Bravo, Kuwait!
Bravo, Kuwait, for the first election in years, supplying Kuwait with what the New York Times describes as a “robust” collection of representatives.
As we know, democracy is messy. It is often compared to sausage making – you don’t want to know what goes into it. Having an autocratic leader, however, leads to increasing gaps between the very wealthy and privileged, and those who are at the bottom, working their bottoms off just to put a roof over their heads and food in the mouths of their children.
I look at the turbulence and polarization in my own country and thank God for a breath of fresh air, as this news of the election in Kuwait gives me hope. We are praying for a fair election in the United States.
Christmas Markets on the Elbe Postscript: Prague to Pensacola
Our morning was actually more relaxed than we thought. Our departure from the hotel was much later, so we had time to get our bags out into the hall and even to have breakfast and brush our teeth before meeting up at the Viking desk and boarding the bus with our luggage. We had made a dramatic decision – we, who had chosen to hand carry everything with us on the way to Berlin – and we decided to check our bags, taking with us only those things we didn’t want to lose – my computer, our medications, personal items.
The lines were short, and we got checked in quickly. Loved the signs posted encouraging people to behave civilly and reasonably and mentioning consequences. It worked. People were behaving.
Our flight boarded and loaded on time. We were on Air France, which we love, headed for Paris. We had a family across from us with a beautiful, happy, smiling one-year-old baby, who delighted us. We played with her until she fell asleep, exhausted and happy.
Charles de Gaulle airport, which we always used to dread, was smooth and well organized and a quick and easy transit. Our flight was called, and we passed into the boarding area and boarded the bus. And waited.
I’ve never had this happen before. They had us de-board the bus. They brought us off the bus and back into the waiting room, where we waited, receiving conflicting information from Delta, Air France and the departure counter – there is such a thing as too many apps. The pilot had noticed a problem, and a part had to be replaced.
We were re-boarded quickly, and how thankful we were we had checked our carry-on bags. From the bus, people had to go up the cold, snow-slick stairs to board the airplane; those with carry-ons with them struggled mightily.
Once on board, oh what luxury compared to the British Air flight we had taken from Miami to London Heathrow. Room! Storage! Privacy! I watched Anatomy of a Fall, a movie I have been eager to see. I am not totally sure – no I am sure that I am NOT sure – I know what happened, but the movie held me spellbound. And then we slept, for hours. Lovely!
Storage!
Arriving in Atlanta was painless, customs and immigration were painless, and we got to our gate for the flight we were afraid we were going to miss. They called the flight. We all boarded and stowed our gear. Just as the last passengers were coming aboard, an announcement. “Please gather all your belongings and de-plane.”
The pilot has had a family emergency and had to leave, a replacement is being flown in and will arrive in an hour or so, but they don’t want us sitting on the plane that extra time. So we all grab our bags and coats and deplane. Then, in about an hour, we all board again and head for Pensacola.
When we arrived, we were only a couple hours later than we had anticipated, and best of all, it was the same day. We got home safely, did some unpacking and settling into our spaces, greeted our cats, and fell into our beds, thankful for a safe, if bizarre return journey.
Christmas Markets on the Elbe: Prague Day 2
An Even Better Day Than We Had Planned
We woke up fresh and decided to walk to Prague Castle from Clock Tower Square. We had a lavish buffet breakfast with friends departing very early the next morning, and then we headed out to find Bus 194, which came within moments.
Our intention was to get off at the Astronomical Clock Square, from where we could cross the bridge and hike up to the castle.
Once again, Bus 194 traveled the back roads but did not stop at the Clock Tower Square, so we just stayed on, and discovered it took us up a steep hill to the German Embassy, where we got off. On the advice of some friendly Czech police, we headed straight up the hill, and then across what I call a meadow and AdventureMan calls a park.
They have the most beautiful manhole covers!
The first photo above is the road we have walked up. The second is the road we will walk up to get to the path that crosses the meadow. You can see the monastery in the upper right of the above photo.
It was cold and snowy, but we were bundled up and happy to be out hiking. I have my clunky walking shoes on, and although the path is treacherous, snowy, icy and slick, my sticky soles have a good grip.
We came to a Monastery with a fabulous overview of Prague, and met up with several groups of happy Germans.
We continue on towards the castle.
We had some good laughs, and headed toward the Prague Castle, happily all downhill. Entrance was free, and the castle, on this cold, snowy December day was packed with tourists from all nations.
There is slush and ice everywhere, and these crews are in all heavily touristed areas, trying to clear paths and streets so they will be less dangerous. Meanwhile, the snow continues. Magical for us, a pain for them.
We hurried through the castle, and headed down the hill back to the city, stopping only at The Best Christmas Shop in Prague (and I believe it!) and the Lobkowitz Palace, where we had hot drinks – hot chocolate with whipped cream, a hot ginger lemonade, fabulous and not too sweet. We split a half-sweet chocolate cake and delighted in the surroundings – lots of families with bundled-up children, and lots of people from other places.
As AdventureMan paid, I went out to use the rest room which had a turnstile and coin machine. I started to put a coin in and a woman stopped me and said “No! I saw you in the restaurant! Your chit will let you in free! Go back and get a chit!” so I went back and got a token, and when I got there, another woman said “No! No! Don’t put in anything! The code is 1-1-1-1, just put in the code.” So I did.
When I had finished, on my way up the stairs, I saw a young couple trying to figure out how the machine worked, and I, in turn, said “No! Just put in 1-1-1-1!” and they did.
As we headed back into the city, I found a shop with garnets and amber, and I had hoped to find some new garnet earrings to replace the pair I bought there in 1990, my first visit. The shopkeeper was lovely, and a great saleswoman, and when I told her I could not take the large garnets I had been looking at, she asked if they were too heavy, and I laughed and said “No! Too expensive,” and like my good jewelers in Doha and Kuwait, she offered to make me a special deal for Christmas.
I chose a smaller pair, and she still gave me a better price, so I was very happy. As we completed the deal, we asked her for the name of a good Czech restaurant, a place she might eat with friends, not fancy but with a good atmosphere, and she sent us just up the street and around the corner to Potrafena Husa, in a less traveled part of town.
We went there, and oh, what fun we had. I ordered the duck confit and ginger lemonade, and AdventureMan had a schnitzel and a beer. We both love the Czech beer.
We wandered through the market, and enjoyed one of the hollow hand-held cinnamon breads traditional at this time of year. They come with different fillings, but I just wanted the plain – it has cinnamon sugar on it and that is enough for me. I could eat them forever; they are so light and tasty; they taste like Christmas!
A great time, loved the experience of the Christmas Market, but it is time to think about our return. Once again, we were over 15,000 steps and getting a little anxious about making sure we were packed and ready for our departure tomorrow. We found the 194 bus, headed home, were held up by a narrow-street accident and six police cars, but finally made it back to the Hilton.
We packed, we organized, and just as I was lying in bed working on the Bad Schandau section of this journal, I got a text from Delta. Our flight has been canceled out of Prague.
No offers of help to rebook. I read the message to AdventureMan as I hurriedly dressed. I was in shock, and at first, AdventureMan thought I was kidding.
No, I wasn’t kidding. We needed help. We needed to get to the Viking desk in the Hilton and get some serious juice working to resolve this, to get us home. Fortunately, we had booked with Viking and used Viking travel. They are so good when things go wrong, and can make it right.
Eve, the Cruise Director who had made everything so smooth on the Beyla, is still with us, and as soon as we see her, we tell her our news and she gets right on a call with Viking Travel. Although the wait seemed excruciating, soon Eva had us booked on another flight getting us into Pensacola the same day, a little later but the same day. She had worked a miracle. Our bags would be picked up later, we had a later departure, and we were on Air France, our favorite airline.
AdventureMan mentioned that our pick-up time for the canceled flight also had another couple, so Eva called them. They had also been resting (it’s the demographic). They checked their messages and they, too, had been canceled. By the time we left, we saw just how capable Eva was, dealing calmly with so many anxious passengers who needed rescheduling.
Another passenger who had used the Hilton ATM to change money found a $16,000 charge on his card that he had not made, his card was blocked, and he and his wife could not use Uber, could not charge anything, food, drinks, anything! And, of course, he was very concerned about how $16,000 could be charged to his card when he did not do it.
One by one, Eva patiently handled these individual disasters, without drama, but with great calmness and competency. We admired her before, on the cruise ship, organizing and re-organizing as things came apart, always calm. Watching her in action with such a variety of needs only increased our admiration.
We had some goals for this trip. We wanted to enjoy the sights, eat winter foods, and find some garnet earrings. Done. AdventureMan wanted a real Afghan kebab for dinner, and we had seen a place near the Hilton where we catch Bus 194, so we headed out, ordered kebab from an Afghani young man who told us he works like a robot, just work, and friends, and send all his money home. We have heard this story so many times; these young men work so hard to support their families far away, not just with food but with money for school tuition, clothes, and their families’ many needs. The kebabs were huge, full of tasty vegetables, and heaped with lamb. We brought them back to the hotel and couldn’t eat half, they were so big.
Now, hoping and believing we really do have a flight tomorrow, we are packed, and hoping to get a good night’s sleep before rising early to get our bags out in the hallway for transportation to the airport. As a last-minute change, we are checking our carry-on bags and taking with us only what we need.
We agree, for so many reasons, this has been one of our best vacations ever. We loved the magic of the snow the entire journey and the walk over Glienicker Bridge. The Beyla is a small ship, and we got to know several people well, and have great conversations over noticeably great meals on board. We found that almost every Viking guide we had, particularly in Berlin, Potsdam, and Dresden, was outstanding. The markets were so much fun. The people were welcoming and engaging. We hate for this vacation to end.
Christmas Markets on the Elbe: Prague Day One
Bags outside the door by 0645, down to breakfast, back to the room to brush teeth, and get ready for the bus ride to Prague. It was a longer ride than I had anticipated, through snowy, icy roads and I regretted having both orange juice AND coffee with breakfast. I was eager to get off the bus in Prague quickly and find the nearest ladles’ room, and thanking God for getting me there in a timely fashion.
The Prague Hilton is huge. I am so thankful it is mid-winter, not even the peak of winter travel, and that it is not crowded. There is a large poker tournament going on. The Viking people have their own desk and helpers, we always know where to go with a question or a problem.
We set off immediately for our Prague tour, briefly on the bus which dropped us off near the Charles Bridge.
Our guide uses a Quiet Voice system, so we have ear-pieces on. We can hear her from about thirty feet or less, so while we are having our picture taken, we are also listening to her tell us stuff. Mostly to stick together as a group. There must be a hundred groups crossing the Charles Bridge.
So many tourists! You can’t imagine! We have crossed this bridge before, other years, even on New Year’s Eve Day, with our son – never like this. Prague is discovered.
We walked, crossed a small portion of the bridge with lots of tourists, walked a little around Old Prague – not going inside, and then, just around when the Astrological clock would be striking, then the guide took us down in the basement of the Bethlehem church for some kind of exhibition – we were free to use the restrooms and warm up, but we had hardly been out long enough to get cold. As we left the church, we told the guide we would leave and make our way back to the hotel on our own.
We eat the Bulgarians lunch
Ah! Free at last! We love roaming, and we were hungry. We found a wonderful restaurant, Deer, just about full, but room for us.
It was beautiful, and the beer was good, and we ordered deer, a consommé, and deer ravioli for me and a “fallow” deer for my husband. My consommé arrived, and it was light and delicious. Then our meals arrived, (sorry, we were hungry and forgot to take photos) and my husband’s was right and mine was not, but it looked great so I figured we might have been misunderstood and we ate our meals with delight.
As it came time to pay, the waitress brought our bill and AdventureMan looked it over – it was the original order, AdventureMan told her I had received, and eaten the more expensive meal, and would she adjust the bill so we would pay (more) for what we had eaten.
With some confusion, she went away, came back with the corrected bill – and told the people at the next table that there had been some confusion, and we had received their meal. We apologized profusely, and we were all laughing. They asked the waitress to please hurry the same meal to them and we had a great conversation, as we waited, them asking us if it had been a good meal and us assuring them it had been delicious. So much goodwill. They didn’t hate us for eating their lunch!
We found the main market, at the Clock Tower, and wandered around.
I checked Google and there was a bus from right at the market directly to our hotel, Bus 194, and we caught it. How cool is that? Equally cool is that in Prague, public transportation is free if you are 70 or older (some say 65). You MUST have ID with you to prove your age, but you ride FREE!
It took us through the narrow back streets of Prague, past interesting hotels and restaurants way off the beaten track. At one point the driver had to get out and move a garbage can in his way – the streets were VERY narrow. It was great fun and dropped us near the Prague Hilton.
We rested – we had already done 15,000 steps. We wanted to head to another Christmas Market. Confident we now understood the bus system, I asked Google Maps how to get to bus 135, but every bus that arrived with that number said (something in Czech) and DO NOT GET ON THIS BUS so we figured out they were going out of service. After waiting over an hour for one in service, we were really cold so we came back and ate a thoroughly mediocre expensive meal at the Hilton. Another day with over 17,000 steps – it has become routine on this trip 😁.
Christmas Markets on the Elbe: Meissen
We left Torgau early in the morning cruising slowly through the snowy landscape to Meissen, with an arrival just after lunch. We are all delighted for the opportunity to catch up – re-organize our suitcases, catch up on e-mails, just watch the Elbe drift by – so very rural, all the way. Churches. Monasteries. Fields. People are out walking their dogs. We love that so many wave at the boat.
We are right in the middle of the demographic on board. There are some young sixty’s. There is one woman, stalwart and brave, who is 88. We like her a lot. The people who have chosen this cruise are interesting; we all tend to switch around at meals and have gotten to know one another. When there are only maybe 90 passengers, you become familiar quickly. There is one group of maybe 22 people who were all from Philadelphia, worked together in a start-up back-in-the-day, and who have traveled together for years. They are also good mixers.
The big topic is The Next Chapter. Some of us have already downsized, some are in the process, and some are contemplating it. While I was not a big collector as a young wife, I do have treasures, some with which I have parted, and some of my Middle East treasures passed along to Little Diamond. The problem we all have is that we all have treasures our children and our culture no longer value. Times are changing, no one wants a buggy whip or fine china or crystal champagne glasses for 40 people, LOL.
We board the bus for the Meissen factory, but once there, we told Eve we would take off and we could make our way back to the boat on our own. I think she was taken aback, but she rolled with it after asking Gary “You don’t want to learn about porcelain making?” and then to me, in disbelief “You don’t want to buy some Meissen pieces?” “No,” I responded, “We just want to walk and enjoy our time here.” And she let us go.
We stopped and picked up money at the ATM, limited to under $500/day. That would be plenty, except that we are trying to gather funds for our June trip with the family. I asked some nice women, one with a baby carriage, how to get to the market, and they gave me simple directions. I can still speak and understand the simplest German, not the complicated German.
The town hall has numbered its windows like an Advent Calender, and they open to a different display with each day. We walked around the market – and then headed up to the cathedral on the top of the hill, a hike of several hundred steps uphill, with a few level areas where we could catch our breath as much younger hikers breezed past us. It’s humbling.
But what a thrill to reach the top, see the massive church complex at the top of the hill, look out over 180 degrees of vineyards, the Elbe, the old city of Meissen and the newer areas.
Sometimes, when you’ve done something like climb straight uphill on snowy, icy steps, and you’ve made it – it’s just great to be alive.
We slowly wound our way down the hill via the streets, and the steps, ending up back in the old market. Nearby, we found a cafe where we ordered the hot chocolate (it comes with lots of whipped cream) and apfelstrudel.
I actually like the decorations sold in some of these specialty shops better than the goods I see in the Christmas Markets.
The walk back to the ship was actually very short, but also windy and we were cold when we got back. I snuggled up under the featherbed for a nice, but short snooze. It was the Viking Explorers cocktail hour night, special drinks and hors d’oeuvres, and then the announcement of the German Night dinner and our Port talk for the next day’s visit to Dresden, 90% destroyed by allied bombers near the end of WWII.
Not my favorite dinner, but lovely for those unfamiliar with German food. Heavy emphasis on Bavarian fare, blue and white decorations, sausages on the table, first course of charcuterie, nice cuts of black forest ham, salami, and some very nice cheeses (sort of odd progression.) Then a buffet of primarily sausages and noodles, rot kohl, but also some sauerbraten and chicken schnitzel, which I had with green salad and a little potato salad. Skipped dessert, still happy with the afternoon’s apfelstrudel. Around 2030 my husband kicked me under the table to indicate he was ready to leave. Got things ready for the next day, got ready for bed, and had one of the best night’s sleep since we arrived.
Christmas Markets on the Elbe: Berlin to Potsdam
We spent so many hours planning our time in Berlin, only to realize no matter how many hours we stayed up, we could never do it all. We looked at each other and laughed, knowing a great part of the fun of this trip had been the anticipation and the planning. We actually did the most important things to us in Berlin; we visited “The East” freely. We visited the repaired and restored Reichstag. We saw Checkpoint Charlie, only a relic now, signifying nothing to fear. You can breathe in an open society. Everyone can breathe.
Our bags had to be in the hall by 0630 to be transferred to the ship, which meant packing them the night before and having what you needed to get through the day to the 1600 boarding. None of us got it really right, but it was a lot of fun.
Breakfast was a rat race, with all the Viking passengers needing to be fed and ready for an 0820 departure. Most of us were on the bus, but others straggled, and one couple didn’t make it at all. They overslept, and I don’t know if they made it onto the second bus or were driven to the boat.
GLIENICKE BRIDGE
We had a lovely guide again, very good, very thorough, Lothar. We toured old neighborhoods in Berlin, on our way to the old corridor from the island of West Berlin towards the West, on our way to Sans Souci, the summer palace of King Fredrick II. Lothar shared with us being a young boy in Berlin, taking trips out to Italy in the summer, going through this corridor, and receiving terrible treatment at the hands of the East Germans. We had a wonderful surprise, a stop a the Glenicke Bridge, the old “Bridge of Spies” where Frances Gary Powers was exchanged for a Soviet Spy, each crossing the bridge to freedom. We got out of the bus and walked across.
Here is where I realized a big mistake. I was planning a walk through Sans Souci Palace, and rather than wear my wonderful but clunky walking shoes, I was wearing my tights – and sandals. It’s a palace, right? To get to the palace, we walked about half a kilometer on ice with a thin coating of snow. My feet were not cold, but my sandals were not good at gripping, and it was slippery. I made it, with feet just a little damp. No big deal, we also walked in the snow once we got to Sans Souci, and I was not the only one who had made a bad call on footwear. We all survived. From this day on, however, I wore my clunky walking shoes, which have miraculously sticky soles.
We had audio phones to guide us through the palace, and AdventureMan and I laughed. We listened to the whole lecture in room 1, but with each room, our attention span got shorter and shorter. The palace is spectacularly decorated – as you will see. Each room has a theme. There are many more rooms – I never saw a kitchen, for example, or a water closet. But the decor was spectacular.
I lived in Germany off and on for many years. As I walked through this sumptuously decorated castle, truly exquisite, I couldn’t help but think how most of the poorest families in the Western World live better than the lords of old. Almost every house now has indoor plumbing and some kind of heat. Those beds, to me, look small, and lumpy. Frederick II who built this little escape hideaway lived a lonely and circumscribed life, with a manipulative, brutal father and heavy expectations on his shoulders. I think of how many people it took to maintain this palace, mostly for one man who entertained little. I think of the lives of those who served him, and wondered what they ate, how they slept at night – the tour did not include the back areas of the palace.
Then on to Cecilianhof, where the Potsdam Conference was held to negotiate the end of World War II. Lothar led the group on a tour outside the building, I walked around the other way, just in need of some quiet and some time by myself. The grounds were covered with snow, snow weighted down the boughs of the trees and coated the bushes – it was beautiful.
The sun came out and gleamed off the snow. It was quiet, so quiet. We had been privileged to visit Cecilianhof with friends many years ago; we have a photo of our son behind the desk where the documents were signed. It was an impossible private visit, only possible because of our friends, and such moments cannot be repeated, only appreciated.
From Cecilianhof we were dropped off in Potsdam, at the Christmas Market. AdventureMan and I went off looking for a place to eat and found it within minutes – a Sicilian restaurant, Assoggi, sunny and bright, where we had amazing food and a delicious white wine, and still had time for a walk through the market before we had to be back on the bus for our drive to board the Beyla in Wittenberg.
Above is planked salmon. We saw it once before, four years ago at the Strasbourg Christmas Market, but rarely since then.
We were glad to board the bus when it showed up. After our wonderful Italian lunch, we were a little chilled by a brisk wind as we looked at the Christmas Market. We were ready to see our ship!
Chilly sunset on the way to Wittenberg.
Waiting for us on board the Beyla:
We were shown to our cabin, we quickly unpacked and headed to the lounge for the Welcome Aboard briefing and directions for the next day.
Our Cruise Director, a soul of amazing patience with the cats she has to herd, introduced us to the crew and staff and filled us in on what to expect on our tour of Wittenberg.
We also learned there would be a mandatory safety drill at 2:30 the next day where we all needed to show up at our designated stations in our life jackets, although the Elbe is a very shallow river and if we were sinking, we could walk to shore, so there were hoots of laughter.
There is a couple we have run into frequently, Don and Janice, and we always have good conversations, so we joined with them for dinner. Don was a cautionary story to us all – his bags did not arrive with him in Berlin. Every day, he would ask and Viking would check, and the bags could not be found. He had one extra set of clothing with him and would wear one set of clothing while each day Viking washed and pressed his other set. He was a great sport about the whole thing, and on the very last day of the trip, he was reunited with his bags.
Dinner on board the Beyla the first night was heaven. Roasted Duck Breast was one of the meals I had most looked forward to while planning this trip. The chef is awesome and did a great job on the duck and the wine reduction. It was a wonderful memorable meal.
We gave the tree-trimming party a pass – long day, once again, and we needed to get to bed.
Berlin: Too Little Time!
We slept well, except for that wide-awake part around 1:30 a.m., but we got back to sleep and then nearly died trying to get up at 7:00 a.m. for a 7:30 breakfast and our morning tour of Berlin. We were so tempted to just skip it, but we didn’t. I know you will ask, looking at these photos, weren’t you cold?
We weren’t! We have lovely heavy coats we bought in Germany years ago, and layers of clothing underneath that keep us warm and toasty, even when lost in a snowy park.
Lovely breakfast buffet, lots of healthy options, only a little skimpy on the coffee. It is cold and snowing, but we are dressed for it, and not having any problems.
We have been assigned to the purple bus, which will depart at 0800 and we have been told we must be ready to board at 8. The grey bus will board at 8:30. Gathering in the hotel reception was a lot of fun; the Grand Hyatt has decorators who will transform the hotel into a Christmas wonderland. We got to watch the beginning of the huge poinsettia tree.
Our purple bus left at 8:30, with our guide, Peter, who turned out to be superb. He was knowledgeable and objective, and when he was giving an opinion, he was quick to identify it as opinion, personal experience, or anecdotal information. We started with a drive to the Reichstag and Brandenburg gate, where we had time for a walk and photos.
(Some of these photos are less than clear – I had a real problem focusing the camera when it was snowing. The camera didn’t know where to focus. Many of my best photos were taken with the humble iPhone rather than the usually reliable camera.)
(Above is the Reichstag, which we visited later in the day to climb to the top and peer down into the legislative chambers where elected officials are conducting state business. Below is Brandenburg Gate)
We toured the Kufurstendam, and Checkpoint Charlie, and had a thorough drive through the neighborhoods of the former West Berlin, before returning to our starting point and heading into the former Eastern Zone. Peter outlined the post WWII history of Berlin, the building of the wall, and the fall of the Wall. He has personally met and guided several US Presidents and rock musicians (he was most delighted with the musicians). It was an amazing four hours that passed quickly.
We ended with an hour at Beberplatz, where there is a Christmas Market moved from the famous Gendermanplatz because there is some kind of restoration going on there. Beberplatz is also the site of the Nazi book-burning, and a memorial of that horror, library shelves empty of books. Horrors!
We always needed to have a 50-cent coin or a 1 Euro coin to use for the bathrooms, something we never think of in the USA. The pay WCs were always immaculate, and heated!
Back at the hotel, we grabbed a quick Syrian meal at the food court at the nearby mall, which was a hangout for young people, and great for people watching.
We tried without success to withdraw money from three ATMs and were horrified to be told there was a “system problem.”
Back in our room, we were preparing for our visit to the Reichstag, The German equivalent of our US Congress, when we got a message from our bank asking us to contact their fraud department. After a lengthy confirmation process, we were cleared for ATM withdrawals after 24 hours, and just had time to hop in a taxi to get to the Reichstag in time for our appointment.
Visiting the Reichstag was a thrill. We weren’t sure we would get in. We had a letter saying we would be vetted, but we didn’t have a confirmation letter. They scowled at us disapprovingly and then – a miracle! They found our names on the list of people who were permitted! Wooo HOOO! We were escorted to the building, and to the top level of the Reichstag proper, then climbed around and around to the very top.
We could see outside some of the windows in the climb but due to all the snow, many of the windows were totally blocked. We could look down and watch their congressional delegates doing business in the chamber. It was more than a metaphor for transparent government; it was a statement of the belief that government in a Democracy is meant to be transparent.
We watched as several groups of Germans visiting from various small towns and cities met with their congressman/woman for photos; it was joyful!
By the time we left, it was dark, but we knew it was only a twenty-minute walk back, and although it was very very cold, it was not snowing heavily and we thought on a major street, what could go wrong?
We got on the wrong major street. Fortunately, about twenty minutes into the walk AdventureMan realized we were not going in the right direction, and we made a correction. Then, using our tired-end-of-the-day judgment, we decided to cut through a park, where we saw rabbits, and statues of moose and buffalo, and realized once again, we had no idea where we were going. Fortunately, Berlin is full of athletes, and we hailed a biker who was very kind and got us to a street where we could quickly get back to our hotel. Whew!
Being lost, at the end of a long day, in a cold snowy park in the middle of a big city was a little scary, but, compared to the thrill of seeing the Reichstag, hiking to the top, seeing the overview of Berlin, and experiencing so much in one day – getting lost was a small thing.
At the end of the day, we had done more than 17,000 steps. My “record” is 20,000 steps, but it was Monument Valley, and my FitBit confused our ride in the bumpy Land Rover down into the valley with real steps and . . . I never bothered to correct it. But THESE 17,000 steps are all mine!
The finished Poinsettia Tree:
This Berlin we visited today is a far cry from the Berlin we once knew, an island surrounded by an arbitrary and authoritarian government with clearly stated intentions of wiping out the taint of democracy at the first opportunity. This is an open, sophisticated city. It is full of restaurants of all nationalities, and people from all nations, who seem to live together in tolerance and peace, and who express a desire to keep it this way. It is almost too much to absorb. Wait – is that a German eagle at the top of the Poinsettia Christmas tree?
We ache. AdventureMan used up all the bath salts, so the desk said they would send more up and we each had a long soak for our aching bodies. We slept well and were fine for the next day.
More Than 500 Mass Shootings in USA 2023
This week I needed to make a trip to WalMart. For the first time, I asked AdventureMan to go with me. I felt unsafe, going to WalMart. Pensacola is rife with emotionally unregulated people carrying guns. Florida is worse. Do gun “rats” enthusiasts not realize that most gun deaths are people shooting people in their own families or social circles, or shooting themselves? The mass shootings below are just the tip of the iceburg.
This is from Axios:
U.S. surpasses 500 mass shootings in 2023
Share on email (opens in new window)https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/oLfvX/Data: Gun Violence Archive; Note: Includes incidents where at least four people were shot or killed, excluding the shooter; Chart: Simran Parwani/Axios
There have now been 501 mass shootings in the U.S. this year.
Driving the news: A shooting that wounded four people in Denver, Colorado, on Saturday night marked the country’s 500th mass shooting in 2023, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
- Hours later, that increased to 501 mass shootings after one person died and five others were wounded in El Paso, Texas, early Sunday.
By the numbers: Just five years ago, the country had never experienced 500 mass shootings in one year:
- 2018: 335 mass shootings
- 2019: 414 mass shootings
- 2020: 610 mass shootings
- 2021: 689 mass shootings
- 2022: 645 mass shootings
Flashback: The 500 mass shootings threshold was crossed in September in the past two years, according to the archive.
- In 2020, it occurred in October.
Between the lines: The FBI does not define or quantify what constitutes a mass shooting.
- Gun Violence Archive, an independent research and data collection organization, defines a mass shooting as a shooting in which four or more people were shot or killed, not including the shooter. This makes its numbers higher than some other sources with varying definitions.
Of note: A January shooting on the eve of Lunar New Year in Monterey Park, California, a largely Asian American area, has caused the most deaths so far in 2023. Eleven people were killed and nine others injured in the massacre.
- The most injuries related to gun violence occurred in April at a birthday party shooting in Dadeville, Ala., that left four people dead and 32 others injured.
The big picture: With increasing personal experiences, more Americans view gun violence as a public health concern.
- One in six Americans have personally witnessed someone being shot, according to survey data from earlier this year.
Zoom in: Gun violence has greatly affected children. Firearms are the top killer of kids in the country.
- Gun deaths among children hit a record high in 2021, per data released in August.
- There were 305 school shootings in 2022 and 230 by Sept. 5 in 2023, according to the K-12 School Shooting Database.
Go deeper: Gun deaths among U.S. children hit a new record high
It’s a Matter of Taste
“Would you like a biscotti?” AdventureMan says as he pops by my workshop, checking in.
“Np, but thanks,” I usually respond – I am less vulnerable to sweet than to salty, although neither are good for me, a diabetic. Even some fruits you would think are healthy are too sweet for me in more than a small amount, showing up in the blood sugar count the next day. I am careful.
But salty – oh bring it on. Chicken Chongqing, anchovies, popcorn, pretzles – those, too, I can eat in moderation, and have a harder time resisting.
So this morning, I found this wonderful article on scientists finding that we perceive salty in two different ways, at least, “salt!” and “too much salt!” It’s long, but fascinating.
<p class="article-info" />
Salt taste is surprisingly mysterious
Too much sodium is bad, but so is too little — no wonder the body has two sensing mechanisms
By Amber Dance
9.13.2023
Salt taste is surprisingly mysterious
Too much sodium is bad, but so is too little — no wonder the body has two sensing mechanisms
By Amber Dance 09.13.2023
We’ve all heard of the five tastes our tongues can detect — sweet, sour, bitter, savory-umami and salty. But the real number is actually six, because we have two separate salt-taste systems. One of them detects the attractive, relatively low levels of salt that make potato chips taste delicious. The other one registers high levels of salt — enough to make overly salted food offensive and deter overconsumption.
Matching meals to metabolism
Exactly how our taste buds sense the two kinds of saltiness is a mystery that’s taken some 40 years of scientific inquiry to unravel, and researchers haven’t solved all the details yet. In fact, the more they look at salt sensation, the weirder it gets.
Many other details of taste have been worked out over the past 25 years. For sweet, bitter and umami, it’s known that molecular receptors on certain taste bud cells recognize the food molecules and, when activated, kick off a series of events that ultimately sends signals to the brain.
Sour is slightly different: It is detected by taste bud cells that respond to acidity, researchers recently learned.
In the case of salt, scientists understand many details about the low-salt receptor, but a complete description of the high-salt receptor has lagged, as has an understanding of which taste bud cells host each detector.
“There are a lot of gaps still in our knowledge — especially salt taste. I would call it one of the biggest gaps,” says Maik Behrens, a taste researcher at the Leibniz Institute for Food Systems Biology in Freising, Germany. “There are always missing pieces in the puzzle.”
A fine balance
Our dual perception of saltiness helps us to walk a tightrope between the two faces of sodium, an element that’s crucial for the function of muscles and nerves but dangerous in high quantities. To tightly control salt levels, the body manages the amount of sodium it lets out in urine, and controls how much comes in through the mouth.
“It’s the Goldilocks principle,” says Stephen Roper, a neuroscientist at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine in Florida. “You don’t want too much; you don’t want too little; you want just the right amount.”
If an animal takes in too much salt, the body tries to compensate, holding on to water so the blood won’t be overly salty. In many people, that extra fluid volume raises blood pressure. The excess fluid puts strain on the arteries; over time, it can damage them and create the conditions for heart disease or stroke.
But some salt is necessary for body systems, for example to transmit electrical signals that underlie thoughts and sensations. Consequences of too little salt include muscle cramps and nausea — that’s why athletes chug Gatorade to replace the salt lost in sweat — and, if enough time passes, shock or death.
Scientists in search of salt taste receptors already knew that our bodies have special proteins that act as channels to allow sodium to cross nerve membranes for the purpose of sending nerve impulses. But the cells in our mouth, they reasoned, must have some additional, special way to respond to sodium in food.
A key clue to the mechanism came in the 1980s, when scientists experimented with a drug that prevents sodium from entering kidney cells. This drug, when applied to rats’ tongues, impeded their ability to detect salty stimuli. Kidney cells, it turns out, use a molecule called ENaC (pronounced “ee-nack”) to suck extra sodium from blood and help maintain proper blood salt levels. The finding suggested that salt-sensing taste bud cells used ENaC too.
To prove it, scientists engineered mice to lack the ENaC channel in their taste buds. These mice lost their normal preference for mildly salty solutions, the scientists reported in 2010 — confirming that ENaC was, indeed, the good-salt receptor.
So far, so good. But to truly understand how the good-salt taste worked, scientists would also need to know how the entry of sodium into taste buds is translated into a “Yum, salty!” sensation. “It’s what gets sent to the brain that’s important,” says Nick Ryba, a neuroscientist at the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research in Bethesda, Maryland, who was involved in linking ENaC to salt taste.
And to understand that signal transmission, scientists needed to find where in the mouth the signal started.
The answer might seem obvious: The signal would start from the specific set of taste bud cells that contain ENaC and that are sensitive to tasty levels of sodium. But those cells didn’t prove simple to find. ENaC, it turns out, is made up of three different pieces, and although individual pieces are found in various places in the mouth scientists had a hard time finding cells containing all three.
In 2020, a team led by physiologist Akiyuki Taruno at the Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine in Japan reported that they had identified the sodium-taste cells at last. The researchers started with the assumption that sodium-sensing cells would spark an electrical signal when salt was present, but not if the EnaC blocker was there too. They found just such a population of cells inside taste buds isolated from the middle of mouse tongues, and these turned out to make all three components of the ENaC sodium channel.
Scientists can thus now describe where and how animals perceive desirable levels of salt. When there are enough sodium ions outside those key taste bud cells in the mid-tongue area, the ions can enter these cells using the three-part ENaC gateway. This rebalances the sodium concentrations inside and outside the cells. But it also redistributes the levels of positive and negative charges across the cell’s membrane. This change activates an electrical signal inside the cell. The taste bud cell then sends the “Mmmm, salty!” message onward to the brain.
Too salty!
But this system doesn’t explain the “Blech, too much salt!” signal that people also can get, usually when we taste something that’s more than twice as salty as our blood. Here, the story is less clear.
The other component of salt — chloride — might be key, some studies suggest. Recall that salt’s chemical structure is sodium chloride, though when dissolved in water it separates into positively charged sodium ions and negatively charged chloride ions. Sodium chloride creates the saltiest high-salt sensation, while sodium paired with larger, multi-atom partners tastes less salty. This suggests that sodium’s partner might be an important contributor to the high-salt sensation, with some partners tasting saltier than others. But as to exactly how chloride might cause high-salt taste, “Nobody has a clue,” says Roper.
One hint came from work by Ryba and colleagues with an ingredient of mustard oil: In 2013, they reported that this component reduced the high-salt signal in mouse tongues. Weirdly, the same mustard-oil compound also nearly eliminated the tongue’s response to bitter taste, as if the high-salt-sensing system was piggybacking onto the bitter-tasting system.
And it got odder still: Sour-taste cells seemed to respond to high salt levels, too. Mice lacking one or the other of the bitter- or sour-taste systems were less put off by extremely salty water, while those lacking both happily slurped down the salty stuff.
Stay in the Know
Sign up for the Knowable Magazine newsletter today
Not all scientists are convinced, but the findings, if confirmed, raise an interesting question: Why don’t super-salty things taste bitter and sour too? It could be because the too-salty taste is the sum of multiple signals, not just one input, says Michael Gordon, a neuroscientist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, who coauthored, with Taruno, a discussion of the knowns and unknowns of salt taste in the 2023 Annual Review of Physiology.
Despite the mustard oil lead, attempts to find the receptor molecule responsible for the high-salt taste sensation have so far been inconclusive. In 2021, a Japanese team reported that cells containing TMC4 — a molecular channel that lets chloride ions into cells — generated signals when exposed to high levels of salt in lab dishes. But when the researchers engineered mice without the TMC4 channel anywhere in their bodies, it didn’t make much difference to their aversion to extremely salty water. “There’s no definitive answer at this point,” Gordon says.
As a further complication, there’s no way to be sure that mice perceive salty tastes in exactly the same way that people do. “Our knowledge of salt taste in humans is actually quite limited,” says Gordon. People can certainly distinguish desirable, lower-salt levels from the foul, high-salt sensation, and the same ENaC receptor used by mice seems to be involved. But studies with the ENaC sodium channel blocker in people vary confusingly, sometimes seeming to diminish salt taste but other times to enhance it.
A possible explanation is the fact that people have a fourth, extra piece of ENaC, called the delta subunit, that rodents lack. It can take the place of one of the other pieces, perhaps making a version of the channel that is less sensitive to the ENaC blocker.
Forty years into investigations of salt taste, researchers are still left with questions about how people’s tongues perceive salt and how the brain sorts those sensations into “just right” versus “too much” amounts. At stake is more than just satisfying a scientific curiosity: Given the cardiovascular risks that a high-salt diet poses to some of us, it’s important to understand the process.
Researchers even dream of developing better salt alternatives or enhancers that would create the “yum” without the health risks. But it’s clear they have more work to do before they invent something we can sprinkle on our dinner plates with abandon, free of health worries.
10.1146/knowable-091223-2
Amber Dance, a science journalist in the Los Angeles area, enjoys experimenting with her collection of fancy finishing salts.
Exploring Kelley’s Ancient Echoes
I got up early, caught up on e-mails, and lectionary readings, then AdventureMan got up and we had breakfast. We dressed for hiking, took our full water bottles and headed out, eager to explore the grounds at Ancient Echoes at Kelly’s. The Canyon of the Ancients is in our backyard! We are good hikers, confident hikers. We are eager!
We visited the old pueblo house and the underground kiva, saw Cecelia, one of the owners, making mounds for planting corn, beans and squash (the three sisters of the ancients in these parts), and asked her some questions about the grounds, and then headed off past the casitas, past up into the hills to visit more ancient ruins. It was shady and cool, and an easy path. “Just follow the cairns” Cecelia had told us, to the top of the ridge. Keep your eye on the spire.
We crossed the arroyo and headed up and down the trail until we reached the barbed wire at the top of the ridge, passing the ancient ruins. Deciding to turn back – it was getting hotter – we backtracked, following cairns (rocks piled in a deliberate style to guide trekkers) we crossed the arroyo and headed for a cairn on the opposite ridge. It was much more difficult, as we had to find a diagonal way up a sheer red stone face, which, huffing and puffing, we did.
Looking for the next cairn, AM found a circle of stones, and we looked at each other – we didn’t remember seeing a circle of stones before. We couldn’t find any more cairns, either. We roamed back and forth on the ridge, circling back to a tree where we would rest. It kept getting hotter, and our water was running shorter. In the steeper areas we were rock climbing, on hands and knees, not as easy as when we were younger. We crossed to the next ridge, from which we could see Kelly’s camp clearly, see our own suite clearly, but from which we could not descend because it was steep and ended in an overhang with a drop.
Finally, knowing where we needed to be, we headed back to the arroyo, and down the arroyo a little farther where we found our missing trail. We were so delighted to find our way home again after being on the trail over three hours more than a little afraid we would be “those elderly people who were found by the rescue team.” We were so thankful when we found the right trail. We were probably dehydrated as well as exhausted. We fell into bed and slept, awakening stiff from climbing up and down the hills and arroyo. We finished our BBQ sandwiches and spent the afternoon reading and relaxing.
Re-energized, we went into Cortez for dinner at the Farm Bistro, a popular local restaurant specializing in local sourcing. I had a yak burger, made from real local yaks, and AM had the French Onion soup and an Antipasto platter, with local meats and cheeses. It was very good, and a relaxing way to end our day.
We found the City Market and picked up parsley and garlic bread for the next day, and gassed up the car.
In the middle of the night, I heard the weirdest scratching, like something was in the walls. It woke AM, too, and we banged on the walls and told it to go away – and it did, then it would come back again. After about an hour and a half, we made it feel unwelcome enough that it never came back, and we allowed ourselves to sleep in. We told the owners the next morning. I don’t know what they did, but we were never bothered again.
Recent Comments
AA1C on Bravo, Kuwait! Miss Footloose on “NOOOO! Noooo! Not … intlxpatr on Revisiting Old Haunts and The… Doug Root on Revisiting Old Haunts and The… Cathy on Demise of Errant AirTag Wikipedia Donate Button
Amazina
Early Voting in Florida
Here There and Everywhere 