How can it be October already? This year has flown by.
Jon and I just returned from a fantastic trip that included a river cruise/bus trip with our friends, Julie and Neil. Unfortunately, the Danube River is very low because of the worst drought in more than a hundred years, so we only actually traveled by river for three of the seven days.
Traveling by bus during the day instead of floating on the river at night definitely cut into our shore time. Still, we got to see some amazing places in Hungary, Slovenia, Austria, and Germany and we’ll get 60% off on a future cruise.
Before we flew to Budapest to join the cruise we walked all over Paris, ate wonderful food, spent a day at the Louvre, enjoyed the corny but fun Moulin Rouge show, and visited Versailles (though I can only take so much gold and displays of excessive wealth).
Based on comments by our tour guide, I have new sympathy for Marie Antoinette, who was just 14 when she was married off to the future King Louis XVI. Another interesting tidbit the guide shared was that in centuries past, people actually paid to be executed by guillotine, which is fast and certain, rather than be skinned alive, slow-roasted, or pulled apart by horses.
The restoration of Notre Dame after that terrible fire in 2019 is nothing short of amazing. The smell of smoke still lingers in some areas.
My photos do not do justice to the many beautiful sights we enjoyed. Here are a few of the pictures I shared on social media.
Is it my imagination, or are the traffic light people images in Paris slimmer than those in the US?
And this traffic light in Linz, Austria is kinda fun.
Somewhere along the way I lost my favorite water bottle. I like that bottlecaps in Europe are attached to reduce plastic litter.
I don’t mind paying a euro to use a nice clean public restroom, but directions could be clearer on some. I think Julie and I paid by credit card six or eight times while trying to get one turnstile to open.
Our biggest regret about the river cruise is that we did not get much time to enjoy Vienna. We did walking tours at every stop so we saw plenty of magnificent churches, art, and museums.
Our tour of Linz, Austria included a beautiful cathedral, historic farmers’ market, memorials to local Jews murdered in the Holocaust, and the balcony of a building that now houses the Office of Tourism. Our guide held up a photo she said was of Adolf Hitler on that balcony announcing the “annexation” of Austria in 1938. She said, “Linz can never change its past, but we can change how we remember it.”
There’re several ways her comment can be interpreted. It resonated strongly with me because I’ve just finished writing a book about my family and my past. In the synopsis (a summary often requested by potential agents, editors, and publishers) I wrote:
LIFE, REVISITED is the story of a teenaged runaway who dropped out of high school, became a journalist, witnessed the transformation of American local television news from the inside, and eventually turned a reporter’s skepticism on her own memories. We can’t change the past, but we can change our understanding of it.
I wrote about how much I misremembered—and misunderstood —my own life and how I’ve come to be who I am. There are many other ways of interpreting the tour guide’s remark, including whitewashing the past, putting a spin on it that places blame elsewhere, or simply acknowledging and regretting sins of the past. How would you interpret her comment?
BTW, I am about to launch into a tough process—getting my book published. I am looking for an agent to help with that. The Wild Rose Press published my Vicky Robeson Mystery Series but does not handle memoirs. I contracted directly with TWRP after sending out forty or so query letters plus pitching agents and publishers in person. One needs thick skin to handle that much rejection. The other option is to self- or hybrid-publish. I’ll keep you posted on developments.
It’s good to be home.
Our ten-and-a-half-hour direct flight from Munich to Seattle took us over Greenland and Canada.
Lufthansa Airlines has cameras so passengers can see multiple views outside, which is very cool.
I’m still a bit jetlagged but am looking forward to the Pacific Northwest Writers Conference north of Seattle this weekend.
Until next time, Prost!
