October 2nd, 2010

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Saturday, Oct 2nd Another week gone by and getting nowhere

Saturday, October 2nd, 2010

A while longer and I’ll be able to be one of the first Americans to cross the Danube from Romania to Bulgaria across the new bridge a building between Calafat and Vidin. I had lost track of the week day and just realized that I have to wait now till Monday to call the third potential Romanian mechanic. After the back and forth e-mails to Holland and Germany about the next possible action. The one engine in Holland that was reasonably priced and the right dimensions has been sold and it is not as easy as shopping here on the internet because of the number of languages in the surrounding countries.

Summer is gone here and it skipped Fall. The temperature has dropped to about 50 Fahrenheit. I saw a market lady with earmuffs. Except for the news headlines in a daily e-mail from the NRC I have no idea what is happening in the world. There is not one single radio station I can understand. But soon I’ll be able to eat my heart out in French when all the Romas are sent back here by Sarcozy.

I have been reading a lot. I finally finished “Shantaram”, next “Rond de Wereld met een Glimlach” by Cees de Reus and now I am reading “Reizen op het Bot” by Eerde Beukelaar. A “passant” , guest, at de Schinkel, Marc de Graaf, gave me the book last year summer. Good sailing stories. But what always amazes me is that just about every writer of sailing books tries to cast himself in a particular category. And mostly by disapproving all the other shades and colors. The power boaters, the racers, the rich, the organized regatta crossings, the Americans, Fiberglass,  and so on. I have a hard time understanding why sailing is really that different from other sports and pastimes and ways to travel. The dangers are overly dramatized the sea over romanticized. But then if I would ever write a book I would not tell any one either my honest feelings about sailing that it is just a way to get to see the world in your own home at a fraction of the cost per mile of most other means of travel.