I walked into a coffee shop this afternoon. On the counter near the cash register was a bowl with some one dollar bills in it. Behind the bowl was a small hand-written sign.
“Afraid of change? Leave it here!”
I contributed a buck, a small reward for the staff’s cleverness and entertainment value.
A few weeks ago, I was crossing Broadway at Canal Street on a Sunday. It’s a busy intersection, and it’s particularly chaotic on weekends when people sell a variety of items on the sidewalk.
One cautionary note about this intersection is that the traffic on Canal Street gets a green arrow for left turns when the lights change. Pedestrians need to wait for their own walk signal rather than moving automatically with the traffic. Unfortunately, a young lady who was engrossed in whatever was playing on her phone didn’t pay attention to the walk sign stepped into the intersection and came close to being struck by a UPS truck that was making a left turn.
The lady was okay. She hadn’t wandered far enough into the intersection to be injured (she would have been in danger if she had taken one more step). When I was no longer concerned for her welfare, I noticed some strange details about this situation.
First of all, it was a Sunday. UPS doesn’t deliver on Sundays.
Secondly, the driver had made a left turn. UPS famously plans their routes to avoid left turns whoever possible. The driver could have gone around the block if he had wanted to adhere to the company’s right-turns-only rule.
Now, here’s the really strange bit. It wasn’t just one truck. At least eight and maybe as many as ten UPS trucks all made the same left turn from Canal Street onto Broadway, one after another in a big brown caravan. They just kept coming, forcing their way through the intersections long after the left turn arrow had switched to red. That wasn’t an issue, because the next thing that I notice was that they had a police escort. Several marked NYPD cars followed the UPS trucks through the intersection.
Once all of the trucks and police cars turned off of Canal Street onto Broadway, pedestrians were finally able to cross the street. It was then that I noticed yet another mysterious detail. The trucks were numbered, and I’m not talking about black serial numbers in the paint job. On the back of each truck was tabled single sheet of white, letter-sized paper. Each sheet had been labeled by hand with a pen.
TRUCK 3
TRUCK 2
TRUCK 1
The last truck in the sequence was TRUCK 0.
So, here it was, a Sunday, and a police-escorted caravan of UPS trucks has just pushed its way through a major intersection making the left turn that UPS trucks famously never make. My mind searched for an explanation.
At first, I wondered whether the drivers were taking part in a labor protest. But it didn’t make sense that they were being escorted by multiple police cars.
Next, I considered that they might be involved in a stunt scene for a movie. But there were no production people in sight, nor were there any cameras or lighting equipment.
Finally, it dawned on me that the caravan was heading in the direction of the courthouses and the federal buildings. That’s when one final idea popped into my head. Were these UPS trucks carrying the president’s tax returns?
Shortly before sunset on my last day in Budapest, I grabbed my camera gear and walked briskly along the banks of the Danube river. I wanted to take a photo of the Parliament building at dusk from across the river. As I walked, I passed grand hotels, dinner barges, and open air restaurants where patrons were warmed by flaming gas heaters.
I crossed the Chain Bridge, weaving my way through throngs of snap-shooting tourists. I was hurrying, because I needed to get into position before the sky turned dark. One young couple reclined on the railing of the bridge, which left me feeling somewhat. A fall would have been disastrous.
When I reached the Buda side of the river, I continued my walk northward. I noted a number of points where I could take the Parliament building from an interesting angle, but what I really wanted was a straight-on view. Unfortunately, this view is partially obscured by a barge. I took the shot, but I had to shoot over the barge, and therefore had to settle for capturing only part of the building. I then walked to each side of the barge and took shots from slightly oblique angles.
As I walked back toward, I continued taking photos from some of the spots that I had noted earlier. I set my tripod up carefully on the crowded Chain Bridge and took shots of the Parliament Building with the beautifully lit Margaret Bridge in the background. Once I got back over to the Pest side, I took shots of two beautiful structures, Buda Castle and the Fisherman’s Bastion.
I made my way back down a lively pedestrian street, passing the Hard Rock Cafe on the way. I looked at various restaurants and chose one that specialized in Hungarian food. I figured that it was a logical choice for my last night in the country. The food was delicious, and the dining room was filled with the sound of gypsy music played by a quartet of talented musicians. In addition to the violin, viola, and bass, one gentleman played the cimbalo, a small piano-like instrument that is played by hitting the open strings with mallets.
After dinner, I walked the banks of the Danube again, taking in the sights of the beautiful city until nearly midnight.
When I stepped onto the subway this morning, it smelled as though someone had taken a dump in the car. I walked toward the other end of the car, but the smell persisted. I glanced around but didn’t see any stray fecal matter on the floor. I suppose that it could have been hiding in one of the far corners.
The odor was nauseating. At the next station, I dashed over to a neighboring car, which smelled normal by subway standards.
I got off at my normal stop. As I was walking the rest of the way to the office, I saw a man walking a large brown dog. The dog had decided to take a dump in the middle of a street. It was a small, quiet street, but one car did come along. The car had to stop and wait for the dog to do its business. The dog seemed to be having some trouble with the process, but the driver waited patiently.
The moral of the story: Some days go to shit, and some days just start that way.
Life is like a long trek up a rugged mountain trail. We pass cliff after sheer cliff along the way, teetering on the edge of disaster more frequently than we’d like to admit. In any given moment, we might feel the excitement of daring to pass those treacherous edges and living to tell about it, the fear of not knowing what’s waiting for us around the next bend, sincere gratitude for having travelled this far, or the nagging dread that one day our luck will run out.
The European Union is an amazing success story. Today, on a continent with a long history of being divided by war, one can drive from country to country as easily as Americans drive from state to state. There are no guards or checkpoints at the borders. You won’t have to show anyone a passport except in extraordinary circumstances. You’ll simply need to stop at a service station and buy a little sticker (called a vignette) that gives you permission to drive on the highways in the country that you have entered. The least expensive version costs about eleven dollars and lets you drive all over the country for ten days. That’s a much better deal than driving on the turnpike.
When you travel from country to country, you’ll be encountering a different culture with its own food, language, customs, and history.
Some will point out that the EU has had some growing pains over its first two decades. There have been disagreements about the control structure in Brussels and some immigration policies, but that’s to be expected when attempting to combine such a diverse collection of countries into a cohesive group. Happily, the community well very for the most part, and the results have been mostly positive. Goods and services are easier to buy and sell in a common currency. Transportation is easier with open borders. The influx of capital has done wonders for countries with historically weaker economies.
Another example of a handy side benefit is that all member nations adhere to the same food standards. Menus show common food allergies listed by number. So, if you’re trying to read a menu in the native language of Denmark or Hungary or Lithuania and you need to find all dishes that are gluten free and don’t contain nuts, you just look for items that don’t have the numbers that correspond to those allergies, and you can order with confidence.
Europeans must be bewildered by America’s fixation with an armed, fenced border with a neighboring nation. It has to remind them of the Cold War, a geopolitical state that no one wants to revisit.
Well, almost no one. There are those who would like to weaken the EU, NATO, and similar alliances. A strong, cooperative Europe does not fit into the worldview of despots and dictators. Beware the enemies of freedom. And cast a cautious degree of suspicion toward any country that claims to value freedom but fences in its borders.
Amsterdam
Amsterdam’s canal system will amaze you, but it won’t happen right away. You’ll walk along some of the canals and cross over them on little bridges, and you’ll be tempted to think, “Oh, is that all there is to it?” Then, when you least expect it, your mind will have a moment of realization. “Wait! Is this actually real?”
Consider that Amsterdam also features the Rijksmuseum, the Van Gogh Museum, Anne Frank’s house, a world famous red light district, legalized drugs, and a functioning palace with a king, and you’ll realize quickly what a special city it is.
Budapest
Despite seventy years of military occupation by Soviet Communists and their efforts to destroy the city’s historical landmarks, Budapest retains some of the most beautiful architectural treasures in the world. The parallels to Paris are striking. Buda Castle is like a Louvre sitting on a hill. The white marble Fisherman’s Bastion bears a stylistic resemblance to Sacre-Coeur, and the Hungarian Parliament building is one of the grandest and most ornate structures that I have ever seen. Thank goodness for the end of the Cold War.
Dubrovnik
The most spectacular walled city in all of Europe rises prominently from the rocky cliffs of Croatia’s Adriatic coastline.
Stockholm
At a latitude where some winter night last longer than seventeen hours, the Swedes have opted to counter all of that darkness by painting their buildings in bright, spectacular colors. Seeing Stockholm for the first time is like opening up a big box of crayons and marveling at the rainbow of colors and tones contained within.
Venice
Small, crumbling, occasionally smelly, overrun by tourists, and irreversibly sinking, Venice may disappoint some visitors. But for anyone with romance in their heart, the magic of Venice everlasting. Venice is a magical place, a fantasy made real with a delicate, haunting beauty that can be fully appreciated only in person. Let’s just hope that someone figures out how to save this precious wonder of human ingenuity.
Paris
The Grande Dame. The top of the heap. La crème de la crème. The jewel by which all other jewels will be measured. In Paris, the architecture alone will take your breath away. Add in the history, the art, the world famous museums, the perfectly manicured parks, the fabulous food, the modern financial district, the night life, and one extremely romantic river, and it adds up to a city that cannot be described with words. So, I guess this is the point where I should just stop talking.
Do you believe that immigrants are lazy? Why? Why would they leave behind everything that they know and love and risk an uncertain future if they weren’t determined to work hard to succeed in their new land?
Let’s look at it another way. Why can immigrants to your country speak your language, at least to some degree of effectiveness, but you can’t speak theirs well enough to ask directions or order breakfast? While you were binging on television show, they were struggling daily to learn a difficult skill. Who is the lazy person in this scenario?
