Lift Up Your Hearts!

...but even I am amazed.  Heather introduced me to Book Collector, and I've been thrilled.  I've long wanted to make an inventory of our books, and had made a few half-hearted beginnings, but the enormity of the project always dragged me down.

Enter Book Collector.  I can use a barcode scanner (borrowed from Heather), read the UPC code on the back of the book, and Book Collector searches the Internet for matches.  It downloads all sorts of information:  cover image, title, author, publisher, summary, and often much more, depending on what is available.

There's one problem:  a large proportion of our books are too old to have UPC codes.  But that's okay, I can enter the ISBN by hand, and then initiate the same search process.

We also have a large quantity of books too old to have ISBN's.  For those the program will search on title and author. 

There's still some of clean up that needs to be done with many of the book entries, and I've had to make liberal use of our scanner, because few of the older books have cover images available online.  However, the process is so much faster than entering all the data by hand.  A little concentrated effort over the past few days has enabled me to finish entering all the books—not that we own, but that are in one room of our house.  The family room.  It probably has the second-largest collection of books, although I won't be sure till I'm done.

But here's the shocker:  I catalogued 263 books in the family room alone!  I knew we had a lot of books, but that astonished me.  I wish I could say I've read them all!  I'm working on it....

I'm not ready to make the half-baked list public, but curious family members can see what I've entered so far via the Library link on our home page.  You won't see all the nifty views and searching and filtering possibilities available in the program itself, but it's fun to browse anyway.  The books (at the moment, anyway) are sorted alphabetically by author.

This post is going to be about our Sunday bike ride, but I have to admit that coffee hour is also a favorite after-church activity, especially on the Sundays when our friend K. is in charge of the food, for she always brings (among other goodies) her famous sausage rolls and infamous monkey bread.  Everyone knows to get over to the parish hall pronto after the service when it's K.'s Sunday, because those items disappear fast.  Not exactly a healthy breakfast, but a wonderful Sunday treat.

And we followed it by a 21-mile, two-hour calorie burning spree. 

We drove to the western end of the West Orange Trail, and biked the South Lake Trail and the Lake Minneola Scenic Trail, along with an unnamed (as far as we could tell) side trail.  I just love the Rails-to-Trails program.  Not all parts of these trails are built on old rail beds, but most are, and it's clear we would not have this wonderful resource if they had been sold off.  One of our favorite trails ends abruptly because we have have Home Depot, Wal-Mart, and other stores sitting where the trains used to run.  It's not impossible to make room for the trail to continue around them, but it's more difficult and expensive.  Anyway, I'm grateful to the foresighted people who made these bike trails possible.

As great as I felt this morning, my body soon informed me that it had not fully recovered from yesterday's 14-mile journey.  I was fine on the level, but today's trails had a lot of hills—for Florida, anyway—and that's where my legs complained.  I normally ride without making use of my gears, but this trip taught me the value of downshifting.  :)

What goes up must come down, and I set a new speed record for this bike (or at least for this speedometer):  27.4 mph.  Funny how that's barely creeping in a car, but felt gloriously, even dangerously fast this way.

The Clermont trail just ends, but some day I imagine it will connect to the General James A. Van Fleet State Trail, nearly thirty miles of rurual, even isolated riding.  It will be a while before we are ready for that one, but it's something to look forward to.

I've given up my search for an organic farmers' market; around here I should be happy with a farmers' market of any kind. So today we decided to check out the Winter Park Farmers' Market.

It's worth returning; it's our own little Marktplatz, with food and flowers in addition to produce. We arrived not far from closing time, so much of the produce was gone, but we did pick up some delicious Georgia peaches. I also bought a pain au chocolat from a French pastry booth, because the vendors were actually speaking French and because the last time I had a pain au chocolat I was eating breakfast with a fairy princess at her château in France. It wasn't quite as good—a little less fresh, a lot less enchanting—but delicious nonetheless. Yes, I shared it with Porter.

Thanks to Porter's foresight, we had our bikes on the back of the car, so we drove to the nearby Cady Way Trail. First we followed it south, to Route 50 and the Fashion Square Mall in Orlando, then turned around and went northeast, experiencing the joy of crossing SR436 on the new trail bridge, which had intrigued me every time I took that route home from the airport. We followed the trail into Seminole County, where it joins the Cross Seminole Trail.

At this point I was very excited, because the Cross Seminole Trail connects with our own Seminole Wekiva Trail, just on the other side of the bridge over I-4! We began right away to make plans to get on the Cross Seminole Trail where it passes one of our churches, and ride south to where we ended today.

Then I came home and looked at the map. Turns out the Cross Seminole Trail has a couple of significant portions that aren't finished, and even when it's done it won't be a simple trip to the Cady Way Trail, because the trail leads through Lake Mary, Winter Springs, and Oviedo before turning back west and south. It will be a great ride when it's all finished—but not a short one.

Today's venture was a bit over 14 miles, with a good combination of sun and shade. The only sad part was seeing the huge amount of development occurring at Baldwin Park, site of the former Naval Training Center.

Or hospitals in general, if you can help it.  I realize they perform a vital service, and I really am thankful for doctors and hospitals.  But sometimes I think they've completely lost touch with reality.

Check out this article about an Ontario woman who gave birth.  In her First Nation (Native American) culture, burying the placenta is an important ritual.  But the hospital wouldn't let her take her placenta home.  In the end, she finally received it, but only after it had been sterilized and passed through the hands of a funeral home!

This woman's complaint has a chance of making some change in the Canadian hospital policies, because of her Native status.  But Native Americans, and Canadians, are not the only ones who want to bury or otherwise use the placenta.  Why does the hospital think it has the right to keep the placenta?  Apparently because we gave them that right.  But if they don't want to drive even more parents to the friendlier options of midwives and home birth, pehaps they should rethink the issue.

Biking after church could get to be a habit.  A good one.  Last Sunday we returned to the West Orange Trail, this time heading east.  (You may recall that the Sunday before we had gone westward.)  We made a late start, having become involved in a good conversation at church.  But it didn't matter—we'd already decided that a little sunscreen would be in order.

We biked nearly 20 miles, round trip, saving the remainder of that leg of the trail for another time.  In general this direction was not as pleasant as the previous week's trip—it took a while to get out of the industrial area and into the shade.  But all trails are interesting if they're new to you, so it was a great ride.  Along the way we discovered something else new:  the Clarcona Horseman's Park, and we stopped long enough to watch some young girls and their horses being judged in a show.  What was especially interesting to me was the names of the various gaits.  The riders were asked to walk, jog, and lope their horses.  Back when I was a horse-crazy young girl, I knew of four gaits;  walk, trot, canter, and gallop.  When did they change?

And something else  has changed.  At the risk of sex stereotyping here, it seems that the horse-craze is mostly a female phenomenon; the male equivalent, perhaps, is cars.  But what happened before automobiles?  I think it was the men and boys who were entranced by all things equine.  I wonder why the switch?  Perhaps men are just interested in going places, and like best whatever is the fastest means of transport they can reasonably expect to get their hands on.  End of gender-biased rambling.

We have been blessed with a surprising number of very bright friends, their talents ranging from math to music, from business to origami, from computing to law.  It was with the last that we had a disturbing conversation recently.  The conversation itself was delightful; what we learned from it was not.

To begin, the background.  Most of my readers are familiar with the following story, which I told several years ago in our family newsletter.  But for the benefit of the one or two who meander over here from random places, I'll reproduce it here, sufficiently altered to protect the innocent and the guilty alike.

At the time these events occurred, our friend Curt was a junior at Swansea High School.  He was a top-notch student (he would later be valedictorian), a phenomenal musician, and as clean-cut as a teenage boy gets:  no body piercings nor tattoos, short hair—but not too short—typically wearing neat, khaki shorts and a white polo shirt.  His family was comfortably upper-middle-class.  Both parents were professionals; his father employed full-time, his mother part-time.

Curt was taking a course in biotechnology at his school; as part of the class he often left school early to do research for the Scopes Cancer Institute, sometimes at home, sometimes at the Institute itself.

One day, Curt was riding his bicycle home as usual, and had made it into his own neighborhood, when suddenly he was stopped by a police car.  The policemen asked him what he was doing out of school, and, when he explained, they responded, “Do you expect us to believe that?”  He told them that if they would call Dr. Hedges, his teacher, he would confirm the story.  Curt never heard the phone call directly, as it was made from headquarters; what apparently happened was that they did not speak with his teacher, but called the school attendance office, which only confirmed that Curt was a student at the school who should have been in attendence that day.  The word came back from headquarters to the policemen:  he’s supposed to be in school.

Curt was frisked, and his backpack searched.  He was allowed to ride his bike home, followed by the policemen.  One of them held onto the the front door of his house (“so you can’t sneak out the back”) while he put his bike in the hallway—he wasn’t allowed to take it to the garage.  Then he was put in the police car and taken to the Swansea County Juvenile Assessment Center (JAC).  There, he was interrogated.  (“Do you have any tattoos?” was one of the pointless, insulting questions.)  Curt is brilliant, but not quick of speech, and his slow responses apparently infuriated the officers.  When Curt said, at one point, “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you,”  the officer yelled, “You’d BETTER hear me!”

Finally, Curt’s mother was contacted.  (The message she received at her workplace was, “Did you get the strange phone call from the police about your son?”  It took ten years off her life, she said.)  She called the school and spoke to Dr. Hedges, who then called the JAC.  Curt's parents immediately left work.  At the JAC they found Curt sitting between two very scruffy-looking boys, with a police officer, arms crossed, glaring at them.  By this time, Dr. Hedges had succeeded in convincing the police of the truth, so he was able to go home.  All's well that ends well?

Not quite.  Curt was a shy child, and this incident shattered both his trust in general and his respect for the police.  One absolutely innocent child abused and terrified, his parents pulled out of work, scared to death—and needless to say, Curt’s cancer research did not make any progress that day.  For what purpose?  According to the county sheriff, the purpose was to prevent crime.  Teenaged boys who are not in school are likely to be commiting crimes, so we stop them before they have a chance to do so.

Does anyone else find that as chilling as I do?  And what if Curt had had long hair, or an earring, or parents who couldn’t be reached, or didn’t care, or were too poor to make a fuss—and was still just as innocent.  Would he have fared still worse?

So that's the story.  Nothing in the intervening years has lessened my belief that the police—and the sheriff—were wrong, wrong, wrong in their attitudes and actions.  Curt was not threatening, he was not running away, he was doing nothing wrong whatsoever, not even anything suspicious.  But here's what I learned in the conversation with our legal friend.  Curt did absolutely nothing wrong—but neither did the police.  All the police need to arrest someone is probable cause, a reasonable belief that a crime has been committed.  There are truancy laws in the state of Florida, and—despite private schools on different schedules, and the legality of homeschooling—the fact that public school students are expected to be inside a school building during certain hours provides probable cause for believing that a teenager riding his bike toward home during those hours is truant, and is therefore committing a crime.  Especially if the school tells the police what they expect to hear instead of the whole story.  The fact that the crimes the sheriff was hoping to prevent were more serious than truancy, and that there was absolutely no probable cause to suspect Curt of any of them, does not change the legality of the situation.

It probably falls into the same category as one of the more absurd motor vehicle laws that were on the books in Pennsylvania when I was studying to get my driver's license:  the speed limit through all intersections was 15 miles per hour.  No one expected it to be enforced, but it was there, and the police could use it as an excuse for stopping someone if they wanted to check the car or driver for some other reason.

I still believe the police were morally wrong in their actions—though I admit my views are biased by my belief that truancy laws themselves are wrong—and especially in the way they treated Curt.  But when a hot-shot attorney who knows criminal law and correct police procedure inside and out tells you that such actions are legal, and not only in Florida, it's smarter to listen and act than to argue.  Even in these days when homeschooling is widespread and well accepted, if my homeschooled child were in a position to be alone in public outside of public school hours, I'd be sure to equip him with a letter, on our school letterhead (thanks be to computers and printers!) explaining that he is not truant.  Not that a policeman who would respond to a reasonable explanation with "Do you expect us to believe that?" would necessarily believe a letter (they know about computers and printers, too), but it might help.  And in fact such a letter did help Janet at one point.  She wasn't in danger of being hauled off to jail, but being forced to miss this particular math class would have been unpleasant enough….

(Memo to self:  When discussing a subject dear to your heart, test your arguments on Janet's unrelenting logic before subjecting them to one of the most brilliant legal minds in the state of Florida.  Better yet, don't argue at all until you can do it dispassionately.)

Having written recently about my love of student recitals, I have to mention that we went to a Florida Symphony Youth Orchestra concert yesterday.  In my limited, and admittedly biased opinion, they are far and away the best student orchestra in the area.  Not perfect:  Depending on whose philosophy happens to be strongest at the time, the emphasis is sometimes more on education than on making music. As most of you know, I strongly believe that real learning more often takes place in an atmosphere of "let's do something wonderful and important together" than in a "Me Teacher, You Student" situation.

Be that as it may, the FSYO is the best game in town for a young person who wants to play good orchestral repertoire, and it's good listening, too. The only reason we don't attend more of their concerts is that there are so many other great things to do in life.

But we went yesterday, because it was the last concert of the season, and we hadn't been to one yet this year.  More than that, we went because the concert included three commissioned pieces, one of which (Mountain Air and Dance) was written by our friend John Dupuis.  Unfortunately, John's composition was for the Prelude Orchestra (third from the top of the four orchestras, one above the strings-only group of beginnners), which for various complicated reasons had not had enough time to practice it.  It was a bit of a stretch for them.  Still, there was a gorgeous melody in the middle, and in the rest I could detect an interesting piece that reminded me of why I fell in love with John's Atlantis many years ago.  (Atlantis, which was written with a particular group of FSYO musicians in mind, was recorded by the Seattle Symphony Orchestra and used by Universal Studios for the grand opening of their Islands of Adventure theme park.)

The Prelude Orchestra was interesting to hear.  (They did much better with their other pieces).  My experience with student orchestras has been that the winds are, as a section, better than the strings.  For one thing, the competition is more fierce (fewer positions); for another, good orchestral music tends to have very hard string parts.  But this time the situation was reversed, probably because the strings had a few really good players, and in the winds there's no place for a less confident player to hide.  Playing tentatively is a major mistake for an oboe or a trumpet, and these kids haven't yet learned to "sin boldly."  There was a lovely oboe solo in Edelweiss, however.  (Hmm, I did manage to work a flower into this post after all.)

The Philharmonia Orchestra's commissioned piece (Stephen Foster Song-Suite) was by Joe Kreines.  He may be world famous, but "Mr. Kreines" will always be remembered in our family as the person who came in occasionally to enliven band practice, and who could get more out of an ensemble that any other conductor.  He still can, as today's concert proved.

We don't know the composer of the Symphonic Orchestra's new work (Sojourn), Robert J. Brownlow, but I suppose two out of three is pretty good!  His work matched the ability of the orchestra best of all, I think.  The Symphonic Orchestra itself has been better.  Don't get me wrong—it was still very good, just not up to the standards of a few years ago, when it was absolutely stunning.

Not that I'm prejudiced in this matter or anything—but not one of the orchestras had a decent A to tune to.  I'm a bit particular when in comes to oboes.  Their solos were fine; it was just the A's.  A 440, 460, 415...whatever!

Being involved with student musical groups for so many years, it was impossible for us not to notice the frequent coorespondence between musical and general academic ability, today's Frazz comic—in which Caulfield asserts that we need arts education so the bottom half of the math class can do something for a living—to the contrary.  This year's FSYO graduates are no exception.  Take the assistant principal cellist of the Symphonic, for example.  Valdictorian of his high school, going off to Harvard to major in biochemical sciences, and scored a perfect 2400 on the SAT (on his first try, even).  Hmm, only assistant principal cellist?  The slacker!  Oh, wait, the principal is taking her cello to the Eastman School of Music next year, so I guess the competition was a bit stiff.  She, by the way, is graduating with a mere 4.7 weighted GPA....  C'mon folks, invest a little time and money (okay, maybe a lot of time and money) in your children's musical education.  It'll be great for their brains!

All in all, the concert was a delightful way to spend a Sunday afternoon, and we even ran into some friends we hadn't seen in ages. 

Now I must report on my first dissatisfaction with the Swiss transportation system.  The bus we rode from the airport could not take us back there, because it disappeared overnight!  Fortunately, observant Janet had noticed that the sign was conspicuously missing from the stop.  At first we assumed this was just another of the BaselWorld alterations to the city, but she did some investigating and discovered that that particular run was not popular/profitable enough, so off with its head!  This turned out not to be much of a problem, however, as we were able to take a tram to Basel SBB, the main train station, where we could catch another bus to the airport.

Janet generously accompanied us all the way to the airport, and even waited with us until it was time to catch the last bus that would take her to church on time.  Then we reluctantly said our goodbyes, with heartfelt gratitude.  I do believe being a tour guide takes more out of Janet than performing in front of an audience of a thousand, but she does a great job of it!

We checked in with British Airways, and were able to get boarding passes for the entire trip this time, which eased my mind.  Later we were to discover that two of the three passes were no good, but that did nothing to diminish my relief at this point.

After a pleasant flight, we landed at Heathrow.  (I never can type that without first typing "Heatherow" and having to correct it!)  Once again we faced the long, circuitous walk and the even longer, more circuitous bus ride, followed by security screening and the "one bag only" rule.  This we were expecting.  But going from London to the United States is more complicated than going from London to Basel, probably with good reason.  There was yet another security check at the gate, and we were issued new boarding passes for our next two flights, to replace the for-whatever-reason defective ones we already had.  The process was smooth and we had no trouble, but a connection time of an hour and a half is none too long and in some cases much too short, I'm sure.  We were very glad our flight from Basel had landed a little early.

The next leg of the flight ended in Chicago.  Porter was able to sleep much of the way.  I was not, and distracted myself by watching a movie:  Miss Potter, a reasonably-accurate-for-Hollywood story of the life of Beatrix Potter.  I'd left my book behind with Janet, and I wasn't in the mood for French lessons.

Our connection time in Chicago was two and a half hours, which turned out to be 'way more than we needed, but better safe than sorry.  I've written about our reentry shock before, so I won't repeat it here.  Our passports received their first official stamps of the trip.  There's no evidence there of our time in Switzerland, France, or Germany; not even any evidence that we left the United State.  But we now have proof that we returned!  Going through customs was not a problem.  Our flight to Orlando was delayed, but that didn't matter so much since our only remaining connection was to the rental car Porter had thoughtfully reserved in Orlando—a very good thing, as the buses had long since stopped running for the night, and it was much too late to call a friend outside of a life-threatening emergency.

Then we were home.  All was well, thanks in part to our good neighbors, and we gratefully collapsed into bed—though not until after we'd rebooted the water, electricity, telephone, and computers, and sent off an e-mail reassuring family of our safe return.

For all I dislike about much of our current culture, and fear about the direction our country has been headed for the last half century or so; for all I loved about our visit to Europe; with all my certainty that we have much to learn from other countries and cultures; still, the United States of America is a great place to live, and other countries and cultures could learn a lot from us as well.  Unfortunately, all they're likely to get is the very distorted view of our country presented by Hollywood and the news media.  One thing I got tired of quickly was the assertion, "Americans do/are thus-and-so," repeated all the more emphatically after I've stated that no, we don't do that and neither do many other Americans we know.  I'm more convinced than ever of the value of cultural exchange programs, in which real, ordinary individuals from one country get to know real, ordinary individuals from another—as I've written about here, here and here.  As we discovered in Japan, and again in Switzerland, France, and Germany, there's nothing like good conversation with people from different backgrounds for dispelling misconceptions and dissolving stereotypes (unless we intentionally retain them; see above), and for providing new insights into other cultures—and our own.

It was a great trip!  Danke, danke, Janet!  Merci, merci, our hosts in France (you know who you are)! And to those of you whom we would love to have visited but didn' this trip—there's a good chance that We'll...Be...Back.

Not long ago, a friend was lamenting to me about how tedious elementary recitals are.  Little piano and violin students plunking and scraping away on the same, boring pieces, making the same mistakes you've heard hundreds of times.  I couldn't disagree more.

She has a different perspective, mind you:  she's a music teacher, so no doubt that makes a difference.

But I love music recitals, elementary and otherwise.

Today we made up for our disappointment with the Tuileries by visiting Leu Gardens. It was delightful to wander amongst the palms, bromiliads, wildflowers, camelias, cacti, roses, and other Florida and non-Florida flora.  Especially the gardenias, which take me right back to my grandmother's garden.

Standing by the lake, watching the fish, a turtle, and a white heron—while watching out for alligators and water moccasins—we heard music.  Violin music.  Suzuki violin music.  Talk about natsukashii!  We had to investigate...at the main house there was a luncheon, for which a single violinist was providing entertainment, and she was working her way around the Suzuki repertoire—books three and four, if I had to guess; it's been a while.

Our first live Suzuki contact was made at Leu Gardens; we happened to be there when a group from the Suzuki Music Institute of Maitland was playing on the grounds.  For me, it was love at first sight (sound).  That great music coming from those tiny kids!

Well, that was the beginning for us of more than ten years of Suzuki music.  There were plenty of frustrating times, but one thing I never tired of was hearing the kids play.  I loved to hear our own children practice, I loved to hear all the students—not just ours—play at the recitals.  True, I no longer attend them, now that we've moved on, but truly, I wish the music we heard today had been a public group concert, so I could have heard once again the tiny kids and the old, familiar pieces.  Even Twinkle!

A day of rest, recovery, last-minute shopping, and…packing.  None of us wanted to think about the next day's departure; we weren't ready to part; and yet each of us was looking forward to getting back to "normal."  It was a fantastic vacation, but life is not, should not be, and cannot be, all vacation.  The pleasures and projects of "ordinary life" are the attractions that make the end of such a lovely time bearable.

This may be a good place to mention BaselWorld.  If you're planning a trip to Basel in 2008, don't even think of going in the first or second week of April.  When this watch and jewelry show comes to town, Basel is a different city.  They create new facades for the buildings, build temporary entrances complete with cascading waterfalls, haul in trees as well as tents, and take over the world.  It's a very good thing Janet's host family allowed us to stay at their house, because otherwise we'd have had to stay in Paris.  Or Luzern—that's how far you had to go to find a hotel room.  Actually, Porter's Diamond status with Hilton guarantees him a room anywhere, anytime—but it doesn't guarantee the price, so I'm sure it would have been astronomical.  I'm told that the restaurants in Basel use a different set of menus during the week of BaselWorld, ones with much higher prices.  When we went into town to one of Janet's favorite bakeries, she barely recognized it.

When Janet writes about this day, she may post a picture of us under a BaselWorld sign, which is the closest we got to a world where we SO did not fit in.  I mean, if Paris Hilton is there, should I be?  Besides, it cost about $37 to get in—the Louvre itself was under $12.  Not my kind of place.  This, by the way, was the only time we worried about pickpockets in Basel.  If I were a pickpocket, I'd plan a trip to Basel during BaselWorld—if I could find a place to stay.

Update: Here's the picture:

Speaking of pickpockets, the only place we really worried was in Paris, particularly in the high-tourist areas.  There were conspicuous signs in many places warning of them.  But I'm told that the problem has diminished significantly because of the many well-armed soldiers now present.  They're obviously there for fear of terrorism, and probably wouldn't bother to collar a pickpocket, but I can see how the sight of a machine gun might be somewhat of a deterrent to lesser crimes….

We even found time to watch a movie today:  Die Schweizermacher.  Otherwise known as The Swissmakers, it was a window into Swiss culture the way Swing Girls provided a glimpse into Janet's Japanese school life.  Both are comedies, and exaggerated, but contain enough truth to be insightful as well as amusing.  I'll write more about the movie in an upcoming post on my recent insights into socialization and homeschooling.

Today we finally managed to be together in the same room long enough to enjoy a chat with our hosts.  They even showed us their bunker, part of a legally-mandated system designed to provide safe, underground shelter to the entire Swiss population in case of emergency.  There's been a lot of grumbling recently, because the requirements add significantly to the cost of housing, and people are doubting both the necessity and the efficacy of the bunkers in this post-Cold War, suicide-terrorist age.  But to a Floridian without so much as a basement in which to ride out a hurricane, the bunker was very impressive.  If the Swiss response to potential disaster is overreaction, the American response of burying our heads in the sand cannot be any better.

You can tell it was a day of miscellanea when I'm reduced to philosophical ramblings rather than photos and stories.  But it was a good day, and when it was over we were packed and ready for an early start on our journey home.

When we first began planning this trip, Porter's one goal in Switzerland (besides visiting Janet) was the Jungfraujoch experience, with its cog railway and ride through a glacier, because he remembered it with such pleasure from 40 years ago.  This week we gave up on that idea, deciding that it would be better done in colder weather.  Every day has been somewhat hazy, and if you're going to spend an unreasonable amount of money to climb a mountain, the view ought to be spectacular, not merely good.  If Janet ends up in grad school here, we may have another chance.

So we settled for "second best," a trip to Luzern (Lucerne) and a cog railway ride up Mt. Rigi.  That was a lot less expensive, and made for a very nice day trip from Basel.

After about an hour's train ride (punctual and pleasant, as usual), we arrived in Luzern, bought our tickets for the Rigi trip, and did a little sightseeing, first to an old church, and then across the Kapellbrücke, Luzern's famous old wooden bridge, much of which had to be restored after a fire in the 1990's.

The first part of our Rigi trip was by ferry.

It was so cold on the boat we were seriously regretting not wearing heavier clothing.  If it was this cold on the lake, how much worse would it be on top of the mountain?  Eventually we retreated from the lovely view for some hot drinks inside the cabin.

When the ferry landed, we transferred to the cog train.  It's been said that if you've only been to Basel, you haven't been to Switzerland.  But this is the Switzerland of Heidi.

No worries at the top, because it was not windy.  Warm, sunny, and just the spot for a picnic lunch, even though there was still some snow.

This was our picnic view.  Remember to click on the picture to see it all.

We went back a different route, this time via cable car, picking up the ferry at the little town of Weggis (pronounced "Vegas").  Say, what?  Palm trees and snow-covered Alps?  Strange, but true.

If it wasn't the Jungfraujoch, the Mt. Rigi trip is still enough glory for one day!

But the day wasn't over.

In one of those Small World events (cue music), Janet's piano teacher and friend from Eastman is now living in Luzern.  So we teamed up with Sergio for dinner and a grand walk around the city.  (I figure someone with his own promotional website won't mind being mentioned by name.)  It was a welcome reunion for Sergio and Janet, who only once excluded the old folks by speaking in German, and I believe that was to say something like, "We could have a private conversation by speaking German."

We crossed another wooden bridge, the Spreuerbrücke, which features a set of plague paintings called Dance of Death.

We took a small, private cog railway up to the hotel that Michael Jackson tried to purchase for his personal use, but the Swiss would have none of it, or so the story goes.

Some views at the top

We had a bit of an adventure getting down—more of a long wait than an adventure, but the instructions weren't clear and the upward train had started spontaneously and without warning, so even though we wanted to re-read the instructions, no one was particularly anxious to get out of the car for fear of being left behind.  But eventually we were at the bottom and on our way again.  Here are a few more pictures of the random beauty we found in Luzern.

 

Then it was time to part, and to depart.  We boarded the train and returned to Basel at a reasonable hour, because we were quite tired from two days of busy tourism.

What to do, now that we are back in Switzerland?  Let's visit another museum!  This time it was the Skulpturehalle Basel, which probably would have been more interesting if we'd seen it before going to the Louvre.  It is an extensive collection of copies of famous sculptures, including the Parthenon frieze…and many we had seen as originals less than a week before.  Even those were of some interest, however, as we could get a lot closer to the copy of the Winged Victory of Samothrace than to the real thing.  But mostly this museum seemed to be designed for educational presentations, another great homeschooling field trip.  Do you sense a recurring theme here?

As an unexpected bonus, the Skupturehalle turned out to be very near Janet's church, so we were able to see at least the meeting place of the people who mean so much to her.

Okay, now what?  I know, let's go to another country…or two!  And let's walk there!  So walk we did, through a beautiful park…

…right into Germany!  (The structure in the third picture could be a Tinguely sculpture, but it isn't.)

Then over the bridge…

…to France!

On the way we treated ourselves to Italian ice cream that was as good as Janet remembers gelato in Italy.  I had to have a double cone, strawberry and lemon, because that's what my former college roommate always raved about from when she lived in Italy.  She was right, it's wonderful.  But the lemon was the wonderfulest of all.

Germany is where the Swiss go shopping, because it's so much cheaper there.  So we shopped.  At a small health food store, and also at the store.  How to describe the latter?  The building is not a mall, exactly, but that's the closest word I can find to describe it.  Imagine a shopping mall in which one of the biggest stores is a grocery store, though not exactly a grocery store because it sells a lot more than just groceries.  Maybe a department store with food.  Maybe the next generation of Super Targets….

Whatever you call it, we loaded ourselves up with supplies, from laundry detergent to food for the next day's picnic lunch to Swiss chocolate (it, too, is cheaper in Germany).  Thus laden, we decided to take the bus home instead of returning through the park.  But first we had to get through border control.  Not for us—no one cared to see our passports at all.  For Janet, who needed to get some paperwork stamped.  If you buy stuff in Germany, and "export" it to Switzerland, if you fill out one set of papers at the store, and another at the border, and return to the store on your next trip, you can get back the tax you paid on your items.  Since the tax is something like 18%, it can be worth the effort.

This just in:  middle-aged men have no business stopping to chat with young people.  After all, the young and their elders have nothing in common, right?  No reason to talk to someone who is so different from you.  Certainly no reason to smile and speak to a stranger passing on the street.  Even if you both have dogs.

Here's the story.

The 43-year-old man was the subject of a police "be on the lookout" memo because two children said he spoke to them while they were walking their dogs. Police said no criminal activity had been reported.

I don't blame the police for being cautious.  Maybe the kids had been overly hyped to "stranger danger" by well-meaning parents and teachers.  Maybe they truly sensed something wrong.  In any case, I'm glad the police took them seriously.

If you read the article, you know that this is not the main thrust of the story.  What happened next was that someone obtained the man's personal, identifying information, and e-mailed it all around the neighborhood, with the implication that he was a child molester.

The primary concern seems to be that the information was released illegally, which is certainly a problem.  But I'm more concerned, overall, by the attitude revealed here that he had no business talking to the kids.  Believe me, as a parent I understand the terrible fears, but in defending ourselves against one horror, we musn't lose sight of the cost.  "If we can save just one child/woman/person from [insert particular horror here], it will be worth it," is often flung out like a banner, with little thought given to just what "it" is that we are sacrificing.  In a world where lost children hide from adults instead of seeking help, and where kindergarten teachers are afraid to hug their students, we must at least consider the question of how many children we hurt in our efforts to help others.

Then there's the bedrock of our legal system, the idea that one is innocent until proven guilty.  Frightening as the circumstances may be, this must apply to possible child molestors just as much as to possible murderers, shoplifters, and tax evaders, to Americans with possible connections to terrorists, and to Americans of Japanese descent during World War II, or it means nothing at all.  Note that if this man turns out to be other than the completely innocent person he appears to be, it does not change my argument.

After tearful goodbyes, we traveled with our host (who had business in Paris) on an early morning TGV back to Gare Montparnasse.  Porter managed to squeeze two small suitcases, a laptop bag, and a backpack (all our luggage except for my purse and Janet's small backpack) in one of the station's medium lockers, worth every cent of the seven euros because we were then free to explore more of Paris unencumbered.

We began by crossing the street to the Montparnasse Tower.  As I've mentioned before, if all you care about is the view, this is a much better choice than the Eiffel Tower.  Unfortunately, the day was a little hazy.  I was reminded of Japan, where warm weather was accompanied by haziness, and cold weather brought great views as compensation.

 

This is the train station, with tennis courts on top!

From there we walked past the Jardin du Luxembourg (without meeting any of Marius, Jean Valjean, or Madeline) to the Musée National du Moyen Âge, aka the Cluny.  On the way we found a tiny crêperie and enjoyed one final treat of crêpes and communication in French.

At the Cluny we feasted on Medieval tapestries and other works of art until it was time to retrace our steps, retrieve our luggage, and hail a taxi to take us to Gare de l'Est and our train to Basel.  I was quite proud of myself.  This driver had no trouble understanding our French, and when he learned we were going to Switzerland and tried to say that Gare de L'Est was the wrong station, I had enough confidence to assure him that this was what we really wanted.  (I appreciated his asking very much, however!)

The five-hour ride between Paris and Basel was much more restful this time, since I wasn't frantically planning and cramming French.  That also made it seem longer, however—or maybe that was because we didn't get in till after 11 p.m. and it had been a long day.  Still, it was pleasant.  I love train travel!

Much to Janet's surprise we actually had to produce our passports to reenter Switzerland; perhaps it was because of the late hour.

Today was another beautiful day.  We've had so many since arriving in Europe.  The week before our arrival was so cold that we brought hats, gloves, and scarves with us, and decided to rely on layers rather than heavy coats only because we were trying to travel light.

(The lady who checked us in at the Orlando airport marveled at how little luggage we were taking to Europe.  Two suitcases—one small, one medium; a laptop bag; and a backpack doesn't quite seem like a small amount of luggage to me, but I guess it could have been worse.  We were blessed by having convenient laundry facilities on this trip.)

Spring weather is always unpredictable.  When we were packing, I never would have guessed that I'd regret bringing only one short-sleeved shirt.  We carried our jackets with us almost everywhere we went, because early morning and evening were cool enough to need them, but hiking around at midday was sometimes quite hot.  The only rain we experienced the whole vacation was maybe a dozen drops while enjoying a café on the banks of the Rhine.  As a Floridian, I know that lack of rain can be a serious problem (we're in the middle of a drought cycle now), but as a tourist, I was grateful that it held off for our visit.

And today we were definitely tourists.  Our hosts drove us to Mont Saint-Michel, about two hours away.  It was a lovely drive through the French countryside, and the sight of Mont Saint-Michel suddenly there, rising in all its glory from the flat ground, reminded me—though on a different scale—of my first view of Mt. Fuji.  You can see a good full view of Mont Saint-Michel at the Wikipedia link above; ours have people in them, which is generally good, but not, as I said, for public blogging without consent.

Janet had broken her glasses in a little accident with a hammock, and our tape solution had to be renewed frequently.  When we returned to Switzerland we bought some glue that allowed a much more permanent fix, but in the meantime we were grateful that they could stay together for 15 minutes at a time.  Memo to self:  never travel without duct tape.  And a spare pair of glasses.

Here are some gargoyle shots for my sister

I call these my Tennyson pictures….

 

This structure predated by oh, about a millenium Porter's ingenious contraption for hauling heavy items to our roof.  I bet it was equally handy.

 

Random views

   

Sadly, this was our last night at the château.  We're now beginning the homeward leg of our journey.