Cultural Adventures with Hotel Reviews

I've been doing a lot of Internet research on hotels in Poland, helping some acquaintances to plan a trip to Poland. This involves going to some of the hotel review sites such as Trip Advisor. I get amused with what I find there sometimes. It is clear that some travelers arrive in another country with the expectations of what they have or find at home. An example is the frequent complaint that in Polish hotels there are no mattresses on the beds. Most simply fail to understand beds are different in Poland than in the United States, for example. Yet I've slept perfectly fine in seven different places in Poland on Polish beds during my intermittent stays that now add up to a bit more than 4 months of time in Poland. In fact when I did some shopping for a new bed in the United States, I put a mattress on the bed, but went to IKEA to get the duvets that I became familiar with in Poland. I've slept much better for going to that pattern rather than the U.S. pattern of a top sheet, blankets, and a bed spread.

I wish travelers would try to celebrate the differences and uniqueness they find in travel, rather than complain or worse,diminish a culture because of these differences.

On one experience I had with Global Volunteers I was with a team in a very small town in the United States. One of the volunteers was very upset because the local grocery store didn't have arugula lettuce. I tried to help her understand that even if the grocer could stock it, doing so would probably cause his local customers to think he had gotten just a bit too "big town." Since then I've called it my Arugula Rule: If you want everything to be like it is at home, stay home.

Valentine Adventures -- Pancakes and Music

My church has a pancake breakfast one Saturday morning of month as a way for people to meet each other. (Our church has grown to having two Sunday morning services and one Sunday afternoon service. If one is faithful to one time, there are hundreds of others one may never meet.) This month's event coincided with Valentine's Day. But it became a very special event with the additon of music. My church has one choral group called the Unity Singers, a 16 member group. By a blind audition this group was chosen to present a concert at the upcoming conference of the American Choral Directors' Association. As a fund raising to support their attendance at this they sold musical Valentine's and delivered those during the pancake breakfast. The recipients varied from a 7 year old girl from her parents to very romantic sentiments from spouses to each other. Then the singers presenteda 30 minute concert of the music they will sing at the choral directors' meeting. They will do the concern again in March. I think I'll go back again! All this made the Valentine's Day very memorable.

Adventures in Learning

My church holds a program on Wednesday night that begins with supper. I must digress a minute to note that tonight the menu was roast pork with fruit chutney, spinach salad with pears and candied walnuts, and baguette. For dessert we had cherry pie with ice cream. This plus good company was a great start to the evening.

I go to the Wellspring Wednesday events when there is a program in which I wish to participate. Tonight was a lecture by Jim Farrell, a history and environmental professor from St. Olaf College, Northfield. Tomorrow is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, so there has been many Lincoln events of late. Dr. Farrell spoke about Lincoln and idea of hope. He is a great speaker and very learned. I enjoy every time he comes to do a lecture. The take home message from this evening is that Lincoln appears to the first to use the idea that justice involves being willing to take another's place. His response to advocates of slavery was to ask if they would like to change places with the slave. This idea became much more prominent in the 20th century when one definition of justice became the willingness to take another's place. If we are not willing to do that, thinking it will diminish our life or comfort, then obviously the other party does not have justice.

Another good idea lately comes from Rick Steves recent speech at the Commonwealth Club. I heard this on Minnesota Public Radio. Steves began his speech by saying he went to Iran because he thought it "is good to know a people before we bomb them."

Spring Adventure #1

I decided to walk to the nearby public library branch this afternoon. We've been having a couple of days of warm weather so there is much water about. My usual path is to walk up to the corner, up the hill and then across the park. There is a walkway across the park, but it isn't cleared in the winter so as to not interrupt sliding down the nearby hill. I watched four boys having a wonderful time. The hillside was nearly ice and with a bit of water on it, they sailed for nearly half a block after coming to the bottom of the hill. And no I don't mean on a street. Just the distance inside the park.

I had to mush my way around some big puddles to finally get into the library. I decided to try a less challenging way home. Not! Every sidewalk has huge big puddles trapped by snow banks on each side. One had to walk up on the snow banks to get around. My next sign of spring I'll be looking for is to hear the male cardinals calling out their territory. That usually happens in just the next few days of February.

And of course, I should note it's 5:30 PM as I write, and it's no longer totally dark outside!

End of an Adventure - -Amen!

Two weeks ago my younger daughter went away for the weekend. She left her car parked at my house just in case it snowed. I tried to move it while she was gone and had a terrible time. I thought perhaps I just didn't know how to use her gear shift. Anyway to make a long story short, when she came home it was clear something was very wrong with the car. I took her home, she came back the next day and arranged to have it towed. Since then, for two weeks now, I've been getting up extra early to drive over to her house by 7 AM and get her to her job at 7:18. This also meant a ride to class on Saturday morning, too. Many of these mornings have been very cold, well below zero. Today I finally picked her up at lunch time and took her the car repair shop where she got the car. Her tax refund arrived, too, so I didn't have to pay the bill either. I'm so glad to be back to doing nothing but getting myself to work now.

Fourth Verse, Point 2

I've picked a land surveyor, and then when I started to work on the written materials that were needed, I discovered some irregularities with my land title. So things are in progress to work that out. An example is that when State Capitol Credit Union changed into Affinityplus, things got all messed up on my certificate of title. Good to find this now. Who could have believed that what looked like a simple transaction could be so screwed up?!?

Third Verse of Point 2

I'm beginning to hear from several land surveyors by e-mail! Hurrah!!! The cost is more what I found to be reasonable. I'll wait to see what shows up in the e-mail yet tomorrow and then start working with a couple of them. One has responded to me reporting working with the St. Paul office that I need to work with. I was quite discouraged on Wednesday with the news about the fact that property description is not what I thought, but some progress is being made and at a resonable price range, now.