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    Continental drift: Definition - The state of exctitement and heightened awareness in which a long-distance traveler consistently finds him/herself. It may produce elatement, sweaty palms, huge expenditure of cash, and bugged eyes.

    Yep, boys and girls! It’s almost time to shove off to a new continent for awhile! Europe has been fun, but Africa is calling us back. This time we will head to the southern tip of the African continent to just a handful of countries that we travelers like to call “South Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland, Botswana, and Namibia”. If you are a non-traveler, you probably call them “South Africa, Huh?, Excuse me?, Where’s that, and Is that near the Congo?”. We recently bought our plane tickets through Air France flying from London, England to Johannesburg, South Africa. Air France means we get to enjoy a bit of wine, cheese and a few croissants on our way, so that made us very happy in itself. The plan is to rent a car and drive to all 5 countries over the course of around a month. We fly to Africa on July 6th and return to England on August 4th. Our trip to Africa shoud include (hopefully) all of the following: Some type of volunteer service (let us know if you have any ideas), several different types of safaris (walking, 4×4, car, horseback), and visits to see cave art as well as dinosaur tracks. We have our mental lists prepared of the animals that we are most interested in seeing: zebra, rhinoceros, giraffe, elephant, leopard, lion, hippopotamus, cape buffalo. The Canon Rebel XTI is in full sports mode with the zoom lens ready! With any luck, those of you living vicariously at the moment should have an idea of what southern africa looks like in just over a month. Hope you’re as excited as we are!!!

    We also purchased our tickets to fly to Buenos Aires, Argentina after our return from Africa and our week-long trip to Iceland in August. Whew! This is going to  be one busy summer, or winter…Whatever…The idea is to travel in Argentina (including the glaciers of Patagonia), Uruguay, Chile, Peru (Macchu Picchu and Nazca Lines here we come!), and Ecuador (including a tour through the Galapagos Islands…oh, the turtles we will see!!!). South America should be a real treat…and I don’t just mean the massive steaks

    Yeah! That’s right! Just the other day we took a little visit to Dr. Sigmund Freud’s office in Vienna, Austria. I know it is maybe a bit cliche for a psychology guy such as myself to visit Herr Dr. Freud’s office, but what can I say? The guy still intrigues after all these years. Freud, um…Dr. Freud I mean, was one of those guys that maybe you wouldn’t want to keep around as a best pal or anything, but he was definitely important when it comes to the field of Psychology. Yes, he did a bit of experimenting with drugs, cocaine for instance, and he did have quite a few ideas concerning dreams and sexuality and such that seem a bit stange at first glance. But who wouldn’t have some strange ideas after experimenting with the afore mentioned drugs? I’m not taking up for the guy, I’m just saying I felt like a bit of a celebrity stalker when I climbed the steps to the apartment that served as both home and office for Dr. Freud for around 30 years. I admit, I took pictures of almost everything, pretended to sit along a wall where I imagined his couch would have been, and stared out of his window as I imagined he would have done on countless occasions when developing this or that groundbreaking theory. It was all marvelous! I mean, Sigmund Freud is probably the very first name that a person learns when studying psychology. He has a certain punk rock/Elvis kind of persona surrounding him. A true visionary and, for lack of a better term, dreamer. He was the “King of Psychology” just as Elvis was the “King of Rock and Roll”. I also admit that Jen basically had to drag me out of his place as I read letters written by Dr. Freud (captions anyway), his research articles, and even his grade reports from his university years. If that is not enough to make a person do well in school, I don’t know what is. His actual report cards from university were plastered up for millions and millions to see. Just in case I ever do get truly famous, I’ll have to work really hard to get perfect grades during my Ph.D. (or Psy.D. with any luck) studies. You never know who will be looking!!!

    Jen finally got me away from Dr. Freud’s office and, with only a tear or two, we wandered out and around the streets of Vienna. Vienna, unlike many of the other European cities we have seen, was almost devoid of graffiti. Vienna also had seemingly many more beautiful old buildings than the other European big cities that we have seen. It was as if the big beautiful buildings never ended! Clear all the people out, and Vienna could as well be a big movie set. We wandered in complete amazement at the architecture and cleanness of the city. any of the other European cities that we have visited only have a small area of nice buildings (town center) that are surrounded by graffiti-trashed, crumbling, dirty buildings. So, we had a great time in Vienna! More about our European adventures coming soon!   

Once I went shopping in Warsaw

It was the 1st war I ever saw

The women lined at the door

Ready to bite, snatch, and claw

Like Walmart debutantes

On a post-Thanksgiving crawl

The manager opened the door in fear

And women rushed in, some with a tear

First to the shoes, then to the dresses

As they moved, the manager stared at the messes

They rushed with their items to the front

With a gleam in their eye

And as they left,

The store gave a great sigh

Never have I saw such a war before

I think I shall go to Warsaw no more.

– Inspired by our recent secondhand store shopping trip in Warsaw.