Goodbye, Europe

A few weeks ago I wrote an entire blog post on the metro in Berlin, and then used the personal hotspot feature of my phone to publish it. “What will they think of next?” I pondered.

Well, if all goes well I will be writing this entire post and uploading it from 24,000 feet above the Atlantic, on IcelandAir flight IF673.

The last few weeks have somehow been both relaxing and full, and a bit melancholy, as we have known all along that our departure from Europe was looming ever closer. And now it is here; we are on a non-stop from Reykjavík to Denver, landing in about 7 hours. I think I’m just going to let the pictures guide this post... I have more pictures right now than narrative. Maybe a narrative will emerge...

On one of our last days in Berlin I arrived home from a day of errands to find that I had lost my hand-made glasses case, along with the nice pair of glasses inside. I mentally retraced my steps and decided I had likely left it at IKEA or perhaps BAUHAUS, a hardware store. So the next day Kodiak and I drove all over town running even more errands, which included visiting IKEA and BAUHAUS again to search for the case, but no luck... it seemed they were lost. So at the end of a day of driving, mostly at freeway speeds, I parked the car... and happened to look on the roof. And what do you think I noticed?

Yes, that's my glasses case. It's tempting to think it was wedged under the roof rack, but it was actually just sort of lightly sitting there, all day long, at 120 km/h. Crazy.

(Well, the wifi connection on the plane is pretty bad. It took about 5 minutes to upload that last picture, and chewed up 4% of my battery life. So it's looking unlikely that I will be able to complete the post I'd imagined, with 25 pictures. I've got plenty of hours, but my battery ain't gonna make it.)

On our last day in Berlin I challenged myself to take 100 pictures. I failed miserably in that challenge, but I took more photos than I normally would have...

Here, Kodiak ponders whether this is actually art, or....

You don't see a lot of cars like this in Berlin.

From day one in Berlin, I loved the symbol of the city: the Berlin Bear. Here we see a Polynesian interpretation of the ubiquitous ursine; I would be surprised if this design hasn't already been tattooed a few times.

We lived a few blocks from this weird sculpture and I always wanted to stop by and check it out... but I only managed to do so on our last day.

Goodbye Berliner Dom and Fernsehturm. I will miss you.

Goodbye S-Bahn.

One of our last pictures in Berlin, sitting in Mitte in front of the Naturkunde Museum (Natural History Museum, home of the holotype of the Archaeopteryx!)

Well after the craziness of the last few weeks in Berlin, it was a welcome reprieve to land in Sweden, which for us has always been mostly about relaxation, and swimming. We stayed on Lidingö, an island that makes up part of greater Stockholm. We were right near a lovely lake in which we swam once or twice a day.

We also visited Millesgården, the spectacular home and workshop of Carl Milles, favorite sculptor of Stockholm. 

The setting really is amazing. It's got to be at least a few acres set on a cliff overlooking the water that separates Lidingö from the main part of Stockholm.

Even though he fights us every time we try to take him to a gallery or museum, Kodiak usually ends up liking it. He's gotten quite the cultural education in these two years.

Naturally my favorites were the nudes...

Big surprise.

After a lovely week in Sweden we headed for an all-too-brief 2 days in my favorite place in the world, Iceland.

The highlight of our trip was hiking an hour up to Reykjadalur...

where you can find.....

wait for it......

A HOT RIVER

Yes, really. That's Kodiak and I sitting in a hot river. It was awesome. Lucky for us, Christina joined us in the river just after taking this picture.

One of my other favorite things in Iceland is Dead Gallery. Located on Laugavegur, the main shopping street in Reykjavík, this gallery is wonderfully out of place with the increasingly homogenous tourist/trinket shops and high-end clothing stores.

The gallery is basically the showcase for one guy's art.

Everything he makes is about death in one way or another. 

Even though he was a bit grumpy when Kodiak and I stopped in this time, I really do love his work, and... maybe even more than that... I love it that he is so blatantly out of step with the rest of Laugavegur and the image that Reykjavík presents of itself.

On our last day in Europe, Kodiak and I also visited Sundhöll Reykjavíkur, a public swimming pool and bathhouse in the middle of Reykjavík. Several months ago, I complained on this blog that Berliners could not get the hot tub thing right. Well, Icelanders do. The tubs at Sundhöll are hot, the way they should be. Plus, I always have good conversations with strangers there. No pictures allowed there, naturally.

And here, my friends, is the last picture I took of Europe. That is the edge of the Reykjanes peninsula, receding into the distance below.

Bittersweet.

Now we are off on our way back to our true home (for now), New Mexico.

And guess what? As you might have guessed from the 25* pictures, my battery did not last. I completed less than half of this blog post on the airplane, and I write these words now from our home on the mesa, just west of Taos, New Mexico. In fact, when we arrived home there was such an overwhelmingly large amount of work to be done getting back into our old lives, that we've been here almost a week and only now am I finding the time to sit down and write this post, the "last one from Europe."

*(wow, that's crazy! It was exactly 25!)

It's tempting to want to write some profound insights, some sort of perspectivizing eulogy, about our 2 years in Europe... and maybe that awesome perspective will come one of these days. But right now, I think it's too early to know what to say about it. In the last few days, Christina and I keep asking each other "How are you feeling to be back?", and the answer for both of us is invariably "I can't quite tell.... I don't know how I'm feeling." There is good about being back, and there is bad. And for right now, we are too busy to think all that much about it. There is a tremendous amount of unpacking, moving in, getting cars and motorcycles running again, registering and insuring cars and motorcycles again, trying to understand just how bad our health insurance options are, throwing away half of what we thought was precious 2 years ago but now seems totally unnecessary, doing our best to help Kodiak through this transition, getting to know our dogs again, freaking out about Burning Man, and planning for the future.

Do I miss Europe? Yes, some things. I already miss the density of culture, the public transportation, and the lush greens of Berlin, Sweden, and Iceland. I also miss some of the great people we met there. But being here also feels very comfortable, and very good. It's nice to be in a home that is ours and to have no neighbors. It's nice to have our dogs, our hot tub, and our motorcycles. It feels easy to slide back in. Taos seems to actually be more diverse and inclusive than we remembered; there are freaks and artists and gay people everywhere. And everyone here is so damn nice! 

In the long term, I am sure that Europe will be a big part of our lives. Why shouldn't it be? It's awesome there. But Taos is pretty great too. 

With love from the Taos mesa,

Aloha