Tag: travels

Seven Final Thoughts on Iceland

  1. It is expensive! Remember it is expensive. As a young hostel guest I heard say, “Is nothing in this county cheap?” The answer of course is no. Not sure but by vote of every one in my hostel, Reykjavik seemed the most expensive city in Europe to them. More than Stockholm or London or Oslo. Buyer beware because you are going to spend some dough. Icelandic Kroner is about 106 to a US Dollar. So if you divide everything by 100 you will get a pretty accurate price.

Example – 1500 ISK for a beer (very usual) is in reality to a US citizen – 15 US Dollars almost. That is an expensive beer.

It is cheap to get to Iceland because the government heavily subsidizes the airlines to Reykjavik, but once they have you – look out. They are after the tourist dollar to correct the horrible financial crash that they went through in 2008 and 09 and are still feeling. So there are no deals in Reykjavik.

  1. It is wet! Bring rain gear, and I mean rain slickers, rain pants, boots. You will not need it all the time, but there are days and places that you are going to need it big time and you will not know when. Also all the weather clothes in Reykjavik for this type of weather – (lets say it together) are EXPENSIVE!

On the day that I went to Black Sand Beach outside of Vik, and the waterfall that you can walk behind – I was drenched to the bone. I had a rain poncho but with the strong wind that day, it made no difference. I wanted a rain suit or at least water proof pants.

3. It is beautiful. Amazingly so. A new vista, a new waterfall, a new cove, a new glacier, and new volcano just around every corner. Get out of Reykjavik. By car, by bus or tour bus, by boat, just get out and see this amazing place.

4. Rent a car if you can. The tour buses are great tours make no mistake – but they are on a time table. Slow down and enjoy this beautiful island. The Golden Circle tour is 8 hours and 69 dollars and while the day was great, most of it was on the bus. The Southern Coast tour was wet, wild and fun, but we were gone of 11 hours and most was riding from point A to point B. The cost for both trips was 170 US over two days and 17 hours of riding and getting out and running around because we usually had about 45 minutes to see everything. The day I rented a car with Canadian lawyer, Andrew Guerra the car cost us about 140 US with gas and we saw a lot of things that were not on a tour, but also things that were. Cost wise, it is better to share with someone if you can. Even a stranger that you meet at your hotel or hostel. Everyone wants to see the same things, and this way is cheaper and you move at your own pace.

5. No need to do the Blue Lagoon. It is a thermal with blue water for about 120 US. Pretty and it has a bar! A 30 minute bus ride out of town.

For a 20 minute walk through lovely Reykjavik and 1200 Kroner (12 dollars US), I had a great afternoon at one of the two local bathing houses/thermal pools in Reykjavik itself. Cheaper, not touristy, locals all around and you can meet some very interesting people.

Word to the wise, Reykjaviks are not hung up by nudity. Not in public so much, but in the locker rooms. In the pool areas, everyone has proper bathing suits on, but in the locker room flesh everywhere. Only speaking for the male side here, but young boys, old men, all colors, every male I saw walking around in the locker not covering with a towel at all. For people from some cultures, it can be a little shocking at first. But since they already have what you have and have seen their own, they do not care about yours. So relax and enjoy yourself. The heated water by volcano is wonderful.

6. If you came to Reykjavik to party and drink. Please be responsible. But save some money and get a local app called “Appyhour”. It is an app that you can load on your phone that tells you when every happy hour in every bar in Reykjavik is. Since they all have different or rolling happy hours, some starting as early as 2 PM, you and your friends can move from bar to bar and save money. Sometimes a lot. Remember a beer at regular price is 12 to 15 dollars, this app will let you drink for about 7 to 8 dollars per beer. Depending on your intake that could be a lot of money.

It is very easy to get around in the party area of Reykjavik. You walk everywhere. Cabs are EXPENSIVE. They are not many police, but the bouncers at these bars do not take any crap. They are nice and professional, the ones I saw and talked too. But if you bring trouble, you are gone and in a not so gentle hurry. So behave!

  1. Please do not throw your trash around. Seriously. Every Icelander I spoke with told me how upset at how their country is filling up with trash at all the natural sites. They take amazing pride in the country and treat it as a sacred place. Tourists do not. Especially the Americans and Chinese seem to be the worst to them. So pick up after yourself, throw your stuff away – plenty of garbage cans everywhere and do not treat Iceland like your trash can please.

Enjoy!

Last Day in Iceland

On my last full day in Reykjavik, I rented a car with my new Canadian friend, Andrew. He had not been to Thingvillier National Park yet, and I felt like I had not had enough time when I went there on the first bus tour that I took so that is where we headed first.

Photo Credit Andrew Guerra

Located about forty kilometers from Reykjavik, Thingvillier holds a very special place in Icelandic history. It is where they established the parliament or the Althing when the Vikings first arrived in the mid-900’s. They came to Iceland to escape a Norwegian chieftain who was uniting all the different factions in a bid to be the first king of Norway. It would work, he became Harald Fairhair. Plus they wanted more farmland they felt that Norway was overcrowded in 940 AD.

Interesting fact is that while Iceland (known as Islandia) had been known for hundreds of years. A Greek scholar referred to it in 4 BC, it was totally uninhabited when the Vikings arrived. They brought cows, sheep, horses, seeds, wives and slaves. The slaves were mostly from Ireland which the Vikings had been raiding for some time by the mid-900’s. As a matter of fact, the city of Dublin was first a Viking outpost. Rumors about that time has that the original city wall around Dublin built by the Vikings (called the Pale) was built not to keep Irish hordes out, but to keep Viking men inside because they desired Irish women so much. This is also rumored to be where the term “beyond the Pale” comes from. When the men left and did not come back, they had gone “beyond the Pale”. I do no have factual back up for this theory as it is just an age old rumor in Dublin, but current DNA studies done by the Icelandic government have proved while 80% of the original men that came to the island were Viking and 20% were Irish (most likely slaves), the original women who came were 60% Irish and 40% Viking. Most of those women were wives and not slaves. Thus the island while claiming to be Viking the actual original population was 60% Viking and 40% Irish.

Iceland was the only part of Europe that was not directly ruled by a King so a ruling council was set up that met once a year at Thingvillier for two weeks or more that made laws and rulings on how the land would be ruled. The council was only run by the ruling chieftains, but in it way it was the first democracy in Europe since Athens in Greece in 500 BC.

Chieftains decided on a “law giver” or a judge whose word was final. The Law Giver had to learn by heart all the rules and laws of the new land in order to offer fair judgement. So for the first three days of each Althing every year, the Law Giver would recite in public all the laws. It could take him up to three days to do this, and after this the trials and meetings of the council would begin.

Thingvillier was where this took place, but it was also a social and economic gathering as well. Merchants, traders, and slavers would all bring their offerings to buy and trade. In some cases, people would travel for up to two weeks in order to attend this gathering.

Executions and judgements were also handed down and performed at this annual meeting of the island’s people. The executions could be anything from hanging from the rocks, or drowning in one of the ice-cold lakes, or beheading. All in public view, so people saw the laws and punishment carried out.  And the gathering or Althing would go meeting for several hundred years in one form or another.

The current Thingvillier is a park where people come from all over the world to see another very important gathering that takes place every day. This is the only place above ground where the North American and European tectonic plates can be seen. The plates are currently moving away from each other at a rate of 4 meters a year making Thingvillier an ever-changing place of incredible rock formations and water falls and lakes and streams. The water is crystal clear here as it runs off the nearby glacier Langjokull and you can go diving (only in a wet suit because the water is so cold) and actually go inside the rift between the plates.

Andrew Guerra leaving 1st Icelandic Church

Thingvillier is also where it was decided by the Law Giver to move from Paganism to Christianity. This was done in 1000 AD at the Althing. Both sides presented their cases to why one religion should lead to the Law Giver, and he decided which one would be the official choice of the people. Christianity won, but the decision was very wise. You would be Christian in public and by law, but if you wished to continue to be Pagan and worship the Norse Gods of Odin and Thor and Loki in private that was totally accepted. This way Iceland avoided the bloodshed that most of Europe was swept up in during this long epic transition.

Prime Minister Summer Residence

For that reason, the first church built in Iceland was constructed here in 1000 AD, and the church is still standing. It has been rebuilt and moved around the park because of the tectonic plate shifts, but the symbol is very strong. And the history and place of Thingvillier in the minds of Icelanders is so strong that the ceremonial summer home of the Prime Minister is also located here. IT is only used for official occasions and ceremonies, but this place seems to be the symbolic center of the country.

Kerio Volcanic Crater

After an hour, we went to see a nearby volcanic crater, Kerio which was created about 6500 years ago, but now looks like a giant swimming pool (but really, really deep one).

James Carey at Kerio

Then we had a very expensive lunch (no surprise) of lamb soup and pizza (surprisingly excellent) at a small hotel restaurant outside of Silfoss . Then we drove along the southern coast back toward Reykjavik through an ancient lava debris field that looked like you on some other world. Movies like Ridley Scott’s movie, Prometheus, and Thor, Dark World and Game of Thrones have used the strange magical environment of Iceland to create their other worlds. It was a very pleasant last day in Iceland and we had beautiful sunshine until the drive back when rain and dark clouds made the lava field even more ghostly.

Note is you are renting a car here in Iceland like everything else here it is expensive, but there are plenty of firms to choose from. Gas or petrol at the moment costs almost 7 dollars US a gallon. However, here they use liters and not gallons.

Enjoy Iceland if you get a chance.

 

 

Tiny Horses and an Icelandic Penis Museum

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.

Enjoy!

 

Walks, Statues, and a Wonderful Restaurant – Reykjavik

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.

 

Iceland – Day 1 – Reykjavik

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 Eriksson
From 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.

Tom Cruise of KweKwe – Zimbabwe 2012

(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.

Point Loma and Cabrillo National Park – San Diego Part 3

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.

SD Fringe and San Diego Waterfront – San Diego, California

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 carrier Midway (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.

Mi Casa Su Casa – San Diego International Fringe Festival

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.

The Poet and the Goats – Carl Sandburg House – North Carolina

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.

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