A wee bottle sealed with brown paper lightly waxed takes up 7/8 of an inch of space on my windowsill. Together the glass and amber-colored contents weigh one ounce. Sunshine warms and melts it.
Amber is fossilized resin, or tree sap, the earth sat on for millions of years. Trapped bugs and nature's trash give it extra value. If you were by the Baltic Sea at ebb-tide, you might find chunks of amber washed up. Lithuaniams call it Lithuanian gold.
Empress Catherine's palace in St. Petersburg, Russia, features the "amber room." It is worth seeing: view it online. My amber-colored substance isn't likely to decorate anything more than a shelf.
Shopping at the open air market in Aswan, Egypt, my sister and I searched out an apothecary. The man behind the counter stepped out to assess her badly swollen feet. He gasped, shook his head and muttered to our guide in Egyptian. We asked for a remedy. Wearing a grave expression, he produced this tiny prepackaged bottle and said, "Rub it on her feet every day." Worried about his gloom and doom expression, we thanked him, paid in piastres and walked away. Being the ever curious fool that I am, I went back and asked what it was. "Liquified crocodile fat."
2008 Red Convertible Travel Series
Showing posts with label Russia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Russia. Show all posts
Friday, April 18, 2008
Saturday, March 17, 2007
The Connemara Theatre
HAPPY SAINT PATRICK'S DAY!
Our Galway, Ireland, B&B host was a carpenter. He had traveled to Russia with a group to teach them how to use certain power tools and equipment. First they had to show them how to put the wheel on the wheelbarrow. They were using the 'barrow' without the wheel.
Breakfast options included porridge, eggs, thick bacon, black or white pudding, toasted or fried bread and tea. We bid our farewell and headed for a drive through the Connemara, one of Ireland's thousands of years old peat bogs. At other Irish bogs we watched locals cut brick-sized pieces to heat their homes and cook stoves. No one was cutting here. In fact, we didn't see a soul or a native Connemara pony.
The road is a wavy ribbon. Left, drive left. It feels spongy, as if it has shock absorbers. The terrain is rough, rocky, mountainous, desolate, spooky, timeless, and was saturated in gloomy, damp weather: a blank canvas for life. Only the names change, but it was a field day for our imaginations. Who would come over the rise: medieval warriors, star wars characters, giants or "the little people"? An oasis. We needed and oasis of 'still' mineral water, rhubarb & ginger preserves , teacakes, Galtee cheese, and Cadbury's chocolate. In our imaginations we had it all.
Here at home I'd like to have a brick of peat to make a little fire to roast marshmallows, but if I have to wait for my landscaping to turn to peat, the marshmallows will be too hard. Peat is like sauerkraut, it isn't made overnight.
WE LOVE IRELAND!!!
copyright 2007 Red Convertible Travel Series
Our Galway, Ireland, B&B host was a carpenter. He had traveled to Russia with a group to teach them how to use certain power tools and equipment. First they had to show them how to put the wheel on the wheelbarrow. They were using the 'barrow' without the wheel.
Breakfast options included porridge, eggs, thick bacon, black or white pudding, toasted or fried bread and tea. We bid our farewell and headed for a drive through the Connemara, one of Ireland's thousands of years old peat bogs. At other Irish bogs we watched locals cut brick-sized pieces to heat their homes and cook stoves. No one was cutting here. In fact, we didn't see a soul or a native Connemara pony.
The road is a wavy ribbon. Left, drive left. It feels spongy, as if it has shock absorbers. The terrain is rough, rocky, mountainous, desolate, spooky, timeless, and was saturated in gloomy, damp weather: a blank canvas for life. Only the names change, but it was a field day for our imaginations. Who would come over the rise: medieval warriors, star wars characters, giants or "the little people"? An oasis. We needed and oasis of 'still' mineral water, rhubarb & ginger preserves , teacakes, Galtee cheese, and Cadbury's chocolate. In our imaginations we had it all.
Here at home I'd like to have a brick of peat to make a little fire to roast marshmallows, but if I have to wait for my landscaping to turn to peat, the marshmallows will be too hard. Peat is like sauerkraut, it isn't made overnight.
WE LOVE IRELAND!!!
copyright 2007 Red Convertible Travel Series
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