Wonders of the World

On our recent trip to France, we had one goal in mind (besides general sight-seeing):  to see Mont Saint-Michel with our own eyes.  Not Paris, mind you, or anything therein.  Just Mont Saint-Michel.  Next to Paris, it's apparently France's biggest tourist attraction.  You can understand why.

But after it was done, Astrid and I both said to each other:  we've done it once; we never need to do it again!

Please explain that to me.  How is it possible to see something so incredibly unbelievable and never need to see it again.  A wonder of the man-made world.  One of the top attractions of a country...or a planet.  And once is enough!

But see something like fields of sunflowers (which were in bloom all over the southwest of France), humble stone churches from the 12th century (in almost every village), Chambres d'Hôtes (Bed & Breakfasts) made out of ancient stone...and...I can't get enough of them!  I'd go back and see every one of them over and over again.

It's the same with photography.  Look at the images we see almost every day on the Internet that blow us away.  Macro shots of honey bees and flowers.  The smile of a little girl in a swimming pool.  The barefeet of a newborn grandbaby.  The character of a wizened face.  Dogs frolicking together in ecstasy.  Tell me those aren't wonders of the world.  Tell me they don't take your breath away.  And do you have to pay one red cent for them?  No.

We all know this, of course, that life is short.  There's only so much we can see and do.  Most of us will only check off a few things on our "bucket list," if we're lucky.  Some of us more than others, perhaps.  But all of us can pay attention and figure out what's important and what "wonders" us...sometimes right before our very eyes.

I wish it for all of us...the Bucket List and those wondrous things waiting for us right here and now.  Which reminds me:  I need to go take a walk again past that windmill right around the corner from me!

[On my other-other blog (besides Shutterchance, that is), you can see various other images in collages of the Mont Saint-Michel experience we'll never forget.  We climbed all the way to the top and wound our way throughout the Abbey maze of ups and downs, back-n-forths.]

The Double Dare

“Faith is the daring of the soul to go farther than it can see”
--William Newton Clarke

(13 of the 19 windmills at Kinderdijk, The Netherlands)

She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain

But will she be wearing pink pajamas when she comes?  That's the question!

Planes, trains or automobiles...(might as well add cruise ships).  When you travel, what is your preference, especially during the summer vacation?  Astrid and I have just returned from a week's drive to SW France (1960 miles) to visit some Dutch friends who moved there...and then to do some sight-seeing along the western and northern coasts the long way home.  [Dare I mention we totally bypassed Paris on the way going, close enough to taste her!]

Back when I was moving myself lock, stock and barrel from America to The Netherlands, I went back-n-forth I don't know how many times on whether or not to ship my 2003 Honda Civic Hybrid (all paid for) or to sell her and use the money to buy a car here.  It would have cost $1000 to ship her to Rotterdam (and who knows what else to release her from the dock!).  Much cheaper than buying a new car.  However, there were too many if's and but's...about Dutch specs, regulations, etc., etc.

So, long story short, I sold the car in Atlanta and used the money to buy a brand new 2010 Daihatsu Cuore, lime green, which we now affectionally call Granny Towanda.  Granny as in Granny Smith apple green and Towanda as in Fried Green Tomatoes.  That little lady sure knows what she's doing, I tell you.  And with The Netherlands being a small country (compared to America), it's nothing to hop in the car and  discover nooks and crannies even Astrid has never seen after her 50-something years here.

The two other times I went to France were by airplane (I'm not counting all the transfers from Amsterdam to Paris to Atlanta).  Then we took the taxi or the train into the 'Cig Bity.'  To have the luxury of our own car now, taking our own time to see as much as possible in one week, was like heaven on earth.  To stop when we wanted to, to choose Bed & Breakfasts, to change course midstream...all possible when traveling by car.

The above train, BTW, is an HO scale model train from the Steam Festival we attended in nearby Dordrecht in May.  Trains totally fascinate me.  European trains in particular are total no-brainers in many situations.  "Leave the driving to someone else" makes a lot of sense sometimes.  You get to relax and see something outside the window other than clouds.  Definitely a fun way to see the countryside.

But then, of course, sometimes all you want to do is just get there.  NOW.  I do NOT want to drive the car back to America or take the train, if I could.  A cruise ship wouldn't be so bad, even without port-o-calls.  That would be one heckuva 'at sea' journey, but with a couple of good books, I wouldn't mind it a bit.  It might cost more than I wanted...so I'd check out the price of a freighter.  I rode a freighter once from New Orleans to Lima, Peru, through the Panama Canal...only 16 passengers.  Now that was fun.  Ten days of endless ocean...followed by wobbly sea-legs a few days after.  I was young and crazy but I'd do it again.

A bit of a ramble never hurt anyone, as far as I'm concerned.  Don't forget walking, of course.  Or biking.  Astrid and I rode our bikes 20 minutes the other night to a café for supper.  A bit slower than 6 white horses but it burned more calories.  However, who's counting...and who's wearing pink pajamas, right?

A Way With Words

You can bet your bottom dollar there isn't a one of us here at V&V who is not enthralled with words...playing with them, poking fun, joking around, turning the phrase and laughing at their pure silliness.  [Don't get me started on how downright serious they can be as well...that's not where I'm going this time.]

On that big 65th birthday weekend (two weeks ago), Astrid and I drove all the way down (on the map, I mean) to Maastricht, one of Holland's top 5 famous cities.  It so happens to have one of the most unique bookstores in the world, the Selexyz, housed in the above former Dominican church from the 13th century.  [I have mixed feelings about a church being turned into a business, but...this post isn't about that either.  Perhaps there are books you can buy there to redeem itself?]

Turning a phrase, playing with words, puns...and things like spoonerisms.  I grew up on them with Mom.  Her favorite was the cig bity.  "We're going to the Cig Bity today!"  And that reminds me of my ex-husband who could bring down the house with his rendition of Rindercella and the Prandsom Hince.  When he got to the part where she slopped her dripper, we were crying with laughter.  In the end, of course, it fid dit, and we howled again.

And don't forget terms of endearment and all those sweet nothings we love to hear.  Aforementioned hubby of 21 years often called me his Little Chickadee.  Astrid calls me her Kleine Muis (Little Mouse) AND her Donderkoppie (Thunderhead).  How can one person be so many different things...so endearingly!  Then there's my 34-year-old son whom I always called Palooka.  Now I call his nephew, my grandson, the same thing.

Back in the early 60s I had a short-term acquaintance with a blind girl who got me interested in braille and how to write it.  I bought the brass template and the stylus and started learning the alphabet and short-hand abbreviations for the dot-punched words.  One day, out of the blue, she told me a ditty I have never forgotten (did she first learn it in Braille?):

TB or not TB.
That is the congestion.
Consumption be done about it?
Of cough, of cough,
But it takes a lung, lung time!

Here's the thing:  even in English you can get lost in translation!  So a way with words almost always includes intonation patterns, facial expressions and body language.  You might not understand the entire gist of what someone says but if you can just see their face, you know it's time to laugh.  What happens, however, when the words are written, like here in our blogs?  The other day Toni wrote a post that by all appearances should have been a heart-breaker.  But it didn't take long to figure out it was anything but a sad story.  (If you don't know what I'm talking about, go read it...I won't give it away.)  When Dutch-speaker Astrid read it, however, she didn't get it until I explained it to her.  Lost in translation.  But then she laughed with me.  HAHA!  That was funny.  Brilliant.

Laughter really is the best medicine.  [Who said that?]  Words put in just the right way to brighten the day.  Dr. Seuss had it down pat:  "My shoe is off my foot is cold.  I have a bird I like to hold."  Why did I remember that from everything he wrote?  All those books, all those amazing word combinations to put a smile on our face.  All of them, I assume, in that incredible bookstore in Maastricht!