Castles, cathedrals, Oktoberfest, cruising the Rhine River—these are the things most people go to Germany to experience. But my itinerary was one you wouldn’t find in a tour book: the local museum in a small town, the village church and cemetery, and the small Kunst im Kuhstall (Art in the Cowstall) art gallery. I was visiting Ober-Gleen, [...Read more]
The café looked like how I’ve always imagined an opium den (not that I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about opium dens). Dimly light, deeply cushioned low-to-the-ground furniture, dark wood and deep reds, subdued voices…as the smoke curls up from each person’s pipe. It’s an odd thing. While most of the world advertises the [...Read more]
All paths or conversations in Istanbul seem to lead to Turkish carpets. Walking through the Sultanahmet area is an obstacle course of dodging charming Turkish carpet salesmen who try to engage you in conversation, then lead you to their carpet store. “Where are you from?” is the most common opening gambit. Then they’d strike up [...Read more]
My Schott ancestors left the town of Osthofen, Germany, about 1809, heading east toward a better life in Russia. I don’t know why they left this pleasant town in a wine-growing area near the Rhine River, accepting Tsar Alexander’s invitation to German settlers. Great-great-great-grandfather Philipp Jakob Schott was a tailor, so it wouldn’t seem likely a hunger [...Read more]
My touristing in Chisinau yesterday took me to a cemetery. That isn’t all that unusual since my interest in genealogy often takes me to cemeteries when I travel. But this time I wasn’t visiting the graves of my ancestors, but instead was observing the local “Easter for the Dead” holiday. On Sunday and Monday the weekend [...Read more]
I made a trip back in time to Soviet Russia yesterday. And I did it without leaving the country of Moldova. Well, sort of. I actually did cross a border into Transdniestr, an area of Moldova that considers itself a country even though no one else does. The Moldovans humor them in this fiction to [...Read more]
I think I was part of something important yesterday, but I’m really not sure. April 7, 2010 was the one-year anniversary of protests in Chisinau when the Communist party won the elections (as usual). There were accusations of fraudulent voting tactics, but no one really seems to be able to say for sure. I wasn’t [...Read more]
You know, it actually makes me a little angry. Here’s a nation of 4.5 million people going about their daily lives in a way that’s not that different from any of us. Yet the majority of the world I know doesn’t seem to know the country of Moldova even exists. The response I got from [...Read more]
Cappadocia immediately reminded me of the South Dakota Badlands, but other comparisons are Flintstones’ Bedrock City or Luke Skywalker’s Tatooine. It is an other worldly place that seems more out of fiction than reality, but then you realize these strange-looking rock formations have actually been used as homes and churches for centuries. Although I had two different [...Read more]