Biking to the River

Asya waving, Sasha building fire

One of my favorite things to do in Starobilsk is bicycle to the river with Sasha and Asya. Sasha leads the way, taking us on a different path each time. We settle at different spots along the Aydar, breath in the fresh air, admire the water, the falls, the bridges, the tree-lined river banks. Some people swim, some fish, and some of us sit quietly and meditate. It's beautiful and serene. Like the Aucilla River in northern Florida, where my brother was hiking when he died. I can see why Loren loved the rivers and the land, loved to hike.

I can also see why Victoria NGO organized a meeting to protest the government's intention, in league with a big oil company, to build a gas station on the river. It's like those of us in Florida, my brother chief among them, who have long opposed oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and predicted dire consequences, which are now coming true as we fearfully watch the path of a huge oil spill. Sticky black tar killing birds and fish and our beautiful beaches.

On one outing Sasha decided we would have tea. That meant gathering wood to start a fire and making a stand to hold the kettle to boil water. Sasha was remarkably efficient, had all the tools he needed, made a good fire and erected a wonderful kettle holder over it. Asya added ginger and, voila, we had tea in the warm glow of the setting sun, with Loren’s spirit over the land. Asya believes our bodies are merely vessels for our souls, which live on forever.

The river sparkled, so clear it was a mirror to the trees along its banks. The falls, small but melodious, entertained us. We basked in the golden rays of the day, united in the pleasure of the moment. I held Loren in my heart and prayed his soul was with us.

Kudos for American Friends!

Photos: Books we will buy, Iryna & Anton with Toledo postcards, Ira & Elena with The New American Bible, some members holding US flags, Stacie & Alina with cards from Wayne State.

The English Club spent almost two hours applauding American friends today. Some members had to leave, but their kudos were heartfelt. First they applauded the donations to the English-language book collection, sent through the Peace Corps Partnership Grant. "Tak, $900 for books! What a good and generous gift," Anton the poet said. The Starobilsk Weekly wrote an article about it, which I have yet to see. We still have another $400 to go, I told them. Iryna, the library director, indicated, with Anton's translating help, that she has faith in America! I almost broke into "The Star Spangled Banner," but resisted the temptation.

Then the English Club applauded the Bibliomist project, funded by the Bill Gates Foundation to bring computers and internet access to Ukraine libraries. We talked about why the library needs computers and why internet access is important. We drafted a support letter: We support Bibliomist. Don't forget Starobilsk Library. We may be Lugansk oblast, but we are part of the world! We talked about a free press (a hot issue with journalists here now), freedom of speech, and how internet access helps us get information.

That led into a discussion of July 4th and Independence Day: some American history (with help from PCV Stacie) and some Ukrainian history. It was a chance to talk about independence and freedom. There was some hesitation, but Anton led a good discussion, partly in Russian, partly in English.

Then I opened my bag and brought out a surprise: Letters that Prof. Laura Kline's Russian class at Wayne State University had sent in April (which I just received), with lots of Easter wishes to go around. I fanned them out like a deck of cards and we played a "pick a card" game. We took turns reading the notes. I suggested they write notes back and bring them to our next meeting. This is harder than it sounds, but I reassured them we can go over them together.

Finally, we opened another box of books from Toledo. Yeah Toledo! The library got more great books, including one called "The New American Bible" and another called "The Shack," which two young women browsed through and asked to take out, very excited to have the books. In addition, to everyone's delight, the box contained American flags and momentoes from Toledo, Ohio, including post cards and mouse pads, and even a Mary Kay cosmetic for me. Lots of interest in the latter, a personal touch that means so much!

This magic box turned into a fantastic Independence Day gift that tied together our myriad exercises and themes for the day. Sometimes I wonder how a session will all work out, but this one flowed seamlessly from one activity and topic to another.

And so, from the library and the English Club, thank you America, thank you Toledo, thank you Laura's Wayne State University Russian class, thank you friends who are making gifts. Please keep them coming and help us reach our $900 goal. And most of all, Happy 4th of July from Starobilsk!

The Terror Museum

A walk up Andrassy ut, the historic street in Budapest that is a World Heritage Site, past the Opera House to #60, brings you to the Terror Museum. This relatively new museum documents, with chilling authenticity, the brutal atrocities of the Nazis and their Hungarian henchmen from 1944 to the end of World War II, and the takeover of the country by Communist regimes starting with Stalin, going through resistance and the 1956 revolution, and up to 1990, when Hungary became an independent Republic.

60 Andrassy street was Nazi headquarters during the war, then of the Hungarian communists, Stalin loyalists, and the dreaded secret service after the war. It was the scene of violence, torture, spying, and executions of thousands of Hungarians. People went in and never came out. Few Hungarian families were unscathed by these regimes.

The young woman who manages the Lavender Circus hostel near the Opera House, Agnes, tells of cousins who were snatched in the night for no reason, tortured, then disappeared. Agnes says that sometimes the fear is still palpable. She is studying for a PhD in English Literature, focusing on Jane Austin, about as far away from politics as you can get. I understand this. Loren would have found it fascinating.

The somber music when you enter the museum, cellos and drums, some contemporary alternative songs beating in other rooms, set the stage and the mood, one of fear and trembling, as do the names and photographs on the outside and inside walls of the museum, a memorial to thousands of victims. It is sobering, like the photos that peered down at us in stunning disbelief at Auschwich, the sound of silence, telling us to remember.

Hungary suffered. There were spies and heroes, collaborators and resisters. It's a tangled web of totalitarianism and terror. The most moving aspects of the exhibits at the Terror Museum are the videos of interned survivors and brave resisters, a fabulous ongoing oral history project that features sensitive in-depth interviews of people telling their stories, spliced with live footage of trials, interrogations, Soviet speechmaking and propaganda, and actual horrors and treatment of prisoners.

It reveals a lot about present-day eastern European countries that they are remembering these atrocities of the past, documenting them for future generations, and opening up once-closed topics for public examination. Deniers still exist, as do ominous stereotypes, evidenced in a rise of neo-Nazis and the graffiti we saw on the white wall of a building as we toured the once-thriving, once-decimated, still extant Jewish community in Krakow (where Schindler’s List was filmed).

That's why these museums, memorials, restored buildings, documentary films, and tours led by informed guides are so important. They help counteract the persistence of prejudice and shed light on the dark side of our history. “Those who don’t know their history are doomed to repeat it,” the philosopher Santayana wrote. Will we learn our lessons from the past? Are we doomed to repeat history?

OuR FuNkY and faBulouS HosTeLs

No hotels for us senior travelers! Not only are hostels cheaper, they are more fun. So Jud and I take a shuttle from the Budapest airport to the Lavender Circus, 37 Muzeum krt, for the start of a long-planned holiday. The entrance is unprepossessing, to say the least: an overflowing mailbox to the left of a large worn door, a dozen or more apartment numbers on a keypad at the right. A handwritten note for the Hostel bell says "keep ringing until someone answers." I sit on the bell for a while. Then Jud takes a turn, as if it matters who's pushing the bell. In our best PCV mode, we look at each other, but say nothing. We're cool.

At last someone buzzes us in. We enter a long dark corridor with a high coved ceiling and start up a large sweeping marble staircase. We stop on the third floor, ahem, to admire the view. It's an old-style European apartment building that has seen better days, but its original beauty shines through. The wrought iron gates are elegant. The office is on the 4th floor, a long climb, but hey, it's good exercise! (photos above)

Any doubts vanish when we make it up to the top and enter the brightly painted office. It is full to the brim with vintage 1950s and 1960s memorabilia, posters, icons, vinyl records, historic photos of weddings and Hungarian bandits, knickknacks, and assorted items hanging from the walls and ceiling. Loren would have felt right at home here. We are greeted by the proprietors, Andrea, a sweet young man with black hair, who is from Italy, and his business partner Adam, from Budapest. They are both multi-lingual and multi-talented, and very helpful. Andrea's recommendations for restaurants turn out to be fantastic, too, making our Budapest visit a feast of the senses.

It's old-world elegance with a touch of contemporary class and funky flourishes. Our room is on the third floor, large and bright. The hostel is in a good location, on tram and metro lines, directly across from the massive classical Hungarian History Museum, and accessible to all the Buda and Pest landmarks, squares, and neighborhoods.

A second Lavender Circus has opened recently across from the magnificent Opera House. The hostel bears the umistakeable imprint of Andrea and Adam. We stay there for an extra night, close enough to the Opera House to hear artists practicing their instruments and singers their arias. How lovely is that? In either place, we are comfortable and well cared for. What more can we ask for?

Well, there's Greg and Tom's Hostel in Krakow, our next stop, in an equally interesting old-world building. It is rated among the top ten hostels worldwide. It is well-located, spotless, has an attentive staff, great and abundant food (needed for young travelers who pile it on), and good vodka with raspberry drinks on Saturday night. We also meet lots of interesting travelers. One night we had dinner with a California couple celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary, Bonnie and Steve. This hostel is fantastic.

But in magical Budapest, I recommend the Lavender Circus for its Italian-Hungarian charm. Young or old, it’s a wonderful adventure.

UPDATE ON BOOKS PROJECT

What good friends the Starobilsk Library has in America! We've received over $300 in gifts so far for our English-language books, including gifts in Loren's memory. That's one-third of our $900 goal! Thanks so much.

Only $600 to go by 15 September. That's the start of a new school year. It's the best time to buy new books and announce their availability to all the schools here and in surrounding small villages. I know lots of teachers and students who are waiting! The impact of your gift will radiate out like a pepple thrown in a clear pond!

Also, when you go to "http://www.peacecorps.gov/">and click on DONATE (you need to enter "Cary" and then "Ukraine"), you'll see a list in the left column. Click on FAQs for more information about giving, memorial gifts, how much of your gift goes to the project, and receipts for tax deductions.

I'll inform the English Club of our progress at our 27 June meeting, and send you another update then. With gratitude from Starobilsk, Fran

The Summer Solstice

How it looks, the changing seasons, the summer solstice, from Wikepedia


It’s the summer solstice today, 21 June, the longest day of the year in the Northern hemisphere, the earth tilted so that the Sun rises early and stays late, the first day of summer.


Loren would be celebrating this major planetary phenomenon for sure. Maybe he IS celebrating. Wherever people are gathered to pay homage to the sun, the earth, the healing powers of the goddess, Loren might be there. He may even be at Stonehenge, that spiritual place in England, built between 3000 BC and 1600 BC, a prehistoric sacred calendar and worship circle that he talked about every year at this time. Maybe his wish to visit there has come true.

He’d be there to celebrate the light and the bounty and goodness of our planet. He'd be performing sacred rituals, dancing at sunrise. He loved the earth as his mother, protected her, advocated on her behalf, hiked to his death with her. My brother was on a beautiful Florida trail by the Aucilla river when his soul departed to the heavens. So now he might be soaring over Stonehenge with the eagles, too, soaring free from earthly struggles wherever there is beauty and magic in the universe. It’s what I want to believe. The summer solstice and Loren together.

Happy Birthday, Michelle

It is after your birthday, but I have been thinking of you. First I was in Tallahassee and so glad you and Elissa made it down for Loren’s memorial gathering. Such a grinding trip for you guys, monster drinks notwithstanding, but it was so special, and comforting, just being together. Then I was traveling in Budapest and Krakow, both beautiful cities, but mourning my dear brother. Still, June 13 brought special memories. Always does!

We were in Madison. Elissa was 3 and 1/2 years old. A week before your due date, we packed a bag for the hospital and made sure Elissa had a babysitter for when we went to get her baby sister or brother. In those days we didn't know the gender until the baby was born. It was a big surprise. Also, dads were not allowed in the delivery room, so fathers had to sit tight in a waiting area, while moms were wheeled into a cold sterile-looking delivery room, where the nurses and doctors took over.

There had been some awful news before you were born.Awful world news. From Vietnam, from the American south. The death of Bobby Kennedy, then MLK Jr. Good lord that was a terrible year, 1968. Loren and I talked about it a lot. The best news was June 13, the day you were born.

I woke up feeling like I had the flu. Then about 1:00 or so the contractions started. It wasn't flu, it was you. We made it to the hospital and you were born about 4:00 pm. A short but tough labor and delivery. "Oh, what a beautiful head of hair, " one of the nurses said. Your shoulder got stuck, we struggled, and then out you came, crying like mad. "Well now, who asked me if I wanted to be here?"

Another girl, our Michelle. It was a Beatles' song, and my grandmother Luchetti's middle name, your nana's mom. I have a feeling there were lots of Michelles born that year! But to me you were "Michelle, ma belle."

You had a lot of ear-aches, sore throats and stomach upsets your first few years, but you were quick and curious, crawled and walked early. You let us know when you were miserable. You were an adorable child, thick hair, blue eyes, beautiful smile. Your legs were bowed and we tried orthopedic shoes to straighten them, but oh boy did you protest. Once on the ferry from Hyannis over to Nantucket a guy asked if you were from Texas, with those bowed legs. "Been riding a horse?" he asked, and laughed. Actually, I didn't think it was funny then, but now I do.

That didn't stop you from running around. You loved running free in Nantucket, building sand castles, running along the shore, climbing up and down the cliffs, swimming. You liked being on the boat with Brad and Jean, South shore picnics with Oggy and family, playing with cousins and friends.

Being back in Toledo was sometimes another thing. More challenges. One year you had surgery for an osteochondroma, a benign tumor on your arm near your shoulder. You came through with flying colors, and a big scar, a badge of honor. And you had your best friend Janna, your Farah Fawcett haircut, and your fun times with friends, at birthday parties and also with Nana and Grandpa. You were happy visiting them in Rochester, and you were happy when they came to Toledo. On one of their trips, Nana brought an Easter cake in the shape of a bunny! You were also glad when she lived down the street, on Robinwood. You played cards, baked, did projects. That's when she built your doll house, a tudor style you liked, and one for Elissa, Alison and Kaaren. Those were precious gifts.

Sure there were rough times. We all have them. But you toughed it out and proved to be a real Tiger. That's what grandpa Curro called you. It was like the Frank Sinatra song he loved, "I Did It My Way!" You became a mom and a nurse. You have three beautiful children, Alli, Joshua and Kyle. You make your home beautiful. You love color, flowers, gardening (when you have time); you put things together in unique and beautiful ways. You have your own style. You have lots of Nana's things, and you take care of them, love them, like you loved your nana. You say you have only happy memories of grandpa. I know he smiled at that one! You inherited their love of tradition. It's amazing how memories get sweeter and sweeter with age. Nana taught me that. And your uncle Loren. He had a special place in his heart for you. I see them all smiling down at you, being your angels, and joining me in wishing you a happy birth day every day of the year! Your ever-loving mom

An Enduring Gift to the Starobilsk Community

“This will be a tremendous help for our library. Our budget has been cut back so much we can barely buy any new books. We thank our American friends.” Iryna Andreenova, director, Starobilsk Library

"The books we got from Toledo are already making me a better teacher. The children are reading more and learning more. I can’t believe we have books in English, and maybe will get more." Tonya, English teacher, Koorychevka school



Dear friends and loved ones,
I am back in Starobilsk, after being in Tallahassee for my beloved brother's memorial service, one of the saddest times in my life, then a 10-day trip to Budapest and Krakow, two beautiful cities that Loren would have loved, and knew from books. Loren loved books.

And so I share this news in his memory: The U.S. Peace Corps has accepted our proposal to seek funds for the new English-language collection at the Starobilsk library.

This means you can now make a tax-deductible gift directly to the Peace Corps specifically for the Starobilsk library project. Loren was enthusiastic about this project. Some of you might like to make a gift in his memory. I am getting stickers to put in front of the books that the library purchases with these gifts.

The goal is to raise $900.00. The deadline is 15 September, a three-months period. To donate go to http://www.peacecorps.gov/, click on donate and you’ll be taken to the “Invest in our World” page.

As soon as that goal is reached (and not before), the Library will receive the funds to buy 200-300 English books. The average cost will be $4 per book. The books are part of special English-language series designed by MacMillan, Penquin, Oxford and other publishers for beginner, intermediate and advanced learners. These are excellent series, highly regarded, approved by teachers, and come with guides, CDs, and other helpful aides. The Library will also purchase much-needed dictionaries, updated grammar guides, and other reference books.

These wonderful series are sold in book stores in larger towns and cities, like Lugansk and Kiev, but not here in Starobilsk. When I discovered these bookstores in Kiev, I wanted to buy several books right then and there. My Peace Corps friends had to drag me away. “Get that Partnership Grant in, Fran,” Ilse and Olga advised.

To keep you fully informed, here is a brief summary of the grant:
This project aims to help the Starobilsk Public Library grow its first collection of English language books, started with 3 boxes of books from friends in Toledo, Ohio. This collection will address the growing interest in learning English among students in the schools and adults in the community.

Starobilsk is a village of 18,000 in far-eastern Lugansk Oblast, near the Russian border. It is a Russian-speaking community of close families, hard workers, extraordinary talent, and language speciality schools with devoted teachers of English. Like much of Ukraine at this time, however, it is suffering economically. The need for jobs and new opportunities is urgent. The growing interest in English attests to the hope for a brighter future.

The need also grows out of the creation in September 2009 of the first English Club at the Library. It’s been a great success, opened new avenues of learning, and increased the library’s outreach. Teachers of English have expressed a need for these books as well, to expand resources for their students.

The English language collection will be permanent and sustainable. It will be an enduring resource for the community. Books are a learner’s best friend, a source of inspiration, a way to learn about life and the world, to imagine and achieve dreams, and to become educated citizens and workers for the future. This is Ukraine’s best hope.

So go to the Peace Corps site online or email pcpp@peacecorps.gov and click on“Office of Private Sector Initiatives Donation Form.” You might hear from them as well. I’ll keep you posted on the progress of the project. Thanks for your interest and support in so many ways. Loren is cheering us on. Fran

Auschwitz-Birkenau: Beyond Twisted

"Time has no power to erase these memories."  A filmmaker at liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1945

A large encased exhibit is filled with human hair, 700 tons of it discovered after the camp was liberated in 1945. The hair of thousands of victims, mostly women, mostly infested with Zyklon B and other lethal poisons. The hair of stunned prisoners brought like cattle to Auschwitz, the Nazi concentration camp outside of Krakow, Poland.

Another exhibit houses thousands of pairs of eye glasses, ordinary glasses that belonged to human beings blinded by evil, then murdered. Glasses piled up like the victims of the gas chambers here, 400 to 500 to 1000 or more at a time.

Another large window exhibit contains a mountain of suitcases, the last remnants of the precious possessions of Jewish victims who couldn't begin to imagine the horrors awaiting them. The suitcases bear the names of their owners. I feel compelled to say the  names to myself, like a prayer list, but the tour Jud and I are on moves ahead and I have to push on; I cannot get them all. I feel guilty. One suitcase is marked simply "M. Frank." Did this suitcase, perhaps, belong to a relative of the young Anne Frank? Did the suitcase of "I. Meyer" belong to a father and mother separated from their young children, sent to the right or to the left, never to be seen again?

Room 6 in Block 6 contains the sad and forlorn remains of these traumatized children: an exhibit of their shoes, so small and worn out; of their clothes, little cotton dresses and hand-knit caps and sweaters; a few books, some toys, a once-lovely doll whose head is severed from its body, its face smashed in. Or is that a real child?

We walk through the gas chambers. We see the extant evidence of mass murder. We see, but we do not comprehend. An exhibit contains thousands of empty Zyklon B containers, testimony to its extensive use and effectiveness in killing hundreds and thousands of innocent and captured people at a time. Terrified people in the throes of evil, stripped naked, packed like sardines in a small room, the door closed firmly, the gas turned on, hundreds dead within 15-20 minutes. The makers of the gas made a killing, too. Better than guns. So cost-effective. So profitable.  I feel sick to my stomach.

Then there are the crematoria at Auschwitz-Birkenau, which worked round the clock, scattering human ashes like snow over the ground of the camp and beyond, into Krakow itself.   Oscar Schindler, in one scene in the Stephen Spielberg movie, filmed mostly in Krakow, wipes ashes off a car in disbelief and a growing moral outrage that was in short-supply at the time, anywhere.

The tour seems endless. Just when you think you have seen it all, our knowledgeable guide leads us to other horrors. Here is the killing wall where victims were set up like props and shot outright, there the portable gallows where people were hung in front of an audience of family, friends, and emasciated prisoners in various stages of traumatic shock. The daily life of Jews subject to random shootings, starvation, torture, and one inhuman act after another.

We walk on in a daze. Here, our guide says, pointing to blocks 14 and 15, are the medical buildings, places that prisoners tried to avoid at all costs, where medical experimentation took place on human subjects, where women were steralized, where the sick, diseased, and over-worked were sent to die by lethal injection.

And that small square by a kitchen? That's where the Jewish orchestra played marches to muster prisoners to the yard so that they could be counted accurately by the SS, then sent to back-breaking work to die. The musicians played their instruments, but had no voice; they were used to play death marches for their fellow prisoners. I cannot grasp this reality, this torment. It seems so demonic, pitting victims against victims struggling to survive this nightmare in any way they could.

"The devouring of human life," the brochure says. But language seems inadequate. First Poles, some 728 "political prisoners," when Auschwitz was established in 1940, then Jews, along with gypsies and others, who met a fate unimaginable, on a scale beyond belief. Over 1.5 million murdered. Hitler's "Final Solution to the Jewish Question." The pre-meditated, meticulously planned annihilation of human beings.

Primo Levi, an Auschwitz-Birkenau survivor, calls it "the gray zone," a realm beyond good and evil, beyond morality, beyond any language we know. How anyone survived is a miracle.

"The Holocaust left us with a basic vacuum in terms of human meaning," says a priest-scholar, "which, if it remains unfilled, can open the door to other ideologies equally destructive of human life at all levels."

The physical remains and documentation of the horrors of the Holocaust hit you in the pit of your stomach. Photo after haunting photo of victims, in striped prison garb, peer at us through sunken eyes filled with fear, disbelief, dread, deadness. Condemned to extinction. "You are witnesses," they say. "You are witnesses to this gigantic factory of death. Do not forget us. We are real. What happened to us is real. Do not forget us." Time cannot erase these memories. Nor explain them. Beyond language. Beyond twisted.

Magical Budapest

History museum, painted ceiling Opera House, eagle, elephant, view of St. Mathias across the river.

I am in the magical city of Budapest, mourning for my brother Loren. He would have loved it here.

Budapest has a complicated and sorrowful history, a history of destruction and reconstruction over many centuries. The story is well told in the columned Hungarian Museum of History, a beautiful classical structure. Loren knew this story well. He would have filled me in.

After marveling at the beauty of the museum, which is right across the street from our funky hostel, the Lavender Circus, my PCV friend Jud and I went from room to room, from one era to another. It is a chronological presentation from medieval and Renaissance times, with their artisanal traditions and exquisite craftsmanship--jewelry, fabric, metal work, furniture--into the 20th century, dominated by World Wars I and II, Nazi atrocities, and harsh Stalanist regimes. The displays, artifacts, documents and memorabilia are fantastic, often accompanied by authentically produced dioramas in rich detail and some of the earliest historical film footage. A fascinating journey through time.

Much like Ukraine, in some ways, Hungary has a tortured history of foreign invasions, occupation, war, dispersion, resistance, loss, and rebuilding. Budapest has been victim of all of it. While looking at grotesque statues of fearsome soldiers definding the city, in front of the Buda castle or in Heroes Square, I think I heard Loren say something about how necessary it might have been at the time, but how senseless it seems now. Sounds like Loren. He not only knew this complex history, he also knew that Hungary, inspite of its dark past and struggles, fiercely hung on to its identity through the worst of times. Loren understood this on many levels.

Budapest is now in its glory. It shines with magnificent architecture, great parks, bustling squares, great shops and restaurants, friendly people, and the fabled Danube River. Sometimes I think I see Loren peering out from spires and gargoyles, on Buda palace, around St. Stephen's Basilica, from St. Mathias Church, in Heroes Square and the Fine Arts Museum, around ancient palaces that have been reborn as museums. He's often behind angels and chubby cupids and lovely floating women painted on the ceilings and walls of these awesome churches, the Opera House, the History Museum.

I passed a statue of a large cheerful elephant in front of The famous Gerbraud restaurant in Vorosmarty Square, the heart of Pest, and Loren could have been hiding behind it. I looked for him, but I didn't see him. I think he might have been playing hide-and-seek behind that elephant, an animal he was fond of for its lumbering persistence. He might also be around the many statues and carvings of lions and eagles that are everywhere, on buildings and bridges and parks and walkways, all over Budapest. Symbols of courage and freedom. Symbols Loren loved.

Jud and I especially enjoyed our walks along Andrassy ut, a boulevard so full of fantastic architecture from every historic period that it is a UNESCO World Heritage site. The Champs Elysee of Pest, Andrassy ut is graced with grand buildings in gothic, classical, baroque, art nourveau and other styles. Many of the older buildings were once almost rubble, destroyed during wars, some still pock-marked with bullet holes, but most have been lovingly restored over time. It is a feast of the senses to walk along this boulevard, and best of all, it's on the way to the Opera House.

In fact, Loren pulled us inside, and last night Jud and I saw the most ethereal ballet I have ever seen in one of the grandest Opera Houses I've ever been in. The surroundings were breath-taking. The dancers were heavenly, so fluid, so elegant, so masterfully trained (at the Hungarian National Ballet), and the choreography, the lighting, the music so exquisite, that we were transported to another realm. I felt closer to Loren.

As long as Jud and I keep moving, I am okay with Loren fading in and out. But when I am still, the silence is too great. I want Loren by my side, talking to me, going on and on about everything he knows and wants to tell me, like we did in Costa Rica, on our Southwest and Utah adventure, or our Florida explorations. No intermediaries. No gargoyles, spires and statues. Just Loren, with me in Budapest.