Browsing the archives for the bio category

Day Four Leaving Venice

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bio, Cruise, Italy, Trips

Day 4 is the day for leaving Venice and embarking on the Norwegian Jade cruise ship. Some views of that are here.

First I wanted to talk about transportation in Venice. With no cars and buses and without roads they can travel on what’s left is valporetti (plural of valporetto) and walking.

I got the impression the principal income in Venice from tourists must be what we pay for a vaporetto pass: 18 euros for 24 hours which in American dollars is about $27.

Back to leaving Venice: after a delicious lunch at the newly re-discovered osteria and picking up my bags left at the B&B I took a vaporetto to Piazzale Roma. My best guess was I would have to walk about half a mile in the sun to reach the ship. Forty-five minutes later after walking what must have been more than a mile  a sweaty exhausted me arrived at the ship.

Day Three in Venice

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bio, Cruise, Italy, Trips

Of course the obvious question is what became of Day One and Day Two? They are drifting away from me in that foggy sea of memory. Let’s see: after being packed into the tiny area Air France calls a seat I landed at Charles De Gaulle  airport where I planned to spend a relaxing productive time between flights.  Instead I had to quick-step to Terminal 2F (more than a mile) for my connecting flight to Venice.

At least when I finally got to the gate women from Air France helped load my belongings into the security X-ray,  very different from going through security in the USA.

Anyway I finally got to this little Venice B&B. Gosh this is supposed to be about Day 3 and what I now remember of Day 3 is spending the morning from 9:30 on looking (systematically I hope) for the simple osteria I had eaten lunch at the first day I visited San Marco square fifteen or more years before. Every subsequent trip to Venice I’ve searched in vain for it. This time I found it (Osteria De Campana, 4720 Calle Dei Fabbri) when, exhausted,  I was about to give up!

The wifi I was counting on in this little (let’s say “tiny”) B&B apartment doesn’t work on my smart phone.  But the woman and her husband are so helpful how can I complain — take the washer-dryer I couldn’t find: I had spilled wine on my shirt and Levis on the plane. She said to give them to her and yesterday when I came in I saw them hanging on her patio. Later they arrived neatly folded on my little couch.

My time in Venice was actually Day Three, part of Day Four before boarding the ship and Day Eleven after returning from the cruise. It almost felt like home.

End of Month Problems

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bio, Heavy Lifting, United States

I have some end-of-the-month problems, namely which direction and when do I turn the knob on my watch to advance the date of the month without affecting anything else and do I continue with T-Mobile and if so which monthly plan should I pick.

Isn’t it wonderful most people don’t have such momentous decisions to make this time of year? Take Obama for example, poor man only has to decide whether to kiss Boner’s ass on his energy plan or McCain’s ass on arming the rebels in Libya.

Whoops! Further research indicates there are 31 days in March, so I don’t have to advance the date of the month on my watch until April; however T-Mobile’s prepaid plans are only good for 30 days so I continue to have a problem there.

Riding a Light Beam

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bio, Wisdom I Have Learned

I’ve always been guided by Einstein’s response to how he came up with the theory of relativity: he said he “rode a light beam,” meaning he imagined taking a trip on one and all the aspects of such a trip. When I am considering any new important thing I try to run a movie of all the different aspects of it in my mind. For example, if I’m selling a property I imagine a single realtor brings in a family of four to view the house, two adults and two teenagers. The realtor begins a room by room tour, but soon the teens have gone off on their own. As they enter my bedroom and bathroom — or any other room — what might they do that I wouldn’t want done?

Recent Birthday

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bio, Humor

Recently I celebrated another birthday. Folks have asked which one it was. I have to tell them it requires 3 words to tell which birthday it was, and since the middle word is the “F” word I really can’t respond.

Sequoia and Yosemite National Parks

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bio, Trips, United States

After Egypt Sequoia and Yosemite parks couldn’t be more different in landscape; although they do get quite warm in the summer.

In addition to links to the many photos I brought back I thought of making ones to the official Web sites for the parks. Instead, I thought information on the California redwoods was likely to be much more interesting.

Farewell to Egypt

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bio, Egypt, Trips

Luggage outside the room EARLY, meet the guide in the Iberotel lobby, onto a bus and ride to the nearby Cairo airport. The prospect of a rest from the demanding touring did not depress me. The last set of pictures I want to show are scenes mostly of Cairo streets shot from various buses. They are here.

If It’s Monday This Must Be Memphis

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bio, Egypt, Trips, Wisdom I Have Learned

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And we’re talking the place outside of Cairo (the ancient predecessor of Cairo) not the one near Nashville.

It’s taking me a while to realize what sightseeing is all about albeit that I’ve been doing it. It’s about going to famous places camera in hand to take pictures that will prove you were there and with luck to have pictures taken of you in front of some monument or other.

It’s not something to do to satisfy a drive to become an accomplished photographer. Those are the frustrated folks waiting for Koji to move from the front of the statue so they can get a shot without Koji’s smiling face. I fancied myself in this category, but it’s not easy to discern that from looking at the pics I’ve taken. If I try to do anything special with the pictures I take of well-photographed sites it is to wander off the “beaten path” to take photographs from a different perspective. Anderson Cooper directed me to an entry on another traveler’s blog that informs what I was trying to say here.

So the question becomes where do I stand with Egypt. I remember explaining to someone years ago that Paris was a place to be not a place to see. Egypt, for me (I fear), is a place to see.

Since the above ruminations worked their way out of my head and into this blog while I was once again sitting on a bus waiting for the rest of the folks, I will leave them for now.

Before I forget I wanted to mention the only free time I had on the trip. Our last night in Luxor, I took a stroll along the Nile as far as the Luxor Temple. The air was cool and delightful and I especially enjoyed the night view of the temple.



First of all, the question arises for any reader who knows at least a small bit of Egyptian geography — how did I get to Memphis which is outside of today’s Cairo when the last time you heard from the intrepid reporter he was in the environs of Luxor? Early Monday morning we got on a bus, went to the Luxor airport and flew back to Cairo. Then another bus in Cairo and to our first stop, the Mit Rahina Museum. The few pictures taken are here.

After Mit Rahina we were back on the bus and driven to our last site of the trip, the Saqqara Necropolis containing the oldest know pyramids. My pictures are here.

Karnak Temple

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bio, Egypt, Trips

The last bus ride of the day was to the immense Karnak Temple (the largest outdoor religious site in the world).

The area covered by the temple complex is immense and these pictures only give a tourist’s feel for it.

The Valley of the Kings

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bio, Egypt, Trips

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The Valley of the Kings is warm even today. I’ve been in the tomb of Rameses III (no photos allowed). One is my quota for the day. Interesting if one enjoys being crowded together in an elongated unventilated tomb with sweaty enthusiastic tourists.

After the Valley of the Kings we headed for the Valley of the Queens where we would have additional opportunities for oxygen-deprived panic, say in the tomb of one of Rameses’ sons.

I wrote the above paragraphs as I sat in the shade at the Valley of the Queens waiting for the other tour members while the experience was still fresh in my mind. This day would prove to be a very busy one. We boarded our bus early and headed for the West bank and the valley, stopping for a quick photo shoot at the Colossi of Memnon along the road. The next stop was the Al-Deir Al Bahari Temple.

Hatsepshut’s temple greatly interested me because of the little I knew of her in history plus fictional books by P.C. Doherty that used her as a character. One thing we were not told when we visited was that Al-Deir Al Bahari was the site of the 1997 Luxor Massacre in which 58 tourists and 4 Egyptians were killed by Egyptian terrorists.

Since picture taking was not allowed in neither the Valley of the Kings nor the Valley of the Queens these are the only pictures taken during this part of the day.