Booking

In this life that Alrica and I lead, when we talk about booking, we are usually referring to making a reservation for lodging or transportation. But here, when I title this post "Booking" I'm talking about something very different.

I read a book!

I recognize that is not entirely monumental. Quite the contrary, most people reading that sentence would shrug and say, "Um, good for you... I guess." I see why that might be your reaction. So let me elaborate on that statement.

I read a physical, hold it in your hand, ink letters printed on paper pages that you must flip by touching and separating from the next pages, book.

This, also, may seem anticlimactic to many. But in that same life described above which is shared by Alrica and me, a physical book is a luxury. Paper is heavy! Books are bulky. We are not traveling with books. So while I do get plenty of exposure to the "written" word, it is in either e-book or audiobook form. Sure, sometimes we stop by a bookstore, but we aren't planning to buy a book. Again, we'd have to carry it. We also sometimes visit public libraries, though mostly out of curiosity. The lack of books in English (and lack of permanent address with which we could get a library card) means borrowing a book is extremely improbable.

So, how do I happen to be reading a book? Well, I have a cousin.

Those of you who read about the wedding we attended a few weeks ago already know I have a cousin, multiple cousins. I do have a lot of cousins. If we limit ourselves to first cousins, I only have eight, six on my mother's side and two on my father's side. But if we consider nth cousins m-times removed, then I have way more than eight.

Stopping to think about this mathematically, if I just let n and m get large enough, a huge proportion of the people on this planet are my nth cousin m-times removed. But even limiting this to cousins that I have met, the number, while an insignificant portion of the world population, is pretty large by more localized standards.

Back to the cousin who relates to the book, who shall be called Michael. (Because his name is Michael.) This cousin is my first cousin once removed. He is the son of my first cousin (and that first cousin was at the wedding, but his son, Michael, the first cousin once removed, was not.)

Michael is a writer, though primarily not of books. His profession is as a comedy writer. He's written for a variety of companies, like Nintendo and IGN, and also a host of late-night shows and their hosts. (I feel very accomplished having used two forms of the word "host" in that sentence. Michael would probably have found a funnier way to say it.)

Point being, Michael is a brilliant writer of comedy. And while I said he is not primarily a writer of books (or in truth I said primarily not of books and I am trying to sketch this out in symbolic logic to see if in this instance those mean the same thing) he did write a book. I mean recently. Right now, he is taking a hiatus from writing for late night TV to promote his book and in an unironic twist, he will be on a late night show later this week as part of that endeavor. You can see him on Thursday, June 26 on Late Night with Seth Meyers.

In case you fear I am digging my way into a very deep rabbit hole or finding tangents to tangents, let me assure you I am not. Most of you have probably already figured out that the book I read, the physical book I read, is Michael's new book called Good Game, No Rematch. (Look, I even linked it! I'm so nice to my readers.) It's kind of a memoir going through various stages of Michael's life, but much of it is told in terms of video games. Michael is a major fan of, player of, and collector of, video games.

Personally, I am not that into video games. For example, right now on my phone I have five games, three of which came preloaded with my operating system and which I have not yet ever opened. The other two are KROPKI which is a puzzle game that you could totally play with pen and paper and Best Cryptic Crosswords, because I like the cleverness needed to solve the clues. If I have any video games saved on my laptop, they must have come with the operating system and I don't even know what they are.

The downside to my general disinterest in the antics of Mario, Sonic, and a variety of other protagonists I had never heard of before reading their names in the pages of Michael's book was that this important aspect of his memoir was esoteric to me. What was fascinating was hearing Michael's take on his life. Admitted, I wasn't around Michael much during his adult life, but in a good portion of his childhood, I would see him regularly. When he talks about his dad or mom or sister or brother, I know all of them personally. No surprise, they are also my cousins! (Okay, his mom is my cousin by marriage, cousin-in-law if you will.)

If you are into video games or comedy or video games and comedy (I could have probably saved myself words by writing video games and/or comedy, but instead I used even more words writing this parenthetical) then you might enjoy Michael's book a lot. He's very funny and I assume his obsession fueled video game anecdotes are totally on point. I have no reason to doubt him.

Regardless of the author and the themes, there was this fantastic experience of reading a book. I like e-books and audiobooks a lot. But there is something to the experience of holding a book in your hands, letting your eyes traverse the page, smelling the paper. That's a nice sensory experience to have.

The hydrant has nothing to do with the rest of this post. But look at that beauty! I couldn't resist.

Sometimes people ask me if there are things I miss by lacking the more traditional home life or being out of the United States. Usually I think about things like the huge variety of foods we can get in the States or having an entire spice rack to choose from when cooking or being able to express myself fully in the native tongue. I forget about the little experiences until they are brought back to me. But there are some of those small things that I can live without, but wouldn't it be nice... Like reading a book. A physical book.

Thanks for that, Michael.

What Democracy Looks Like

I try, in a general way, not to get too political. Certainly there are things I believe are right, like the Rule of Law or respecting human dignity, and I write about those when timely. But politics itself is too divisive. Anyone who agrees with me will nod their heads, smile, and go on thinking what they thought before. Anyone who disagrees with me will shake their heads, frown, and go on thinking what they thought before. If the movements of heads were the ultimate goal, then there would be a point to posting more about politics. But it's not, and so there isn't.

Even today, when I am going to post about the No Kings protest in Denver, I don't consider this a political blog post. But I'm sure many people would say that's exactly what it is. But for me, it is more about feeling a little bit less powerless. This is not to say I feel powerful or even empowered. Rather, I feel power-minimal without being completely powerless.

Today we attended the No Kings protest in Denver with my brother and his girlfriend. I have to say it was heartening. There were thousands of people in downtown Denver, filling the lawns from the State Capitol Building to the civic government buildings and an entire park in between. While those throngs of people had a variety of methods to express their frustrations, and probably different lists of what specifically frustrates them, at the core we were all in agreement: The current course that the United States is taking is disturbing.

Just one view of one tiny piece of the crowds

For some it is extrajudicial arrests and deportations. For some it is taking away legal status for those who followed the rules. For some it is denying equal protections under the law to all our citizens regardless of color, ethnicity, gender identity, or sexual orientation. For some it is impractical and chaotic economic policies. For some it is a huge increase in debt. For some it is using the military to intimidate protestors or take on law enforcement roles. There is plenty to choose from. But ultimately, there are a lot of things going on in America today that point toward authoritarianism, autocracy, and the erosion of democratic principles. Personally, I feel that many who took an oath to uphold the Constitution are not upholding the Constitution. And if the rule of law withers away, then everything goes with it. Without the rule of law, no one has rights, just privileges that can be revoked at any time.

Is that political? I would argue no. But there's no point in arguing about it here. Let me get back to the powerlessness topic.

When Alrica and I are traveling, we are somewhat removed from the day to day happenings in the United States. Of course, we read the news. We see what is going on in articles and pictures and videos. But we only live with the results of those actions in a secondary way. As such, there's little we can do about it. Yes, we've written to our Congressman and Senators, but nothing changed. No Congressman says, "Wow, now that I have read Erich's opinion, my entire worldview is altered." (Much the same as anyone reading this blog not finding a major paradigm shift in their outlook.)

I feel powerless. I see things changing in America (albeit from afar) and there's nothing I can do. I can't support the changes I agree with. I can't rally against the changes I disagree with. I could post more about those things in my blog, but my readership is several orders of magnitude short of the critical mass required to make much difference. That's okay, I am not looking to become an "influencer." But it does leave me feeling impotent to quell the tides of what comes across to me as authoritarianism.

Then there came today. We happen to be in America when something major is happening. So I did something. Yes, taking the broader view, I did basically nothing. I walked a few miles around downtown Denver in a huge stream of pedestrians. I carried a sign that read "Uphold the Constitution" in the middle of people with far more creative (and often far less civil) slogans. In the grand scheme of world events, my actions today will not tip any scales, nor make any scales fall off of eyes. (I'm not sure those are the same kinds of scales even.)

Making posters with Adam, Alrica, and Laura (at the camera)

And yet, today was heartening. There were thousands of people at the protest. Thousands of them, everywhere I turned. Thousands of people feeling something akin to what I feel. Thousands of people, just as powerless as me, but coming together in numbers that make our powerlessness palpable. (Side note: My daughter recently told me that "palpable" is a word that neither she nor anyone else in her generation would ever use. Why? What's wrong with palpable?)

If you multiply zero by ten-thousand, you still have zero. But if you take even a negligible positive amount and multiply it by ten-thousand, you may start to get something that isn't negligible. Take the thousands of people in Denver today making their voices heard. Literally, there were chants. One of them was perhaps most telling. Caller: "Tell me what democracy looks like." Response: "This is what democracy looks like!"

This was what democracy looks like. And that was just in Denver where our numbers made the negligible into something non-negligible. Now consider similar protests in so many other American cities, large and small. That tiny positive number is getting multiplied and multiplied. And maybe, if dreams do come true, it will wake the sleeping consciences of our elected officials. Maybe some of them will realize that people care about this. Not just any people, but the very people they are supposed to be representing. Maybe they will make some decisions not because of what other elected officials tell them to do, not because all they care about is their own re-elections, but because they want to do what is best for those people, their constituents, and the country as a whole.

Maybe not. Time will tell. But what I do know is that, for a few walking miles, for a few hours, in the midst of a lot of people, I didn't feel entirely unable to effect change. And I am very comforted to know there are so many others out there who came together and had the same experience.

I may be powerless. But I'm not alone.

Michigan, Really?

Large family gatherings can sometimes bring out the weird in people, in situations, and in life. They are great fun and wonderful times to catch up with people, get to know people you last saw when you were six, and grow closer to people you have known all your life. But strange things happen.

This past weekend was the first of the two weddings that Alrica and I are attending in our month long trip to the USA. This one was in Des Moines, Iowa. Though, even on the way to Des Moines, there were some strange happenings.

Have you ever seen a Polly Pocket vending machine. Do we need them in airports?

How did Houston become the capital of the south? Does it know it's not even the capital of Texas?

The wedding was sumptuous and gorgeous. The ceremony was touching and felt like it was about this couple, not just something generic. There was a string quartet who played magnificently. The food at the reception was wonderful, and the live band was great. They played a lot of hits from my childhood. We also had Hava Nagila for about 12 minutes, probably longer than any human needs to keep that level of energy going.

L to R: My dad, my bro, my mom, my wife, and some random guy

I am on the bride's side, so I know much, but not all, of the bride's family that attended. I didn't know anyone on the groom's side, but they were very loving and kind people. Still, I would like to relate a few incidents.

As you might imagine, Alrica and I were (and still are) curiosities. Everyone heard about the couple who just travels and doesn't have a home. That was immediately a topic of interest, which is great, you don't have to break the ice. But it did lead to a few weird comments.

At one point I was telling one of the groom's uncles about our road trip in Europe when we saw the tulips in the Netherlands. His comment was "You can see tulips in Michigan!"

I don't fully comprehend the mentally of a comment like that. You are only reading the words and you have to just guess at the tone. I got both, so let me try to parse the meaning.

Option A: Maybe this is saying the world has nothing on the good old USA. If that's his feeling, then why is he talking to me? He knows I'm traveling the world to see its highlights and wonders. Don't mellow my buzz, man.

Option B: Let's give the benefit of the doubt and say that isn't the intention. Maybe it is just saying, people don't have to travel far to see tulips, because we have them closer to home. Yes, valid point, except, before I went to Europe and rented a car, I was in Tunisia. So the Netherlands was a lot closer and more convenient than a trip to Michigan. Cross the Mediterranean or cross the Atlantic: I know the stereotype of Americans is that we don't understand geography very well, but I think everyone knows the Atlantic is a lot bigger.

Option C: Perhaps this comment was a complaint that the Netherlands is hogging all the tulip notoriety. Why should the Dutch be famous for both tulips and windmills? Why can't Michiganders get in on all the good publicity? This is entirely valid. I have to be honest, I had no idea Michigan had tulips until this comment was spoken. Okay, let me flesh that out a bit. Had I needed to hazard a guess, I would have proposed that some citizens of the Wolverine State planted some tulips in their yards or flower boxes. So I wasn't amazed to know that Michigan has tulips. But I didn't know that they had fields of them that people go look at. Now, having done some web investigation, I find that there is a tulip festival in Michigan. But do you know the name of the city in which it takes place? Holland, Michigan. Named for Holland, the section of the Netherlands that is famous for tulips! So it goes back to the Netherlands.

In another instance, I was speaking to a relative from my family. I don't think I had ever met her before. She is a generation before mine, a first cousin of my mother. We were talking about my travels and she told me I was interesting. Naturally I said, "Thank you," because, you know, I'm a courteous boy when duty calls. But it was her follow-up question that threw me. She asked, "How did you become interesting? Like, what happened to you that made you interesting?"

How do you answer a question like that? And what is the underlying assumption? Does it presuppose that I was a dullard until I performed a feat akin to kissing the Blarney Stone (which I have done) but instead of imparting glibness upon me, it imparted fascination? To be interesting, must one survive a trial by fire or possession by demons or something else exceptional and come out of the experience with a newfound soul of a raconteur?

I decided that in the paraphrased words of Shakespeare that some are born interesting, some achieve interestingocity, and some have interestingness thrust upon them. I also answered that I was in the first category, and I had always been interesting. Some kids are born with a silver spoon in their mouths. I was born with a song in my heart, a twinkle in my eyes, and an unnecessarily flowery vocabulary on my tongue. Or typing fingers. Which is all of them, except the left thumb that doesn't seem to get much keyboard action.

Another unusual experience: I got to not drive a self-driving car. My aunt, the grandmother of the bride, had just gotten her hair styled. It was raining. So I was sent to get her car, a Tesla, and bring it up to the entrance where she was waiting under cover. She slid into the passenger seat and I was driving us back to her house. Then she said, "Do you want to drive the Tesla or do you want the Tesla to drive itself home?" What kind of question is that? Of course I wanted to see how the self-driving car could do!

As the "driver" I had to keep my eyes on the road or the car would stop navigating itself. I also kept my hands on the steering wheel, though that isn't required. It felt safer to me, but I will admit, I wasn't the turning the wheel. The wheel was turning my hands. I did have to take over at the driveway and get the car into the garage. But the car did a fantastic job. It distinguished between red lights and green lights. It knew how to turn right on red. It signaled before it switched lanes. It kept to the speed limit. The technology is very impressive.

At one point, I threw caution to the wind. I danced with a much younger woman. I didn't even try to hide it. I did it right beside my wife, in the main sanctuary of the synagogue as we waited for the ceremony to start. But Alrica wasn't very jealous. My lovely dance partner was my first cousin, twice removed, and also is still an infant. She is the daughter of the maid of honor, and I was holding her so her mother could do maid of honorly duties without a baby in tow. The dancing kept her contented.

Over the five days I was in Des Moines

• I had a good old American burger
• Ate Crab Rangoon Pizza
• Enjoyed one of my favorite desserts: peanut butter balls (made by my aunt using the same recipe that my grandmother used to make)
• Gave a tag-team toast alongside my brother to the bride and groom, mirroring the tag-team toast we had given at the wedding of the bride's parents when we were teenagers
• Arranged flowers

Wait. That last one isn't entirely true. Alrica arranged, I was in charge of handing her baby's breath and green leafy things. But I was part of the flower arranging team.

I hope, after all these anecdotes and bullet points, you understand it was a pretty amazing few days in Des Moines. I ate too much, slept not enough, talked about travel with many interested parties, talked about mathematics with only one interested party, and talked about hockey in which conversation I was not interested. But hey, courteous, remember?

Onward to wedding number two!

Interview with an Umpire

We have entered the summer wedding season. This has brought Alrica and I back to the US to attend two weddings. One of them is today and the other in early July. We are only back in the states for a bit, but even the travel back was an adventure.

Knowing we would be frequently travelers, Alrica and I applied for the Global Entry Program. It is a program that, if you are approved, means much faster entry through passport control and customs when you arrive in the United States. It also includes TSA precheck, so even though air travel within the US would be infrequent, it would still be helpful.

We applied in April 2024, and the way the process works is first someone reviews your application and you get conditional approval. But that isn't complete approval. For complete approval, you need to have an interview with a Customs and Border Patrol agent at an international airport (and one of the bigger ones.)

About two days after we applied, Alrica got an email telling her she had a status change. When she checked on the CBP site, she was conditionally approved. Hooray! All she had left was to get an appointment. But we were going to have to travel to a large enough airport to do so, so Alrica decided to wait until I was approved.

We waited. And we waited. Frequently, Alrica would tell me to double check I hadn't just missed an email from the CBP. Sometimes she made me log into the CBP website to check if I had a notification. But I hadn't missed an email, and there was no notification.

Then in September 2024, we left the country. We weren't going to be at any airport with a CBP agent for a long time. It was only then (and even not right away but in November) that I was finally conditionally approved.

Why did it take Alrica two days and it took me several months? We don't know. Nothing tells you anything of that sort in the CBP notification process. I guess Alrica is a clean cut, good old American citizen, and I am a man of international infamy. Just a guess, of course.

This past Thursday, we flew from San Jose, Costa Rica to Fort Lauderdale, Florida (USA). That was only the first leg of our journey, but it was the one where we had to go through passport control. And the CBP offers interviews on arrival at most large international airports, including Fort Lauderdale. So after we got our entry into the country approved, we moved to the area where you could have interviews and sat to wait.

Here, something unexpected happened. Alrica was called up first. The man interviewing her had so many questions. Why did you wait from April 2024 until June 2025 to do the interview? Why did you enter Montenegro but never leave Montenegro? (Though her presence in Fort Lauderdale clearly indicated that she must have left Montenegro, even if Montenegro never indicated that in the passport system.) And perhaps most difficult, he asked Alrica to list all the countries she has visited in the last five years, from the most recent working backwards. If you've only been to one or two countries in that time, this is probably easy. But when you've been to twenty some countries in the last five years, it isn't even easy to do that in forward order. Harder in backward order.

He growled when she missed a country (like Canada). He growled when she mentioned a country that wasn't on his list (like Belgium, because in much of Europe, there is no border control between countries. So once you enter the Schengen region, you can travel from country to country without getting your passport scanned.) He growled when she didn't include Colombia, even though that was eight years ago, not five years ago. His comment was "close enough to five." (As a mathematician, I object to 8 being included in less than or equal to 5.)

Alrica's interview took about 30 minutes to complete. In the meantime, about halfway through her interview, I was called up to another agent. He asked me if this was my only passport, if the address on my driver's license was still valid, and if I was still an online professor for Johns Hopkins. Then he took my picture and I was approved. In and out in less than five minutes.

So maybe I am the fine upstanding citizen and Alrica is the one with some multinational intrigue that I should like to know about.

Not to keep you in suspense, we were both approved. (Eventually in the case of one of us.)

Water From Above, Water From Below

Last week, we took a day trip out to La Fortuna, Costa Rica. That is a town in the shadow of Arenal Volcano. But there were many stops on the way there, and fewer but some on the way home. Throughout the trip, we got to see fabulous flora, fascinating fauna, and wonders of water.

That's La Paz Waterfall in the background. (And Alrica and Erich in the foreground.)

We stopped at a coffee plantation. Coffee was introduced to Costa Rica in 1779. They grow Arabica coffee which was imported directly from Ethiopia. (That's where coffee plants are indigenous.) Over the 19th century, coffee farming grew and became a major industry of Costa Rica. Even though Costa Rica is small, it provides 1% of the world's coffee.

Did you know that's where your coffee comes from?

The thing about coffee is that you can't grow it just anywhere. You have to be high above sea level, but not too high above sea level. You have to have plenty of rain, but hopefully not too early or too late. You have to have various soil conditions. Parts of Costa Rica are ideal for this. So when you travel out of the valleys and up the mountains, you hit an elevation where the majority of the land is being used to grow coffee. And as you continue ascending, you hit an elevation where that stops.

This is not harvest time. The beans turn red when they are ready for harvest.

Apparently coffee plants can grow very tall but in Costa Rica, they keep them at about 2 meters or less. That's because the harvest is done by hand, so they don't want the plants so tall that no one can reach the beans.

Trunk of a Rainbow Eucalyptus Tree

Surrounding the plantation was a row of these gorgeous trees with multi-colored trunks called rainbow eucalyptus. But the coffee farmers don't plant them because of their colors. Instead, the trees provide nutrients to the soil, like nitrogen and phosphorus, that are beneficial for coffee growing. You also find the occasional banana palm in the middle of the coffee plants. These provide potassium to the soil. (And they provide bananas.)

The tall plant is a banana palm

In addition to the trees and coffee, there were many varieties of gorgeous flowers on the plantation grounds.

It's like a ladder for lizards

From the plantation we ascended out of the coffee growing region and into the cloud rain forest. Our first stop was at La Paz waterfall which is right along the side of the road. This gurgling fall runs all year round, but in the rainy season is even more vigorous than when we saw it. It's been a very rainy May, but apparently not compared to the midst of rainy season.

La Paz and it's pool (would that be La Pool de La Paz?)

Next we made a stop at the village of Cinchona. We had fresh juice. I had mora (which is blackberry) and Alrica had sandia (which is watermelon). There was a lovely balcony from which one could see the San Francisco waterfall. But the big thing to see was the birds. There were hummingbirds, song birds, and even the occasional bird of prey around.

Hummingbird

We had a lovely lunch in La Fortuna. We had casados. Casado is a very traditional meal which we had also tried in San Jose. It's great, you get white rice, black beans (though each place has its own way of seasoning the beans), fried plantains, salad, and then some choice of meat. I tried beef in that particular casado and Alrica had chicken. Both were great. Plus they served maracuya (passion fruit) juice which is so good.

I don't know what the yellow bird is called

After lunch was the main destination of our day trip: Paradise Hot Springs. I don't have any pictures, because I wasn't carrying my phone around to the pools. But this is a set of pools, all at different temperatures. Arenal Volcano is still active. While it isn't erupting lava, it does steam frequently. But the geological activity also heats the water. So the pools were using geothermally heated water mixed with cooler water to provide the various temperatures.

Not sure what this is called either, but he has a don't mess with me look.

Often, I am not a fan of such places. I get overly warm quickly when I am in hot water. I can do it for a few minutes, but then I am sweating and uncomfortable. Alrica, on the other hand, could probably bathe in molten lava and ask the volcano if it could turn up the heat. (Yes, I am exaggerating. She wouldn't really talk to a volcano.) But Paradise Hot Springs was great for me. Among its many pools, there were some cool pools. So when I got too warm, I could slip into a cool pool and chill out, literally. The recommendation was to spend 20 minutes or so in a hot pool and then five minutes of so in a cool pool. Repeat. I, more or less, reversed that, but it was nice to have the variety. There was one pool that was so hot I stepped in and got water up to my ankles and then said "Nope!" I saw no reason to become a major ingredient in soup. But aside from that one, I enjoyed the others for as long as I could take them and then cooled off nicely.

A two-toed sloth, though it's tough to know that's what it is

Coming back to San Jose, we stopped for dinner and had Chifrijo. That's a traditional bar food. Think of something vaguely like nachoes without the cheese. (Okay, I admit, the cheese is sort of the essence of nachos. But what if it wasn't?) It's a bowl with rice, beans, tortillas, avocado, and pico de gallo, served with pieces of pork. Traditionally it's with pork, but you had choices of other meats if you preferred.

Strict speed limits

So we were well fed, well washed, and for those foolish enough to go in the extremely hot pool, well cooked, when we got back to San Jose. It was great to get out of the city and see how much beauty there is in this country.

Back in the Land Of...

We have once again crossed the Atlantic and have arrived in Costa Rica. We've been here for a few days now. And while Costa Rica is very different than the United States in so many ways, in others, it is a reminder of home. And in others, it isn't so different from places we've been.

Look at me! I'm pink!

Much like Tunisia, the people here are very helpful and friendly. They speak fast though, which was not like Tunisia. And there are so many lovely flowers this time of year.

Morazan Park

Much like so many places, every great city needs at least one park with a gazebo in it. Additional, the parks can also have some very cool art in them.

See the shiny colors? Look at the close up view

The inside is made of old CDs

But let's talk about some silly little things that remind me of home and that I hadn't even realized I had been missing. The most obvious of these: I'm back in the land of electrical outlets I recognize.

I've missed you!

Yes, Costa Rica uses the same outlets we do in the States. No need for my converter, I can just plug my devices in directly.

Here's another: I'm back in the land of man chairs. If you don't know that term, I will explain. You know how when you go shopping, say with your wife and/or daughter, for clothing and then those you are with need to look at many things and go into the dressing room and wander all the racks in the store? Often, in the United States, there is a chair somewhere in the store for the companion of the shopper (me) to sit in while the shopping activity goes on. But we didn't see that so often in Europe or North Africa.

Here in Costa Rica, there are man chairs in many of the larger clothing stores. In fact, I even had saleswomen in two different stores tell me I was allowed to sit in them.

What do you do when your waist down mannequin is too skinny for the clothing?

I am back in the land of root beer. At some level, I had realized that other countries don't have the same varieties of pop that we do in the States. Sometimes, they have extras. There is a flavor of Fanta called "exotic" that is all over Eastern Europe. Here in Costa Rica, I tried "kolita" which has the same flavor as the green pop in South Africa that they call "cream soda". But what I hadn't realized while we were traveling was the lack of root beer. Not until the other day, here in Costa Rica, when I had root beer, did I think, wow, I've really gone a long time without having root beer as an option.

One more thing: I'm back in the land of American time zones, and it's killing me. Well, the jet lag is. Here we are in Central Standard Time. Costa Rica doesn't observe Daylight Savings Time. So my current time is the same as Mountain Daylight Time in America. Same time zone as my brother! But I am not making the adjustment well. I've been trying to stay up until about 10 PM and still I am waking early. Today, I did great. I didn't get up until 5:57 AM. But that's the latest I've managed since we arrived, with anywhere from 3:00 AM to 5:00 AM being my usual wakeup time. (And Alrica is waking up even earlier.)

I would assume that soon I will adjust. Though as Alrica explained to me, I will adjust right in time to have to get up at 4:00 AM anyway. Our daughter is currently with us for her break, but she must fly back to the states and has an early flight in a couple days. It's a pretty good reason though. She has to go to Washington, DC for an interview at the Embassy of Tajikistan to get a visa for her summer program there. Yes, getting up at 4 AM sucks. But that's a pretty cool reason.

Bonus: The other day, when the new pope had been chosen, but we didn't know who it was yet, a headline appeared on my computer. It was in Spanish and asked if I wanted to translate it. I clicked yes and here is what I got.

A smoked potato?

Choosing your potato can be newsworthy!

And Back Into Nature

In my last post, I talked about the Netherlands being the third country which we had visited but not slept in. In this post, I want to talk about Luxembourg being the fourth such country (and the 49th country we've ever been in.) This is very exciting to me, because both 4 and 49 are perfect squares. Not only that, they are each a perfect square of a prime number!

A welcoming bear

But before I math out on these number theoretic facts, there is a bit of a question hanging over the entire discussion. Alrica pointed out that my definition of "slept in" may be less than rigorous. (That's a huge problem for a mathematician.)

Weinfelder Maar

You see, one of the countries that we visited was The Bahamas. We arrived on a ship and went out into the island and explored. We slept that night back on the ship, but it was still docked in the Bahamas. So does this count as sleeping in Bahamas? If it does not, then Luxembourg is the fifth country of this non-sleep status. That certainly dulls the perfect square pattern.

Wooden Wizard with a Roof Hat

If I slept in a houseboat on Lake Erie north of the Canada-U.S. border, wouldn't that count as sleeping in Canada? Or maybe it is the salt in the water that matters. But if I slept in the same houseboat just off the coast of South Carolina, wouldn't you consider that sleeping in the United States?

We're painting the roses red.

I see the argument that if I fall asleep in an airplane flying over Uzbekistan, I cannot claim to have slept in Uzbekistan. But Alrica and I wouldn't count that as even having been in Uzbekistan. In fact, our rule is that if you are only transitioning from one flight to another and you never leave the airport, that doesn't count as a new country. (At one point, that was our experience in Qatar, where we spent a long time in the Doha Airport, but we did not consider ourselves having visited Qatar. Over a year after that, we did go to Qatar, and stayed in Qatar, and then we counted Qatar.

A knight in lacquered armor

I'm still going with Luxembourg being the fourth country we visited but didn't sleep in. But if you disagree, feel free to give me grief in the comments.

Setting all of this aside, let me tell you about the second half of our road trip. We headed from Belgium to visit the Vulkaneifel region of Western Germany. The Eifel mountains are geologically active. Much of the region sits on top of a huge caldera. Much like Yellowstone National Park, some places seem calm and other seem more volcanic.

The village across the maar

We stayed in a very cute village called Schalkenmehren which is situated on Schalkenmehren Maar. A maar is a lake formed in a volcanic crater. This was a chance for us to get into nature, to hike, to breathe fresh air, and to hear lots of birds. (We saw some too, but only a small fraction of those we heard.)

The maar from the village

We have been very city bound for quite a lot of this trip. I miss hiking sometimes, so we used the second half of our road trip to get some good hikes in. Not only did hike around Schalkenmehren Maar, we also hiked around the neighboring Weinfelder Maar. Plus the village is filled with all these amazing wooden sculptures. (I think the sculptor lives there.)

Think it is a woodcarver's self-portrait?

We had some lovely hikes, but we still weren't satisfied. So the next day we did a very fascinating hike in Echternach, Luxembourg. This hike involved a lot more elevation change. We hiked up to Wollefsschlucht, which translates as Wolf's Gorge. The gorge was formed by an enormous landslide (tens of thousands of years ago.) There are many caves in the gorge and we invested one of them. Though we didn't go too far, as our light (and our legs) were inadequate for real spelunking.

The cave as far as we got

There is a legend about Wolf's Gorge that tells of an avaricious Count who sold his soul to the devil to obtain more riches. But he was so greedy, even the devil said "To heck with him!" (I think the devil would use heck, because he isn't going to say "To my own kingdom with him.") The devil cursed the Count and turned him into a black wolf. Now the wolf roams the gorge, protecting the many small caves where the Count hid his wealth. But don't despair for the cursed Count, my readers. Legend also says that if an innocent child places a rosary into just the right crevice in one of the many folds and creases of Wollefsschulucht, it will release the Count from his curse. In reward, he will reveal to the child where his treasures are. So if there are any innocent children out there reading this, grab a rosary and start placing it in crevice after crevice of Wolf's Gorge. (Okay, you have to get to Luxembourg first.) But note: if it does work and the Count grants you all his treasures, I would like a 1 percent finders fee for putting you on this path in the first place.

If only Alrica had brought along a rosary

Now we are back in France. Soon we leave this part of the world, an end to the first era of our international sojourn, around and about the Mediterranean (and a bit further north.) Tomorrow we fly across the Atlantic Ocean to San Jose, Costa Rica. And we will sleep there too.

No Tiptoeing Involved

Hallo from Belgium! You might think I should say Bonjour from Belgium. But Alrica and I are staying in the Flemish part of Belgium where the language spoken is Dutch.

My beauty in the midst of tulip beauty

We are doing something with which we are very familiar, and also something with which we are out of practice in doing: taking a road trip. On Thursday, we flew from Tunis into Paris. We rented a car at the airport and we are driving around the Benelux area of Europe. (Benelux is a mashup of three words, or to speak non-technically, a threewordsmash.) It is the region of Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg.

The yellow is so bright you almost don't notice the red

At present, we are in Belgium. We are staying in a very adorable town called Mortsel, just outside of Antwerp. It has castles, lots of old-world architecture, and some tasty Belgian fries.

Pink and white, like Neapolitan ice cream after you've eaten all the chocolate

Yesterday, we took a day trip into the Netherlands to fulfill a lifelong (in truth, monthlong) dream (which is probably a stronger word than is called for here, “fancy” might be a more accurate description) to see the tulips. The Netherlands is famous for its tulip season where you can drive around and find fields of tulips in so many colors. We were worried that we might be too late. It generally runs from Mid-April to early May. It turns out, this year we were, if anything, too early. But really, we were in plenty of time.

Check this out: Orange on the outside, yellow on the inside

While some of the tulip fields we saw were entirely green, no blossoms yet, we still saw plenty of tulips in a variety of colors: The yellows were super bright, hard to miss. The reds came in varieties with white tops or yellow tops. There were orange tulips which were orange through and through, and others which were red-orange on the outside and yellow inside. We also saw purples and pinks.

You so want to tiptoe through them. Admit it.

We went up to Noordoostpolder, which is a region northeast of Amsterdam. We had read it can be very crowded with people in tulip season, but for us it wasn’t. We did see other people, but usually just a handful at some of the fields where we stopped.

Free sporks! Is this heaven? No, it's the Netherlands.

Check out this picture: Apparently the Dutch word for a spork is “spork”. Except that really isn’t a spork, it isn’t a mix of spoon and fork. It’s really a wooden fork with a knife edge on one of the tines. I like the name “knork” for this one. I suppose “forfe” is another choice though, but I like the beginning with a non-sounding k—sometimes called silent— and ending with a k-sounding k—sometimes called nonsilent or insilent or insolent. (Yes, I made that last part up.)

From the tulips we headed south and visited a geographic oddity: We visited the interwoven towns of Baarle-Nassau and Baarle-Hertog. But first a few terms.

An enclave is a country or a piece of a country that is entirely surrounded by another country. For example, Lesotho is an enclave, a country entirely surrounded by South Africa. Both Vatican City and San Marino are enclaves entirely inside Italy. But an enclave doesn’t have to be an independent country. It could be a territory of another country. Think of West Berlin in the days of the Cold War, which was entirely inside East Germany, even though it was a piece of West Germany.

An exclave is a territory belonging to one country but separated from that country, surrounded by other countries. (Generally surrounded by land, not by water. So Alaska isn’t an exclave because while it is disconnected from the United States, it isn’t entirely surrounded by other countries. It has a lot of coast.)

Many exclaves are also enclaves. They are surrounded entirely by land belonging to one other country. Not all of them are. For example, there is a piece of territory owned by Azerbaijan called Nakhchivan which is separated from the main part of the country. It is surrounded by land belonging to three different nations: Armenia, Iran, and Turkey. So it is an exclave which is not an enclave.

But it is easier to find examples of exclaves which are also enclaves. That’s where I’m going with this. But one more term: A counter-exclave is a piece of territory belonging to country X which is entirely surrounded by a piece of territory belonging to country Y which is in turn surrounded entirely by country X again. This is also called a second-order exclave.

You could also go into counter-counter-exclaves (or third-order exclaves) and on and on. But for this discussion, we only need a single “counter” (or a second-order exclave.)

You see, Baarle-Hertog is Belgium. But it is entirely inside the Netherlands (in the city of Baarle-Nassau.) So, Baarle-Hertog is an exclave. Or in truth, it is 22 separate exclaves. There are 22 disconnected pieces of land in southern Netherlands which are part of Belgium.

What’s more, there are holes inside those exclaves that are pieces of the Netherlands inside pieces of Belgium inside pieces of the Netherlands. These are counter-exclaves. There are 10 of these. Twenty-two pieces with ten pieces inside. A border mess!

And yet, the people there don’t seem to worry much about it. It is a lovely town, or two towns, to visit. This whole complication dates back to the Middle Ages when one nobleman gave up some land to another nobleman in exchange for protection. Every source I’ve found just describes it as protection. I’m guessing this is more military alliance than racketeering, but I can’t say that for sure.

It wasn’t a big deal for a long time. Even in the modern era, it was all the Netherlands, because Belgium wasn’t a thing. Okay, it was a thing, but not its own country. Belgium was part of the Netherlands and only became independent in 1831. It left behind such a mess in the region, that they didn’t get around to figuring out exactly what pieces of land were which. For a while. A long while. I wonder what they did before they all used the same currency.

Today, the borders are marked with plus signs along the sidewalks, though this was not all laid out and done until 1995. So they had a good 164 years of not really know which piece of land belonged to which country. Now the borders often run through buildings, so they have a front door rule. If your front door is in Belgium, you are Belgian. (You vote in Belgian elections and pay taxes to Belgium.) If your front door is in the Netherlands, you are Dutch. (Elections, taxes, blah, blah, blah.) If the border runs through your front door (which is rare, but it happens), you get to choose. (Luckily, you don’t have to pay taxes to both, but unluckily, you don’t get two votes.)

You need to know which jurisdiction you are breaking the law in!

When we visited, it was clear the locals just don’t care very much. They are out eating in cafes, not worrying about which country is which. Though, the number plates for the addresses either have the Belgian colors on them or the Dutch colors. They do want you to know which country each building is in.

I labeled the essential details

It did cause some stress during COVID-19. The Netherlands and Belgium had very different mask mandates. There were situations in which you entered a shop required to be masked, but then walking to the merchandise in the back of the shop you could take your mask off. You had crossed an international border.

For us it was a beautiful walk on a clement day in a charming medieval town with some very pretty towers. One of them had bells which played songs. The first we heard was Down by the Riverside. I didn’t recognize the second.

Beautiful music and a pretty tower? Too much.

This day trip makes the Netherlands the third country we have visited but not slept in. (The first was Vatican City, and I think you would need a special invitation to sleep there. The second was Slovakia when we visited its capitol, Bratislava, in a day trip from Vienna.) But maybe I should have set up a tent on the plus signs and managed to sleep in two countries at the same time. I’ve never done that before! A new lifelong dream! (Or seconds-long passing thought.)

A Flower of North Africa

Hi readers. I know, I've been remiss and left you without a post in awhile. But I have been very busy of late. Not so busy that I haven't gotten to see some wonders of Tunisia though.

A lot of colors on one wall

The title of my post is metaphoric. But also, at least in April, it's literal. There are so many flowers of so many colors in Tunisia. It's gorgeous. I mean, sometimes you are just walking along streets and there are not flowers everywhere. But when you find flowers, they impress. Go flowers!

I have a lot to tell you about.

MARP

Never heard of MARP. Of course not. I invented it. I have been working very hard on Math Action Role Playing. This past weekend, a group of kids got to try it out. In some ways, it is like tabletop role playing games. But there is a key difference! When the characters attempt something, their success is not determined by rolling dice. Instead, the players solve competitive mathematics questions. It's been a lot of work in the last month to get all of it together. And then the first group only used a tiny fraction of what I had prepared. But I didn't have any problems with running out of problems!

Tunis

Alrica and I are living in Tunis, though we are not in the main downtown portion of it. We are staying in a neighborhood called either El Aouina (if it is coming from the Arabic) or L'Aouina (if it is coming from the French.) It is a nice place to live, plenty of nearby grocery stores and restaurants, and all very affordable. The people are nice, and most everyone speaks French and the Tunisian dialect of Arabic. A few people speak English and we are getting by pretty well.

Here in L'Aouina they have inflatable men not just to sell cars or mattresses, but medical services.

We have gone into downtown Tunis. There is the Medina. Much like we experienced in Morocco, this is the old city, originally built by the Arabs. The streets are narrow and filled with shops and people selling fruits, clothing, spices, foods, wooden crafts, and much, much more. We stopped at a place to get chapati for lunch near this lovely mural.

Scenic place to eat

But right near the place we were eating a man was selling something in fabric, maybe dresses. I'm not sure, as there was a crowd of women around the goods, holding up different fabrics, inspecting them. I bring this up because of the man who was selling them. Like many places in the medina, he was calling out something in Arabic, over and over, to attract buyers. I didn't understand his particular words, but in cadence, stress, number of syllables, basically in meter, it was exactly like he was saying "Swiper no swiping. Swiper no swiping." I couldn't help by say "Oh man!" (I know that anyone reading this who either wasn't a child or didn't have children in the right time frame will not recognize a Dora the Explorer reference. But I suspect many of you will.)

This is the Bab Al-Bhar, one of the gates to the old city, the Medina

If you don't know what chapati is, maybe you know roti, the unleavened bread from the Indian subcontinent. That's what chapati is, it's a local version of roti. In many places, you can see the men in the restaurant rolling it out and cooking it. And then they make sandwiches with it. It is all quite delicious. But there is one issue for Alrica.

When you order chapati or french tacos or almost anything that is vaguely sandwich like, you get a lot of options of what you want put on your chapati or naan or tortilla. One of the spreads they generally include is harissa. This is the basis of many foods in North Africa and it is made from chili peppers and paprika and olive oil. So yeah, it's spicy. Another common spread is Algerian Sauce. Much like how Italian dressing isn't from Italy and French fries are really from France, Algerian Sauce isn't really from Algeria. It comes from France or Belgium. But it does include harissa as a major ingredient. So, it is also spicy.

View from the Central Market of Tunis, where are rows of fruits, veggies, nuts, meats, cheeses, and more.

You can ask to have your sandwiches without those sauces, and if you are, like Alrica, spice-averse, of course you do ask to go without. But once they put all the other spreads on your round chapati or tortilla, they grab a spoon to smear it all around. It's the same spoon they used to make the last sandwich before yours and who knows how many before that. It isn't washed in between. And aside from Alrica, harissa and Algerian sauces are hot commodities with sandwich purchasers. (See what I did there?) So that spoon always has harissa on it. So your sandwich, french taco, or makloub is going to be at least a little bit spicy. (Or as Alrica would say, "too spicy.")

This is mild in comparison to other things out of my historical scope

It is always fascinating to see what is normal in one place that isn't normal where you are from. Seeing some of the butcher shops, I was thinking how kids who grow up here are not going to be squeamish about seeing dead animals. You see hanging cow, decapitated heads of sheep, meat with skin still on it, cooked fish heads, raw fish heads, but no roly poly fish heads.

That blue ice cream flavor is chewing gum. Why is that so much less appealing than bubble gum?

But you also see beautiful fabrics, intricate works of art, and stunning flowers. I don't only mean flowers for sale, but just the ones that grow in the city.

It's like a waterfall of beauty.

In the medina is one of the oldest mosques in Tunisia, the Ez-Zitouna Mosque. You are not allowed inside if you are non-Muslim. But you can walk along the outside. The thing is, unless you pay attention to the doors, you don't realize you are walking the perimeter of a huge mosque. There are shops everywhere around it, so it looks the same as everywhere else in the Medina. Sometimes you get a lucky view though.

The minaret of the Ez-Zitouna Mosque

There is also a beautiful cathedral in the center of Tunis, though it is outside the Medina in the more recent additions to the city. It's called the Cathedral of St. Vincent de Paul and St. Olivia of Palermo. There are times you can go into it. Unfortunately, when we were there, it was not one of those times.

Two, two, two saints for the price of one!

Carthage

Just east of Tunis is the city of Carthage. In modern times, this is a beachside community with many nice homes and some hotel/spas. But it is also a historic city. When I was in college, I took a course in Roman history, cause, you know, gen ed requirements. One big topic we covered was the Punic Wars. These were wars between Rome, based in modern day Italy, and the kingdom of Carthage, which was centered here in Tunisia. For a good stretch of years, Carthage was the primary enemy of Rome, both vying for supremacy in the Mediterranean Sea. Maybe you've heard of Hannibal crossing the Alps with elephants. (That actually happened.) Hannibal was a Punic General. Punic means he was from Carthage. The Romans didn't call the Carthaginian Carthaginians. They called them the Poeni, because the Carthaginians were originally from Phoenicia.

This is the Magon Complex, right beside the Gulf

Anyway, after a few embarrassing defeats, including being caught completely by surprise by Hannibal coming down from the Alps with elephants, Rome did defeat Carthage. Then they sacked the city, leveling it. Ha, we'll make the world forget these people ever existed!. Then, about a hundred years later the Romans realized that the site of Carthage was a major strategic place to build a city. So they had to rebuild what they had destroyed, or really, build on top of it.

I wonder what it said when all the pieces were there

That's why, when you visit Carthage today, you see a mix of Roman ruins and Punic ruins. Often they are right beside each other, or the Punic ruin is literally under the Roman one.

Remnants of a 2500 year old naval base

We visited several sites in Carthage. We went to the Punic Ports. The Carthagianians were clever. They had a port you entered from the south. It looked just like a commercial port. But at the north end of it, they had build a circular channel with an island in the middle. Here, on the island, they had a large naval base. They kept their warships in the circular channel and so pirates, Romans, and other baddies, didn't realize there was a military presence there. If they raided the port, suddenly, as if from nowhere, here came the Punic Navy. Take that you Mediterranean miscreants!

Original Punic Neighborhood on Byrsa Hill

We also visited Byrsa Hill. (Sometimes also spelled Birsa Hill or Bursa Hill. We all agree on the spelling of Hill.) This is where Carthage was founded, and the story goes like this: The year is 814 BCE. The king of Tyre (which is part of the Phoenician Empire) kills his brother. But the brother's wife, Princess Elyssa, flees with several other faithful followers. The Phoenicians are all about sailing, so she flees by boat. And she comes to modern day Tunisia. Here, she buys some land from the locals, up on this hill. But she can only afford as much land as might be covered by the skin of an ox. The word Bursa in Greek means "skin of a cow" and that's where the hill gets its name. Princess Elyssa does super well, growing her land from the size of an ox's skin to the whole hill, the whole area, and eventually an empire (though that part was probably after Elyssa was no more.) There is also a myth about King Hiarbas insisting he was going to marry Elyssa and she couldn't stop it from happening, so she killed herself. Though the history King Hiarbas ruled Carthage about 750 years after its founding. So maybe this legend has some confused names.

Standing in what was once a library, Punic neighborhood in foreground, Gulf of Tunis in background

If you are into literature, perhaps you've read the Aeneid by Virgil. Aeneus lands in Carthage early in the story, and the queen, who is supposed to be Princess Elyssa, though Virgil renames her Dido, falls in love with him and wants him to stay and rule Carthage with her. But no, alas, he has a destiny to fulfill and he goes away and lands in modern day Italy. And his descendants will be the Romans.

All the detached capitals from various columns

That was a big digression into myth and legend, but it is the myth and legend that surrounds Carthage. And we visited Byrsa Hill. In addition to Punic ruins, and Roman ruins, there is also the tomb of Saint Louis from the much more recent 13th century CE. This is a bit misleading, because Louis isn't buried there. He did die in Tunisia.

The tomb/not tomb of St. Louis

He was the king of Franch. King Louis IX to be precise. And he was big on the crusades. He thought if he invaded in modern day Tunisia, he would break the Arab lines that extended across North Africa. He came and conquered and worked hard to convert the Muslims to being Catholics. That didn't go so well. A big bout of dysentery swept through his ranks, killing many of his warriors and maybe killing him too. Though modern forensics conducted on his preserved jawbone (because you know, you preserve these things when people are saints) indicates he actually died of scurvy. Apparently, Louis told his troops that the fruits of these heathen people were cursed by God and should not be eaten. What happens when you don't eat anything with vitamin C for long enough? You die of scurvy. Sometimes declaring that you know what God approves of and curses doesn't lead to the best ends for you or your followers.

That pillar once held up a roof in the bathhouse.

We also visited the Baths of Antoninus. These are from the Roman era in the region. The archaeological site includes the baths but also much more. There are old Punic tombs. And there are some Roman homes in which you can still see some of the mosaics on the floors.

Consider its age, this mosaic's in good shape.

The baths themselves must have been gigantic. What remains today is the basement, but you can see the occasional pillar from the first floor. It extends so high, the baths must have had quite a lofty ceiling. And there were warm pools, hot pools, cool pools, gymnasium rooms, and rooms for watching entertainments.

Don't look! Alrica's in the bath!... house... basement

Hammam Sousse

Tunis is on the conveniently enough named Gulf of Tunis which connects to the Mediterranean Sea. But just around one more peninsula one finds the Gulf of Hammamet. There is a stretch of the shore along this gulf, from the city of Hammamet to the the city of Sousse, that is known for its white sand, beautiful seas, and for lots and lots of resorts. There are beach homes to rent, but there are also the all-inclusive resorts.

I love the red flowers against the white wall.

April isn't really the busy season, but it isn't a non-season either. Alrica and I stayed for two nights at one of these resorts in Hammam Sousse, which is, as you might have guessed, between Hammamet and Sousse. (Much closer to Sousse.)

Mosaic on raised platform along the sidewalk in Sousse

It was okay. I will say, the Gulf was gorgeous. The view from our balcony was inspiring. The beach was nice, though it was a bit too cold for me to want to go into the gulf itself. We did enjoy swimming pools. We played ping-pong, conveniently not keeping score so each of us can believe we won. The food was good, not amazing.

The view from our balcony

It would be a very convenient family destination, particularly in the warm parts of the year when swimming in the Gulf would be very comfortable. It is quite flat going well out into the water, so a nice place to play without fear of being swept out to sea. And there were vendors who would take you on speedboat rides or you could be in a parasail. You could rent quad bikes too. Plus there were other vendors to take you out to the desert where you could ride camels. (We had just recently done so in Morocco, so we were good.)

At the harbor in Sousse you could do a party boat ride. Masts, no sails.

We also spent some time in the city of Sousse where we had to catch our train back home. (I have an amazing coincidence story to tell you about that.) Sousse was vibrant and fun, much smaller than the medina of Tunis, but still packed with shopping and food. I loved the chapati I got there.

Old City wall of Sousse with what appears to be Neptune on it

The train home was over two hours late arriving in the station. So late, in fact, that the people who were waiting for the next train, which was also delayed, all crammed on to our train when it got there. As such, I wasn't able to sit with Alrica. I wasn't even able to sit in the same train car with her.

Alrica ended up sitting next to a man from the United States. He was in his early thirties. But the amazing coincidence was how much his path matched our daughters. He majored in Middle Eastern Studies. He learned to speak Arabic. He did a semester abroad in Amman, Jordan, and one in Rabat, Morocco. He was selected for the Critical Language Scholarship where he spent ten weeks in Dushanbe, Tajikistan learning Persian.

Our daughter is studying international relations with a focus on Middle Eastern studies. She received a Critical Language Scholarship for this summer. And she is going to Dushanbe, Tajikistan to learn Persian. She is applying to spend a semester abroad next year in Rabat, Morocco. It was a fascinating couple of hours for Alrica to talk to this man who was basically on our daughter's path, but about fifteen years further along.

My seat mate was an older man who spoke French, and he slept for most of the ride. But I listened to an audio book. So good on me too!

People talk about undiscovered treasures. I am not sure if Tunisia is everyone's sort of place to be, but we sure like it. In many ways, it is similar to Morocco. But you don't have the people trying to get everything they can from tourists. The cost of food and lodging is low. And the weather and landscapes are beautiful, at least in April.