This is an odd combination with no apparent connection except one definitely needs the other, and both are simply just Icelandic.
Tiny Horses
The Icelandic horse is a very rare breed found no where else on the Earth. They are not native to Iceland. They are very small, most the size of a pony in other breeds. They were brought with the first Norse settlers between the 9th and 10th century, and have blood lines that are traced by DNA all the way back to Mongolian horses. The Mongolian bloodline can be traced to Swedish traders who brought that horse back to Scandinavia in earlier centuries. The imported Mongol horse bloodlines have contributed to the Fjord, Shetland and Connemara breeds, all of which have been found to be genetically linked to the Icelandic horse.
The bloodlines in Iceland have been kept pure for over 1000 years. Natural selection possibly played a major role in the development of the breed, as large numbers of other imported breeds through the centuries died from lack of food and exposure to the harsh Icelandic elements.
As a result of their isolation from other horses, disease in the breed within Iceland is mostly unknown. The low prevalence of disease in Iceland is maintained by laws preventing horses exported from the country being returned, and by requiring that all equine equipment taken into the country be either new and unused or fully disinfected. Plus no other horse breeds can be imported into Iceland thus keeping the Icelandic breed free of outside diseases that they have no immunity too.
The Icelandic Penis Museum
Located right in the heart of Reykjavik, is the only known museum of its kind in the world. And to use a catch phrase of the museum’s marketing department “Seeing is believing”.
The Icelandic Phallological Museum possesses a unique collection of penis samples from every type of mammal found in the country. The collection contains more than 200 penises belonging to all the land and sea mammals that can be found in and around Iceland including over 60 specimens belonging to 17 different types of whales. There are penises from a polar bear, seals, walrus and the most interesting ones belonging to 3 Homo Sapiens.
Penis salt and pepper shakers
The museum proudly displays these three legally-certified gifts from humans to the museum including one that was named by its former owner as “Elmo”.
In addition to the biological elements, the museum also has a collection of over 300 artistic oddities and other practical utensils related to the chosen theme of the museum.
The museum is very popular for the very reason that you are reading this – it is odd and unusual. While the main thrust (pardon the pun) is a real scientific one, the museum certainly plays to the public perception of a building full of human penises and the images that brings to mind. It is fun, odd. weird, and certainly worth about an hour of your time because you will never see anything like it anywhere else. The museum is open every day of the week. The address is:
The Icelandic Phallological Museum, Laugavegi 116, 105 Reykjavik.
Phone number: +354-561-6663
Web address: phallus@phallus.is, www.phallus.is.
Entry fee is 1500 ISK which breaks down to about 15 US dollars. Children under 13 are free, and 13 to 18 are half price.
My second day in Reykjavik, I woke up and had breakfast in the tiny but well equipped kitchen at 101 Hostel, and set out for the day.
First, I bought a bus tour for the Golden Circle tour which is a series of stops just outside of Reykjavik featuring geysers, waterfalls, the Hellisheidavirkjun turbine and generator and Thingvellir National Park rift valley. The tour lasts for about 6 hours. That was for Day 3.
Than I wandered down to the Old Harbor for some amazing scenic views of Reykjavik and the surrounding area. The day was overcast in the city area, but just across the bay the sunlight played off the far hills and bluffs. The truly clear Icelandic air made everything vivid and pop.
Than a long walk through the city to the National Museum of Iceland where I got to experience how this beautiful city is laid out and filled with parks. Also some really interesting architecture is featured throughout the city, and very interesting use of space like the parking lot that is under Lake Tjornin that Reykjavik City Hall sits on. Plus there is lots of public art in the parks and other open spaces.
The National Museum is small but has a permanent exhibition on the settling of Iceland featuring the early settlers, their written history, how Christianity became the accepted religion, the plight of being ruled by first by Norway and than Denmark, and how their sense of national identity evolved. There is a large section on the influence of the church first Catholic, and than a rather harsh forced conversion to Lutheran teachings. There is also a section where anyone, but especially children can actually touch and even put on a chain-mail suit of armor, hold a real size battle shield, and put on a real Viking battle helmet.
On the lower floor was a wonderful photo exhibit by an Icelandic amateur photographer Bjorn Bjornsson, who documented wildlife, people, and vistas while living in a wild part of Iceland that could only be reached by boat until the 1980’s. Really powerful and interesting images.
Back to the hostel for dinner, then back out to find the much discussed Reykjavik night life of bands, non-stop dancing and parties. I am afraid that it is not all that. I may have missed the real hot spots, but Dublin’s Temple Bar is pretty much the same atmosphere. While Reykjavik does go late on the weekends – some places stay open till 5 AM – but not any real wonderful bands or DJ or night spots did I see or experience. Just a lot of tourists drinking expensive beers and going to the same 50 places up and down Laugavegur Street and the side streets.
I did find a really interesting restaurant on Laugavegur that is just opening and serves great food and drinks plus has amazing service. Sumac has already gotten really excellent reviews on Tripadvisor.com, and is still in the tryout phase. Owner/chef Prainn Freyr Vigfusson has created a really great eatery with excellent personal service and attention to detail and quality. He showed me around the restaurant, and told me his plans for his private dinner room and future expansion. Sumac is located in the ION City Hotel which is part of a small chain in Iceland known as Ion Adventure Hotels. This is a real gem and I wish him a lot of success.
Also met his lovely girlfriend, Katrin Sif Einadsdottir who was helping out as hostess. Katrin is Icelandic but with South American heritage. She also lived in Canada and got a Masters at Berkeley in the USA. She returned to Iceland to complete a second Master in Icelandic History, and continue her first love which is giving private horse-riding tours to small groups in the back country of Iceland that can last up to 6 to 10 days. For more information on what sounds like an amazing adventure contact her through www.ishestar.is.
After a really nice time at Sumac with Katrin and Prainn, I returned to the hostel to get ready for touring the countryside of Iceland.
So I left LA at 9:50 PM on WOW Airlines, and the reason that they are WOW is that they charge for everything. Leg room, carry-on luggage, every bag that you put in the hold, and ALL food items. You get nothing for free. WOW. The fare was cheap, but by the time you add seat selection, plus checking a bag that was 23K (the industry standard), but for WOW their limit is 20K, the total cost increased by 147 dollars. The bag alone was 135 dollars that includes 75 dollars to check and an extra 60 dollars for the 3 kilos over.
Other than that cost, the flight was very smooth to Reykjavik. Nine hours non-stop. I arrived at 1:35 PM and breezed through customs. You have to take either a taxi or buses into town because the national airport is about 27 kilometers from the city. There are no trains. I used Gray Lines for about 25 dollars, but there are a couple other bus lines that I also noticed.
Hallgrímskirkja church
I was staying at 101 Hostel, really nice family hostel run by Svava and her daughter Sara right in the middle of Reykjavik’s city centre. Perfect for shopping, walking around the city, dining and the famous Reykjavik night life.
Reykjavik at 11 PM
Food in Reykjavik is very expensive as is everything else as well. So I am buying food at a chain store known as Bonus, and cooking at the hostel. An example of the eating out expense is a beer is about 12 dollars, a simple hamburger could be 17 or more dollars, and a steak could be as much as or more than 50 dollars (in not an expensive place). The money here known as the Icelandic Kroner (ISK) and is about 100 ISK to one US Dollar. So all the prices are like 5000.00 ISK or 2250.00 ISK, and those break down to about 50 US and 22.50 US. Not exactly but close enough if you always divide by 100.
By this time it was about 4 PM and I was exhausted. I crashed for a bit and took a nap. I woke up around 9 PM to full sunshine outside and went walking around the city centre to get a feel for the place. You can tell the Icelanders very quickly. They are walking around in shirt sleeves or light jackets (it is their summer), the tourists are in coats with hats and scarves. The projected temp for the time I am in Iceland is 57 degrees F daytime and 45 degrees F at night. Summer indeed.
Hallgrímskirkja church
Did some sightseeing. The image above is the famous Hallgrímskirkja Church, the unofficial image of Reykjavik. In front of it is the statue of Leif Eriksson, son of Iceland and the man who discovered North America for the Europeans. He called it Vinland and landed there about 400 years before Columbus. The statue is a gift from the United States to Iceland.
Lief ErikssonFrom the USA to Iceland.
I sampled some of the local beer in two places – first the American Bar, which I can vouch that there was not one American in the place, but a whole bunch of hard drinking Icelanders. A really great band playing American rock songs in perfect English but talking to the audience in Icelandic was fun to hear. While thumbing through my phone looking at the photos I had taken so far, I realized there was an older man standing right in front of me just staring at me. I asked him if I could help him, and he repeated back to me “Can I help you?” Being somewhat confused now by him, he began telling me that he disliked Americans and Trump. I told him I was Canadian to avoid any problems, and he hugged me than walked away.
The next place was a cute Irish bar called the Drunken Rabbit. Fun place where I met a couple from Boston who had driven the Ring Road (the road all the way around Iceland). They were amazed at the beauty of Iceland and all the different types of terrain. The only drawback was the car rental for a week that was 1000 dollars. Everything is expensive in Iceland.
I wandered home about 1:30 AM and it was still light comparable too early twilight. Great first day in Iceland.
(This is part of an ongoing series of stories about the first visit I ever had to Zimbabwe or Africa in general. All the stories are true and based on my own experiences. They are also part of my one-man theatre production, Coming to Zimbabwe which was published in Germany, and has toured the USA and parts of Africa.)
First days in Zimbabwe
After my day in Imire Game Preserve, this was the first day of my new job. (You can find the story Imire Safari Ranch – Zimbabwe 2012 in the monthly section menu) I woke up the next morning and met Gavin. We loaded into his incredible small car and we headed out toward the small city of Gweru located in the Midlands section of Zimbabwe. This drive should have taken about 3 hours but the engine was so small and tired in Gavin’s car, we were in for a 5 hour ride.
We headed out of Harare on the A5 Highway or Gweru-Harare Road. This was really the first time that I was going to see the real countryside of Zimbabwe. Of course on my journey to Imire, I had seen country. But that was in such a rush and I was so on edge from Kathy’s driving, that I did not pay much attention to the scenery.
Now because the slow nature of our drive through the mountains toward Gweru, I could very much see the lovely country, yet I could also see that field after field and farm after farm nothing was growing. There were no crops in the fields that I passed on this major road through the heartland of Zimbabwe.
Farmland sitting fallow
Whether is was the outcome of Mugabe’s land reforms or for some other reason, it was plain to see that this part of the economy was hurting. Zimbabwe during the Ian Smith years, during the civil war for independence, and even during Mugabe’s first years in power, was known as “the bread basket of Africa”. The farms were so successful and abundant and Zimbabwe grew so much food that it exported it surplus food stuffs to countries all around Africa. Now they had to import food items just to be able to eat.
As we drove south, we passed through the village of Chegutu and the small city of Kadoma. We drove through beautiful mountain areas, over rivers and across savannas where the sky seem to stretch on forever. After driving for a couple of hours, we stopped in Kwekwe to stretch our legs and get some coffee.
City Marker for Kwekwe
Kwekwe is a city of about 100,000 people located right in the center of the country. At one time, it was a very lovely little town, but it is very poor there now. Unemployment in the area is about 80% or more. The town has become very dusty and dirty, the gutters are filled with trash and there are 100’s of men standing around with no work and nothing really to do. As we pulled into the town and went around the roundabout, I was wondering where we were going to stop. We passed the beautiful but very tiny Mosque on the right as we enter Kwekwe. About 3 blocks passed that on the same side of the road, we stopped in front of this seemingly brand new building made of chrome and glass. It was like an illusion in the middle of this rundown town. The place was buzzing as people came and went from the double glass doors.
Kwekwe main drag
As we walked inside, Gavin told me the place was called Ripperz and that is was a fairly new place. The place seemed to be a combination of a restaurant, bakery and food market. Gavin and I walked in and went over to a coffee bar. And to be honest, I was surprised at the thought of a coffee bar in a rundown city in the middle of a 3rd world country. As I was to learn my first world impressions of Zimbabwe were going to be radically altered in the next month in this surprising and lovely country.
Ripperz bakery and cafe
As I sat down at the bar, I realized that I was the only white in the place. For just a moment, I experienced a momentary disquieting feeling that I was truly alone in this country. I did not know one person in Zimbabwe or this part of Africa. Further, that I was truly a minority in this country. You can read tons of information about a place and hope you understand it on an intellectual level, but the feelings that you get on the ground in a place are what truly define your experience and attitudes. Not that I was in fear for my safety because of my race; on the contrary, everyone so far in Zim had been very friendly and helpful. Yet, at that moment, I realized how different I was from anyone in the room. I had only experienced that feeling once before while standing at a bar in a nightclub in Mazatlan, Mexico trying to get a drink, and not even the bartender would speak to me because I was the only Angelo there. Both of these moments were profound for me, and reminded me that I was “the stranger in a strange land.” That I had so much to learn about this country, her people and her culture, and that was on me to do. So many times as I have traveled in the world, I have found Americans who are visiting a place and act like it is still the United States. They forget that they are visiting a new place, yet they expect the people there to treat them like they are still in the US. As the visitor, you are the one that needs to adapt to the new place, because the new place is not going to adapt to you. And that has always been my guiding principle when traveling. As Mark Twain once said, “…traveling doesn’t lead to a new destination, but to a new way of seeing things.”
After ordering our coffee, one of the two white owners came from the back and walk over to us. He was from Canada and had settled in Kwekwe to work the farm that his family had owned there. They later had lost it to the Mugabe land reforms which consisted of the government taking legally owned land away from the professional white farmers and giving it to black citizens of the country. Many of whom did not know how to farm or did not want to work that hard or were not capable of running those large farming concerns, so the farms began to fail in record numbers and the food production bottomed out for Zimbabwe.
Zimababwe’s President Robert Mugabe chants Zanu PF slogans with supporters gathered at the Harare International Conference Centre in Harare, Wednesday May 3, 2000. Mugabe launched the Zanu PF’s election manifesto which bears the slogan “Land is the Economy and the Economy is Land”. (AP Photo/Christine Nesbitt)
Now please do not take this that I disapprove of the idea of the original people of a country that had been colonized by white Europeans getting their own country back. But to remove at gun point and in several cases by death at the hands of gangs of Mugabe thugs, farmers who had worked that land for at least 3 to 4 generations, who provided jobs and about one quarter of Zim’s GNP seems wrong on any scale. Plus the farmers did not do themselves any favors when they made the mistake of thinking that Mugabe was running a democracy. They provided funding to the rural party (MDC) in government elections against Mugabe’s ZANU-PF and thus provoked Mugabe to actions against them. This whole misadventure that resulted in poor food production, lost jobs, ruined communities and families, and in many cases death could have been done better and gotten the same results without the ruin and bloodshed. Mugabe took an ax to a situation that needed delicacy and the resulting decline in food production and lost economy is proof of its failure.
Marquee with my play, Coming to Zimbabwe, Harare.
We are soon joined by his partner, who was from Greece (I believe). In my play, the second owner is from Greece but to be honest I do not remember where he was from. The following conversation is what truly happened at the moment of introduction:
Gavin – (to the Greek owner) “This is James from Hollywood, CA.”
Owner – (to me) “You are from Hollywood?”
Me – “Yes, I am.”
Owner – “Do you know any famous people?”
Me – “Yes, I know some famous people.”
Owner – “Do you know Tom Cruise?”
Me – “No, I don’t know Tom Cruise.”
Owner – “You don’t know Tom Cruise?”
Me – “No I don’t. Never had the pleasure.”
Owner – “I love Tom Cruise. I have seen all of his movies. Risky Business, Top Gun, Rain Man…” (at this point the Greek owner continued to name several more Tom Cruise movies and talked about how much he liked the movies and Tom Cruise himself.)
Mr. Tom Cruise
I should also point out at during this entire time, the owner never asked why an American was sitting in his store, what I was doing or how I liked Zimbabwe. It was Tom Cruise 24/7 with this guy, or so it seemed. Gavin realized that the conversation was going south and asked for “take away” coffee for us, and it was provided. We left and had a good long laugh about Tom Cruise and the Greek owner.
Yet, two days later, as we returned toward Harare, we stopped again at Ripperz for coffee. As I walked through the front door, the Greek owner who was working the front counter greeted me with, “Hey, Tom Cruise.”
I would go through Kwekwe about 8 to 10 more times over the next 4 weeks as I traveled around with Gavin or Gary, the Irish consulate and his family as they took me around Zimbabwe to places like Great Zimbabwe, Victoria Falls, and Matopos National Park. I would often stop in Kwekwe as a mid-point for several of these journeys, and every time I would eat and shop at Ripperz. And every time I walked through the door, the Greek owner would greet me as “Hey, Tom Cruise.”
Reps Theatre, Harare. Where my play debuted 2012.
Now in my one man show, I make this part of the story a comedy high point of the show and enlarge the number of people who began to call me Tom Cruise including great numbers of people on the street. Yet in truth by my third visit, a couple of employees started to refer to me as Tom Cruise. I was also greeted one day as I walked down the main street in Kwekwe with Gary’s son to the local internet cafe by a perfect African stranger, someone that I had never seen before as… “Oh you are the Tom Cruise guy.”
So that is my 15 minutes of African fame being called “Tom Cruise” in a small city in the middle of Zimbabwe – Kwekwe. For a month, I was known as Tom Cruise of Kwekwe.
So we were headed down for two more shows in San Diego for the SD International Fringe Festival on June 29th and July 1. So we had some extra time and decided to explore this beautiful little gem of a city, San Diego.
Again we chose to stay in the Gaslamp District of DTSD, and this time we found a very nice little hostel called Lucky D’s Hostel. Located on the fringe of the Gaslamp area at 615 8th Ave. between Market and G Streets, this hostel is also in a former hotel but unlike US Hostel just a few streets over this one was much larger and the facilities were much better. There was a large kitchen area, TV room, internet room, even a laundry and separate reading room area. We rented a private room with shared bathroom, and the room included a small refrigerator, TV, AC and a king size bed. While sharing a bathroom with others can worry some, the price difference and short walking distance to our theatre made the place perfect for our needs.
We had July 30th off so we drove out to Point Loma which is a hilly peninsula that marks the northern boundary of San Diego harbor. Going to Point Loma is #14 out 435 things to do in San Diego (Tripadvisor). It is historically important as the landing place of the first European expedition to come ashore in present-day California. The peninsula has been described as “where California began”. Today, Point Loma houses two major military bases, a national cemetery, a national monument, and a university, in addition to residential and commercial areas.
Point Loma is a separate community part of San Diego.The term “Point Loma” is used to describe both the neighborhood and the peninsula. After driving through the residential part of Point Loma, the first area of note that you come to is Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery. The Cemetery is a federal military cemetery in the city of San Diego. Row upon row of white military headstones placed against the beautiful background of San Diego harbor is both a powerful and sad reminder of all the sacrifices that young men have made for the US in times of war.
HISTORY
Point Loma was discovered by Europeans on September 28, 1542 when Portuguese navigator Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo (João Rodrigues Cabrilho in Portuguese) departed from Mexico and led an expedition for the Spanish crown to explore the west coast of what is now the United States. Cabrillo described San Diego Bay as “a very good enclosed port”. This was the first landing by a European in present-day California, so that Point Loma has been described as “where California began”. (Wikipedia)
The indigenous population of the area were known as the Kumeyaay people who did not live on Point Loma because there was no pure water source but periodically would visit to harvest mussels, clams, abalone and lobsters. (Wikipedia)
More than 200 years were to pass before a permanent European settlement was established in San Diego in 1769. Mission San Diego itself was in the San Diego River valley, but its port was a bayside beach in Point Loma called La Playa (Spanish for beach). The historic La Playa Trail, the oldest European trail on the West Coast, led from the Mission and Presidio to La Playa, where ships anchored and unloaded their cargoes via small boats. Part of the route became present-day Rosecrans Street. In his book Two Years Before the Mast, Richard Henry Dana, Jr. describes how sailors in the 1830s camped on the beach at La Playa, accumulated cattle hides for export, and hunted for wood and jackrabbits in the hills of Point Loma.[9] The beach at La Playa continued to serve as San Diego’s “port” until the establishment of New Town (current downtown) in the 1870s. (Wikipedia)
The longtime association of San Diego with the U.S. military began in Point Loma. The southern portion of the Point Loma peninsula was set aside for military purposes as early as 1852. Over the next several decades the Army set up a series of coastal artillery batteries and named the area Fort Rosecrans. Significant U.S. Navy presence in San Diego began in 1901 with the establishment of the Navy Coaling Station in Point Loma.[12] During World War II the entire southern portion of the peninsula was closed to civilians and used for military purposes, including a battery of coast artillery. Following the war the area was consolidated into Naval Base Point Loma. Other portions of Fort Rosecrans became Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery and Cabrillo National Monument. (Wikipedia)
CABRILLO NATIONAL MONUMENT
After you pass through the cemetery area, you pass many Navy base sites until you come to the gate for Cabrillo National Monument. After paying the fee of $10 per car, enter and have the choice to go to the visitors center and the Old Lighthouse Museum or the Tidal pool area. We chose the Visitors center first.
The statue of Cabrillo is at the southern tip of the Point Loma Peninsula. It commemorates the landing of Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo at San Diego Bay on September 28, 1542. The whole site was designated as California Historical Landmark #56 in 1932. As with all historical units of the National Park Service, Cabrillo was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 15, 1966.The park offers sweeping views of San Diego’s harbor and skyline, and on clear days, a wide expanse of the Pacific Ocean, Tijuana, and Mexico’s Coronado Islands are also visible.
The Old Point Loma Lighthouse is the highest point in the park and has been a San Diego icon since 1855. The lighthouse was closed in 1891, and a new one opened at a lower elevation, because fog and low clouds often obscured the light at its location 129 meters (422 feet) above sea level. The old lighthouse is now a museum, and visitors may enter it and view some of the living areas.
The area encompassed by the national monument includes various former military installations, such as coastal artillery batteries, built to protect the harbor of San Diego from enemy warships. Many of these installations can be seen while walking around the area. A former army building hosts an exhibit that tells the story of military history at Point Loma.
TIDEPOOLS
Next came the tide pools area. You don’t have to walk this so do not worry. There is a drop of several hundred feet from the Lighthouse area to the tide pools and there is a beautiful little two lane road with dramatic views of its own that leads down to the tide pool parking area.
The southern end of Cabrillo is one of the best-protected and easily accessible rocky intertidal areas in southern California. The word “intertidal” refers to the unique ecosystem that lies between the high and low tides along the shore. Tide pools are depressions where water is trapped during low tides, forming small pools that provide habitat for numerous plants, invertebrates, and fish. These depressions are formed over geologic time through a combination of biological, physical, and chemical processes.
Cabrillo’s tide pools are an extremely popular destination for tourists, and it is estimated that more than 215,000 people visit the tide pools annually. Compared to sandy beaches, the diversity of life in the rocky intertidal is impressive. People go to the beach to swim, sunbathe, or surf, but they come to the tide pools to explore, experience, and learn. (Wikipedia)
Truly a very lovely day to Point Loma and Cabrillo National Monument. Well worth your time to see and experience the history of San Diego.
So I returned to San Diego for two more shows of Mi Casa Su Casa as part of the 5th Annual San Diego Fringe Festival with my partner and co-author, Silvie Jacobsen. This time we drove down instead, and came down a night early because I had a 2:30 PM show the next day, June 25th.
We chose the Quality Inn Downtown on 4th Street about 8 blocks from the theatre. The place while not horrible was pretty sketchy. The rooms were extremely tiny. The kitchenette was in the closet. The bathroom sink doubled as the kitchen sink with a garbage disposal in it. We found a bug in the bed the first night. Overall, the experience for the two nights there was disappointing.
The hotel did provide a very, very basic breakfast for $10 in the morning, and I passed on that for my own coffee in the room. We soon walked down to theatre for the 2:30 PM show. The Geoffrey Off Broadway theatre was more than half full so the energy was very high. While still struggling with the script a little, I had a wonderful show and received many great compliments on the material.
the Playwrights backstage after the successful 2nd show!
The theatre is located on 1st and Broadway which is very simple walking distance to San Diego Seaport, the Maritime Museum and the USS Midway Museum on the San Diego Harbor shoreline.
The Kiss
Starting at the Seaport, we walked North along the shoreline. The city has really developed this part of the harbor into a very friendly tourist area with walkways, small parks, and the museums and restaurants. First, you come upon the 25 foot statue of the “Kissing Statue” based on the famous Life Magazine photo of a sailor kissing a random girl in New York City in 1945 celebrating the end of World War II. The statue is officially called “Unconditional Surrender” and is located right next to the USS Midway Museum.
USS Midway Museum
The USS Midway Museum is a maritime museum located in downtown San Diego, California at Navy Pier. The museum consists of the aircraft carrierMidway (CV-41). The ship houses an extensive collection of aircraft, many of which were built in Southern California.[1][2] The USS Midway was America’s longest-serving aircraft carrier of the 20th century, from 1945 to 1992 with approximately 200,000 sailors served aboard the carrier during that time. USS Midway opened as a museum on 7 June 2004. By 2012 annual visitation exceeded 1 million visitors and as of 2015 Midway is the most popular naval warship museum in the United States.[3]The Museum information for tickets and times and events is located here, www.midway.org/hours-tickets. (Wikipedia)
Rigging of the Star of India
Further up, the boardwalk is the Maritime Museum of San Diego which preserves one of the largest collections of historic sea vessels in the United States. Located on the San Diego Bay, the centerpiece of the museum’s collection is the Star of India, an 1863 iron bark. The museum maintains the MacMullen Library and Research Archives aboard the 1898 ferryboat Berkeley. Other boats in the collection include a replica of the America, the first ship to win the America’s Cup Yacht race, the HMS Surprise, a full size operating Royal Navy frigate from 1800’s that has also appeared in the Pirates of the Caribbean series and the Master and Commander movie. The collection also includes two submarines: one US and one Russian, plus others. You can purchase tickets for the Museum at https://sdmaritime.org/tickets/. You can find times and prices and Museum activities there.
HMS Surprise
A really beautiful warm night stroll along the harbor and looking at tall ships and aircraft carriers.
The 3rd show the next day was a great success and back to LA. We return for 2 more shows on June 29th and July 1 plus a visit to Point Loma and the Cabrillo National Park.
As some of my full time readers will know, I am also a performer/teacher/director who has toured the world doing shows and workshops. I have worked in South-eastern Africa, Europe, the Middle East and the US.
I am currently doing a one-man show at the San Diego Fringe Festival called Mi Casa Su Casa or How to Get 175 Roommates (The AirBnb Show). The show is about my other job which is owning and operating the Hacienda Guest House in Los Angeles, and being an AirBnB host for the past 6 years. All the wonderful, strange and downright weird things that happen when you open your home to perfect strangers from around the world.
The opportunity to combine my show and my travel writing was too good to pass up- so here goes.
My show was to open at the SD Fringe on June 22 at 6 PM in the Geoffrey Off Broadway Theatre, 923 1st Avenue (which really just a half block from Broadway) in the Gas Lamp district. Instead of enduring that hell that is the 5 Freeway which can take anywhere from 2 to 6 hours one way from LA to SD depending on the traffic, I chose Amtrak instead. The train, the Surfrider, is a lovely stress-free way to get to San Diego in about 3 hours with about half the train ride along the coast with great views for about $40 one-way.
The end of the line in downtown SD at the Santa Fe Station was literally an easy 5 block walk to the theatre on First Street, so I got there in plenty of time for the technical rehearsal at 12:30 PM. After tech rehearsal, I went over the the hostel that I had rented a bed for the night, the USA Hostels San Diego – Downtown on Fifth Steet. Located in a historic 1880s building in the Gaslamp district, the hostel serves a daily free breakfast and offers shared accommodations with free Wi-Fi. The hostel offers exclusively-designed privacy pods with a light, a shelf, an outlet and screening from roommates. All shared guest rooms have free lockers (guests need to provide their own lock). The daily free breakfast includes all-you-can-make pancakes, baked goods, toast, oatmeal, fresh fruit, juice, coffee and tea. Guests can cook their own meals in the shared kitchen.
This all sounds very lovely until you arrive. The hostel is tiny with no lobby, tiny kitchen and small lounge area. If reception desk is really busy, the lobby space gets really crowded and it is impossible to get to the kitchen or lounge area. The place is reasonably clean but the rooms are very small and people seemed packed in tight. I do not recommend this hostel if you are looking for space or comfort. However, the location cannot be beat right in the heart of the Gaslamp district.
I returned to the theatre for my 6 PM curtain. While very nervous as this is an entirely new play, the audience was half full and very receptive as I tried to work out some of the kinks in the script. For 45 minutes, I regaled the audience with tales of random people who have ventured into my front door over the past 12 years. I only got lost in the new script once so I was overall pleased with the first show. Special shout out to Kevin, the CEO of SD Fringe, and my stage manager, Scott for their amazing work and dedication to theatre and live artists.
The San Diego Fringe is part of the Canadian Fringe Festival circuit. Each festival houses about 100 shows over a 2 week period and provides the artists with venue, technical and programming support. Unlike an open fringe festival like the Hollywood Fringe Festival which the artist pays FOR everything, and the Hollywood Fringe festival in 2017 had 375 shows in a 3 week period. It is just too many shows and too much competition for any one show to get any traction for an audience. San Diego Fringe is much more calm, professional, and easy to attract an audience for.
Next morning, I took the Surfrider back to Los Angeles the next morning. Arrived at Union Station in DT Los Angeles about 4 PM and took an Uber home. Quick but really nice trip.
I have two more shows in San Diego on June 25 and 26. More about those next time.
On a visit to see my sister in the mountains of Western North Carolina not far from the city of Asheville, and the famous Vanderbilt home, Biltmore, lies the quaint mountain city of Hendersonville. On a beautiful spring day we drove over to the mountain village of Flat Rock, to see the home of Carl Sandburg, the Pulitzer Prize winning poet and writer. Connemara, the name of the farm, is run by the US National Park Service and houses the Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site. Connemara consists of a 264-acre site including the Sandburg residence, the goat farm, sheds, rolling pastures, mountainside woods, 5 miles (8 km) of hiking trails on moderate to steep terrain, two small lakes, several ponds, flower and vegetable gardens, and an apple orchard.
Though a Midwesterner, Sandburg and his family moved to this home in 1945 for the peace and solitude required for his writing and the more than 30 acres of pastureland required for his wife, Lilian, to raise her champion dairy goats. Sandburg spent the last twenty-two years of his life on this farm and published more than a third of his works while he resided here. In 1951, he won his 3rd Pulitzer Prize for his book of poetry, Complete Poems.
It was Lilian Sandburg who found the farm, already named Connemara. She was searching for the ideal place, large enough for raising her prize-winning goats and sufficiently secluded for Sandburg’s writing. While a writer and poet herself, Lilian’s legacy was a prize-winning goat-herd. She became famous in her own right for her goats which she started raising in Michigan. She purchased her first goat in 1935 and began to research the benefits of goats milk. Seeking a better climate (as well as a place where Sandburg could write) she chose Western NC. She improved the herd and had a thriving milk and cheese business. She became well-known for her ability to genetically select and produce improved goats. (1)
Our guide that day, a volunteer for the Park Service told us that often people would stop by the farm to specifically see Lilian and had no idea who Mr. Sandburg was. Lilian would become a household name in the world of dairy goats.
The goats living at Connemara today are descendants of the very goats that Lilian Sandburg raised. There are three types of goats: the Toggenburgs , the Saanens , and the Nubians (who have long, floppy ears). They keep a revolving herd of 15 goats on the site selling off the older goats as new ones are born. Guests are allowed to visit the goats in the pasture and barn. It is very funny to watch the young goats play and run around with each other. Be advised though when the goats decide to let go with a bodily function, it can get really messy real fast. Customer beware!
A very pleasant day in Flat Rock. A little family, a little history, a little nature all in the beautiful Blue Ridge mountains. You can hike the trails at Carl Sandburg anytime without a fee or take the house tour for $10 adults or $6 for seniors. Check it out, it will be worth your time.
Plus literally across the highway from the Sandburg House, the Flat Rock Playhouse, a world-famous regional theatre offering plays, musicals and concerts in addition to workshops for children and students. If you like theatre or live performance, the Playhouse is well worth a visit as well.
(1) Lilian’s Goats, Blog Post, Mountain Musings, 2008.
I am returning to Georgia again. This is an annual pilgrimage to see family and friends and to get in touch with my roots. I enjoy traveling in the South. It seems like a slower pace of life, people tend to really listen and be interested in what you say, and there is a genuine concern about you as a person. That is not always true, but that is how is seems. Returning to my home region also reminds me why I no longer live there. I will not mention the reasons but it helps put my current life in perspective. Yet, to be honest, the reasons (even in the time of Trump) to not be there are less and less, and the pull to be with my family members on a more constant basis is strong. Very strong.
I took the red-eye from LA to Atlanta on American Airlines. Good basic flight in 3 hours and forty-five minutes. Got charged $25 to check one bag (? Really?), then asked if I wanted to move seats to the exit row that would another $45 or to get on board first for another $32. Traveling on US based airline is like paying to be treated like crap. They say that they need to do this to be competitive. And I know that national airlines in parts of the world are under written by their individual governments sometimes, but could US based airlines just find a nicer and better way to treat us – the paying customer – like we were not sardines in a can?
Landed at Hartsfield-Jackson in Atlanta which I am always amazed at how busy and how well managed it is. I had decided to rent a car from Sixt, but instead of paying the extra 10% surcharge at the airport, I opted to ride the subway into mid-town and get the car at a mid-town location for about $50 cheaper. I have ridden the MARTA trains (Atlanta’s train and bus system) only a couple of time in Atlanta, but again I am impressed about how efficient it is. I live in Los Angeles and even though we are considered the second or third largest city in the USA, we are just starting to build our transportation infrastructure. There is not even a train that runs to the airport, and not to have a train that goes to the airport is ridiculous. There are 3rd world countries in Africa and South America that manage that feat, but not LA.
I came out for the subway at the North Ave station in Mid-town Atlanta and only had to walk a couple of blocks to find the rental agency. However, I had left my phone in my car in LA, so I was depending on the kindness of strangers for correct GPS directions. The first gentleman sent me 4 blocks in the wrong direction but I got turned around and headed correctly. I located the SIXT mid-town office in the bowels of the Georgian Terrace Hotel although a sign would be nice. There is no indication anywhere on the building or inside the building to let you know that a car rental office even exists here.
My next task was to locate a T-Mobil phone company office to get a temporary phone. I located one near I-85 in Union City as I head south out of Atlanta to my first stop in Bainbridge, GA., to see my old friend for college, Pamela. When I found the office, it was 8:45 AM and the office did not open until 10 AM. There was someone in the store, but they would not let me buy a phone until the store officially opened. While I was standing in the parking lot trying to figure out what to do for the next hour, the manager Michael Smith invited me in and got me taken care of in about 15 minutes. I am very thankful to him for his great and very kind service to me in a time of great need.
Now Bainbridge is in the south-west corner of Georgia just above Tallahassee, FL. The best and most direct way to Bainbridge is take I-85 south toward Birmingham, then I-185 to Columbus, GA., and then after that to take Georgia 27 and 520 further south after Columbus. Highways 520 and 27 run together for about 50 miles and then they split, and you should follow 27 at that point. The whole journey should take about four and half hours. I still had not taken the time to make sure my GPS was working correctly plus I was driving in the middle of a torrential late-Spring rain storm where I could not see 5 feet in front of me sometimes. Long and short of it, I missed the turnoff for GA 27 and continued along 520.
When I realized that I was off course, I stopped at a rather large convenience store dressed up to look like a back-country store with fake barrels everywhere, and rocking chairs placed along the long veranda on the front of the store. After buying some supplies for the road, I asked the woman behind the counter how to find a connecting road to 27. She pointed to an old farmer type guy on the veranda, and said to ask him because he knew all the roads in the area. I grew up in this part of the world so to see a man wearing overalls, chewing tobacco, and standing around to wait for the rain to stop in the middle of the day is very normal to me. However, I was not quite ready for the dramatic effect that this particular encounter would involve.
What follows is the exact conversation (with spitting included).
Me – “Excuse me, sir. The lady inside said that you might help me get back over to 27. I am head to Bainbridge and missed the turnoff a’ways back. I saw Highway 45 cuts across to there. Can you tell me how far to the turnoff for 45?”
Him – (Spits)“You going to Bainbridge?” (Spits).
I should also explain at this point to anyone not familiar with the practice of spitting tobacco that you usually carry a cup with you to spit into at least while in public places. Not this gentleman. Right on the sidewalk in large brown spatters of brown juice.
Me – “Yes sir.”
Him – (Spits) “You don’t want to go that way.” (He spits and points towards the way I had come) “You want to go back up there to 41 and turn right.” (Spits)
Me – “Well, 27 is in that direction.” (Pointing west which is the opposite direction.)
Him – (Spits) “Oh that 27. (Spits again) Then you want to turn left. (Spits again) If you go down to 45 that will take you more out of the way. So go back to 41. (Spits) You follow that for six, seven, maybe eight miles and you will come to this sharp curve to the left, real sharp. (Spits) In the middle of the curve, you will find a road to the right. Take that road. Chain Gang Road. Led you right to 27. (Spits)
Me – “Back to 41, turn left, look for the sharp curve to the left and take the road to the right. That correct?”
Him – (Spits) “Yep. Go seven, maybe eight. I think it is seven miles, but it could be eight. And take that curve. (Spits) It is really sharp to the left, I mean real sharp and you will see the road off to the right. Don’t miss that one cause it goes right to 27.” (Spits)
Me – “Well, thank you sir. I appreciate it.” I start to walk to the car, but the rain in unrelenting.
Him – (Spits) “Yeah you want to take that 41.” He spits again and the entire conversation repeats again. He would repeat the same information while spitting two more whole times as I tried to avoid the tobacco juice. Finally I could escape to the car and I made a beeline. As I sat in the car with no good option, I was unsure of what to do. I still did not know where 45 crossed my highway or I could follow the back-wood directions of my new friend.
I opted for the back-wood direction. Nothing was as he claimed, but I am blessed with a decent sense of direction, and I knew where south and west were so eventually I found highway 27 and followed it to Bainbridge in time for lunch.
The longtime association of San Diego with the U.S. military began in Point Loma. The southern portion of the Point Loma peninsula was set aside for military purposes as early as 1852. Over the next several decades the 
We chose the 
I have two more shows in San Diego on June 25 and 26. More about those next time.
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