On my way

Well, I'm on my way on yet another quixotic journey across the wider world. I realized today that I got my first passport before Sarah Palin got hers and I've visited more countries than she has, so I guess you could just say that I'm adding to my international experience in hopes that the next time around I'll have a shot at that vice-presidential slot.

Well, ok...that's not it. In fact the impetus for this trip was an invitation to visit a friend who emigrated to Israel last year, and I figured that as long as I was going that far, I ought to figure out a way to visit some of my other friends in Europe, particularly those who I had not yet had a chance to visit in their own places. For me, that's really the fun of traveling. To stay with real people who live in the place and talk about everyday things and go to supermarkets and banks and local hangouts is MUCH more interesting to me than a tour of landmarks and museums on someone else's schedule. Not that I won't visit the landmarks, too -- I definitely will! But as with the similar trip that Rebecca and I took in 2006, this one is all about going to places where I know someone and simply spending time there with them.

In 2006, Rebecca and I visited Helsinki, Edinburgh, Whithorn (southwest Scotland), Barnard Castle (northeast England), Oberndorf am Neckar, Wilburgstetten (Germany, central Bavaria), and Frankfurt. This time around I'll be at the Kingham School (somewhere in England..not sure yet exactly where!), Utrecht (Holland), Amsterdam (actually a neighbor to Utrecht), Ribe (Denmark) and various places in Israel. Not the same trip as you can see, and even after this trip there will still be friends in Europe I'd love to visit who live in yet other places. Perhaps two years hence...

But in the meantime, here I am, safely in England staying overnight near London with autoharp friend Heather Farrell before heading out to teach at the Sore Fingers Weekend at the Kingham School tomorrow. I flew from London to Boston to Dublin to London, leaving around 11:30am and arriving in London around 8 the following morning. No problems, everything mostly on time, and the flight to Dublin was empty enough that I had a whole row to myself to stretch out in, everything fit in the overhead, my luggage arrived with me.

Some of you had heard my story about the work permit for England that was almost forgotten and in a panic applied for and granted just two days before I left. So here's the joke: after all that craziness about the work permit turns out I didn't need it because I entered the UK in Ireland, told them I was going on to London right away when they asked me how long I was staying, and that was the end of it because they didn't even ask what I was doing in London! There was no customs inspection in London because a flight from Dublin is considered "domestic." An interesting perspective considering that as Americans we still need to go through customs inspection to enter and leave Canada and Mexico and vice versa of course. It's just one of the small ways in which I'm reminded of the difference between the way we in the US view "international relations" and the approach of the Europeans.

All right, it's 8pm my time so I'm going to shower and then try to get a good night's sleep. I may not have internet access at all over the weekend, so more after that.