Back Home - More random thoughts from the trip just concluded. Let's begin with why can't we bake good bread in the United States? Virtually every bakery in Europe bakes better bread than all but the best bakeries in the States. They do it seemingly without extra effort. What's going on? Is it that they are very good, we are less-than-skilled, or a difference in ingredients?
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Graffiti has caught on everywhere, it is one of our less attractive exports. Some is actually art, most of it is stylized scribble. In Europe you see graffiti on hundred year old buildings, which somehow makes it worse.
Yes, I know, graffiti predates the U.S. but most of that early "marking of territory" was small and colorless, perhaps done with a knife point. The unattractive export I'm talking about is the stuff done with spray cans and/or oversize felt markers, sometimes a stencil, too.
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Many European restaurants use a portable credit card reader that is roughly the size of a man's shoe. It is carried to the table, your card is run in front of you and returned immediately, and the device prints out your bill. It works, it is convenient, and they've had it for several years - why isn't it used here in the States?
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We began our trip home on a Canadair regional jet, operated by Adria on behalf of Lufthansa. Business class seats were exactly the same size and spacing as economy seats - bummer. I expect more room on business class. The only thing we bought with the upgrade was food.
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Order a soft drink and get a tiny can the size of a frozen orange juice can, it just fills one of the airline's glasses. I believe I went through three of them. The flight attendant asked me if I wanted ice. I responded with a grin "I'm an American, of course I want ice." Conventional wisdom says we are the main consumers of ice.
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As an American if you want to confuse a European waiter, ask for "water with gas." Conventional wisdom says Europeans drink it, Americans don't. It is much like club soda, very refreshing if drunk cold. Another reason to order it is that the restaurant cannot easily refill the bottle out of the tap, as they can with so-called "still water."
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By the way, if you are traveling in or flying out of a country where you wouldn't drink the water, don't take ice in your drinks. Probably it is made from the very tap water you wouldn't drink or use to brush your teeth. Freezing the water doesn't kill the bugs.
If ice is being used with booze, don't assume alcohol will kill the germs either. I made that mistake on the Peruvian Amazon drinking Pisco Sours. In an otherwise great trip I had unfortunate results - "Atahualpa's revenge." Alcohol will kill bacteria, much of the time, but not necessarily viruses. Unfortunately, dysentery can be viral.
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Most Americans have no idea where Slovenia is, I'd wager. Talk about a nice little country, clean, green, and prosperous too. They have some serious mountains, the Julian Alps, knockout scenery, and cute little towns. Think of a mixture of Italian and Austrian influences on a Slavic base culture.
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The Adriatic Sea was very calm during this trip, I wonder if it is normally a calm sea? The Med on the other side of Italy can experience some very rough seas, but it is more open water. Many ships ply these waters, including many dozens of ferries of varying sorts. The ferries tie together the various islands along the coast, as well as providing transport across to Italy.
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Ferries with the clamshell opening bow still operate here, like the one that sank with much loss of life in the Baltic. The bow opens up, like a mouth opening. Somewhere the other DrC has pix of the action. It is a practical design because the ferry noses into the dock, pops open the bow, and delivers its wheeled contents - cars, trucks, motorcycles, etc. Passengers walk out too. Perhaps they've solved the weakness that caused one in the Baltic to sink.
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Just as common are the ferries with a stern that is a big trapdoor, like the bridge over a moat. These back up to the dock to unload. For reasons that aren't clear to me ferries are more likely to sink than other ships, often with massive loss of life. There must be very strong temptation to overload them as a whole bunch of people want to go where the ferry is headed.
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Coming home we flew over the ice fields of Greenland, which are immense. I think we were over Greenland for an hour or more. There are some really serious mountains, we had good weather and daylight so could see them clearly. The tallest mountain is over 12,000 ft. and there are a number of others - the ice fields wend their way among them and apparently flow to the sea. The photographers among us were busy trying to take pix out the plane's windows. It was an amazing view.
