Tuesday, August 7, 2012

52 Beds in 52 Weeks: A Trip Around the World

As our adventure comes to a close with our return to Maine tomorrow, we are reviewing the year and trying to get a handle on what it all has meant to us.  Our heads are full of so many beautiful sights: the volcanoes and bold colors of Guatemala, the turquoise water of the Caribbean,  the mysterious golden culture of Thailand, the peaceful temples - and wide sidewalks - of Laos, the tidy tea plantations and enormous monuments of India, the misty moody hills of Scotland, the quaint hedgerows and lovely seaside towns of England, the medieval towns of Spain,  the vineyards and mountains of southwest France, and the bright green rolling meadows of Ireland.  And that's just a taste - a good dollop, mind you - but just a taste of the world's gifts that we experienced.

It was an incredible privilege to have this opportunity to spend a year exploring the world.  The highest privilege was being invited into people's homes and into their lives for a moment - real lives where transitions were taking place, where personal losses were being grieved, where a new home was being planned or where uncertain financial futures were being wrestled with, where serious health problems brought re-evaluations of life-style, where young people were working hard to gain an education and were setting out on their own adventures, some graduating after many years of study, where parents were joyfully anticipating a child's wedding or dubiously looking forward to the life changes that retirement would bring,   We weren't escaping from life; we were jumping into the middle of it everywhere that we went!  We have been impressed by the young people that we've met who are so creative and hard-working and ambitious and desirous of all the good stuff in life that American youth want.

There were experiences of spirituality in huge historic Christian places of worship in Europe, in a modern airy church in Asia, in a damp chapel carved out of a mountainside in France, in an ancient abbey on a tiny windswept island off the coast of Scotland, in a small friendly church in Guatemala, in mysterious Buddhist temples smelling of incense.  Those were the formal, intended places of worship.  There were other places, natural locations so beautiful that they brought an unexpected prayer to mind.

There were funny times, too, like when monkeys came after me in India.  I yelled for Bruce's help while trying to distract the little buggers by throwing my sunglasses at them (it didn't work!). There were scary times in the backseat of an Indian taxi driven by a maniac on narrow twisting roads.  There were moments when we wondered why we were wandering around the world, so far from home, and moments of boredom and loneliness  - and lots of lovely moments as recipients of generosity and kindness and fun, and great gratitude for our good fortune in having this incredible experience.

What have we learned?  How have we changed?  Would we do it again?  Do we still have some wanderlust?

Well, these last two are the easiest to answer, given that we are still jotting down places that we'd like to see and noting tidbits of info, like the fact that Ryan Air plans to begin service from Ireland to Gdansk, Poland.  Ahh, so many interesting places still to explore and so much to learn about the world.  I don't think that we have another long adventure in us - but shorter ones still appeal. It's been a tremendous amount of work to get this endeavor to unroll as smoothly as it has - and it has all been done by Bruce!  Thanks to him, we never had a night without a bed or were left stranded by the side of the road or found our bank account empty when we needed it!  But the time and stress involved with arranging hotels, B&B's, apartments, houses, Woofing, visas, buses, trains, flights, ferries, car rentals, credit card payments, money transfers, new currencies and phone cards in every country - with internet service that was often dodgy - it's been a HUGE undertaking!  Bravo to him.  No wonder I'm the one who wants to get out and see, do, experience every day while he wants to take it slow and easy.

What have we learned about ourselves?  Well, I know now that I have a pretty good sense of direction and that we're both pretty flexible, that Bruce is surprisingly more cautious than I in many situations, that he is incredibly good at aforementioned planning.   We both are more acutely aware of the disparities between the "have's" and "have not's" in the world - and the incredible sweetness and generosity of those who have very little in the way of material goods.  If we have any regrets, it's that we might have done more in the way of being of service to those very people.  Overall, it's been a proverbial blast!  It's hard to let go of such a wonderful experience, but we are ready now to rejoin our families and friends, to reconnect with those whose roots and histories we share, and to reclaim our lives back home.

As the year has unfolded and we've written blog after blog, we've often wondered who was reading them and what their reactions were.  We'd love to have some feedback, thoughts, reactions, etc.  You could send them to my email at:  lwebb34@gmail.com.  Thanks and cheerio!  

Green Green Fields of Ireland

This will be a very quick post since we leave for home tomorrow.  But Ireland isn't to be passed over, so I feel compelled to get out a few words and pictures about this lovely green land.  By tomorrow we will have been here for about 8 days, mostly in Cork, and then a couple of days in Dublin.  We had hoped to stay in Galway, since so many Portland folks of Irish descent came from that western Ireland city and it's reputed to be beautiful.  Alas, it was horse race week in Galway and not a room to be had there.  As a fellow in Dublin remarked yesterday in giving us directions back to our hotel (located next to the Royal Dublin Horse Show site), "all roads in Ireland lead to horse races!".  So, we opted instead for Cork, second largest city in Ireland, where Gay Pride weekend was about to be celebrated rather than horse races!  And, as we've found so often before, the city and surrounding areas had a lot to offer.

                               Cork, second largest city of Ireland, on the River Lee.


                           Church of Ireland tower with rainbow flag for Pride weekend

Probably the two most interesting things about Cork were the place that we stayed and the nearby city of Cobh.  We stayed with a young couple, Denise and Ben, who have a spare bedroom which they offer through AirBnB at a very reasonable rate, with a great breakfast thrown in.  Denise, as it turns out, manages a shelter for immigrants, housing nearly 300 refugees.  Ben works for a mobile phone company.  Of course I was very interested in Denise's work and how the Irish government handles their refugees.  So, on our last day,  Denise took me to see the shelter.  I'm a bit familiar with the Canadian approach and with the US approach, which encourages independence fairly quickly.  It was fascinating to compare them with the Irish way, with its very benevolent services, including housing, meals, educational classes, recreation, health services, day care, and employment support.

It was such a travel plus to stay with ordinary folks and to learn about their lives.  Watching the Olympics together on their big screen tv and using their kitchen to cook up a simple meal and exchanging travel stories felt a lot like staying with friends.  Neat experience.

                                            Our AirBnB, Denise and Ben's home in Cork

Cobh, formerly known as Queenstown and before that as Cove (Cobh is the Gaelic spelling of Cove), is the coastal city from where 250,000 Irish left their country on the "famine ships" to look for a better life elsewhere in the 1800's.  It's also where the Titanic last stopped to pick up passengers in 1912.  Three years later the Lusitania survivors and bodies were brought there after the ship was torpedoed by the Germans in World War I. And, it was one of the cities on the New York, Cherbourg, Queenstown circuit for big ocean liners, too.   Lots of history there that we learned about in a heritage museum.  The tourism guy shared an interesting tidbit:  When Ireland got its independence, it rid itself of anything British, including the name of Queenstown (named for Queen Victoria) and several statues of Victoria, which they sent to Australia and Victoria, British Columbia.  A third statue was buried but recently unearthed in these more enlightened times.  In mentioning the name of the hated English statesman, Cromwell, he gave a little spit out of the side of his mouth!  Makes you realize how relatively recently the war of independence took place, not quite one hundred years ago.

This is a photo of a photo - but doesn't it almost feel like you're on board the Titanic?




Our brief stay in Dublin has gone quickly with Bruce needing to spend time on his new on-line class that he's teaching.  We've walked downtown a couple of times and enjoyed the cool air and the beautiful Georgian architecture, the lovely parks and gardens, and the old pubs.

                                  Our Dublin hotel where Bruce was hard at work on his on-line class 


                                                        Georgian house in Dublin


                                 Garden, park, church - a little bit of everything here!

Ireland was a good choice for our last stop.  We certainly felt closer to home here.  The US-Irish connection was everywhere:  lots of American (and Canadian) flags; lots of businesses and products with American names, such as Manhattan popcorn and Long Island Bar;  lots of people with relatives in the US or who had traveled there themselves.  Everyone seemed to know where Maine is.  I could feel an invisible thread pulling us homeward to those we love!