Happy Holidays - Merry Christmas - Happy New Year
2004 - 2005

Dear Friends and Family,

That was the Year that Was. It's Over, Let it Go. Oh What a Year that Was.... Excuse the plagiarism, Mr. Frost. But it is that time again — a time to reflect on the year that is coming to an end and to look forward to the next. Our 2005 can be summed up as a tale of six cities: Jersey City, Berlin, Paris, Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Athens. We could almost call this "The Year of the Coat Hanger." Perhaps not as poetic as a Chinese "Year of the Warthog" (Do they have one?) but very descriptive for us: most of the time we actually took our clothes out of suitcases and put them into closets.

We wish we could tell you to just run to the web for all the info on what we did in this collection of capital cities but we have our usual time delay. So far we've put up Berlin and Paris; others are coming. For a while we were blogging away but haven't even taken the time to do that.

JERSEY CITY - January

We shamelessly exploited the warm welcome our friends Moshe and Cris gave us when we returned from South America in December 2004 by staying on with them for January. The best part of the time was helping their son Uri celebrate his first birthday and wishing him luck in learning to walk. We spent lots of time looking for a computer for Gerry and an MP3 player for Jan and trying to decide where to go next.

We returned to our old haunts in Middletown when we house-sat for Ron and Virginia while they were off on a family vacation and while there helped our neighbor Harold upgrade his computer from a hand-me-down 386 (honestly!) to a brand new desktop with all of the mod cons. We helped him sign up for email but have been unable to convince him to use it. All of you friends who we got to visit know who you are; we really enjoyed it and wished we'd done more.

BERLIN - February and March

Berlin was (sort of) on the way to Paris (see below) so when we found a place via www.criagslist.org we grabbed it. Winter is perhaps not the ideal time to be in Berlin but on the whole we didn't mind, especially as the apartment we sublet was toasty warm even if very sparsely furnished. We ran around town a whole lot, enjoyed hosting guests and thoroughly enjoyed the city with its museums and palaces in spite of the cold. Jan made lots of practice re-learning German and Gerry made some progress. Jan even read her first long novel in German, Thomas Mann's "Buddenbrooks." We were hindered in not having TV and in having radio that broadcast the news in English, French, and Spanish, as well as German. We listened to it all. Gerry finished "El Codigo de Da Vinci" in Spanish.

PARIS - April, May, and June

We could hardly believe our luck when Veronica wrote us in early November, 2004 to ask if we would like to take her flat again for three months while she did a fund-raising pilgrimage to Compostela in aid of Brain Cancer research. It didn't take us 24-hours to say yes.

Roughly speaking, April was devoted to having guests (overnighters) and visitors (they housed themselves) and seeing tourist sights. We got to the top of the Eiffel Tower, Jan got a return to the Louvre with two of her sisters, and we had a great and freezing night on a Bateau Mouche with a friend. Lots and lots of May went to observing the French campaign for/against adopting the European Constitution; we participated by going to about a dozen meeting and debating a few times in the streets. All three months, but especially June we visited museums (fewer than in 1999) and debates and forums (many more than in 1999). We got to know many parks new to us, including the Bois de Boulogne where we spent two days seeing the early matches of Rolland Garros, the French Tennis Open. (We've been to the US Open; we still hope to make the Australian and British ones for our own grand slam.)

MOSCOW - July and August

Talk about lucky. Jan had so often wished she could spend time in Russia and lo and behold, a small handwritten ad on the wall of Sciences Po (Paris' prestigious Political Science graduate school) unlocked it all for her. For two weeks of June we wondered and wondered if all would come through and we'd get flat, visa, and an affordable airfare. They did and after a one-week detour to Darlington, our first return since 10/2002, we felt quite a thrill as we settled down on the southern outskirts of Moscow.

The flat we rented was 2 km (1 mile) to the west of the Kremlin - i.e. in the heart of the heart of Moscow - and gave us terrific access to Metros and buses so that we could get around very easily. The Kremlin was all they say it is and probably more as we could never swing tickets for the Armory. Russian prices are crazy: a night at the opera or music hall costs less than a simple dinner. So we went lots — once (it was all in Russian, including the title) after five minutes of a performance we were surprised to learn we were seeing "My Fair Lady". We were lucky to be in town on the anniversary of the Battle of Borodino so we took the train out (a hassle with our limited Russian) and saw a re-enactment on the original battlefield by a cast of thousands and an audience bigger than that which fled Napoleon's original invasion.

GOLDEN RING & ST PETERSBURG - September

Two of the last three weeks of our stay in Russia were devoted to traveling to the small towns near Moscow that are dubbed collectively the Golden Ring and the third week was devoted to St. Petersburg. We admired churches, fortresses, and monasteries and got ourselves a pretty good grounding in Russian history. We liked Moscow but we loved St. Petersburg, which is, yes, more European with its rivers and canals, palaces and gardens, museums and monasteries. We stayed in a private home and got to sample home-made blinis and pirogis courtesy of our hostess Lydia Nikolayevna.

Through our stay in Russia the Russian language was a passion for Jan. While Gerry read Russian history in French Jan struggled with simple romances and the TV news. These three months charged and frustrated her, excited and depressed her, and created in her a passion to finally once and for all conquer Russian, a mere 35 years after she supposedly graduated in the subject. Before leaving she bought a dozen books and a half-dozen audio books and carried them to Greece where she is plowing her way through them. She's gone from reading about four pages a day when she arrived in Moscow to a current average of twelve as the year ends.

ATHENS - October - December

Our first thoughts were to leave Russia overland by a south-east route and travel through Georgia into Turkey. But on Craig's list we found a delightful listing for an airy apartment in Athens, available for four months. We thought, why not enjoy some winter warmth, practice Russian, and catch up on our web? So we took the place and are very satisfied with the decision. At first we weren't too impressed with Athens: not as pretty as Paris, not as much obvious culture as Paris, Berlin, or the Russian cities. But with time we learned there was much on offer that was not readily apparent.

When we arrived it was still warm enough to swim in the Saronic gulf, and we did twice. Then the days got shorter and then they got colder and we turned to walks and indoor pursuits. We've now seen the Acropolis, the Agoras, and all the major archeological sites and museums and they are wonderful. We've done it in a very laid back manner, going out only every other day or less. A favorite past time is to sit on the terrace eating, drinking, or just reading a book. Greek salads with plenty of olives and chops make up a big part of our diet. Although the temperature has dipped, as soon as the sun comes out the terrace traps all of its warmth and we bask in it even on the coldest days.

Besides Jan's intense concentration on Russian we experience four other languages. We've been to seminars in English, Greek (with and without translation), and French. We get lots and lots of French on TV5 and lots and lots of the BBC on Athens International Radio.

ON TO 2006

And there it is. Twelve months and six cities. A fine but basically uneventful year. No stolen computers, no personal or family health problems, and some nice visits. Next year we hope to get to Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand. It will be perhaps our last year for full time travel. At seven years we will have reached the period of Thomas Mann's "The Magic Mountain" and, as in that novel, it will be time to go home.

May your years and lives be happy and filled with loved ones.

Jan and Gerry