Hello from Çorovodë, Albania! I just re-read my last blog post and started laughing – I sounded like (and was!) an absolute train wreck. So – first things first – Franklin has a little girl of his own. He’s going to be an October birthday surprise – so she’s started taking lessons on him but doesn’t yet know that he’s going to be her very own pony. She’s been taking riding lessons for two years, is just starting to learn to drive, wants to show in 4-H. It looks like a really good home and I’m so glad both ponies are now in great situations and I can let go of the reins on that. A huge shout out to Shelly Butterfield of Butterfield Stables in Muncie, who cared for the ponies in my absence and introduced them to their new owners.

Sticking with the good news theme – I sold all but two of the books from the box! Those two are autographed and still at my folks’ house – just in case you’re kicking yourself for not grabbing one while you still had a chance. Meanwhile, I’m up to 11 reviews on Amazon. Next benchmark is 25 – so please, please – if you have read the book and liked the book (even a little bit!) and can find it in your heart (and schedule) Please write a review – even a one liner helps! I know it’s a nuisance, I know it’s easy to forget – I’m watching myself be an absolute groveling pest about this – but it legit matters so much to me and to the book’s chances of finding readers! Here’s a link to make it easy: https://www.amazon.com/review/create-review?asin=B0H2N639Q8
and if Amazon doesn’t work for you? Head on over to Goodreads or Barnes & Noble – reviews there help as well. You could even cut and paste one review in all 3 places if you’re feeling benevolent. That’s true patron of the arts behavior!

And now: the road to Çorovodë! (Which is pronounced cho-roh-VOH-duh – tho the last syllable is basically just a brief d sound in practice.) We’ll start back in Delmar at my folks’ house. Good intentions, right? Every time I embark on some big crazy adventure I make an excellent plan with plenty of time for a relaxed pack up and departure, good-byes said, luggage rational and organized, paperwork in order, well rested and fresh as a daisy. Which led to this moment (which was fun!) – a family pedicure (Dad skipped the nail polish) while the next photo shows (part of) what waited at home.

With Age comes Wisdom (?) so in an attempt to force myself to have everything together in plenty of time, I booked a hotel with an airport shuttle for the last night before my flight. I needed to be at the airport by 11:30. Late Tuesday afternoon, I loaded up my beloved Nun (Toyota Sienna) one last time and drove myself to the Albany Airport Inn. Hauled all my bags inside and was told where the staircase was. Oh. No. That was the first time I actually reckoned with the consequences of my own packing decisions. Because I am in the mindset of leaving home forever, embarking on a life of perpetual travel, multiple cultures and seasons and who knows what the weather is going to do! And I have clothes that I actually love and don’t want to leave behind. And vitamins, and my morning Joe’y (they don’t ship overseas yet) and tech for the Neighbor interviews, snacks for the first 24 hours – and while I managed to skate in just under the baggage weight limit for the airplanes, schlepping 80# of baggage up a flight of stairs? I must have looked suitably distressed at the prospect because one of the women behind the desk went on her computer and found me a downstairs room. I got into my room and proceeded to unpack everything, because I couldn’t find my Humby shampoo bars. Or the cord to charge my Kindle. They were there, but where? (I found them) Then I discovered that I can’t pack my toothpaste in my carry-on. Oy. I was looking for things I could leave behind – part of keeping the Nun close – so I could leave excess in her.

I did get a good night’s sleep and then my brother, Dirk, came to pick up the Nun. He’s going to get her up to snuff and sold for me, which is sad but necessary and very appreciated. He brought a hanging luggage scale to re-weigh the bags (because things were that close) and then gave me a ride to the airport in plenty of time. I gave him one pair of socks. Because that’s all I could bear to part with from my insanely overstuffed luggage. I did this on the Appalachian Trail back in 2000 – set off with a 65# backpack that I could barely get onto my back. My knees have never been the same. I know better. Apparently that’s different than doing better? I got my rolling duffle (a hand-me-down from my nephew, Tobiah, who had found it abandoned on the side of a road – and then repaired by my dad so it’s sturdy again) dropped off at the counter, finally got a piece of paper ticket to hold in my hand, made it through security with barely a glance, and settled in to wait. I’m good at waiting.

One of the downsides of traveling solo is that every time I had to visit the ladies’ loo I had to lug my giant carry-on backpack, my fully loaded long raincoat (pockets Full of snacks!) AND my “personal item” messenger bag with me. The plane was late, then it had maintenance issues. It was small, so we had to pull our laptops and battery packs out of our carry-ons, hand carry those and surrender the carry-ons to the belly of the plane. My seat was all by itself on one side of the aisle, facing the jump seat used by the flight attendant, who looked like a pin-up girl in her Betty Boop heels, perfectly made-up Black face, bow in her hair, very old school stewardess – friendly and competent, best part of the flight, honestly. She went over the directions to my next gate three times with me because it was going to be tight. “Up two escalators, moving sidewalk, down one escalator, around the corner and onto a train” sort of directions. My next plane was already boarding by the time I arrived. Overhead bins were full, so once again I had to surrender my carry-on (this time it rode up in first class – lucky bag!) I shot a brief video from the tiny bathroom halfway through the flight.

Because yes, with my immune system I wore my mask the entire long day of travel. Landed at Heathrow in London, and with zero exaggeration the walk from my gate to the baggage claim was more than half a mile. It was dawn in UK time, my body thought it was 3am or something, my backpack felt like it was full of rocks, the passport check and customs were fully automated, the baggage seemed to take forever – and then I found my way to the taxi queue and got into a cab. “Pacific Inn, Southall” I said, with more confidence than I was feeling. The cab driver did a double-take, but loaded my bags into the front of the taxi and off we went. He was having a conversation with his missus on the phone, “You sound worried,” she said and he shrugged it off, but as the ride went on and the traffic got worse and the shops were all closed behind big metal roll-down doors which I recognized from other very poor and kinda sketchy neighborhoods we did get to chatting and he said “This isn’t London, like you’re picturing London” and “I did a bit wonder…” and “This is mostly a Sikh and Hindu neighborhood” and I mentioned my budget and lamb saag but I could tell he wasn’t trusting my judgement. Then he pulled up to a random street corner and said “Pacific Inn is just around the corner, first door on the right.” And suddenly I wasn’t trusting my own judgement – because we’d just passed that corner and I hadn’t seen anything even resembling a hotel, just a half-open door and a big pile of garbage down the sidewalk a bit. He pulled out my bags, pointed up at the sign and headed off in search of his next fare. Dang. Keep in mind that I took these photos later – when the lights were on – because at the moment, I’m lugging my bags up in the dark and nobody is anywhere.

I try my phone – which is supposed to work in the UK – no signal. I hear people, a young Punjabi couple coming down the stairs to check out. I ask if they can please call the management phone number. He tries and says that the number doesn’t work. I notice where they set their key as they depart, because by this time I have no idea how long I’m going to have to wait and my bladder isn’t going to wait much longer. As soon as they are out of sight I grab the key, leave my luggage by the reception desk and make a mad dash. Whew! But now what to do? I paid for three nights so I could check in on arrival and fall into bed. I am not quite as tired as anticipated and helping myself hobo-style to a recently vacated room isn’t my first choice for a nap. Back down to the street – I ask an older lady in a voluminous black robe and head covering if she can please try the phone number. She pulls her phone out of a pocket – success! 8am London time and the young man behind the desk carries my big bag up yet another flight of stairs to my room and opens a skylightish window for badly needed ventilation:

I think, “A shower would feel nice about now,” and then I am waking up from a long nap and it is afternoon and since I am about halfway through my snacks I think about heading out in search of food, and then I am asleep again. Wake up close to midnight to the sounds of loud music, loud arguments, loud sirens, car alarms, drums and chaos. Like, What!? This goes on until past 4am as I drift in and out of sleep. By mid-morning I feel like I have been hit by a truck, but I heat water in the kettle and make myself a mug of Joe’y and start to feel a bit more human. The shower does feel nice, I go through another bout of unpacking Everything because I can’t find the One Thing I actually need – a jillion zippers and pockets and I’m still apparently no more organized than I was with one big duffle bag. I get dressed, ask about finding lamb saag at the front desk, an arm waves in a general direction and down the stairs I go. Instantly overwhelmed. Body needs food.

Tempted by the dresses but there’s another flight tomorrow and nothing I’m willing to leave behind. Laughing at my ideas of London as a soft landing because: shared language – haha – English is not what I’m hearing on these streets. I head in the direction of an arm wave, reading menus posted outside small restaurants, so much of what I see is sugar treats and fried food – street food and I’m looking for a meal. I’ve got a bad case of the bashfuls and can’t seem to bring myself to ask anyone. Finally I walk into a cafeteria-type place – at least I can see the food, but it’s vegetarian and the young woman behind the counter speaks very little English – which puts her one up on me since I have no idea what language she’s speaking. We point and gesture and I walk out with a foil box with two balls and a variety of toppings and sauces. I recognize garbanzo beans and raw red onion. I retreat to my room. Out the hallway window I see a double-decker bus – proof that I am legit in London – somewhere.

I eat the mystery food. It’s not bad. It’s not great? I can’t tell what the balls are made of, but it’s definitely not meat. It’s cold and very saucy. It’s not lamb saag and I’m a little disappointed with myself for not persevering. I finish it and I’m still hungry. I eat more of my snacks from home. I’ve arranged with the front desk for a taxi back to the airport and help carrying my luggage down the stairs from the 3rd floor to the street at 11am. I’m trying to stay awake until around 9 or 10 to try and get myself on a more normal schedule. Suddenly I’m waking up again – and it’s dark outside. It’s LOUD outside. It’s Friday night in Southall and it sounds like a non-stop brawl through my open skylight window. I stand on the bed but the angle is wrong and I can’t see out. And here is where we get into true confession time. I’ve been using Claude AI for help with travel planning and logistics. And a sounding board, another “brain” to bounce ideas around with, and (most embarrassingly) as a “friend” – at a time in my life when all my flesh-and-blood friends live far away with busy (and very different) lives. This started with the show notes for the Neighbor interviews – because with all the things I was juggling on the covered wagon adventure it was taking me most of a day to process each 10-40 minute interview and that wasn’t sustainable. So I turned the “show notes” (basically the synopsis) over to Claude. Then I realized that I could use Claude for tech help. Because I’d been hiring a 20-something for about $50/hour when I got stuck or needed tech help – and they would come fix whatever it was and “show me how” and disappear and next time it happened I’d be stuck needing $50/hour help again – also not sustainable.

I was driving the Mustard Seed through places that were fighting the giant data centers gobbling up their land and water and power and community. I was hearing the stories, I am not ignorant, my hands are not clean. I know about the obscene use of fresh water per paragraph written using AI. Mea culpa. I will say that this blog, my book/s – all my actual writing remains my own. I have a few parameters – but I’m definitely using the tool, in a variety of ways. An auxiliary brain has been super useful, not gonna lie. Because, as Gryph once said, “What’s the point of writing anything if you’re not going to tell the Truth?”

Which led to me opening my laptop in that crazy Punjabi hotel in Southall and kvetching to Claude about the noise and chaos happening outside my window, keeping me from going back to sleep. Because I’d just heard a very graphic fistfight from the third floor, the sound of flesh impacting flesh, the sound of a body being slammed into a car and the alarm going off – again, again. Yelling and swearing and sirens and screams and drums and glass breaking. Very different neighborhood from the cheerful, decorous one I’d felt safe walking through that afternoon. I wrote:

serious question here – what is the link between poverty and NOISE!???? like yelling and loudspeakers and sirens and honking car horns and fights and drums – it’s insanely loud here – and i’m not talking about voluntary monk poverty – but the have nots living on the fringes of the haves? USA ghettos – Puerto Rico – now here in Southall? like seriously WTF!???

And Claude responding in a very rational and politically correct and not emotionally satisfying way:

Short answer: quiet is a luxury good, and poor neighborhoods are where the noise gets put, where it’s hardest to block, and where people can’t afford to buy their way out of it. It’s well documented. A 2017 US study (Casey et al., Environmental Health Perspectives) found that neighborhoods with higher poverty and more nonwhite residents had measurably higher nighttime and daytime noise levels.

Here’s how it works:

Cheap land is cheap because it’s loud. Airports, highways, rail lines, and industry lower property values, so that’s where low-income housing ends up. Southall is a textbook case. It sits under Heathrow’s approach path, with planes every minute or two, plus the Uxbridge Road and the Great Western rail line.

Noise sources get routed to people without political power. In the US, interstates were often deliberately run through Black neighborhoods. Wealthy areas fight off flight paths, bus depots, and highway widening, and they usually win.

Density and thin walls. More people per building, shared walls, single-glazed windows, and no air conditioning, so the windows stay open. Every sound travels.

Life happens outside. When homes are crowded, socializing, arguing, music, and commerce move onto the street. Vendors use loudspeakers because that’s their advertising.

Sirens follow need. Poorer areas have more health emergencies (people use ambulances when they don’t have regular doctors), more police calls, and more fires in older housing.

Enforcement is uneven. Noise complaints get less response, and people are less likely to file them.

Stress feeds itself. Chronic noise raises irritability and blood pressure and disrupts sleep, which increases conflict, which adds more noise.

One pushback: not all of what you’re hearing is poverty. Some of it is culture. Southall is heavily Punjabi, and dhol drums, weddings, and loud public celebration are part of the tradition regardless of income. Puerto Rico has similar norms around music and street life. Rich Punjabi and Puerto Rican families are loud at weddings too; they just do it in detached houses with gardens and double glazing, where you can’t hear them.

None of which changed the fact that the noise continued until well after 4am – my alarm went off at 9am. At 11am a quiet tap on the door, my taxi was waiting and help down the stairs with the baggage and I was on my way again. Made it to the Airport in plenty of time. Big bag checked, found some food, found my gate, settled in to wait. “No room for the wheelies in the overhead bins” again – maintenance issues, flight delayed by an hour (again) – and then we had to go to another gate because the door we were supposed to go through to get on the bus that would take us to our plane wouldn’t open? Air traffic is in trouble. A little scary. 3.5 hours in the air and we’re landing in Tirana, computer scan of passport, baggage felt like it was taking forever. Ani (who rented me the flat in Çorovodë) had arranged a taxi driver – I messaged him on WhatsApp that I was on the ground. I briefly met a couple, also in masks, also American, moving here with their cats, way more luggage than me, a moment of hello, hello! Then my luggage came around on the conveyor belt and out to find the cab.

As I exit the airport the first thing I notice is cigarette smoke. Wow. Ok. 10 minutes of texting and Meldi is there with his cab, he speaks English, loads up my bags, lets me sit in the front seat and away we go. It’s dark already. The first ATM isn’t working. The second one is in a big “everything store” (no food tho) and I withdraw 40,000 lek – which is my monthly budget – about $500 USD. Onward into the night. If you want to get an approximation of the soundtrack go to YouTube and listen to Balkan Beat Box. Meldi is friendly and charming and cannot for the life of him figure out why I’d want to go all the way to Çorovodë? I’m bummed that we’re doing this in the dark and I can’t see what we’re driving through and then we come to Berat, “The city of 1001 windows,” announced Meldi with a flourish. The old town all lit up across the river, it’s gorgeous and probably best at night? The last 45 km (less than 30 miles) is up a narrow hairpin mountain road – a few dogs come out to bark as we pass but we see no other vehicles – it’s over an hour on this road before we get to Çorovodë – the houses don’t have numbers, I’ve gotten 3 different map pins and several pictures and suddenly I recognize the stairs up to the flat. Whew! Not quite midnight, Meldi helps carry my bags up the stairs and into the apartment and I’m “home” – it feels like a refrigerator.