As I was walking home from the Christening Party this afternoon I saw a wonderful field of flowers. I was reminded of my good friend Jeff with whom I traveled in Malaysia and his habit of stopping to smell the flowers. It is a good habit to pick up. Really, how often do we all just stop to enjoy the little things in life, those things that are totally and completely free and untainted by all the associations that Madison Avenue and 'normal' life throw at us? So, that is just what I did, smelled the flowers and took this shot.

Today Sienna Anemone Noble was christened and I am her Godfather. It's pretty cool. If you are so inclined there is a massive photo dump of the full day, here. I haven't been around much, lately. But I will be heading off to Finland in a day or so and the journey will continue.

Two big photos dumps can be found here and here. Most of my time has been just hanging out with my new best friend: Sebastian Alister Noble. I tell you: he's awesome! Denmark is so laid back, so easy going, it's impossible not to fall into a very lazy rhythm. And that's exactly what has happened. Camilla, Stuart and I hang out with the kids, go up to the garden house, build a little, have lunch, hang out with Sebastian, goof off and generally do little or nothing all day. Sure, I'm heading down to Odensee with Stuart on Friday to see some stuff. And then early next week I am heading up to Finland to visit friends I met at Lake Toba and to see that amazing 24 hour mid-summer's day. But other than that: I'm content to do little or nothing, especially as the day is soon coming when I'll turn decidedly Westwards and make my way home. I plan on returning to Austin by September 1, 2009. It's time and had you asked me nine months ago if I would be excited about returning home I would have laughed at you, but I am.

I could go on for another six months, but I've found, by and large, what I came out here in the world to find. As I wrote a family member today: "I may not be rich. I may not have a fancy car. But my life is full, full of wonder, joy, confusion, sadness, loneliness, sometimes regret, and more often than I ever imagined, bliss. The bitterness and the 'darkness' are gone."

Here's to a wonderful little boy who in just three days has filled my life with more joy than I thought possible. He is by and large the best thing Stuart has ever done.

And so, I sit by a window watching late evening sunset magenta clouds race across a Baltic horizon and I know the past is behind me, the future is unknown and am content with the now.

From the travel journal:

Budapest to Berlin Train: River metaphors seem appropriate right now. Crossed the Danube. Leaving Hungary. Was it from Priene where Heraclitus looked out on the Meander and asked if we can ever really cross the same river twice?

Last night I began reading Patrick Leigh Fermor's "A Time For Gifts" to analyze his prose but the tale sucked me in immediately and I was lost, swept away in the reverie of an old man remembering his youth. "Give me whiskey, give me wine, when I recall that my youth was divine," or so Tennyson wrote. If my youth was divine (and it was) then what is this?

I'll cross my fiftieth border in a short time. Borders and rivers and time, melted into a whole. Did I ever imagine, that cool June day in 1993 when I first landed in London, on my first journey, that I'd be where I am today? I have finally, in the words of Magris, "left the enigmatical fabric of the universe to look after itself." What a hard won lesson it has been.

More after the jump.

When it's good, it's just good.

So, I'm sitting in a cafe, having a coffee, reading Magris' book Danube. I usually start books at the beginning but I decided yesterday to read his thoughts on Budapest. Mind you, Magris' travel book really isn't a travel book in the conventional English or American sense. It's very Mitteleuropa. He's a scholar of German literature, who taught in Trieste, which, although it is in Italy, is a Central European town. It's much more a survey of the intellectual life of the Danube, and at times although a bit dense, it is excellent and thought provoking reading.

Yesterday I read a passage about Budapest and the author Gyorgy Konrad. I was very fascinated by Magris' retelling of Konrad's life and works so I googled him while sitting in this cafe today. And then I noticed an older gentleman having a glass of wine, scribbling away in a smallish Moleskine journal just like mine.

"No fucking way," I thought to myself. "It can't be."

But it was. Sitting before me was the man himself, Gyorgy Konrad.

"Working on my next novel," he said, when I asked what he was writing.

"And you, young man, I see are a writer," he asked.

"Nothing special, sir," I said. "Just thoughts about a very long journey I have undertaken."

For the next two hours I sat in rapt attention to the tales of a dissident who participated in the Hungarian Uprising of 1956.

Seldom is serendipity so kind.

From the travel journal:

Some Euros seem to have this conceit stuck in their head that Hungary is the gateway to the East, although admittedly not as bad as the 'Wogs begin at Calais' sort. I imagine if I was heading south from Denmark, through Germany, the Czech Republic and Slovakia into Hungary I might agree. But I'm not. I'm heading north, towards the North European plain and this city is nothing like an Asian or Eastern city. Budapest has much more in common with Trieste, Vienna and Prague than it does with Bucharest, Sophia, Moscow or Athens for that matter. This terra icognita is Mitteleuropa for me.

Met Joao, a young man from Portugal studying in Bucharest with the Erasmus program, on the Bucharest-Budapest train. He talked about the girls in Romania, the nightlife and economics. Needless to say, we had lots in common, economics, that is. He was a nice kid, handsome in the bug-eyed, Latin kind of way.

More after the jump. Budapest photos can be found here.

Damn, this language here is way beyond me. I can't make heads or tails out of any of the signs or any of the menus. Good thing everyone speaks English here. Damn.

Travel journal, undiluted:

One pleasant surprise is the significant amount of urban renewal going on in throughout Bucharest. There is a lot more happening here than in say, Moscow. The streets are filled with new buses, not the old East-bloc types. New model Skoda's, Benz's, BMWs, Opels and Toyota's clog the streets. The traffic isn't nearly as bad as Istanbul, however. I've only seen a handful of Ladas and Volgas. The metro has been revamped and is so comprehensive that I got lost on the damn thing. It's as complicated and convoluted as the Paris metro. There are no maps in the stations and they all have that damp, musty subway smell. The train station has been somewhat restored. It has a few nice new shops--multinational book chains and a KFC and McDonald's. About 50% of the trains are now German made, shiny and new. The old Eastern-bloc Soviet types still run, but are very beat up.

I was on a mission yesterday when I walked down to the Radisson SAS Hotel for breakfast. (A meal there is probably as much as my hotel was, near the train station. Bucharest photos can be found here, by the way.)

"What would you like for breakfast, sir?" The waiter asked me.

"Two scrambled eggs, toast and eight strips of bacon," I said.

"Excuse me? Eight slices?" He asked.

"Yes, eight," I said. "If you have a whole pig back there I'll take it, actually!" I smiled.

He frowned, a puzzled look coming over his dark Gypsy eyes.

"Listen," I said. "I've been traveling in Muslim countries for almost six months and I want pork!"

"Okay," he said, taking a step back from the strange American.

"You have bacon, yes?"

"Of course," he said.

More after the jump.

The train pulled out of Sirkeci Station at 10pm sharp, bound for Bucharest. Within an hour the slow rocking of the train put me to sleep. Sometime around 300am the train stopped, the conductor rapped on the door, shouting "immigration" and the passengers filed out in a stupor. Passport stamped I climbed aboard and went back to sleep. Thirty minutes later there was another sharp rap on the door: "customs!" The officers tore my cabin apart, like cops back home with a warrant. Finally, after fifteen minutes of pillage they left, satisfied there was no contraband in my meager belongings. I fell alseep, only to be awakened again thirty minutes later by a huge, semi-toothed Bulgarian border officer. "Passport?"

I handed it over. He glanced at it long enough to realize I was American, snorted and handed it back. "Okay," he said, "good night."

"That was easy enough," I thought and went right back to sleep. I don't know how much time passed, but once again, I was awakened by a hard thump, followed by two quick knocks on my door, like rapid gunshots.

"What now!" I exclaimed in frustration.

"Eet iz passport kontrol," came a woman's voice behind the door. I fumbled with the lock on my door as images of a snaggle-toothed, heavy Bulgarian matron danced through my head. I flipped on the light, and slid open the door.

More after the jump.

It took a while for me to figure out why everything so was so calm and peaceful. (Mind you, this is very relative.) But as I was walking down the very European streets of Bucharest this afternoon (and very communist city planning it is) it came to me: I've been in the east for a very long time. A week or two shy of a year. It's just strange being in Europe. And like I said, being in Romania is very relative. It's still a pretty wild place. But, compared to my time in Bulgaria almost ten years back, it is crystal clear that accession to the European Union has drastically changed Bulgaria and Romania for the better. There is a lot of wealth here now. And the former Eastern bloc countries, while the people can still be very grim and unhappy, have a measure of stability. And it's definitely not the East. The smells are different. The lifestyle and the stares, the driving habits, the architecture, a thousand different little subtle things, plus the food are just flat out different. Seriously, I've only seen one Lada, and that was in the countryside of Bulgaria this morning! How can it be Eastern Europe and have no effing Ladas?!?

It's a strange adjustment for me to make. I've spent so much time the last 10 years in the East--I haven't been to 'Europe' except for a short stint in 'oh-so-civilized Denmark' in 2007--that I find it odd. I'll probably have a wicked case of culture shock when I get to Germany in a week or so. Oy!

Took the train from Istanbul to Bucharest last night. It was a fun train ride. I'll let the pictures do the talking.

I knew tearing myself away from this city was going to be difficult, but I had no idea I would spend my last full afternoon in a terrible state of what the Turks might call, "hüzün." If I did not have to be in Denmark in mid-June I would not leave. Soon I'll head down to the train station and have a last uskumru sandwich and watch ferries dance across the Bosporus.

I arrived on April 1, 2009 and in the blink of an eye this magical city has wooed me, wowed me, saddened me beyond measure and lifted me to the highest of heights. I will look back on this time just as I do Lake Toba, but for altogether different reasons. Toba was about disconnecting from the world in a way I'd not done in years. It was an escape, an idyll, an exotic dreamscape of guitars, new friends, peace and the warm waters of the lake I bathed in each morning. Toba was a place for me to bury the past, the obligations of home and family and in their place plant seeds that would, I hoped, spring up into a new life.

More after the jump.

From my travel journal:

May 26, 2009: We left İstanbul at noon. Navigating İstanbul traffic from Sultanhamet to the Yenikapi ferry port wasn't too hard. Getting the ferry ticket and embarking was a cinch. The ferry to Yalova took about an hour. Amanda and I listened to the music on her iPod as the wine-dark waters of the Marmara skimmed beneath us. We disembarked, gassed up and sped off into the Bithynian hills. We stopped for lunch along Ulubat Golu, a pretty lake just west of Bursa. Watched a young family play futbol along the shores and shared an Iskender kebab. Lots of tea, as always! We stopped at a pastanesi--sweet shop--about 3/5ths of the way to Izmir. Honey and pistachios. How can one go wrong?

As promised, here are the photos from Ephesus and Priene. A big shout-out to MJSteckel, for the suggestion to visit Priene.

Ephesus was a great site. And very big. But Priene, well, the view was fantastic. And the site, because it's less curated, let my imagination run wild. It was wonderful.

Enjoy.

Photos coming tomorrow. I'm off to Bucharest, or at least heading north on the 31st.

I'm surrounded by hills with olive groves running up the walls. Apricot orchards and orange groves are everywhere.

The water is a deep sapphire blue. There isn't a cloud in the sky. The local wine is wonderful.

I have a deep Aegean tan.

Ephesus was magnificent and the mountain village of Sirince was all too picturesque.

Who gets to live such a life?

(A travel diary. I've seen it done here. It's longish but I put the best stuff at the beginning to make it easy to quit. Map and pic after the jump.)

So yes, Anna, my daughter, and I got lost in the wilderness during our hike in New Mexico. Yes, we had to spend the night at the snow covered tops of  the San Pedro Peaks Wilderness at 10,000 feet elevation. Yes we got lost barely three hours into our intended seven day hike. And yes we were technically lost for two days.

But it sounds a lot worse than it was. We were prepared for the cold. We were reasonably warm under our tarp and our quilts with all our clothes on. We had three days of food and we knew which way was out.

We just didn’t know where the trail was. We couldn’t see the trail under all the snow. So really we weren’t lost. We had merely lost the trail. Yeah that’s it. The trail was lost. Not us! It just took us two days to find it again. The fact that when we got to a road and store and asked for directions; the fact that we were off our maps and nine miles from the trail; that really sounds worse than it was. Hey look, we got a ride from a 72 year old woman for four of those miles. And if we had  turned right instead of left at Forest Service Road 76, well we would have been only a mile or two from the trail. See, it sounds worse than it really was.

As is plainly obvious by now I am back in Istanbul for a brief stop-over before I head for points south west, maybe Konya, maybe Seljuk, Priene and Ephesus. We'll see what happens. The lease in my flat was up on the first of May, so I have been holing up down here in Sultanhamet, instead of the Taksim area. So, unless I fall in with a group of twenty-something futbol fans in town for the UEFA Cup (Donetsk-Shakhtar beat Weder Bremen, by the way) my social opportunities are a bit limited right now. I am considering going to the Beşiktaş-Galatasary match on Sunday night. Turkish futbol matches are a lot of fun. I did, however, have a wonderful conversation about art and architecture the other night with two lovely Norwegian septuagenerians, on their once a year European 'art vacation' as the ladies called it. They were really charming. But that's about it.

And then, serendipity always seems to intervene.

Yesterday I was strolling along the sea-walls on the Marmara shore taking some photos of an area of Istanbul I've neglected when I stumbled upon these two gentlemen. The saw me taking photos of them and called me over in English.

"Did you get good photos of us," the young one asked.

"Sure did," I said, showing him the shot in the view finder.

"Seet down," said the older one, "seet down, please."

More after the jump.

My friend Kipouros lives here in Istanbul and wrote one of the best descriptions of why this place is so wonderful, why it has such an amazing and captivating spirit:

But why does it draw people in so? It’s not necessarily physical beauty, though Istanbul has plenty despite the flood of cement that has obliterated much of its old character. When I look off the Fatih Sultan Mehmet bridge up the undulating turquoise Bosphorus, lined with brilliant white mansions below forested hills splashed with the pink of Judas trees, I often think, “when this view ceases to move me, it will be time to leave.”

These are things that draw people to the city, but what keeps them here is the inescapable warmth of the people (even if there are some we feel like strangling) and an ever-transforming, inexhaustible energy. It’s not always pleasant; a friend described Istanbul as a “city of near misses,” and it’s a good description. Everyday life can be a bit like watching the local neighborhood showoff throwing rocks at a hornet’s nest. Things could play out in lots of different ways, but you know something’s going to happen, and it will probably be interesting.

I'd encourage you to read the entire post, as he echoes many of my thoughts and feelings about this place.

More after the jump.

A last rumination on my journey through Anatolia these last three weeks (and no architecture, I promise) for those inclined, here.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled news and political blogging.

If you are so inclined, you can read about it here.

The last several days have been busy, but not a job-minded busy, just an interesting, peripatetic busy. My days seem to be growing more and more interesting and I already know I will miss Turkey when I leave on the June 1. But, by then it will be time to move on. I imagine I'll be taking an overnight train to Sophia, Bulgaria or Belgrade, Serbia. I haven't planned that far ahead yet. Probably a short stop in Budapest and then the long ride up to Denmark. No Crimea this time around. I'll save that for another trip. I'm sitting on a cafe terrace right now, looking down into the Bursa Valley. It's a nice sight. Not as epic as Eastern Anatolia, nor as wild. But it has a strong Mediterranean flavor, very Levatine. The sun is shining but huge semi-random globules of rain drop. It's nice to be in a liberal city again. I loved it out East, all the raw wildness of the place. But it was conservative. And I don't really like it when eight of ten women are covered. Bursa has a very open, lively feel.

I woke early, Saturday in Sivas, paid the hotel bill and caught the 1100am bus to Ankara. It was about 75* in Sivas, but the harsh glare of the sun made it feel 90*. I crawled onto the bus, plugged in my iPod and settled down for a long, boring drive. From Sivas to Ankara is not terribly inspiring and although there are plenty of craggy hillocks to break up the swathes of farm and pasture land, the landscape resembled the steady rise and fall of swells in the North Atlantic. Wheat, barley, shepherds and small plots of vegetables cover the countryside. Broken up only by large creeks lined with Cypress trees, surrounded by Oxbow lakes and small congregations of tents: itinerant farmers--the last vestiges of Turkish pastoral nomadism in Anatolia.

More can be read here..

Kind of says it all:

People photos from Sivas start around here.

Enjoy the rest from Bursa.

Drove to Divriği today. About 400 kilometers round trip. Rented a car. Splendid. The day was as close to perfect as could be asked. I took some rural photos for Don (i.e the one in this post, I figured he'd like seeing a field like that! And this one too.), and also I stopped at a place where they breed those Anatolian Shepherd Dogs everyone is raving about. Enjoy the photos.