Sweet home, Chicago...

I love Chicago.

I think the first time I went to Chicago was in the summer of 1987. I could be wrong. But I do know I took a Greyhound bus from Evansville, Indiana to Chicago, and spent my time there with my friend Dennis from high school and my friend Monica from university - both theater geeks like me. Chicago seemed like another planet, bigger than I could comprehend. I saw a terrific dinner theater production of Dream Girls on that trip ("And I am telling you I'm not going...")

I went again a few years later, to see my friend Carmen and ring in a new year. I will always associate the city with her - no one loved it like she did. She told me tales from that city that could have filled a book - I should have written a book just one what she told me.

I went a third time in 2008 or so, flown over from Germany to speak at a conference. On that trip, Stefan got to see more of the city than me, although we did have a meal at an Italian restaurant that was epic in terms of its food and in terms of the clientele - take me out for a drink and I'll tell ya about it... you won't believe it.

So, not counting the many times I've transferred flights in Chicago, this was my fourth trip to the windy city. This time, it was primarily to see a friend I worked with in Kabul, Afghanistan, who I hadn't seen since 2007. But this was the first time I'd been in charge of my own schedule in the city. My goal, other than seeing my friend, was to see the Art Institute because I felt like it was ridiculous that I'm 53 years old and still hadn't been there. Luckily, another friend drove up from Hendo to see me and she also wanted to go.

It. Was. Amazing. I love art museums. I love the permanent exhibits, I love the special exhibits, I love them all. I love the British Museum, I love the Louvre, I love the Prado, I love the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I love the Speed Museum and now I get to love the Art Institute as well.

Here's some important advice: go through the side entrance, not the main entrance: the lines are shorter, including at the coat check. Trust me on this.

We toured the American Art collection, European Painting and Sculpture, the Modern and Contemporary Art and the special Warhol exhibit. That took up almost the entire day - I would have loved to have seen more, but there's a point where you aren't seeing the art anymore, when your brain is full and it's time for a coffee.

The highlight for me? Edward Hopper's Nighthawks. It's one of my favorite images ever. I love the subject, the composition, the themes and interpretation that's on the surface and what you can make up about it. It represents so many things to me... more than I can put into a blog.

I also was thrilled to see The Picture of Dorian Gray by Ivan Albright - I audibly gasped when I saw it, because I wasn't expecting it, and I walked around a corner and, ta da, there it was! I love the movie so much, I love the story so much... did George Sanders look at this painting? Did Angela Lansbury? Sigh...

I loved seeing Paris Street; Rainy Day, by Gustave Caillebotte. I can hear the rain...

All the Degas and Renoir was a thrill - anything by those two of my very favorites.

It was nice to see Grant Wood's American Gothic and Georges Seurat's A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, but they weren't the thrill the others were.

As for the Warhol: most of his stuff doesn't do it for me, and then, WHAM, I will love something. I love the Mao portrait more than I can put into words - what it represents, or, what I think it represents, I love what it mocks... it's just stunning. Same for his The Last Supper, covered in military camouflage. I LOVED Ethel Scull 36 Times: Warhol took socialite Scull to a Times Square photo booth and prompted her to take 300 black and white photographs of herself. Warhol told her jokes so her headshots would be animated. The result is a character study - it's awesome. And I laughed out loud at the Poloroid Hammer & Sickle with Wonder Bread. And I LOVED the Elvis prints, so much that I wish I had looked better, because I would have loved a photo with them (I wasn't looking good that day - not good enough for Elvis).

But I feel like most of what gets exhibited from Warhol are outtakes - and I'm not fond of outtakes for MOST artists. When I watch "scenes deleted" section of a DVD's special features, I rarely think "Oh, they should have included that!" They are experiments, they are tryouts, and they are NOT always brilliant. I think half of this could have been left out of the exhibit and we wouldn't have missed out on anything. I don't think all of his portraits are brilliant - Liza and Mick Jaggar, yes. Truman Capote or Pele? Meh.

I loved all of Chicago, from the friendly folks at my airport hotel to the gritty L trains full of hilarious people and more stories than I can possibly tell on a blog, to the glitter of the night sky. And I loved Volare restaurant so much, I went twice: the food and the service was oh-so-excellent. They fussed over my friend from Afghanistan when I brought her for her first Italian meal ever, and then recognized me two nights later and were THRILLED to see me.

I would love to have stayed at Cambria on Superior Street, where my colleague from Afghanistan got to stay, but it was almost twice as expensive a night as the place I found out by Midway, so... loved the paintings of Chicago's own Bill Murray, Harrison Ford and Michael Jordan in the lobby.

I loved the diversity of Chicago, the different American and foreign accents all around me, the hugeness of the city, the African cab drivers, and the FRIENDLINESS of Chicagoans, whether they were born there or immigrated there. It's glorious.

And a million songs go through my head when I'm in Chicago, everything from Blues Brothers covers to the Chicago song from Victor Victoria. I just so wish I'd visited when Robbie Fulks was doing his infamous weekly shows there - he's moved to Los Angeles now...

Sweet home, Chicago, indeed. I just wish I hadn't left my favorite gloves in one of the cabs I took.

More about my travels.

10 years as a motorcycle rider

10 years ago, in June 2009, I took the Motorcycle Safety Foundation Basic Rider Course in Louisville, Kentucky, a course delivered by the Derby Motorcycle School. In fact, I signed up for the course months before I had even arrived back in the USA, when I was still living in Germany, because I knew these classes fill up quickly.

I got my license just a few days later after finishing the course, in July 2009.

And I'm still a motorcycle rider.

It's 10 years later and I've ridden more than 43,000 miles on my own motorcycle - almost 70,000 kilometers - almost all of it for fun on vacations and the weekends (rather than commuting). I did it on two motorcycles, actually: my first bike was a 1979 Honda Nighthawk, which I bought in November 2009 and road for two years, and now, my 2008 Kawasaki KLR 650, which I got in October 2011.

Via my motorcycles, I've been:

• all the way up through British Columbia, up to the Yukon via the Cassiar Highway and back down the Alaska Highway
   
• to Jasper, Banff and Kootenay National Parks
   
• Yellowstone, Western Montana and Wyoming
   
• all over Nevada, including Great Basin National Park and, of course, Rachel Nevada
   
• Arches, Canyonlands, and Capitol Reef National Parks, and Goblin Valley State Park in Utah
   
• Lava Beds National Monument, Lassen National Monument, Emmets Pass, Devil's Postpile, and lots more of Northern California and everything in between that and where we live in the Portland Metro area.
   
• All Over Idaho - which might not sound like much, but it's one of my favorite trips!
   
• Olympic National Park, Gifford Pinchot National Forest / Southern Washington State - really, and all over Washington state
   
• Steens Mountain, Eastern Oregon, including the Alvord Desert - all over Oregon - like up to Mt. Hebo via Siuslaw National Forest Service Road 14.
   
• And regularly all over Washington, Yamhill, Tillamook, Clatsop, Columbia, Clackamas and Wasco in Oregon, and Skamania and Klickitat counties in Washington state.

My only regret about my motorcycle riding is that I didn't take the MSF Basic Rider Course YEARS SOONER. I looked into it when I lived in Austin, Texas back in the late 1990s, before I moved to Germany, because I thought buying a small motorcycle and using it to get to and from work at the University of Texas would be a much better way of commuting. But I kept talking myself out of it.

Whether someone commutes by motorcycle, does simple cruises on a weekend, goes on epic long-distance trips for weeks or rides off-road, I totally get why people love riding a motorcycle. It's hard to say why I love riding a motorcycle without using clichés. It's so incredibly empowering to ride a motorcycle - it makes me feel stronger and more confident and more capable of handling life. I love how connected I feel to my surroundings on a bike and I love the focus I have on the road and the landscape and the surroundings when I'm riding. I feel so incredibly present when I'm riding, and I do not think about my professional work or cleaning my house or all my many obligations and responsibilities. My mind is completely free of all stress and worries. I'm just riding - turning this corner, taking this curve, stopping at this light, going over this hill. I love the long trips and I love just riding across town and back. I love the challenges: I love doing something I find hard to do, and doing it over and over and getting more and more comfortable doing it - and it may take a few hours or it may take months. I love that the more I practice, the more I ride, the better I get at riding. I love that I'm always improving. I wish everything that needs improving in my life was just a matter of practice.

I love after parking my bike and taking off my helmet and looking up and seeing a group of people staring at me, in surprise or disbelief or awe. I admit that I'd also love it if they frowned or otherwise looked disapprovingly. it shouldn't matter what people are seeing when they see me, but it does, and I like my image as a motorcycle rider - I'm not even going to pretend that doesn't matter. It does.

And I really love meeting people - people are happy to walk up and start talking to my husband and me when we stop on our motorcycles.

Stravaig, which is pronounced straw vague, is an Irish and Scottish word meaning to wander about aimlessly. One goes stravaiging about the roads. Stravaig is probably from an even older and obsolete word extravage, meaning to digress or ramble. I am all about stravaig, both on my motorcycle and in conversations: I love exploring and traveling and I really love exploring and traveling by motorcycle. It is fascinating and challenging and soul-reviving as anything you can experience.  

I don't see how I ever could have weathered the disappointments I've experienced since moving back to the USA, especially professionally, if I wasn't a motorcycle rider. When I get on the bike, I'm not thinking of all the hours I've spent preparing consulting proposals and job applications, hours that, by and large, have been for naught. When I'm on the bike, I'm not second-guessing the choices I've made. It's therapy, it's a mental reboot, it's an oasis, it's a shot of serenity.

Like I said, it's hard to talk about without sounding clichéd.

If you are a woman, I really encourage you to think about becoming a motorcycle rider. I swear it's cheaper than therapy. 

• My advice for getting started as a motorcycle rider
   
• Getting started on a dual sport: my journey (Changing from a cruiser to a dual sport)

To take the MSF Basic Rider Course, you do not have to have even touched a motorcycle, and the classes are available all over the USA (sadly, not in Oregon - they have some other group that does courses - if that's your only option, by all means, do it). All you need for the MSF courses are high-topped shoes (this can be tennis shoes - I used hiking boots), pants (no shorts), long sleeves and any kind of gloves that allow you to operate the controls. If you don't have a helmet, they will provide such. If you study up and take your written motorcycle test and get your permit before this class, you will get your license immediately upon finishing the class and presenting your paperwork to the DMV in most states (otherwise, you have to wait 30 days). Half of my class were women, and at 43, I was not the oldest woman in the class!

There's no obligation to get your license after you take a basic riding course. It's worth the price just to have the experience of trying, I promise. If you don't fall in love with it - if you do it and think, oh, no, not for me, hey, that's okay too! Congrats for trying.

If you do fall in love with it, as I did - see you out on the road.

10 years of motorcycle riding. Here's to at least 25 more!

Memory: 10 years ago in June

My first blog space is long gone, but many of my first blogs were captured and are on the Internet Wayback Machine, also known as archive.org, if you know where to look. 

Here's one of my blogs from the evening of 28 June 2009 - I'd been back in the USA for just over two months, after living in Germany since February 2001, and was adjusting to life back in my home country and home state. I had to change the MySpace links though:

Our adventure in Louisville continues:

Stefan went to his first baseball game (it was also Albi's first baseball game and his first dirt track race. Guess which he liked more? And Stefan went on his own to a motorcycle gathering for motorcycle travelers/adventure riders in Eastern Kentucky (hurrah! there are such people in the USA! He's been worried...)

We've also made trips to Mammoth Cave (took the Historic tour; Stefan liked it very much), Maker's Mark Distillery (free samples!), Lincoln's Birthplace and various places on Bardstown Road (the Irish pubs, the Homemade Ice Cream and Pie Kitchen, and the The Falafel House, where I dazzled the staff with my SEVEN words of Arabic).

Special thanks to my friend Jennifer, who made Stefan feel extra welcomed by donning a black wig, blacking out her front teeth, and running across the parking lot of Lynn's Paradise Cafe while yelling, "Stefan! Stefan! Welcome to Kentucky." He's still recovering from that cultural experience. I spent the whole event laying on the sidewalk convulsing with laughter.

Stefan now has his green card.

I've been listening to the local public radio station, WFPL, and often, the announcer says, "This news hour is brought to you by: The Embassy of Germany. Learn more about Germany as a vacation destination or as a partner for your business..." I'm impressed! The public radio audience in Louisville is *exactly* the type of audience that Germany should be going after, no kidding. We've wondered for the last eight years how Germany advertises to Americans. Through June, we only have access to TV-by-antennae, and so far, I haven't seen any advertisements for Germany -- guess the network TV audience isn't their desired demographic.

Watched Sheba, Baby, a rather bad movie with the fabulous Pam Grier, on TV the other day, because it turned out to have been filmed in Louisville, Kentucky in the 1970s. My how the city has changed! Awful movie, but the city scenes, and Grier's outfits, were fun.

It's so nice to have TV in English again, I cannot lie... I also got to enjoy the Tony Awards live for the first time since 2000. My verdict on the 2009 show: Best. Opening. EVA. And, as well, Greatest. Closing. EVA. Host Neil Patrick Harris was terrific (there wasn't enough of him actually), musical numbers were terrific, and except for Carrie Fisher's TRAIN WRECK of an outfit, everyone's dresses were terrific. Ultimate compliment is from Carmen Thornton, expert on Tony Awards and wine maven at Old Town in Louisville: "This stands up to the 1987 Tony award, which I have on tape." What more of an endorsement do you need?

I've taken TARC, the local bus system, a few times this summer and enjoyed it immensely. The drivers were friendly and helpful, the buses were clean, and the web site is comprehensive and detailed. Only complaint: TARC doesn't allow dogs. Highlights of my TARC trips:

• A very old black gentlemen -- one of those unofficial-mayor-of-the-neighborhood types -- regaling everyone at a downtown bus stop with incredible stories of when Al Capone and various famous performers of the era would visit Louisville, where black entertainers stayed during Jim Crow, etc.

• A middle-aged white good ole' boy standing in the front of the bus talking to the driver, telling her in his strong Kentucky accent, "Well, I don't want to sound sissified or nuthin', but that thar Yoga really helps me calm down. You'd think hittin' a hammer all day would really release all yer anger, but it don't like Yoga does."

• A young white woman telling two different people on the bus, with no shame whatsoever, that she had spent Sunday night in jail on a suspended license and what a HUGE inconvenience it was not to be able to use her car now, adding, "I've NEVER been in no trouble before" (so, dear madam, how then do you explain that suspended license?).

• Realizing why the young, large black woman looked so very, very uncomfortable in her seat in the front of the bus: the bus driver stopped at an intersection next to a hospital, even though the light was green, and honked the horn until the guy in scrubs crossing the street and wearing an MP3 player turned around to see what the noise was; the driver yelled, "Hey, come over here and help this woman over to the hospital. She's havin' a baby." When someone on the bus remarked how sad it was that the woman had had to take public transportation to the hospital to have a baby, the driver said, "Well, that's how I did it myself!"

If you had told me back in March that, by now, we would have taken our dog Albi to two bars (Molly Malone's and the Nach Bar) and a minor league baseball game, I would have said, "That's crazy! How many Hefe Weissens have you had tonight?!?" But it's true - Louisville is dog-friendly. In addition, I've seen dogs with their owners at outdoor areas of many restaurants on Bardstown Road and people walking their dogs all over town. Now, if we could only take her on the city buses and it was cooler in the summer, life in Louisville would be perfect!

USA men's soccer victory over Spain in the Confederations Cup? Rapturous. It was all I could do to stop myself from honking the horn of the U-Haul wildly as I drove across Tennessee (heading back from Austin). The loss to Brazil? Heart-breaking. And I'm someone who has had her heart broken over sports many, many times...

Yes, we road tripped to Austin, to deal with various matters, since Austin was my official home while I lived in Germany. Highlights of that trip: seeing Star Trek (awesome) at the Alamo Draft House (also awesome) while eating artichoke pizza (also awesome), playing table shuffleboard at Shoal Creek Saloon and the bartender donning a mullet wig, taking Stefan to Ginny's Little Longhorn, eating at Enchiladas y Mas and our hosts, Sharron and Ron.

Unfortunately, we're having to move again before leaving Louisville, because the place we're renting has another tenant waiting. Most of our things are in storage, and we're moving just up the street, but we still have enough to make it annoying to have to move again.

And then we'll move again at the end of July and head to Portland, Oregon (or there abouts).

And we did head to Portland, and stay, and almost 10 years later, we're still in the greater Portland metro area... or there abouts... 

More about my travels