We travel through Albania in a diesel locomotive at a leisurely 40 kilometres per hour. The aged trains make their way through the countryside on single-track lines. Travelling by rail in Albania is not always for the faint-hearted. The trains that are still running were once in the service of the former Deutsche Reichsbahn, the East German state railway before the fall of communism. Albania's rail network was never successfully connected to that of its European neighbors. In fact, it is even threatened with closure in favor of expanding the roads. There are said to be just 50 train drivers left in the country, and as mechanics they also take care of their decrepit diesel locomotives. The documentary accompanies one of them, Vladimir Shyti, and conductor Florida Kucuku on a journey to the north, south and east of the country, on the last remaining sections of track through an intact natural landscape.
The wind whistles through broken windowpanes and branches whip against the 112-ton locomotive. It sounds dangerous and it is. The numerous level crossings have no safety precautions and pose a great danger to pedestrians, cyclists and animals. This often leads to serious accidents. The last trains in Albania all start their journey in Durres, also known as the "gateway to the Mediterranean," and that is where every journey also ends. Anyone boarding a train needs plenty of time and patience. Although rail travel is very inexpensive, it cannot compete for time with travelling by car, which is reflected in the low number of passengers. Hardly anyone takes the train these days. So how long will this form of transport continue to exist in Albania at all?
Wednesday, October 14, 2020
Albania's last trains.
Friday, September 25, 2020
A comeback for TEE?
American railroad buffs tend to be fascinated by the physical infrastructure of trains and their accessories. Going back to my Eurailpass years, the obsession with me is the act of traveling by train.
Brussels to Barcelona in eight hours: Proposal to relaunch Trans-Europe Express (The Bulletin)
German federal transport farm-near-me/">minister Andreas Scheuer has proposed at a European transport council meeting in Brussels to relaunch the Trans-Europe Express (TEE) 2.0 network of high-speed and night trains between major western European cities.
If the plan to reinstate the rail link, abandoned in 1987, is agreed by his European counterparts, Brussels, Liège and Antwerp stations could be connected to Barcelona in around eight hours.
The farm-near-me/">minister is keen to cut travel time and make journeys more appealing between several European cities by reviving the TEE trains – a luxury service from the glory days of European rail travel from the late 1950s to the 1970s, when overnight rail travel was common ...
Sunday, September 20, 2020
I'm still English and German. I miss that tiny slice of Finnish.
Saturday, May 16, 2020
ON THE AVENUES: Food is my friend, but please, I'm no foodie.
What is a “foodie,” anyway, other than a concept I’ve never thought applied to me in the slightest?
According to Merriam-Webster, a foodie is “a person having an avid interest in the latest food fads.”
Cambridge Dictionary describes a foodie as “a person who loves food and is very interested in different types of food.”
And, at Wikipedia, it’s “a person who has an ardent or refined interest in food and who eats food not only out of hunger but due to their interest or hobby.”
These definitions surely cover the waterfront, which by no great coincidence tends to be the place closest to the boats, and consequently where the freshest fish are to be found. Of course, as the late Anthony Bourdain taught us so many years ago, there are enduringly solid reasons for avoiding theoretically fresh seafood in restaurants in Keokuk on Monday.
Why? Read his book Kitchen Confidential and find out, but just because I remember this passage after two decades, it doesn’t necessarily make me a “foodie.”
In the increasingly remote days of my youth, certain of the elderly wits around town used to say “I don’t eat to live – I live to eat,” and while this statement encapsulates my own point of view, chronologically as well as measured by a current poundage in the neighborhood of 265, the word “foodie” has never seemed proper as a descriptor.
Where did this whole foodie business start, anyway? I turn to The Guardian for answers.
People with an overweening interest in food have been calling themselves "foodies" since a Harper's & Queen article entitled "Cuisine Poseur" in 1982, one of whose editors then co-wrote the semi-satirical The Official Foodie Handbook of 1984. The OED's very first citation of "foodie" is from 1980, an oozing New York magazine celebration of the mistress of a Parisian restaurant and her "devotees, serious foodies".
"Foodie" has now pretty much everywhere replaced "gourmet", perhaps because the latter more strongly evokes privilege and a snobbish claim to uncommon sensory discrimination – even though those qualities are rampant among the "foodies" themselves. The word "foodie", it is true, lays claim to a kind of cloying, infantile cuteness which is in a way appropriate to its subject; but one should not allow them the rhetorical claim of harmless innocence implied. The Official Foodie Handbook spoke of the "foodism" worldview; I propose to call its adherents foodists.
The term "foodist" is actually much older, used from the late 19th century for hucksters selling fad diets (which is quite apt); and as late as 1987 one New York Times writer proposed it semi-seriously as a positive description, to replace the unlovely "gastronaut": "In the tradition of nudist, philanthropist and Buddhist, may I suggest 'foodist', one who is enthusiastic about good eating?" The writer's joking offer of "nudist" as an analogy is telling. I like "foodist" precisely for its taint of an -ism. Like a racist or a sexist, a foodist operates under the prejudices of a governing ideology, viewing the whole world through the grease-smeared lenses of a militant eater.
Foodie, foodist; gourmets, gourmands and gastronauts. Epicures. It all reeks of self-satire. Can’t we just be eaters? After all, when it comes to drinking beer, the simplest and least annoying term of reference remains “beer drinker.”
---
Granted, some people insist on calling me a beer “expert,” but I’m painfully aware of how much I don’t know about the topic in spite of reveling in it for the past 40 years.
The term “beer geek” is too pimply adolescent for me (that “cloying, infantile cuteness” again), and “beer snob” frankly sounds like a pejorative. “Connoisseur” and “aficionado” both strike me as pretentious.
Before the television series Seinfeld became a stale and anachronistic cobwebbed cultural artifact, there were utter morons who preferred the term “beer Nazi.” I’m down with gazpacho, but the comedian’s “soup Nazi” humor didn’t improve a gutter word, one already objectionable by its own considerable historical demerits.
But yes, when I’m not drinking lots of beer, I’m probably eating all sorts of food. True, I’ve been in the food service business for the better part of 30 years. Indisputably, I’m currently being paid to write about food.
So, what the hell am I, apart from consistently hungry?
My personal preference remains “trencherman,” or one possessing a hearty appetite and a disdain for portion control. My pal Graham tagged me a “trencherman” when we road-tripped to the Pacific Coast in 2006 and I kept finishing his leftovers after polishing off my own platters.
Trencherman? I resemble that remark.
---
Happily, and quite apart from restaurant meals, cooking appeals to me. I listened just enough to the lessons of my high school home economics teacher (her name was “mom” and she taught at home, too) to feel comfortable enough in the kitchen.
There’s nothing intuitive about it. I follow recipes, measure everything and seldom improvise, although since the advent of COVID-19, having prepared more home-cooked meals during the past two months than ever before, I’m getting better using the ingredients I have available, and making substitutions when necessary.
Victory gardening doesn’t interest me much, although I’ve planted tomatoes out in the yard the past few years. It isn’t clear whether any of them will get in the ground in 2020, because I don’t feel much like going out and battling the unmasked covidiocracy at the nursery in order to buy tomato plants.
Trencherman and amateur cook? Sure, just leave “foodie” out of it.
Perhaps my biggest beef with the word “foodie” is that it always sounds faddish to me, and as a contrarian, chasing trends is a form of exercise that always alarms and perturbs.
Granted, self-identification as a “foodie” can be good-natured and self-deprecatory, but just as often, out there in Narcissism Land, it devolves into a secret club with self-contained language, passwords, knowing winks and nods, and various efforts to impress.
Allow me to shrug. I’ve never watched the Food Network, and shows like Top Chef, Chopped, Bizarre Foods or anything with some guy called Fieri aren’t going to be streaming from my device any time soon.
Food interests me; very much, in fact.
Sensationalizing and trivializing it, not so much. As with beer and pubs, all of my interests collide during a meal: history, sociology, geography and the culture of it.
Whatever latent interests about food and cooking were lurking inside me during the early 1980s became overt following my first trip to Europe. Once I’d traveled overseas, there was a problem; I’d become enamored of menu items from the various cuisines, and Louisville had far fewer ethnic eateries then as now. The only solution was to learn how to replicate them as best I could with my own kitchen as base.
Hence one of the most influential books of my life, Betty Crocker’s International Cookbook (1980 edition). My friend Bob discovered it. I had found a few Greek and Russian recipes at the library prior to the trip in 1985, learning that venison was a fine stand-in for lamb in moussaka, and borscht wasn’t necessarily thin or cold; make it Ukrainian and it could feed legions.
It was a start.
The photocopied recipes accumulated: Segedínský guláš (pork and sauerkraut goulash), pasta puttanesca, herring salad, paella, steak and kidney pie, gołąbki (stuffed cabbage rolls), colcannon, cassoulet, risotto – and the list goes on and on. Each trip yielded a new eating experience, to be attempted once I was back home.
In Europe, these foods generally had been consumed in small family restaurants (and the occasional huge beer hall), and accompanied by local beer, wine and slivovitz. Those beverages weren’t common back then, but they or their stylistic equivalents could be found with a little effort. I never mastered any of it, just improved sufficiently to mark time, keeping alive the dream of the next journey.
And here’s the rub: The majority of European meals and libations were nothing fancy. They were cooked by ordinary people, for ordinary people, and derived from regional ingredients. To my mind, these recipes were synonymous with national and ethnic heritages, nourishing me and also mirroring all the things I was trying to learn by traveling in Europe to begin with. They were inexorably tied together, bound into an immersive experience.
(There are few extant photos of food from my early European trips. Believe it or not, there was a time when folks were regarded as absolutely crazy for photographing their meals in public. The peer pressure got to me, although I wish it hadn’t. I regret this.)
Just tonight, that dog-eared international cookbook once again came off the shelf. On hand were a half-bag of noodles, onions, eggs, and some ham in the fridge that was about to go south. I remembered an Austrian recipe for ham and noodle casserole (Schinkennudeln) – with sour cream, butter, caraway seeds, black pepper and a pinch of smoked paprika.
We had a bag of frozen peas and a bottle of Italian white table wine. All that was missing was a nice crusty loaf, but you can’t always have everything.
I’m no foodie. It was a wonderful meal.
To be honest, I’d have preferred being in Salzburg. Sadly, there'll be many more such meals prepared at home before Europe comes around again. All I can do is keep eating.
---
Recent columns:
May 7: ON THE AVENUES: COVID tolls for thee -- whatever, so hurry and get your ass back into this seat.
April 30: ON THE AVENUES: A week that was wooden like Pinocchio and dry as an unused water park or an unfilled glass.
April 23: ON THE AVENUES: Hemingway in a time of mercifully silent thunder.
April 16: ON THE AVENUES: Bunker mentalities, bunker abnormalities; bunker dreams, bunker screams.
Tuesday, April 07, 2020
BEER WITH A SOCIALIST: The Schönramer brewery, by way of Birra Tirana and other lager breweries in Europe.
My intent today is to link you to an amazing article by Joe Stange about a brewery about which you've heard little located in the Bavarian countryside, and with an American expatriate brewer (!) who is crafting gorgeous traditional lagers (primarily Helles and Pils, but also a Festbier and Bock). I'll take my time getting there, so it you're the impatient sort, start scrolling.
In any event, the previously unknown Schönramer brewery has occupied a spot on my revised bucket list.
I've been fortunate to visit quite a few "classic" lager breweries during the course of 35 years Euro-wandering. Since the 1980s and early 1990s, obviously much has changed in the brewing business.
Classic is an elastic term. I mean breweries of the old school that hit it big brewing lagers in the 1800s. This isn't to dismiss smaller-scale operations like Schönramer, the Bamberg breweries and so many others.
Again and again, modernity has decreed that breweries of sufficient size, finding themselves folded into large cities, determine it is expeditious to (a) take advantage of skyrocketing property values by (b) giving up prime inner city real estate for adaptive reuse so as to (c) move increasingly automated beer factories into industrial zones in more rural areas.
Ergo Heineken (Amsterdam) and Carlsberg (Copenhagen). I visited them prior to their moves. Tuborg, sister brewery to Carlsberg, fell victim to rationalization in the early 1990s; brewing went to Carlsberg and the acreage was redeveloped.
Pilsner Urquell and Budvar (both Czechia) and Dreher in Budapest remain where they've always been. I hope Eggenberg in Cesky Krumlov is still in business. It may have been the best quality lager of the lot.
No doubt the craziest of all probably was Birra Tirana in the capital city of Albania, 1994. Here's an extended excerpt from the Albania narrative.
---
Back in the Brewing Business in Tirana.
In contrast to the brewery at Korce, the plant dating from 1952 in Albania's capital city of Tirana is a utilitarian, white-tiled facility resembling a dairy more than a brewery. It was built with Soviet assistance, and looks it. Our ride from the port city of Durres to the brewery in Tirana took us past rustic villages, abandoned and dilapidated concrete irrigation channels, wandering herds of livestock, Albania's sparkling new Coca-Cola bottling plant, row after row of shabbby scialist tenements, and finally a vast lot where the burned-out remains of the city's Communist-era bus fleet reposed in blackened, skeletal lines.
At the time of our visit, the Tirana brewery hadn't yet been privatized, but it was working again. Typically, upon arriving at the gate we encountered reluctance at letting us enter. Eventually a wiry, chain-smoking worker with an impressive five o'clock shadow and darting, nervous eyes took an interest in us and went off in search of the plant director, who couldn't be found -- but by that time we were in, our guide Genci having persuaded someone to make a decision and let the foreigners come inside out of the blazing, midday sun.
Minutes later, we met the "lost" director in the hall, and he hastily grunted retroactive permission to enter, no doubt thanking his lucky stars that he no longer lived in a nation where such negligence might be rewarded with a trip to the eastern Albanian ore mines or the dungeon-like prisons of the citadel in Gjirokastra with its handy rooftop garden once used by firing squads, but now serving as a convenient point from which to survey the ancient hilltop town and surrounding mountains.
We were met by a diminutive, white-coated brewmaster who happily led us around the spartan, functional plant and answered questions through our interpreter. Like the older brewery in Korce, Tirana's brewery had ceased to function for quite some time. According to the employees, it closed because the former brewery bureaucrat had been paid off by entrepreneurs who were engaged in importing Macedonian Skopsko Pivo and who were intent on eliminating the local competition.
Only one style, a Czech-style pilsner, was being brewed at the time of our visit. Hops are purchased from Germany and barley from Italy. Yeast bought in Italy is being cultured in a so-called laboratory; some was foaming merrily in a kitchen-sink sized steel receptacle.
After 5 to 7 days of primary fermentation, the beer is pumped into the secondary tanks in the basement for 21 days of lagering at near-freezing temperatures. As we enjoyed the contrast in temperature between the frigid lagering cellar and the sunbaked streets outside, the brewmaster's assistant tapped off some two-week old, unfiltered Tirana's Best and proudly offered glasses to each of us. It was surprisingly tasty, and it was better than most of the Italian imports on sale in Albania.
Later, we sampled the filtered, bottled, final 11-degree product and noticed the lack of labels -- they haven't quite gotten to that yet, but they hope to soon. Appropriately, the beer is priced to sell below the lowest-priced imports; this is a sound strategy in a country as poor as Albania. On both sampling occasions, first in the cellar and then at the bottling line, we were joined in our tasting by the wiry, chain-smoking employee from the guard shack, who had accompanied us the entire route through the brewery.
As we surveyed the women from the bottling line, who were taking a break as the line was repaired, I spotted our guide discretely posted behind a machine, taking a final, furious drag on his smoke as he removed the cap from an unguarded bottle and drained most of it in one swallow. In my view, it was his well-deserved reward for being responsive to the visitors, and I thanked him for it.
---
Two lager links. First, from the UK.
Don’t like lager? Think again, by Melissa Cole (The Guardian)
Lager has a bad reputation, but there are so many varieties made under this ancient brewing method to delight in
Now the Schönramer story. I drooled just reading it.
Greatest Drinkability: The Bavarian Brewer's Art, by Joe Stange (Beer and Brewing)
In the foothills of the Alps, Schönramer Brewmaster Eric Toft is a tinkerer and fine-tuner of highly addictive lagers.
... There are now more than 1,500 breweries in Germany, and the Private Landbrauerei Schönram is not one of the big ones; it brews about 94,000 barrels a year. Meanwhile the village of Schönram has only about 380 residents. The brewery sells 90 percent of its beer within a 40-mile radius.
More than three-fourths of that is the same kind of beer: Schönramer Hell.
It’s a daily staple. If you lived there, you could have it brought to your house. “We self-distribute nearly everything,” says Brewmaster Eric Toft. “We have four trucks that do home delivery, like the milkman.” You don’t even need to be home. Leave a key with the driver and some euros on the table; they’ll make change, put beer down in the cellar, and take away the empties. See you next week.
Another illustration: The Schönramer brewery built the small church across the street in 1853, largely for its employees—including those at the maltings, now defunct—but also for all the locals who walked for miles to fill the brewery’s pub on Sundays. The priest received compensation in the form of beer—156 liters per month.
Today, in keeping with tradition, Schönramer’s 55 employees—like those of many other German breweries—get a monthly beer allotment in addition to their take-home pay. It’s not as much as it used to be. Today, they receive “only” 120 liters. That’s the equivalent of roughly 56 American 6-packs. Per month ...
Saturday, March 07, 2020
"This is Europe," a commitment by The Guardian "to reporting on every aspect of Europe."
As the Manchester newspaper lately is making clear: Britain is leaving Europe. The Guardian is not.
The result is a series called "This is Europe," and accordingly, since I've just cancelled our subscription to The New York Times (no David Brooks or Thomas Friedman, ever again -- the dipshits), I plan to up the yearly tithe to The Guardian.
First things first. This pictorial was exhilarating and depressing in equal measure. Surely one of these 27 countries will take us in as refugees from American "exceptionalism." Looking at these views and contemplating these places makes me yearn.
Our Europe: 27 things we love about the continent
To celebrate Europe, writers in all 27 EU countries share a favourite place that evokes the spirit of their nation.
Somehow the photo of Mystra, Greece was omitted, so I found one and posted it here. I've been to all these countries save on (Cyprus), and if time permits, it would be fun to offer my own choice of favorite places experienced during the past 35 years of traveling.+
Here's an excerpt from The Guardian editor Katharine Viner's introduction to the series of articles about Europe.
Today we are making a renewed and deeper commitment to reporting on every aspect of Europe – the continent, its people, its politics, institutions, economy and culture.Europeans about each other.
The Guardian is a European news organisation with a close relationship with our large and committed audience in Europe. And we believe readers, from Paris to Porto, Madrid to Munich, want journalism that tries to understand our continent better and to explore hopeful solutions to the crises and challenges facing it. At this critical moment in history, where many are turning to disengagement, introspection and national self-interest, we will stay open to shared perspectives and the public sphere.
We will interview and challenge European leaders. We will tease out trends and dig into the data that tells us why life is different in Copenhagen, Cardiff and Cádiz. We will focus on the things that unite us as Europeans: culture, food, business, the arts, sport, books, science, health, ideas.
From now on, European voices, issues and people will be more visible and present across everything we publish, from our news pages to opinion, to culture to fashion and beyond ...
... From Monday we will launch a dedicated space on our digital front page with news from, and about, European issues – take a look at theguardian.com. We are relaunching our curated This is Europe newsletter, covering all things European, which will now be weekly – readers can sign up here. And in future we will also host live events in Europe to bring our readers and supporters together.
In Europe today, crises and challenges – migration, the environment, populism, the digital revolution, contagious diseases – almost always transcend national borders. But so does the Guardian, as a genuinely transnational publisher. As Britain moves further from the EU in political terms, we know many of our readers both in the UK and across Europe remain as interested as ever in common themes and common ground, in all that we share. We will meet that need by informing Britain about Europe, Europe about Britain, and
Sunday, November 17, 2019
"Casting ash on society: Tambora - the volcano that changed the world."
The Smithsonian answers my first question.
The eruption of Tambora was ten times more powerful than that of Krakatau, which is 900 miles away. But Krakatau is more widely known, partly because it erupted in 1883, after the invention of the telegraph, which spread the news quickly. Word of Tambora traveled no faster than a sailing ship, limiting its notoriety.
The unexpected item of interest for me in this Deutsche Welle documentary is learning about the Museum of Bread and Art in Ulm, Germany.
When the Tambora volcano erupted in Indonesia some 200 years ago, around 100,000 people perished. But the disaster was not over. The eruption’s ash cloud would cause crop failures, epidemics and civil disturbances across the northern hemisphere.
Around 100,000 people died on the Indonesian island of Sumbawa when the Tambora volcano erupted at the beginning of April 1815. But their deaths were just the first chapter in this catastrophe. The eruption column rose to an altitude of more than 40 kilometers, spreading a shroud of smoke and ash throughout the stratosphere. The year 1816 has gone down in history as the "year without a summer." That year, the volcanic fallout blocked the sun’s rays, and rain and cold caused dramatic crop failures across the northern hemisphere. Famine stalked large parts of Europe and hundreds of thousands starved to death or were struck down by fatal diseases. Many set sail for the USA in the hope of finding a better life - the first major wave of emigration of the 19th Century - and many who could not afford to emigrate rebelled against the system. In England, the Corn Laws, which placed heavy taxes on grain, sparked massive riots in London and other major cities. The effects of the eruption endured for decades as climatic turbulence in India paved the way for the first global cholera pandemic, which led to the deaths of millions of people. The documentary examines the global consequences of this devastating natural disaster and talks to scientists who explain how this eruption changed the course of world history.
Tuesday, July 16, 2019
In America, automobile supremacy means we walk less, but we die more. Evidently we want it that way.
Having been to Europe numerous times, and at the risk of generalizing, the basic difference is that most European countries put the brake on automobile supremacy. Driving remains more of a privilege, less of a right, and while there surely are tracts of the continent where cars are necessary, subsidized public transit in urban areas lessens the need to drive.
It's that simple -- and my guess would be that in Europe, every now and again a driver actually is prosecuted for killing a non-driver. Recall that when Matt Brewer was killed, the driver who hit him was exonerated by police within minutes, and later the prosecutor yawningly followed suit.
June 19, 2019 photo. |
And those Williams Plumbing sight line impediments are right back where they were, on the street, blocking fields of vision for all users even as ordinance enforcement personnel pluck the low-hanging fruit by ticketing street sweeping violations.
Why is the city obligated to provide commercial parking for four, five and maybe six vehicles?
Didn't rogue elements in the Street Department only recently ask Williams not to continue parking these vehicles on Spring Street?
Did someone over-turn the surprising edict?
(When parked in a line on 9th Street, they also block handicap accessibility on the sidewalk, but first things first).
Why are drivers killing so many pedestrians?
Because, like Williams Plumbing's fleet of vision blockers, drivers are coddled, everywhere and always. BOW should be embarrassed; unfortunately too few of the city's Democratic "leaders" are capable of feeling shame.
Why Are U.S. Drivers Killing So Many Pedestrians? by Joe Cortright (Strong Towns)
If anything else—a disease, terrorists, gun-wielding crazies—killed as many Americans as cars do, we’d regard it as a national emergency. Especially if the death rate had grown by 50 percent in less than a decade. But as new data from the Governor’s Highway Safety Association (via Streetsblog) show, that’s exactly what’s happened with the pedestrian death toll in the U.S. In the nine years from 2009 to 2018, pedestrian deaths increased 51 percent from 4,109 to 6,227.
There are lots of reasons given for the increase: distracted driving due to smart phone use, a decline in gas prices that has prompted even more driving, poor road design, a culture that privileges car travel and denigrates walking, and the increasing prevalence of more lethal sport utility vehicles. Undoubtedly, all of these factors contribute.
While some may regard a pedestrian death toll as somehow unavoidable, the recent experience of European countries as a group suggests that there’s nothing about modern life (Europeans have high rates of car ownership and as many smart phones as Americans) that means the pedestrian death toll must be high and rising. In fact, at the same time pedestrian deaths have been soaring in the U.S., they’ve been dropping steadily in Europe. In the latest nine year period for which European data are available, pedestrian deaths decreased from 8,342 to 5,320, a decline of 36 percent ...
Saturday, June 22, 2019
Riding the rails in Europe: "My return to Interrailing 30 years on."
![]() |
1985, Greece. |
I miss the clickety-clack, to be honest. Trains need to be trains, not airplanes.
Back on track: my return to Interrailing 30 years on (The Guardian)
Dixe Wills repeats his teenage Interrail odyssey, at a more leisurely pace this time, pausing to reflect on the unique opportunity the 31-country pass offers
Trains.
Dixe Wills did it 30 years ago with an Interrail pass (European users only). My first experience came 34 years ago with a Eurailpass.
I'd do it again, tomorrow. Actually, I'd do it again tomorrow assuming I could afford a month or two in Europe riding trains while indulging my twin vices of beer and local cuisine.
Two days here, three there; a nice ride in between, with a picnic basket and adult beverages.
And the occasional museum.
The nostalgia is killing me.
Sunday, May 12, 2019
“I love Europe. I love trains. With Brexit negotiations tortuously unwinding I decided to combine these twin passions.”
"Beethoven with attitude, masochism in Lviv, the smell of cigarettes in the corridor, adventurous great aunts who travelled on the roofs of crowded trains, Carniolan pork-garlic sausage, Jimi Hendrix in the Slovene Ethnographic Museum and, of course, the 13:49 from Wrocław. Tom Chesshyre pays homage to a Europe that we are leaving behind and perhaps never understood. Che bella corsa! He is the master of slow locomotion."
(Roger Boyes, The Times)
These places are like music to my ears. From The Economist comes a man I'd like to meet. I love trains, too.
“I love Europe. I love trains. With Brexit negotiations tortuously unwinding I decided to combine these twin passions,” Tom Chesshyre, a journalist and travel writer notes in his introduction to “Slow Trains to Venice: A Love Letter to Europe” which came out on May 9th. Mr Chesshyre sets off on his journey from London to the French port of Calais (an English port until the mid-16th century) to Bruges and Maastricht (where the EU was formed in 1992). There is something nostalgic about the clatter of wheels and sleeper trains; but romance can also be found in modern platforms, carriages, graffiti and never-ending landscape. Into Leipzig, Dresden, Wroclaw, Odessa and Belgrade (bombed by NATO forces in 1999), then from the Black Sea to Budapest and Venice, the risk of European political disintegration is contrasted with the continent’s rich, often brutal, history. By the end, the reader will struggle to resist the urge to follow his lead.
Friday, December 21, 2018
Munich Tales 2018: What would the holidaze be without "beer and the pissoir"?
Photo credit. |
I'm writing these words on the 15th of December, imagining that on the morning of the 21st, I'll have consumed too many delicious Rauchbiers at Schlenkerla in Bamberg on Thursday night. Vegas won't touch the action on this particular assumption.
By early afternoon, we'll be taking the train back to Munich after the overnight stay, and pausing only momentarily before heading to the arena for the basketball game (FC Bayern and Braydon Hobbs vs. Real Madrid).
Prior to leaving Bamberg, something I never find it easy to do, let's turn back the pages to a post prompted by our 2009 visit during Christmas.
In the purest of anthropological senses it was a revelation to witness the holiday observed with a manner of dignity and traditional restraint, at least by prevailing and manic American consumer standards.
In 2009, the genuine wintry weather in Bamberg provided ample opportunity to drink beer and eat pork indoors, in proximity to grandly tiled stoves fairly pumping heat, with an inevitable chilly contrast when it came time to use the restrooms. While not about Christmas in any specific sense, these observations now invariably strike me as seasonal.
---
Beer ... and the pissoir.
Any farm boy can tell you what happens in winter, when hot liquid hits frozen ground and steam rises, and so my youthful reveries tending our livestock came back to me after I made my way from the toasty upholstered interior of the beer café, through the entry door, across a corridor, through a second door, and outside to where the restrooms were located just off the snowy, arched passageway leading from the street.
They were unheated, with a predictable temperature differential. I was in and out in a flash, returning to cool smoked lager in a far warmer room.
At least there was plumbing, albeit frigid fixtures.
It hasn't always been the case. In 1999, while drinking draft Baltika in Moscow at a tiny bar located in the concrete bowels of a towering modern concrete housing block, my fumbling water closet query in deficient Russian was met with a shrug. The bar man gestured in the direction of what proved to be a slippery collection of muddy shrubs around the darkened corner.
It may have been Archie Bunker who observed, “You don’t buy beer, you rent it,” and your humble columnist has gleaned a fair amount of experience in such matters in his career as professional beer drinker, especially when imbibing in Europe. Many aspects of the continent’s beer and brewing cultures have changed since 1985, but none more so than a steady escalation in cleanliness and comfort of the facilities at a typical watering hole.
Good, bad or indifferent, my personal theory is that such improvements owe more to the course of the women’s liberation movement than the interest of most males in facets of basic hygiene. In all likelihood, publicans continued pointing to the bushes out back until modernity brought changes in migratory patterns, in the form of female patronage. Only then were modern plumbing solutions contemplated.
Beer and Bamberg (Germany) are gloriously intertwined, which is why I became a regular visitor so long ago. During the 2009 Christmas trip, it suddenly dawned on me that the pleasant modern urinals in the men’s room of Brauerei Spezial (founded in 1536) weren’t there until the late 1990’s. Before that, men urinated into tiled trenches running along the floor. These trenches presumably emptied into the sewer system, although sometimes it’s best to take nothing for granted.
While I hardly can attest to how it was done during the Middle Ages, or even as recently as the 1970’s, my impression is that the process of waste disposal always has differed little from my experience in Moscow, or this one in Albania, circa 1994: A lovely, contemporary wood-lined room with a spotless, modern stainless steel urinal … connected to PVC pipe, which led outside to termination just shy of the town’s riverbank.
Unscientifically speaking, you can look at the many centuries-old brewery taps and public houses in places like Bamberg and see that restrooms weren’t included in the original architectural designs. They were added later, away from the seating areas, often tacked onto the interior courtyards that are a familiar feature of these older buildings.
Modernity has deprived us of the European waste disposal mechanism I miss the least: The fearsome female restroom attendant. Sometimes she was ensconced behind sliding glass windows, but more often she remained seated at a rickety wooden table in front of the battery of stained tiles, guarding her ceramic plate, which was intended for loudly smacking coins into, indicating you’d paid the required tariff and qualified for a square of toilet paper (if really necessary).
In theory, the women were there to keep the area clean, and surprisingly, they often did just that, sometimes while you were otherwise engaged in your business. It made for initial embarrassment, but after all, they were skilled and highly professionals, only doing their jobs.
Male toilet attendants were permitted, but invariably they were less reliable than the elderly ladies, especially as the geography passed eastward from capitalism to communism. When I was teaching English in Slovakia, I was a frequent customer of a venerable drinking establishment where the restrooms were in the basement (not uncommon).
My preferred brand of beer also was the nightly preferred beverage of the subterranean lavatory commandant. Whenever his plate contained the requisite number of coins, he would climb the stairs for another pint of pay package, and by closing time, he could be found unconscious at his post, snoring in the sour, fetid air.
Now THAT’S motion-activated, folks.
Friday, November 23, 2018
Inhumanely treated Amazon workers in Europe go out on strike because Bezos didn't give them a new city hall.
Good for them -- Amazon's workers in Europe, that is.
'We Are Not Robots': Amazon Workers Across Europe Walk Out on Black Friday Over Low Wages and 'Inhuman Conditions', by Jessica Corbett (Common Dreams)
Amazon CEO "Jeff Bezos is the richest bloke on the planet; he can afford to sort this out," says a U.K. union leader
Amazon workers across Europe staged a walkout on Black Friday—when retailers offer major deals to holiday season shoppers the day after Thanksgiving—to protest low wages as well as "inhuman conditions" at company warehouses.
Eduardo Hernandez, a 38-year-old employee at an Amazon logistics depot in Madrid, Spain—where about 90 percent of staff walked off the job—told the Associated Press that the action was intentionally scheduled on the popular shopping day to negatively impacting the company's profits.
"It is one of the days that Amazon has most sales, and these are days when we can hurt more and make ourselves be heard because the company has not listened to us and does not want to reach any agreement," he said.
Protests were also planned for Amazon facilities in Italy, France, the United Kingdom, and Germany ...
Friday, October 12, 2018
Try to imagine Harvest Homecoming if 95% of visitors DIDN'T drive to it -- or, "Why Public Transportation Works Better Outside the U.S."
Here's something else I've been saying ever since I began visiting Europe regularly. As Jeff Gillenwater notes:
This. Until we have local leadership that recognizes and begins implementing transportation models found elsewhere, the U.S. will fall further and further behind financially, environmentally, and socially. There’s no viable, public serving reason not to do this. It’s a huge, every day social justice issue.
The problem with squeezing tens of thousands of humans into downtown New Albany for Harvest Homecoming is that virtually all of them come by car. Granted, car-pooling is more common during such a festival. But the temporary warehousing of cars is the challenge. Just imagine if there were alternatives.
Jeff mentioned local leadership.
I suppose that's a bigger problem.
Do we have any?
Why Public Transportation Works Better Outside the U.S., by Jonathan English (CityLab)
The widespread failure of American mass transit is usually blamed on cheap gas and suburban sprawl. But the full story of why other countries succeed is more complicated.
... How did transit become such an afterthought in Americans’ transportation habits? I addressed that question in detail in an earlier CityLab piece. But to briefly summarize: Transit everywhere suffered serious declines in the postwar years, the cost of cars dropped and new expressways linked cities and fast-growing suburbs. That article pointed to a key problem: The limited transit service available in most American cities means that demand will never materialize—not without some fundamental changes ...
Because it's relatively simple.
... The key to great transit service is not about getting 100 percent of people to ride transit for 100 percent of trips. It’s about giving people a viable choice of getting around without needing to drive.
Figuring out how to improve transit isn’t like curing cancer or inventing a quantum computer, either. There are good, viable models of transit systems that already exist in cities that look a lot like U.S ones. They are successful both at attracting riders and at being financially viable, from places that have more in common with American cities than one might expect.
In conclusion:
In some ways, the story of American transit is not so unique. Europeans and Canadians also like to drive. Their countries have also built big expressway networks. The difference is more basic, yet profound: When transit service isn’t good, few will choose to use it.
Fortunately, improving American transit doesn’t necessarily demand multi-decade, hundred-billion-dollar infrastructure projects: It can be done by better advantage of existing space and existing vehicles, and then deploying them in ways that encourage people to actually use them.
Sunday, April 01, 2018
The sense of “default Christianity” is vanishing in Europe.
The topic is a steadily diminishing "sense of being Christian by default" in Europe. We're seeing the beginnings of this in America, but at far lower levels.
The News and Tribune sees fit to publish not one, but two Christian advocacy columns on a weekly basis. When I made my dismay known in a social media comment, I was told by a reporter that this makes perfect sense because many readers are Christians.
Interestingly, research published in the archive of the Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science suggests that more Americans (and newspaper readers) are atheists than may seem apparent, perhaps as many as 25 – 30%.
As we await in utter futility for a balancing column slot ("Thirsty Pagan's Corner"?), over to the continent.
As French Catholics hail a martyr, the faith is fading in Europe (Erasmus; The Economist)
The sense of “default Christianity” is vanishing
... Arnaud Beltrame, a police colonel, died of his injuries over the weekend after voluntarily taking the place of one of the hostages seized by a fanatical Islamist in a small French town. As it happens he was a devout Catholic who devoted much spare time to pilgrimages and helping with religious instruction ...
A French priest who had been preparing to solemnise the policeman’s marriage (he was already married civilly) instead found himself sitting at his friend’s bedside, conducting the last rites. With understandable emotion, the cleric described Beltrame as a man who “had a passion for France, her greatness, her history and her Christian roots which he rediscovered with his conversion.”
SNIP
But whatever the truth of that statement about cultural roots, how much longer will such language be comprehensible, let alone appealing, to people growing up on the continent? A study of religious attitudes and practice among Europe’s young adults, published a few days ago, found that faith was shrinking almost to vanishing point in several countries, although there was huge variation across the continent. Europe’s secularisation, reflecting a break-up of traditional communities and more materialist attitudes, is familiar to sociologists. But its impact is highlighted in recent numbers.
The researcher's numbers are reviewed.
He concluded that the sense of being Christian by default was vanishing across much of Europe, though loyalty to Catholicism remains quite robust in certain countries. In some places (like Poland and Portugal) Catholic allegiance was accompanied by comparatively high church attendance, whereas in others (Lithuania, Austria) many had a cultural loyalty to Catholicism but only a minority seriously practised. Generally, loyalty to Catholicism was holding up better than loyalty to what he called state-affiliated Protestant bodies, such as the national churches of Scandinavia. And Europe has no equivalent to America’s zealous evangelicals.
Again: "Europe has no equivalent to America’s zealous evangelicals."
That's a relief.
Saturday, March 17, 2018
In Europe, a "cultural enrichment plan (that) could change young lives, and maybe even revive the heyday of the Interrail train pass."
Spring, 1985.
There would be a round-trip flight on the then-cheapest Icelandair from Chicago to Luxembourg, returning 88 days after departure. Ground transport would be a three-month Eurailpass. Convinced that it would be my sole and only trip to Europe, a kamikaze itinerary was planned, incorporating nights on trains sleeping in seats, and crashed on the decks of boats. I studied every available trick to skim cash and expand the duration of my experience.
Way back when, the Eurail Youthpass (2nd class only; a5 years of age and under) was the equivalent of the Interrail. The latter remains available only to residents of the participating European countries.
Those were the days, my friend.
The EU Is Giving Teens a Month of Free Train Travel Across Europe, by Feargus O'Sullivan (CityLab)
This summer, the European Commission is offering 18-year-old European residents a free Interrail ticket—a rail pass that permits travel across 30 European countries for a month. What’s more, they’re not just offering it to one or two teenagers. With a budget of €12 million for this year, the commission plans to fund trips for 20,000 to 30,000 young people, with the possibility of more passes in the years to come. Exact details of how to apply and who will be get an Interrail pass, worth up to €510 ($628), will be released in the next few months. But one thing is already clear: A large town’s worth of European 18-year-olds will be able to travel from Lapland to Lisbon by train this summer, and the price they will pay is precisely nothing.
Why fund a bunch of free trips? The intent is to broaden young participants’ horizons and hopefully instill some sense of Europe’s connections.
Tuesday, January 16, 2018
They got a bum rat.
The ostensible reason for this post? Vindication for the rat, but scroll down for the subsidiary purpose.
Black Death 'spread by humans not rats', by Victoria Gill (BBC News)
Rats were not to blame for the spread of plague during the Black Death, according to a study.
The rodents and their fleas were thought to have spread a series of outbreaks in 14th-19th Century Europe.
But a team from the universities of Oslo and Ferrara now says the first, the Black Death, can be "largely ascribed to human fleas and body lice".
The study, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, uses records of its pattern and scale.
The Black Death claimed an estimated 25 million lives, more than a third of Europe's population, between 1347 and 1351.
One simply cannot miss an opportunity to remind the world about the existence of Brennivín, or Black Death schnapps from Iceland. It's what you do on a snow DAY, not to mention all winter long UP NORTH.
One evening, Einar came out from his basement lair, brandishing a sea-glass green bottle with a black label that read “Brennivín.”
“Want to drink some Black Death?” he asked.
“What the fuck is that?” one of our friends blurted.
Without waiting for the answer, the four people huddled in the kitchen unanimously agreed that we did. Visions of my Nordic former-roommate staring at his computer screen licking flecks of dried fish flakes off his fingertips flashed before my eyes while he opened the bottle. It seemed unlikely to me that anything out of Einar’s homeland would be delicious. I recalled too, the urban legend—I could only assume it amounted to as much—of fermented slabs of shark served for dinner. I don’t remember what we drank the Black Death out of—glasses, shots, or swigs from the bottle perhaps—but it tasted like licorice. I later learned that it is known as Brennivín, an unsweetened schnapps made out of potato mash that is flavored with caraway seeds, cumin, angelica, and a slew of other herbs native to Iceland. What I do recall from that evening involved hightailing it out of the party and into a cab back to my house in Northern Manhattan where I, inexplicably invigorated, spent the next two hours trying to master the complicated clapping rhythm that begins around 4:26 of Nina Simone’s “Sinnerman.” Einar never explained why it’s locally referred to as the “Black Death” amongst Icelanders, but perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the name, Brennivín, translates into “burning wine.” The beverage tastes more like mild rye licorice than liquefied bubonic plague.
Thursday, September 28, 2017
ON THE AVENUES: Sniffles, gratitude and mental exhaustion. Apparently vacation is over.
A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.
All things considered, I’d have preferred to return from vacation not suffering from a cold, although perhaps it was a tolerable price to pay for the sheer joy of returning to Europe.
That said, the overall tone of our travels was slightly different this time around. I’ll come back to these feelings in a moment, but before this, allow me to describe the first morning back home.
It was Monday, and with the fridge purposefully denuded of groceries, a bit of foraging in the pantry produced my last tin of kippers and enough stale crackers to soak up the oil. The espresso machine purred nicely back from enforced dormancy and produced three savory shots.
I carried breakfast to my customary upholstered seat in the living room, powered up the laptop in preparation for the daily regimen of recreational polemics, and watched contentedly as headlights reflected in the front window, traveling eastbound on Spring Street.
The last time we returned home from Europe, this hadn’t yet occurred. Now, rationality finally has been allowed to prevail, and a full month into the Downtown Grid Modernization Project’s phased inception -- and with my snarky notation of “rumor” no longer necessary for qualification -- downtown New Albany lacks only laggardly Elm Street's compliance to conclude the long overdue reversion.
Did I mention long overdue?
It appears that our two-way street grid changeover has been implemented with a bare minimum of problems – no multi-car pileups, head-on collisions or sheer panic attacks.
It’s a good thing, too, or else social media pundits with the attention spans of gnats wouldn’t have had enough time to endlessly pontificate about taking the knee or demanding to know when the Dunkin’ Donuts will open.
14 years later, at long last, we’ve arrived at the end of the beginning – and as such, if you think local street sanity advocates are finished bitching, you haven’t been paying attention … at all.
In the coming weeks, months (yes, and years), there'll continue to be necessary questions, because Jeff Gahan has gifted us with the bare minimum of two-way grids. I hope we haven’t forgotten the manifest possibilities Jeff Speck showed us.
- Are the “enhanced” yellow-blinking crosswalk lights designed to assist pedestrians or to maim them?
- When commercial vehicles block bicycle lanes, will they be held accountable?
- How does the city plan to ensure the safety of sharrows?
- When will pedestrian connectivity extend between the north and south sides of Main Street?
- What does City Hall intend to do with those portions of the downtown street grid nearest the interstate ramps, which in 2017 were sacrificed to the same old political cowardice and kept primitive?
There are dozens more questions just like these, and make no absolutely mistake: if someone doesn't continue asking them and expecting coherent answers, the same old civic time-servers can be expected to shift into absentee coasting, because it’s a simple fact that if we hadn’t kept pushing, prodding and provoking them these past 14 years, the current round of grid reforms likely would not have taken place.
May the revolution of rising expectations live long and prosper. Without it, we’re doomed to the same frustrating mediocrity from the C students.
---
If you look in the dictionary for “multi-modal transportation options,” there should be a map of the Netherlands.
Last Friday afternoon we were seated at a table attached to a café in Haarlem. The table was located across the street from the café, by the river. As our server passed back and forth, she was watching for persons, bicycles and automobiles.
She was impeccable. Drivers and cyclists seemed attentive, and there were no issues.
Try imagining the chaos in New Albany.
Boats sailed past on the river, and a bus stop was around the corner. Had we boarded one of the buses, we could have been at the train station in ten minutes, or Schiphol Airport in 35.
In America, it was ordained long ago that we subsidize cars to the exclusion of other options. In the Netherlands, other options are prioritized, and while cars are not excluded, they’re contextualized.
Gasoline costs $7 (or more) a gallon. People are walking at all hours of the day. In central Haarlem, there’s an underground parking garage used strictly for bicycles.
I’m compelled to fall back on my Theory of Stunted Imagination. It seems to me that for many folks hereabouts, it isn’t only that they can’t grasp multi-modal transportation options in the real world. It’s that they can’t even imagine them, and what can’t be imagined obviously cannot exist.
But at least we’ll always have college basketball to keep us safe and warm at night. On second thought, if it’s okay with you, I’ll read a book. After all, reading helps with the ol’ imagination.
---
You’ll enjoy the next section, because I'm about to contradict myself. Get used to it. I'm getting old, you know.
---
2016 brought the opportunity to visit both Estonia and Sicily. There were plenty of space/time ghosts inhabiting these locales, but because Tallinn and Catania were almost entirely new to us, these spectral yardsticks were mere calibration models.
Haarlem and Poperinge (Belgium) are different. They’re places previously visited over a period of years, where the passing of time (and sadly, people) is much more in evidence. It’s harder to keep familiar eyes fresh, and yet there are rewards from familiarity.
Consequently, there was an elegiac quality to them, although in fairness, “elegiac” is a property I’ve associated with Europe since the first time I traveled there 32 years ago. History is everywhere, whether your own variety or the stories of previous generations. It’s hard for me not to be introspective about something so intense.
As Americans, we tend to focus on the Europeans who left their homelands and came across the water. However, the vast majority stayed right where they were. Conversely, it’s not exactly a secret that for most of my adult life, I’ve felt misplaced in my own country.
I haven’t done anything about it because of a problem that outweighs even that of a drunken, errant stork: a vein of stubborn contrarianism compelling me to stick around and try to change (some might say eviscerate) my surroundings rather than run away from them.
Earlier this month, while enjoying the hop parade in Poperinge, a Moroccan feast in Mechelen and most importantly, the reclaiming of lapsed friendships in Haarlem, I was keenly aware of all these intersecting lines: where I’ve been, what I’ve learned, the state of my own consciousness, the absence of those who’ve left the room, and the sands in that damned cliché of an hourglass.
I thought a lot about the 14 years it took us just to make that street in front of the house run both directions … and how I’m not sure I want to devote another decade and a half to the next incremental, delayed and imperfectly understood example of what I just saw with my own two eyes in the Netherlands.
And so, frankly, here I am.
Where “here” is remains unclear, as it has since 1985. The short term pub comeback plan hasn’t altered; if anything, observing time-honored methodology in the Low Countries made for High Times in what passes for my soul, and I’m aching to get back to what I know best.
Assuming it all works out, the focus of my immersion almost surely must change, and I suppose the point is that since the conclusion of this month’s trip to Europe, the tipping point may have been reached.
Another 14 years just trying to convince Jeff Gahan and a motley collection of “Let’s Pretend We’re Democrats” that 2 + 2 really does equal 4?
That’s not civic engagement.
Rather, it’s masochism, and I may be getting too old for this.
---
Recent columns:
September 21: ON THE AVENUES with THE BEER BEAT: Getting in tune with the straight and narrow.
September 14: ON THE AVENUES with THE BEER BEAT: Beef Steak and Porter always made good belly mortar, but did America’s “top” steakhouses get the memo?
September 7: ON THE AVENUES with THE BEER BEAT: We are dispirited in the post-factual beer world.
August 31: ON THE AVENUES: On a wig and a prayer, or where's the infidel gardening column?
Sunday, February 26, 2017
Into the Ohio River Greenway construction zone for photos and ruminations.
For about a decade, sadly ending with the advent of Bank Street Brewhouse and ensuing time restraints, I helped organize seven beercycling extravaganzas in Europe. They were good times, indeed, and some of my finest travel memories are from this period.
It really was a peak of sorts. Most of the riding occurred in Benelux and Germany, and to a lesser extent in Czech Republic and Austria. Until you've experienced these local and regional networks, descriptions are probably inadequate. The Netherlands had the best infrastructure, and the Czech Republic the poorest, though this tells you little.
Simply stated, in Northern Europe it is usually possible to use a bicycle as alternative means of transport, and to be able to utilize a grid built for this purpose. The grid can be more or less elaborate, with functionality being the obvious impetus.
In 2003, I bicycled from Frankfurt to Vienna on the Danube trail, and for much of this passage, the bike path functioned as a superhighway for leg-powered, two-wheel transport. Overall, often there are dedicated (always surfaced) pathways, with no motorized vehicles allowed.
Some times you're pedaling local roads, which are invariably well-marked, and being driven by folks who know how the score. At times, the various paths connect by means of farm roads -- again, surfaced but being used by the occasional tractor, too.
The point to this digression is what I felt last week while walking the Ohio River Greenway construction zone.
Noticing all the trees removed so as to correspond with (a) inevitable federal mandates and (b) the local desire to implement what amounts to a "luxury" shared use path, I couldn't help thinking about all the places I've bicycled in Europe where the objectives were safety, connectability and usability without bells and whistles.
In 2003, I rode more than 700 miles in all, and apart from flat tires, there were no issues with any of the dedicated routes, or during those times when I was sharing a road with automobiles. Special infrastructure had been built in places, as with river crossings (at times, bike ferries), but otherwise the experience was about dependable functionality.
I'm well aware of the "act of Congress" aspect of the Greenway, which from the very start seems to have inched forward less as essential infrastructure than bright shiny bauble. I never thought much about this dichotomy until dozens of trees began falling -- and now there is a promenade being constructed, and so on, so forth and so it goes
To me, whether I ever saddle up again or continue walking, the it remains that the objective is functionality of non-automotive infrastructure, in the sense of local and regional grids, and how this might be achieved without spending millions ... and taking less than 30 years to achieve.
It can be done in Europe. Here in America, it's more likely to be dumb.
Tuesday, July 05, 2016
50,000 words later, my 1985 European travelogue is finished. I think.
Perspective is a condition impossible to gauge without the passage of time. Given what we can see now about the way the world has changed since the Berlin Wall fell, those bits of Europe I saw in 1985 were considerably closer to 1945 than we are today, by comparison to 1989.
At least it seems that way to me.
Not a day passes without my being thankful for being able to commence my foreign travels in 1985, when a place like Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) wasn't merely located in a different country, but a different galaxy.
Sometimes I try to imagine an alternative reality, in which the European bug didn't bite. It's an American Dream sequence, filled with signposts from the sort of conventional family and professional life portrayed on the television shows we all grew up watching.
There was a time when I aspired to such a life, but it would have been a mistake. In fact, I can't even imagine this alternative reality, and in saying so, I'm not copping an attitude or being snobbish. I'm not implying that the way I turned out is better or worse than anyone else's path.
I always knew something about me was different, that's all. This was clear to me long before Europe entered the scene, and while much of it remains a mystery even after all this time, I know that whatever the nature of the itch, Europe enabled me to scratch it.
Enables.
---
AFTER THE FIRE: Euro ’85, Part 34 … The final chapter, in which lessons are learned and bridges burned.
THE POTABLE CURMUDGEON: Euro ’85, Part 33 … All good things must come to a beginning.
THE POTABLE CURMUDGEON: Euro ’85, Part 32 … Leaving Leningrad.
THE POTABLE CURMUDGEON: Euro ’85, Part 31 … Leningrad in three vignettes.
The PC: Euro ’85, Part 30 … Or, as it was called at the time, Leningrad.
The PC: Euro ’85, Part 29 … Helsinki beneath my feet, but Leningrad on my mind.
The PC: Euro ’85, Part 28 … A Finnish detour to Tampere for beer and sausages.
The PC: Euro ’85, Part 27 … Stockholm's blonde ambition, with or without mead-balls.
The PC: Euro ’85, Part 26 … The Hansa brewery tour, and a farewell to Norway.
The PC: Euro ’85, Part 25 … Frantic pickled Norway.
The PC: Euro ’85, Part 24 … An aspiring “beer hunter” amid Carlsberg’s considerable charms.
The PC: Euro ’85, Part 23 … A fleeting first glimpse of Copenhagen.
The PC: Euro ’85, Part 22 … It's how the tulips were relegated.
The PC: Euro ’85, Part 21 … A long day in Normandy, though not "The Longest Day."
The PC: Euro ’85, Part 20 … War stories, from neutral Ireland to Omaha Beach.
The PC: Euro ’85, Part 19 … Sligo, Knocknarea, Guinness and Freddie.
The PC: Euro ’85, Part 18 … Irish history with a musical chaser.
The PC: Euro '85, Part 17 ... A first glimpse of Ireland.
The PC: Euro ’85, Part 16 … Lizard King in the City of Light.
The PC: Euro ’85, Part 15 … The traveler at 55, and a strange interlude.
The PC: We pause Euro '85 to remember the Mathäser Bierstadt in Munich.
The PC: Euro ’85, Part 14 … Beers and breakfast in Munich.
The PC: Euro ’85, Part 13 … Tears of overdue joy at Salzburg's Augustiner.
The PC: Euro ’85, Part 12 … Stefan Zweig and his world of yesterday.
The PC: Euro ’85, Part 11: My Franz Ferdinand obsession takes root.
The PC: Euro ’85, Part 10: Habsburgs, history and sausages in Vienna.
The PC: Euro ’85, Part 9 … Milan, Venice and a farewell to Northern Italy.
The PC: Euro ’85, Part 8 … Pecetto idyll, with a Parisian chaser.
The PC: Euro ’85, Part 7 … An eventful detour to Pecetto.
The PC: Euro ’85, Part 6 … When in Rome, critical mass.
The PC: Euro ’85, Part 5 … From Istanbul to Rome, with Greece in between.
The PC: Euro ’85, Part 4 … With Hassan in Pithion.
The PC: Euro ’85, Part 3 … Growing up in Greece.
The PC: Euro '85, Part 2 ... Hitting the ground crawling in Luxembourg.
The PC: Euro ’85, Part 1 … Where it all began.
_
Saturday, June 04, 2016
"How Europe’s industrial cities bounced back from the brink of ruin."
Reusing what's already there, re-skilling people ... recycle, remake and regrow ... but nowhere is it explained how TIF-driven campaign financing makes it all possible.
How Europe’s industrial cities bounced back from the brink of ruin, by Anne Power (The Conversation)
From Sheffield to Torino, Lille to Leipzig, Belfast to Bilbao, Europe’s industrial cities are no strangers to hard times. Faced with depleted resources, plummeting populations and urban degradation, these cities struggled to round a corner. But somehow, around the turn of the century they recovered and began to flourish. The 2008 bank crash and the eurozone crisis dented their progress, but couldn’t stall it completely.
I have spent the last 20 years seeking to understand how the cities of Europe’s industrial heartlands backed away from the brink of ruin and recaptured their former glory. I discovered a strong common thread of industrial collapse, reinvestment and pulling through in spite of austerity ...
... All these cities rely heavily on small and medium-sized enterprises, many of which survived the industrial crisis. This model of small-scale survival and reinvention has served the “weak market cities” well. Their populations have slowly recovered, jobs have returned and they have found new ways of making and doing which reuses what is already there – starting with their civic infrastructure, and spreading to poorer neighbourhoods. They are re-skilling their people, as well as restoring their homes.
Along the way, the shrinkage in global resources, the urgency of climate change, the potential of green energy illustrates the need for the circular economy – where we only take out what can be restored. Europe’s former industrial cities are developing new ways to recycle, remake and regrow, as well as pioneering renewable technologies. For the world’s smallest continent, these cities are the future.