MadameReya, dilettante extraordinaire

Kibber is one of the highest villages on earth – close to 15,000 feet up in the Himalayas of Indian Tibet. The town is nestled in a shallow valley amidst snow-capped peaks and yawning chasms, and its inhabitants are friendly (mostly) Buddhists. Kibber’s ancient monastery occupies a high perch above the town.

After arriving by bus, me and my travel companion stayed for a few nights at a guest house run by two brothers…luckily, they had HEAVY down comforters because, although we went in July, it was freezing cold at night. I recall that we had a balcony at the front of our second story room, but it had no guardrails/barriers to protect from falling!

I will never forget standing on that veranda at night. Lamps illuminated the windows of homes without electricity, giving the impression of a medieval European village. And the stars did truly shine.

While in Kibber, we took a fantastic hike above town, which offered great panoramas of the entire village and its surrounding peaks. While hiking, we passed Tibetan women working in little fields that must have been extremely difficult to develop for agriculture, and Buddhist monks cooking lunch around a small pond on the hillside. They invited us to a meal. And, of course, the village children sought candy…a lot. : )

When I was a teenager, I dreamt of traveling to Calcutta. For awhile, I had a Bengali penfriend named Sanjay Churiwal with whom I corresponded for about a year and, later, exchanged letters with S. Banerjee, who I met in DumDum airport upon my arrival in Calcutta in 1999 – and with whom I traveled in northern India for about 2/3 months.

I was in Calcutta for about three weeks – waiting for my friend to finish some exams. The first night, I stayed in an itty bitty room right on Sudder Street, and still recall its coffinesque bed…and the grafitti on the walls – concrete walls that captured the midsummer heat and converted it to a fine, damp steam that made it nearly impossible to sleep there.

The next day, I moved to a small hotel on nearby Free School Street, which provided an interesting view (fourth floor) of the bustling road below. Finally, my friend found me a fantastic room down a little alley off Sudder…I’ll never forget its sparkling black & white floor tiles, fantastic HUGE private bathroom, and lovely toilet.

A good toilet in a cheap Indian hotel is a godsend.

While in Calcutta, we strolled around the Maidan (their version of Central Park), watched a movie (VERY cool experience to watch an Indian flick in an Indian movie theater), and ate pizza (Flury’s) & Chinese almost exclusively, except for the time he invited me to his & his Mother’s flat. THAT was interesting. I think his Mom felt threatened by me because, although she was gracious, I think she suspected I would steal her son away from some nice Indian girl she had in mind : D (she was right to be concerned at the time but he is still single as of now). I also had my hair dyed jet black by some east Asian women in a little salon.

And did you know that Calcutta has a subway system?

One of the more curious things to see in Calcutta is its Portuguese church.

And I personally felt that taking a train out of Howrah station was one of the highlights of my entire trip to India.

_{(I would have more photos, except I made my trip in the pre-digital era of photography…you know, we had to conserve film. :P)}

We visited Bellingrath in 2003 – as we were passing through southern Alabama enroute to Pensacola, Florida. We went during the week, and had the place almost all to ourselves in the midsummer heat.

As gardens go, it was lush and impressive, with a fantastic, impeccably-manicured sloping lawn, reflective ponds, and historic buildings, which enhanced the landscapes’ charm.

At the time we went, the gardens were also home to a good number of bunnies (those garden pests), and we, as bunny-lovers, made a game of spotting rabbits nibbling on the great lawn. : )

I have passed through Trelew twice – once in 1998, and again in 2007. Both stopovers were necessary, as Trelew is a bus/airline hub in eastern Argentine Patagonia – providing connections for travelers headed from the Andes mountains to Buenos Aires.

Although Trelew is a rather unremarkable Argentine city, there is something comforting about it…perhaps there is a bit of a ‘time warp’ factor. Both times I passed through, I felt as though I had landed at some kind of miniature spacetime vortex.

When I was there with my husband in 2007, we stayed at the Hotel Libertador, which amplified the feeling of time running backwards. Our immaculate room was done up VERY NEATLY in the hues of pea-green that were all the rage in 1975…

So it’s no wonder that, after an interesting visit to the fantasticMEF archaeological museum, a GREAT afternoon tea service at Ty Te Caerdydd in nearby Gaiman (a real Welsh teahouse that Lady Diana once visited), and a wonderfully smooth bottle of Argentine Malbec, we overslept and missed our flight to Buenos Aires. : /

Luckily, plenty of buses serve the route…although they DO take almost a day to reach their destination!!!

On the heels of eating unappetizing sandwiches (giant gobs of camembert on sub rolls), my husband and I walked to the Notre Dame. Notre Dame was very pretty, although I agree with daydreamer and others, below, that there are grander cathedrals. However, we both thought this was a gorgeous, almost mystical location and, based on that alone, it really has no rival that I’m aware of…

After getting rained out in Pisa, and making our leisurely way back to Rome, we decided to overnight on Monte Argentario, in the seaside town of Porto Santo Stefano.

Not having made it to Cinque Terre, we found this little hilly town quaint, picturesque, and delightfully calm in mid-March. Arriving in the evening, we took a room at La Caletta http://www.hotelcaletta.it/. Our room was modest, but clean, and we had a spectacular view right out onto the water. We left the window cracked open (it was chilly) to listen to the waves…

Lucky for us, the sky stopped leaking right around sunset, and we were treated to beautifully reflective, gleaming wet streets in the evening. We ate in a nice restaurant on stilts over the water and, when we awoke at sunrise, the sky treated us to a magnificent display of pinks and blues, as gentle waves lapped against the shore.

The peninsula itself offers some lovely little drives that wind around interior hills, as well as trace the shoreline. We thought this was a wonderful, slightly off-the-beaten-path diversion, and we are both very glad to have decided to travel in that direction. : )

Montevideo is the first foreign city I ever traveled to – all the way back in 1994, several months after my 18th birthday. I flew LAB (Lloyd Aereo Boliviano), which was an experience deserving of its own entry, into the diminutive international airport in Carrasco.

Fast forward to 1998, when I made my second trip to Montevideo, arriving via Buquebus ferry from Buenos Aires. An all-around better experience than the first trip, I hauled my luggage on foot all the way from the docks to Plaza Independencia, and the Hotel Nuevo Savoy – a very homey little motel in a great location. I remember the elderly man at the front counter – he would always make joking comments in Spanish that I couldn’t understand (speculate away…).

I stayed in town for several nights – enjoyed long walks on the Rambla (riverfront promenade), beautiful plazas, and gooood grub. I traveled onward to Mendoza, Argentina, using the bus service Empresa General Artigas – which I found to be very nice.

The last time I went to Uruguay, I passed through Montevideo, and wished I had passed through Colonia instead. The photos of its golden lamplights, cobblestone streets, and foggy lanes are very intriguing…

Zimmerman ain’t pretty.

Sure – the scenery outside town is forested and quite lovely, but the town of Zimmerman itself an eyesore. In an attempt to create a facade of quaintness, several old homes have been converted into junk antique shops (this isn’t Galena Illinois y’all), which are an attempt to distract attention from the dilapidated church-cum-apartment building, a ramshackle American Legion hall, and myriad tanning joints.

I usually claim to be from north of Zimmerman or south of Princeton...never a citizen of the town itself.

My Scheidness ancestors were Danube Swabians – German-speaking Hungarians – hailing from a town called Zichyfalva (although this may now, technically, be in Serbia).

Now – how could I NOT want to go??