psychopastor

[psychopastor]

Spatial Awareness

You may have noticed in some blogs that I refer to the lack of spatial awareness, which can bother me, especially if I am the guilty party. My sensitivity to this is partly because I am married to the queen of spatial unawareness. Judi is blessed with the ability to bebop through life while screening out the entire world. She frequently offers to help me in the kitchen, which mostly involves…

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Touring France

Tours are nice because you learn about a place and have an expert to keep you from getting lost. The downside is that they usually involve other people. Today we visited Aix en Provence and Marseilles, two cities constantly squabbling over who is better and therefore has the right to be the capital of Provence. Currently, Marseille is the champion. Our time in Aix en Provence was a bit rushed,…

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Gibraltar

The Rock of Gibraltar is part of the United Kingdom, though it sits in the south of Spain. It has an interesting history – look it up. I’m here to tell you about my experience. We scheduled a tour with a local company that held organization as a low priority. We milled around with hundreds of other lost souls trying to make sense of the chaos that confronted us when we left the port authority…

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Oops

Sometimes you don’t know you have stepped in something until everyone is holding their noses. Today, I had such an experience. I love taking pictures, so I constantly make Judi pose in front of something I want to photograph. Fearful people would think she went on the cruise alone, she insisted I pose for a picture. We composed the shot we wanted, and I headed to my spot. I leaned against a…

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Floating Costco

Being on a cruise is like being in a floating Costco store. They rival one another for the quantity of food available. The free samples at Costco can’t compare to the buffet on board for quantity or quality, but there are as many people loitering in front of the offerings trying to decide what or if they will eat. Meanwhile, the hungry masses behind them tire of waiting and head for the ice cream…

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Barcelona

Our ship departs from Barcelona, Spain, so we arrived a few days early to avoid any problems. All went smoothly, and we checked into our hotel without incident. We had nothing planned except jet lag, so we wandered the city streets to get our bearings and to look for paella and gelato. We found paella, but gelato remained elusive. This first day was an unplanned, relaxing day as a gift to me. The…

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Busy Betty

Boarding an airplane is always interesting because it affords so many people-watching opportunities. My progress toward my seat stopped when I encountered a woman directing her brood where to sit, where to put their luggage, and other helpful information. When she, we’ll call her Betty, finally heard her husband telling her that she was blocking the aisle and traffic was backing up, she turned…

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Cost Cutting at PHL

Since the pandemic, costs have gone up on everything, so quality is often compromised. The Philadelphia airport is no exception. After consuming a chicken cheese steak before my flight, I visited the men’s room to make “final preparations before lift off.” I had to visit three sinks before the sensors would acknowledge my presence and provide me with water to wash my hands. Sanitation being…

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Conflicting Agendas

From my previous blog, it is an error to assume that Judi is why we have a last-minute rush. She isn’t. I rarely saw a 5-pound bag of time that I didn’t think I could fit 10 pounds of activity into. I have a zest for life that is dangerous. Judi would say I have poor time management, but I prefer my characterization. In addition to the projects that Judi planned, I have a few of my own. There is…

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Judi's Deadlines

The first day of vacation is the one that confirms you need a vacation. No matter how far ahead you plan, there is always a mad dash at the end to get everything ready…at least for us. Part of this is Judi’s tendency to use any potential deadline as an opportunity to get massive amounts of work done – by me. She boldly admits to this as this is the only reasonable response to a deadline. For this…

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Duvets

In college it was fun to pull pranks on each other – stretch plastic wrap across a toilet beneath the seat, Scotch-guard a towel so it beads repels water rather than absorb it, or, my personal favorite, put chicken bouillon in the shower head so the unsuspecting bather thinks someone is making chicken soup, and so does everyone who comes in contact with them for the rest of the day. Pranks are…

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Safety First

After a layover in Moscow we hop onto another, smaller, Aeroflot jet to complete the last 4 hours to Tel Aviv. Two things were notable on this leg of the journey. The first was a mom and daughter with whom we shared a row. The flight attendant presented this young family with a package of goodies designed for juvenile passengers. The daughter was symbiotic with a handheld entertainment device and…

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Israel Travel Day 1

Israel Travel Day 1

I sit on my 14th floor balcony overlooking the Mediterranean Sea as I contemplate my last 24 hours. As I write this, friends back in Delaware are bidding on property to relocate our church – they have the stress I have the balmy breeze of Israel.

The travel was good. The cast of characters for this 10-day-drama are Yvonne and Pam Bradley (of the Pennsylvania and New York Bradley’s), Judi (my…

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The Zoo

We visited the zoo in Bujumbura. They call it a living museum (Museé Vivant). It is not for the faint of heart. The conditions for the animals are deplorable. We will not dwell on this so you are not depressed by my blog. While very small, this is the most memorable zoo I have ever been seen. This was my third visit to this zoo and there have been a number of changes since I was last here. Suddenl…

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Bujumbura

Bujumbura is the economic capital of Burundi. Until January of this year it was also the political capital, but that has been moved to Gitega. Bujumbura is the most urban city in the country. It was hotter and more humid than I have ever experienced. I didn’t want to stick my head in an oven, I wanted to crawl into one. An oven is hot, but it’s a dry heat. I lived in Arizona for a while, and used…

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Ethiopia

It is a strange experience to exit a plane into an Equatorial country and feel the temperature drop. We were all grateful to have arrived safely and to have completed the longest leg of our journey. We had a few hours to kill before our next flight so I stretched out on the floor and slept for a long time…about 45 minutes. I’m not sure if the nap helped or hurt, but I didn’t doze again before we…

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Travel

Traveling to Burundi was fairly uneventful…if you don’t count the lack of air conditioning in the plane. I don’t want to over-state the conditions on the plane, but if there was an oven near by I would have put my head in it for a breath of fresh air. I had a small concern that the plane had crashed and I was now in hell just hallucinating the plane. The heat combined with my lack of a shower had…