Gotta' catch up a little...

Okay, success on the internet demands the 3 Fs: Fast, Frequent, and Fresh. Which is why I am unsuccessful on the internet. I've finished 100s of images which I've meant to, but have been to lazy to... post. And I'm content with all of them. What I won't show, I trash. Well, mostly. So maybe it's time to do a little catching up? So here's a painting I did of a Mityana, Uganda Girl Scout Brownie. And...

Here are a couple of street scenes. The first is the 15th century gothic cathedral of St. Martin in Bratislava, Slovakia. It was built to match the Bratislava Castle which looms almost directly above it. The church tower's built into the city's defensive wall. Slovakia's a smaller European nation that would undoubtedly be much larger today had they not been the first European nation to export its Jewish population of 57,000 people  to feed Hitler's ghastly "Final solution to the 'Jewish Problem'". Of course that Catholic Church continued its activities as the cattle cars were crammed with writhing masses of people. A guidebook pointed out that, "A small but significant neighbor of the cathedral is a monument to the national synagogue which stood next door for centuries until the Communist government demolished it around 1970". Uh-huh, the image looks spooky, right. Well so is this street's history.

The other image is a misty morning street corner in Toledo. Spain. Can you sense the history veiling the neighborhood?

Speaking of street scenes, well howzabout a watery street's scene? This one's along the Danube between Dornstein and Melk, Austria. These folks live next to a busy floating highway. You think they have wet basements?

Here's a Spanish finca growing Valencia oranges in Spain. Finca? Uh-huh, these are country homes, usually plantations or farms of some sort. Usually is a tad old fashioned way to describe fincas. Today in hispanic countries the country home of affluent people are frequently called fincas whether or not they grow or raise stuff or animals. Pretty rich?

And this street scene's from the middle of Vienna - yep - the Austrian Vienna :-) Sooner or later I'm going to post a passel of totally gorgeous Viennese scenes. My dear friend Andreas Mannesinger hosted me for an entire day in the Austrian capital. It was wunnerful. But this image could be from almost anywhere, huh? But this thing jiggled my imagination for some reason - probably the reflections in the rear view mirror... And the jiggling caused this semi-poem to tumble free:

Through back-eyes Truck
Watches history suck
Time through a tiny
Vanishing point.
.
Watching and holding speed constant
To average 60 seconds per minute
Is what Truck does.
.
But larky:
Sometimes Truck’ll
Stutter-foot momentum.
Or jerk at the wheels.
.
Causing things to:
.
First seem longer
Than it takes for
Right-guy to text
The gal who gave
Up her info.
.
Or when Truck
Gooses its gas how
Time shrinks shorter than
The hours before a life-test.
.
And when Truck jerks
At the wheels?
.
Its windows reflect a
History that’s swirled,
Snarled, and sqooshed
Together In clots and breaches.
.
Truck’s wondering though
What happens to
History if …
.
If even for an instant
.
The truck stops here?

Jeff & Gina Paglialonga are the owners of Teaming River Cruises. It was their riverboat that drove us through the epicenter of Europe (Amsterdam to Budapest)  during the summer of 2017. Jeff's personality's bigger than the kilometers his river boat travels. OTH the food on The Royal Crown - his company's flagship - is good enough to gobble. So? Why not, huh?

Okay - I'm neither fast, frequent, nor fresh - but it was a turtle who beat the rabbit, right?

Ooops!

We boarded our Teeming River Cruises river boat on Friday, July 21. Ahead, a 12 day journey from Amsterdam, up and down rivers to Budapest. The Royal Crown carries just 90 passengers, and left Amsterdam at around 2:10 pm on Saturday with 89. Now why was that? 

Later I learned that Captain Hans de Gelder delayed leaving for a full 10 minutes beyond his scheduled 2pm departure. But the rules of the river, berthing, and crew assignments meant moving off even though a search for one missing passenger turned up nothing. Before disembarking they'd even called the Amsterdam police to see if the tardy guy was hurt, or perhaps hospitalized. Seems he left the boat around ten that morning to, "Wander around my favorite city." 

Yeah, it was me. Without European cell service my iPhone, away from WiFi, was useless. Stupidly certain that the boat was leaving at 4, I contentedly snaped pix until about 1:55 when I decided to go back even though 4 was still way off. But the day grew hot, the mid-day lighting grew awful, and crowds were everywhere thick as July humidity. 

Imagine my surprise approaching the slip when, well, there wasn't a boat! 

At about 2:20 an empty Teeming Rivers slip adjoined Viking Cruise berths where greeters awaited their passengers. So I walked over and met a happy Irish fella in charge. Teeming River equips all of their disembarking passengers with identification cards that carry their boats' telephone numbers. The Viking guy got right on it. He sent me inside to relax, called the boat, and arranged a reasonable limousine service to meet the boat at a place called Roosseveltlaan, in Utrecht some  24 miles and 40 minutes away. My driver in a sparkling new Mercedes town-car described landmarks along the way. The Royal Crown's  captain detoured through a residential neighborhood's canal about twenty miles beyond Amsterdam. There the driver and I, along with a gaggle of curious neighbors, stood waiting (as a light drizzle fell) on this X for the Royal Crowne to poke its nose under that lovely bridge up there in the distance. 

 And, after about 20 minutes, it did poke under. But, as you can see from the picture here on the left, this was not a dock with no provisions for gangways or ladders. Instead the boat almost stopped, a guy grabbed my camera, while two other BIG fellas snatched either of my arms and flipped me like a cod onto the boat's deck. FWOOOP! As 89 passengers and a bunch of crew laughed and cheered, I became a celebrity. From that moment on, the crew and a lot of the passengers helpfully reminded me of departure times at each stop. 

BUT: The toughest part of all of this wasn't mine. Nope, my poor wife Rita was so worried. As the minutes ticked toward departure, her anxiety blossomed. Our reunion was tender yet, what is the exact word? Judgemental? Yeah, you remember that financer-guy Bernie Madoff? Well I know how Bernie felt. Fortunately I'm married to saint. 

Okay, with that outta' the way... How was the cruise? Where'd we go? What'd we see? Hear? Smell? Eat? Feel?