 50-100-year-old oak trees:

1. The insult of being hit by an acorn while raking said objects



I'm thinking maples.....