With the whole group together we toured Sarajevo and the surrounding area. It became very clear that our tour would be largely about the siege of 1250 days, 1991 to 1994. As we drove in to the city on the main road the damage to many buildings was still apparent. Indeed several buildings appear to have been totally bombed out and no restoration had begun 20 years later.  Another theme was Sarajevo Film Festival which was to start on our last night in town. Yet another theme that Carol and I had was the Jewish Community of Sarajevo, before WWII and since the siege.

Taking the last first, Vlaho, our tour leader arranged a special tour for the two of us of the local Jewish sites. The community which was over 14,000 before the war is now les than 1,000. Of the 9 synagogues four remain and only one is an active synagogue.  It is the Ashkanazi Synagogue and the community that prays there is Sephardi. Parse that for yourself.  The old synagogue is now a Jewish museum and the “new synagogue” next door is an abandoned building. We got into another synagogue on the main street,  it is now the ministry of culture building and the communists gutted it and removed all the decorations.  We bought film festival T shirts there.  Our guide was Jewish by birth having a Jewish mother and a Moslem father.  We learned that this is quite ordinary.  The mixing within Sarajevo belies the partisanship that almost destroyed the city.

It is hard to understand how Bosnia-Herzegovina will ever become a functional country.  Their Constitution was imposed by the Dayton Accords and remains so all these years later.  The leadership changes every year rotating among the Serbs, the Bosnian, and the Moslems. They are less able to agree on anything then our own Congress.  In the midst the Srbska Republic (that is NOT a typo) is calling for a referendum to form their own country.  All of this in a country with a total population of 4 million.  It seems the people get along just fine, but their leadership are all hungry for individual power.  In the midst of this unemployment was reported to be as high as 45%.

The film festival resulted in a sleepless night as one of the party venues was in the courtyard beneath our windows. The fireworks assured that anyone who had fallen asleep through the music would be awake again.  The bus ride in the morning toward a farm stay back in Croatia was very quiet. The regional map would show why we went through Bosnia-Herzegovina to get from Croatia to Croatia.  Croatia is like a quarter moon surrounding BiH for more than 180 degrees.

On our way out of Sarajevo we stopped by the Olympic Stadium and actually walked out on to the field.

One of our stops was at a stable that has been breeding and training Lippizaner horses since the 1800s.

E 

We had a wonderful walking tour of Dubrovnik in 90 degree heat.  Fortunately we started early before the sun made the wall almost intolerable. Hiccup one occurred when Kit had her cash and some credit cards lifted in a coffee shop. She had more cash and other cards so it was only an inconvenience.  Our tour included a walk on the walls and a city tour.  After a stop for lunch we continued to wander the old town until  heat and exhaustion mandated a return to the hotel. Once there I decided to take advantage of the swimming pool.  Again the heat and sun limited the time I could spend outdoors. That evening we rode the cable car to the top of the mountain for the view and sunset before having dinner with the group.
In the mean time Donna was waiting for her husband to catch up with us.  He had arrived at the airport in San Francisco with an out dated passport and had to wait for his current one to be fedexed from TN. Hitch number 2.
The next day Tuesday, I believe, we got in a bus for a visit to Kotor at the head of Kotor Bay in Bosnia-Herzegovina. They can’t agree on a flag,  a national anthem, or even a name.  We took a boat ride to a man made Island in the Bay that sits on the spot where an icon was found washed up on a reef 100s of years ago.  Then on up the Bay to the old walled city of Kotor. After a walking tour we split up and had lunch while some prepared to walk up to the chapel, half way up to the fortress at the top of the wall. A couple of people misunderstood the instructions and continued to the top delaying us almost an hour. In the mean time Donna,  who was waiting for her husband to catch up with us, had her passport, credit cards and cash stolen.  This became a major hitch as we could not get her  back into Croatia with us.  After a wait of an hour at the border,  we left her and Vlaho at the border and proceeded back to the hotel.  On arrival Carol and I had to explain to a bewildered, jet lagged Bob why his wife was not with the group.  To close that loop,  we have word that Donna got a new passport issued at the Embassy in the Montenegran Capitol and they will be traveling with the next OAT group to join us here in Sarajevo tomorrow.

To be continued

It is one thing to go to Greece and see antiquities and still know that for the most part we were in the 21st century.  Albania seems in many respects to be still trying to get into the late 20th century.  The buildings that are later than the 1930s are from the 60s. The roads are clearly no later than the 1950s, with some few exceptions. Many are no better than paved cart tracks. The standard of living is so low it is scary.  We went to dinner several times on our own and spent $10 to $20 for the two of us with wine and high priced items.  A high end marketing person for the hotel makes the equivalent of $400 a month.  Those dinners are far beyond their means.  The average pay is about $250 a month.

Internet is readily available almost every place!  Open wifi seems standard. Security not so much.  Cellular service is also everywhere and everyone is using mobile phones.  The hotel can’t seem to make up is mind on how to dial room to room.  The instructions vary depending on the floor and don’t work anyhow because they are wrong.  All the people we have met have been very friendly and accommodating.  They are happy to practice their English on us.

As I write the muezzin from the mosque on the main square is calling the faithful to prayer for the last prayers of the day, 9:37 pm, we will hear it next at 4:30 am of we are awake.

On the main boulevard is a pyramid.  It was built to be a tomb for Enver Hochsha (sp) but he was never buried there.  There have been several plans to use the building. Since the Democratic Party lost to the Socialists all plans have been scheduled and the building has been left to degrade and suffer graffiti and broken windows.  We have watched locals scaling the ramps to the top every time we have gone by. It is a huge eyesore on the boulevard not to far from the Grand Hotel which served the area during the communist period. It To had been abandoned to the elements.

I could go on with contrasts,  but one more.  As we drove by a major cement factory with heavy equipment,  we saw a local riding standing up on the cart behind his donkey,  this was not tourist item, we were not within miles of anything touristic. Which century were we in?

I don’t need to tell you Santorini is in the Greek islands, I may have needed to tell some readers that Tirana is the capital of Albania.  As I wrote the title of this post I thought I could call it from the sublime to the ridiculous or even heaven to hades:) We arrived in Santorini only 2 hours late,  courtesy of SeaJet Challenger. As we have learned this is more the norm than the extraordinary.

Our room at Tzekos Villas was  delightful one we got to it.  When booking I had noted that it was inside the caldera requiring steps up to the entrance and then down to reception and finally the room. The van could not get anywhere near the entrance and the hotel sent a porter to carry the luggage,  no cart, must his strong and and legs.  Following him up to the entrance was exhausting, down to our room, an upgrade to include more space and private jacuzzi left us wondering how we would leave and return for meals and excursions. We did find the strength for several round trips.  It would seem that most of caldera view hotels have similar situations.  We saw a lot of porters and 2 wheeled hand carts moving luggage. I should note that the very lovely room lacked some essentials.  There were no reasonably placed outlets not any usable tables or other flat surfaces.  The jacuzzi was contaminated with oils and lotions from prior thoughtless guests and need to be dumped, cleaned and refilled. Breakfast was barely adequate.

After our late arrival and first trip on the stairs, we found our way to a place that was said to specialize in fava bean spread.  They were out, but we stayed and had a nice lunch at Theona’s Kitchen anyhow. We spent the rest of the day walking through the shopping area of Fira stopping to admire the caldera views.  We returned to our room to rest  and enjoy the jacuzzi on our deck with a great view of the caldera and total privacy. We had dinner on a deck with a view of the sunset over the volcano in the middle of the caldera.

For our second day in Santorini we took the local bus to Oia on the northern end of the Island.  Again the entertainment was walking through the shops and eventually eating at Strogili. Always adventurous with food choices I ordered stuffed squid. I had a bit of a surprise when this was delivered

We are doing a series of one day tours with G.O. Tours.  The tours so far have been fine,  the guides so far are two out of three to the good.  Athens day tour had us climbing the Acropolis again, by a shorter route than we had found for ourselves,  Carol elected to sit out out since the heat was/is oppressive. It had continued to stay above 90 and into the low 100s. It cools off to high 80s over night.

The afternoon tour was to Poseidon’s Temple at the southern tip of the peninsula. The guide was inarticulate in English and didn’t seem much interested in us or the subject matter.  Maybe the fact she was named Cassandra was part of the problem.

We dined in the hotel rooftop restaurant where the food was gone and the views even better.

Parthenon on top of the Acropolis

New Museum of the  Acropolis

Today,  day 2, we boarded the bus early,  that’s another story,  for Delphi,  a three hour ride each way. It was worth it.  Here are a couple of pan shots from half way up at the base of the theater. 

The flights from Rochester to Kennedy to Vienna to Athens were uneventful save some hassles with security theater.  They got after Carol twice the in Vienna it was my turn. I failed to display my liquids separately,  bad boy, for that we will take everything out of the carry on to be sure you aren’t hiding something else.

At the airport in Vienna we saw the prefect carryon for the scooter fiend on your circle:

The Boarding Passes are printed. The suitcases are 80% packed waiting only for the last  minute items we will use and then pack in the morning. I doubt we will sleep well tonight.

After a day of nervous energy spent and wasted on redoing our packing several times, you would think we would be old hands at this, but this is the first time we have left from our apartment after living so long on the coach and travel things just aren’t where we expect to find them. I’ve made three trips to the coach and still managed to leave things I think I would like to have. Done

We needed to get out of the apartment. We took a short walk in the golden hour just before sunset. Carol went back to get her new camera to try it out over a nearly empty river. Neither of us can remember it being this low since we moved downtown:

A week ago Carol and I went to Torah Study, the portion was Pinchas, I never miss since it is one of the few portions named for a person and somehow that is my Hebrew name. I say somehow because I have no idea where my parents came up with it other than it begins with P and they needed a Hebrew name beginning with P. But, as usual I digress. Rather than stay for services after the study we had another place to be. Keith Hoose, a wonderful man I worked with in the New England Life insurance office had died at age 89 and there was a memorial service for him at 11 AM. There are days when one thinks ahead and at least prepares oneself for what is to come. I was thinking Memorial Service like we do in the Jewish world, some appropriate prayers and a reasonable amount of eulogizing and off to either the cemetery or home unless you are a close friend or family in which case back to house after the burial for a meal and sharing stories. I had not quite gotten my head around a full Anglican Mass with too many people for a tiny church. Needless to say it was a bit of a jolt, especially on Shabbat.

The following night we went to Abilene to hear The Blind Owl Band. I am sure that the next oldest people in the crowd were the ages of our boys. The music was country, as promised. The band was from Saranac in the Adirondacks, hardly a likely place for a country band, but the bar environment certainly was consistent with their source. Saranac may have more bars than people in the winter. We enjoyed the music for most of the first set out on the patio in back of the club. Eventually the beginnings of a contact high convinced us it was time to leave. I saw a couple of bongs being passed and we decided enough was a bit too much.

To sort of round out the weekend we had dinner with Susan and Marty Denning. Marty had been the GA in the office through most of my time with New England. Our parting many years ago had not been the most cordial although we had worked together and liked each other for many years. Time has past and many of the agents we had worked with are now gone. It is never to late to return to a friendship. If you read this Marty, thank you for joining us for a very pleasant dinner.

Just to round out our rather weird week, on Thursday I was fitted with hearing aids and I have found a whole range of sounds that I had forgotten existed. Of course I got high tech aids with all kinds of capabilities which I am just exploring. They work better than any prior Bluetooth device I ever had for my phone stereo hearing is really great. I can even listen to TV or radio at my preferred volume – much lower than it used to be – and let Carol listen at hers, or not even be bothered by the sound. I just wish this hadn’t come at the reduction of my own natural hearing ability, but such is life.

Friday night, late, there was the first night of a new festival – 2015 Street Light about 1 mile or so from our apartment. The night was glorious and warm and there was no rain so we walked over to see what it is about:

Since the Jazz Festival we have tried to limit ourselves to one “event” a day. Sunday, immediately after the festival we did not stir from the apartment at all. Monday we had dinner out at a friends and we drove even though we would normally walk. Carol had made a dish that would have been an adventure to carry the 2 miles or so down East and Park to Barrington. We were with Barbara and Robert and Bobbi and George. It was a pleasant evening with a relatively early end (anything before midnight is early).  And so it went one event per day until Saturday when we went to Torah Study and had Lorraine and Don over for dinner and to walk over to the river to watch the fireworks over the river for the 4th.

And time keeps flying. A week later and I am just now making some time to write. Nothing significant has happened other than some wonderful get togethers with friends, old and new. That “old” refers to length of the friendship and is not meant as a comment on anyone’s age. Although if we have known these people for 30 or more years it does say something about their age New is people new to the community, our Rabbi Peter Stein and wife Amy, and some people we just have never met to sit down and chat with even though we have been in the community all our lives.

We have taken some walks in the neighborhood and even came across a lovely “pocket park” we must have walked and driven by many times without giving it any notice:

In the realm of nothing much, I went to Rochester Speech and Hearing Center at Julian’s suggestion (made a year ago after I told him my otolaryngologist thought I could use hearing aids!) and had a further evaluation of my hearing loss. I will be fitted with hearing aids this coming week and maybe will stop saying “huh?” or “what was that?” quite as often. Also I suspect our neighbors will no longer hear the TV I seem to be joining a large number of people my age, now that I mostly don’t need glasses, replacing that need with hearing aids. 

We started with three female vocalists on Day One, June 19th and we ended Day Nine with a female vocalist. That was about all they had in common and what we saw and heard in between was as broad a definition of “Jazz” as anyone could consider. The range was from Bluegrass to avant gard and from quiet and intimate piano solo in Hatch Hall to loud and boisterous in Kodak Hall at Eastman Theater.

Last night we started with Steep Canyon Rangers who had been in town for two prior Jazz Fests with Steve Martin and were back on the main stage without him and there were plenty of unsold seats for the 4 PM and only concert. Nugent and Iacona made a decision to open the unsold balcony seats to Club Pass holders. They got the news out on Friday morning in the daily Jazz Festival News email and with a push to all Club Pass holders. Although we had not planned on that concert the chill, rainy day made it seem like a good idea. Also at 4 PM it would not interfere with other venues we wanted to go to. We started in an indoor lineup for the balcony seats at 3 having walked through the first serious rain of the festival this year. I really enjoyed their performance, they did not go beyond the bounds of what could be expected from a fine Bluegrass sextet. There was some wonderful quartet harmony singing and the drummer worked his box drum like a full drum kit although during the encore he come out and used the string bass strings as a percussion instrument with his sticks.

We danced out of the hall into the rain, although we were sheltered by the Eastman Marquee, right around to Kilbourn Hall for Clifton Anderson Quintet. We found seats one row up from Ron Netsky and we had a chat about the crazy intense volume of the outdoor stages. In a neighboring seat was a man whose name I have forgotten who specializes in the effect of sound on people who agreed that the levels used in entertainment were beyond what would be permitted in a work setting. The hall filled slowly, never reaching sold out before the six man quintet came on stage. Not sure when it morphed from a quintet to a sextet. The tenor sax player was clearly the added person, his playing was wonderful to hear, but he did not appear to be well and when not playing he left the stage altogether. Once again we were treated to a great bass solo as well as piano and the leader Clifton Anderson on trombone was extraordinary. He took a solo that went on and on, I did not believe he could have the strength and wind needed to play such an extended solo, I did not want it to end. They came back for an encore and took off on “The Sun Will Come Out” from Annie the Musical.

We strolled out from that to something completely different, The Wood Brothers at Harro East. I guess they decided that with all the rain they cold ignore the capacity rules. The place was packed with people standing every place. Somehow I found two stools and space at a table to perch right behind the rows of chairs. Great seats for viewing and hearing. This set headed into a place we had not been, with audience members pressing up to the stage as the beat got wilder. When they concluded their last number they left a screaming mob wanting more. They come back out and did another number totally acoustic. It was amazing how quiet the hall got as everyone listened intently. A third of the way back we heard clearly and I was able to understand the words better than when they were amplified. That was the second totally acoustic number we heard, not counting the solo pianists in Hatch and Lyric, and I would love to hear more musicians show their ability in this way.

We came out of Harro into the rain, yes it was really raining and it put a damper on all the planned outdoor events even though we did hear the groups performing and saw crowds standing and sitting under umbrellas. I am sure that those were the hard core, we were more than glad to escape into The Rochester Club for a quiet dinner while waiting for Alex Pangman to perform at 10 PM. We have avoided this venue because first the music in the past has been lounge music, great for background listening, not so great for intense listening, second the place has been refrigerated down to meat locker temperatures. Last night Alex appeared dressed in style from the 1930s or 40s and her music was all from that era or earlier. There was swing and boogie woogie and some straight ahead standards, including an instrumental version of Tea for Two which has figured in a number of performances this past 9 days. We had a great time and would go to hear Alex Pangman again and I promise Carol to bring my dancing shoes the next time!

Back into the rain! We stopped by the apartment to freshen up a bit before heading to the Plaza for the jam session. As we hit Saint Paul street we had second thoughts, it was late, we were tired and it was pouring harder than ever. We agreed that Alex would be the last sound of the festival we would carry forward until the next time we get to XRIJF. And we can keep that acronym for now as Xerox has renewed their contract for the next three years.

I don’t do a lot of selfies, but here we are as XRIJF winds down in Rochester Club

I am not sure when I will post again, probably in a week or so, but the topic will be very different.