Frosting Christmas cookies on December 27…
The cookies are Speedy’s mother’s sour cream Christmas cookies. After the white icing they get colored sprinkles. Want the recipe?
Better Late than Not at All
28 Friday Dec 2012
Posted in Uncategorized
Author Archives: farfalle1
Just a bit more then I’ll stop, I promise
23 Sunday Dec 2012
Posted in American habits and customs, Crime, Law and order
A very good friend has written a blog with a point of view quite different from mine expressed in my last post (he usually writes about education, with an insider’s view; his blog is well worth reading). Here’s what I put in his comment section:
Here’s a voice of reason… I’ve been thinking over your post and the various comments made in response. I don’t see how a total ban on ‘guns’ would ever work. But I do think there are a panoply of weapons that have no business in the private citizen’s gun cupboard. Hunting guns? certainly. Small hand guns for protection? if you must. But automatic weapons that are designed for a battlefield? no. So why not a partial ban? We do that with fireworks, for heaven’s sake. Small are okay, large, not (because they are dangerous). Then, I also think that anyone who wants to use a gun must prove that s/he knows how to use it responsibly. We have to do that before we are allowed to drive automobiles. People who have guns could be required to carry insurance in case of unforeseen accidents. Perhaps the insurers would be more careful about background and mental health checks than gun stores are! We require our doctors to carry insurance lest they hurt us; we require vehicle drivers to have both licenses (after passing two kinds of test) and insurance. Why should we not regulate guns in the same manner? They are every bit as lethal as cars, and I’m guessing a lot more lethal than your typical doctor. And the regulations would not be any more onerous than those already in place for other situations.
********
I’m willing to back off my No Guns Ever Under Any Circumstances stance because I begin to see it’s probably impractical at the very least. But I think the above are some pretty good ideas!
I promise to return to more light-hearted and on-blog-topic posts very very soon…
Slaughter of the Innocents
19 Wednesday Dec 2012
Posted in American habits and customs, Crime, Law and order, Uncategorized
Illustration courtesy of goboxy.com
“A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” (Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States)
“When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi.” (Bible, Book of Matthew, Chapter 2. There’s nothing modern about killing children.)
We don’t much like guns and we don’t have any. Many of our friends, though, do like guns and do have them. These friends fall into three categories: hunters, who keep their rifles and ammunition locked up in gun cabinets; target-shooters, who also keep their weapons under lock and key; and those who keep weapons for self-defense. Presumably these later keep their weapons loaded, locked and close at hand. The reason I don’t like guns and don’t want one anywhere near me is I’m afraid I might use it, against someone innocent, someone guilty, or on a really bad day, myself.
Gun ownership in the U.S. is an incredibly complex issue. Exactly what the Second Amendment, quoted above, means has been hotly debated pretty much since it was adopted (you can read about Second Amendment cases that the Supreme Court has heard here, earlier Second Amendment cases seem to have had more to do with States versus Federal Rights rather than the right to bear arms per se). In any case, so far the judges have found in favor of the interpretation that private citizens have the right to own, keep at home, and use pretty much any kind of gun. Forty-nine states have laws which allow carrying concealed weapons of varying types.
As we are all too sadly aware in these days, there are plenty of guns to go around. The best estimate I could find on various web-sites was about 300,000,000 or more guns in the U.S., which works out to almost one for every man, woman and child in the country. The following chart offers lots of interesting gun statistics, including the most obvious: that the US has more guns per capita than any other country in the world. Italy, in comparison, has about ten guns for every one hundred people. In many parts of the world there are fewer than ten guns per hundred citizens.
I know – it’s teeny. If you click on it it will be larger, and if you want to see it in much larger format, click here. The graph on the right show people in favor of gun control (white line) and those against it (black like). The number of Americans against gun control in the U.S. has been growing in the last few decades.
There is no end of data available about gun ownership and use in the U.S. The question we all must face, and answer, in the days ahead is this: how can we keep guns out of the hands of people who will abuse them, without abrogating the rights of those who use them responsibly? Regulation has been a joke up to now. I’m adding my voice to the growing chorus saying enough is enough. The precious right of all of us to carry a weapon (assuming the Constitution gives us that right, and I’m not convinced that was the framers’ intention) is not worth the lives of the twenty little six- and seven-year-olds and six adults who were gunned down in school in Newtown last week. It just isn’t. Let the guns be held in militia headquarters and if you want to go hunting or target shooting, go check one out.
I hear my friends howling that they have the absolute right to protect their loved ones. But I have to ask, is your right to protect your family worth the lives of all the children who have been slaughtered in the spate of school shootings over the past years? Have you ever actually needed or used your gun for self-protection?
It is such a can of worms. 95% of gun owners are probably responsible and careful. The people we know are obsessively careful with their weapons. But the havoc wreaked by the other 5% in gang shootings, murders, and rampages ruins it for everyone else. The number of people killed by accident by guns is astonishing (680 in 2008) and again, it is frequently the children who suffer. According to The Survivor’s Club, every day five children in the U.S. are injured or killed by handguns.
I wish there were an easy answer, but there so clearly isn’t. And I wish a rational and calm discussion could take place, but I think that’s unlikely as well. People who have guns become enraged at the idea of having to give them up (being someone who has gotten on very well for many years without a gun I have to wonder why) and people who want gun control are equally emotional, vituperative and accusatory. Anti-control voices tell us there are so many guns already in circulation that limiting their purchase or ownership now would be next to useless in stemming the violence, that we would be removing guns from the law-abiding while the crooks and nut-cases would still have access to theirs. That may be true, but somehow it would at least feel like a start.
Can we not all work together to keep guns out of the hands of those who will misuse them? It shouldn’t be impossible to identify those individuals. If you haven’t read “I am Adam Lanza’s Mother” you can do so here for an idea where we could start. It would be nice to think we have evolved, at least a little, since the days of Herrod.
Saguaro
04 Tuesday Dec 2012
Posted in Arizona, Hiking in Arizona, Uncategorized
Tags
Pronounced Sah-Wha’-Roh, this beautiful cactus is probably the most recognized symbol of the American southwest (along with the rattle-snake). Native to the Sonoran Desert, the saguaro often grows in ‘forests’ like the one seen above.
It’s a slow-growing critter. Night-blooming flowers form in bunches on the tops of the arms from April through June, and the resultant red fruit produces seeds to make more little saguaros. The flowers (the saguaro is the State Flower of Arizona) are pollinated mostly by bats, and often stay open into the morning hours.
photo courtesy of Phoenix.about.com
The first arms don’t form on a saguaro until the plant is about seventy years old, so when you see a big one with a lot of arms, you know it’s old. They can live for one hundred fifty years or more.
Saguaro babies like to begin their lives in the shade of nearby shrubs which give them protection from passing animals.
Once they’re old enough they’ll put out their first stubby little arms:
And if they’re lucky and get enough water and nutrients over the years, they will grow into the giant specimens that can be seen in the Tucson -Phoenix area, southern California and down into Mexico. Here’s a picture of one that began its life long before the electricity running behind it was harnessed.
Eventually, like all of us, these giants succumb to to illness or just plain old age:
It’s then that they share the secret of their interior architecture. Their bodies and arms are full of long pipes that hold any scarce water the plant is able to absorb during the rainy season. When they die, they look like a bundle of old bamboo sticks on the ground.
Birds like to nest in the saguaro, and for reasons I can’t quite fathom, hunters like to shoot them, so you often seen them with holes of one sort or another.
Victim of too many errant shots on the golf course
When a hole is made in its skin, the saguaro heals on the inside by forming a sort of wooden bowl that keeps the hot dry air out. The Gila Woodpeckers like to make fresh nest holes every year in the cactus. Other birds, such as cactus wrens, flickers and finches then can use this bowl as a nesting site.
While most of the saguaros lift their arms in surrender, every now and then you come upon a comedian.
It’s hard to imagine what would make those lower arms form in that way. Can you come up with a good caption for the photo?
In 2011 Curt Fonger made some wonderful photographs right here in Gold Canyon of a bobcat which had climbed to the top of a saguaro to avoid being caught by a mountain lion. You can read the story here and see other photos.
photo copyright Curt Fonger/solent
I love seeing the saguaros on hikes, but if I ever start talking to them, I’ll know it’s time to hang up my hiking boots.
Hard Landing
25 Sunday Nov 2012
Tags
Once again, as every year, culture shock has blind-sided me. Yes, it is gorgeous here (see above) and yes, it is warm (even hot) and dry. But it’s not Italy, is it? Sounds so obvious, but somehow it takes me aback annually. In fairness, I have to say that there will be a repeat of culture shock, in reverse, when we return to Rapallo in April or May.
But just what is the shock? Size is one thing – everything is so darn big here. When it comes to living quarters, I like that. When it comes to servings when eating out I don’t. Cars? no. Sense of humor? yes. Noise is another thing: there are non-stop sounds in Rapallo; scooters dash up and down the mountain, dogs bark non-stop, the rooster who can’t tell time crows his ignorance, diners clink their cutlery against their plates at Rosa’s and even, if they’ve had enough, break into song or begin to cheer loudly. Over at Case di Noe someone has fired up a brush-cutter, and every half hour the church bells remind us what time it is. (Speedy has addressed this part of the problem by down-loading chimes to sound the hours on the computer – not the same as the jazzy bell concert San Maurizio gives us each Sunday, but better than nothing.)
There are plenty of noisy places in the U.S., but we don’t happen to be in one of them. Our neighborhood has forty homes, of which probably one-third are occupied now, it being still early in ‘the season.’ The family with small children who lived across the street have moved – how we miss their constant activity and cheerful little voices. If we listen carefully we can hear the hum of traffic from the highway that’s about a mile away. When the birds visit our feeders they are likely to squabble. The humming birds sound like teeny little power saws when they zoom in and out. But mostly it’s just very quiet and peaceful. That’s nice, it really is, it’s just such a change.
The biggest change, though, and the hardest to adapt to, is the societal difference. Italians are out and about for a good part of the day. One must shop daily, the passagiata awaits at the end of the day. There are friends and family to visit and ‘news’ to be discussed endlessly. The silence in our neighborhood is but a reflection of a larger silence that I think of as particularly American. People are afraid to discuss ‘issues’ for fear that they will offend or anger the person to whom they’re speaking. Somehow Italians have found a way to express differences without letting it get personal, and without letting it get in the way of friendships. Here people are afraid to make eye contact with strangers, unlikely to greet strangers on the street (any one of whom may be carrying a weapon, concealed or otherwise, at least here in the wild west), and uncomfortable with the idea of discomfort.
Of course Italy is far from perfect. But part of culture shock, I think, is the tendency to idealize the place one has left, to look back through the fuzzy lens of rosy glasses, while looking at present circumstances with the critical lens of a microscope.
I’m not asking for sympathy, believe me. We are terribly fortunate to be able to enjoy life in two such diverse places, and yes, we are Thankful that we are able to (’tis the season). I’m just saying that the transition is, for me at any rate, difficult, but difficult in an interesting way, not a painful way. So please, stick with me for a while? Pretty soon I’ll have my feet under me again and will share some more of the excitement of life in a most peculiar state.
Roissy
15 Thursday Nov 2012
Posted in Travel, Uncategorized
Tags
CDG, Charles de Gaulle Airport, Chez Cri-Cri, Hotel Campanile, Laying over in Paris, Paris Airport Stay, Pomme d'Or, Roissy, Roissy-en-France, Saint Eloi (Roissy)
Daniel Dambreville, the charming publican of Chez Cri-Cri in Roissy, told us that 165,000 people pass through Charles deGaulle Airport every day. CDG is a major hub for visitors to Paris as well as those traveling on to the rest of the world. Opened it 1974, it is Europe’s second busiest airport, after London’s Heathrow. It covers 12.5 square miles over 6 communes, one of which is Roissy. The airport’s location was plucked from a dwindling amount of undeveloped land around Paris in the mid-1960’s, and it has been a boon to the formerly sleepy little communes it occupies.
One-quarter of the airport lies in Roissy-en-France (in fact the airport is also known as ‘Roissy’). To the town’s great benefit the airport has to pay taxes and so forth for the land it occupies. This works out very well for the roughly 2,500 residents of this still largely agricultural town. Monsieur Dambreville told us that in addition to the handsome public garden and a modern and very active cultural center, L’Orangerie, the income from the airport and its satellite hotels allows the town to offer a free vacation every year to residents. (This, by the way, is not that uncommon in Europe. Our Dutch friend tells us that in the Netherlands the elderly and the blind are regularly treated to a small holiday; in our own Rapallo the elderly used to be taken for a week’s holiday in the mountains – a practice abandoned during the current fiscal crisis). And not only do they get a holiday – they also get free heat and free potatoes – all the potatoes they can eat! Wouldn’t that be great??!
The point of all this is to say that it’s great fun to stay over in Roissy if Paris, or a change at CDG, is in your travel plans. It’s a small village, but there are at least nine very comfortable hotels. We stayed in The Campanile, a centrally-located three-star with shuttle service to and from the airport. “Centrally-located” is relative – Roissy is not large, and there are not a lot of non-hotel amenities in the village. The aforementioned Chez Cri-Cri is a lovely place to stop in for a beer and a chat.
If you’re there at mid-day you can have lunch as well.
Photo courtesy of Clicsouris
Next door to Chez Cri-Cri is the elegant little gem, Saint Eloi. It was built around 1650 on the site of a 12th century church which itself was built atop the remains of an ancient shrine (7th – 10th century).
As you can tell, we were there at night, so we were unable to get inside to see the 16th century restored stained glass windows from the inside (restored in 1984), the organ (acquired in 1989 by the municipality – thank you CDG) and the tombs of Jehan Sauvage and his wife Perrette de Thyois:
Photo courtesy of Clicsouris
Across from our hotel we found the seemingly charming restaurant Pomme d’Or:
Under different management it would have been a pleasure to eat there. The hostess was barely polite; she gave us food because she was obliged to. When, for instance, I asked her how old the building was she said she didn’t know. Nonsense. She said I could photograph inside the restaurant, but couldn’t take her picture. Fair enough. So I took this picture of our chicken cooked in beer, which sounded heavenly:
The farfalle were overcooked and completely cold. The chicken was tepid. Let’s just say it wasn’t the best eating-out experience we’ve ever had. They put together a nice cheese plate for dessert, though – hard to ruin good French cheese:
As Speedy said, next time we layover in Roissy we’ll eat in one of the hotels, since Cri-Cri doesn’t serve dinner. Too bad, because the locals hang out there.
We chatted briefly with this gentleman; what he really wanted to know was how old Speedy is.
Last time we passed through CDG it was a madhouse; there was practically grid-lock of passengers and luggage trying to navigate the terminal. There was none of that this time. For whatever reason everything seemed to be working very well. We had made a point of avoiding the airport because of the crowds and hassel, but having discovered the delights of Roissy-en-France and finding the airport more efficient, we’ll be sure to pass through again.
Autumn
03 Saturday Nov 2012
Posted in Italian food
The cold winds blow, the rain lashes the pavements, umbrellas blow inside out and look like scary black tulips. What to eat, what to eat?
Pizza!
Our neighbor very likely delivered this wood, which will soon be fueling a pizza oven. He works like a demon cutting and splitting wood, and then delivers it to pizzerie all over town. As you probably know the big domed ovens carry an outer ring of firewood which brings the temperature very high. That’s why you can, here anyway, order a pizza and be eating it twelve minutes later.
Ligurian pizza has an almost paper-thin crust, so it’s an easy matter to eat a whole one oneself. The only hard part is deciding what to have on top – so many choices, and each as yummy as the others. At this time of year a lot of them feature fresh mushrooms. My last pizza was called ‘Inferno:’ fresh mozzarella, gorgonzola, tomato, and, supposedly, hot peppers. I didn’t taste a shred of heat – but it was a fabulous pizza nonetheless. Alas I was without a camera, so I can’t show you how beautiful it was.
Speedy and I are leaving shortly for the U.S. of A., so Expatriate will be even more dormant than usual for the next little while. But I’m looking forward to posting again soon from the wild world of coyotes, gila monsters, hummingbirds, the Arizona Cardinals and golf nuts.
Revisione
26 Friday Oct 2012
Posted in Driving in Italy, Italian bureaucracy, Liguria
For all the ways that life in Italy seems different, there is one thing that is absolutely familiar – vehicle inspection. That’s kind of surprising, given how many layers of administration there usually are to the simplest of tasks in this bureaucratic nation. But getting the scooter inspected proved to be very simple.
The first step, of course, was to stop in at our mechanic Simone’s shop so he could give my bike the once-over for any glaring deficiencies. He felt everything was okay, but encouraged us to tell the examiner that he was our mechanic if there were a problem – we presume that would have eased whatever might have followed.
In the event, it wasn’t necessary as the scoots passed with flying colors.
They check all the same things here that they check in the U.S.: lights (luci), brakes (freni), suspension (sospensioni), play in the steering mechanism and the chassis (prova gioca and prova deriva), emissions test (analisi gas di scarico) and finally a visual inspection (ispezione visiva) and in pretty much the same ways: there’s the spinning doodad for testing brakes:
and the pokey thing that goes in the tail pipe:
So all in all, it turned out to be not terribly interesting in terms of being ‘different’ – but it’s always fun to visit any Italian office and jaw with the people there. Here is Speedy discussing this and that with the very cheerful and helpful Francesca:
And wait – there are a few differences. In Arizona we simply drive up to one of the Testing Stations (after first looking online to see how long the wait might be – always short where we live). Here we had to call about a week ahead to make an appointment. To our great satisfaction we didn’t have to wait at all; they were expecting us.
The testing stations in Arizona are rather large; they have to be to accommodate some of the giant trucks that come through. It’s a tight squeeze for a car to get into the entrance of the Rapallo site (top photo), two 90-degree turns are required. No 4 X 4’s here, please (although presumably there are other testing stations for all the trucks we see on the roads).
Here’s another difference: cost. In Arizona we pay $27.75. Emissions testing there is tied to auto registration: both have to be done every two years. Everything but the actual emissions test itself can be done online. It cost us €65.50 (about $85 given the present exchange rate) for the revisione of my scooter, which is also good for two years.
But all in all, it’s one of the simplest of bureaucratic tasks that we undertake here, and the people at the testing center (Francesca and Paolo) are kind and efficient. Here’s a strange fact of automotive life in Italy: you have to be a legal resident here to own a vehicle of any sort. As a resident of another country you can own a house, but you can’t own a vehicle. Isn’t that odd?
The Vagabond Niece
15 Monday Oct 2012
Posted in Travel, Uncategorized
The education we began with Wijnand Boon (see last post) continued recently with the visit of our grand-niece Katie and her friend Molly. We were their last stop on a three-month tour of Eastern Europe (Germany, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, Hungary, Slovakia, Turkey). Like Boon they are back-packers, but unlike him they use public transportation, having been on boats, planes, trains, buses and one hot-air balloon in the course of their journey. They looked like giant turtles when they arrived, with large packs on their backs and small packs on their fronts. I felt we were their half-way house between the uncertainties of a foot-loose life and the restrictions of life and work back in the States.
There is a saying here that Americans live to work, but Italians work to live. We felt that Katie and Molly exemplify the Italian approach to life. They love to travel (this was not their first long-distance odyssey), but they need cash to do so. Katie is a physical therapist and works short-term contracts to support her travel habit. Molly left her former job in PR just before this long trip, and will shortly be taking a position teaching English in South Korea for a year.
What astonishes me, certified old fart that I am, is the flexiblility, openness and trust with which these young women approach life. Certainly they both come from great privilege, having grown up in the U.S., been carefully cared for and educated (albeit with wretched student loans outstanding), as I assume Boon was in the Netherlands. It gives them a passport to satisfy their curiosity, a passport not held by others less fortunate. They also have the advantage of being English-speakers. Is it not wonderful that they not only throw open their arms and embrace whatever comes their way but also go out of their way to seek the unknown?
Like anyone living in Italy we have our share of visitors (and very welcome they all are). Frequently they arrive with various requirements – can’t eat this or that, don’t like this or that, must see this or that – and that’s no problem. Our recent vagabonds, though, took what came their way, eating anything, were up for any activity suggested, but not asking for any in particular. I suppose it’s an easiness that can come only with a lot of time. If someone is traveling for two weeks he might not want to spend five days sitting on the terrace of Casa della Palma!
Speedy and I were interested in their approach to travel. Rather than going to places to ‘see the sights,’ they planned part of their itinerary around good hostels. Once in situ they were still not eager to wear out their shoes visiting all the must-see places noted in the tour books. Instead they enjoyed hiking in the countryside, watching the daily life around them and meeting new people. (Speedy mentioned that in the days of the Grand Tour one traveled to see art, monuments and so forth and tried very hard not to interact with people other than of one’s own nationality or class. They’ve turned this notion on its head.) In every port of call Katie and Molly made new friends. They received extraordinary generosity in London and in Bosnia. And having found new friends they keep in touch with them on their miraculous iPhones (they do everything on those phones. Molly, from a hostel corridor, even had a job interview with someone in South Korea on her iPhone.)
Perhaps it’s the interconnectedness that makes the world seem so much more approachable. Boon could couch-surf using the wi-fi at the Frigidarium ice cream shop in Rapallo to find a bed 100 km away; my niece could chat with her parents in the States, buy her train tickets (no need to pick them up, just show the ticket-taker the phone screen), and arrange a hostel stay, all from her little iPhone.
Suddenly these young people have showed us a very different world than the one in which we’ve lived, a world in which connecting to strangers is common currency, in which strangers are met with interest and curiosity rather than caution. I asked if there were lots and lots of people hopping around the globe the way they are. “Yes!” they said, “and most of them are Australian.” The part about the Australians might not be strictly true, but it does seem that young people are no longer as constrained as earlier generations have been. Jobs are more flexible (if harder to find), travel is easier, staying in touch a cinch.
Not that traveling the world is new; it probably began about the time we traded in our fins for feet. Nomads do it to find food, some religious persons do it to spread their word and as a form of praise, gypsies do it as a matter of course, hobos do it of necessity. (Even Speedy took a two-month vacation trip when he was in college, touring Belgium, France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, and Holland on a motorcycle and making new friends. Then he took his wanderlust as an occupation.) What is wonderfully new to me is that a pair of ‘unaccompanied’ young women can safely travel to unknown places. This was rarely done in times past, I believe.
There is something very special about a wanderer, something that speaks to the unheeded wanderer in each of us. It’s the feeling that Chico, of the aforementioned Frigidarium, had when he met Boon and felt he was in the presence of someone of immense calm, someone fascinating, someone whom he actively wished to help. These young people are answering a call we must all feel at some level at some point in our lives, but which most of us have learned to ignore. (We like our couches! ) Because they are answering the call for us, we want to help in any way we can.
Still, even our vagabonds have to go ‘home’ to roost from time to time (and how nice for them that home awaits). What a joy it was for us to be the Half Way House for a few days, and to continue our own education into the ways of this new, smaller world.
Katie and Molly help Speedy with the great door project
Boon
12 Friday Oct 2012
Posted in Travel, Uncategorized
Couch-surfing. I’d never heard of it until a short time ago and based on the number of members of the couch-surfing web-site, I am the last person on the planet to have heard of it. We are not members of Couch-Surfing, but Wijnand Boon of the Netherlands is, and we were privileged to meet him a couple of weeks ago.
Here’s how it came about. I happened to check the e-mail for this blog, something I do faithfully at least twice a month, and there was a note posted earlier the very same day saying, basically, help! I’m in Rapallo, the weather is terrible, I can’t find a place to pitch my tent, is there anything you can do to help. Well, it was 11:30 at night and raining pitchforks, with thunder and lightening to liven things up.
I would like to tell you that I got in the car and drove into town to find the hapless writer of this e-mail, but I didn’t. I said to myself, too late, too late… and I went to bed, albeit with a large measure of guilt under my pillow. I did write and say that I had only just found the message and I was sorry I was too late to help.
The next morning I was still feeling unhappy about neglecting a request from an unfortunate visitor to Rapallo. How happy I was to receive a note from Boon, for it was he who had written, saying that he’d found a wonderful room for the night after all, but he could surely use a place either to sleep or pitch his tent for the next two nights. Long story short he came to stay with us. The guest-room was already overflowing with nieces, but Wijnand was happy to stay on the futon downstairs, and I think (I hope) he was comfortable enough.
He is traveling by foot from his home in Leiden, Netherlands to Cairo, Egypt. The purpose is two-fold. He began his 6,000 mile walk in reaction to a speech by Dutch Queen Beatrice on Christmas Day, I believe 2009, in which she spoke of social media as alienating people from one another. WB begged to differ. He is making his journey to prove that social media connects us all on the very basic levels of necessity. Using only social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Couch Surfing and people’s blogs he is finding places to stay along his route and making friends and connections every step of the way. Social media is liberating, as he is proving, not alienating. It can take a fair amount of effort (especially in suspicious old Liguria) and sometimes he needs to contact a few people before he makes a good contact. But so far he has had almost nothing but success.
Some time after WB began his long trek he was contacted by the good people at Masterpeace who are building towards a giant Peace Rally on September 21, 2014. Like WB, Masterpeace wants to use social media to bring peace-loving people together, literally and virtually, and to promote world-wide activities focused on peace. They asked Wijnand if he would walk for them, and he agreed. (You’ll find their logo at the bottom of his page, as well as the logo of Mammut, the Swiss boot-maker, who are his only sponsor and whose hiking boots he happily wears.)
Though Boon’s web-page says he is ‘walking 6,000 miles with only an iPhone and a guitar,’ he actually does have some other gear, such as clothing (!), a camera (a gift from one of his hosts), a tent and other necessities for living on the road. He carries this all on an ingenious two-large-wheeled cart; it has handles which he can use to either push or pull, as well as a harness he can strap on for hands-free pulling. It comes apart so it can be stuffed into the boot of a small car.
But don’t let mention of a car make you think that WB has ‘cheated’ on even a step of his journey. He was able to come up to our house on the bus and take a ride down two days later in the car, but that was a side journey. He has walked every step of the way from Leiden, through Portugal, Spain and France and is now working his way down The Boot towards Rome. (You can find a map of his route on his web page.)
We are so happy to have met him. While we don’t see eye to eye on many things (role of government, paper money, oh just all sorts of things) we had a fine time discussing them and trading thoughts. Most refreshingly, we were able to disagree in a completely civil and respectful manner. And that is part of what Wijnand Boon’s trip is all about – mutual trust and respect. A man of many talents, Boon entertained us with his guitar playing and singing one of his own songs (‘The Knowledge of You‘).
For old farts like us, the idea of trusting a complete stranger in our house (especially with lovely nieces thick on the ground) is a long shot. We were able to do it to a point, and I think (I hope) we learned a lot from the experience. Boon travels with an unwavering faith in the goodness and generosity of people. In two years, he says, he has had not one bad experience. I’m old and cynical enough to just shake my head and hope desperately that nothing happens on this odyssey to discourage him.
And speaking of being old and cynical… the whole notion of couch-surfing seems extremely foreign to us. The idea of simply throwing open our doors and making up the futon for anyone who needs a bed is just… well… unthinkable. And yet social networking seems to be making a success of such ideas. It is, I suspect, mostly young people (20’s, 30’s?) who couch surf on both sides of the transaction, but maybe I’m wrong. In any event, it is people who are willing to trust their fellow-man unreservedly.
Back when we were young in nineteen-mumble-mumble it seemed like we had a great deal to teach the world. All of a sudden it seems like maybe we have a great deal to learn.
Thank you Wijnand Boon for beginning the lessons so gently.
Wijnand Boon making new friends
An Ex-Expatriate 
