San Judas Tadeo in Mexico City

Mexico City
October 28, 2011

I just love living in Mexico City.

Take today. October 28th. It’s the official feast day of Saint Jude. San Judas Tadeo here in Mexico. Mexicans love their saints and the romerías, or religious fiestas, that go with them.

The listing colonial church called San Hipólito, just behind the main tourist corridor in downtown Mexico City, and not far from where I work, is the absolute epicenter of the San Judas cult that started when a miraculous statue of St. Jude was donated to the church some 30 years ago.

I descend on San Hipólito around noon. Already I’m too late. There is no way I’ll ever break through the crowd of thousands who’ve come here to pray to him. It isn’t just today. They’ll come here every 28th of the month, twelve months a year. But today is different. It’s the official feast day and sixteen Masses will be celebrated in the parish from dawn to evening, and worshippers will crawl to the statue of the saint on their knees, praying for help, protection, and survival. The crowds are so large that police have to cordon off several traffic lanes outside the church.

I’ts a typical late October day—warm and sunny—not a cloud in the sky. There’s an endless parade of statues of St. Jude, some as large as a man can carry, some small but fantastically decorated. Others have built huge St. Jude floats, flowers encircling the statue.

I jostle my way through the crowds. There’s almost nothing I can’t buy—crosses, scapulas, rosaries with St. Jude embossed on them, flowers, Halloween pumpkins, tee-shirts with San Judas designs. Indeed, many of the young man and women are wearing them, along with tattoos of the saint on their cheeks or upper arms. I consider having a temporary tattoo for five pesos, but think better of it. Groups push their way through the crowd, but there comes a point where the wall is impenetrable. I just settle in where I am, knowing I’m not going to get any closer.

There are true worshippers here, but to me the scene is more party than piety. The truly pious are here to give thanks for miracles performed and to pray to the saint. At some point in the Mass, the priest blesses the statues. Thousands of people lift their San Judas. It’s quite impressive, but I’ve been spending too much time with the Quakers lately, and this form of religiosity is totally unappealing to me. But still I come and love every one of these extravaganzas that Mexico City does so well.

I grew up knowing that Saint Jude was the patron saint of desperate cases and lost causes. In the USA it seems to be a respectable cult, but here it’s dubious. Historians have noted that the cult to St. Jude, popular with Columbians, coincides with the beginnings of the narco-trade between Columbia and Mexico. In fact, so many criminals pray to St. Jude that the Archdiocese of Mexico issued a statement in November 2008 clarifying that St. Jude Thaddeus is not the “patron saint” of criminals or drug lords.
I suppose it makes sense. There’s too much struggle here. People don’t earn enough money and work extraordinarily long hours on their job. It’s a tough life in a tough city. If San Judas offers help, I say go for it.

I finally leave, hot and sweaty from being jostled around for several hours. I’ve taken a ton of pictures. The photo-ops were just too good to pass up. But all day long I encounter the feast day. Processions walk down different streets all heading towards San Hipólito. I ride the Metro Bus to La Roma and people are carrying their statues home. It’s the same heading back to Coyoacán that evening. The Metro is full of devotees.

Long after night has settled on the city, firecrackers continue to be set off. They’ve been firing away since midnight and won’t end ‘til the day is over.

What a city! The day certainly hasn’t made me more religious, but it did put another notch on the many reasons I love this city.

San Hippolito is the absolute epi-center of the St, Jude cult in Mexico.

Hundreds of thouseands come on October 28th to show their respect and to ask for favors.

Sixteen masses were said from dawn to sundown. At each Mass, the priests blessed the statues.

How cool can I be?

Devotion show no age, but it does tend to be young males.

Vendors sell everything.

Pilgrims carry statues and pictures.

Time to chill

And other stuff...

Boys and girls wear tattoos of Saint Jude on their faces and arms

In the End: Part 3 -- Florida

Miami, Florida Latitude 25°46' N
October 15, 2011

In the end, I put 775 miles on my Ford Fusion rental. I’d picked it up in Daytona Beach and, over a week’s time, drove coast to coast and back again, finally dropping it off at the Miami International Airport on October 15th.

In the end, it was wonderful to see so many people from my college days and years at NCCS. People like Dan Spink, one of my college roommates, whose friendship has spanned more than forty years. And Seth Bliven, my first principal. Once more I wanted to tell him how grateful I was to have started my career under his gentle administration. All of us who started in Mooers, NY when that district merged with Champlain feel the same way. What a privilege it was to tell him directly. And it was equally nice to see Bob and Judy Wood and Mary Mahar. Our careers are meshed together for four decades. They’ve left the north for good. “I never want to be cold again,” said Mary. More and more I have to agree.

In the end, Florida was a Ladue family pilgrimage—from central Florida where we first lived in 1953, and then to Lakeland, to the small concrete house we lived in and where I started Kindergarten in 1954. And lastly, to the Gulf Coast where my parents lived from 1977 to 1990. For me, all of it was a happy revisit.

In the end, Florida was, for the most part, clear, hot days, hours on Gulf Coast beaches and nights of fabulous sunsets. Despite its loathsome politics, it’s still a beautiful state, and an integral part of my pesonal history.

In the end, I know I’ll return.

Nokomis Beach, Florida

Nokomis, Florida
Latitude 27º 7 N
October 13, 2011

Nokomis. Just the word is beautiful—in sound and in memory.

Nokomis. Eight miles south of Sarasota and two miles north of Venice.

Nokomis: One of the prettiest beaches on the Gulf Coast.

For all the years my parents live in Sarasota during their retirement years, there’d come a day during my April break when my Dad and I would plan a sunset on the beach in that small, delightful Florida beach town.

And so it was that, an hour before sunset, on a wonderful early October day, I made my way back to the beach where I’d already spent the better part of the day. The sky was perfect for a dynamic sunset—patches of clouds well above the horizon, but cloud-free where sea and sky met.

I sat on the beach where my Dad and I sat during those April nights more than twenty years ago. And while I didn’t actually feel his presence like I do my mother’s, he was very much with me. He, like I, loved the water—sea, lake and river—and sand, and shoreline and sunsets at the end of a glorious Florida’s spring day. For my Dad, this state, I think, was his peninsular Eden, but I’ll never actually know. There are many things we never talked about, and this is one of them.

He was with me tonight and I imagined him sitting next to me. We’d comment about the setting sun, or the striation of the clouds or we’d pick seashells and pocket a few. I was happy. His death, almost seventeen years ago, no longer elicits the sadness it once did.

And so together, he in spirit and I in flesh, we watched the sun slip through the cloud bank, its rays slanting in all directions. It hovered for a short minute on the sea, and then, orange and hot, dropped into the sea.

I lingered for a bit until well after sunset. The sky had turned a muted black. I picked up my things, turned around and, rising in the east, was an almost full moon. What a marvel: full moon and setting sun. The day could not have ended any better.

Death doesn’t always end a relationship.

Lakeview Avenue--Lakeland, Florida

Lakeland, Florida
Latitude 27° '09 N
October 10, 2011

Florida! There has never been a decade of my life that this state hasn’t played some part of my life. As a family we lived here in the 1950’s; I visited it with my parents in the 1960’s after they moved back north, and I returned often when they wintered here in the 1970’s to the 1990’s.

Florida! In the annals of Ladue family lore, this simple seven letter word was enough to elicit an extraordinary range of response. For my father, it was his paradise lost. For my mother, it was Dante’s seventh level of Hell.

During World War II, my Dad’s good fortune was to be stationed in Honolulu. Hula girls, no trenches, gentle trade winds and goodbye Northern New York winter. He loved it and, I imagine, reluctantly returned to Plattsburgh in 1945.

He married my Mom that same year, got a job and settled in. But by 1952, the year my brother was born, some compromise had been reached between him and my Adirondack born and raised mother. Sometime that year they were living somewhere in Central Florida.

From the start, my mother hated it. It’s not hard to see why. She was stuck in a tin can of a trailer with two young children and no air conditioning. But that was short lived. Sometime during their second year, they’d bought a small home in Lakeland, but that wasn’t enough to make her like Florida. By the end of the following year, again, I suppose, after some compromises, they left Florida behind and moved back to Plattsburgh. This was sometime in the fall of 1954 as I clearly remember starting Kindergarten in the Lakeland School District, and there are pictures showing me in a Halloween costume, so we much have left sometime in November. Pictures taken during that trip north show my mother thin and damaged. According to her, sometime during the hellish hot summer, she’d simply had enough; she told my father that she was taking the children and moving home.

Home was 23 Grace Avenue, Plattsburgh, NY. No zip code in those days. Part of their initial compromise had been not to sell the home which was, ultimately, a very wise decision.

For the rest of her life the damage done by those years stayed dangerously close to the surface of her life and the lives of those around her.

For years I never liked summer. I’d been taught that the sun and heat and humidity, especially humidity, were loathsome things—like liver and broiled fish. Years later, in my late 20’s, on a hot, sunny, humid day on a glorious Greek island, I had an epiphany. I realized my mother was wrong—at least for me. I loved this weather, and that singular July day in 1976, under a hot Mediterranean sun in a clear and hot Aegean sky, was the beginning of my love affair with warm places where palm trees grow naturally.

My mother could never be objective about those years in Florida and my father had probably just learned to keep his mouth shut. I suppose the loss of Florida and all it represented, lingered deep in his psyche. It’s one of those many things I wish I could ask my father to elaborate on if he were with me today. I’ll never really know.

Over the years my Dad would return to Florida as often as he could—sometimes with me, other times with my brother. Once, all four of us went by train and took a three day cruise to the Bahamas. On the years I went with him, he would bring me ‘round to the train station where he’d worked and then to visit old friends. This was in the early 1960’s, a few years, really, after he’d left. We’d always travel during Easter vacation. Who wouldn’t want to get out at that time of year, especially after a long, monstrous winter. I wonder what regrets he had and carried home from those springs journeys. I’ll never know.

Florida with my father in those day was wonderful. That’s almost fifty years ago. It was in Florida that I saw my first McDonald’s. One million hamburgers sold the sign would read. Today it’s 97 billion. We’d go to iconic Florida tourist attractions…attractions like Cypress Gardens and Sarasota Jungle Gardens. We’d stop at road side stands that sold oranges and Florida kitch. Live, baby crocodiles cost a dollar. He never let me buy one, but each year I did by a small palm tree. Once he took me deep sea fishing and I remember sitting in the front of the boat marveling at the dolphins swimming out with us. Another time we rode the Goodyear Blimp in Miami.

Only once did my mother come. 1964. He still worked part time for the D & H Railroad and he’d use his annual free pass to head south. How exciting it was to sleep in a Pullman Car and wake up the second morning in the South.

Years passed, and more compromises were made and in 1977, the winter after my parents sold their telephone answering service, they returned to Florida for four months. For the first year or two they rented a place at Venice Isles in Venice, but in 1981 they actually bought their own mobile home—this time at the Buckingham Club in Sarasota. They lived there five months of the year until 1990 when Dad’s cancer returned them home full time.

My Dad’s birthday was January 2nd. Forget cake and ice cream. The only thing he wanted in the way of a gift was to get out of town. Dialogue about this departure, if once could call it dialogue, started sometime around Labor Day and it would just escalate until Christmas. My Dad would have left in October, along with his sister Katherine; my mother would have stayed home the entire winter. More compromises.

This went on for years, in one form or another. Each April I’d fly down, spend too much time at the beach, essentially do as little as possible. In March 1986 I was living in Albany working on my MLS. I took the train down and wrote my Master’s thesis longhand in that 24 hour period. During the week I was there, I typed it up. My time wasn’t always non-productive.

One of the things I never did, and one of the few regrets I have in my life, is never saying to my Dad…”Take me to Lakeland, show me around the places we used to live.” It was only after he died that I realized what I’d lost. If we could do it now, here are a few of the questions I’d ask: “Where exactly was that first mobile home? Where was the school where I started Kindergarten? Where did you work? And, most important, how did you feel when you left all this behind?

My parents finally did get out of the tin can and into a proper house--on Lakeview Street in Lakeland, Florida. For years after my Dad died, I asked my mother if she knew the address. “No,” she’d tell me. And she meant it.

But then in 2000, shortly before bringing her back to Sarasota for ear surgery, she handed me an address. This was it. I Map Quested it and, with her and my Uncle Jim in the car, we found it. It was a small, concrete stucco ranch, shade tree in front/car port on the right, on a quiet street of low end homes.

Well…I was excited. “Is this it?” I asked her.

“I don’t know.”

“C’mon, get out of the car and look around. Work with me.”

She refused. For whatever reason, whether she had blocked out the memory or simply refused, she wouldn’t budge. This was the scene of her personal holocaust and, I suppose, she’d blocked out those years to the best of her ability, compartmentalizing it in some dark recess of her mind.

I took lots of photos, walked around with my uncle and even spoke to a neighbor. But in the end I knew nothing more than I did when we’d driven down the street an hour earlier.

Eleven years later I found myself back in the area and could not resist a revisit.

I tracked down the street, and the house. I parked the car and went back in time. If I had to, I could draw a floor plan of that small house. Bedrooms on the left, small living/dining room on the right and a kitchen that opened up to the back yard. The house had just been built and maybe they bought it new. I don’t know. But I do know that we had a dog and that there were small fruit trees in the house. I was no more than five, but it’s still a clear memory.

One of the neighbors, this warm October day, who lived nearby was curious who I was. I was, after all, a stranger to the neighborhood and it was just normal to ask what I was looking forward. She told me her grandfather had built the home in 1955. But I disagreed and told her my parents had owned the home earlier than that. “It’s just the date he remembered,” she said. “He was an old man when he died in 1998.”

I was satisfied. It will be fun at a later date to look back at the photos my mother so carefully chronicled. Happy memories for me, but the questions I would ask if I had the opportunity.

It was time to move on. It was midday and the sun was mercilessly hot and I wasn’t sorry to get back into my air conditioned car. The luxuries we have that just did not exist 60 years ago. Perhaps with proper a/c things would have been different.

But I doubt it.

Here We Go: Part 3 -- Florida

Daytona Beach, Florida
October 9, 2011

In the annals of Ladue family lore, the mere seven letter word FLORIDA was able to elicit a hug range of emotion. To my father, it was parqdise lost, an almost-perfect-place to live. For my mother it was more than just the opposite. For me...for me it was always one of those places that, since the early 1950's, I've continually gone to, enjoyed, and looked forward returning to.

And so I'm here, in the third phase of this trip. This is the shortest of all parts--ten days spent visiting friend, mostly from my NCCS days. First will be time spent with my college roommate, Dan Spink. I'll then visit my vry first principal, Seth Bliven. There will be be a few days on the beaches of Venice/Nokomis where my parents lived for many years, then I head south to Naples to visit two more groups of people. Finally it will bring me across the state to Miami, where I will fly out on the 15th.

Here I go...

The Crossing--Transatlantic form Copenhagen to Port Canaveral, Florida

The Crossing—a Journal

Day 1 – 5:03 p.m. -- September 26, 2011 -- Lisbon, Portugal – Latitude 38° 43' 0" N

We’ve been in Lisbon all day. At 7:15 a.m. I was on the top deck and was pleasantly surprised to see that we were slowly sailing our way up the Tagas River, into Lisbon’s Harbor. The sun was rising to the east and Lisbon, on the left, slowly passed in front of us—like a slow motion travelogue. It was an exciting entrance into the city and I couldn’t wait to get off the boat

But it was Monday and much was closed. Instead, we bought a ticket on the Lisbon Sightseeing bus that would allow us to get on and get off at any stop. Our goal was on the other end of the city—Torre Bélem. Now a UNESCO site, this was the beacon for navigators returning from the New World. In 1755 Lisbon was razed to the ground in an earthquake/tsunami, but this symbol of Portugal’s glory days navigating the world survived.

We spent the rest of the too-short day just roaming around--a few churches, lunch in a nice park. We slowly made our way back to the boat—too slowly in fact, as the bus went far slower than expected. When the boat was in site we jumped off and ran. It was past 3:30—the time we were supposed to be back. We finally arrived—the last to board—at 3:45. Fifteen minutes later we were off, with nary a second to spare. The Norwegian Sun, I suppose, would have left without us.

Fifteen minutes later the horn of the Norwegian Sun blasted three times, signaling departure. Slowly, we pulled away from the dock and pushed our way into the Tagas River. We were on our way! The transatlantic journey had commenced.

Day 2 -- Tuesday, September 27, 2011 -- At sea -- Latitude 37° 50. 64’ N

All day we’ve been sailing south-southwest into a storm. We’d been warned by the captain 24 hours earlier that by noon we’d face gale force winds.

And that we did. All day the sky had been thick with clouds. Rain lashed against the ship, water pouring down the windowpanes that separated us from the howling storm. Waves were ten to twenty feet high. The great ship would sail into a giant wave, be lifted by it, then slam down into a deep trough. The surface of the inky blue sea frothed white. Giant plumes of water whipped off the crest of the waves, like powder blown off giant snow drifts—massive sheets of white.

The sky was black and grey, full of roiling clouds. It was a good day to stay indoors and watch nature’s fury from within the safe confines of the boat.

We were 4oo miles out of Lisbon, halfway between Europe and the Azores archipelago. All day the ship pushed forward—its engines at full throttle. 3,000 souls were dependant on the captain’s ability to get us through this rough and angry sea. By late afternoon crew had locked the doors to all decks. A thick soup of rain and howling winds made walking far too dangerous. Waves would wash over the bow of the boat and its power would actually jostle the ship. Thankfully, the captain had put on the stabilizers which leveled the ship to a manageable level.

It was actually fun to feel this awesome power as it jostled and buffeted the 78,000 ton ship. Walking a straight line was virtually impossible and we had to hold on to hall railings all the time. That night at dinner, there were far fewer people in the restaurants. There were many frail and elderly people aboard. All evening staff was bringing trays of food to staterooms.

For many, though, it was just another day at sea. I overhead one man say, “Now we’re in the ocean.” Later, we would learn that the Norwegian Sun had plowed through twenty foot swells and Gale Force 11 winds. That night, sleeping was a challenge. We’d rise up fifteen feet, then fall down fifteen feet. It was nothing like the normal gentle rocking we’d grown accustomed to. Periodically, there’d be crashes and bangs. We never knew from where they emanated, but we made sure everything in the stateroom was fastened down and tucked safely away.

Still, it had been a wonderful day and a great ride, but once was enough. From here on in I was looking forward to a smooth transatlantic crossing.

Day 3 – Wednesday, September 28, 2011 – Latitude 38° 44” 30’ N -- Ponta Delgada, The Azores

Sometime during the night the Norwegian Sun had come through the worst of the storm. All night I’d had dreams of being thrown around the state room. All night sounds of things crashing around us had crept into the room.

By dawn, however, the winds had died down and rain had stopped, and by the time we were ready to leave the ship the sun had broken though. It would be a fine day.

We’d arrived early in the day to the largest island in the Azores archipelago—San Miguel. We disembark early and three of us—Glenda, myself and Brian of Copenhagen, rent a car and head due west out of Ponta Delgada. The island is very green and at the end of the rainy season. It’s really quite lovely, with hedges of hydrangea and wild lilies lining the road. We drive a bit, then head into the mountains in the center of the island. There are hot springs and geothermal plants and the smell of sulfur everywhere. I’m back in Iceland, but then this is another highly volcanic island. We climb into a cloud forest and stop the car to take a short hike.

There are bromeliads and tree ferns and bubbling pools of boiling hot water that locals use to prepare food in. “No swimming,” the sign says. As if you’d actually step into a pool of water that boils from geothermal activity.

Further up the trail is a swimming hole—temperature a Jacuzzi comfortable 102 degrees.

We turn around and begin to trek back to the ship. Brian and I spend the part of the afternoon exploring Ponta Delgada, but an early afternoon island siesta has taken over and most of the shops have closed. Instead, I return to the ship, get my computer and spend two hours using free wi-fi that restaurants at the port provide in exchange for drinks or a lunch. Cheaper this way than the absurd 80- cents-per-minute fee the ship provides. There are lots of emails as I’ve not been online in over a week.

By 5:00 p.m. we are on our way. I stand on deck and watch as we pull away from the island. This is the last any of us will see for more than six days. We were truly in the Atlantic and the greatest portion of the transatlantic had just begun.

Day 5 – Friday, September 30, 2011 – At sea – Latitude 33° 30’ N

I’ve decided to take the day off. Not that all the other days aren’t days off. In this sense I’ve decided just to seize the day and not allow other activities on board the ship to divert me. The whole expanse of a long, blue day at sea lay before me.

It was a glorious last day of September. The sun was strong and hot. After a month in Northern Europe with its weak, late summer sun, laying poolside would be indulgent.

I was keenly aware that the Norwegian Sun was but a speck on the sea. We were mid-point between Lisbon and Orlando—truly in the middle of the sea. I had to remind myself of this all the time. Since we left the Azores, there had been no traffic. Nothing. It was wonderful.

I find a place to sit on the deck 12, position my lounge chair to face the sun, lather on sun lotion, plug in my iPod and lay down. I have the space of a long, white afternoon in which to make my own time, my own sound.

When I do look up I face the sea—a marine blue expanse of water greater than I ever seen. The nearest land is still the Azores—970 miles behind us. The sea is moderate and the Norwegian Sun pushes forward south southwest. Small frothy waves break on the surface, fizzle, then disappear. There is nothing but sea and a powerful blue sky dotted with patches of big white clouds scudding by.

Javier, my Peruvian bartender buddy, walks by. I’d met him on the previous cruise when he was working the 12th floor Observation deck bar. More than once I’ve asked him for help with Spanish homework I’ve assigned myself.

“Estás bien, Daniel?” he asks me. We only speak Spanish. My request. “How are you?”

“Múy bien,” I tell him. “Más Diet Pepsi,” he wants to know.

These guys are trained well. Know what the passenger what. He knows my bad habits.

“Gracias, Javier.” I’ve paid $6.00 a day for the “all you can drink Pepsi” package and fully intend to get my money’s worth.

Noon. The deck empties out a bit. Lunch time. It’s 75 degrees and a light tailwind pushed us forward at 22 miles per hour. There’s no breeze. The sun grows hotter. I get lost in thought. There is something about this date and it takes some time to go back in time.

Saturday, September 30, 1967. It’s a rainy day in Plattsburgh. My best friend from high school, David Heath, died two days earlier. 16. Two weeks earlier we’d gone to a football game. I was a Freshman in college, he a high school Senior. Shortly after the football game, back in Troy, NY, my mother called to tell me David was in the hospital. The next day he’s in a coma. Twelve days later he’s dead. Leukemia. No warning.

I returned to college the day after the funeral. Somehow I processed the grief. There were certainly enough diversions in my first months in college. In time, I compartmentalize the loss, but realized, when I visited his parents, that their grief is very much different. “I keep expecting him to come through the front door,” his mother once told me. I imagine they never got over the sudden, unexplainable loss.

Once in awhile I visit the cemetery in Albany. Both his parents are gone now and on my last visit I realize how young they were when this happened. They were only in their 40’s and each time I come away from the cemetery I experience a different level of sadness. One it was for a life lost so young, but as time went on I learned to grieve for his parents’ loss.

Why is it that some die so young? Why, in eighteen months, will I have lived four life times to his one?

The afternoon slipped away. By now the sun—early autumnal—is past its full tanning potential. By 4:30 I’m exhausted. What with five hot tubs and three pools to choose from and decisions to make about where to eat lunch—in the Garden Café or in the Sports Bar or the on-deck BBQ buffet. Well..all this decision-making has exhausted me.

It had been a fine day, saturated with the rich color of sea and sky, but it was time to think about dinner, and my daily trek to the gym. I take one last soak, grab another Diet Pepsi from Javier, pack up and leave.

Day 6 – Saturday, October 1, 2011 – At sea – Latitude 31° 10’ N

This was a day of change. At sunrise there was a slight rain, but by lunch we had passed the storm front and sailed into fine weather.

All day, everywhere, there was nothing but water—always in motion, never still. “The pulse of the Earth,” Steve would tell me. And he’s right. What appeared to be still, calm waters from the highest deck were, in reality, tiny wavelets, stirred on by currents and a slight chop of wind. Water, the color of pewter, glistened in the noonday sun.

But today was a fine day, and we were mid-sea—truly in the middle of the ocean. It was a day of abundant sunshine and a day of powerful natural beauty. If water is the pulse of the Earth then somewhere, in the center of the Atlantic, must be its heart. But the beat was irregular. Today we were sailing through small, one foot swells; at other times swells, four to seven feet high, created white caps. As far as one could see at those times, the seas frothed white and fizzy.

Today, from the lower deck, I watched a series of different currents tracing the sea—great serpentine rivers within the ocean that created their own distinct paths. The sea was the color of dark granite, but the currents, under the deep sunshine, took on the hue of polished gun metal.

There were clouds, too. Giant strato-cumulus that climbed out of the sea then rode the skies, layer upon layer of shaded whites and grays. At other times they lined the flat horizon where sea and sky met—colossal mountain ranges, snow-capped and gorgeous. As the day progressed, the highest clouds took on a luminescence as they caught the highest rays of the sun.

In the hour before sunset, when the sun reflected low in the sky, light reflected off the lowest level of cumulus clouds, and illuminated them in a shower of light.

Sea and sky. Nothing else, constantly changing.

Day 7 – Sunday, October 2, 2011 – At sea – Latitude 29° 18’ N

For five days there was nothing but sea and sky. No contrails of jets overhead; no passing tankers. Just the endless sea and a giant, exaggerated sky. Other than life on the ship, there was no other sign of human evidence.

Today, though, a freighter passed, heading east towards Europe. There could be no other destination. Our nearest neighbor, to the north, was Bermuda 350 miles to the north and the Azores, 1,940 east. I had been laying poolside enjoying a sunny, warm day when I looked up and saw a jet, high in the sky, flying, I imagine, towards North America.

This isolation had been a marvel. This was day seven of the transatlantic passage, and aside from some freight traffic between Portugal and the Azores archipelago, the 2,000 passengers of the Norwegian Sun had been comfortably encompassed in the confines of the ship and had been coddled in all ways possible by a crew of almost 1,000. It was wonderful.

And so passed another day, another afternoon under a warm, early October sun, another day reading poolside, another day of decision making. Gym at 4:00 p.m. or 5:00p.m.? Drinks at 6:30 with a large group of guys I’ve gotten to know or an early dinner at Four Seasons or the Seven Seas? Tonight’s show at 7:00 p.m.or 9:00 p.m.? And should I stick around for the late night comedy show or make my way to the 12th floor observation deck to listen to the Sun’s show band play dance tunes?

In the end, I did it all. By midnight, after the Observation deck closed, I stood on deck. For days we’d been sailing under a starry but moonless night sky. Tonight, though, a rising crescent of a cool silvered moon hung in the eastern sky. We were travelling a smooth 20 knots an hour and the seas were calm.

Absorbing the marvel of sea and night sky was a splendid way to end another perfect day.

Day 8 – Monday, October 3, 2011 – At sea – Latitude 27° 54’ N

I’m taking tango lesson 3#7. There was enough interest two weeks earlier to continue beyond the basics. This is American Tango, different from the Argentinean form we’d learned in South America. My knee doesn’t allow me to do an ocho--quick footed crossovers. “We’re senior citizens and our bodies…” I block out what a woman was telling me. “Huh? Me a Senior Citizen? A Senior Citizen is someone five years older than I.

In truth, though, almost everyone onboard is a senior citizen. Almost no one is under 50. The boat is full of Europeans heading to Florida to spend the winter. It’s full of Americans heading home after summering in Europe. There are people on one leg of an around-the-world trip. The majority, though, are people just out for the ride. When ships reposition form one continent to another, the price drops considerably. It’s a great vacation. I met one couple who paid less than $500.00 each for 16 days of food, entertainment, lodging and transportation. Not a bad deal at all!

Day 9 – Tuesday, October 4, 2011 – At sea – Latitude 27° 31’ N

Last day at sea. I’m sad in a way. Crossing the Atlantic was the culmination of a dream, and two days ago, when we were mid-point between Europe and North America was an extraordinary feeling—a feeling of being very, very far away.

Today, though, we are135 miles from the closest Bahamian island and only 299 miles from Port Canaveral, where we will land early tomorrow morning. The sky is clear and the sun is strong and the Norwegian sun has slowed to 15 miles per hour. What a perfect way to spend this last day.

I spend the afternoon under a sun-filled sky. Shortly after noon we passed another cruise ship heading to one of the Bahamian islands. But through the day, however, it was the only evidence of human beings. Around noon I was startled by a flock of birds—miles out at sea. They circled the boat, then flew off.

It was a day of private reminiscing—our going-away dinner almost a month ago in Copenhagen, then sailing out of the city’s harbor late on a lovely late summer Sunday afternoon. I thought of the fun train ride in Northern Germany and of the wet and wonderful hyper-paced days in St. Petersburg. I thought of the splendors of medieval Stockholm and the lily and hydrangea-filled roadways of the Azores.

My deck chair faced the sea. I was in the identical spot where, twenty months earlier, Glenda and I rounded Cape Horn at the very tip of South America. Today, though, was sunny and warm and the Norwegian Sun had slowed down to 15 miles per hour. We were ahead of schedule and the day would progress at a slow crawl.

I was reluctant to leave the 12th floor deck. The blue seascape and ever changing vista of clouds kept me there until almost sunset.

All day I’d been on the lookout for whales and dolphins. The water, 81 degrees, was certainly warm enough. But there were none. Perhaps we were too far out at sea. Perhaps it was the underwater rumbling of the giant cruise liner that kept them away. We’d seen dolphins leaping out of the water as the ship pulled away from Punta Delgada six days earlier, so there was hope.

Instead I just watched the sea—rough textured with tiny, one foot wavelets—and the sky and clouds. These were precious hours. Twelve hours later we’d be docked in Florida.

By 5:30 I’d moved to the left side of the ship. The ocean glittered as the sun slowly dropped to the horizon. We were at the 27th Parallel and the sun, as sit slipped to the edge of the horizon, was Caribbean orange. Sunset was ruddy and the glow sent shafts of orange light throughout the limpid air.

I never did see a dolphin or a whale, but I had seen God’s majestic hand, had lived for one week in the center of His boundless creation of sea and sky. I’d marveled at the sea’s depth—at times over 19,000 feet and at the seemingly endless variety of clouds that painted the sky each day.

Once again I’d lived in a space of privilege and I was abundantly thankful.

In the End: Part 2 -- Baltic Cruise and a Transatlantic Crossing

Port Canaveral, Florida
Latitude 28° 24' 46” N
October 8, 2011

In the end, we spent 24 days on the Norwegian Sun and travelled, between the two cruises, a total of 8,641 miles—2,290 on the Baltic portion and 6,350 miles on the transatlantic portion. The great ship made port calls in ten countries—Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Russia, Finland, Sweden, The Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal and the United States.

In the end, the Baltic portion of the cruise was overkill. There were too many ports in too short a time. Eight hours in a capital city, barely scratching the surface of the place is, at least to me, supremely frustrating. On my first cruise I’d made peace with the idea that it’s about the boat and not about the land. I guess I’ve lost that. I have a much deeper curiosity about people and places and much prefer to spend longer than a third of day in a country.

In the end, we spent 16 days on the transatlantic portion of the cruise, with only four of those days in ports. In all, we spent 319 hours sailing between Europe and North America. That averages to 19.5 miles per hour. I ride my bike faster than that. But this was not about speed. It was all about crossing, taking one’s time, enjoying the great expanse of ocean, of being in the middle of the sea, in the great fresh open of the Atlantic, being very, very far away. The sea is its own distant land, a land I’d never known before. It was everything I could have imagined—days spent under a powerful and exaggerated sky, languid days that ended when light would fade and the sky turned a dark, sweet blue. It was people and good food and tango classes at 10:00 a.m.

In the end, I will continue to cruise, despite what I’ve said. Life aboard a ship is great fun and it’s no hardship to spend day after day at sea. But I won’t cruise just to say I’ve been to a place. Having said that, there are places where a cruise makes sense—The Northwest Passage, the Antarctic, down the Amazon or on European river cruises where there is, at least, some connection to the land. And after a month’s touring some corner of Europe of South America…what a great way to come home.

In the end, I’d forgotten how nice it is to travel in Europe. It’s been years since I’ve been on the continent. In fact, I’d never used a Euro. But I won’t stay away. There are too many places to revisit and many more I’ve never seen. It’s outrageously expensive, especially in the north, but there are ways to economize. What was a bit alarming was that I had no memory of some of the places I’d visited years earlier. That was the case in Copenhagen and again in Lisbon. My thinking is that I spent very little time in those capital cities. As now, as it was in the past, I much prefer smaller towns to cities. Perhaps I just passed through. The journals I wrote during those trips will tell me.

In the end, we’re already talking about the next cruise—or cruises as it were. Panama Canal. Alaska’s Inside Passage. More Caribbean. And those are only with NCL!

In the end, I will try to get back to St. Petersburg and back to Portugal and the Azores, each for a longer stay. The splendors of St. Petersburg require far more than a two day gloss-over and Portugal…well, with its fine weather and Latin heart, this is a place I could stay in for a long, long time.

In the end, the cruise brought us through seven different time zones and from the 60th Parallel to the 28th! A total of 32 degrees—all of it on water. We changed our clocks eight times, sometimes as often as every night. How nice it was, in the finally stretch, to roll back an hour each night and have eight 25 hour days!

In the end I’d fulfilled one of my life’s travel dreams—crossing the Atlantic on sea. Yay! Cross one more off the Bucket List.

In the end, it was great.

The Dream

in progress

Amsterdam

Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Latitude 52° 21' 0" N
September 22, 2011

Some days are just better than others and today is a good example. Way back in March or April, I was Skyping with my long time Dutch friend, Lomme Schokker. I let him know that we would be in The Netherlands on a cruise and that it would be great to connect with him, even if it were for just a day. For months this date has been penciled on the calendar. He’d meet us, he said, at the disembarkation point at 8:00 a.m. We exited the boat, walked into the port, and Lomme was waiting for us—our tour guide for the day. For me, it had been exactly 13 years to the week that I’d last seen him.

I first met Lomme and his then wife, Susan, in the early spring of 1981. Steve had just left for a year in Turkey. His Air Force friends who stayed in Plattsburgh were good to me, but it was nice to meet new, non-military, people.

Lomme was Dutch; Susan was from New York City. They were high school penpals who finally met, married and moved to the United States to study. They were at SUNY Plattsburgh for a few years—Susan to pick up her undergraduate degree and Lomme to get a Master’s.

By the Fall of 1981 I was integrated into their lives. Susan would call me up, ask me to come over to listen to a paper she was writing. “How does this sound?” she’d ask. She was never content with a pat answer and demanded my expertise as an English teacher to write the best she could.

I loved their apartment and it brought me back to my undergraduate years at SUNY Fredonia, and the life of a full time student. How nice it was to be part of that and to be part of their lives.

That Christmas, Lomme hosted his first St. Nicholas Party. He’d written poems for each of his guests as was the custom in The Netherlands. None of his guests knew what to do. His American friends just exchanged gifts. His anual St. Nicholas party was a tradition all of us looked forward to.

Over time, their friends became mine. It’s through them that I met Mary Centofani, now almost my sister in depth of friendship.

In the Spring of 1982 Steve was restationed to Plattsburgh Air Force Base—his year in Turkey over. He became their friend as well.

They finally graduated. Lomme ultimately moved to New Jersey to work at Rutgers, Susan to Montreal. And then Lomme, solo, back to The Netherlands. We visited him in 1986 where we met Ina, who would become his wife on Christmas Eve 1988.

Over the years we have seen each other intermittently and through all that time our friendship has endured the years. What a beautiful and precious gift that is.

And so it was that we had another reunion, albeit too short, in Amsterdam on the last full day of summer, September 22, 2011.

He had a battery of things for us to do. Glenda wanted to visit Rembrant’s house which gave Lomme and I a chance to catch up. We were content just to walk the magnificent streets of the Dutch capital, walking up and down canals, taking pictures from its bridges, lunching outrside in the warm, languid sunshine of the last day of summer. In the afternoon we took a one hour canal ride, enjoying wáter views of homes built before the Pilgrims arrived in the New World.

But our vist was too short. The Sun would wait for no one and, sadly, we returned to the ship. How nice it would have been to have more time with Lomme, to visit with Ina and their two children. Another time.

Promptly at 5:00 p.m. we sailed out of Amsterdam’s downtown harbor.

“Goodbye, Lomme,” I shouted into the wind.

“Thank you, dear friend—for a wonderful day and for a wonderful, thirty year friendship.”

There was an air of excitement for those on the 14th floor foredeck. We braced ourselves against the biting cold as the ship sailed past center city, into the industrial area of Amsterdam and then past flat, neaty manicured Dutch farmland—square fields dotted with homes, farms and cattle.

Twenty five kilometers later we slipped into the Nordjelli lock. Dutch lowland ingenuity against the sea. The pilot fitted the Norwegian Sun neatly into the lock where water rose to bring us on level with the sea. Massive gates locked us between the Nordzee canal and the North Sea.

An hour later, we slid out of the lock. We saw long, white stretches of beach with surfers riding the icy waves, enjoying the long light of a late summer’s day. Brr! Hardy souls with good wet suits!

By now more than two hours had passed. We were freezing from our prolonged stay on deck, watching this fun drama unfold. In front of us, facing west, the horizon was striated with dark purple/blue clouds, but at 7:44 p.m., the sun slid below the striation and sank, orange and hot, into the sea.

What a way to end a most perfect day!

Photos of Baltic Capitals

Copenhagen's harbor

Cathedral at Roskilde--burial place of Danish royalty

Medieval harbor of Stockhom

Gorgeous St. Margaret's Church in Stockholm

Skansa--the open air museum in Stockhom

Satuurday, September 17th--Helsinki

Heather at Helsinki's Farmer's Market

Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Helsinki

Tallin

Add caption

Tallin's old town

Four Baltic Capitals in Four Days: Tallinin, Helsinki, Stockholm and Copenhagen

This is what I have to say about visiting four major world capitals in four days: it was sheer lunacy, and far too exhausting, to cram into four, eight hour days, the likes of Tallinn (Latitude 59° 26' 2" N ), Helsinki (60° 10' 32" N), Stockholm (59° 20' N), and Copenhagen (Latitude 55° 40 N).

Fortunately, I had been to two of them before, but it was so long ago that they are essentially out of memory.

Tallinn: This was day one of a three day rainy period. But…we had raingear, and the city was small enough that we didn’t feel rushed to get from one site to another. We hopped a tourist bus, did the circuit, then stayed on until it brought us back to a place we wanted to explore—a lovely park and a royal palace built as a summer home for Russian royalty in the 17th century. By now it had stopped raining so we were able to enjoy the grounds. From there we got back on the bus and had it deposit us at the top of the city—the Upper Town. From there it was a slow walk through a jumble of 14th and 15th Century turrets, spires and winding streets back to the boat in the Lower Town. Tallinn was an interesting fusion of medieval and modern. In the 14th Century it had been part of the Hanseatic League—a mercantile league made up of medieval towns on trade routes between Germany and Russia.

By 2:30 rains, which had held until now, put an end to our touring. We pulled out raincoats and umbrellas, but it just wasn’t fun slogging though the wet streets. We made our way back to the Sun and geared up for our two days stay in St. Petersburg.

Helsinki: It was Saturday, September 17th and a gloriously sunny day to tour Finland’s capital. The four of us spend part of the morning at the huge weekend market that took over the harbor. Vendors were selling gooseberries and lingenberries, in season now in southern Finland. They looked just like cranberries but were sweet instead of tart. Vegetable sellers had piles of mushrooms they told had been handpicked in the forests surrounding the city.

But I had a specific goal in Helsinki—to visit Seurasaari—the capital’s open air museum. Using a Swedish model, Helsinki began to collect traditional buildings that would otherwise have been torn down as the modern overtook the old. Think Shelburne Museum, only in Scandinavia. For me, it was an opportunity to leave center city, take a train to the suburbs, walk a mile to an island in a lake and explore centuries old structures—a stave church, old sod houses, barns. There were even a few larger homes, a school and a store. All of these had come from small communities and had been in use from the 18th and 19th Century. What a perfect way to preserve Finland’s traditional past—especially in a country that embraces “modern” in its architectural preference.

Finland and Iceland are the only two countries in Scandinavia without a medieval past. Consequently, just as it was in Reykjavik, almost everything was built in the20th Century. Personally, it was great to take a look at sleek homes and clean lined apartment buildings.

By 5:00 p.m. we were back on the boat doing our homework for yet another whirlwind tour, the following day—Stockholm.

Stockholm: Sunday morning. September 18th. What a sumptuous city, untouched by the ravages of World War II, its rich medieval past untouched. Stockholm, too, had been a member of the Hanseatic League and Sweden’s wealth had preserved its majestic 15th Century waterfront and the Gamla Stan, the 13th Century core of the old city.

We were on yet another “see as much as possible in one day” tour of yet another northern European city and we hustled from center city, down the harbor and past block after block of magnificent buildings constructed in the 1400’s. My goal was to visit Skansa, the first open air museum in the world of preserved architecture from the past. In Sweden’s rush to modernity, many traditional buildings were destroyed, but thanks to the vision of one man at the end of the 19th century, over 150 traditional structures have been saved and placed on a hilltop overlooking Stockholm harbor. Staff in period costume manned a church from the 1790’s, a small town grocery store from the 1930’s and a manor house from the 1840’s.

My time was limited, though, and I also wanted to spend time in the historic core of the city—Gamla Stan. It was Sunday and the streets were as quiet as they would be in a week’s time. I was awe-struck by the preserved beauty of these buildings that dated to the 1200’s. But I was also tuckered out and stepped into St. Gertrude’s Church in the center of Gamla Stan, mostly to rest my legs and take a break from the rapid pace walking I’d done all day. And what a treat awaited me—really the best image I have of Stockholm in all of this rushed day. There were only a few of in the church when the organist began to practice. For over an hour I just sat there, soaking up the beauty of this spectacular building, listening to 18th century music Bach had written for the organ. What a highlight and what a way to end my short stay in this best of Scandinavian cities.

Copenhagen: This was the only city in which I didn’t feel rushed. I’d been to Copenhagen in the 1980’s and we started the Baltic portion of the cruise here with, for me, a full day to spare. It’s here, on the last day of the Baltic cruise, that we bid good bye to Pam and Graden who were on their way to Berlin. My goal for the day was a small town 30 kilometers away from the center—Roskilde—home to the burial place of Danish kings and queens. I wasn’t sorry to miss the city. We’d been told that 22,000 bikers had emerged into Copenhagen for a biking world championship and that many streets had been closed off. It was a good day to leave.

Roskilde is the site of the first Christian church in the country built by the Viking king Harald Bluetooth in 980 AD. The current cathedral, which I’d come to see, was started in 1170 and added on to and rebuilt so often that it represents a 1,000 years of Danish architectural styles. Its tall spiky spires seemed disproportionate with the solidity of the rest of the building.

Back in town, I had plenty of time to explore the narrow streets of this tony, wealthy town. Danes here lived well—in glass, wood and chrome Danish-modern apartment buildings or in large 18th Century manor houses. Mid afternoon I spent 120 kroner for a muffin and cup of cappuccino--$12.00 US. Someone has to pay for top notch social welfare!

That afternoon both of us got back to the ship with plenty of time to spare. The Norwegian Sun had delayed its departure due to street closures and passenger inability to get to the ship on time.

“Cool beans,” I said as we stood on deck as the great ship blasted its great horns threee times. The second portion of the cruise had begun—a 16 day trans-Atlantic crossing that would also stop at four ports.

Around 7:00 p.m. it pushed its way out of Nordhavn, Copenhagen’s harbor and into the North Sea.

Cool beans indeed!