Some Girls Prefer Carnations: June 2015

Monday, June 22, 2015

Walkin'

I never did figure out the correct pronunciation for Wernigerode. "Vern-i-grot-en"? "Vern-e-ger-te?" "Vern-e-grot-e?" It was a beautiful and historic town in the Harz mountains in the former East Germany. The cab ride from the Hannover airport was a harrowing 1.5 hours, including a speedy jaunt on the autobahn. Despite my lurking carsickness, I was able to appreciate that the German countryside in May was spectacular. The brilliant green and yellow fields unfolded around every bend until finally the rooftops of Wernigerode appeared.

Overlooking Wernigerode, seeming to jut out of the mountainside, was an enormous 900-year-old castle. I couldn't see the castle from my hotel room, but I could feel its presence. On the first night of the conference everyone was escorted up to the castle courtyard for a reception at sunset. The route wound down narrow cobblestone streets of shops and residences, through the city center, then up a wide switchback to the castle gates. At the top, the path opened into a garden the size of a baseball field, with a discrete fountain in the middle and surrounded by a low wall and several turrets. From the garden we climbed a broad spiral staircase up into the castle courtyard, which featured flowering plants and frightening gargoyles.

We didn't tour the castle that night, but I was enchanted by it nonetheless. The conference was very busy and full of interesting and new topics to learn and people to meet. It was also full of sitting. Additionally, the fact that hiking up to it was perfect training for my upcoming Olympic National Park hike was not lost on me. Therefore on that first night, I made it my goal to walk up to the castle every day of the conference.

Perhaps the best things about my daily castle hike were the friends I made. Every day, I invited other conference attendees who happened to be near me when I decided to walk, and a few of them accepted my invitation. R was so into walking that we walked extra distances and discovered a free zoo and a hiking trail into the forest. F joined us on another day and delighted me with plans for her upcoming Irish cycling vacation. It was a delightful break from the conference, and hopefully decent training for my upcoming walk in the woods.

Photos from my trip (I apologize for not taking the time to paste them in here, but doing it this way saved me an extra download-upload step):

The green German countryside
The castle on the mountain
The town square
Some new friends and I in the town square
Me, standing by the smallest house in Wernigerode
A stunning window in the castle
The castle dining room was breathtaking
A very old horse stable that was converted to a celebration hall
Me, on a German mountaintop

Books I've read recently

TRUTH AND BEAUTY by Ann Patchett "'Grief isn't something to "be gotten through." It has no life of its own like that, it's just plain and simply there.'" and "History is strangely incomprehensible when you're standing in the middle of it."
THE PATRON SAINT OF LIARS by Ann Patchett "I wanted to be able to stop hoping that she would turn into something else."
MY OWN COUNTRY by Abraham Verghese "I remember the acts of human kindness that illumine our world."
IN THE COMPANY OF CHEERFUL LADIES: No. 1 LADIES' DETECTIVE AGENCY NOVEL #6 by Alexander McCall Smith
CEREMONY by Leslie Marmon Silko
THE ELEGANCE OF THE HEDGEHOG by Muriel Barbery "There's so much humanity in a love of trees, so much nostalgia for our first sense of wonder, so much power in just feeling our own insignificance when we are surrounded by nature..."
A WALK IN THE WOODS by Bill Bryson
THE LACUNA by Barbara Kingsolver "'Soli, let me tell you. The most important thing about a person is always the thing you don't know.'"
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A FACE by Lucy Grealy "Sooner or later we all have to learn the words with which to name our own private losses..." and "Part of the job of being human is to consistently underestimate our effect on other people..." and "Sometimes the briefest moments capture us, force us to take them in, and demand that we live the rest of our lives in reference to them."
WATER FOR ELEPHANTS by Sarah Gruen "Age is a terrible thief. Just when you're getting the hang of life, it knocks your legs out from under you and stoops your back. It makes you ache and muddies your head and silently spreads cancer throughout your spouse."
THE HELP by Kathryn Stockett "'I have decided not to die.'" and "Oh, I just break down then. It's like two years a doing and trying and hoping all come out at once."
THE TENNIS PARTNER by Abraham Verghese "Would that I had the chance in my sons' lifetime and my own to one day explain to them all the forces that moved me."
THE BLUEST EYE by Toni Morrison "And then the tears rushed down his cheeks, to make a bouquet under his chin."
REMARKABLE CREATURES by Tracy Chevalier "My life led up to that moment, then led away again, like the tide making its highest mark on the beach and then retreating."
RAMONA QUIMBY, AGE 8 by Beverly Cleary "Mrs. Quimby smiled and said, 'I can tell you're beginning to get well when you act like a wounded tiger.'"
THE SUN ALSO RISES by Ernest Hemingway "You see, Mr. Barnes, it is because I have lived so very much that now I can enjoy everything so well."
THE FORGOTTEN GARDEN by Kate Morton "The happiest folk are those that are busy, for their minds are starved of time to seek out woe." And, speaking of hospitals: "An irony that a place relying so heavily on routine should operate so resolutely outside time's usual rhythms."
THE HUNGER GAMES by Suzanne Collins "Of course, the odds have not been very dependable of late."
THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS by Rebecca Skloot "That cancer was a terrible thing."
THE THIEF OF ALWAYS by Clive Barker "Was there some way...to take back the stolen years, and live them here, with the people who loved him, and whom he loved dearly in return?"
CUTTING FOR STONE by Abraham Verghese "The world turns on our every action, and our every omission, whether we know it or not." Best book I've read in a year

Some Girls Prefer Carnations

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Monday, June 22, 2015

Walkin'

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