Minsk to Turkey

Yesterday was a big holiday in Belarus, and almost all businesses were closed. As a result, I had the unusual pleasure of seeing some very busy friends together. My friend Katya moved off to the Philippines and married a guy named Paul, whom I had yet to meet. But Paul came to Belarus for the first time on May 8, and on the 9^th Katya brought him to Gorky Park along with her best friend and others close to them. We had a great time wandering around the park and generally just being together.

I had to leave before I wanted to because I had to catch a flight. Once aboard the plane I intended to read my book, but I ended up with such an interesting travelling companion that I didn’t even think of it again. I had a musician turned scientist, who is presently pursuing a hobby in photography with the same scientific zeal that got her to where she is professionally. She’s absolutely fascinating. She was on her way to Boston, and reports that during her layover Turkish Airways put her in a beautiful four-star hotel at Taksim. I should have let Turkish Airlines find me a hotel when I flew that route. I had no idea they’d be so generous.

Meanwhile, I flew on to Trabzon; where I expected to meet a new friend from my last visit to Turkey. Öznur is a graduate student about to defend her dissertation, but she took time off to show me her home region. Unfortunately, she got overwhelmed by professional responsibilities at the last minute and couldn’t get free when she expected to, so I started out to see Trabzon on my own.

I had a little trouble launching my tour of the city. In the first place, very few people here speak any English. In the second place, I hadn’t put any serious effort into my contingency plan, figuring that somebody at the hotel could give me a few pointers if necessary. Expecting Öznur at any minute, I didn’t want to do anything she might want to show me later, and I went down to walk along the seashore. It smells like sewage down there, and there are lots of foul pipes dumping into the sea. I saw fishermen, but I’m not so sure about those fish. I wasn’t tempted to order any today.

Returning from my seaside walk, I passed an abandoned construction site and took pictures of the pile of dirt, suspecting that my Trabzon city album would come to tell a dark tale. Fortunately, my next destination changed the mood. I took a shuttle bus (like a Russian marshrutka) to Boztepe, where there’s a beautiful tea garden with a spectacular view over Trabzon and the sea. Then when I went back down I ate dinner at Maidan, the main city square with a beautiful park. By the time I finished, Öznur arrived and took me off to see a different view of the city.

Öznur is great, filled with kindness and practicing an open-minded curiosity. We visited some tour agencies and talked about what we should see in the coming days. Then she took me off to look for a wedding gift for a couple of my friends, to explore some very cute and hidden corners of the city, to eat baklava and to visit a mosque. I asked for the visit to the mosque, which somehow meant more to me than the other mosques I’d visited. I think the difference was in part Öznur’s reverence, and her translation as we approached of what the Imams were singing. We have three interesting days ahead of us.

Everything is grand (Belarus)

I returned to Belarus today, and aside from the crazy-expensive breakfast in Frankfurt it’s been great. I had an interesting companion on the plane from Boston, a doctor from Kazakhstan who’d come to the USA to study English. He’s a nice guy and I enjoyed talking to him in Russian, but I think he needs to return for more lessons before he’s ready to teach medicine in English, which he’s supposed to do in 2020. But I didn’t chat as long as I might have because I wanted to sleep. It was already 1:00 a.m. in Minsk, so I put on my eye-shades and thought ahead to my new time zone. It worked out pretty well, and I didn’t even mind missing the meals.

By the time I got to Frankfurt, however, I was hungry. By tradition, I have breakfast at the Goethe Café near the departure gate for Belarus, and I did it again without much thought. After eating quiche with salad, I decided that I still needed something, so I ordered a different breakfast at the same place. The first breakfast was OK but small. The second wasn’t even OK. Hoping to avoid a repeat, I went walking around after I finished, hoping to find another interesting restaurant in that area for next time. There it was, Deli Bros. They serve only breakfasts, for a lower price, and everything looks nice. I wish I’d found it sooner. (It’s between gates B59 and B60.)

That was all just preparation. When I got to Minsk, things really got great. I found leaves on all the trees (a contrast to Boston), warm weather and sunny skies. After unpacking, I walked over to the Hotel Beijing for a massage and dinner. Knowing that I had the massage ahead made my time on the economy-class flights much more bearable, and I had a good time catching up with my masseuse, who had a lot to tell me about.

And then dinner. Oh, dinner. I’ve only eaten at the Hotel Beijing a few times, and always liked it. Today's delightful extravaganza cost a lot less than breakfast and delivered several times the pleasure. I had a couple of extraordinary dishes, starting with a Greek Salad that looked like a new moon. The chef didn’t use typical Greek spices but presented a very creditable variation on the idea with dried powdered beets decorating the plate and perhaps flavoring the salad. I spent a lot of time sampling the powder from the edge of the plate before I figured out what it was. It’s delicious! I raved to the waitress about how much I liked it, so the chef sent me a little jar of the stuff. He'd made it himself, though I found a freeze-dried variant at Amazon. I’ll enjoy experimenting with both.

My tasty-but-tough duck main course doesn’t deserve its own paragraph. Let me close, however, by describing dessert. I ordered a berry mousse, which arrived looking as good as my salad. Unfortunately, I ate most of it before I thought to take a picture, but it started out a shiny purple dome with white chocolate shavings and dark chocolate leaves on the top. Inside, I found a white mousse and cooked berries, layer by layer. It tasted just as good as it looked.

When I walked home, it was still light out and I enjoyed my route under trees alongside the river. I stopped at the grocery store to load up on basic supplies and got a whole bag of meat, dairy, fruit and staples; about as heavy as I could comfortably carry in one hand; for a little over ten bucks. This city is great!

New Orleans

I used to go to New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival almost every year, but haven’t been in a long time. I thought it was time to go back, especially since I haven’t seen my friends Bryant and Sam in almost as long. Bryant’s an old friend, and I always enjoy seeing him.

My first day in town I ate a light lunch because the guys and I had big plans at Brightsen’s, a well-loved restaurant, that evening. It was an appetite well saved, because we had an excellent dinner served by a charming waitress. This waitress began my re-introduction to Southern hospitality. Everybody is SO NICE here. I noticed it over and over as I got to the fairgrounds and navigated the festival. Moreover, the hospitality rubbed off on the other guests at the event. People came from all over, but as we congregated for the music, we all became extra nice, extra patient, extra friendly one to another.

I didn’t freak out with joy at the festival quite as I expected. Maybe I had inflated it in my memory, or maybe it’s just that I’ve been listening almost exclusively to big-band music over the last few years and that’s not the kind of music featured at this event. I had a fine time nevertheless. As I think about my favorite groups, I have too long a list to even start mentioning them by name. Except I will say that I heard Samantha Fish for the first time this year and I’ll make sure it’s not the last. If she comes to your town, go see her. And John Mayall has a new member of his group, a guitarist named Carolyn Wonderland. I think she still has her own group as well, and I’d go see her again any time I got the opportunity. John Mayall is great too, but we already knew that. The more I reflect on my experience, the better I like it.

It was a short trip with many delights, but I still rank hanging out with Bryant as one of the chief pleasures. He came to the festival with me on Saturday, took me to the airport today, and made his presence felt even when he wasn't personally at hand. I also delighted in eating well on the fairgrounds and elsewhere, kept up on my exercise, heard great music, and enjoyed lots of that Southern hospitality. I’ll bring some of the hospitality with me as I go north.

I met Lionel Hampton!

I want to tell you a little story, but before I can tell it, I need to set the stage.

When I was getting to know a chatty and precocious kid in 1998, she asked me to tell her my most embarrassing moment. I thought a bit and replied that it would be hard for me to answer because I don’t embarrass easily. That’s generally true, though it’s not because I don’t do stupid things. It’s just that I don’t notice my stupidity until much later. I have a few memories that make me cringe and whistle whenever I think of them. I’m about to tell you one of them.

I’m acutely aware of my embarrassing failure because I’ve been listening to a lot of Lionel Hampton music lately. Just about every day I listen to a few of his recordings, as I am right now. He’s become my favorite musician, or at least one of two. (I love Duke Ellington too.) After some years of listening to Hampton, I got curious to read a little about him, and came to suspect that he was the subject of my story. Now that I am reading his autobiography, there is no doubt. I met Lionel Hampton around 1980.

I had recently moved to Massachusetts and started volunteering as an usher at church. I am a Christian Scientist, and the Mother Church of our denomination is here in Boston. Lionel Hampton was a Christian Scientist too, but I didn’t know that. I had no idea even who he was: Jazz music had not come up on my radar at all. One cold Sunday morning, a big car pulled up to my door. Our church has an underground parking garage, and nobody ever parked on the plaza. In my mind, somebody was taking a major liberty.

The driver let out a tired-looking African-American man in a camel-hair coat with fur collar. The man didn’t say much. He seemed out of place to me, and I imagine today that he felt my discomfort as he scuttled past. This is all so painful for me to recount: I had never been around a prosperous person of color, and couldn’t connect with him at all. I imagined that he was an old-time blues musician, wasted after a life of dissipation. More likely, he was just tired after working late and then getting up early for church. According to Ahmad Jamal, getting any jazz musician to do anything before noon is a very big deal.

I invited the driver to park in the garage and come inside, but he preferred to stay out in the car on the plaza. He waited by my door, the engine running.

As soon as the service was over, my guest was the first person down the stairs, apparently eager to go. Knowing that I had done a bad job of connecting with this man, I tried to engage him in conversation, learning only that he lived in New York. He hustled out to his car.

Unaware that I'd ever met Hampton, I heard him live in 2000 or 2001. He was one of the headliners in Bending Towards the Light, a Jazz Nativity. Supposedly one of the Three Kings, he had not performed in any of the previous shows due to poor health, and the usher warned us that he may not play tonight either. When it came time for the Three Kings, however, a vibraphone appeared on stage and an assistant accompanied the great man out. He leaned heavily on his escort, and tottered a bit before catching his balance in front of his instrument. He picked up a pair of mallets and began to play. Not quickly, not a lot of notes, but oh my, did he play! He didn’t just play the notes: the spaces between them said just as much as the notes themselves. I cried. It was pure soul. This must have been one of his last public performances, but his music lives on brilliantly. Here's a clue for you, what it felt like.

I’m sorry I can’t meet him today. I’d tell him that I love his music, but also that I admire his life, respect the way he thinks, and could hardly put down his autobiography.

A few warm days

I arrived in the San Francisco Bay Area much later than I’d planned, but still on the intended day. By the time I got to John and Meredith’s house, they’d put the kids to bed and retired to a back room to do some work. I let myself in and crept past the bedroom where James was theoretically asleep. He called to me through the door, and I stepped in to say “hi.” Though we chatted for a little while, my eyes never adjusted to the dark enough to know where he was, a small boy in a big bed. We agreed to play together first thing in the morning and I crept out.

Saturday, then, we played a lot. John builds brilliant vehicles and buildings from James’ toys, and James has learned from his dad. We built some excellent stuff before going out to visit the Heller Aviation Museum. We expected to see just aircraft but got a special treat because several model train clubs had brought in their gear and filled the usually-open floor with intricate model railroads. We did see a lot of things that fly, but spent our first hour with the trains. Here are a couple of photos from a Boeing 747.

On Sunday, we went up to San Francisco to meet Johnny’s dad at an aquarium. As a special favor to James, we rode the last mile on one of the classic trollies the City of San Francisco runs along the waterfront. Continuing our "transportation" theme, we also rode a carousel after we finished in the aquarium.

It being school vacation week, I stayed an extra day and Monday included a picnic in a park and other outdoor activities. I enjoyed the warm weather, but I especially enjoyed the warmth of the family I had come to visit. I'll miss them until I'm able to return in summer.

Visiting Auntie Bea

For some reason, it’s hard to visit my aunt in Oregon. Last time I tried, I got snowed out. This time, I got there but now I’m a bit stuck in Oregon.

I flew out yesterday, leaving home at 4:00 a.m. so I could arrive in time to eat lunch with Auntie Bea. We did have lunch together, but later than we expected because the highway got closed and I had to cross two narrow bridges with lots of traffic in order to follow the Columbia River on the Washington side instead of my usual route on the Oregon side. I would like to say that I got great views, but it was raining so hard I couldn’t really see much or even look around much.

Fortunately, it wasn’t raining in The Dalles, and I managed to take a little walk after we ate. The Dalles calls itself the end of the Oregon Trail because there was no good way to take a covered wagon farther west from here and travelers had to choose between a difficult and dangerous trip over mountains or a very scary and dangerous raft trip down the rapids of the Columbia River. I didn’t walk far, but enjoyed seeing spring blossoms in this small but cozy town. Spring hasn’t made much of a show yet in Boston.

Today we went to the Columbia Gorge Discovery Center, toured the museum and stayed for lunch. It’s situated on the Columbia River at a beautiful place with an attractive walkway. Though my aunt wasn’t up for the walk, we had an excellent time at the museum. I was surprised to see a couple of historic wagons rotting in the parking lot, one of them filled with rotting wooden trunks. It seemed too valuable to leave out in the rain.

My flight to San Francisco got canceled for reasons I never learned. The next flight wasn’t a lot later, and they promoted me to first class so I figured it would be OK. But then the later flight got delayed because of some air traffic control problems. The San Francisco airport is running on a very reduced schedule, and my flight won’t even go there. They will fly me into Oakland and then take me in a bus to San Francisco airport. As I said, visiting Auntie Bea hasn’t been easy. I hope it goes better next time.

While I'm thinking of it, here's a picture of my aunt's staircase. I can't believe that we slid down that banister as kids. Or that the adults let us:

Real life

As I prepared to pull the plug today on Facebook, I spent some time thinking about how I’d replace its better features. I made a list, for example, of the people I tend to “see” only on Facebook. It’s woefully incomplete, but it’s a reminder that I need to take steps to stay in touch with people important to me. I’ll try to write at least one personal email every week. I won’t hit everybody. I don’t even know everybody’s email address. But I hope that improving the quality of key relationships will polish some of the pain from losing touch with, for example, some of my dance friends. Ideally, I’ll see the dance friends at social events anyway, so it won’t be a total loss. We’ll see how it goes.

Facebook demonstrated its adroit understanding of my soft spots when I began to deactivate my account. On the first of their “are you sure?” pages, they strung a garland of pictures. On each picture, it said “<Person’s name> will miss you if you leave Facebook.” The people they chose to feature weren’t necessarily the people with whom I interact most often. Some of them don’t appear to use Facebook much at all. But Facebook accurately chose some of the ones dearest to me. I’m not sure how they did that. I suspect, based on things I’ve read recently, that they look for words of emotional connection in our communications. I don’t know what else. But since I am leaving largely over concerns about privacy, they effectively illustrated what I’m worried about (while suggesting that the benefits may outweigh the costs.)

Meanwhile, life goes on quite nicely. As the weekend approached, I got an Easter card in the (postal!) mail from a friend in Belarus. Then on Friday I had a great time at the regular weekly dance near Boston. On Saturday morning, I went to the Institute of Contemporary Art with a group of alumni from my university. We enjoyed the exhibit we came to see, and then I especially enjoyed another exhibit there, called “Art in the age of the Internet.” They had some amazing stuff, all of which would have been impossible to create without computer assistance. After the show, we went out to lunch, where we enjoyed spirited conversation and a delightful waitress.

The whole weekend is going that way. I’ve always liked real life, and today I am savoring it with new commitment since I have nothing else.