Merry Christmas, especially to those apart.

Tonight's not Christmas Eve, tonight's just...Tuesday.

I threw a rueful grin at Miles earlier tonight when that thought occurred to me, adding “That's not a thought I could put in a blog!” After all, people don't want to hear any voices of dissent against Christmas Perfection. (Miles didn't seem to find it funny either, although it's hard to tell, cats have a awfully dry sense of humor.)

But I can laugh at that, because I have my Christmas this year, last weekend with most of the family, and I'll spend some time tomorrow with a couple of the ones who weren't there. But tonight? For me, tonight was a bowl of pasta I made (good enough for me but I wouldn't put it on this last weekend's table), and a movie on Netflix for me and Miles.

(We watched the last Mission: Impossible movie, Ghost Protocol or whatever, and agreed with a friend's review “It's good and funny in that over-the-top way, though only Tom Cruise seems to not realize it's a joke.”)

So I can laugh, not bitter or sad (much) about being alone tonight, but there are two notes I want to add. First: if you are with family, appreciate it. Yes, they drive you nuts as only family can, but you'd probably miss them if they weren't there, and they would miss you. (Do I need to add a disclaimer against an implicit assumption of the universality of an ostensibly Christian holiday? It's a symbol, people, stop fighting.)

But second, a bit more vital to me, I want to wish a very Merry Christmas to all of those people who are apart tonight. I'm sure there are more than we realize, some for work, some for reasons I can't imagine, but the ones close to my heart are the travelers. Hopefully most of them are finding happy evenings in crowded hostels, perhaps even a fraction as good as the one I had in Rome in 2008...

But there are some of you, undoubtedly, alone tonight. I don't want to be a bummer here, and hopefully you remember that everything is temporary, and these circumstances will change. So appreciate them now, learn the lessons there, and have this memory to revisit later. Maybe it will make a good story.

If it turns out you prefer holidays alone, that's fine, that's your right, far be it from me to reproach anyone. But if you find, perhaps surprisingly, that you miss your family, then hold on to that, and let it mean more when you come Home, more aware of what that word means than you were when you left.

And to those of you who are missing someone... That pain comes from love, and that's always something to be thankful for. And/even if all circumstances change.

Anyway. To everyone, idyllic families around the fire, people fighting and squabbling about stupid shit, playing Scrabble or whatever you do: Merry Christmas. And to those who are away, who are separate, who find themselves apart tonight: Merry Christmas.

A lesson learned in the worst supermarket on Earth.

Some friends did me a favor the other day. They asked my opinion.

Everyone loves to feel like an expert, and travelers may be the worst of all. But I am leery of trying it, because I am vaguely aware of how much I don’t know, and because most people sound like pretentious jackasses while they expound on their expertise. (“I had a two hour layover in Dubai three years ago…let me tell you what the Middle East is like…they’re so organized! They like everything to be nice and orderly, A1, A2, A3, that sort of thing…”)

But I was surrounded by friends, and tales were flowing like the hard alcohol none of us drink anymore, so I indulged.

They were asking about Europe, 27 of whose countries I’ve visited (29 if you count Vatican City and Monaco) and I found myself recommending, as my secret #1 pick: Slovenia.

The capital, Ljubljana, is a friendly place of details, history, and local character which I would describe as “quaint” if I didn’t hate that word so much. Plus have you ever seen a word more fun to say? I’ll wait while you practice a few more times. Make sure to really get that “lyuh” sound. Lyooblyana.

Coastal Slovenian city of Piran, after a truly epic storm

It’s not as expensive as its western and northern neighbors, but is more developed and luxurious than much of Eastern Europe. There are trees, caves, and the coast is absolutely gorgeous.

At the time I thought nothing of it, but just now I was putting away laundry and I noticed the little glass tea-light candle holder I bought in Ljubljana and never gave away. And suddenly I remembered…

I was miserable in Ljubljana.

My time in Ljooobljaaana (calm down) stands out as one of the two lowest points of that first long trip, which are probably my worst moments on the road to date. (Knock on wood.)

It was cold, I didn’t have the proper gear, and I’d spent two days trying to win over a Czech cutie who turned out to be hung up on some dude in Prague whom she admitted was a total jerk. Those three things were actually fairly par for the course, but what really made me miserable was the timing.

I was standing in the deli section of a basement supermarket, deciding whether to have spaghetti again or splurge on some runny goulash, when it hit me.

It was Thanksgiving.

Somehow the fact of being there, surrounded by people who had no idea it was my favorite holiday of the year, so far from my family, and deciding what to eat on another lonely night in a grungy hostel…

 

Have you ever cried in the supermarket? In a foreign country? I hid in the pasta section while I tried to stop. It took awhile.

But there I was last weekend, recommending Slovenia and its capital as among my very favorite places, not even remembering that damn supermarket. Because sadness passes. Because we remember both happy and sad things, but can choose to spend more energy on the former.

And because I just spent Christmas with my family.

K was not there, and nor was her family, who I feel are part of my own, but I can see the sadness of that, accept it, feel it, and focus on the happiness of seeing all my siblings gathered in one place for the first time in 4 years. Watching my parents hand out presents, and all of us immediately knowing they’re socks.

So yes, Ljubljana is one of my favorite places. So is Monterey, California. So is Antwerp Province, Belgium. There’s happiness in all of them. I can focus on that.

Coffie in Kotor

It was the middle of November when I got to Kotor, Montenegro.  The old town is a 16^th century (or 15^th, who’s counting?) city of the Republic of Venice, with stone fortifications, stone buildings, and stone streets, though there are records of a town here dating back to 168 BC.  (Kotor sits on the Bay of Kotor at the bottom of a steep-sided valley, and being November was basically dark by 5:00.)  My first evening in town I followed some of these stone streets to a small piazza and took a seat at one of those quintessential European cafes.

It was off season, where the waiter shows up every half hour or so, and the street has a stillness that remembers the passage of centuries.  Locals come and go, everyday life.  The city has a stable cat population, who seem well cared for; there are no stray dogs in Kotor.  Pigeons stand around in the square, unconcerned by the cats, who are well fed enough that they watch the birds with intent eyes belied by lazy bodies.

I asked for a cup of coffee, expecting the small espresso, probably Italian, that I had found in the previous twelve European countries, but I was in the Balkans now, close enough to Turkey that instead I got a slightly Montenegro-fied cup of Turkish coffee.  Whereas Western coffee is hot water steeped through coffee grounds, Turkish coffee is when you boil the water and the grounds together, which end up as a thick muddy layer at the bottom of a fantastically strong cup of blackness.  No filters, no strainers, and definitely no stirring.

Coffee this strong has its own schedule, so I sat patiently, taking miniscule sips and watching the piazza.

Three sides were lined with medieval-sized houses, mostly converted to cafes, most of which were shuttered up, waiting for the tourist season when wealthy Russians and Eastern Europeans come down to the Mediterranean.  The fourth side was the Cathedral of Saint Tryphon, one of two Roman Catholic cathedrals in the country, and which was consecrated on June 19.  Can you guess the year?  Would you believe 1166?  Me neither, but it’s true.  Twelfth century.  That’s older than a middle-aged redwood tree, for crying out loud.

I was sitting in that café, across from that cathedral, in that town, all alone except for my occasional waiter and the old man  meandering outside the cathedral, ostensibly it’s caretaker but in this season he was mainly occupied with feeding the cats and pigeons.

The air was still.  Then there was half a pitter and most of a patter, and then it was a deluge, rain belly-flopping into the enduring square, instant waterfalls off the tilted edge of the umbrella that I had luckily sat underneath.  Under my table the water followed mortared seems between flagstones, dust swirling on the thickened fronts of the streams as they washed the formerly dry stone.

The old man moved under the arch of the church and the two of us watched as the rain was the only movement in town.

Holiday Progress

My first blog was going to be called “A Year Without Holidays” because I spent the holiday season of 2008 abroad, traveling away from home and family, and I felt like those holidays weren’t real ones, basically just more expensive hostel dorm rooms.  (Not exactly my real sentiment, but it’ll do for now.)

This year I am still abroad, but no longer travelling, and I found my holidays.

I spent Thanksgiving 2008 in Ljubljana, Slovenia, and although it is still one of my favourite places, that day I was standing in a basement grocery store, deciding if splurging on goulash was worth it or whether to go with basic spaghetti again, when suddenly I realized I was far from home and family, surrounded by people who had no idea it was even a holiday (for me anyway) and I was choosing between shitty goulash and boring spaghetti on Thanksgiving.  And it sucked.  It was no longer fun.  I stood in front of that damn counter, fighting the water in my eyes while I ordered goulash I no longer wanted (and ended up forgetting in the hostel fridge).

It was one of the two lowest moments of my trip, I think of my adult life in general, and I was not looking forward to Christmas.  Life is a tricky bastard though, and that Christmas I met Katrien, the woman I now live with in a snow-buried studio apartment Belgium.

So this year, I spent Thanksgiving back in the States with my family.  And Christmas will be here with hers.  And although I still basically missed Halloween (it’s not very popular here…yet) I had my first Sinter Klaas, the Belgian tradition where an old white-bearded guy with elf helpers brings presents to kids.  Except he has nothing to do with Christmas, is rake thin, sails up from his home in Spain, and his elves would be inadmissible in America since they are basically in blackface, “Black Pete” being the chief among them, face blacked by the soot of your chimneys.  (I particularly like that he lives in Spain.  I have a mental image of when that detail was added, some kid asking “Daddy, where does Sinter Klaas live?”  The dad frowning for a second, “shit, I dunno…um…Spain?  Yeah, Sinter Klaas lives in Spain, son.”)

And New Years here involves carolling and something like trick-or-treating but without the tricks and costumes, going house to house singing and giving treats and hot drinks.

And even more!  This year I will spend (weather permitting) New Years Eve in Scotland, where that day is Hogmanay, whose roots go back to Norse winter solstice rituals and incorporate Gaellic elements of Samhain, with local customs varying from throwing fireballs into the harbour in Stonehaven to carrying decorated herring (yes, the fish) in Dundee.  The most common tradition though is “first footing” also known by its more charistmatic Gaelic name “quaaltagh”, where the first person to cross a house’s threshold sets the luck for the year.  The first-footer (I’m not making that term up) often brings symbolic gifts like a coin (prosperity), salt (flavor), bread (food…not exactly symbolic, that one), coal (warmth), or alcohol (good cheer…cuz that’s how Scots roll) and is in turn given food and a hot drink.

So in 2008, Halloween was sadly forgotten, Valentine’s Day (happily) ignored, and Thanksgiving a new low of crapitude.  But in 2010 I got my Thanksgiving turkey, Sinter Klaas put gingerbread and marzipan in my shoe, and maybe I can first-foot our hostel on Hogmanay.  If two years ago was the year without holidays, then this is the year of twice as many.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all!

Fijne Kerstdagen en een Gelukkige Nieuwjaar!

And what the hell: Feliz Navidad y un Próspero Año Nuevo too!