Category: 2017-2020 Rhineland
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BACHARACH
Every night before retiring, I see a book sitting next to my bed. A book I use frequently to dream about my next adventure: the Lonely Planet Guide to Germany. The cover shows a little village with a dominant church on a river. After some map gazing I discovered the cover pic was taken just an hour or so south of us on the Rhine. The sun made a rare appearance this weekend and despite the frosty conditions, Padma and I drove to Bacharach to check it out. It was too…
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ZEELAND
There are more bicycles than people in the Netherlands so we decided to do as the Dutch do and jump on some bikes during our stay in the Zeeland province in southwestern Netherlands. Xander, Joseph, Padma and I hired some bikes and cycled along paths to Veere, a village on the Lake Veere. The lake was separated from the North Sea in 1961 and is one of many projects the Dutch have constructed to protect themselves from the sea. For the first time I rode an e-bike and as we headed…
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PAYING RESPECTS TO OUR COUSIN
General George S. Patton Jr commanded the 3rd Army of the United States as they victoriously entered Nazi Germany during World War II. He remained in post-war Germany but was killed in an auto accident while going out pheasant hunting near Heidelberg just months after the war ended. He wanted to be buried with his men so he was laid to rest with 5,000 other American soldiers at the Luxembourg American Cemetery near Luxembourg City. Old Blood and Guts is my eight cousin, once removed. We both descend from a Huguenot…
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SPRING INTO SWITZERLAND
Padma and I had a severe case of spring fever, so we drove to central Switzerland over the long May Day weekend for some hiking in the Schwyz Alps. The hike around Mount Rigi was really quite stunning and Spring really was showing off its true colours. The area around Lucerne is marked by numerous lakes which give the area a most special appeal.
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ON! ON! IN ALGARVE
After a long hiatus, the Halab Hash House Harriers re-grouped and held a run on 8 April. Regrettably it was not in our home base of Aleppo, Syria. Instead, we ran in the Algarve region of southern Portugal. Long-time ICARDA staff member and current resident of Praia da Luz, Peter ‘Beep Beep’ Eichorn, asked his new family, the Algarve Hash House Harriers to adopt the H4 for the run. The combined group numbered almost 50 Harriers. Beep Beep and John ‘Strutting’ Peacock were the hares and set a course in the…
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INTO THE LAND OF MY GERMAN ANCESTORS
I had visited Germany on numerous occasions prior to living here. And every time I visited I felt an odd sense of belonging. As long as I didn’t open my mouth to speak, I even felt German. I felt comfortable and at home. And in a way, I was indeed home. Half of me is German. My father is half German and my mother is half German. For 15 years, I have been trying to piece together the jigsaw puzzle that constitutes how I came to be. While researching my father’s…
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THE WALK HOME
My heart really races each time I come home from work. THUMP. THUMP. THUMP. It’s not entirely because I know my sweetheart is awaiting me. I get a pretty good workout on my way home. I get off the train at Oberwinter and immediately get on a pathway to climb home to ‘Oberwinter Heights’. In a bit less than 300 metres I climb 66 metres. It is a super steep climb. I just put my head down and take a step at a time. I like to pretend I’m slowly and…
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THE SEA CHANGE. AUF WIEDERSEHEN ADELAIDE
A few years ago, Padma and I started talking about a sea change. Joseph was nearing the end of his high school days and that would present us with an opportunity to spice up our lives a bit … change our jobs, change homes, change something, change anything. We all reach a point in our lives when we need to re-evaluate the direction our lives have taken, we need to examine what our true values are and, if we’ve strayed from our ideals, we need to get back on course. I…
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