It is believed that people’s earliest memories can often be traced back to age 2.5 ^[1].  According to David Copeland, Ph.D., “It might be difficult to pinpoint the one true ‘earliest memory’ for anyone.” Copeland also stated that early memories—even those reconstructed from external sources beyond what’s in our minds—can also play an important role in constructing the overall narrative of your life.  “For example, whether someone truly remembers the experience of falling off of a tricycle at age 3 or they learn about it from family members’ stories or from seeing pictures, it might not matter—as long as the event actually happened, it can be a part of one’s life narrative.”

Sitting here thinking about childhood memories, I recall photos from my first birthday which I have no recollection of.  I see photos of early holidays…my dad carrying me down the steps on Christmas morning…the table set for Easter dinner…playing in the snow and building “Fort Marvin” with my Aunts Pam and Jill…playing with them in a blow-up kiddie pool and Pam had a broken arm.

If  2.5 is the age when we may be able to recall memories then maybe the memory of looking at my baby brother in his bassinet is real, or it could be that I remember the photo of me looking at him.  Playing these photos and memories over in my mind, I decided I am going to write about a different memory…not my earliest, but one when I was eight years old.  I am choosing this one because it is one of my most vivid memories.  I am certain there are no photos to remind me of the event, yet I can picture it, smell it, and describe it as if it was yesterday.

I was fortunate in my childhood to have 2 sets of grandparents and 2 great-grandmothers.  One great-grandmother we called jet-grandma because she traveled, and we often had to take her to the airport to catch a plane.  Later in her life, my grandma Gehrlein also traveled.  She would take me with her on Anderson Tour bus excursions and she traveled twice to the “Holy Land”, including Gaza.  I’m certain back in Warren, Ohio, in boxes yet unpacked, I still have the beads made of olive wood that she brought me.  With two traveling grandmas, maybe the apple doesn’t fall too far.

Wednesday morning, December 30, 1970.  I was eight years old.  My brother and I were normally only allowed to eat on the floor in front of the television for Saturday morning cartoons.  All other meals were eaten at the dining room table.  That table now lives in my condo in Warren.  I’m not sure if it was because it was Christmas break or because of the situation that was evolving that we were eating breakfast in front of the TV.  I can picture our living room with the knotty pine paneling, the floor-model television, an avocado green stereo console, a large armchair, the couch behind us, a rocking chair beside us, and the giant live Christmas tree between the living room and dining room in front of the wall clock that I still have.  I was eating a bowl of Gerber’s baby food oatmeal.  I loved that stuff and ate it up into my teens. My brother, I am sure was eating some sugar-coated cereal like Captain Crunch.

My grandpa Gehrlein was in the hospital.  He had heart issues and also suffered from diabetes.  We had visited him on Christmas day at the hospital.  He had given me the first of my Madame Alexander Little Women Dolls. Our parents had been to the hospital that morning.  Our Aunt Dorothy, who lived with us, was home taking care of me and Mark.  When my parents came home, I remember getting up and running to my dad.  He picked me up.  He was wearing a black fisherman knit sweater, he rarely wore a coat, and I can still smell his “Old Spice” aftershave.  I could see that my mother was or had been crying.  That’s the moment we learned that our grandfather (my mother’s father) had died.

I don’t remember anything else about that day or the following days.  We had his funeral on January 1, 1971.  The only thing I recollect about that is that was the first time I remember having to deal with death.

I don’t know why that is such a vivid memory except,  according to Theresa L. White, Ph.D., “People often say that the sense of smell conjures up memories so well that they feel as if they were experiencing the event again,”  It is believed that memories of odors can be a backdrop to an emotional state.  To this day, I only need to see an advertisement for or a display of Old Spice, and I can recall how it smells and a memory of my dad.

My life is filled with memories, happy and sad, the stories of my life.  The older I get, the more I travel making memories along the way…the more I realize what a gift they are.  As Chief Seattle said, “Take only memories, leave only footprints.”

[1] Peterson C. What is your earliest memory? It depends. Memory. 2021;29(6):811-822. doi:10.1080/09658211.2021.1918174

The dictionary tells us that the adjective favorite means preferred above all others of the same kind.

As a kid, my favorite color was purple which I paired with Kelly green walls.  A bit psychedelic, but I did have two hippie chick aunts I looked up to. Currently, my favorite color is green…no, not Kelly green, but a more subtle sage.  When I saw today’s blog prompt, I thought, how can I pick a favorite?  It also made me think about how many times during my travels I am asked about my “favorites”.  What’s your favorite country?  What’s your favorite city?  What’s your favorite movie?  What’s your favorite book?  What’s your favorite song?  You get the idea and I get that it’s all part of the exercise of getting to know people.  I’m guilty of this myself.  When I have a new student or group of students it’s all part of the “get-to-know-you” routine.  However, I  have discovered instead of asking, “What’s your favorite movie?”, I get a much better response by saying, “Tell me about one of your favorite movies”, for instance.  This seems to alleviate the distress of having to choose one thing.  In the past, asking for a favorite anything usually got the response, “It depends”.  I understand that it can depend on a lot of things and admit it, favorites change.

So, back on topic.  On my phone, in my photo gallery,  I keep a plethora of quotes.  I keep them in albums based on the subject.  For example, I have albums called “Dream Believe”, “Life”, “Friendship”, “Notes to Self”, and “Wanderlust”.  I guess you could say I collect quotes because I also have pages in my journals (I keep multiples of those too) dedicated to quotes.

I have tossed around several great quotes that I like.  Mother Theresa, “ I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the water to create many ripples.”  Albert Einstein, “The one who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd.  Those who walk alone are likely to find themselves in places no one has ever been before.”  S.M. Klees, “There’s a quiet comfort in knowing I have not yet crossed paths with all the people who will bring magic into my life.”, and Terry Pratchett, “Why do you go away? So that you can come back, so that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors and the people there see you differently, too.  Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.”

Ultimately, the quote I chose, I keep in an album called “Me”.  It is a quote from Zelda Fitzgerald.  “She quietly expected great things to happen to her.  No doubt that’s one of the reasons why they did.”  This quote reminds me that attitude is important.  It also reminds me of my dad and something he always said to us.  If I was struggling to do something, if I complained about being too hot or too cold, if something hurt, etc, I remember him saying, “Mind over matter”.  He told us that we could do anything if we just put our minds to it.  I remember being on the gymnastics team in Junior High School.  I was struggling with a move on the uneven bars.  He told me to start visualizing and doing it successfully.  I would fall asleep thinking about nothing else.  Now, I didn’t wake up the next day and master the move, but it wasn’t long before I nailed it.  I think this is similar to what Zelda is saying.  Many people think about the what-ifs and the worst things that can happen.  I choose to think about the great or at least good things that can happen.

I recently re-read a book, “The Café on the Edge of the World”, by John Strelecky.  One of the key messages in the book states, “People who have found their purpose, magically attract happiness.”   You know, that feeling of bliss when things just fall into place.  When you go with the flow and do what you enjoy, the world can seem full of happy coincidences. But are those really just coincidences? Or is there some other magical force at work? Is it mind over matter?  Did you make it happen?  When you do something that fulfills you, your whole aura changes. Your eyes light up just talking about it.  Your energy is so contagious that other people are happy to support you.  Again, I think this is what Zelda was talking about and why I chose it as my quote.  In the end, being raised by parents who always told you that you, yourself had the power to be great, make great things happen, and do whatever you wanted in life, not always following society’s norms certainly molded me into the person I am today.  My advice, expect great things!  No, everything won’t always be great, because face it, sometimes life is shit. But more times than not, things will work out!

Blog writing challenge day two – Twenty facts about me.  Day two and it’s a tough one.  Most people, in my opinion, don’t like to talk about themselves for fear of being judged, they don’t like bragging, they don’t think their life is interesting, or they are afraid of exposing their weaknesses.

One thing I have learned in the last ten years of basically solo travel is that if you want to make connections, meet people, and immerse yourself in the local scene you need to talk about yourself.  One of my favorite travel movies is “A Map For Saturday”. In the movie, most backpackers admit to the five questions that everyone eventually asks.  They are; where have you been?,  where are you going?, where are you from?, how long are you traveling? and, how long have you been traveling?.  And no, what is your name isn’t in the top five.  Another thing I have learned is that people are genuinely interested in what you have to say, especially being an expat.  In the last 4 years that I have lived in Poland, one question I am asked quite often is, ”Why Poland?”.  I have been asked so many times, that I even wrote a blog about it: https://wendyjmarvin.com/2021/12/26/why-poland-theres-more-to-this-country-than-pierogi/.

On with the subject and I’ll try to make them as interesting as possible, but twenty facts doesn’t seem like an easy task.

I have a severe case of wanderlust.  My mother always told me I had the travel bug since birth.  I was born in Kimbrough Army Hospital, Fort Meade, Maryland.  Before I was born, not knowing he was going to be a father, my dad had a serious jeep accident while on maneuvers.  36 facial fractures and weeks in a coma, he was medically discharged 2 days after I was born and I went on my first road trip at 3 days old.  It wasn’t a long journey (from Fort Meade, Maryland to Warren, Ohio) but my mother swore it started my wanderlust.

I left the hospital nameless, well, as Female Marvin.   I guess it was allowed back in the day.  I was eventually named for Wendy from “Peter Pan”,  Keeper (mother) of Lost Boys.  Given my current situation, it might be fitting.

I have one brother, who is my best friend and biggest supporter.

I have visited 47 countries and if you throw in all the territories, like Hong Kong and Tibet which are part of China, that number would be well over 50.  I don’t count countries that I have only been to the airport.  5 hours in the airport in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia does not count as a country visited.

I loved reading National Geographic Magazine. Even though my mom claimed my wanderlust started at 3 days, I am fairly certain that my dad’s subscription to National Geographic magazine fueled it even more.  I loved perusing them cover to cover.  I now search out and purchase old issues that highlight places I have been.

I have eaten donkey meat, horse tartare, and a camel burger. 

I can (probably should read could) ride a unicycle. When I was about 6 or 7 years old, one of the only things I wanted for Christmas was a unicycle.  Santa came through and I learned to ride.  I even rode in the Pete Gabriel’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade when I was 12 or 13.  I probably wouldn’t attempt to get on one now with my bad knees and back, but I do remember giving it a go again on my 50^th birthday just for shits and giggles.

My favorite color is green – sage green to be exact.

I was the first girl to play Little League in my town.  Although I played with dolls and such growing up, my dad loved baseball.  Whenever he played with my brother, and coaching his gadget ball team (I was the bat girl), he always let me play/practice too.  I had my own glove, a black one, for some reason I didn’t want the typical brown glove. Sunday mornings after Sunday School, he would take us to the ball field at Laird Avenue School and hit balls with us for an hour or so until it was time for my mom to get home from church.  I got pretty good and that’s how I ended up being the first girl in our city to play Little League.  I even played on Stan O’Day’s All-Star Team one year.

I love to cook.  Baking – forget about it!

I am halfway there.  If you have stuck with me, you still have 10 more facts to go.

I have lived in four countries other than the USA. Since we have already determined that I have had a passion for travel for a long time and if you know anything about me, it probably won’t come as a surprise that I have always had a love for Paris.  Wearing berets as a young girl and pretending I could speak French.  I think I always knew I would one day live in Paris and I did. If you read yesterday’s post, that is how this blog got started.  Since living in Paris, I also lived 4 years in China, 5 months in Bali, and currently just over 4 years in Poland.  I often say Paris is my heart and Bali is my soul.

I don’t own and don’t plan on owning a TV.  I haven’t watched television in over 10 years and have no plans to get a TV when I go back to the States. No, I don’t have a return date.  Life is short and the world is wide.

I love gin, and slightly dirty martinis with bleu cheese-stuffed olives. I visited the Beefeater’s Distillery in London with my friend Teri. I somehow convinced them to open the showcase and let me try on the crown.  I also came home with a lot of Beefeater bags. Cheers!

I broke my back in China. When I returned to the USA after living in Paris, I knew life on that side of the pond wasn’t what I wanted.  Little did I know when I started looking at ways to live abroad, that I would end up halfway around the world in a small village called Xiashan.  I lived in this village for 6 months (August 2015-February 2016) and fell in love with China.  6 months turned into 4 years. When I was living in my 4^th city in China, Dong’e, I was in an accident on my scooter and suffered a broken back.  A funny story, I even thought it was funny before they wheeled me off for my 6-7-hour surgery. I had to have a “cage”  (rods and stuff) to “fix’ my broken back.  It would connect 3 vertebrae.  I spent about 36 hours in the ICU while my family was contacted in the USA and all my X-rays and MRI were reviewed by doctors there. Everyone agreed the surgery was necessary, but before they would do the surgery, I had to decide if I would accept “made in China” hardware or if I wanted to wait and get the hardware from the USA. Those 36 hours hadn’t been fun and I said, “Give me made in China.” The funny part, well I think it is funny, I had to sign a document (written in Chinese) that I was offered hardware from the USA but I accepted the made-in-China hardware.

I hate driving.

I have walked the Great Wall of China. My interest in China was sparked by former President Richard Nixon in February 1972.  He became the first president to visit the PRC, People’s Republic of China, ending 25 years of no communication or diplomatic ties between the two countries.  His visit also allowed the American public to view images of China for the first time in over two decades.  I remember he ate the fermented (black) eggs.  Other than whatever knowledge a 9-year-old would get in school, Nixon’s visit sparked my interest in the “Middle Kingdom”.  I remember thinking it would be cool to see/walk the Great Wall of China.  I fulfilled that dream several times over walking on 4 different sections of the Great Wall.  I even made it to the beginning/end where the wall meets the Bohai Sea.  I also have the National Geographic Issue about the discovery of the Terracotta Army and have been fortunate to see it twice.

I have helped exhume a body for cremation. While living in Paris, I became friends with Julie who worked at my favorite café.  She had a dream to move to Bali and made me promise I would visit her when she made this dream come true.  In February 2018, I made my first visit to Bali to visit her.  I decided I wanted to go to Ubud before I met up with Julie.  This is how I met my Balinese Family whom I love dearly.  In the few short days I stayed with them, they introduced me to the Balinese culture and traditions.  Before I left, they invited me to return in August to be a part of a Ngaben or cremation ceremony.  I did return and they included me as part of their family.  At 2 am the morning of the cremation, I accompanied them to the burial grounds of the temple to exhume Ketut’s mother’s body.

I have stood in Red Square in Moscow.

I have camped on Mount Everest Base Camp.  Long before I came to China, I had an interest in Tibet, and meeting the Dalai Lama is on my bucket list.  Yes, I know he no longer lives in Tibet, that aside, how could I live in China and not visit Tibet?  Getting to Tibet isn’t as easy as jumping on a train or plane and getting off in Lhasa.  An individual cannot enter Tibet without a travel permit and a Tibetan guide.  In other words, an individual cannot just turn up in Lhasa hang out for a few days and travel around the region. I was living in Hunan Province and it seemed like the time was ripe. In Shenzhen, I would begin my 53-hour train ride to “The Roof of the World’ or “The Land of Snows”, otherwise known as Tibet.  Because I had to have a guide and join a tour, one of my must-do’s was Base Camp.  I will never forget how I felt watching the sunset on that mighty mountain.  Or when I was outside my tent, alone at 4 am, and it looked like a billion stars in that night sky.

I plan to leave Poland at the end of this year and become a true Nomad for an undetermined amount of time.

There you have it.  20 facts about me.  But the most important fact about me is that I couldn’t have done all this without my family and friends.  Some of you have been friends for life, some I will never see again.  The support and encouragement you have given me is amazing.  A bonus fact:  My dream is to put my story into a book.  Thanks for being a part of my chapters.

I am going to attempt a writing challenge which is to write a blog post a day for 30 days based on prompts.  I haven’t been writing as much as I would like so maybe this will kick me into gear.  The first prompt is “Explain your blog’s name”.

“Down the Rabbit Hole”  is an English-language idiom that refers to getting deep into something or ending up somewhere strange or unknown.  It is also a metaphor for something that transports someone into a wonderfully (or troubling) surreal state or situation.  Lewis Carroll introduced the phrase as the title for chapter one of his 1865 novel “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”.  After this, the term slowly entered the English vernacular.

For those of you old enough to remember “MySpace”, my dabble in blogging started here.  Of course, that platform has changed dramatically since its inception.  However, I was able to salvage some of those blog posts and hopefully, they are on my computer back in Warren, Ohio.

When I decided to move to Paris in 2014, I also knew I wanted to document my experience living abroad.  I like to write, and blogging seemed perfect.  Although I felt comfortable in Paris, at 52 years old, moving to a foreign country solo was a step into the unknown that hopefully would transport me to a wonderful, even surreal experience in la ville lumiere.  Hence, Down the Rabbit Hole was born and introduced on Facebook on September 2, 2014, with these words and pictures; “  Tonight’s sunset….visited a lot of beautiful places today…can’t explain the beauty of Paris and totally can’t explain my obsession with this place…..but follow my blog and I will do my best to tell the story…..I have named my blog Down the Rabbit Hole…Journey to the Unknown.”

The pictures that accompanied the post were from my flat which had a view of the Sacre Coeur and the Eiffel Tower.  I maintained the blog while I was in Paris.  When I returned to the States and before I left for China, it was neglected.

I moved to China in August 2015.  Unfortunately, I didn’t get back into writing my blog.  I relied on Facebook to keep everyone in the loop as to my adventures in the Middle Kingdom.  Then, in February 2017, I was relocating to my fourth city in China, Dong’e in Shandong Province.  Something prompted me to start my blog again.  My bad…I didn’t keep up my domain or my WordPress account. Down the Rabbit Hole…Journey to the Unknown was lost and Down the Rabbit Hole My Adventures in the Middle Kingdom was born “again”.

Facebook Post February 20, 2017  (slightly ironic I chose to start this challenge almost 7 years to the date from when it was reborn)

“On Thursday, I will be boarding a train to take me to the 4th city I will call home in China, Dong’e City, also in Shandong Province, the same as Qingdao.  What little I know is it is a small city between Liaocheng and Jinan, similar to Xiashan. Jinan is the capital of Shandong Province, although it is closer by about 60 km to Liaocheng.  I will be working 2 days per week, Saturday and Sunday, at a Children’s Activity Center, about which I also know very little.  I was told my main duties would be to correct the children’s pronunciation and get them interested and have fun learning English.  Since I will have Monday through Friday off, hopefully, to do some traveling, I have also decided to attempt another blog.  It is called Down the Rabbit Hole~My Journeys (this was later changed to Adventures) in the Middle Kingdom.  It can be found at https://wendyjmarvin.wordpress.com/

I hope some of you will follow, comment, and ask questions.  Now, I must begin to pack as I will be moving partially by China Post since there is no way I can pack everything I have accumulated and carry with me on the train.  For those of you on my side of the world, have a great Monday. Good night, and pleasant dreams to those of you on the other side.”

Although the job turned out to be slightly different than I originally thought, it was a wonderful experience.  I ended up teaching Kindergarten a few days a week for a few hours per day and did some tutoring in my home.

I left China in July of 2019 and did a bit of traveling in Vietnam and had an extended stay in Bali.  I  moved to Poland in February of 2020 and started teaching Business English.  I lived in Poland throughout the pandemic.  I have had many opportunities to travel around Europe adding several new countries to my list.  I have spent 3 summers (most likely a 4^th this year) working at a youth language camp on the Black Sea in Bulgaria and have added a new continent (Africa) and 3 African countries (Egypt, Morocco, and Tanzania) to my travels.  No longer in the Middle Kingdom, my blog name needed updating and it is currently; Down the Rabbit Hole…My Adventures in the Middle Kingdom and Beyond.

I plan to leave Poland at the end of this year and embark on an extended period of travel.  Will Down the Rabbit Hole get a new name?  Only time will tell.

“The little girl could not sleep because her thoughts were way too deep                     her mind had gone out for a stroll and fallen down a rabbit hole.”                               The End

Author Unknown.

Not sure how it got to be that time of year where I stare at a blank screen and rewind the past year.  I’m not one who makes New Year’s Resolutions, and there is a saying about never looking back because you aren’t going that way.  Never one for following convention, I love to reflect on the passing year.  Am I looking back to see what I’ve learned?  Oh, hell, no.  Looking back makes me happy…occasionally sad, maybe even angry, and sure, I’ve probably learned a few things along the way (you know all that “life-long” learner stuff), but there’s nothing wrong with glancing in the rearview mirror.  I don’t want to forget all those beautiful moments, people, and places that are behind me.  As selfish as this may sound, I write my stories for me.  It brings me joy and maybe, just maybe down the road an outline for a book.  The fact that you choose to join me on my journey and listen to my stories, well, the proverbial “icing on the cake”.  Since the page is no longer blank…a look back!

I rolled into January with my 2 flatmates/partners in crime from Azerbaijan…Tarlan and Zaka.  I say partners in crime because after attending a birthday party, we hopped on a bus and headed to Warsaw Old Town, our arms laden with bottle rockets, sparklers, firecrackers, and whatnot.  Side note: I’m fairly certain these are not exactly legal in the city center. Although, I have heard that it’s “okay” on New Year’s Eve, haha.   Thankfully, we weren’t the only hooligans on the streets.  It might not have been the best idea to stop and knock back a shot of whiskey from a street vendor or duck into Pijana Wisnia for some hot cherry liquor, but we did.  We shot off our arsenal, rang in the new year, and eventually headed home.  Welcome to 2023!

In January, I enjoy celebrating The Feast of the Epiphany, or Three Kings Day, or Little Christmas as my mom called it.  January 6^th is a big deal in Poland.  It is a bank holiday so most everything is closed, and people don’t work.  Three Kings Day is celebrated with colorful and grand processions in most major cities in Poland.  The parade honors the three wise men – Kaspar, Melchior, and Balthazar…complete with the kings riding on live camels.  In Warsaw, the annual holiday procession usually begins at noon with the Angelus prayer near Sigismund’s Column on Plac Zamkowy, before winding its way through the Old Town to the live nativity scene on Plac Piłsudskiego.  It is quite enjoyable to walk with the processions, people (adults and kids alike) donning crowns and singing Christmas carols as they walk.

The rest of January and all of February were pretty quiet.  I celebrated Tłusty Czwartek (Fat Thursday) on February 16^th by buying pączki, rose filled of course.  Although this year I didn’t spend 3 hours waiting in line in the rain.  I went to a different shop, and I went a day early.

I have always had an interest in King Tut and even more after traveling to see the pyramids in Giza in 2022.  When I saw Tutankhamun: His Tomb and His Treasures, an exhibition touring around the globe was in Warsaw, it was a must-visit for me.

March also found me at Jeff’s American Restaurant-Home of Happy People sharing typical American fare and a lovely evening with some of my co-workers from Eklektika (the language school I work for).  An evening that turned into 4 am when I decided to hit Nowy Swiat (New World Street) and party it up with a co-worker from South Africa but living in Krakow.  This is where I discovered wściekły pies shots.  Wściekły pies translates to mad dog and is made by pouring chilled raspberry syrup into a shot glass (the official recipe says ½ of the shot glass, but I prefer ¼ haha), topped with chilled vodka and then 3 or 4 drops of Tabasco.  I still can’t pronounce wściekły pies so for me they are whiskey pies.

Near my flat is Fabryka Norblina.  It is the site of a silver-plating factory in which 10 historic buildings have been restored/renovated into offices, shops, restaurants, cafes, Food Town, an eco-bazaar, a boutique cinema, and an open-air museum commemorating the history of one of the largest industrial enterprises of the former Kingdom of Poland!  Being a fan of Monet and after seeing the Van Gogh Immersive twice, I noticed an ad for Art Box.  Art Box is a multifunctional space for immersive experiences, where unique multisensory exhibitions, performances, concerts, and events are created at the intersection of art, science, digital technology, and entertainment. Fabryka Norblina is a five-minute walk from my flat, so,  I was quickly online buying a ticket when I saw Immersive Monet and the Impressionists being advertised.

The artistic experience consisted of almost one and a half million video frames and over 3,000 images featuring artists such as Claude Monet, August Renoir, Edgar Degas, Mary Cassatt, Paul Cezanne, Eduard Manet, and Eugene Boudin.  I know I spent at least 2 hours on the experience.

April arrived with the young’uns I live/hang with convincing me to go for a late-night billiards session.  I didn’t do bad considering I haven’t shot pool in a long time.

Easter found me in Budapest, Hungary which ticked a new country.  I knew little about Budapest other than it is the capital city.  I also realized I could not name one other city in Hungary.  Even after googling cities in Hungary, I still didn’t know any.  I arrived in Budapest with little to no plan other than meeting up with friends who would be embarking on a Viking River Cruise from there.

I did have my sight set on the Ruin Bars, which ended up being around the corner from my Airbnb.  Ruin Bars popped up in Budapest around 2001.  They are found in once-abandoned, derelict buildings and unused outdoor spaces.  They have been transformed into friendly, chaotic, lively, colorful bars laden with graffiti and eclectic décor.

Near Budapest’s parliament is a memorial called Cipők a Duna-parton or Shoes on the Danube Bank.  It is a memorial erected on 16 April 2005.  Conceived by film director Can Togay, he created it on the east bank of the Danube River with sculptor Gyula Pauer to honor the Jews who were massacred by fascist Hungarian militia belonging to the Arrow Cross Party in Budapest during the Second World War.  They were ordered to take off their shoes (shoes were valuable and could be stolen and resold by the militia after the massacre) and were shot at the edge of the water so that their bodies fell into the river and were carried away.

Another highlight was Easter Lunch at the New York Café.  Now Instagram famous it is dubbed as the most beautiful café in the world.  I ended my trip to Budapest enjoying dinner with the brother and sister-in-law of friends from the States who live in Budapest.  That’s all I’m going to say about Budapest but if you are interested in more you can read about it at this link in my blog https://wendyjmarvin.com/2023/04/23/reflections-on-friends-goodbyes-and-budapest/.  It is a fascinating city.

The last day of April and the 1^st of May should probably have their own blog post, but I will try to summarize it here, haha.  There once was a box…it left Warren, Ohio in December of 2021 and was from my friend Teri.  After months of tracking, it was supposedly somewhere in Poland, but no one could tell me where or when I might get it.  End of June 2022 I left for Bulgaria and wouldn’t return to Warsaw until late September.  Sometime in August 2022, I received a message that I had a package (it was THE BOX) to pick up at the post office.  Not being in Poland, I asked my friend Valeria to see if they would let her pick it up (they wouldn’t) or if they could hold it until I returned (they couldn’t).  The box would be shipped back to the US of A. Fast forward to sometime in January 2023.  The box arrived back to Teri.  She was going to re-send it, but FedEx wanted around $400.

Not long after that, I received a message from a classmate of Teri’s husband, Michael.   Anne would be coming to Poland to research her ancestry and asked if there was anything she could bring me.  Anne came to Warsaw, we planned to meet on April 30th for lunch.  Teri had sent her the contents of THE BOX (not all as it would have been too much stuff).  We met, she handed off the merchandise and we went for a lovely al fresco lunch in Plac Konesera in the Praga district.  After lunch, we headed to Old Town to sit, and we watched people while sipping a beverage.  Then we decided to go back to Praga and visit the Vodka Museum.  Well, we had just gotten off the tram and we were walking toward the Museum, and I dropped the “F” bomb.  I left the package sitting next to the outside table at the restaurant in Old Town.  Anne asked if I wanted to go back.  I said no, this is Poland, someone will turn it in, and I will get it on my way home.  I’ll call from the museum.  No one answered the phone, but I was able to send a message through Google and I got a reply.  They said, “We have your package.”  I told them I would be there later to get it.  Well, we left the vodka museum and decided on a nightcap.  The little Polish-French bartender was 20 and kept us entertained until we finally decided to call it a night.  I said goodbye to Anne and headed to the tram stop, not realizing it was so late the tram I needed had stopped running.  No problem, I called an Uber who dropped me as close to Old Town as possible as there is no vehicle traffic on the weekends.  Long story not short, a wee bit tipsy and sometime nearing midnight in Warsaw I picked up the package.  Another Uber to get me home with my treasures.  I had asked Teri for a (note the word “a” meaning one) packet of ranch dressing mix (no one knows what ranch is here) she of course sent me 12.  She also sent a Christmas shirt and “Home” hoodie from Sunrise Inn of Warren, an MTS painting company shirt from Michael and Anne tossed in a bag of candy.  That my friends is the saga of the box from 2021.

May had started exciting with the delivery of “THE BOX”.  Then, I received a notification informing me that I had been selected for the 2023 class of the Warren City Schools Foundation Distinguished Alumni Hall of Fame.  My brother had been inducted a few years earlier, so joining him was an honor.  Of course, living in Poland, it wasn’t convenient for me to attend the induction ceremony and my brother would not be in Warren at the time to accept my award.  Thankfully, my dear friend, Teri, attended and accepted it on my behalf.

I rounded out May with a trip to the shooting gallery with friends.  I shot a sports pistol, a Glock 17 (my least favorite), a Colt 1911 pistol, an AK-47 Kalashnikov machine gun (my favorite), a shotgun, and a Glaubeyrt sub-machine gun.

It was my first time shooting most of these guns, but I have to say I liked shooting the AK-47. The shooting range, PM Shooter, was well run and our instructor was extremely patient and knowledgeable.  It was also very crowded (it was a weekend) and I was surprised by the interest in shooting in Poland.  More trips to the range in the future.  After shooting, what could be better than heading out for pizza?

In May, I also got to meet one of my students face-to-face (my classes are online).  He knew I had a love of Vietnam, especially Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City.  We also had talked about the time I shot a jeep-mounted machine gun when visiting the Cu Chi Tunnels which are about an hour and a half outside of Saigon.  Anyway, he returned from a tour of the country and told me he had something for me.  It was a Starbucks mug (he knew I collected them) from HCMC.  It was great meeting him, receiving the mug, and most of all seeing his bright red Camaro.

Halfway through the year, it was time to start thinking about getting ready for summer on the Black Sea in Bulgaria at Zenira Camp.  I like to travel a bit after Camp ends but this year I had no set plan.  Other than if I went somewhere, I needed to be back in Warsaw before Teri arrived on September 6^th. I arrived in Kiten, Bulgaria on June 22^nd, 4 days before the kids.  Time to relax, regroup, and plan before we hit the ground running.   Even though I have had my share of time off, “days” at camp don’t really matter or even seem to exist.  I often don’t know if it is a Tuesday or a Saturday.  A single day can drag by and at the same time they all run together, and another week is starting.  In the evening, sitting having a cold beverage with my co-workers, maybe after a “tough” (tough as camp can get, LOL), we may have grumbled, “OMG, it’s only week 3, we have 5 more to go.”  Next thing you know, we are sharing a beverage and saying, “How is tomorrow the last day of camp?”

After 5 weeks of camp routine, the only plan I had was to go to Veliko Tarnovo to visit long-time friends when camp finished.  At some point, there had been a plan to meet my flatmates in Azerbaijan, but that wasn’t going to work out.  The flight to Azerbaijan would have been through Istanbul, Türkiye.  If that had worked out I was also planning to stay over a few days in Istanbul.  Sometime that first week of August I said to myself, “Even if you can’t go to Azerbaijan, why not Istanbul after camp?” and booked a ticket.  Camp ended on August 19^th.  I headed by train to Veliko Tarnovo on the 21^st, followed by a bus to Sofia on the 24^th and a shuttle to the airport for my flight to Istanbul.

I arrived in Istanbul with little knowledge of the city and no plan.  As I started researching Istanbul I had to ask myself why it wasn’t on my travel radar.  I also decided I needed to extend my stay so I could make a side trip somewhere in the country.  Did you know that Istanbul only became Istanbul in 1930?  Before that, it was known as Constantinople, named after Constantine the Great.  Not only that, but it is the world’s only transcontinental city.  The western side of the Bosphorus Strait is in Europe and when you cross to the other side you are on the Asian continent.  The morning after I arrived I set out to explore the area, Balat, in which I was staying and to have a traditional Turkish breakfast.

The breakfast at the Velvet Café did not disappoint.  I am not going to get into my escapades in Istanbul or my side trip to Göreme in Cappadocia (Instagram famous for hot air balloons), but you can read more about it here.  Since returning, I have read a great book by Elif Shafak called “10 Minutes and 38 Seconds in This Strange World”. Much of the book takes place in Istanbul and I wish I had read it before I went, so I’m just throwing it out there if anyone is interested.  The bottom line is I am glad I decided to go to Istanbul and take a side trip to Göreme.  Even extending my trip by 3 days, I was back in Warsaw with time to rest before a whirlwind visit with my friend Teri.

Since she was going to be in Dublin for a wedding and I was not sure how much longer I would be in Warsaw, we decided it was the perfect opportunity for me to show her the city I currently call home.  I snagged her from the airport on Wednesday around noonish and didn’t give her time to breathe.  We dropped her stuff off at the Airbnb which happened to be in the building next to mine and headed to Fabryka Norblina, which I mentioned earlier, for lunch.  Then it was off across the river to the Praga District and Koneser Bar ¾ at the Vodka Museum for some cocktails, then back to Old Town for Dinner.  I needed tartare in my life.  A stroll through Old Town, a walk along the Royal Route a stop at Pijana Wisnia for cherry liquor before heading to Nowy Swiat and “whiskey pies”, haha.  Remember those shots?  Wow, all that just since noon.  The rest of her trip was definitely a whirlwind of eating, drinking, and meeting my friends/tribe.  It was over in a flash, and she was heading to the airport on Sunday.

September in Warsaw for me means the start of a new school year.  Thankfully most of my classes didn’t start until October because 2 weeks after Teri left, I was heading to Paris to meet up with my friend Cathy.  We were going to be on a 3-week adventure starting in Paris, France, then on to Casablanca, Essaouira, and Marrakech, Morocco, then back to Paris and on to Krakow, Gdansk, and Warsaw Poland.  I’m just going to touch on a few highlights because this is already turning into a small novel.  I started off thinking I had a relatively calm 2023 until I started writing, so if you’re still with me congratulations because I must keep taking breaks from writing so I wouldn’t blame you if you had moved on…September 20^th off to the city of my heart…Paris!

Paris is always a good idea…it was a rainy morning when I left Warsaw.  Paris, of course, is beautiful no matter the weather, but happily, it was partly cloudy and mid-70s Fahrenheit.  Cathy was already at our Airbnb when I arrived and we didn’t have much time because we were meeting other friends from Warren, Ohio at Harry’s New York Bar…a must-visit when in Paris.  That took up most of the afternoon and after a short rest we were off to meet them on the steps of Sacre Coeur for sunset with wine and pizza from “home”, the Sunrise Inn of Warren.

A few other highlights of the week were a visit to the Ice Kube Bar, and the Chagall Immersive Experience at Atelier des Lumières followed by lunch at Balls.  We took a day trip to Auvers sur Oise, the place where Vincent Van Gogh spent the last 70 days of his life producing 74 paintings and 30 drawings before dying on 29 July 1890.  No visit to Auvers is complete without a visit to the Absinthe Museum and a hike to the cemetery where Vincent and his brother Theo are buried.  Back to Paris with no itinerary except wandering and café hopping before heading to Morocco.

As busy as Paris is, landing in Marrakech is a 180° labyrinth of colorful, chaotic activity.  Riads are traditional Moroccan houses or palaces with an indoor garden and courtyard.  They are located within the old city “Medina” walls, and many are used as guesthouses.  We located ours, got settled in, and headed out to explore the medina.  That evening we enjoyed a lovely tajine meal on our rooftop.  The next day, I had a mission.  The last time I was in Marrakech was during the pandemic times and the Café Clock was closed.  Why did I want to visit Café Clock?  Simple…I wanted to eat a camel burger.  It was necessary to take a tuk-tuk to the restaurant, which is an experience in itself.  Mission accomplished…yummy camel burger consumed…our tuk-tuk driver retrieved us and dropped us back in the center of the medina.

The next day we were off to Casablanca.  The first destination was Rick’s Café, inspired by the 1942 film “Casablanca”, where I enjoyed a classic gin martini.

Casablanca sits on the North Atlantic in Northwest Africa and is the largest city in Morocco.  After leaving Rick’s Café we walked along the sea to the Hassan II Mosque.  It is the largest functioning mosque in Africa and is one of the largest in the world.  Its minaret is the world’s tallest minaret at 210 meters (689 ft).  A maximum of 105,000 worshippers can gather for prayer: 25,000 inside the mosque hall and another 80,000 on the mosque’s outside ground.  Then it was back to Marrakech because we had a day trip to Essaouira planned.

Located about 200 km west of Marrakech is the seaside town of Essaouira.  We walked around the port and then chose lobster, prawns, and fish to be grilled for lunch.  Essaouira, known until the 1960s as Mogador, is a port city in the western Moroccan region of Marrakesh-Safi, on the Atlantic coast.  In the Berber language, which is spoken by a sizeable proportion of the city’s inhabitants, it is called Taṣṣort, meaning “the small fortress”.  Archaeological research shows that Essaouira has been occupied since prehistoric times.  It was a lovely day on the North Atlantic.

We spent the last couple of days in Marrakech wandering around the medina before heading back to Paris on the first of October.

Back in Paris for a few days just enjoying the city.  We did get tickets for the opening of a special Van Gogh Exhibit at the Musee d’Orsay.  The exhibition was the devoted to the works produced by Vincent Van Gogh during the last two months of his life, in Auvers-sur-Oise.  From Paris, we made our way to Warsaw, but first, a stop in Krakow and a visit to Auschwitz followed by a late train to Warsaw.

My semester had begun so I was also working. I managed to show Cathy a good bit of Warsaw and we even took a weekend day trip to Gdansk before she headed back to the States.

For me, the rest of October was mainly teaching my classes.  November 1^st is an important holiday in Poland, All Saints Day (Wszystkich Swietych).  On the 1st of November, millions of Poles come to cemeteries to light special candles, leave flowers, and pray for the dead.  I love visiting cemeteries but on the evening of All Saints Day, it is a sight to behold.  I belong to a Facebook group for female travelers.

One of the women in this group reached out to me because she would be in Warsaw on this day.  We met and wandered the cemetery together and then went for a glass of wine followed by dinner at a favorite restaurant near the cemetery, Maghreb, which just happens to have Moroccan cuisine.

I have another friend, Lenore… Yeah, I have a couple of friends.  Well, she was guiding a tour around Italy at the beginning of November.  One of the beauties of living in Warsaw is the ease and cost of flights in and around Europe.  I can be anywhere in 3 hours or less.  I knew when she was going to be in Rome.  I booked a last-minute ticket to the Eternal City.  I didn’t tell her I was coming because I had their itinerary and figured I would just pop in and surprise her.  Great idea in theory but little did I know the itinerary had been adjusted since the one I had.  Just off of Piazza Navona is a bar called La Botticella opened in 1991 by Giovanni Poggi.  It has since taken on a Pittsburgh Steelers theme, even selling Italian “terrible towels”.  Lenore being from the Pittsburgh area, was supposed to bring the group to this bar Wednesday night….NOT!  This is the itinerary change.  For the record, I am not a Pittsburgh fan, but I love Lenore so decided this was the place to surprise her.  Sitting at the bar chatting with Giovanni, sipping a martini, an hour goes by, and then 2.  Hmmm, maybe I better give Dave (her hubby) a call.  Somehow, my timing was perfect, and he had gotten separated from her so she still wouldn’t know I was in Rome.  They were on an evening tour of the Colosseum and then were heading back to their hotel.  Damn, what now?  Dave said he would convince her to go for a nightcap and would message me when they were on the way and where.  Well, with Dave’s help, I later found out he can’t keep secrets but kept this one (only from her as he told some others), I walked up to Lenore as she got off the bus and she was surprised!!!  Needless to say, one nightcap turned into several, and we made plans to meet up the next day for lunch and then back to the Steelers Bar before I had to fly back to Warsaw.  It was a 36-hour whirlwind and worth every minute.

The year was quickly coming to a close.  I prepared Thanksgiving dinner for a myriad of friends from Poland,  Azerbaijan, Jordan, and Ukraine.  December in Warsaw is beautiful.  The city is decorated to the nines.  I love going to Old Town for some mulled wine and a stroll to view the lights and decorations.  My former flatmates, Anu and Anil from Nepal, welcomed a new baby boy before year-end.  I celebrated Christmas with my current flatmates and friends, and we planned New Year’s Eve.  New Year’s Eve picks up where this blog started, with my partners in crime Tarlan and Zaka.  We started with a video call to Tarlan’s family in Azerbaijan.  We had a couple of shots with them and soon our party of three had grown to ten.

New flatmate Zoia from Italy via Ukraine and her mom, who was visiting, had spent much of the day preparing typical Ukrainian salads for the New Year.  More friends came over and we had some cocktails before hitting the streets with bottles of bubbly to ring in the New Year!  At midnight on the streets of Old Town with a group of 20-somethings, I welcomed 2024.

I am not sure what 2024 has in store for me.  As much as I love my life in Poland, it is easy to get too comfortable.  Although I don’t have a solid plan, it is likely 2024 will be my last in Poland.  Before you ask, no, I don’t plan to return to the USA, at least not right away.  I want to experience places that aren’t Paris, Rome, London, or Warsaw.  I want to drink Georgian wine in Georgia and visit the place Tarlan and Zaka call home Azerbaijan.  I want to see those countries you can’t pronounce, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan.  I want to visit friends in South Korea, China, Bali and more.  I want to do a WorkAway in India, visit Jordan, see my friend Omar’s home country, and visit Albania before it becomes too touristic.  I want to do it all without a plan other than knowing all the visa requirements for countries.  Who knows how much I can accomplish, and a lot can change in a year, but I leave you with a quote, author unknown, I keep in a folder called Notes to Self on my phone:  “There will be a few times in your life when all your instincts will tell you to do something, something that defies logic, upsets your plans, and may seem crazy to others.  When that happens, you do it.  Listen to your instincts and ignore everything else.  Ignore logic, ignore the odds, ignore the complications, and just go for it.”

It’s 2024…make the best of it!  Life is short and the world is wide.

In the 1960s, Robert Ornstein, through a series of experiments, verified that the speed of time seems to be largely determined by how much information our minds absorb and process — the more information there is, the slower time goes. So how does this apply to us as adults? Does time seem to pass more quickly? Is there less newness in our lives? Are we slowly using up our quota of potential new experiences or as we become older, are the experiences just becoming more familiar to us?

I’m not going to try to wrap my head around the psychology of it all, but as I sit here at Zenira Camp counting down the last days of 8 weeks at camp, I feel like I just arrived and at the same time it feels like a lifetime. As I have discussed with my co-workers, time moves differently at summer camp. I’ve also realized, it is not just at summer camp. This month it has been 9 years since I packed up my life and moved abroad. How is that possible? It seems like yesterday but when I look back on all that I have experienced, I wonder how I have done so much in 9 years, more than most people in a lifetime. Maybe I have lived a lifetime at Zenira Camp.

Let’s start with “camp time”. Even though I have had my share of time off, “days” at camp don’t really matter or even seem to exist. I often don’t know if it is a Tuesday or a Saturday. A single day can drag by and at the same time they all run together, and another week is starting. It may seem like there is a lot of routine during a summer camp. In theory, there is, but shit happens. The kids go to the beach after breakfast. That’s great…until it is pouring rain. This means that as a teacher, English lessons (Zenira is an English Language and Sports Camp) are moved to beach time…so much for planning time. Excursions are usually on Wednesday afternoon…until the bus company reschedules, and the excursion gets changed to Thursday. So now, an afternoon off is now English lessons, and the afternoon off is bumped back a day. Or the temperature on a sports afternoon decides to jump to 104°F/40°C so sports get changed to clubs so the kids can be in air conditioning. I have been at camp for just over 6 weeks now and we haven’t had one “normal” week as the schedule reads. Always some anomaly changing the schedule…so much for routine. It’s no wonder I occasionally had no idea what day it was let alone how much time has gone by. Summer camp has its own clock. Somedays it runs fast while others it runs slow.

Is time an illusion….I’m in the here and now in Kiten Bulgaria. Soon, I will be visiting Velika Tarnova, Bulgaria and my past will coincide with my present when I meet up with friends I met 20 years ago in the USA. Yet at the same time I am planning a visit to Turkey, country number 42 or 43 (honestly, I have lost track) in a few weeks, and thinking about the future visit of my friend Teri to Warsaw and further into the near future a trip to Paris, Morocco, and Poland with Cathy. No wonder time is fleeting, I am living the past the present, and the future simultaneously…time IS an illusion.

What’s all this have to do with anything? I guess as I sit here on my 61^st birthday, time is on my mind. My mother never reached this age, and my father had no idea when he was 61 that he had a mere 2 years left on this rotating sphere of opportunities. For me, they are forever young. I just don’t understand how 23 and 26 years have passed since they left this amazing life. I know I will never have time to do everything I want to do, see, and experience. So I want to make the most out of the time I do have. In the words of Steven Taylor, “Time doesn’t necessarily have to speed up as we get older though. To a certain extent, it depends on how we live our lives, and how we relate to our experience.” I plan to live my life to the fullest and be mindful of my experiences.

I mentioned above that I can’t believe I have lived abroad for 9 years. Even though I have mostly had a home base, I have lived in 4 different countries during this time. Each one has a very different lifestyle. I traveled quite a bit before moving to Paris, traveling to a place is very different than living in a new culture and country. It was here that I realized that your ordinary can be someone else’s extraordinary. Even though it is mostly “Western”, it is a far cry from life in the small town of Warren, Ohio. After living nearly 6 months in Paris, I returned to Warren, Ohio already knowing I wanted to follow my wanderlust and lead a nomadic life in new and radically different places. I had traveled to Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam, prior to living abroad and the Far East was pulling me. I signed up for a 6-month stint in China. That 6 months quickly came to an end, and I knew life in China was not over, it had just begun. But…in what seemed a blink of an eye, that 6 months turned into 4 years.

I feel like I lived a lifetime in those 4 years. I visited so much of China; living in 4 different cities/towns, saw 3 different parts of the Great Wall, Xi’an, and the Terracotta Army, Inner Mongolia where I was the only guest of a nomadic settlement. I rode a camel in the Gobi Desert and made a half dozen trips to Hong Kong…not to mention Beijing, Shanghai, Guilin, Guangzhou, and a few Ancient Towns. I spent 8 days in Tibet and even though it is considered part of China, it felt like another world…the land that time forgot. In Tibet, I camped at Mount Everest Base Camp. Living in China made it easy to visit South Korea, where I am sure I went 6+ times. From China, I also visited Moscow, Tokyo, Thailand, Nepal, Vietnam, and Cambodia, and made my first visit to Bali. I also made several trips to Paris via Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Qatar. Sometimes it doesn’t seem possible that after China, I lived nearly 6 months in Bali and am coming up on 4 years in Poland. In the past two years, I have added Egypt, Morocco, Tanzania, and Hungary to my list with Turkey in the near future.

Spending the summer with these kids at camp, remembering when I was one of those kids makes me realize, time is my most precious commodity. Not that I need to race around and always be doing something, because downtime is important too…you know…balance. I could put all kinds of quotes about time here, but what I want to say after all of this is…find the time to do what makes you happy, what makes your soul feel alive, because no matter how many times we think we will have the time to do those things, the planets never quite align for that perfect moment…do it now! I think the popular soap opera of my childhood said it best….”Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives.”

Peace Out!