Advertisement
Published: December 7th 2010
Bernard & Kathy 1992
For nostalgic reasons I'm opening with this photo of us taken at Katmai National Park, Alaska where we were visiting with Jim & Almarene Snead. Almarene took this great photo
Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah from Arizona!
Dear Family & Friends,
We are back in the states for “the foreseeable future.” We have to qualify it in those words because, as you know, we are not known for sitting still. We had hoped to be living this year in
Botswana, Africa, but the lecturing gig Bernard has been trying to put together there has not materialized. He is still “working the angles,” but nothing happens quickly in Africa.
For the time being we are in Arizona and enjoying it very much. We returned from
Berlin, Germany where we lived from September 2009 - October 2010. Bernard was lecturing in International Humanitarian Law for the German Red Cross. No, he doesn’t speak German; fortunately for him all International Law classes worldwide are given almost exclusively in English.
Upon returning to Arizona I started auditing the natural history classes being given to the soon-to-be docents at the
Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. I took these classes a few years ago, but to re-qualify and start volunteering again, I needed a refresher course, and these classes have been wonderful.
Bernie has been busy getting his paperwork, files, lectures (powerpoints, etc.)
Wade Rum, Jordan (December)
Bernard with friend Paul - see my blog on Jordan & Israel for more shots of this amazing wade in order. He leaves November 29 to fly to
Ecuador where he is lecturing, this time for the International Committee of the Red Cross, but coordinated through the German Red Cross. He is hoping to teach in
Dublin in January with Heike, his boss in Germany, as he did last year, but no dates have been set yet.
We are hoping the Dublin course doesn’t interfere with a reunion we have planned for the end of January in
Costa Rica with our daughters and our exchange student daughters and all their families. Obviously they’ll be many photos from that week, which I’ll post on this travel blog site, with a few to Facebook also.
Rather than just telling you about our year, here is a year in review mostly through photos, starting where we left off in our last holiday letter/blog:
November 2009
We were in German for Thanksgiving, having just returned from
Ecuador where Bernard had been teaching and I playing with
Brazilian daughter, Camila, who flew up to meet us in Quito, and good
Ecuadorian friend, Liz, and her good friend, Victoria - we had many wonderful "gal pal" days - see last
Shamir Family
Ofer, Chen (about 12 at this time), Tamar with sons Shir behind her and Stav to the right years holiday blog. So Thanksgiving 09 I cooked a large chicken and we generally moped about not being with family in the states.
December 2009
In December we flew to Israel to visit friends,
Ofer & Tamar, whose son,
Chen, was very sick at the time, so to give them more space we didn't stay with them in the far north of Israel very long. We extended our travels: went by train and bus to Eilat, in the far south of Israel; then over the border to Jordan to visit Petra; then continued north to Wade Rum, and Jerash; crossed over into Israel again to visit Jerusalem before returning to Tel Aviv. Ofer & Tamar were in Tel Aviv because Chen's condition had worsened and he was in the hospital there. Chen did regain enough strength to return home, but died several months later after a long and heroic battle with cancer. He was 17 years old and had been fighting cancer for many years. It was and is a sad, sad time for the whole Shamir family to lose such a bright and kind son. When we were visiting, Chen worried that he was taking too
Jerusalem,Israel, (December)
Al Aqsa Mosque with the Wailing Wall in the foreground much of his parents’ attention and they were not entertaining us as they should. He complained little, smiled a lot and was much loved.
January 2010
Kime McClintock & Zack Saupe, children of friends from Alaska came for a visit in January, and it overlapped with us going to
Dublin, Ireland (for Bernard to teach with Heike in a week-long module) and them to
Prague – it was cold everywhere!
February 2010
Jerry & Nancy Wertzbaugher, friends from Alaska, came for a visit in February, when it was icy and extremely difficult to get around, but that didn’t stop those two intrepid travelers for a second – they had a pass that gave them entrance to over 70 museums! This was our lucky year re: Wertzbaughers - they came to visit us in Tucson in November (2010); just before Thanksgiving, overlapping with other friends from AK,
Tim & Linda McMillan.
We also visited
Riga, Latvia in February for Bernard to attend a conference. It was cold, snowy and wonderful. See my blog for some great photos.
Raul Barrios, from Guatemala (Jaqueline’s brother) was living and working in
Warsaw, Poland while
Kime & Zack (January)
It was January when these two (children of friends in Alaska) visited. Yes, Kime put on some warmer clothes before going out to celebrate Zack's birthday we were in Berlin. He and Bernard had busy schedules, but we finally got together in Berlin in February for a weekend visit - again, it was COLD!
March - April
In March a niece,
Adrienne (Dougherty-Martin), and her sons, Shep and Lee, stopped in Berlin on their way home from
Istanbul, Turkey where they’d been staying for six weeks visiting Rob’s sister and her family. They were supposed to stay longer, but Rob was offered an account (he is in advertising) so he flew directly back home to Richmond, Virginia. Adrienne and the boys decided to come and visit us – lucky us!! We had a super time, really, it was cold but Adrienne and the boys were the BEST tourists – didn’t want to miss a thing.
March brought friends from
the Netherlands, Henk & Mäcki, for a visit. They had other friends in Berlin and many museums to visit, so we only got them for an evening. It is always so much fun catching up with these kind and wonderful friends; we stayed with them when visiting Leiden in October 09.
The end of March we flew to
Arizona to see doctors,
Trinity College, Dublin (January)
It was cold in Ireland, but I did manage to get out to Trinity College to see the Book of Kells, which I'd seen before, but never tire of seeing dentists, check on our condo, etc. Daughters
Jannay (aka JJ), from Alaska, and
Christina, with our grandson Evan, from California came for Easter (husband Mark had to work). It was a perfect visit – weather sunny and warm – and we did fun stuff (hiking, swimming), as well as lots of outdoor dining. Before our girls and grandson arrived, my cousin
Holly (New Jersey - she is my Aunt Betty’s, my mother’s sister’s, daughter) came for a visit. Her husband was attending a conference in Phoenix, so she drove down for a day to visit. We hadn’t seen each other in many years so we had delightful time catching up. Naturally we went to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum so I could give her a private tour.
May 2010
In May Bernard flew to
Lima, Peru to lecture. It was a short assignment, so I didn’t go with him.
Just to clarify, even though we were entertaining and traveling a lot, Bernard was still conducting classes and lecturing all over Germany. He went regularly to universities in
Frankfurt Oder, Witten, Giessen & Bochum (where we’d lived 2002 – 2004).
We were so glad with the arrival
Riga, Latvia (February)
Riga has the best art nouveau buildings in Europe and some of the funnest street lights - see my blog for more photos of spring the end of April beginning of May, which also brought
Deb & Martin Hansen from Alaska. They did a different walking tour every day; I went with them on one to Spandau. We also rode bikes all over our part of Berlin (Zehlendorf – southwest). We lived in a beautiful part of Berlin and seeing it by bike was the perfect way - went slow enough to appreciate the beautiful homes and gardens.
In May we went to Bochum to attend a ball given by Witten University. Bernard and
Heike had taught a course together there.
Philipp, a Norbertine monk who has been Heike’s friend since their college days, was her “date.” Philipp has become a good friend to us as well. The young people looked just stunning in their formal-wear and we all danced until the wee hours, yes, even Bernard!
June 2010
For our anniversary in early June we went to a beach resort on the
North Sea, Ostseebad-Binz on Rugen Island. We rented bikes and spent the beautiful, warm, sunny weekend exploring. It started pouring rain the morning we left, but didn’t start until we were on the train –
Jerry & Nancy (February)
They went to so many museum it was amazing, but the weather was cold and so conducive to such activities perfect timing huh? Ostseebad-Binz was a charming resort town, idyllic actually with many walking/pedestrian streets lined with cafes, ice cream parlors, coffee shops, gourmet grocers, and numerous specialty shops.
Also in June
Jan & Teresa, family from Poland, visited. Jan was performing in a play on my birthday, so I had a delightful celebration. Jan & Teresa were here only for the weekend, but it was a delightful time and we got to catch up on all the news of the extended family.
A few days after Jan & Teresa left, I was in the hospital with a
spontaneous pneumothorax (my left lung had partially collapsed). I spent 3 days in intensive care where a vacuum tube was inserted through my ribcage into my lung and the air-pocket causing the lung compression was deflated (and thus the lung re-inflated). I contracted MRSA (that nasty antibiotic-resistant bug) in the wound, which took a long time to clear up. I recently went for a follow-up with my doctor here in Tucson and all appears to be well.
June also brought
Marcel from the Netherlands with daughter
Meta, who played tour guide as she’d been in Berlin with her
Raul @Berlin Cathedral (February)
When Raul Barrios visited it was still cold (stayed that way a looooong time), but sites must be visited so off touring we went school class a few years ago – she walked Marcel all day, every day. Marcel's wife,
Vera, couldn’t accompany Marcel & Meta on this trip, so they came together in August, bonus! When Marcel & Meta visited I'd just gotten out of the hospital, so when he and Vera came, I was in MUCH better shape to entertain.
July 2010
Niece
Marie (Dougherty-Gould), husband Chris, children Elise and Griffin, and Chris’s nephew Cameron came for a visit in July – it was a full house! In this case, it was indeed ”the more the merrier” as we all had a fantastic time. Griff and Elise are amazing kids – walked OUR legs off. Chris had been an exchange student in Germany years ago and Cameron was currently studying German in high school, so they enjoyed themselves immensely. Chris took them all back to every place he could remember visiting all those many years ago, but it turns out none of them was far from the other because back when Chris visited, they only had access to West Berlin because of the wall – the city had more than doubled in size since he’d last been there –
Adrienne, Shep & Lee (March)
It was still cold in March when niece Adrienne and the boys visited, but here they are at the zoo, which was mostly outdoors and it was freezing population AND area.
While the Gould Family was visiting,
Marysia, Bernard’s Polish cousin – the actress/singer – and her boyfriend of many years,
Maciek came for a visit also. They stayed at a hotel for a few days, then when the Goulds left, came to us for a week. Heike got to meet them all. The kids especially loved "Hiking Heike," as they named her, because she told them about walking from Germany to Jerusalem (every year she and her friends pick up where they left off and walk for a week). That fascinated Elise and Griff, who asked many thoughtful and detailed questions.
Speaking of Poland, Bernard lectured in
Warsaw also. I didn’t go because of a mess-up with flights. Turns out Bernard didn’t get to see Jan and Teresa and saw Marysia only to say hello, so I didn’t miss much. Plus they all came to visit in Berlin where I had quality time with them all.
August 2010
In August we did a tour to
Kiev, Ukraine; Moscow and St. Petersburg, Russia – I’ve done a blog on that trip so won’t go into detail here. Bernard didn’t “love” Russia –
Henk & Mäcki (March)
I originally met Mäcki at the International Center of the University of Leiden in 2001. She and Henk remain valued friends still hasn’t put his finger on why. It was, however, a well-planned trip, the sites were amazing, the hotels superb, and our tour companions delightful.
September 2010
In September we went to
San Remo, Italy again. This time I thought I’d arranged to take a cooking class while Bernard was attending his conference. However, wires got crossed (I guess) and I never did connect with the woman I’d been emailing with about the classes. That was a disappointment.
Mid-September we did a
'Farewell' driving tour (thank you for the car Heike!), and I’ll be doing a blog on that as it was very scenic. I’m just putting a couple of photos here of friends we said good-bye to on this tour.
We drove Heike’s Berlin car (she has a Bochum car also) to Bochum with our bikes in the back as we’d sold mine to Heike and Bernard’s to Philipp. We then spent a delightful weekend in and around Bochum, seeing some sites we’d missed and saying good-bye to friends.
Nicole, I'm sorry we ran out of time and we didn't see you one last time.
We got together for a final time with
Arizona (April)
The warm weather of Tucson was most welcome in March-April. Jannay (aka JJ) on left; cousin BJ, her husband Rob with Bernard behind him, Kathy, Christina and Evan - at Easter Fuyla, Emre & family.
Fulya and I met in a German language class in Bochum in 2002 (she is from Turkey) shortly after she and
Emre (of Turkish decent but raised in Germany) had gotten married. They now have two beautiful children,
Dafne and Batu. We got together with this lovely family every time we visited Bochum.
In
Bochum Heike took us to a reclaimed (mining tailings) park – that has a giant sundial. On another day
Philipp took us to nearby
Cappenburg to a wonderful church and museum. He spent six years as the parish priest headquartered in this ancient church complex. Being an art historian (he teaches at Ruhr University; working on his Ph.D.) he gave us a detailed tour from which I learned so many nuances of religious art. We then went to lunch at a palace-turned-restaurant (school, administrative offices – you get the idea, a HUGE palace). An incredible day!
The next friend to see on our tour was
Sophie Fischer, whom I had tutored in English in 2002 – 2003 and is going to university in Maastricht, the Netherlands, so this was our first stop after Bochum on our farewell tour. We drove
Evan (April)
On Easter Sunday it was swimming weather, so we spent time at our pool. Evan is loading his water gun to go after Grandpa; you can just see on his face the joy he got out of that! from Bochum to have lunch with her because we had missed each other throughout the year – in Bochum, Berlin and in St. Petersburg, Russia too where Sophie did an intense language course over the summer.
Our week-long tour took us from Berlin to Bochum (far west side of Germany), into
the Netherlands for lunch, then into
Belgium for one night,
France for several nights, back into Germany and home eventually – as I said, a blog of that trip is upcoming, so no photos here.
October 2010
When we returned from the farewell tour we packed up our apartment (it had been furnished, so just personal stuff to pack,) and then flew to
Olso, Norway (October 1 – 7). I’ll be doing a blog on that trip, so will only include photos of our Norwegian hosts, Anders & Anne, and son, Herman (5) - see his photo below where he is having such a great time eating Dutch-style pancakes. Since we had met Anne & Anders in the Netherlands (in 2004 I met Anne in a Dutch language class), it was fitting that we eat our last meal together at a pannekoeken huis!
After
Evan (April)
Without sunglasses so you can see his adorable little face. a delightful visit to Norway we flew back to Berlin. We stayed at a hotel a few nights (Heike's apartment was full), had a lovely farewell dinner with Heike and the staff of the German Red Cross, and on October 10 flew back to Tucson, Arizona.
I'd like to take the opportunity here to give a
special thank you to all the lovely people at the German Red Cross, but especially to
Heike as she was a very important part of our year in Berlin. She was not only Bernard’s boss, but also a good friend. She made our time in Berlin more enjoyable because of her care and attention. She helped us with everyday problems, introduced us to good restaurants and places to visit; we shared many a fun-filled meal. She returned to Bochum most weekends, so she’d leave us her car and because of that we didn’t buy a car in Germany. We got by with Heike’s car, public transportation and our bikes. We also spent time with her in Bochum and on several occasions used her apartment when she wasn’t there.
November 2010
As you might imagine, getting re-settled in Tucson was a
Cousin Holly (April)
I took Holly to the Desert Museum for the only day she had in Tucson, but it is always a good choice when the weather cooperates, as it is wont to do in April flurry of activity, but oh so much easier to accomplish when language isn't a barrier. Thankfully in Berlin we had Bernard's boss, Heike, and her assistant,
Stefanie, who were invaluable in getting us set up there. Here it was just a matter of scheduling the cable guy, internet connection guy, etc., and then scheduling our time around those dates and times. Of course there were the more enjoyable appointments, like get-togethers with friends. We spent a delicious and delightful Thanksgiving day with my cousin BJ and her family in the nearby town of Sierra Vista (see photo of them - Arizona-April - as the photos I took on Thanksgiving didn't come out).
We trust you all had a great year too and look forward to hearing a bit about it during this holiday season.
Health & Happiness to You and Yours,
Kathy & Bernard
Let me close with a few Irish blessings:
May you never forget what is worth remembering or remember what is best forgotten.
May the roof above us never fall in, and may our friends gathered below never fall out.
May you live as long as you want, Martin & Deb (May)
Spandau is one of the oldest towns in Germany, but of course we associate it with the prison. Our walking tour guide kept us going - Spandau, the Olympic Stadium and many, many points in between and never want as long as you live.
And to leave you with a smile:
May your troubles be as few and as far apart as my Grandmother's teeth.
YOU CAN CLICK ON ANY PHOTO TO ENLARGE IT, THEN GO BACK TO THE JOURNAL OR GO THROUGH THE PHOTOS (CLICK ON THE NUMBERS AT THE TOP) IN THAT ENLARGED FORMAT. TO RETURN TO THE JOURNAL, JUST CLICK YOUR BACK BUTTON OR ON THE NAME OF THE BLOG ON THE RIGHT OR BOTTOM OF PHOTO - DEPENDS ON YOUR COMPUTER.
NEAR THE TOP ON THE LEFT WHERE IT READS 'Travel Blogs by: Kathy Bernie << Previous Entry,' CLICK ON 'Kathy Bernie' AND YOU'LL GET A PAGE LISTING (BACKWARDS CHRONOLOGICALLY) OUR BLOGS, WHICH YOU CAN SCROLL THROUGH AND CHOOSE ONES YOU MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN. IF YOU CLICK ON 'Previous Entry' YOU'LL GET ONLY THE LAST ENTRY. WHEN OFF THIS SITE, YOU CAN GO TO: http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Kathy---Bernie/ WHICH WILL TAKE YOU TO THE PAGE LISTING ALL OF OUR BLOGS. DON'T FORGET TO LOOK AT THE PHOTOS BELOW AND GO TO PAGE TWO (CLICK ON 'NEXT') AS THERE ARE MORE PHOTOS AT THE BOTTOM OF PAGE Witten Ball, Bochum (May)
It was fun to dress up and dance the night away with Philipp and Heike TWO
Advertisement
Tot: 0.509s; Tpl: 0.018s; cc: 22; qc: 106; dbt: 0.127s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.5mb
Georgia Crespo-Moore
non-member comment
Love your Letter!
Thanks for Sharing Kathy! I loved reading about your adventures and I'm copying your "blessings" - Grandmother's teeth indeed - HEE HEE! All my best - Gerogia