New URL - and Summary of Themes

We follow people in music, the military, history, invasions, and storybooks. Meet Mozart in Vienna. From this chance encounter, Dan wants to see Salzburg next trip. Perhaps.

This site is a repotting of our earlier Common Thread Road Ways. All the earlier posts are now here, because I could not remember "common thread."

Summary of our themes to date, to which we add Wolfgang Amadeus:

We have no method for our itineraries except what happens to be where we find ourselves. We follow signs for any real or fictional person that looked interesting; and look up festivals or events. We compare issues and concepts, such as the Vlad Tepes (Impaler) sites in Romania, with Bram Stoker's "Dracula." See site at Romania Road Ways Vlad Tepes (Dracula). We take 2-3 guidebooks and then it's off in some direction.

We go to celebrations. And are grateful for our own health and safety each day.

This is at the Dracula Club in Bucharest. At Halloween. Time your trip to match something fun. This site lists festivals by country: www.frootsmag.com/content/festivals/europe/; and goeurope.about.com/od/festivalsineurope/a/summer_fests.

We find some folks by chance - see James Joyce at a cafe in Pula, Croatia, near the old Roman gate, ad our hub site Europe Road Ways.

We found Ernest Hemingway is at Pamplona, Spain, of course. Spain Road Ways.
Joan of Arc is all over northern France. France Road Ways. The Brothers Grimm are in Germany.
The Romans were all over. Germany Road Ways.
Find Napoleon at Austerlitz, Czech Road Ways; and Paris, France Road Ways; and Slovenia, at Bratislava, Slovakia Road Ways.

We dogged Robin Hood, King Arthur, Dickens, Chaucer, Thomas a Becket, and Peter Pan in England. And the Prince of Wales and Edward II in Wales. Wales Road Ways.

There are Robert the Bruce and William Wallace (Freedom!), Nessie and Rob Roy MacGregor in Scotland. Scotland Road Ways.
King Lot at Orkney. Orkney Road Ways.
Samuel Johnson at Dunvegan at Skye. Scotland Road Ways. Samuel Johnson's biography is at justus.anglican.org. Look at the resources, bio 20 section. Also, information on the Huns is at www.imninalu.net, the section on Huns; and how they helped the spread of the Black Death (among many other factors) and other matters about the Plague are at www.themiddleages.net, the section on plague.

Find Robert the Bruce at www.magicdragon.com, the Wallace and then Bruce6 section; Leonardo da Vinci at www.kausal.com/leonardo;
Charles Dickens at www.victorianweb.org, at authors, dickens,dickensbio1;
Julius Caesar and a historical chronology at www.vroma.org/%7Ebmcmanus/caesar.

7. There will be plenty of road signs for big, and little, sights on the way. The emphasis is "on the way." See as you go.

Universal Travel Ambassadors: Down Syndrome

Our son, Dan, has Down Syndrome. Here he is, propping up his Dad at Special Olympics soccer.

Travel. Anywhere. Wherever we go, we see others like him - usually with the nod and smile of recognition, the stop on the walkway, the passing-by and then the return to hover at the table. We couldn't count the exchanges, the nods and thumbs-ups, that this everywhere situation so often produces. Dan literally opens doors. We usually find welcome, and enthusiasm - and somebody who wants to tell us where someone is in the village who is like Dan, and what that person means to them, and does there, where that child was planted. Rural Romania in a farm area local pub, Spain - a storefront offering services inside for Down citizens, in France where people came and sat down with us to talk of their niece, their child, sibling, uncle.

Our only significant negative came in Germany, where people with visible handicaps are hardly ever. I became accustomed to odd looks. We are an unusal couple. At an ordinary American hotel chain, however (never our first choice if local hotels have room) a German diner was offended that we were ushered to a place in the dining roomand spoke to the maitre d' - in French, in case we spoke German, I suppose --"Il n'est pas normale." Thank you, hotel, for placating her somehow and showing her back to her seat. But now I understand why they had walked us 'way to the back to begin with. Traditions get inbred.

Lady, lady. And Germany. Unclench yourselves and open your arms and maybe life can get in.

Dan's response: Questioning, wondering what he did wrong. Dan, who is a bagger at a supermarket, sometimes encounters someone having a bad hair day. He looked over as this little drama was going on (he does not know French except for the grey-poupon exchange). Our usual routine is to that bad hair days are all over the world, probably. And went back to our meal. He handles life pretty well.

Back home. America: The Princeton Inn. They also hustled us from the front door, quickly to the back, where there were high backs to booths, with the effect that we couldn't see out much, and noone could see well in. That was offensive, thank you, but not worth clenching about. Just don't go there.

Or better yet, everyone go there. And with a hey-down-a-down-dilly-down. This ivy league ivy strangled.

Electronic Rest

Romania, Croatia, Montenegro, the rest of Europe. The commonality of the earphone, the cellphone, the internet cafe. And the universal frustration. Witness abroad on your own the humanity-wide yearning for -- ba-da-boom -- electronic rest. *
....................................................
* Electronic rest. Noun. 1. Transitory state where all gadgets with wires, batteries, network connections, internet access, modes, ink, ring tones, passwords, back-ups, virus/spam guards
or touch-pads can be located and actually work. Not to be confused with regularity, predictability, personal merit, meeting times, due dates, or distance from commercially available substitutes down the road. See Nirvana. Terminates within five minutes of awareness of original state; 2. Period of nap, the body's response to the mental illusion of permanence in electronic functioning; 3. Doze of gratitude while cubicled or home-officed, unaware of pending danger. From Old English dysig: foolish.

Open Spaces - Trust and Get Out of the Car

We find lovely remote spots everywhere. Leave the car and take a hike. Ours was fine and right where we left it, when we got back. We had seen people around when we headed off, but either we'd be ok or not, so no sense fussing. Just go.

This is on the way over the Carpathian Mountains, at the Transfagarasan Pass in Romania. There was supposed to be a fine waterfall just beyond, but this was fall and not spring, and we never did find it. Great little hike anyway.

Toilet variations. There will also be a toilet, or not, when you need one. You soon learn to navigate the "Turkish toilets," as they are called both here and in Greece, fully functioning and sensible, but you put your feet on the markers, and squat or aim over the hole between. No problem. Do carry some TP. Facing the door is best. They also flush, as you would expect. But, at the port-a-type, don't get your hopes up. Like here.

Pogonotrophy: Beard-Growing

You are in a different county, and suddenly start noticing that there are more of some things here, or fewer of some things.

Beards, for example. And the reasons for growing them - religious, other cultural, young people, old people. Look up the words for it. Pogonotomy is beard-cutting. Pogonotrophy is beard-cultivation. Tap the "surprise me" tab at this site: www.worldwidewords.org/index.

Some religious traditions call for the beard, as here - a priest in the Orthodox Christian faith, in Romania. He was hitch-hiking and we invited him to join us in our car for the drive from Bistrita to Castel Dracula. See Romania Road Ways. He is married, grew up in the area, and spoke enough English that we could converse, and not just grunt about and nod vigorously, while not really sure what is being said.

Wonderful. For more of interest to the quirky, look up "weird words" and "turns of phrase" in the Worldwide Word site's left side index. If you once thought yourself reasonably educated, give yourself a vocabulary test at these sites and weep. For more of what most of us do not know, see the Colorado lexicon at www.cs.colorado.edu/%7Ejrblack/class/csci3104/f06/hw/wordlst.txt. Again, if the long address form does not work, just go to the home page and try from there - go to cs.colorado.edu, for example.

Quick. The definition of inspissations. See the CMU lexicon at www.cs.cmu.edu/%7Emjs/F06-15123/labs/lab2/172K-words.txt

Links, posts and archives

References to third-party websites for additional information are given here in word form. See direct-link issues raised at www.bitlaw.com. The slow way (you put in your own search to the address, using your own browser) appears prudent. There must be another way. Interests should be protected reasonably, but is hobbling us the answer?

Posting - Post dating is used to arrange the chronology of the posts. This way, we an put similar issues together.

Archives - These are not necessarily earlier posts. Archives may include new posts put with an earlier topic. Do check often.

Technorati Profile

Animal Themes - Duck Types (then on to chickens, turkeys, geese, others)

Here a quack. Go to this site to find duckworld -- www.ansi.okstate.edu/poultry/ducks/index. Look each one up and marvel:

There are Muscovy ducks; Call ducks, usually in red-light ponds? and Cayuga ducks, seriously from Cayauag County, NY and isn't that also Cornell? And Khaki Campbells, Pekin ducks, and are these the restaurant variety? and Rouen ducks (did Joan of Arc recognize them?). They are a kind of hyper-mallard, and more. Site has most of these with pictures, some you have to look up further.

For songs and ditties about ducks that you may have tried to forget after elementary school, see England Road Ways . Then try to forget them again. Gotcha. In your ears.

There are posters abroad that we saw, and should have bought, that have species of goat, sheep, cattle.

Cattle, sheep, goats, horses - identifying breeds

Livestock breeds: You will see so many. See the variety of sheep, goats, cattle, horses: at www.ansi.okstate.edu/breeds/cattle/.

One of the most striking of the cattle we saw is the Belted Galloway, or "oreo" cattle breed. They are black with a wide, white belt around the middle. I believe they are being raised in Maine now, or New Hampshire. There was a newspaper article about someone buying a half of a Belted Galloway with a friend, who got the other half, and all the parts went into the freezer.

See Scotland Road Ways for the heavy-coated highland cattle, very long and shaggy coats. There are also wild donkeys in the Highlands there. See Ireland Road Ways for the brown and white, more familiar, cattle walking on the roadways. And for the sheep and goats also on the roads. They are identified by inked blotches, red, blue, yellow, known to the owners. Donegal sweaters? Is that where the blue and red flecks come from, in the wool?

A Day In Our Life Over There - An Inconsequential Poem

We travel oddly, my son and I.
Pick country, cheap airfare, and rent-a-car.
EZ Pack: one for wash, wear, spare. Mostly.
Direction? Clockwise or not, depending.
Lost again? He decides. Elbows cross.
Fingers point both directions and we go.
No goals, nocall-aheads, hardly. Schmooze.
Find: Standing stones. Vikings. Crusades.
Castles. Family graves. Silent loud stories.
Rules: Ferry sign? Take it. Orkney, 5 A.M.
Sing the towns in songs. Fair Citee. Gra- nah-dah!
Volcano up close. El Greco hands. Bulls run.
Menu mystery: Pick the sixth. Bulls' ears?
And here lies the heart of Robert the Bruce.
Where is the rest? Fill in the gaps.
Personal best: Watch one parent, one child,
Now two adults. Joint venture.
Up-looking re-education with my Down son
Who is always Up. Hey, man. Who are we?
We are the Car-Dan Tour Company.
We master airports.
Thinking in the car.
Log on lap. Pencil.
My line of work ill-chosen for my kind.
A maze, unknowable turnings
With no-one at rest. Waiting for an outcome
From choices made, or found in the wood.
Who chose?
You get away, you think back.
Like after the push
When I went down the street.
Intentionally thrust
By the alien children
Abrupt, when I was four, and new
In the neighborhood.
Thought that long forgotten.
Right off the concrete stairs
Of the new addition.
They were silent after.
And my fingers sticky red running home.
The pitch. Again, there. Loud in its waiting.
The tolling. Ears ring ever after.
The mirror and the office.
Where the place.
All turnings. The mosaic reheaves.
Prom ball. Worldwide.
A technicolor ferris.
Fine ride. Next flight.


More blogs about Common Thread Road Ways.

Myths and Legends Sites - and Connections between Cultures

Reading myths can occupy an entire morning, at least, so do set aside the tme. We see statues of ancient gods and goddesses, references in the country's lore. Try this site before you leave for a country, to get a flavor of the old days - www.mythinglinks.org/euro%7Eeast%7EBalkans%7ERomania.

I especially enjoyed the sections with Romania and Central Europe, but just go to the home page (mythinglinks.org) for the best overall starting point. I am interested in the tree image that cultures use in creation stories and other purposes.