I would just like y’all to know that I made it home in good shape. No one in Sweden or Denmark cared to check the date of entry in my passport, let alone to hassle me about staying too long in the Schengen Zone without a visa. So all that worry and tension about leaving Europe was for nothing–Hey, I’m glad about that!
So now I have loads of work to do just to process the pictures, let alone the experience. Already I have sold short profiles of cafes in Trieste and Venice, and hopefully in Heidelberg, to Specialty Coffee Retailer magazine (yes, it is a great mag, even if you don’t read it regularly). So look for my stuff at least in the on-line edition. Still to go is one more piece about cafes in Prague.
And I’m trying to get editors interested in an article on coffee museums I have known, from Quindio, Colombia to Forlimpopoli and Hamburg. Everyone was so generous to me with time, conversation, gifts, even wonderful lunches. Hurrah for coffee people!
My car may arrive in 2 weeks or in 6. It will be great to have it here.
Viva Oxford, Ohio. Pretty Ohio, I say. You can live and breathe here, and if the administrators are not too dedicated to cultivating rudeness, you can work here.
Good coffee and travels to you!
Having told many of out common friends, or at least odd acquaintances, that you would be spending the summer and possibly a long cold autumn in a Danish prison, I read with regret that they did not actually care that you were an illegal alien. Fortunately, here in Georgia that would not occur, given that we are forcing all 320,000 students in the university system to prove that they are legal, or else (the else is being debated by people who do a lot of frothing). So welcome back and come down to Georgia where we have a cell waiting.