Portugal: Cruising the Douro River

My third Road Scholar trip of the year (and probably the last I will take for some time) brought me to northern Portugal. Originally I had signed up for a cruise around Cuba in March 2018, but when that program was cancelled, the Portugal excursion appeared to be a reasonable substitute. The trip was bought and paid for long before I decided to sell the house and move to Academy Village. In retrospect, it came at the wrong time, because Ron still wasn't used to his new surroundings. The day before I returned, he took the dog for a walk and got completely lost; he was quite dehydrated by the time neighbors brought him home. When the caretaker learned of this, she decided she ought to stay with him all the time until I got back. That was probably a wise move, but to receive authorization she first called Karen and then, when Karen demurred, contacted  Daniel. Daniel was understandably very upset, as something bad seems to happen every time I'm away. For any forthcoming travel I will have to arrange for housing Ron temporarily at Academy Villas, the community assisted-living facility, and find a pet sitter for the dog and cat. Given the dissatisfaction I felt with some aspects of this Road Scholar program, it hardly seems worth it.

There were pleasant things about the Portugal excursion, to be sure. The best was finding a group of three congenial women, Linnaea, Ella, and Vasiliki, who were enthusiastic about the food and wine available on the cruise--especially the wine. Since the Douro region is the home of port, terraced vineyards all along the river bore familiar names (Sandeman, Taylor). White port was the drink of choice for a before-dinner aperitif and tawny port for the after-dinner entertainment. Surprisingly, the program included only one scheduled wine tasting, at the Quinta do Tedo winery, but during a morning visit to the Mateus estate, included in the program because of its chateau and formal garden, some of the Road Scholar contingent happened upon its tasting room, which was already open for business. We commandeered seats and, for one and one-half euros, enjoyed generous pours of excellent table wines. This was the better tasting experience of the two, as it was unstructured and serendipitous. As for the chateau with its indifferent French and Italian oils and furniture, and the garden, which was OK only if one admires eighteenth-century horticulture, it could be easily skipped.

I should add, however, that the river cruise included wine at lunch and dinner, and one of the wines they regularly poured was Mateus Rosé. If anyone had told me I would go back to drinking Mateus after all these years, I would have been shocked. But their rosé has improved since the 1960s--keeping pace with the palate of consumers, it's now much dryer--and I found myself, along with my three companions, ordering it instead of a red on several occasions. Since the sugar content is lower, it didn't cause the headaches one used to get from consuming too much of it, and in fact the alcohol content is lower as well, just 11%. In addition to its pleasant past associations, then, the wine was something that could be indulged in without serious consequences.

So the cuisine and the conversation that went with it were reasonably good, but the sites, especially those around Lisbon, weren't always the ones I would have chosen to visit. The university library and the law faculty building at Coímbra had historic importance, to be sure, but not enough to justify trudging through the rain, climbing interminable stairs, and trying not to slip on damp cobblestones. At Queluz we spent almost two hours at an eighteenth-century summer palace. Architecture of that period leaves me cold, as does Baroque painting; there was far too much of both on the program. Then there was the Coach Museum, remarkable only for its tediousness, example after example of royal pomp and extravagance. Why the guides thought it worth taking groups to defies all explanation. Finally, at the end of the program, we went to the Gulbenkian Museum, which I had already done during the 2008 FIEC meeting. The collection, though extensive, isn't particularly good--among the Old Masters, only one Rubens stood out, and some of the Egyptian materials had a whiff of fakery about them.

Enough of griping. Other places were well worth the visit. One memorable occasion was a walk in Porto along the banks of the Douro, passing under three impressive bridges, including one designed by Gustav Eiffel. Linnaea, Vasiliki, and I parted from the group to do our own exploring and happened upon an arresting piece of street art--a rabbit composed of recycled junk.

The highlight of the entire program was the art-nouveau Casa Lis in Salamanca. Our stop there was all too brief, and after lunch (which gave me the occasion to use my Spanish), Linnaea and I took advantage of free time to go back and do the rooms in depth.

Summing up: the scenery was impressive and the cruise itself relaxing, and I could sincerely feel that I had earned a few days' rest after all the stress of moving. Nevertheless I wonder whether I would want to fill up my future life with successive trips, as some of the single women on board were doing. Ella was even making arrangements during the cruise for her next outing--an individually guided tour through the Brazilian rain forest, jaguar sightings guaranteed, costing over eleven thousand dollars. As I remarked to Linnaea, for $20 I can go to the Desert Museum in Tucson and see Mexican jaguars in their natural habitat, and I doubt Brazilian jaguars are larger or fiercer enough to justify the extra expense. For some of the affluent widows I've met, travel seems to provide the sole source of excitement in an otherwise drab existence. I hope that I can connect with other residents at Academy Village in ways that will resemble the camaraderie of shipboard friendships but prove more durable, and simultaneously find new sources of interest to take the place of any travel I have to forego.

Iceland and the Islands of the North, July 2018

For my Road Scholar cruise to Iceland and the Shetland and Faroe Islands (the Orkneys were originally included as well, but were dropped from the itinerary), I kept a journal, so I can draw more deeply on personal reflections for this blog. However, the journal doesn't preserve many impressions of the places visited. That's because the shore excursions were mostly unsatisfying. Trips to British tourist attractions--Westminster Abbey, the Museum of London, The Tower of London, and the Royal Mile in Edinburgh--were rushed, with very little time to go about on one's own. Weather in Iceland was cold and rainy (in contrast to London, which sweltered in 80 degree temperatures). The jacket I brought, though waterproof, was not adequate and I had to wear a turtleneck and a sweater beneath it. On a last-minute impulse, I had packed gloves and a wool scarf, but even so my first purchase ashore was a knit cap. While Iceland is rugged and impressive, the landscape is largely volcanic. There are many waterfalls, both spring-fed and glacial, but relatively few opportunities for pleasant walking, with one memorable exception. We spent several long days at sea, and the program was dominated by what happened onboard.

What had I been expecting when I signed up for this cruise? Well, not what I actually experienced, and I don't mean just the weather. The ship was the Aegean Odyssey, so I was familiar with it, and in anticipatory daydreams I most often envisioned myself going to the Charleston Lounge and having a quiet nightcap before retiring, though in fact I never did so. Instead, I dined regularly in the Marco Polo restaurant with my fellow Road Scholar group members, then went straight to bed. Other members of the tour group (including at least one woman in her eighties) attended the nightly cabarets, listened to show tunes and danced, but I didn't feel up to that. In retrospect, I'm sorry I skipped the late-night activities. But, for dinner at least, I threw the diet out the window, ate far more than I normally do--including a rich dessert every evening, usually ice cream--and was just more inclined to sleep it off. Let's face it, I had fallen into bad company, namely my fellow Road Scholars.

On this voyage the Road Scholars became a clique within the shipboard society. The other travelers were largely British and Australian; we formed an American unit, as it were, and developed a tight camaraderie. For me that was the greatest reward. Over and over again in the journal I mention the delight I feel at being accepted as a welcome companion, no one special, just liked for myself. I felt very keenly the difference between being among other classicists, at a SCS or CAMWS meeting for example, and being a member of this temporary club, which was much less fraught. As a classicist, one is "on" all the time; you are constantly aware of being judged, most of all by yourself. During one dinner, the topic of religion came up, and Gloria, the eightyish dancer and world traveler, described herself as a "recovering Catholic." I've never before opened up about my religious background to strangers, but I also identified myself as a recovering Catholic with a strong emotional affinity toward Lutheranism because of my paternal background. Writing in my journal afterward, though, I added that it might be more accurate to call myself a recovering classicist--the indoctrination process is just as severe, and the process of dissociating from the discipline just as painful.

So the program reassured me that I would be able to make new friends if we move to Academy Village. That was a positive lesson learned from this adventure. At the same time, though, I realized during the nineteen days away that I had not provided properly for Ron. Previously when I went to my scholarly meetings, and even for the cruise around Croatia last year, having his caretaker Alta come in every other day seemed to work well. This time, however, the disruption of workmen turning up to do repairs, along with the lack of someone to talk to most of the time, got to him, and he started feeling lonely and frustrated. Consequently, when Alta arrived one morning, he and his truck were missing--he had forgotten she was scheduled to visit. Alta finally tracked him down at Karen's, but she had to call Daniel to get Karen's number. Understandably, Daniel was upset with me. Subsequent conversations with him, and also with Karen and Alta, led to an agreement that in future Alta will stay overnight for the whole time I am out of town, just for everyone's peace of mind. The family seems to agree that my going away to a conference or on a Road Scholar program is not objectionable, but I must make sure that Ron has the companionship he needs. That's perfectly reasonable, and I can live with that.

There were a few memorable trip highlights. The most momentous was a whale-watching excursion at Húsavík, where a bad call on the part of the whaling ship's crew led to a series of disasters. Our tour leader, Baldur Gylfason, had come down with stomach cramps from eating street food, so he was not around to assist us. We had no idea that the excursion was scheduled to last for three hours, nor that the company running the charter would have to refund the cost if passengers did not see the requisite number of whales. There was no one present at the dock to help us put on spatter suits, and some people did not don them properly, or zippers were not working. Still, the North Sea was relatively calm when we put forth, and for the first hour and a half the trip was enjoyable. We did see whales, mostly humpback, and while the ship pitched occasionally no one seemed uncomfortable. Then the wind suddenly shifted and the sea got terribly choppy. People became seasick, including the one Aegean Odyssey officer accompanying our group. Swells arose and began breaking over the bow of the ship; everyone seated in front was getting drenched. The pilot started turning the ship in circles looking for a place to ride things out, but that resulted in waves slopping over the side, so the deck was awash. I was seated amidships, next to another Road Scholar, Nancy; I was protected from the worst of it by a bulwark, but she was not. I tried to pull her hood over her head to keep water from getting into her spatter suit, but the wind kept tearing it out of my hands. After what seemed an interminable time, they finally called off the trip, but the damage was done. Gloria was frozen and going into shock; Felicia, another over-eighty passenger, had slid off her bench, fallen onto the deck, and was wet through. No one on the whale-watching ship had the presence of mind to call the Aegean Odyssey and tell them to send transportation for people who could not continue the excursion. When we got into port, I took charge of Gloria and Nancy (who became dizzy and fell after disembarking), hurried them over to the nearby Whaling Museum, and bought them coffee. (I cut into the line and, since the servers' English didn't cover emergency proceedings, gave the order for coffee with milk in German. German is nowhere near Icelandic, but it worked.) Meanwhile, someone had called the ship and I learned they were sending a bus for Felicia; when it arrived, I got Nancy and Gloria, together with other wet individuals, safely back to the ship. No permanent harm done, but in my evaluation of the trip I castigated the poor judgment of the charter ship's crew and advised that the Aegean Odyssey either find something else for participants to do or issue proper caveats about the risks.

Our best Icelandic experience was exclusive to Road Scholars. As noted above, the island's terrain is formed of lava, either bare or covered with lichen. Outside Akureyri, though, there is a private lakeside nature preserve donated to the local community by its former owners. Baldur, being a native Icelander, knew of this special place and made time on the itinerary to take us there. It was like a forest in Washington or Oregon--tall trees, ferns, birdsong (some bugs, but we wore individual protective head nets that Baldur supplied) and rich earthy smells. Views of the lake were amazing--new vistas opened up at every turn of the path. Best of all, the sun came out--not for long, but enough to lift our spirits. While the hike was only two miles or so, and we were only there for an hour, the place was so serene and lovely that we all returned spiritually refreshed.

The other great thrill of the voyage was sailing up the River Thames to London. This was a first for the Aegean Odyssey, and they made quite a celebration of it. I came to the Lido Deck for my usual 6:30 a.m. healthy breakfast of fruit, bread and coffee to find they were serving champagne! Well, breakfast and coffee first--no champagne on an empty stomach.

Then, glass in hand, I mounted to the bow, where everyone had assembled to take pictures. As licensed pilot William Wells pointed out the places of interest along the Thames--Greenwich Naval Observatory, Westminster Cathedral, New Scotland Yard, the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, the London Eye--we waited for the moment we would pass beneath Tower Bridge to dock at Tower Millennium Pier.

There are things I didn't know about the Aegean Odyssey when I booked this cruise. Gloria, who  sails on it at least once a year and dines with the Captain, told me that they have had two major fires in the past decade, which required extensive repairs and for which they had to compensate the passengers, since they had to change itineraries. If the Aegean Odyssey is cash-strapped, that would explain the brief stays in port, where they have to pay berthing fees, and the many days at sea. They can get away with a reduced number of landings because they now have a regular following of passengers who know each other and hang out together; it almost doesn't matter where the ship is headed, because they are more interested in the on-board activities.

As a solo traveler, I'm extremely partial to Road Scholar. They make a concerted effort to insure that people traveling by themselves do not feel isolated. While the solidarity on this trip was wonderful, other necessary elements were lacking. I want to be able to explore new places on my own as well as with a tour group, and I'd love to find people I can have long personal conversations with over coffee, lunch, or a drink. Finding the perfect vacation trip may take more investigation than I've been doing before I book, but that's a pleasant enough job of research.

To sum up: this was an expensive trip and not a fully satisfying one. Yet parts of it were very gratifying--enough to encourage me to go again, as long as I can feel confident that Ron will be OK in my absence.

San Francisco, June 2018: Der Ring, revisited

When I first saw that San Francisco Opera was planning to remount its 2011 production of the Ring cycle for summer 2018, I contemplated giving it a miss. Francisca Zambello's conception of the work is riveting, and I recall the 2011 Ring as one of the most profound operatic experiences I've ever had. I wasn't sure whether viewing it for a second time might not prove disappointing. In the end I decided to go, however, and I'm glad I did, for this production was differently slanted, even though it employed the same sets and much the same staging. The 2011 Ring centered on Brünnhilde--appropriately, since Nina Stemme, who sung the role, is such a powerful actress. Consequently, the redemptive element of the cycle emerged early in Walküre and predominated throughout. This time around, Zambello chose to direct more attention to Wotan, exploring the complexities of his character and treating him as the source of all corruption--other tragic choices, like those made by Siegmund or Brünnhilde, are indirectly owed to his agency. Greer Grimsley handled the challenge well, though in the present political climate he couldn't help seeming a Donald Trump with less hair and more self-awareness. In fact, I pointed out the family analogies on a Facebook posting, but my classicist friends, as bemused by my fondness for Wagner as they are puzzled by my passion for horses, greeted the observation with polite chuckles at best.

Other aspects of the San Francisco trip were problematic. Weather was supposed to be in the 70s, but I had not brought a warm jacket, and walking back to the hotel was very cold. We had some nice lunches and dinners, though our one excursion on the Napa Wine Train wasn't worth the money this time around. Our get-together with my sister Jeanne and her husband Norm also didn't go quite the way I had hoped. I thought that Jeanne, with her extensive knowledge of home remodeling, would be able to give me advice on having our new house built. Unfortunately, I prefaced my discussion of that topic with a description of the two existing homes for sale we had visited. When I mentioned that the one homeowner was very anxious to sell, Jeanne pounced on the fact, and no amount of explaining how poorly maintained the house was (hard-water scale coating all the shower enclosures) could get her off the topic of picking up a bargain. Getting our house ready for the market is bad enough--the idea of taking on yet another renovation project in another location just freaks me, no matter how much time and money that might save.

The most stressful part of the trip was the return. At 7:00 a.m. I learned that Southwest had cancelled our 10:40 a.m. flight. Over my cell phone I rebooked on a flight leaving at 5:40 p.m.--there was nothing earlier--and changed our van pickup time to 3:00 p.m., or so I thought. With an extra morning of vacation to play with, we breakfasted for the last time at La Boulangerie on Hayes and Octavia, caught the Embarcadero bus to Pier 39, and did tourist things--viewed Alcatraz and sea lions

and browsed through shops. Had a very nice salad and glass of wine on the pier, then caught the bus back to the Days Inn. At that point the trouble started. The van didn't arrive. Calls to the shuttle service only gained us reassurances that it was "on its way." A half-hour later, we were picked up, only to spend another half-hour waiting downtown for a fare that didn't show. When we finally arrived at the airport, we would have been in danger of missing our flight, had it not been delayed for an hour. Then on to worrying about the connection--itself delayed for ten minutes. To sum up: home by midnight, cranky and frayed, imperfectly prepared to deal with a needy and whiny cat. No compensation offered by Southwest or by the van service for cancellations, delays, and inexplicable procrastination. These are the issues--rather than the operas presented--that cause me to wonder whether our twice-yearly excursions to San Francisco are worth the stress. True, it's important to maintain regular contact with Jeanne and Norm. Since Jeanne will probably be unsympathetic once she learns that we're not going to take advantage of what seems, to her, a splendid real-estate opportunity, I'll have to be prepared to cope with that as well. Back now to repeated follow-up calls to window-glass sellers, garage door technicians, etc. 

Baja California: Tijuana, Ensenada and the Guadalupe Valley, May 2018

Some trips you look forward to with trepidation, wondering whatever possessed you to sign up. This was one. When I enrolled Ron and myself in the Road Scholar program "The Bounty of Baja: Food, Wine and Local Life in the Guadalupe Valley" a year ago, I was anticipating just a nice little break from the normal summer routine. Since then, though, I had made some momentous decisions. First, I realized that this was the proper time to quit adjuncting. Over the past few years the department has hired several really outstanding junior faculty. I was no longer needed in the rota, and it would be the graceful thing to leave. Second (and this was actually the more painful choice), I had come to the conclusion that we ought to sell the horse property and move to a retirement community while we were both fit and able. Luckily, the University of Arizona is affiliated with Academy Village, an active adult community that promotes lifelong learning through lectures, concerts, activities and volunteer opportunities and also affords the choice of aging in place. There are two assisted-living facilities on the campus, so we would not have to uproot ourselves again should need arise.

Once I had posted my grades and turned in my office key, I began organizing the move in earnest. Downsizing came first: finding new homes for my books and donating horse tack, electronics, memorabilia and clothing. We met with builders to explore the option of purchasing a lot and having a home built to our specifications and we listed our house with a real-estate agent. In the middle of it all, however, with email inboxes full and long to-do schedules on my desk, I found myself boarding a plane for San Diego.

The first afternoon and evening were in some ways not too promising. The Courtyard Marriott, where the group assembled, is a typical business-oriented establishment: no sit-down restaurant but a bar/food service combo where items are ordered at the counter. We got in early and had lunch, which was only passable. Nothing to visit in the immediate vicinity: the Marriott was just one in an interminable row of motels. That evening the fourteen participants assembled in a meeting room where the tour leader, Luka Rangel, gave a very informative and clear overview of what we would experience. Our tour companions were quite diverse in ages, background, and ethnicities and, from their introductions, a very interesting group of people. We bonded very quickly, thanks in great part to Luka, who drew us all out. The only negative part was the catered dinner, which featured a tepid and disappointingly chewy lasagna. This made me wonder if the food in general would reach a higher level. I needn't have worried.

After crossing into Mexico (quite painlessly), our first stop was La Caja Gallery in Tijuana. Its mission is to bring art to the community, as proclaimed by its arresting façade (left). Inside, an equally arresting mural (right). We met with the gallery owner, who explained the various outreach activities undertaken by the La Caja collective of artists and performers and walked us through the performance spaces under construction. After that stimulating tour, we were taken for lunch to Caesar's Restaurant, a Tijuana institution displaying countless photos of celebrities who have enjoyed its Caesar salad, supposed to have been invented there. Yes, the original recipe uses anchovy fillets, hooray. No, it doesn't include chicken.

Our hotel in Ensenada was the Las Rosas Resort, a great improvement over the Marriott, though similarly located on a busy highway where there was no place to walk. The only English-language television news channel was Fox. Hard to watch it for more than fifteen minutes. However, our days were organized around long morning-to-late-afternoon excursions and two- to three-hour dinners, so we did not miss television at all.

In their lectures on the bus and on-site, Luka and her colleague and assistant Jasmin broadened the focus of the tour beyond viniculture and gastronomy--though there was plenty of information on those topics--to include the history of Mexico and Baja California and, most interesting of all to me, the ins and outs of current political disputes surrounding proposed development of the Guadalupe Valley. Like the Sonoita and Willcox wine districts in Arizona, the valley was originally a purely agricultural, cattle and produce farming area into which vineyards were introduced rather late. Because it is now so popular with tourists, developers want to build resorts there, and residents have had to mobilize to stop them. Luka, whose sympathies were obviously with those seeking to preserve the traditional character of the region, vividly described their struggles with the system. I was reminded of the fight my neighbors put up to stop the building of a high school on Snyder Road and changing the zoning around the Catalina Highway-Snyder intersection to commercial use.

This is not to say that the Guadalupe Valley farmers are reactionary. On the contrary, one of its leading oenologists, Hugo D'acosta, is the driving force behind La Escuelita, a winemaking school for prospective vintners. We tasted just two wines there, a white and a red, but both were markedly better than those offered at the next winery, Monte Xanic, an overly commercial establishment where the pourers recited canned scripts. Of all the wines we tasted (and there were eight winery visits overall), I would rank the wines of La Escuelita and Tres Mujeres the best, and those were, not surprisingly, the two places where the creative passion of the director or owner was most evident. Ivette of Tres Mujeres, who founded the winery with two friends, is also an accomplished ceramicist, and her cellar doubles as a tasting room and gallery. I learned something new about winemaking from her. There is more than one method of cultivation in use among the surrounding growers. All other factors being equal, the way the vines are trained affects the finished product.

As for food, our restaurant experiences were amazing. We had one four-course lunch at Laja, one of the top 50 restaurants in Latin America, which featured products from its own orchard, farm, and vineyard. The lettuce salad with beetroot and aged cheese was exceptional, as was the entrée of local lamb. All four courses were paired with Guadalupe Valley wines. We had another great lunch at Deckman's, located at the El Mogor winery, and a fine dinner at Ophelia in Ensenada--to which I would love to return, because I wasn't able to do justice to their dessert sampler. Still, the best meal of all was one we prepared ourselves. Under the direction of Chef Juan Hussong, we learned techniques of cooking Baja-Med dishes, which fuse traditional Mexican flavors with Mediterranean ingredients, and put together our own three-course dinner as a farewell celebration. This was a fitting conclusion to a program that worked on so many levels--intellectual, aesthetic, social, and sensual--and allowed me to relax and appreciate my surroundings for the first time in many months.