9/21/06 So I have been meaning to write for a while and finally the time has come. And though I have a million things that I was going to write about, the following was not one of them Today I was reading Margot Schaal’s blog; for those of you who don’t know who this is, she is the mother of my friend Kaneza from Wesleyan, and she is right now living in Rwanda. Among other things, she is teaching yoga/feldenkreis classes for a UN group there (I think that is right). But in her short email to a group of friends [View Full Entry]

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It was another magical week of baseball in Lithuania. I played in four games while I was there, part of a best of five series, we won 3 games to 1. The first game we lost; it was probably our most poorly played match all summer. I struck out in my first at bat, I wasn’t even close to touching the ball with the bat. Striking out is probably one of the most singled-out moments there are in sports. When you strike out, the strike three is called and there is a good sixty seconds before the next batter steps in [View Full Entry]

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Go to this link, http://www.baseball.paysfoyen.com, it is the Pineuilh baseball website (where I was coaching for a week). There are two funny pictures of me, and then an interview (in french) between myself and Jean-Marie, the Vice-President of the club, talking about the week and my reflections on their team/players, etc. (Hannah, you can translate it for mom/dad :) ). [View Full Entry]

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My time with the Daniel and Christian (and Johannes, who got home in time to head off with the three of us toward France) was short and really great. After two days hiking and hanging out at their place, we hit the road. Our goal was to get to Lyon by the evening, about 300 km away, not far but with the bus' lack of speed, and some of the mountain roads, it took close to 8 hours of driving. I drove the final leg of our day’s journey from Bavaria, through Switzerland, and into France, our final destination for the [View Full Entry]

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I may not have the spelling right: this is an old house that Mark and Trish Tyler, the mom/dad of my famille d’acceuil, have recently bought and are rebuilding. I don’t know exactly how old it is, something like 200 or so years old (probably older). Mark and his crew have totally gutted the place, and are now installing pipes and preparing the floor for the concrete foundation that will be laid in the coming weeks. I spent the last three days sanding the wooden floors in one of the upstairs rooms; they are the original wood from the original construction [View Full Entry]

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Jean-Marie (my friend who I’d met at the tournament in Moscow and who initially invited me to come and teach baseball), accompanied by the club president, was to meet me at the train station in Mussidan, a smaller station before reaching Bordeaux. I learned two things on this train from Lyon to Bordeaux: first, if it is a small station, the train stops for a very short time (about a minute). The second lesson was that the doors on some French trains are very difficult to open. Because of these two things, I did not get out at Mussidan. It was [View Full Entry]

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I am currently in Berlin for a brief rendez-vous with my travel companion, Mr. Tommy Noonan. I took the TGV (the fastest rail service in the world) from Libourne to Paris last night, then after a surprisingly restful nights’ sleep in the Paris Orly airport, I caught an early morning flight to Berlin aboard EASYJET airlines. In my experience, I found air travel (airports, security, etc…) to be so much smoother, less stressful here than in the US. After the recent bomb scares in the UK I guess I was expecting a bit more hysteria at the terminal….. I find it [View Full Entry]

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I guess it didn’t occur to me before arriving in the region that the scenery would be vineyards, vineyards, and more vineyards. The scenery is really beautiful, and after working at Magnolia Grill for six months and hearing the chef talk at length about Bordeaux wines, it was kind of cool to see the vineyards, taste the wine, experience it. The economy of the region essentially depends on wine production and the tourism industry that has arisen out of the region’s reputation for fine wines, wineries, and chateaus. Among parents of the kids involved in the two Pineuilh teams ther [View Full Entry]

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I am headed to Bordeaux, France on the 21st of August, where I will be coaching/teaching pitching to the youth program there. I think it is like a baseball summer camp. I’m excited to be forced to speak French, and a little worried too because I am so out of practice (with French). From there I will meet up with Christian and Daniel (my German friends from the Petrol station), who will be down in Bierritz, on the northern coast of Spain. We will spend a week traveling in northern Spain in their RV, then I will head back to Germany [View Full Entry]

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My second day in Vienna I came across an African restaurant, called ‘Makossa: Brendas African Restaurant.’ I went in just to see what it was like, and after exchanging a few words with the bartender I learned that it was a Cameroonian restaurant. I was so excited. The following evening Tommy and I ate there—it was a restaurant full of Cameroonians, and then Tommy and I. It was wild because, naturally, it felt like we weren’t in Vienna anymore. The food, the music, the customers, the television playing music videos, everything was from Cameroon. Except for the beer [View Full Entry]

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