Lafayette and Columbian Park Zoo...

Videos from Lafayette and the Columbian Park Zoo. We visited this Zoo the day after I arrived for the first time to Lafayette. Here are my pictures from this day. Awakes so many good memories.

Noah's Ark...

On I-68/US 40, on our trip from Maryland to Indiana, we passed a sign reading "Noah's Ark Being Rebuilt Here." Lying in or near Frostburg, Maryland? But Steve thought it laid in Pennsylvania... He is probably more right than I am. 

Suddenly Steve shouted where he sat at the wheel, laughed and said (if I remember right :-)):

"Did you see??"

Pusser's Caribbean Grille…

Where the restaurant (Pusser's Caribbean Grille in Annapolis) we visited after our day in Washington was located (at the palm I think). Here is the menu.

Yes, the restaurant laid at the waterfront and had a really outstanding view! It was a magical evening.

On its homesite it stands:

“Welcome to Pusser's Caribbean Grille, a premier Annapolis restaurant, bar and retail store on the waterfront. It's the only ‘true’ waterfront restaurant in Annapolis! This unique restaurant offers a 'taste of the real Caribbean' featuring unique, high quality, moderately priced, and freshly prepared Caribbean cuisine, along with taste-tempting Annapolitan favorites, at an exclusive dockside location on ‘Ego Alley,’ in the heart of downtown./…/

With its tropical, nautical décor and outstanding view of the harbor, Pusser's is a favorite of visitors and locals alike.”

(Steve's addition--10-5-2008):

For many of us here in the US (including myself) it's hard to think of a story more powerful than that told in the John Huston-directed movie featuring Hepburn and Bogart, from the C.S. Forester novel, “African Queen”. I don't think any of us really cared that much about the WW I-era conflict of colonial interests that existed then between the German and British empires. But being stuck deep in an African rain forest with a broken boat propeller and no way to weld a piece back on—that we can relate to! Even if we've never been on a boat, which many of us haven't. I hope I never forget how it was actually Hepburn's naiveté about welding that saved them that time really, or at least that combined with her amazing optimism and unending faith and trust in her companion—whom in my opinion she'd already seemingly tried to ruin completely by pouring his booze overboard in a fit of righteousness about a day earlier. Bogie had been so happy, dancing around on his deck that night before, master of his own destiny and captain of his ship! So what if he was dirty, smelly, unshaven and unfit for decent company? We Americans have rights, and even though Bogie was actually playing the part of a Canadian (and even though I didn't know he wasn't an American until I just now checked Wikipedia!) the right to be filthy disgusting slobs if we want to is right there in our Constitution somewhere, I'm pretty sure. Anyway, even though booze is not a big part of my own lifestyle, I don't believe I'd ever felt so outraged or personally violated, even, as when I saw Kate dumping Bogart's stash. Good thing for her that she was a girl, is all I can say! But of course everything worked out all right, finally, Hepburn redeeming herself by just showing what an actually pretty great person she was despite her flaws, the rest of the trip. I think probably the main points I took from the story were that life can truly be almost impossible, that Bogart couldn't possibly have survived the trip without Katherine (something difficult to swallow for us free and independent types, but undeniable!), and that being in love with somebody might just be about the best part of being alive that can possibly be, the part in fact that might just make the rest of it worth it.

In any case: Pusser's Annapolis Pub and Restaurant was fantastic. I've forgotten what we ordered but I remember the plates were overflowing with really great stuff. One of us ordered Caribbean Blackened Mahi-Mahi, I'm pretty sure: “Fillet of fresh Atlantic Mahi dredged with eastern Caribbean blackening spice and seared in the cast iron skillet. Accompanied by steamed vegetables and rice with black bean sauce and garnished with mango corn relish.” Otherwise, I have a hard time believing that crabs weren't involved as well. When I get there again I'll make sure they are, because to me that's what Maryland is about, really; crabs cooked in Old Bay seasoning, which was invented there just years before The African Queen was released. I experienced that once, in about 1958: crabs cooking in large black kettles on the beach there, the seasoning could be smelled for probably hundreds of yards.

But here's the thing: besides a shop that sells sportswear, hats and accessories, Pusser's has a 200 print photo gallery and a collection of ship replicas—including one that so far as I'm concerned is no replica at all. It's the actual stunt double—twelve or fourteen feet long—that was used in the film African Queen during the dangerous rapids shots. You can walk over and touch it! I didn't, at first, because once I realized what it was it stopped me in my tracks, stunned, every bit as much as if I'd just bumped into Lauren Bacall at age twenty, wondering coolly if I ever was bit by a dead bee. And I guess you can tell I'm a landlubber since I just called a boat 'it', four times, instead of 'she'. (Or maybe I'm just a crafty pirate aimin' to avoid detection on the Internet! Arrrggh!)

So—I like to consider myself anything but superstitious. Still sometimes it seems like there really is “symbolism” or something out there, going on. I can't quite name it. I guess it would belong in the same department as déjà vu. The dinner was great there, but seeing the African Queen is something I'll never forget.

Aria Trattoria...

The restaurant where we ate lunch when we were in Washington. 

I think I ate Pulled Chicken Salad, Tender Baby Greens, Balsamico, and Garlic Crostini. 

Yes, it was really music to my mouth! So very nice to remember! And the plaza where it was located was also so nice.

Addition September 17: I think Steve ate Antipasto Salad Salame, Prosciutto, Tuscan White Beans, and Radicchio. 

Addition October 3: and it was so nice sitting down eating after walking for some hours in not so comfortable shoes (trying to look nice?). Such a warm day, with high humidity on top. I got a blister under one of my toes actually. 

Mamma Mia...

The last two days I think I have heard at least twice that I ought to watch this movie. And I certainly would want to! Maybe Steve and I can get it as DVD  for Christmas when we meet again... And see it together. 

The last student today, a 7 year old girl, and her dad said this movie is like a caramel! And they too thought I ought to see it. 

I saw this Swedish group ABBA live at Brännaberget in Överkalix in the north of Sweden (approximately 30 km south of the Arctic Circle) summer 1973 before they broke through actually.

This with ABBA is actually also connected with eating! 

When Steve and I were entirely for ourselves the first evening after leaving Severna Park and Maryland and had stopped at a restaurant for supper (I really need meals at certain times! :-)) I suddenly heard music in the loud-speakers I recognized (but now I don't remember what song it actually was):

"But this is ABBA!!!" 

I said to Steve, amazed hearing a Swedish group and Swedish music when I had traveled so far. I don't think Steve was even aware it was a Swedish group, so he was surprised too when I said they were Swedes! 

This was the same evening as Steve told his story about a magical night with lightning bugs and cicadas... I wish he could tell it again... I really saw the picture before my eyes!

Mamma Mia

I've been cheated by you since I don't know when

So I made up my mind, it must come to an end

Look at me now, will I ever learn?

I don't know how but I suddenly lose control

There's a fire within my soul

Just one look and I can hear a bell ring

One more look and I forget everything, w-o-o-o-oh

Mamma mia, here I go again

My my, how can I resist you?

Mamma mia, does it show again?

My my, just how much I've missed you

Yes, I've been brokenhearted

Blue since the day we parted

Why, why did I ever let you go?

Mamma mia, now I really know,

My my, I could never let you go.

I've been angry and sad about things that you do

I can't count all the times that I've told you we're through

And when you go, when you slam the door

I think you know that you won't be away too long

You know that I'm not that strong.

Just one look and I can hear a bell ring

One more look and I forget everything, w-o-o-o-oh

Mamma mia, here I go again

My my, how can I resist you?

Mamma mia, does it show again?

My my, just how much I've missed you

Yes, I've been brokenhearted

Blue since the day we parted

Why, why did I ever let you go?

Mamma mia, even if I say

Bye bye, leave me now or never

mamma mia, it's a game we play

Bye bye doesn't mean forever

Mamma mia, here I go again

My my, how can I resist you?

Mamma mia, does it show again?

My my, just how much I've missed you

Yes, I've been brokenhearted

Blue since the day we parted

Why, why did I ever let you go

Mamma mia, now I really know

My my, I could never let you go

Vacation Dining Experiences 1

No kidding. Really. Looking back, there was something special and significant about all our meals during all those nine days. Except maybe the bonus-sized Snickers I bought at a gas station (it was brunch) on the way to Maryland to meet Karin, on Day One. And probably too the McDonald's hamburger I finally stopped for in Pennsylvania later. As much as anything, I needed to stop for fuel, and just as urgently to wipe Snickers off the steering wheel. (Talk about an annoying four hundred miles!) Karin had said "Maybe McDonald's, once...", (which we did do one afternoon down the road, though I think she ordered salad) and her words in fact echoed in my memory as I ordered--but at that point she hadn't even left Arlanda in Stockholm. But what she didn't know couldn't possibly hurt me or anybody else, I figured. It may have been a cheeseburger I ordered, actually, but at any rate I remember thinking that I'd have to rate it "good" to "not really so bad at all", though there was no denying that the one I pedaled up to the window and bought with my own 15¢ in September of 1965 had tasted infinitely better. At any rate, I hadn't been to a McDonald's for probably three years and it was just time to, all right? If Karin were to accept me as her host for this visit she'd simply have to do it on the basis of what I was and still in fact am: a wanton omnivore. I mean except for okra, and liver of course.

Whether Karin had only been kidding about polar bears running up and down the streets over in Sweden I'm not yet totally sure, but I do know that polar bear liver contains lethal amounts of vitamin A. Personally I think someone would have to be an almost unbelievable meany to eat a polar bear in the first place, if they had any choice about it short of starving, so maybe a little vitamin A poisoning might serve them right. (Okay so I'm not wanton wanton.) But there was no liver-eating of any sort, this trip. I've titled it "Vacation Dining Experiences 1" because I'd like to record every one instead of just mentally re-living them over and over like I've been doing all month. But by my count she and I shared 19 together, so recounting all of them could take some real writin' (I figure I may or may not get back to it, truthfully). I hope to describe the first few in this entry.

There is one other pre-Karin meal much worth including:

Our east coast host, my continually amazing friend Maryland Dave, took me to eat the Monday before Karin's flight arrived--at a time during which no bikini contests were going on, I notice now that I've looked at their web site and have learned what kind of place it really is--to a really pretty great, mostly-outside joint called Red Eye's Dock Bar. Shrimp and beer, and red stuff to dip the shrimp in. Can it possibly get better than that? I wouldn't have thought so either, but it really did.

And this might seem surprising and not tasty at all to at least a few Americans. Remember that guy on that old commercial who asked "Did you ever eat a pine tree?" Well do you remember linoleum? Floor covering? It's made from a mixture of "wood flour" and linseed oil. Do you know "linseed oil", that incredibly smelly, super spontaneously-combustive ingredient of oil paint? Did you know linseed oil is pressed directly from the seeds of the flax plant, the fibers of which are used to make everything from linen to paper money? Well somehow Karin had succeeded in getting a whole plastic bag full of flax seeds past security and customs both, mixed in with nuts and a bunch of other little seedy things about which I have only a vague idea, but she called it "muesli", and we ate it all, breakfast after breakfast, with yogurt, until it was gone. (Along with orange juice and coffee.) And it was dang good! Who'da thunk? I have started buying Kroger's "Muesli" as a substitute, and it's "okay", but there are no flax seeds in it and so none of their accompanying wonderfulishness.

(To be continued)

Lena's song Fly with me...

Fly with me

 

Fly with me and take the sky

Close your eyes and feel the wind

You and I will live to see

When we reach the sky you will find

 

Fly away take my hand

Spread your wings reach the sky

I can make you believe life is rich, rich within me

So fly away hold my hand

Feel the wind take the sky

Love will find, find a way

I believe in you

Fly with me

Fly with me

 

Night will fall and stars will shine

And the moon will smile to ease your mind

Questions why like so strange

Watch me fly I’ll take you there to see

Fly away take my hand…

From the movie "As It Is In Heaven." 

You can read about Frida Hallgren (Lena in the movie) here. 

Gabriella's song and All For Love...

About the film "As It Is in Heaven" see here. You can read about Helen Sjöholm (Gabriella in the movie) here. Her official home site you find here.

Gabriella’s Song 

It is now that my life is mine

I’ve got this short time on earth

And my longing has brought me here

All I lacked and all I gained

And yet it’s the way that I chose

My trust was far beyond words

That has shown me a little bit

Of the heaven I’ve never found

I want to feel I’m alive

All my living days

I will live as I desire

I want to feel I’m alive

Knowing I was good enough

I have never lost who I was

I have only left it sleeping

Maybe I never had a choice

Just the will to stay alive

All I want is to be happy

Being who I am

To be strong and to be free

To see day arise from night

I am here and my life is only mine

And the heaven I thought was there

I’ll discover it there somewhere

I want to feel that I’ve lived my life!

If this does not inspire you, I don’t know what will…

---

Det är nu som livet är mitt

Jag har fått en stund här på jorden

Och min längtan har fört mig hit

Det jag saknat och det jag fått

Det är ändå vägen jag valt

Min förtröstan långt bort om orden

Som har visat en liten bit

Av den himmel jag aldrig nått

Jag vill känna att jag lever 

All den tid jag har ska jag leva som jag vill

Jag vill känna att jag lever 

Veta att jag räcker till

(Oh, oh, oh...)

Jag har aldrig glömt vem jag var

Jag har bara låtit det sova

Kanske hade jag inget val

Bara viljan att finnas kvar

Jag vill leva lycklig

För att jag är jag

Kunna vara stark och fri

Se hur natten går mot dag

Jag är här 

Och mitt liv är bara mitt

Och den himmel jag trodde fanns

Ska jag hitta där nånstans

Jag vill känna att jag levt mitt liv.

All For Love

When it's love you give

(I'll be a man of good faith.)

Then in love you live.

(I'll make a stand. I won't break.)

I'll be the rock you can build on,

Be there when you're old,

To have and to hold.

When there's love inside

(I swear I'll always be strong.)

Then there's a reason why.

(I'll prove to you we belong.)

I'll be the wal that protects you

From the wind and the rain,

From the hurt and pain.

Let's make it all for one and all for love.

Let the one you hold be the one you want,

The one you need,

'Cause when it's all for one it's one for all.

When there's someone that should know

Then just let your feelings show

And make it all for one and all for love.

When it's love you make

(I'll be the fire in your night.)

Then it's love you take.

(I will defend, I will fight.)

I'll be there when you need me.

When honor's at stake,

This vow I will make:

That it's all for one and all for love.

Let the one be the one you want,

The one you need,

'Cause when it's all for one it's one for all.

When there's someone that should know

Then just let your feelings show

And make it all for one and all for love.

Don't lay our love to rest

'Cause we could stand up to you test.

We got everything and more than we had planned,

More than the rivers that run the land.

We've got it all in our hands.

Now it's all for one and all for love.

(It's all for love.)

Let the one you hold be the one you want,

The one you need,

'Cause when it's all for one it's one for all.

(It's one for all.)

When there's someone that should know

Then just let your feelings show.

When there's someone that you want,

When there's someone that you need

Let's make it all, all for one and all for love.

A magical evening...

cicada

Fireflies:

A magical evening out walking under the stars I was told a magical story about a walk another magical, warm night under the stars. Between endless corn fields in the north of Indiana, with lightning bugs (fireflies) everywhere. And cicadas singing?

You can listen to the cicadas in this link!

See earlier postings on this trip here , here and here.

/Karin