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These boots were made for walking - NOT

10/10/2013

You can spend an entire day walking around in New York, whereas in LA, it always ends at some point because you have to find a way to get home.
~ Carey Mulligan

I don't think Angelenos know how to walk. It's more than time on the eliptical or walking dreamily along the beach at sunset, spray from the Pacific Ocean misting your hair.

Walking as a personal means of transportation, not as a way to get around a shopping mall, is unknown to me. No matter how much I work out at the gym, like an hour 3 times a week on the bike or a half hour every day on the treadmill, when I hit a REAL city and we spend 5-6 hours walking and standing at museums, I'm in shock about how out of shape I remain.

Berlin is a big city. It's like a version of Manhattan and Los Angeles. Spread out. You need to take buses and light rail. And walk.

I'm definitely enjoying myself but I have got to up the ante on this fitness thing. Coming back at the end of the day, and they have been long, pleasant days, I can't decide which hurts more, the hips, the thighs, the ankles or the feet. And then there's the endurance. Actually it's a little bit of everything. And I actually have walking shoes from German, for goodness sake!

When you make it to the top of the stairs - what, no elevator?!? - and every part of your body is complaining, it's time to go beyond planning to move to a more walkable city in a few years and rethink what it will mean to live without a car.

I can't take driving in LA anymore. I really can't. But we'll need to take a practice visit that lasts more than a few weeks before we pull up stakes and leave LaLa Land.

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If walls could talk

10/7/2013

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The more enlightened our houses are, the more their walls ooze ghosts.
~ Italo Calvino

I touched a piece of the Berlin Wall yesterday. I was a kid when it went up but I have some recollection of the drama involved. I've touched Notre Dame, Westminster Abbey and various old buildings in Freiburg. I'm not sure what I'm expecting, that the stone will talk to me perhaps, tell me its secrets. That it will say 'things happened here. History is real.'

Today I touched a piece of the building where the Wannsee Conference was held. On January 20, 1942, 15 senior German officials met at a house in a suburb of Berlin to plan the Final Solution, the destruction of the Jews of Europe. After walking through the exhibit for nearly 2 hours, I whispered, 'how could this happen?' The wall had no answer for me.

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The Latest Big Adventure Begins

10/3/2013

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The Getty Museum, Los Angeles 2012

The future has several names.
For the weak, it is impossible;
for the fainthearted, it is unknown;
but for the valiant, it is ideal.
~ Victor Hugo

A year ago I started talking about going to Berlin to visit our older daughter who's studying there. And I made a list of where we might also go like Prague or Amsterdam or maybe a country I've avoided, like Israel.

Israel is a central idea for many Jews. For me, it meant historical fiction, like The Source by James Michener, a book about archeology that I highly recommend.

Oh sure, it was on my radar, but way out there. After all, wars and bombs happen there, the kind of thing that's best encountered via a newspaper or political talk show. And don't tell me they happen here in the States too. In LA I'm more concerned with earthquakes and fires, like from the Santa Ana winds that are forecast for the next few days.

But after having the opportunity to visit London, Paris, Zurich, Basel, Heidelberg, Munich, Freiberg, Alsace, passing through Austria, Verona, Lake Como, the Cotswolds, the Bahamas, Mexico, Hawaii, New York/plus the state, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Boston, Chicago, Rhode Island, Vancouver, Philadelphia, Florida, Texas, Louisiana, Las Vegas, Nashville, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Connecticut, New Jersey and all over California, well, I figured it was time to check out the ancestral homeland.

It's really amazing what happens when you repeat something over and over again. Like when you tell friends and acquaintances that you're going to Israel and some folks say, 'you've never been?!?' Then you start reading about it because I realized I only knew what I call 'synagogue Israel,' the view from the Torah (Bible). Really, the Exodus from Egypt is not a contemporary take on the place.

So we are on our way. Just have to pack - hah. And buy a bra. I've managed to lose one and always bring a spare. Never needed it but this time if I only have the one I'm wearing, I know it will break. Or I can chance fate and if necessary, buy some fancy schmancy European model.

Now there's a souvenir to bring back!

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Plan for Chaos

10/1/2013

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I did it! I exercised with weights, stretching, sit-ups and gym walking every single day this month. Plus a post each day too.

OMG!

I don't believe I've ever done that unless you go back to the swim class I had to take for my PE requirement in freshman year of college.

So I am taking a bow, stretching down to touch the floor with flat hands.

How did I do it, you ask. Well, I kept a phrase in mind that I read on James Clear's blog post, How to Stick to Your Health Goals When Life Gets Crazy. "Plan for chaos. Reduce the scope, stick to the schedule." Going for the long term is better than demanding perfection or nothing.

I knew I'd have to attend several days of religious services for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. I knew I'd be traveling for 5 days and wouldn't have my weights. So I just told myself to do the best I could and show up for whatever I could. And don't beat myself up.

I walked all over Seattle, including hills in the rain. I did body weights using myself, walls and vases in the apartment. When my husband asked me what I was doing heaving this big pottery piece up and down over my head with both hands, I said 'My weights'. I walked our neighborhood with the dog and ran to the gym even late at night, when I really wanted to curl up with a book, just to keep the chain going like the Seinfeld Strategy says. I printed out a calendar and faithfully filled it in with a red pen.

Results - my goal was to get off the parking shuttle at LAX carrying my suitcase myself and landing on the pavement without a shock/bounce to the knees because they didn't hold my body enough to let me down gently. Done. Carrying my suitcase up and down stairs to get to our apartment building and then inside the building when the elevator didn't work 2 days. Done. Lift the suitcase out of the overhead bin and carry it down the aisle off the plane. Done. The flight attendants were impressed. Yes, my husband lifted it into the bin for me but I'm working on that. Blog posts - prepped photos ahead with images that would work well enough. Wrote adequate posts and patted myself on the back when at least one phrase sparkled. Done. Weight - lost 1 1/2 pounds, stomach flatter, quads getting harder, triceps getting more defined. Weight gained on vacation - NADA.

I have already printed out a blank October to fill in. I'm pulling photos for posts. We're off to Berlin and Israel. Another hectic month but my goal was to be a digital nomad so I didn't completely unpack. Will just have to figure out how to pick a wardrobe for coolish and warmish without overpacking. Because I want to write lots of travel notes and see as much as possible, including our older daughter in Germany and husband's relatives in Israel, I've decided to post 3 times a week.

Off to print out the Trip Packing To Do List. LAX - See you again soon!

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These boots were made for walking - NOT

If walls could talk

The Latest Big Adventure Begins

Plan for Chaos

Bobbi

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