Make a List

I like lists. I like checking things off of lists.  I keep myself on-task with lists. I frequently think in lists. This paragraph is a list.

I was delighted to discover Maria Popova's post about Susan Sontag's As Consciousness is Harnessed to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks 1964-1980 in which Sontag discusses her compulsion to make lists. Sontag's lists of likes and dislikes were particularly interesting to me, so I made my own in my commonplace book:

Once I got into the flow, I was surprised by the items that came to mind. Books are there on top of the list of likes, of course, and all of the foods to which I am allergic made the dislikes. Speaking of lists, have you made your Summer Reading List yet? I will probably have to edit, but here's mine, in roughly the order I suspect I will read them:

• Beethoven by Lewis Lockwood (my one biog. per month series)
• Wikinomics by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams (for a project)
• Marco Polo: From Venice to Xanadu by Laurence Bergreen (biog)
• The Filter Bubble by Eli Pariser (for that same project)
• Richard Wagner by Derek Watson (biog)
• The Lives of the Muses: Nine Women and the Artists They Inspired by Francine Prose
• Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience by Yi-Fu Tuan and Steven Hoelscher
• The Autobiography of Michel de Montaigne (biog)
• How to Live: Or A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer by Sarah Bakewell
• Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power, and Civilization by Steven Solomon

Okay, then. That's an ambitious list for four months and I'll probably have to edit, but there it is.

The most fun lists to make are those for places I want to go.

Daytrip ideas from my pile of brochures

"I've always wanted to go there!"

I have lists of museums to visit and daytrips to plan, but these are in the form of triaged travel brochures. My Big Trip List is a fluid list, and by this I mean that the items on it don't change much, but the order does. Currently it would look something like this:

1. Peru (jungle, mountains, seashore)
2. Italy (This item contains sublists of cities.)
3. Iceland (organized tour)
4. India (organized tour)
5. London (run around loose and visit museums, etc.)

Before I attended a travel expo in early April, the list was limited to the 'I' destinations. Then I attended a short presentation on Peru which reinforced what I had heard from friends, and this list was reordered. Not being able to schedule or finance any big trips at the moment, I am content to read up on my listed destinations. Someday I will blast off on an adventure and I will be prepared thanks to my ever-changing lists!

Someday Daytrips

The Philadelphia "Guide" Post

Welcome to my blog, and welcome to Philadelphia if you are visiting. With this "guide" post I hope to give you some links to my Philadelphia-themed posts so that you don't have to slog through the blog to find them efficiently. I write about places mostly, so please explore my blog for my take on the places I visit. I try to tell the story of my experience in each, with lots of pictures and some history.

If you haven't been to Philadelphia before, you MUST visit some historical spots! There are so many you might not know where to start, but I suggest you start by reading my blog on the topic for ideas. Ben Franklin must be Philadelphia's all-time favorite son so you might want to focus on his life. Check out his legacy here.

One of the most fascinating places I've even been in Philadelphia is Eastern State Penitentiary. It's about four blocks north of the Art Museum and easily within walking distance from the Convention Center.

For a quiet, meditative space, visit Washington Square, just east of Center City and south of the Convention Center.

For something completely unique, head to South Street (tons of restaurants and bars) where you'll find Philadelphia's Magic Gardens. Bring thy camera.

The Convention Center blooms every year with the famous Philadelphia Flower Show. I blogged about it in 2010 and in 2009 (part one and part two). The famous flowers will be blooming while the Innovations 2012 conference is going on...just in case you haven't heard.

You may have heard of the Mummers' Parade on New Year's Day. I'll take you there on a warm day in 2012, and a very cold day in 2009.

Here is my take on the ships of Philadelphia's waterfront, Penn's Landing.

I lived in and explored this city in the 1980s as a graduate student in Music. One day, 25 or so years later, I set out to retrace my steps and visit my old haunts.

You may be interested in accompanying me to Bucks County:

Washington's Crossing (actually I'm standing on the New Jersey side),
Ringing Rocks Park,
Moravian Tile Works, and,
Pearl S. Buck's House,

or Longwood Gardens in Chester County.

Back from Germany!

There are things that make life wonderful, but those things are not the same for everyone. For me it has always been music, art, a good story, and good friends. In recent years it has become clear to me that travel is one of those things, too.

from the Rhine cruise: Ehrenfels Castle Ruin

I've just returned from a tour of Germany organized by professionals instead of by me, and I had a great time. I'm tired physically, but my mind is re-traveling to all these places, sorting them out and selecting the favorites. I never thought I would enjoy such a tour with the early wake-up calls and limited time at interesting sights, but I was wrong. We got to know almost all of the other 41 people on the tour, eating with different groups for breakfast and supper. We saw lots of sights and were kept on time by our amazing tour director Renske. I could never have planned such an interesting tour on my own, nor could I have stayed in such nice hotels. Renske told us some great stories from the history and culture of the various regions (one of my pillars of a beautiful life, remember). The food was great--either the hotel meals or the places we tried on our own. It was such a nice change to get my nose out of the travel guide and put the control in her (and Globus's) hands. Our excursions (included and optional alike) were planned efficiently around times they are least busy (and not closed for local holidays or renovation). This is stuff the average tourist wouldn't know.

(Furstenberg Ruin 1219)

The transportation was always figured out for us whether it was by bus, boat, or train. Our amazing driver Enrico took us through cities and mountains, and down hundreds of miles of highway, making it look easy all the time. He had the responsibility of loading our luggage on the bus almost everyday, and I know first hand some of those bags are HEAVY.

Rhine River tour boat

So I'm a changed person. Tours are now an official kind of travel, one of my five pillars of beauty in life. Now it is my task to sort through my just-under-one-thousand photos and sort out all of the castles, churches, towns, cities, markets, and statues we saw!

Flower stand in Munich

East Berlin