CoopRenner

Summing Up? The Grand European Adventure 2010

2010-06-10T13:54:00.000-07:00

Well, folks, I'm back in Texas and enjoying being warm again. All together I was gone 50 days: 4 to Florida; 14 on the cruise; 22 in Malta; 10 in London. What were the highlights of the trip?

1. You will probably all laugh at me, but perhaps the very finest time of all was sitting in the Palm House in Kew Gardens, drawing and listening as Chris Watson manipulated his tapes to create a new mix of his "Whispering in the Leaves" sound installation. It was great.

2. Cadiz, Spain. Cadiz is compactly situated on a peninsula, making it a great city for getting around in on foot. And we had great weather that day: sunny and warm without a roaring wind.

3. Obidos, Portugal. A lovely little walled hilltop village, and another great day for weather. This may also be the only place outside the U.S. where I saw (and bought) Lay's potato chips!

4. Listening to (and drawing) great music. Both in Malta and on the ship, I heard a great deal of classical music live. Often I sat and drew while listening and afterward gave the drawings to one or another of the musicians. That was fun.

5. Revisiting old sights. It was fun to see places (and in a few cases) people I hadn't seen since 2007.

6. Marks & Spencer cafes.

7. Meeting cruise employees from many different countries and sort of getting to know them over 2 weeks on the ship.

8. Visiting bookstores with an English slant (even in Malta).

9. The car museum in Qawra, Malta.

And what about lowlights?

1. Not getting to visit the Azores Islands because of very rough weather. On the one hand, it might have been really unpleasant trying to walk about a lovely 300 year old town in a chilly rain; on the other, it was disappointing to lose our first "land" day after a week at sea. It was raining and windy, yes, but apparently what really decided the captain against trying to dock at Punta Delgada was the size of the swells that kept lifting the ship as they tried to bring it to the dock.

2. The weather in general. It was mostly sunny (except in London), but there was so much wind so much of the time that being outside, which I love, wasn't necessarily pleasant. And the temperatures, while not truly cold, were often chilly enough to require a windbreaker (or two) and/or sweatshirt: not exactly what one wants in May after a long cold winter.

3. Some of the cruise amenities. I was disappointed that this ship focused more on in-room movie-watching than in-theatre movie-watching, which I would have preferred.

4. Listening to a squalling toddler on a multi-hour transatlantic flight.

5. Having a last-minute passport difficulty in Malta (because personnel at Fiumicino Airport in Rome never stamped my passport) and hoping I didn't miss my flight to London.

Overall, despite the fact that I never felt quite as settled and "at home" in Malta as I had hoped, it was a great trip.

TV by the River, and Swans on the Serpentine

2010-06-03T12:57:00.000-07:00

Today is my California sister's birthday! Happy Birthday, Jane!

And we had sunshine again today, so maybe Jane sent it from the desert. London sure needed it. I believe the temperature actually hit 75 today, but the wind was up again, so sometimes it wasn't as comfortable as yesterday. Sitting on the bank of the Thames doing a drawing this afternoon, I needed the windbreaker.

My first photo today is a mother (or father?) swan and the cygnets. I think Hans Christian Andersen was wrong: just because they're not yellow doesn't mean they're ugly.

My target on my long walk this morning was the Tate Gallery of Modern Art--or the Tate Modern, as they call it--so I went through Hyde Park and out toward Buckingham Palace, and then east along The Mall to The Strand. (I'm sure you're all following this on your maps of London!) I had walked almost the whole length of The Mall (the big street that connects Buckingham Palace up to where the Horse Guards are) when I came to The Mall Galleries. They had an exhibit of artwork involving textiles. An artist named Amanda Hislop had some small landscapes done on (or with?) pieces of cloth. Quite cool. I also had morning tea in the cafe there.

Not far beyond the galleries, near the Admiralty Arch, is the column for the Duke of York. This Duke of York is "the" Duke, the one of the nursery rhyme: "The grand old Duke of York / He had ten thousand men." He was George III's second son, so he never got to be king, and a government official who was standing there told me that "they say" the reason the column is so high and the Duke's statue so far up in the sky is so people couldn't throw things at it. Apparently he was very unpopular: remember in the rhyme what he did, he "marched them up to the top of the hill / And marched them down again."

While I was there, I heard something behind me and looked, and there went a a troop of horsemen, on their way to the Changing of the Guards, I assume. A lot of them were carrying musical instruments. I got a couple of photos, but neither was terribly good, so I won't post either. (If you want to see them, email me.)

After passing through the Admiralty Arch, I moseyed down The Strand, another famous street for readers of 19th century English fiction. I picked up some lunch for a little picnic on the river bank and crossed over the Thames on the Waterloo Bridge and turned east. I had my lunch on "The Queen's Walk" not far from the National Theatre, the IBM Building and the London Television Centre. This last explains, I suppose, a little bit of serendipity I had. There was a small crowd standing on the walk above the river and some kind of food presentation going on, with cameraman, wiring, and so forth. I asked a woman in the crowd what it was, and she explained that they were doing a live outdoor segment for the show called "This Morning." The woman in the center is one of the hosts (the male host was sitting off to the side), and the guest, a chef, is to her right and facing away from the camera in this photo: they were on commercial break, I think. Apparently the chef is pretty well-known, at least over here, but I don't know who he is.

Then, down on the river bank itself, was this guy in a kilt sculpting the words "This Morning Live on the South Bank".

From here I made my way on to the Tate Modern. The collection there includes Picassos and Dalis, as well as less famous artists of the 20th century, and of course they do special exhibits as well. There are several going on now, some of which were free (I went into those); two others cost 10 pounds each and I skipped those. One of the paintings which must be one of the most famous is one of the Monet paintings of Waterlilies. This one is quite large: I guess it must be 4 feet high and 8 or 10 feet long. There is also a Jackson Pollock, which looks like you expect a Pollock to look like, that must be about 30 inches high and at least 5 times that long. I was especially interested in the work of a Portuguese artist named Sarmento whose paintings sometimes looked sort of like unfinished sketches, and an African artist (from the Ivory Coast) who works on small pieces of stiff paper, sort of like card stock, and uses ball point and colored pencil: small drawings with various things written around them. Some kind of dream interpretation or representation. There is also a room devoted to an American artist named Ed Ruschka whose work often makes me laugh, though I don't know for sure if that is his intent. I like it a lot. One of the paintings is basically a red background with block printing on it that says something like "You must find me insane because I'm just crazy about that little girl."

It was a warmish sunny day, remember, and most Londoners don't have yards, so there were people all over the place in the public spaces, including on the lawn between the Tate Modern and the river. Right here by the museum you can also go onto the Millennium Bridge--a footbridge over the Thames that leads more or less straight to St Paul's Cathedral. I joined the crowd crossing the river and, once I was across, took pictures of two street names that caught my eye. I didn't see David Hasselhoff anywhere around this place, though:

And right near it, leading up to St Paul's, is this street. I hear people sleep good here. Hehehe.

St Paul's charges 12 pounds 50 pence to go inside, and I figured I've seen a zillion churches on this trip and the last trip so--architectural marvel or no--I skipped it again. I did sit for a few minutes in one of the garderns, resting my feet, and looking at the map. And that's when I saw this pigeon. As you all know, I'm not a fan of pigeons, but this little gal or guy sort of won my heart. Look carefully at his/her right foot:

I made a side trip up Old Bailey road, not far from St Paul's, to take this photo for those of you who are fans of British mysteries. There are two buildings labeled "Central Criminal Court," and this is the old one, so I reckon it must be Old Bailey itself.

I also took a peek in another church designed, like St Paul's, by Sir Christopher Wren, yet another St Martin (not in-the-Fields, but in Ludgate). It was nice enough: just a church.

And then it was time for the long meandering walk back to the hotel: back along the river for a while, along The Strand, past Trafalgar Square, up Regent Street, west on Oxford Street, and so forth. I browsed books one last time at Waterstone's (didn't buy anything), had one last little picnic in Hyde Park, worked on a couple of sketches at the Italian Gardens, and then back to the hotel. I think I've got the suitcase pretty well packed, and the things pulled aside that I will need in the backpack for carry-on.

And then tomorrow: that long long flight.

Sunlight? In London?

2010-06-02T12:23:00.000-07:00

Today two amazing things happened: 1] I wore shorts; and 2] I used my sunglasses. Yes. In London.

Why? you ask. 1] The temperature exceeded 55 degrees Fahrenheit; and 2] the sun shone. Yes. In London.

I actually felt like a human being. I was able to sit OUTSIDE and draw without getting wet or feeling like a stalactite. And when I say, "The sun shone," I don't mean it shone for 12 minutes; then didn't shine for 37 minutes; then shone for 6 minutes; then--Well, you get the idea. The sun shone virtually the entire day. Thank you, high pressure system.

And the high temperature today? 70. Yes. In London. Two degrees ABOVE NORMAL. I had not felt 70 degrees, OUTSIDE, since May 23 or 24. Amazing. The temperature was right about what they had predicted, but the amount of sunlight was actually HIGHER than they had predicted. Amazing.

When I left the hotel of course, about 9:30, it was NOT 70 degrees. 60 maybe. But I wore shorts anyway, and a windbreaker. And I carried the other windbreaker in the backpack, AND the umbrella. I didn't dare believe that I might actually need neither of them all day. When I got to Marble Arch park, a half-mile or so away, I actually took the windbreaker off, even though it was still a bit chilly, and sat on a bench in the shade to draw. Sitting in the sun would have been nice, of course, but it's difficult to draw on white paper if you are squinting against the sunlight. I drew the huge horse-head sculpture, and a little scene involving two elephants (one mostly hidden) from the Elephant Parade. Here's that sketch, in small form:

After drawing a while, I went on to Marks and Spencer (Oxford Street west) for morning tea, then moseyed on to Grant & Cutler, a bookstore that specializes in non-English language material, where I browsed a while without buying anything. Remember that I still haven't finished the two Spanish books I bought in Cadiz, since I've mostly been reading English. Then I went to Marks and Spence (Oxford Street east) for a jacket potato and tea for lunch. THEN I went on to my easternmost point for today: the Sir John Soanes Museum. This is a house-museum, established by act of Parliament in 1833, a few years before Soanes died, since the museum is what he intended for the house after his death. (He didn't have to move out before he died.) Soanes was a very prominent architect, with plenty of money, and his house actually occupied 3 previous addresses. It's full of his collections: pieces of old sculpture and buildings, a bit of ancient pottery, over 6000 books, paintings--LOTS of paintings, and so forth. In several places on the ground floor, there are grates in the floor, which I thought might be for ventilation purposes or for hot air from fires in the basement to rise up through (like the Romans did), but one of the employees told me that they were actually to allow natural light into the basement!

My next goal was Foyle's bookstore, a really big bookstore on Charing Cross Road, where I thought I might stumble across something I really NEEDED to buy, and where I might finally buy the poetry book "Dart" by Alice Oswald, which I've been intending to buy for a week now. The easiest way to get from Lincoln's Inn Fields, where the Soanes Museum is, to Charing Cross Road put me near Covent Garden, so I figured I ought to go ahead and make the detour and see if there was anything there I should look at. Along the way I came by this huge building, which I had noticed the other day, but hadn't known what it was. Apparently it's the Masonic hall--I'm not sure of it's official name. I don't know if you can tell from this photo, which I took kind of leaning and looking up at it, but it's quite imposing.

Well, there wasn't anything special as far as I could tell about Covent Garden nowadays--it's just shops and restaurants--but there was a couple of acrobatic sorts out on one of the open areas putting on a show. If you look carefully, you might be able to tell that the woman to the left is balanced on a straight-line ladder.

There was also a woman off to the side, in the shade near one of the buildings, with her easel set up doing a small painting--probably about 8 by 8 inches--of Covent Garden: it was going very well and looking quite nice.

Once I got to Charing Cross Road, I noticed this sign which made me think of my friends the Comptons, though they might not appreciate the designation "OLD".

Many of you will remember the book and movie "84, Charing Cross Road." Well, if you look way over to the right in this photo you'll see the blue 82. That's Charing Cross Road. I took the photo the way I did because I'm sort of guessing that the Pizza Hut occupies the space that may once have been both 83 and 84 Charing Cross Road. Was there actually a bookstore at # 84, once upon a time, or was it all fiction? Your guess is as good as mine.

And then on to Foyle's. I spent a good while here--maybe an hour, maybe 45 minutes--looking more at the poetry section than anywhere else. The poetry section is quite large, larger than you're likely to see almost anywhere in the US, but of course the emphasis is English. And it's interesting to see the differences and who is considered important enough to be on the shelf and so forth. Poets who are hardly read at all anymore in the US are represented by one or more books--folks like Walter de la Mare, for example, or Mervyn Peake, who is known almost exclusively as a novelist in the US, or W.S. Graham, who has hardly ever been published in the US--and it's interesting to see an American poet like Wallace Stevens represented by "Harmonium", his first book, published almost 90 years ago, and not in print in the US as a separate book but only as a part of his collected poems. Some authors--not a lot--are represented by books from American presses, not English editions, and others which are available from different presses in the two countries look better in their English editions: Faber & Faber makes much more attractive and elegant poetry paperbacks than Random House does!

Anyway, whether being practical was the best thing to do or not, that's what I did. I bought "Dart" (which is available in the US only as part of a "selected" poems by the author) and resisted other temptations. Of course I still have tomorrow. . . .

As I made my way back toward the hotel, I made another stop at Marks and Spencer for afternoon tea, and here I succumbed to a different temptation: I bought a white linen long-sleeved shirt. I had noticed it at M&S before, and today I decided I could use another button-down shirt, especially something as light and cool as these are supposed to be. (Why any man needs a light and cool shirt in England is beyond me, but in Texas I HOPE it will be hot!

I've got to tell you: it was SO nice to be able to be outside without being cold or wet or both. It was so nice to sit in the shade and draw. It was so nice to walk down Oxford Street, on the SUNNY side of the street, and feel warm without feeling hot and sweaty under the multiple layers of jackets necessary to avoid feeling cold and miserable. It really was like being human again.

39 Steps, Tips for Pedestrians, and Horrible Weather

2010-06-01T13:22:00.000-07:00

People make fun of Icelanders for allegedly believing in brownies, an idea which costs them nothing and hurts no one. But no one makes fun of the English for spending millions (or billions?) of pounds on sun screen and sunglasses, two items that no one ever needs in the British Isles. You know how the SPF works. If you're wearing SPF 30 and spend an hour in full sunlight, you get only 2 minutes of "exposure"--your exposure is reduced by a factor of 30. Now since in England it is completely unheard of for the sun to shine more than 2 minutes in any given hour (and normally it will be far LESS than 2 minutes), England is itself officially SPF 30!

Here are the daily high temperatures beginning on May 25, last Tuesday, when I arrived: 63, 59, 61, 66, 61, 64, 61, and (today) 55. You will notice that only ONE DAY has even approached the so-called normal high of 68, which is itself no great shakes. And that English sense of humor you all love so much? They are predicting 69 or 70 for tomorrow! HarharharHAHAHAharharhar.

This morning, not being a banker's holiday, the laundry was actually open. I was actually able to leave off my jeans for washing, an important consideration since July 27, 1913, was the last time it was warm enough in London to wear shorts, and since in today's rain the front of my khakis got wet all the way up to the bottoms of my pockets (that is, the top of my thighs) as I walked back to the hotel this afternoon. Now of course this "express" laundry won't have my jeans ready for me before 5 p.m. tomorrow, but that's the breaks. I assume it will take at least 24 hours of continuous rotation in a dryer for the jeans to dry after being washed.

After leaving my jeans off at the laundry, I headed back toward the British Library where I hoped to get some clarification (including cost) about getting some kind of electronic photocopy of one of their books. Along the way, I veered into Regent's Park, which I passed yesterday, but had never visited before. On a nice day, it might have been a nice walk. Today of course the drizzle started up about the time I got as far into the park as I intended to go and as I turned back toward the east to go on to the library.

At some point on the walk to (or from?) the library, I passed this big plaque/carving, built into the wall of a building. Since many of you (myself included, nowadays) like Dickens's work quite a lot, I thought you might like this photo:

In case you can't read the notice, it says, "While living in a house on this site Charles Dickens wrote six of his principal works, characters from which appear in this sculptured panel." I think that's probably Little Dorrit and her father at the upper right, and maybe Oliver and his grandfather just right of Dickens, but you'll have to decide who the rest are.

When I got to the library I found out that the book I was interested in was on site there, rather than elsewhere, so that, if I wanted to go through the procedure of applying for a reading room pass and waiting for the book to be brought up from storage (about 70 minutes), then I could go ahead and see it today. So I did that: got the reader's pass (good for this whole month) and put in my request for the book. Then I left for lunch while the book was being found, and that's when I found out why I had trouble closing my umbrella when I entered--the shaft was broken! Of course. So I held it sort of not-quite-completely opened and made my way back to Euston train station for a little lunch. While there I bought another umbrella, from one of Lou Ann's favorite places--Boots Pharmacy. (I think I have already managed to bend the shaft of this new umbrella, apparently while trying to shake the excess water off of it before going inside one place or another: who would have thought that an umbrella was so hard to make?)

Back at the library, I got my book: "Ximenes, The Wreath and Other Poems" by J.W. Polidori, published in London in 1819. Polidori is mostly famous for having written "The Vampyre," published anonymously in 1816 (and mistakenly thought to be Lord Byron's work) and then in book form under Polidori's name in 1819. I've been working Polidori into my Maltese werewolf stories, so I wanted to take a look at this book. There is another book of poetry too, called "The Fall of the Angels", which even the British Library doesn't have a copy of! Anyway, the book looks like pretty standard Romantic period poetry, not worth much study, though I would like to read "Ximenes", which Polidori called "A dramatic action," i.e. a play for reading rather than staging. As it turns out, I can get the library to create a photocopy of this for me, but it will cost somewhere between $40-45, so I'll have to decide if I want to do that or not.

After leaving the library for good, my general goal was to reach the TKTS stand and see about getting a discount ticket to the matinee of "The 39 Steps". I didn't have to hurry too much, as the play began at 3 and it was not yet 1:30. Miracle of miracles, the rain had sort of tapered off during some of this walk, and I didn't have to have the (new) umbrella opened the entire time. I stopped into a bookstore I passed by chance, which seemed in some ways sort of like Half-Price Books, with both used books and remaindered books in stock. I bought a copy of a "brief life" of the author E.M. Forster who wrote a couple of novels and several stories which I like very much. Even if you haven't read Forster, you have probably seen movies based on his novels: "A Room with a View" (my favorite), "Howards End," "A Passage to India" and "Where Angels Fear to Tread." Not too many blocks farther I came to the London Review Bookstore. I didn't have a lot of time to spend there, and mostly browsed poetry, but it looked to have perhaps the smartest selection of books of any store I've been in in London. It is very near the British Museum, so I guess it's just a matter of walking one way or another that explains why I haven't seen it before.

Finally I made it back to Leicester Square to TKTS and asked about the matinee: they had a "very good" seat that cost 25 pounds, and a not so good seat for 14 pounds, so I went for the not-so-good. "The 39 Steps" is a kind of spy novel, almost one hundred years old and set right before World War I. Hitchcock made it into a movie and--judging by this play--he must have set it in the '30s, instead of the '10s. (I don't believe I've ever seen the movie, but I'm sure some of you have.) For this new stage adaptation, they have gone for comedy, so that the story is still a spy thriller, but it's played for laughs. There are only four main actors in the company: the male lead, who plays the bored Englishman who learns of the attempt to smuggle top secret information out of England; the female lead, who plays the two main female roles, the first of whom informs the male of the conspiracy and is killed for her efforts; and the other two men, who play all the other roles, including the females. One of these guys is really quite funny, especially when playing an old woman dressed in a knee-length skirt which shows the dark socks and garters from his male clothing. There is some clever staging, especially the use of a translucent curtain, lit from behind, while the players manipulate various stick figures to show actions too complicated to stage. In another scene, the male lead is trying to escape while carrying the female lead across a storm-swollen river (hey, that was appropriate for today!). The river is represented by a blue sheet the other two actors are shaking and rippling along the floor, but when the 'hero' tries to cross they lift it up as high as his waist and drive him back. The third time they do that, instead of acting defeated by the river, he simply tells the other actors to stop it and they drop the sheet and let him cross. It was funnier than it sounds, I'm sure.

Well, when I left the theater, about 4:45, can you guess what it was doing? Raining again. And this time it just went on and on, and somewhat heavier than earlier. I made my way toward Marks & Spencer to have supper and passed another author sign along the way:

After my light supper (supplemented by oatmeal back at the hotel) at M&S, I left in--can you guess?--more rain. You will be pleased that I didn't actually strike and fling bricks at any of the people on the sidewalks standing in the way and slowing everyone down in the rain, but I can't say I wasn't cussing at them under my breath. I am not a very nice person after I crack under the strain of way too much awful weather, made worse by people who seem determined to trap you in it as long as possible.

And so here are your tips for pedestrians in London:

1] You have no rights. Don't make the mistake of thinking that you do. If a cab or bus driver wants to jump the curb and smash you flat, he will. There will be investigation into your death. There will be no charges filed.

2] The fact that there are WALK/DON'T WALK signals at major intersections means nothing at all. The signal will show WALK at best for 30 seconds every hour. Even if motor traffic is stopped all four directions, the DON'T WALK signal will still be lit. If you insist on waiting for the WALK signal, it will take you 6-8 hours to walk half a mile and, on a day like today, you will certainly catch pneumonia in the process. You HAVE TO CROSS against the light, most of the time. Of course if a cab or bus driver smashes you flat when you are doing so, see 1] above.

3] If at all possible, the traffic engineers of London will make it impossible to cross a street in one go. Crossing a major street can actually involve using four separate crosswalks with four separate WALK/DON'T WALK signals, none of which will be timed to operate together. In this situation, if you insist on waiting for the 4 separate WALK signals, it can take you as long as 4 hours to walk 150 feet. A prime example of this is Hampstead Road at Euston Road.

4] London sidewalks are not actually designed for walking. They are designed for standing upon and handing out advertising flyers and free evening newspapers; OR for parking your baby buggy, longways across foot traffic, while you carry on a conversation with someone else with a baby buggy 15-20 feet farther down the sidewalk; OR for standing four abreast in a family group and preventing any movement in any direction.

By the way, London is quite an international city, and I don't know how many languages you might hear spoken on the streets. What is more remarkable than the non-English speakers, however, is the prevalence of English speakers from whom you cannot understand more than 1 word in 50. There are big, tough-looking men on the streets of London, who give the impression that they have played on rugby leagues all their lives, but have played AS THE BALL, and who speak English with no consonants at all: it's all vowels and glottal stops. But then why not? One is bound to suffer psychological damage when the cumulative lifetime total of hours of actual sunlight one has experienced is a single digit number.

Which brings up the issue of "sunrise" and "sunset". By this time of year the gap between "sunrise" and "sunset" is at least 16 or 17 hours. The trick, though, is that the terms are entirely metaphorical. When the percentage of time the sky is covered by cloud is equal to the reputed purity of Ivory soap (99.44%), the odds of actually seeing the sun as it climbs up or down the horizon are not high. "Sunrise" means: that time at which the clouds begin to seem less dark; and "sunset" is of course the opposite: that time at which the clouds get even darker.

In Malta my daily routine was 85% eating and walking; here in London it is 85% eating, walking and removing or reassuming multiple layers of clothing. It is possible to be comfortably warm INSIDE. It is NOT possible OUTSIDE. Outside there are two conditions: cold and hot. If one is sitting or standing still, one is cold, despite that four layers of clothing one is wearing. If one is walking at a rate of 4-5 miles per hour, then one is hot if one is still wearing those four layers of clothing. If one removes one layer, then one is cold again. At this point, I can feel no hesitation in making this recommendation: if any one of you ever hears me again utter the words, "London is a wonderful place," even if I attach the qualification "despite the weather," you are instructed to wallop me in the head with a shovel and bury me alive.

Magna Carta and the Cass art store

2010-05-31T13:04:00.000-07:00

Some of you, I know, would love to spend May 31 with a 60-degree overcast day. I say, Pooh.

You will laugh when I tell you that perhaps the highlight of the day was a quick trip to the Cass art store. I was directed there by a clerk at Waterstone's bookstore after asking if they had blank books or sketch books. The weather was unpleasant, of course, and I hadn't brought my pencils or drawing book with me from the hotel, so I thought it might be nice to sit in the National Gallery and draw.

Cass is great. Great prices--a lot of the stuff in the store was marked way down--and great stuff: slim drawing books of only 20 sheets or so with high quality paper; thicker, full-scale drawing books, either with hardbacks or spiral spines; and so forth. I could have bought several, without spending much money, if I weren't worried about my suitcase being overweight. As it was, I bought two of the slim books, sized about like a piece of typing paper; a 2B pencil; a sharpener and an eraser. All for about 5 pounds. Then I headed over to the Gallery, browsed around a bit, and ended up doing a couple of sketches.

Earlier in the day, I tried to take my jeans to the laundry not far from the hotel, only to find out that it was closed for the "banker's holiday." Why laundries get to close for banker's holidays, I don't know, and I wish the woman had thought to mention it to me the other day when I stopped in there to ask about getting clothes washed. Was there a sign on the day saying "Closed On Monday for the Banker's Holiday"? No. And in fact none of the shops I saw closed today had such a sign. One of them even had the "OPEN" sign prominently displayed in the doorway, even though the store was closed.

So instead of dropping off the jeans, which I have had to wear so often here in London that they can almost walk on their own, I had to had back to the hotel to drop them off. Then I trundled on to the Sherlock Holmes Museum, not to visit the museum again, but rather to buy something appropriately Sherlock-y at a niece's request: I decided the A. Conan Doyle 150th anniversary "first day of issue" stamped envelope, addressed to Sherlock Holmes, would be appropriate. If she doesn't like it, I'll keep it. The museum and store, fortunately, were open.

Then I decided to press on toward the British Library, hoping it would be open. I wasn't quite ready for my morning tea, so I passed by the cafes on Baker Street, which were also open, and headed on up Marylebone Road and then Euston Road toward the library. As I got closer to the library, I was ready for morning tea--and sitting somewhere warm--but along that stretch of road there were not many coffee shops or cafes, until I came to Euston Road train station, where there were quite a few. I sat in Pret a Manger--which was actually warm enough inside that they had the door propped open--and had tea and a croissant. I rested and read for a while, then went across the plaza to the Krispy Kreme stand (the first I've seen in London) and got an "original glazed" donut--not nearly as good cold as they are when they come hot off the conveyor belt at a real store, like I used to get in El Paso.

By this time the British Library was pretty close, and it was open! This statue is out in front, and it made me think of the William Blake paintings of the measuring god he called Urizen. I didn't see the sculptor's name or whether he was inspired by Blake or not.

At least the exhibits were open. The reading rooms, which I had hoped to visit, were not--and I may not have time to use them anyway. One has to "join" to get a reading pass, and then it may take as long as 48 hours to have the books one wants brought up out of storage. I had hoped to see if they had some 19th century copies of some of John Polidori's books, which seem to have vanished off the face of the earth, except, of course, for "The Vampyre", which I have no need to see. But the online catalogs were closed for the banker's holiday too, so I don't even know if they will have the books. I may be able to search online tonight, when I get connected to the Internet.

So the British Library, like the laundy, was a bit of a disappointment. As I sad, however, the exhibits were open, and that saved the long walk from being an utter failure. A large exhibit room features "Treasures of the British Library," some of which are treasures indeed. The Library owns two of the 4 existing copies of the Magna Carta (1215), considered one of the foundation documents of English (and hence American) democracy, though only one of them is on display right now. One of the other two is in the Salisbury Cathedral, and I saw that one in 2007, so I've seen 2 of the 4 copies now. The Library also has a copy of the 1225 version of the Magna Carta, issued by King Edward III, son of King John, who was forced to issue the original one.

There is also Thomas Hardy's original manuscript of "Tess of the Durbervilles" which I'm reading at the moment; a bunch of Shakespeare and Shakespeare-related stuff; illuminated manuscripts; a Gutenberg Bible (there's also one at the University of Texas); and even the manuscript of "Beowulf." Quite a cool place. There is also this very cool painting outside the exhibition rooms, called "Paradoxymoron." I don't, unfortunately, remember the artist's name. This is a photo of the painting seen from directly in front.

And now I'm standing off to the right a bit:

And now I'm off to the left a bit:

And now I'm standing almost directly to the left side. You can see that the painting is not flat, and the angles of the various panels create the optical illusion that you are moving past an actual set of shelves. Very cool.

By the time I left the museum I was ready for lunch, and I kept looking for some place I could get a baked potato. This is not a part of London I'm at all familiar with, so I was using the map and hoping for the best. Finally, near the Goodge Street Underground station, I found a place. It wasn't the best baked potato I have ever had, but it took the edge off my hunger at least.

Then I took a bit of a walk to find the street sign for Goodge Street itself, rather than the train station. If you ever liked the old folky-jazzy Donovan music, before the days of "Sunshine Superman," perhaps you'll remember "Sunny Goodge Street." Needless to say, Goodge Street was not sunny today.

And given the fairly dreadful weather, I thought I could do worse than spend some time in the British Museum, not far away now. As I walked toward, I saw Bedford Square on my map, and thought I might as well walk past it, since I was in the neighborhood. I made the entire circuit of the square, looking for the historical markers, but the only one I took a photo of was for Anthony Hope, author of "Prisoner of Zenda", who lived on Bedford Square for a while. The gardens in the center of the square are, by the way, private, and you have to have a key to get into them. There were lots of "TO LET" signs on the square, however, so maybe you will take out a lease and get a key.

Here's a historical marker I photographed elsewhere in the neighborhood, maybe on Tottenham Court Road, which turns into Charing Cross Road, which sort of turns into Whitehall. I believe this building is a hotel now, but it may not have been when H.G. Wells lived there.

It was starting to drizzle as I approached the British Museum, and that's when I got the idea it would be good to get some drawing materials and sit inside and sketch. But I wasn't terribly impressed with what the BM shops had to offer--nothing as good as the Tate Britain shops, that's for sure!--and then, while I was looking, the sun came out! I know because I was in the shop in the great court of the Museum which has skylights. So I left the museum and headed out. I figured I could enjoy the sunlight and get some drawing stuff at one of the bookstores down on Charing Cross. I made it to Blackwell's in a few minutes, and it was actually beginning to feel warm enough that I thought I might be able to take the sweatshirt off. I was looking at the stuff in Blackwell's, sort of nice, but not exactly what I wanted, so I thought, "Well, I'll just zip down to Waterstone's", and I stepped outside, and the sun was gone. Maybe 15 minutes, maybe 20 minutes, all together. And it never came back either. Sigh.

Well, you already know that Waterstone's didn't have what I wanted, but they directed me to Cass. After I left the National Gallery and started my walk to Marks & Spencer for supper and then the hotel for the evening, I took a photo of this "ship in a bottle" outside the Gallery at Trafalgar Square. It's up on a huge platform which had, I think, a torso of a woman on it when I was here in 2007. That's Admiral Nelson on his column in the background.

Well, if the forecasters are right, tomorrow will be just as cold as today, with the added "benefit" of showers. THEN, IF they are right, it might actually get into the low 70s on Wednesday. With sunlight. I won't hold my breath. The warmest it's been in London so far is 66, and that was Friday afternoon while I was in the theatre watching "Dirty Dancing." Tomorrow I may go see "The 39 Steps". There certainly won't be any reason to hang around outside. Tata.

Some Comments on London Weather, and other subjects

2010-05-30T12:00:00.001-07:00

Here are some pointers about London weather. Basically it comes in two forms: "rainy" and "sunny". If it's "rainy," then there will be 100% cloud cover and precipitation falling RIGHT NOW. If it's "sunny," the cloud cover will drop to as low as 90% coverage and rain won't be falling YET. See if you can find the blue skies over Sunny Buckingham Palace:

If a Londoner says, "It was so hot I thought my brain would fry inside my skull," he means it was 65 to 68 degrees Fahrenheit. If the temperature hits 70 degrees Fahrenheit, he will put an ice pack on his face and book a flight to Antarctica. If he says, "Oh, it's quite pleasant, isn't it?" he means it is 55 degrees. If he says, "It's a fine day for a brisk walk," he means it's 40 degrees.

If you come to London in July or August, you might be able to leave the thermal underwear at home. From September through June, you should make sure you have at least four layers on hand to use as needed.

***

I had morning tea today at the cafe on the Serpentine in Hyde Park. I think the cafe is called the Serpentine not because it's on the Serpentine, but because once you get inside, it's almost impossible to find a way out of there. Then I passed Buckingham Palace, not long before the changing of the guards. These guys were, I presume, on their way to the changing: I passed them just a bit to the east of the Palace.

I went on my way to Westminster Abbey where I, as we Americans say, "went to church." It's the second time I've been to a Sunday service there, the first time in 2007 when the Archbishop of Canterbury delivered the sermon. I was not cold inside the abbey, but after all, I had long pants on, a t-shirt and a long-sleeved shirt. As I went down the side aisle to take my seat (I wasn't in a pew), I passed and/or stepped on the grave markers of Charles Darwin, Edward Elgar and Ralph Vaughn Williams. Many noteworthy English folk are buried in Westminster Abbey, but the floor is not almost completely tombstones as with St John's Co-Cathedral in Valletta.

The Abbey is right across the street from Parliament (to the east), and this assemblage was on a patch of empty lawn to the north of the Abbey.

I don't precisely who the protesters were--and if their protest had anything to do with the recent British elections or if it's something else--but at least one of their messages was quite clear! I wasn't too far north of here when I came across this street sign I thought some of you would enjoy.

The Clarence (restaurant) is named, I suppose, after the Duke of Clarence. I think by this time I had already had my lunch, a jacket potato and a cup of tea at a place on either Parliament St or Whitehall (essentially the same road--most roads in London seem to change their names about every 15 feet). I moseyed on toward Trafalgar Square where I intended to spend some time at the National Portrait Gallery, just around the corner.

Trafalgar Square was packed with people--after all, there was some sun in amongst the clouds, the temperature was at least 60, and the wind wasn't strongest enough to rip a child of 40 or more pounds out of its parents' hands and into the sky: in other words, a lovely day. There were several painted people on the square, up close to the entrance to the National Gallery (not the same as the National Portrait Gallery), having their pictures taken with tourists and hoping for coins to be thrown into their hats. This guy actually looked even less human and alive up close than he does in this photo. He was wearing a mask, I think, because there was some kind of glass or plastic over his eyes, and this made him look artificial even if you assumed he was a painted human. He was also very good at standing still.

The National Portrait Gallery, which I did not visit in 2007, has some really interesting work. As one of the guards explained to me--after I asked her how to match 4 bronze busts with the name tags for them mounted several feet away on the wall--the criterion for including a portrait in the gallery isn't artistic excellence: it's the status of the person portrayed in connection with British culture and history. The most interesting to me were the more recent portraits--partly because you could actually compare these portraits against your own idea, from photographs, of what the people really look like (Princess Diana, for example; the Queen; William and Harry; Paul McCartney) and partly because the portraits aren't so deadly serious in tone as most portraits from earlier periods are.

There's a very interesting self-portrait of the English author and artist Mervyn Peake, done when he was quite young: his eyes are wide and glaring, and he has a thinnish young man's mustache. And others, even of people I couldn't identify, made me smile or laugh, just because the bright colors or the simplified portrayal style seemed so whimsical. I was interested to see portraits of a number of English authors--Tennyson, Browning, Byron, Keats and so forth--some of them done when the authors were too young to be terribly famous yet. But of course they associated with other writers and artists, and so they were painted, even if they weren't yet world-renowned. And there were two very impressive terracotta busts of English kings: George II (at least I remember it being the II) and James II. The George was a fine depiction of a middle-aged man, serious-looking and depicted in a Roman fashion, though I couldn't say if it really looked like him or not. James II was impressive for another reason: it seemed utterly ludicrous. He too was depicted more or less as a Caesar or an ancient hero, but his hair was so long and flowing, and the attitude and posture of his face and head so "heroic," that I practically had to laugh. I know very little about James II, but what I know about him doesn't mesh with that image. He was only king for 3 years because he was so insistent on his Catholicism, 150 years after England had gone Anglican, that he was removed and replaced with William and Mary.

Although I had visited the National Gallery before, I went through it for a while again after leaving the portrait gallery, just to see what I wanted to notice. There are several paintings by JMW Turner, though the big accumulation of them is at the Tate Britain; a couple by Caravaggio (who was, for a short time, a Knight of Malta), including a really disturbing painting of a young man being bitten on the finger by a lizard; and a nice exhibit of a Danish artist I'd never heard of, Christian Kobke, from the first half of the 19th century. He did a lot of portraits, as well as many landscapes of areas near where he lived. One really impressive painting, which looked to be about 25 square feet, is more than half sky, but it's not boring. Many of the other paintings were quite small.

On my way back "home" toward the hotel, I walked down Pall Mall, a famous street I don't think I strolled down last time, except maybe for a block or two. Here is something I thought you might enjoy. In Sliema, Malta, there was the Tex-Mex Bar & Grill; on Pall Mall, it's the Texas Embassy Restaurant & Grill.

I was afraid I would have to get all the way back to Sainsbury's "local" grocery store at the Marble Arch to get some food for supper, but on Piccadilly I stumbled across a Marks & Spencer "Simply Foods" which was open on Sunday, so I took my ham, apple, cookies and Coke to Berkeley Square for supper. It was about 5, and I spent about 20 minutes eating. I was wearing long pants, t-shirt, long-sleeved shirt AND windbreaker, and I was still cold by the time I finished. In fact, just a few minutes later, as I resumed my walk, the wind was so strong and I was so cold, I put the second windbreaker on, and walked at a very fast clip for several hundred yards before I was warm enough to take it off. Finally by the time I got to the Marble Arch, I was warm enough to take the other windbreaker off, but from there all the way back to the hotel, I was just a bit too cool with only the two shirts and body heat to warm me up. And if the wind by itself isn't bad enough, the sycamores (at least I think they're sycamores) are constantly setting loose their fluff, which I'm clearly allergic to, sneezing and dripping and feeling like something is caught in my throat. If I were still wearing contacts, I would probably have to be removing them and cleaning them a half dozen times a day from all the dirt and dust the wind is kicking up. I tell you the truth: I am having a good time doing the things and I am doing here, but if Richard Branson knocked on the hotel room door right now and said, "Pack up, dude; I'm taking the Lear to Texas tonight," I don't think I would say no. I am really tired of being cold and fighting the wind.

And now, tonight, I've got an older couple in the room next to me, and I thought that would be a good thing. But the man plays their TV so loud, I can hear it through the wall. So I just set my TV to the same channel, so the two soundtracks wouldn't be conflicting, but HE WON'T LEAVE IT ON ONE CHANNEL. I've changed the channel at least four times in the past 30 minutes because he keeps flipping. Hotels!

Chris Watson: Whispering in the Leaves

2010-05-29T13:16:00.000-07:00

Today's highlight, and one of the highlights of the trip, was attending Chris Watson's "Whispering in the Leaves" in the Palm House at Kew Gardens, in Kew, not too far from London. Watson, once a member of an English band called Cabaret Voltaire, now creates sound collages from environmental recordings he makes--in a tropical rain forest, for example (as with "Whispering in the Leaves"). "Whispering in the Leaves" is actually two recordings, around 20 minutes each, created specifically for the Palm House, the gardens' glasshouse reproduction of a tropical rain forest, and intended to play throughout this summer. Today was the debut. One of the recordings, called "Dawn", plays each hour of the morning that Kew Gardens are open; "Dusk," plays in the afternoon. For the debut today, Watson came to the Palm House for a 1 p.m. performance of "Dusk" during which he "played" his existing tapes to create a performance different from the recording which will normally play. A thunderstorm was included in the collage, especially appropriate since today was a rainy, chilly mess of a day. Here's a photo I took as he and an assistant worked with the setup before beginning the show. Watson is on the right.

After the show I got a chance to talk to Watson and asked if the recordings would be released by Touch Music, a UK company which has released others of his works. In this case, he said no, because the recording is designed with the Palm House in mind, designed for this specific environment, and he feels it would lose too much, separated from its setting, which plays through 80 (or was it 90?) speakers mounted in the glasshouse. I showed him the drawings I made before and during the performance and told him I would send him photos of them if there was an email address at his website. He called over one of the Touch Music employees, and then a few minutes later, the label head, and introduced them. I told them I had found out about the performance either from their email newsletter or website, which I have bookmarked on my computer. Mike, the label head, told me the US is their best market and they are looking into expanding into the US. They gave me the email address so that I could send them the drawing photos. It was a lot of fun.

Palm House is only one small part of the gardens which are a huge park, over 150 acres, with grounds for wandering about in (on more pleasant days than today), and a number of special buildings for specific purposes. Palm House is the tropical rain forest glass house. Another glass house features temperate plants, and another has about 8 or 10 separate climate "zones" in it, including a couple designed to attract and nurture butterflies. Here's one of the photos I took there:

and another, of the chrysalis box, which sort of gives me the creeps: like a science-fiction movie version of a cloning chamber or something:

Beneath the Palm House is the "marine" area, with aquariums for plants as well as fish. It's not a large exhibit, but it's pretty cool that one of the aquariums has two seahorses in it. This is the best photo I go: they are cagy little critters.

Another aquarium had a peculiar little ringed fish that looked like a worm except for its tail, flattened and slightly broader than the rest of its body. Its head was the smallest part of it. In another aquarium were several of those fish, which are also shaped like worms (or snakes if you prefer) and burrow tail-first into the sand, which they were doing as I watched. It looks almost like a magic trick.

There is also a gallery building which features botanical paintings, going back as far as the 18th century; a pagoda; a few "temples"; and a "minka" house, which shows the traditional way houses used to be built in Japan, with thatched roofs, wood-beamed walls, and so forth. Resistant to, and easier to repair after, earthquakes and typhoons, as well as environmentally sound. The bamboo garden is around the minka, and there's also a 'rhododendron dell', which enormous plants, nearby. There was a non-rainy patch in the middle of the afternoon when I wandered some of these areas. But for the first 3 hours, more or less, that I was at the Gardens it was either raining or misting and it wasn't lovely to be outside. In fact, it wasn't terribly pleasant to be inside either, in the Temperate House, because even with the low temperature, wind and rain, they had the doors and some of the windows open, letting the weather in. Too cold for me. (In fact, I'd argue that it's quite a stretch to call England's climate "temperate" at all. Hehehe.)

The Gardens were founded in the mid-18th century, and they started putting in the glasshouses in the 19th century.

I spent the biggest part of the day there, or in Kew itself, where both before and after visiting the Gardens I had tea and snack. The train station is quite near, and Kew itself looks more like what we Americans probably think an English town ought to look like than London. The houses near the Gardens, even though they were mostly joined to others, like condos kind of, had small yard areas and driveways, and were made of that red brick so common in England. The couple of main streets near the train station (it's actually part of the London Underground, but it's above ground here) have small shops and restaurants, which cater as much to tourists, I imagine, as to locals.

It would have been a fine day for sunshine and a bit of warmth, since there is so much to see outside at the gardens, but it was not to be. It was a miserably ugly day, weather-wise, perhaps second only to the day on the ship when we weren't able to dock in the Azores because the swells were so bad, and certainly the ugliest day I've had yet in England, much like a bad day in February in Texas. I knew I'd almost certainly have chilly weather here, and I figured I'd have a great deal of cloud cover. But I'd hoped at least to get out of the wind which haunted both Malta and the cruise. But it hasn't happened yet. The wind in London hasn't been as strong as the wind in Malta, but it has blown day after day, probably 10 to 15 miles per hour, most of the day. Oh well, perhaps when I get back to the States, I'll learn once again what it feels like when the temperature soars to 75 degrees. I include this final photo, simply for the chuckle. This poster actually advertises the Palm House, if you can make out the small print, but I certainly had to scoff at the idea of "feeling the heat" here in England.

"Dirty Dancing"--not that I did any of it

2010-05-28T14:25:00.000-07:00

I think I've fallen in love with the new version of the London taxi. If they were available in the US, and got a recommendation from Consumer Reports, I might want to buy one. You can see a couple here, plus part of a third. I suppose more are black than any other color, but they aren't all black, and many have advertising on the side panels.

This morning I took it fairly easy because I had a long walk ahead of me in the afternoon. I sat in Kensington Gardens for a while and worked on a sketch using the "In Memory of Speke" monument--Speke is one of the explorers credited (wrongly?) with finding the source of the Nile in the 1860s. I searched down Queensborough Terrace for the house where the Greek poet C.P. Cavafy had lived for a while as a boy, and I had porridge and a cup of tea at Pret a Manger. It was very sunny early on, though the clouds and sun played tiddlywinks with each other from about 9 a.m. on. This has been the sunniest day so far, I suppose, since Tuesday, though it wasn't as warm as Tuesday, and I don't think we've come close to 70 degrees yet. If we hit 70, the Londoners will complain of the heat, and I will be ecstatic.

My long walk this afternoon was due to "Dirty Dancing," performed in the Aldwych Theatre which is, unfortunately for me, one of the theatres farthest to the east in the theatre district. Along the way I had my Marks & Spencer lunch again--apple, ham, scone, pot of tea--and a bit of sightseeing as I walked. I found Denmark St, famous in English pop music history--The Kinks have a song named after it--and the Theatre Royal, sometimes called Theatre Royal Drury Lane. I believe "Oliver!" is being performed there now, though I probably first heard of it because the musician and singer Robert Wyatt, whom I like, released a live album recorded there. One side of the Theatre is on Drury Lane, though the main entrance nowadays is elsewhere.

I got to the Aldwych about 2:15 and bought the ticket Dominique had set aside for me. Seating didn't open till 2:30, so I roamed a little bit and found Sir John Soames Museum, which is supposed to be really fine. Last time I tried to find it and couldn't, so maybe I'll be able to visit it next week. I was on the verge of telling my friend Lou Ann that the museum only exists if she is in London. I also passed the "New Academic Building" of the London School of Economics and took this photo simply because, if I remember correctly, Mick Jagger was an LSE student before he got rich in another kind of business entirely.

And right across the street from the Aldwych Theatre is BBC Bush House. I don't know what goes on in Bush House as opposed to other BBC buildings, but I thought it was worth a photo, especially as so many of you love Masterpiece Theatre.

And here is the Aldwych.

The ticket Dominique set aside for me was quite a good one: in the Dress Circle, which is sort of the first balcony, but not high and removed as you think of a balcony being. The most expensive floor, I suppose, is the Grand Circle, which looks, as far as I could tell, to be a bit below the level of the stage, but I guess it angles up. My seat was C13--on the third row of the Dress Circle, smack dab in the middle. Thanks, Dominique! I don't remember enough about the movie, which I saw back in the '80s, to know if the musical varies much in plot or not. There is a subplot about the civil rights movement and young people at the resort wanting to take part in that; another subplot about one of the dancers having an abortion; and of course a lot of music and dancing. Some of the music was performed live--a young black woman and a young white guy were the stand-out vocalists--and some was recorded, including songs from the early '60s like "You Don't Own Me" and "This Magic Moment." The big climax scene features the hit song from the movie and an extended dance number featuring 20 or so people. The set was fairly simple--a staircase on each side with a screen door into one of the "cabins"--and other props and furnishings came and went as needed. The biggest part of the stage revolves, in two different pieces, and this was used effectively in the staging, as was the three-piece video screen at the back, which allowed them to show rain falling or scenery passing by as a car drove, etc.

On the walk back west after the show I sort of stumbled onto Covent Garden Market. Covent Garden is famous, but I can't for the life of me think why! Maybe 0ne of you will type some information into a comment. I also came across this performance at the intersection of Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road. The three guys were playing "Crossroads" in the style of Cream as I walked up, and they sounded quite good. But still, I don't think they are transformation of Tottenham Court Road advertised on the billboard behind them.

And this was a horse-riding class of some sort going on in Hyde Park.

One thing you notice about London, if there is any sunshine at all, is that the parks (or gardens as they call most of them) really get used. People and dogs are everywhere, and as I mentioned above, their ideas of cold and heat are quite different from mine. Yesterday, for example, as I walked through Hyde Park on my way to the Tate Britain museum, when the weather was completely cloudy and very chilly, I saw a mother and son, both in short sleeves and looking very exercise-y, while I sat on a bench with my pound cake and hot tea and two or three shirts or windbreakers on, and still right on the edge of wanting to escape to the Bahamas. Then, just a few minutes later when I was walking again, I passed what looked like a father and grown son, with a dog, throwing a frisbee disk back and forth, and the young man had his shirt off. But it's also true that I'll sometimes see people, especially women, bundled up even more than I am.

I repeat the question I have asked in this blog before: will I ever feel 80 degrees, outside, again?

Henry Moore and the Duck

2010-05-27T13:38:00.001-07:00

If 65% of my time in Malta was eating and walking, that figure in London may be closer to 90%, most of it walking. As I walked this cold gloomy morning toward the Tate Britain Museum, I bought a cup of tea and a slice of lemon pound cake and sat on a bench by The Serpentine, a winding stretch of water in Hyde Park, to consume. This little rascal seemed to be quite interested in the fact that I had food in my hand. Look at those pink feet!

As I passed under the Wellington Arch, in honor of the famous military figure the Duke of Wellington, I noticed the sign saying you could climb up to the top and see the views. I don't recall ever seeing that sign in 2007, but maybe I just ignored it. Anyway, I paid the 3 pounds 70 pence and went up. There are three or four floors as you go up, which have various kinds of photo exhibits in them. But at the top, which is actually not quite at the top, you can go outside to the west and the east, I think, and look down into the little park below, and down along the road called Constitution Hill, which leads to Buckingham Palace. You can see the top of the tower of Big Ben off in the distance, and most of the giant Ferris wheel called the London Eye.

There was a huge crowd at Buckingham Palace, getting ready for the changing of the guard, but there were lots of divider fences/screens in the area too, and also over by the Houses of Parliament, so I presume something big is going on this weekend. I didn't see a sign to tell me what it was, though. As I got closer to the Tate Britain it began to mist lightly, but not quite enough for me to get the umbrella out. I had the hat on, and that keep most of the mist off my glasses.

I've been to the Tate Britain before, and to the huge and wonderful JMW Turner exhibits there, but today's main reason was that there is a special exhibit there now of the work of Henry Moore. Those of you who live in Dallas have probably seen the monumental bronze "Dallas Piece" which is on the lawn in front of the Dallas City Hall and is a fairly late work, made of three pieces. The works in this exhibition were from the '20s to the '60s and included sculpture in wood, stone and bronze, and drawings, some of them studies for sculptures and some of them for their own sake. His work in the 1920s, when he was young, gave me a feeling of African tribal art and occasionally even Central American work, like that of the tribes before the Spanish invasions. Mostly he was working with the human form--mother & child combinations were prevalent--but in a kind of stylized and not quite realistic way. Around the late '20s several of the female figures--some sculpture, some masks--had strange shapes out to the side or back of their heads. I eventually decided this was an unusual way of indicating some kind of bun-style in the hair, but my first thought, given that some of the earlier work looked like American tribal art, was that the woman's head was sort of morphing into an animal's head. Some pieces during this period also involve string, which surprised me.

As Moore got older the shapes got more and more abstracted and distorted, though most often still based loosely on the human figure. During World War II he quit doing sculpture and concentrated on drawing with various media--crayon, pencil, watercolor--and there was a gallery here focused on drawings inspired by the air raid shelters and by coal mining. These are often dark and moody pieces, and really give a different sense of his work. He compared the air raid shelters, and the people being crowded into them, to the holds of slave ships, and he thought that coal mines were a good representation of hell.

Photos weren't allowed of the art, unfortunately, but as I later walked north from the Tate, I noticed this sculpture which certainly looks like a Moore work (though it may not be) so I took a photo of it for you, with Parliament and Big Ben in the background.

From here I went north along the banks of the Thames River with the Victoria Embankment Gardens to my left. The obelisk called "Cleopatra's Needle" is here though, as the plaques on it note, it is an obelisk of the Pharaoh Thutmose III (about 3500 years ago), which Ramses II later added some carving to.

It was moved in ancient times to Alexandria (founded by Alexander the Great) and erected there in 12 BC, almost 20 years after Cleopatra committed suicide--so your guess is as good as mine as to why it's called Cleopatra's Needle. It was given to Britain by the ruler of Egypt almost 200 years ago. I can't remember if he was called a Sultan or a Bey or what exactly.

It's flanked on two of its four sides by sphinxes which I presume not to be ancient, since they are in awfully good shape (minor damage from bombing during World War II) and look to be quite sheeny bronze.

This threesome of elephants is in the Victoria Embankment Gardens, right near the Needle, and the elephants scattered all over the city are called Elephant Parade, not Elephant Walk as I had written earlier, and they are drawing attention to the terrible plight of the Asian elephant, in danger of extinction. You can also buy one of these for your home or garden, if you want to place a bid!

From here I went on to the theatre area, to find out which theatre "Dirty Dancing" is showing at and if there had been a ticket set aside for me there. As of yet, there isn't, but the man said they often aren't actually put there at the ticket counter until the night before. So I may be going to see it at the matinee tomorrow or I may not. I took a good luck at the brochure for this time period from the discount tickets company and may check into either "The 39 Steps" or "The Mousetrap," both of which have matinees next Wednesday.

I also dropped into St-Martin-in-the-Fields church, which was undergoing a bunch of work when I was here in 2007. A group of 8 musicians was rehearsing inside, with various people listening in, so I joined them for a little while. There is a concert tonight, so maybe these are some of the musicians who by now have already been playing this evening. I didn't have my drawing materials with me, so I read my Nemirovsky book while listening. But I didn't stay terribly long: I could see the sun shining outside and didn't want to miss too much of that. And, as you know, rehearsals aren't quite as interesting as actual performances, since there are stops and starts and so forth. Still, when they were playing straight through a composition, it was quite lovely.

I noticed a sign about going down the stairs to the crypt, so I did. As you can see it's now a cafe!

As it turns out, the church has a very large amount of space underground, a lot of which looks new. In addition to the cafe, there's a gift shop and rooms for musicians and so forth. There was also a display about the St John Bible which is apparently still in production--the information says it is the first illuminated Bible to be produced since the invention of modern printing in the 1400s.

Later, after supper and a quick stop by the hotel to get my drawing materials and get rid of my backpack, I went over to Kensington Gardens, just a few blocks away, and sat and drew for a little while: the sun was shining, though it was still a bit chilly at 6 p.m. I had ditched the sweatshirt but was wearing both windbreakers. After drawing I walked down to the Diana Memorial Fountain, which is a circular sort of concrete stream, and saw this new sculpture, just unveiled last September, which I had first seen this morning, from the other side of the water, as I walked toward the Tate. It's called Isis and is quite large, as you can see from the man standing to the side and behind it. That whiteness in the green, farther back, is back of the Diana fountain.

Well, there may be showers tomorrow, but also some "brightening up" maybe in the afternoon, and the temperature may soar all the way up to 66! I'm pretty sure it was in the 50s this morning, though when the clouds started to clear this afternoon--which didn't get really serious till about 2:30 or so--it warmed up a good bit. For a while I even took the sweatshirt off and walked around in my short-sleeved shirt!

Sherlock Holmes Museum and an old Byron book

2010-05-26T13:34:00.000-07:00

Can you guess where I went this morning? The Sherlock Holmes Museum is on Baker Street, and the posted address is 221B, like Holmes's address in the stories, but it's a bit of a trick. From its placement on the street, the museum ought to be 239 or something like that. Just a few doors down is a Beatles store, which has a zillion kinds of things related to the Beatles: new things like t-shirts and so forth, and old things like copies of the Beatles monthly magazine from the '60s.

But back to Holmes: the photo above shows the entrance to the gift and memorabilia shop. The museum itself is right next door: a man dressed as a policeman stands at the door and you show him the ticket you bought in the gift shop (6 pounds) and go inside. The house is several floors: 4, maybe. I wasn't carefully counting. The museum aims at doing two things: one, presenting the house as a real place as described in the stories, and two, exhibiting items related to the specific stories and incidents from them.

This photo, for example, shows what purports to be a letter Holmes wrote to Watson. (Notice the date is my birthday.)

And this one, I think, intends to be the original hand-written text of "The Hound of the Baskervilles". I'm assuming it's supposed to be the accounts that Watson was mailing back to Holmes when Holmes was allegedly back in London.

This one is the book which hides a gun. I can't remember which story this is from: I'm not sure I've read it.

There is also a notebook of letters written to Holmes, many of them by children, and one from an official of the royal family, from St James Palace, replying to a request from the museum for an appearance by either Prince Philip or Prince Charles: I can't remember which. (I wasn't taking notes.)

This is Doctor Watson's desk. You can see his doctor's bag in the chair in the foreground.

The parlour features a violin, of course, waiting for Sherlock to pick it up and play, and the VR (Victoria Regina) of bullet holes which Holmes shot into the wall in a bad mood one day. There is also an elderly man on duty there, claiming to be Sherlock Holmes, greeting visitors and suggesting they take photos of themselves with Holmes's or Watson's hat on and a pipe in hand.

Two of my sisters are big fans of mystery novels and movies, and they both would have loved being here with me. Maybe one day I'll get them to London. It was a chilly, mostly cloudy day today, and there were small fires in several of the rooms. And of course one of the rooms (I think it was Mrs Hudson's, Holmes's housekeeper) with a very nice "potty chair."

After visiting the museum, I sauntered down Baker Street, heading toward Oxford Street, and came across a nice little restaurant where I had a croissant and a pot of tea. (I'd had a pot of tea, toast and dry corn flakes for breakfast at the hotel.) It was a nice pause after a fairly long walk, and I read several pages of Thomas Hardy's "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" while there. Then as I wandered farther south and came to a Pret a Manger (Ready to Eat). I had noticed when browsing one yesterday that "porridge" was on the menu. I checked it out, and it's sort of precooked oatmeal with milk already added in. Anyway, I went ahead and checked it out, to see if it's something I can safely eat, and it seems to be okay. So that was my third time to eat before noon today.

I also spent some time at Waterhouse, one of the British bookstore chains. Mostly I wanted to buy a central London map that would show tourist spots, because my old map from 2007 is actually a map from about 1998 and some things have changed. But of course I looked at books too and saw a book of poetry I might buy by a British poet I've never heard of, as well as 3 books by Irene Nemirovsky, whose works I really enjoy. Of course I just bought one of her books yesterday, so first I need to get it read. Anyway I found a nice street and tourist site map, and that's all I bought.

My fourth meal of the day, my lunch, was at Marks & Spencer. I went to the Food Hall (their grocery store) and bought an apple, a packet of sliced chicken and a package of potato sticks, then went up to their cafe and got a pot of green tea. Then I sat at a table and ate INSIDE, instead of outside--it was pretty nippy outside today. I think this may be a very good format for lunch for me for the next several days. It's also easier not to make a mess as you slice your apple, if you're at a table instead of eating out of your lap.

After lunch I moseyed on toward the British Museum. My idea was that I'd actually visit the British Library, which is a half mile or so past the British Museum, and on the way there stop in at a bookstore I remembered from 3 years ago, and see what I could find. I did some browsing, both on the shelves and in a couple of their printed catalogs, and came away with an 1818 printing of Lord Byron's comic book "Beppo." This poem, set in Venice, introduces the stanza form and something of the tone that Byron would go on to use to such great effect in his unfinished masterpiece "Don Juan". (He didn't finish it because he died in Greece while trying to help the fight for Greek independence.) This copy I bought today is something like a fifth printing, and it's in an inexpensive paper cover, rather than the original cover, so it was only 25 pounds. Byron is a relatively inexpensive poet to collect, if you want to collect old editions, because his books were quite popular and went through numerous printings. So most of them aren't really rare. (A good thing for a retiree.)

After leaving Jarndyce, the bookstore, I went to Starbucks for another cup of tea (and a donut), then I decided, since I was right there by the British Museum, I really should go inside. So I did. I didn't really stay very long, but I did visit my old friend Gudea, king of Lagash in Mesopotamia about 4100 years ago, peeked at some Egyptian stuff, and took this photo of Philistine coffin lids for you. If these coffin lids offer anything like actual portraits, then the Philistines were pretty funny looking dudes.

I decided to save the British Library for another day, but stopped in at one of the HMV music stores on Oxford Street on the way back to the hotel, a long walk. One of the clerks helped me find a number of offbeat experimental CDs, some by musicians I already know, some not. So there is another purchase I might make before I leave--one of those CDs. (Unless I find that they are available in the US.)

After a little picnic supper in Hyde Park at the Italian Gardens, I roamed the park a bit. It was quite chilly by this point. I had both sweatshirt and windbreaker on, and wouldn't have minded having the second windbreaker on as well. I got into a bit of a conversation with a young guy who seemed to maybe be a bit lost: he had the same problem I often have in London: he knew where he wanted to get on the map, the trick was actually doing it in reality. So he had me take a few photos of him with the Peter Pan statue, then as I was leaving him there, a young woman said something about the statue, and I asked her, "Do you need me to take yours too?" and she laughed and said no. I remember three years ago meeting a woman there, on my first day in London, and each of us taking the other's photo. It's a popular spot.

Then it was time to get back to the hotel and get my night-time routine done. On the way I saw this car which sort of puzzled me.

I wondered if it might be some kind of political comment or something like that, but on the back it says "Manual" and "Automatic", so apparently it's just a business that's run for (and/or by) immigrants from Iraq.

Cheerio.

England Swings

2010-05-25T14:14:00.000-07:00

A LONG day today. I got up at 5 a.m. and had a quick shower before going down for an early breakfast. By 6:15 I was rolling my 40-pound suitcase up and down Valletta's hilly streets to the bus terminus to catch the 6:30 to the airport. There was an elderly Irish couple waiting there already, and a Scotchman joined us soon, and then the young couple who had come down to breakfast at the guesthouse. The bus got us to the airport by 7 and, since there were two flights leaving before 9, the checkin gate was open. After checking in, I sat down for a cup of tea at the little cafe (Malta's airport isn't terribly large, you understand), and then around 8 or so went toward the departure gates. Came through that all right, then wandered around inside the security area a bit, since I didn't see any sense in rushing to sit on the plane, and THEN, when I went to passport control to board the plane, they wanted to know why my passport didn't have an entry stamp. I explained that I had flown in from Rome, that there was no one waiting to stamp passports when I arrived in Malta, and that I had checked with "customer care" to see if I needed a stamp and was told no. The man explained that I should have been stamped in Rome, at the airport. So he took me into the small police office there at the airport, and they asked me when I had arrived, and if I could show proof of when I arrived, and so forth. They took a photo of my passport and of my paperwork from Red Bird travel: I couldn't find the stub of my boarding pass from that flight, but I still had the ticket purchase receipt Donna gave me weeks and weeks ago. Then they filled out a form, reporting that Rome had not registered me when I entered, and made me sign that, then gave me that original form and kept a copy of it for themselves. It was a little spooky, especially as it was getting close to time for the flight to leave.

When they let me go, and I approached the gate, I had the distinct impression the Air Malta folks were waiting on me, even though it wasn't quite 8:40, departure time. There were no other passengers waiting to board, and the guy sort of waved me toward the door, then said, "No, wait for the shuttle." At Malta International, you still walk out of the terminal, get onto a bus, ride the bus to the aircraft, then climb the stairs to enter it. So a bus came up to the curb, let me in--no one else there but me!--and took me to the jet. I was the last to board!

Well, after that, the flight was fortunately uneventful. And fortunately it was a bright sunny day--and even felt fairly warm, though that might have been because I was wearing jeans, a t-shirt and a long-sleeved shirt. I read a bit, dozed a bit, ate a bit, looked out the window a bit, on the flight. I saw the "white cliffs of Dover" as we neared the end of the flight, and was pleased to see that there was sunlight in England as well.

It was about 10:40 when we touched down, and disembarking went fairly quickly. Then we had a long walk to baggage claim and passport control, and then I had to find out about getting a train ticket to Victoria Station. I wasn't exactly sure what to do, but the gentlemen at the ticket counter was very helpful and told me I could get a day pass for the Tube (the London subway, also called the Underground) for only 1 pound 40 pence more than the train ticket, so I bought that, since I would need to take the Underground to Paddington Station (this will mean something to those of you who teach or taught elementary school, I think), which is quite near the hotel I'm staying in.

Now here's something I don't get: there's a train called the Gatwick Express, that brags about running every 15 minutes and getting you to Victoria Station in 30 minutes. I didn't check to see what it costs because I knew already that it costs quite a bit more than the regular train ride, which I had taken last time and which makes only two stops between Gatwick and Victoria. What I don't get is this: the regular train took less than 40 minutes to get to Victoria, so why pay extra to save 7 or 8 minutes? I suppose the train may not run as often--I don't know about that--because I only had to wait about 5 minutes for it. I also exchanged euros for pounds at the station: my 36 or 37 euros were worth just a pinch over 28 pounds, minus the 1 pound 50 handling charge. With about 6 pounds I still had from 2007, that got me a little money in my pocket without immediately hitting an ATM.

When I got to Victoria, I stopped in a little food shop and got a Coke and a bag of crisps (potato chips) to go with my packet of tuna I've been holding onto ever since America. Then I sat on a bench and part one of lunch. Then I found a helpful Underground employee to remind me what to do to get to Paddington. By the time I left Paddington Station (after getting more info from another helpful employee about how to get to Heathrow next week) and tugged that heavy suitcase to the hotel and got checked in, it was only about 1 p.m. London time (2 p.m. in Malta) so I had been up for 9 hours already, and it was only barely after lunch time. Sigh. I unloaded some stuff in the room, rearranged the backpack, changed into shorts and took off the long-sleeved shirt since it was fairly warm and sunny outside, and then I headed off. Even though my day pass was still good for more Tube riding, I walked and reacquainted myself with the streets I had seen so much of in 2007.

When I got past Hyde Park and over to Oxford Street, where the serious shopping starts, I went into Sainsbury's grocery store, which I remembered from before. It was time to supplement my tuna and chips. Inside Sainsbury's, I got an apple, a croissant and a bottle of water, then went over to the south side of Oxford Street to Marble Arch park for lunch part two. There I took a photo of this enormous horse head sculpture, which I do not remember from 2007.

There are also two brightly painted elephant sculptures in the park, and later I ran across some more of them in Berkeley Square (where I was having my lightish supper). A placard at Marble Arch explained that the elephants are part of "elephant walk," but there was no information I could find on the horse's head.

Lou Ann will want to conk me on the head when I tell you that my afternoon's goal, besides just enjoying being in London, was visiting some bookstores. It seemed better to wait till tomorrow to start museum-going and so forth, so I thought I'd check out some used book stores on Charing Cross Road. Now that's a fairly long walk from Hyde Park, but remember that so far today had mostly been riding--on a bus, on a jet, on a train, on a subway. So here are a few shots of swinging London. I think I took all of these as I was returning from Charing Cross Road, rather than on the way.

London seems to be under construction. I don't know if there is some big overhaul going on for a specific purpose, or if things are just happening. Behind the blue wall in this photo is empty space, though it may look like those buildings back there are inside the blue. This looked to be pretty much a full city block. I don't remember what was here 3 years ago, but I'm sure it wasn't empty. This is prime retail property on a major shopping route.

I also passed, entirely by chance, Carnaby Street, so famous in the '60s as the place where all the hippest shops were located. It seems to have sort of turned into a theme park now!

This young man was sitting off to the side in front of a store "playing" the traffic cone. One of the songs I recognized was "When the Saints Go Marchin' In". I donated 50 pence to the little pile of coins accumulating on his backpack.

And here is a bit of history making a comeback. I suppose most of us remember vaguely the British East India Company from our studies of the Age of Exploration in school. I passed this long temporary wall, blocking off the front of the building while the renovation is going on, advertising the East India Company's return. The photo's not very good. There's a lot of sunlight shining off of it.

And this quite tiny car is a model I have already seen 3 or 4 of. Apparently it's called the G-Wiz and is an electric car. It makes the MiniCooper look large!

Well, did I buy any books at the used stores? No, though I saw some I might ponder going back for. I did however buy a new book, at Blackwell's on Charing Cross: "All Our Worldly Goods" by Irene Nemirovsky. I've been quite taken with her work over the past several months. You may remember when "Suite Francaise" appeared a few years ago. Nemirovsky died in Auschwitz in 1942, and "Suite Francaise", unfinished, lay unknown in a suitcase in her daughter's possession for about 60 years. "All Our Worldly Goods" is one I haven't seen on the shelves in the US, though a story collection called "Dimanche" was published in the US just before I left. (I look forward to reading it when I get back.) "Suite Francaise" is really good, if you're looking for something to read. It was intended to be a suite of 5 short novels, only 2 of which were finished. Both of them are quite good, set in France right as World War II is beginning and the Germans are invading and then settling in as occupiers. "Fire in the Blood," another book Nemirovsky didn't live to complete, is also quite good, and it's a satisfying work, even though it's unfinished.

Another job for this afternoon I have saved for last because I think it may bore most (all?) of you witless. I wanted to check in with Vodafone and see if my Maltese "internet key" (mobile modem) was going to work here in London. There's good news and bad news about this: the bad news is that, yes, my Maltese internet key will work in the UK, but at the cost of 5 euros per MB of usage. (Because I would be "roaming"--not in my "home" zone.) Normally in Malta I was using 30-35 MB per night, so you can figure out pretty quickly that I could be running up charges of 150 euros a night to use the Maltese key! Not my idea of fun. So I asked them if I could get a UK SIM card for the modem and then just buy UK usage. The easy answer to that question is No. But the good news is how cheap the internet keys are in the UK. For 25 pounds, I was able to buy the UK internet key with 3 GB of usage already loaded into it. So basically I will be paying about 2.5 pounds a day for usage for the next ten days. Of course if I was staying longer, the price per day would average out less because the 3 GB don't expire for 30 days, and in 30 days I would probably not use more than 1.5 GB anyway. What is amazing to me about this price is that I thought the Maltese price was low, in comparison to what pay-as-you-go Mobile Broadband costs in the US, but the UK is even cheaper. The "key" plus 3 GB of usage in Malta cost 82 euros, somewhere between $105-110, but in the US it costs $129, plus tax, just to buy the key/modem from Verizon, which is a subsidiary of Vodafone. And then when you buy your pay-as-you-go usage, you get only 500 MB, which costs another $50. In 2007 I paid 40 pounds (when the pound was worth a lot more than it is now) for wifi usage, but I had to be either in Starbucks or TMobile for the wifi to work.

Well, now, the Internet Key won't connect. I've tried several times. And I realize now that I wasn't given a SIM card with my purchase. Is that the problem or is this supposed to work without one? I will have to go back tomorrow and find out what is going on. And that means I can't post this on the 25th or communicate with any of you right now. Rats.

Hey, I uninstalled the Malta key installation, and then did a new install with the UK key, and now it works. Cool.

Scicluna and the Ballet

2010-05-24T11:13:00.000-07:00

I began this gray, dank morning with a visit to the head office of Heritage Malta. (Actually of course I had breakfast first, and a bit of a walk, and a shower, and even bought a luggage strap, but you get my drift.) Today was the opening day of an exhibit called "Deconstructing Michelangelo" and featuring paintings by a Maltese artist named George Scicluna. Scicluna has done his own interpretations of a number of Michelangelo's works, both paintings and sculptures. This first one here is his look at one of Michelangelo's madonnas. I took the photo at an angle to reduce the reflections from the numerous uncurtained windows in the hallway where the paintings were displayed. I like it when museums and galleries use natural light, but it's best when the paintings aren't under glass!

The second one, one of the pietas, I was able to shoot head on because it was in a darker part of the hallway.

If you want to know more about Scicluna and his work, you can go to www.georgescicluna.com.

Later in the afternoon I went to another exhibit, also a freebie, though this one was in the gallery area of an arts supply store right inside the main gate of the city. In the back corner of the store, there's a spiral staircse up the gallery, which is open in the center, overlooking the floor below. While I was there, there was what looked to be an art lesson going on, one on one, but I didn't interrupt to ask if the teacher was the artist whose work was displayed. This exhibition was called "Ballet Dancers in Action", and most of the canvases, by artist Carmel Micallef, featured multiple persons embodying the theme. The style was sort of impressionistic, almost like sketches done with acrylic instead of pastel. In some of them he (she?) displayed a very impressive treatment of light, and the sense of motion was also very well-done.

About midday, after my lunch and while awaiting the Sliema ferry, I took this photo of a man fishing. Can't you just imagine what the cat is thinking?

I also managed to get a shot of a big guy who had his shirt off and was fairly heavily tattooed. Unfortunately he was too far off when I took the shot, so the photo is too indistinct to be worth looking at. If I'd been a little more gauche, I would have just stopped him, I guess, when he walked past a few minutes earlier, and said, "Hey, man, can I photograph your skin?"

I did directly ask this young guy if I could photograph him. You'll see why below. I asked about the uniform/costume too. He was actually on guard duty, for the prime minister's offices across the street from where he was standing. His uniform is the same as the knights' uniform, but he is specifically representing--he nodded toward the flag--the knights of Spain. Whether that is because the prime minister's offices are in what was the Auberge of Castille (which served the knights of Castille and Portugal) or whether they just change out the flags on some kind of rotation to represent all eight divisions of the knights, I didn't think to ask him.

Fortunately the clouds finally broke a little before one (though this also meant the wind picked up), and then we got about 4 good hours of sunlight, before a cloudy haze moved in again and the sunlight became a kind of filtered light. It was chilly enough near the water by 4:30 or so that I was wearing both windbreakers and didn't feel at all overheated. Down by the gates, with the wind somewhat blocked, it was more pleasant. Even so, on this my last full day in Malta, I think I had one or two windbreakers on all day, if I was outside.

Yes, my last full day. Tomorrow I have a flight to London, where it will probably be even chillier, but maybe not so windy, which has been a big part of the problem in my time on this little island. Whether Malta will ever have a summer this year, who knows? But I won't be here to find out! It's off to London and then back to the states. I don't think my dream of living somewhere without a car is going to pan out yet--maybe in another year or two.

Anyway, this "internet key" I bought when I arrived in Malta for mobile broadband usage is supposed to work in England (though it will use up my prepaid allotment more quickly, I believe, as it's "roaming", or something like that). If it works right, then I should be back online tomorrow night. If not, it may be a day or two till I find a place to wifi from. So if there is no blog entry tomorrow night, don't fret! I'll be back online sooner or later, won't I?

Taking It Easy, Part Two

2010-05-23T12:04:00.000-07:00

Sundays are pretty quiet in Valletta, except for church bells, and one could even wish more stores were open--at least Marks & Spencer and its cafe! My first Sunday here, two weeks ago, I had the Valletta Grand Prix to keep me occupied a good part of the day. One week ago, I took a harbour cruise and also went to look at cars at the Malta Ford Show (admittedly not terribly exciting). So today--what to do today besides draw and read? Well, of course there was the 11 a.m. performance at St Catherine's, but as these concerts only last about 45 minutes, there's still a lot of day to fill.

Before the concert, I went to the Upper Barrakka Gardens and worked on a drawing--looking again at an angle on the arches there, and because--amazingly!--the wind was down and I was actually able to sit there, in the morning, OUTSIDE, without a windbreaker, I attached a little story to this drawing about a military officer, presumably British, on post somewhere the wind roars 364 days a year. And I suppose I'll stick the drawing in here, since I've mentioned it. Mostly it's just arches.

I also took a few nature-y kinds of shots. This first one is of a tree and marker which I hadn't consciously noticed until today--though surely I must have seen it, as many times as I've been in the Gardens since coming here. The marker says the tree was planted in November 2007 for Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip's 60th wedding anniversary. Malta was, of course, a British territory (or whatever it was called) when they got married, and in fact for the first decade of Maltese independence it considered Elizabeth its queen.

I also got a couple of decent insect photos: a butterfly on a flower (a buttercup?) and a bee on the same kind of flower. I don't normally do flowers, but these I found a little more fun because of the bugs.

Then it was time for the concert, "Homage to the Baroque Masters". This morning there were three pieces performed: first a Handel sonata, with Sarah Spiteri on violin and Alex Vella Gregory on harpsichord; next a Telemann cantata with the above two, plus Albert Buttigieg, a bass singing the lyrics; and finally Spiteri on violin and Vella Gregory on piano, playing a "chaconne" by Vitali. I don't recognize Vitali's name, and though Spiteri explained what a chaconne is, I didn't completely get it. It was, despite my ignorance, a fine performance. I drew during part of the show, the three performers sketched loosely.

After the concert I stopped back by Cafe Deux Baronnes for a late morning cup of tea--it was almost noon, and I knew the Saluting Battery performance would be going on then. Unfortunately from where I sat I couldn't actually see the performance, though I had a glimpse of parts of a few of the cannon (there are 8), but I could hear some of what was going on, most DEFINITELY the firing of the cannons, and of course I could see and smell the smoke they put off when fired. After I ordered my pot of tea and went to sit down, I saw a woman with an order of chips (fries) and I could see that they were nothing but fat slices of potato cooked, so I ordered some too! They were good. When I left the cafe, I got some chicken roll and a Perrier at Wembley's and went over to Hastings Gardens to have them as part two of my lunch. (Part three was a bottle of tomato juice when I went to the guesthouse to switch things around in the backpack.)

Then I went on to the National Museum of Archaeology. I've been putting this off, partly of course because I've been there before and didn't know if things would be different, but partly also because I figured I needed to keep something aside for a day with little else to do--like today. I spent about an hour there and did some rough sketches of some of the artefacts and displays. It can be quite difficult to sketch, standing up, holding the drawing book in the left hand while sketching with the right. And it's quite tiring for the left shoulder and arm too! But I got some information--especially on the layout of a couple of the Stone Age temples--which might come in handy for one of my Maltese werewolf stories. In fact, I decided that one of the temples could be interpreted as a visual representation of a wolf's paw on one side, with two human feet on the other side. So that could be a very interesting thing to work into a story.

By now of course it was certainly time for more tea, so I went back to Deux Baronnes. And of course I spent some more time in the Gardens, reading and resting and getting this photo--another to add to the series of Lower Barrakka photos taken from Upper Barrakka. In this case, what makes the photo different is that a cargo ship was leaving the harbour as I took the photo. This ship--blazoned DYVI ATLANTIC--was at least nearly as big as the Celebrity Equinox, maybe equal in size. Of course it's not very attractive to look at, with mostly blank blue or white sides. Who knows what was loaded inside?

I've been feeling, off and on since yesterday afternoon, a little bit like I'm trying to get a sinus problem, but I hope not. Maybe there was just something in the air. Certainly later this afternoon a cloudy haze moved in and chilled the air a bit. But today was warmer at least part of the time, and I was able to shuck the windbreaker. At other times I had the windbreaker on and was wishing I had the second one with me as well. Very weird May.

Taking It Easy

2010-05-22T12:07:00.000-07:00

Lou Ann is always telling me I'm doing too much on these trips. Today I took it easy. And I've got to tell you something you may not believe: for about 3 hours this afternoon, I took the windbreaker off. OUTSIDE. Earlier I had had both windbreakers on, but by about 1 it was actually warm enough, and the wind was actually light enough, to shed the long sleeves. Amazing.

This morning I did some sketching at the Upper Barrakka Gardens, and while I was working on a sketch, I heard the distinctive high-pitched roar of the floatplane taking off. I've been trying to get a good shot of that plane taking off almost since I got here. The whine registered with me quick enough for me to set down the pencil and reach in the side-pocket of the backpack for my camera, BUT--yes, but--where I was standing at the walls to do my sketching (looking out at a tower on another stretch of walls--there was some kind of netting in use along with scaffolding for some repair work they are doing, and so I couldn't get a clear shot of the plane. Usually the whine/roar starts up, and it takes me a few seconds to realize what it means, and by then I can't get the camera out and turned on soon enough to get a decent shot. This morning it was the netting.

BUT--yes, but--a little before one, when I was on the ferry on my way to Sliema, I heard that whine again and saw a floatplane (the same floatplane? I don't know) in Marsamxett Harbour (instead of the Grand Harbour), and I was able to get the camera out and get a couple of shots. Unfortunately, the plane is against the backdrop of buildings in Sliema and doesn't show up as well as I'd like. But if you look carefully you can see the spray coming off the pontoons as he gains speed.

Then, on the ferry ride back, I saw the floatplane parked/docked near where the ferry docks, and so I got this static shot. It's much clearer, to be sure--and I was much closer--but there's no action. I'm trying, folks, but luck just hasn't been with me yet.

Anyway, while I was in Sliema, sitting out along the sea-wall, where I had my lunch and also drew for a while longer, the pigeons were coming and going in all their glory (?), and it wasn't the first time I had noticed this sort of white-brown color combination. Pigeons in the US are mostly gray, as you know, so this one sort of interested me. I'd also tried to get a photo of one of these "pale" pigeons earlier, but hadn't succeeded, but this one turned out all right. I will dedicate this photo to my ex-co-worker Dave from El Paso because he used to give me such a hard time about disliking pigeons.

I had two sessions of tea-drinking at Marks & Spencer today, using the time mostly to read (though I also wrote a few postcards), and I did some reading at the Gardens and even at Burger King having fries and Perrier as part one of my supper (finished off later with tuna and applesauce). I also took this photo this evening at the Gardens. Somehow the arches, the palm trees, the large umbrellas, and the fancy stone kiosk make me think Bob and Bing ought to come dancing across the pavement here. "Road to Valletta," anyone? Maybe it's time for George Clooney and Brad Pitt to make a dancing movie.

Classic Car Museum (Qawra, Malta)

2010-05-21T12:17:00.000-07:00

A bit of serendipity led me today to the Classic Car Museum in Qawra on St Paul's Bay. I went to the tourist information office this morning to see if they had a flyer or anything on the cave and museum down south, near Marsaxlokk--it's called Ghar Dalam or something like that and prehistoric animal bones were found in it. As it turns out, the office had nothing on the cave, but I did see--not for the first time--the flyer for the Classic Car Museum and decided to go there instead. Many of you haven't known me long enough to know how enamored I was of automobiles when I was just a kid.

So I got on the bus to St Paul's Bay--Qawra is the end of the line--and rode for about 45 minutes. You understand that nothing is very far in Malta, but the bus rides can still take a long time, both because of their stops and because of road conditions--traffic, slower speed limits, narrow roads. I read some of the time and some of the time just looked out the window. I had never been to Qawra before, except passing through it on a bus. St Paul's Bay is considered a very touristy area, and if I wasn't going to go to the beach there didn't seem much point in going there. It's not awash in historical sites or anything. But when I got off the bus and started walking, I thought maybe I should have spent some time there, just because of its touristy-ness, which means more shops and cafes, more things open, etc.

My first stop was Quandero's Coffee Shop. At first I thought I would just have a pot of tea before going to the museum, but when I saw jacket potatoes on the menu, I asked about how they were prepared--plain!--so I decided to have an early lunch--or lunch, part one. It was a great little place, with the biggest pot of tea I've yet had on the island: which is to say, the pot wasn't any larger than normal, but it was supplemented by a stainless steel pitcher of hot water. So I got 2 and a half or 3 cups of tea out of it. And the jacket potatoes were good too. So next time you're in Qawra, on your way to the car museum, stop in here:

The museum was only a block or so farther up the street. Another great place. Two floors of cars, mostly from the '50s, '60s and '70s, including two which raced in the Valletta Grand Prix on May 9. The Triumph TR6 on the right in the photo came in second, and the MiniCooper placed somewhere in the low 20s. I'd like to think my little sister might have one of the TR series some day, since TR is her initials.

And here's a 1962 Corvette which placed 3rd in the Concourse d' Excellence (or something like that) a couple of days before the race. I think that means it came in third in a beauty contest? Smitty, one of my friends down in South Texas, would love to own this own.

One of the first cars I saw upon entering the first exhibition floor was this one, a 1957 BMW Isetta 250. According to the information on the car, the Isetta was introduced in Turin in 1953 and there were later several companies that had the right to manufacture the car. BMW was one of those. When I was just a kid in Cockrell Hill, we saw one of these one day--more than 45 years ago!--and I still remember it. It was so small, compared to American cars of the time, and of course the whole front end was a door--it made quite an impression on me. I don't know, however, if it was a BMW Isetta or one of the other versions.

And how about this Jaguar XK140, circa 1955?

Cars like this have a lot to do, I suspect, with why I don't care anything about the new, so-called performance vehicles. They just don't match up to the beauty and glamour of these old ones. Boy, did I love MGs, particularly the "classic" MG and the MGB-GT of the early '70s. Even I would love having a car if it were a classic MG.

And here's one for Nancy back in Dallas. This is a 1953 Austin A40 Somerset Coupe, which was used by Queen Elizabeth II on her 1952 visit to Malta.

The museum also has a lot of "period" items around the cars, to add to the ambience. This photo is for my old buddy Steve. Steve, that's a Grundig reel-to-reel tape recorder sitting on top of the old TV. The only thing I could find on the TV that looked like it might be a brand name was "Rediffusion" I bet a lot of us remember console TVs that looked something like this one.

After the museum, I thought I might wander the St Paul's Bay area a bit, but the wind was roaring (no surprise there, eh?) and the bay was really choppy. I suspect it may be choppier than Marsamxett and the Grand Harbour anyway--it looks a great deal more open to the sea than they are. It's much wider at its mouth than the Grand, though not as long. So I got on the bus and headed back to Valletta. I figured I could maybe do some drawing and have afternoon tea at Marks & Spencer while starting my next book. (I had finished Braddon's "Lady Audley's Secret" while having lunch at Quandero's. If you like Dickens and Wilkie Collins, I think you'll like "Lady Audley" too. I definitely recommend it.)

On the long ride back to Valletta, I read a bit on a short book I'm doing for review, drowsed a bit, and looked out the window some more. At one point--possibly it was in Birkirkara, possibly another town even closer to Sliema--we drove through quite a nice section of road, wider than roads often are here, and with a lovely sidewalk with regularly placed trees along the way.

I finished up my outside day at the Upper Barrakka Gardens, as I often seem to, with both windbreakers on while I had my little supper--tuna, applesauce, PomSticks--and read my book. I also watched one of the cruise ships going out to see, and this one presented a chance for me to show you how narrow and guarded the entrance to the Grand Harbour actually is. In this first shot you can see the cruise ship (of the Costa Pacifica line) with (once again!) the Lower Barrakka Gardens and the Siege Bell as it passes behind them toward the break in the breakwaters.

And then in this shot you can see how much the ship has to turn in order to make the actual exit between the breakwaters. It's kind of amazing of course that the ships can maneuver so easily, but after all they have propellers that can move them sideways, instead of forward or backward. What an enormous piece of equipment to move so comparatively nimbly!

Just a few minutes later, while standing at the railing overlooking the Saluting Battery, I heard a young man talking about American places and sounding American, so I asked. He was indeed American, just visiting a couple of days with a friend from graduate school a few years back. She was Finnish, but has been living in Malta for 3 years and working here. We talked for several minutes, before they had to leave for supper. He mentioned that he was flying back to the states via Dublin and Chicago--though he lives in Arizona. Those were the cheapest hubs for him, he said, flying Ryan Air.

For those keeping score, yesterday's high was 64 degrees! Holy cow, no wonder I was cold. Today was much sunnier, and some warmer, but still only 68. I hope I live long enough to experience 80 degrees again.

Winter 2010, GO AWAY!

2010-05-20T11:50:00.000-07:00

Today was unquestionably the coldest and most repulsive day yet in this cold and repulsive May. Last Friday was probably visually uglier, since we did actually get some late afternoon and evening sun today, but last Friday wasn't nearly as cold as today, and there was no thunderstorm last Friday. Dr William Domeier, in his 1810 book for invalids who might need to come to Malta to convalesce, says that thunderstorms are "rare" in Malta. Not rare enough. I was in Marks & Spencer having afternoon tea when the thunder boomed, quite loudly, a couple of times. I don't know how much rain accompanied it, since there isn't much of a view from the Marks & Spencer cafe, but I got up once and went to the door to look, and rain was coming down then.

The five-day forecast in today's "Times of Malta" predicts that BY MONDAY the temperature should actually be at or near normal. If that actually happens, it may be the first time since I have been here.

Anyway, it was a repulsive day, and so I don't have any lovely photos to share with you. I browsed some more this morning--when it wasn't sprinkling--thinking of possible gifts, and I got my sister's birthday (two weeks from today) gift in the mail. Then I went to Marks & Spencer for my morning tea and read.

Today's highlight was the 12:30 performance at St Catherine's. Today it featured Clare Ghigo singing arias from operas by Handel. She has a lovely voice, and the melodies were quite nice as well. You would all probably recognize "Lascia che io Pianga", one of those famous operatic tunes we know but don't know we know. (At least that was my reaction.) Her accompanist was Alex Vella Gregory on the piano. He is a young composer who also operates a Maltese interest group of Facebook. I worked on a sketch while they were performing, and since I don't have photos I'll give you a small version of the sketch.

After the performance, it was raining lightly so I went back to the guesthouse to get my umbrella and my second windbreaker--yes, it was that chilly--and instead of leaving immediately for the National Library (my next stop) I spent almost half an hour transferring clothes and things from the old broken-wheeled suitcase to the new suitcase to see how that was going to work. The new bag is larger, and it's really too large for what I am carrying, but I decided that is better than always having to squash things into the smaller bag. I can use some shopping bags and things I have bought here as padding if the contents are too loose, come time to board Air Malta for London.

Then it was off to the National Library for some more research. To some extent I did this just because it was something I could do inside, and I didn't want to be outside. But I got a lot of useful information about Malta in the early 19th century, some of which may come in handy for an upcoming novel, especially an episode when some Maltese soldiers mutinied against their British officers in 1807 and briefly occupied Ft Ricasoli. I also noticed, as I was leaving, their small display cabinet of National Library publications for sale. I don't really need to be lugging around any more books, but they have a 5-card set and a 10-card set of postcards, and I think one of those sets would be nice. Unfortunately I didn't have change for a 20 euro note, and neither did the man in the admin office, so hopefully I'll remember to go back by there tomorrow and pick up a little pack.

Then it was off to Marks & Spencer for the afternoon tea, and that's when the rain came. Holy cow. The M&S location here is sort of strange. It's in two different buildings. The main entrance faces St George Square and that part of the store has two or three levels--I can't really remember--and you can go through its first aboveground level and across a bridge into the other part of the store, which has more floors, and also has an entrance onto Strait Street, which is a very narrow street (It lives up to its name) that looks more like an alley. The cafe is on the ground floor there, and the street is no narrow and the buildings are so tall that you can't really tell what the weather might be outside. The street is almost always in shadow. But the thunderclaps echoed really loudly down that street, and it really surprised me because there had been some clearing before I went into the store.

I stayed there long enough to buy two cups of tea, read a while, and even browse the "store copy" of the newspaper, which is why I saw the five-day forecast. By the way, the whole time I was in the store, I was wearing both of my windbreakers, and I never got too warm. If it's pleasant and warm on Monday, no one will be happier than I, but I'm not holding my breath.

When I left the cafe, the sky was actually mostly clear, though the wind was very cold and strong. For several minutes I stood in Great Siege Plaza, which is somewhat blocked off from the wind (no place in Valletta is entirely blocked off from the wind, at least not this year), and in the sunlight, just trying to get a little bit warm. Then I moseyed on to get some food for supper, which I had in my room at the guesthouse, since I didn't want to fight the cold outside. I did get out again, though, and go to the Upper Barrakka Gardens where I read a bit, touched up the St Catherine's sketch a bit, and tried to get enough sun or enough wind blockage to be almost warm. Not really possible. Sigh.

Anyway, here's your other drawing for today. This is the one I did yesterday or the day before in Upper Barrakka, looking through the arches toward a snack kiosk.

If St James Cavalier hadn't cancelled the showing of an Egyptian movie called "Al-Mummia" ("The Mummy") I'd probably be over there right now. Instead I'm writing to you!

Silver Shopping, Cruise Ships and Another Concert

2010-05-19T12:29:00.000-07:00

You could be forgiven for summarizing my days in Malta as "eat/walk." Here's a simplified version of today:

breakfast
walk
shower
walk/take photos
morning tea with cookies/read
lunch
noontime concert
walk/ferry to Sliema
walk
2nd lunch (jacket potatoes and tea)
walk/buy oatmeal, visit bookshop
walk/ferry to Valletta
walk
afternoon tea with cookies (a different kind)/read
silver shop (more below)
supper/read

And there'll be an evening snack before too long, as I work on the computer.

On that second walk this morning, I went down to the Lower Barrakka Gardens and the Siege Bell Monument. An older man asked me to take his photo with the bell behind him. He came to Malta in 1942, he said, with the British military. That would have been during the Axis air raids, of course, which did so much destruction upon Malta. While I was there a smaller cruise ship--about 8 decks--was entering the Grand Harbour. So I got this photo of it, not long after it had passed the breakwater.

There are breakwaters (or maybe one is a kind of causeway) on both sides of the Grand Harbour, one from the north, one from the south. The northern one, which may be the breakwater, has two small openings in it--not big enough for a cruise ship!--where there used to be a bridge, I think. It's really one opening with a pylon in the middle of it. The main opening to the Harbour, where the cruise liners and big merchant ships enter, is between the two breakwaters. Because of the way they are laid out, the ships can't exactly made a straight-on quick entry. I imagine the knights designed this with exactly that "kink" in mind. In this photo, it all looks rather small, but it's not. Ocean-going vessels can enter through that opening on the right, and the harbour is plenty deep enough to handle them. I believe they say that the Grand Harbour is the largest natural harbour in the Mediterranean.

Later I took this photo. The ship not yet docked is the one in the first photo above. The other ship, which looked to be as large as the Equinox I crossed the Atlantic on, was already docked. It is part of the MSC line, I believe--though I don't know what line that is--and the other smaller ship says LOUIS on the ship. It looks like it is too small to want to cross an ocean--unless the passengers don't mind a rough ride in a storm.

I had my lunch at the Upper Barrakka Gardens and heard the noontime Saluting Battery performance behind me as I sat and ate. The men dress up in the uniforms from the old British days and put on a show of what used to really happen. Of course they don't load balls into the cannons when they fire them. After lunch I went over to St James Cavalier for the short concert. The pianist Deborah Harrison is actually a mezzo-soprano and plays the piano mostly, she said, for her students. The singer was baritone Ivan Vella. The concert was called "Lullaby of Broadway," and they performed that song, "Edelweiss," "Oh! What a Beautiful Morning" and 5 others. Sitting near me was the same British woman who was there last week, and she wanted to see the drawing, of course. The pianist, who had also set up a camera to film the performance, was near the door as we exited, and I could hear the woman telling the pianist of my drawing, which she wanted to see. She liked it, so I let her have it. I've got the photo of it, but that's all. It's fun to have the performers get a kick out of being sketched.

I've been looking at silver on and off for a while here--I have sisters, you know--and one of them has a birthday very soon and specifically requested a Maltese cross. Finally today I made that purchase--which I will not show here, both because I don't want her to see it before she receives it and because the clerk at the shop already bundled it up for me to put in a shipping envelope--as well as another gift, of a sort I won't mention, for another sister, and--on a sort of minor splurge--a ring for myself. I don't wear a lot of jewelry, but I thought a simply ring with a Maltese cross on it might be appropriate for me to have. The two very simple styles I looked at first were not available in my size, but this one was: also simple but with a red inlay of some sort which will remind me of my dad, who loved the color red. And I still have yet another sister, and a mother, to ponder.

I had my supper (tuna, applesauce, PomSticks!) in Upper Barrakka as well and got this photo of the Louis cruise ship going back out to sea. A fitting bookend, no?

Dalli, Caruana Dingli, and a Concert

2010-05-18T13:29:00.000-07:00

Today I went to two art exhibitions, one quite small, the other quite extensive. The first was a special exhibit, in a small hall off the main entrance of the National Museum of Fine Arts, which I visited in 2007. These were primarily nudes by Maltese painter Patrick Dalli, only about a dozen paintings in all, two of which were portrait busts. One of the nudes, a woman standing sideways to the viewer, was very impressive in the way the lower body especially, but to some extent the upper as well, looked almost sculptural in its weight and solidity.

The other exhibit, at the Grandmaster's Palace, was a sizeable look at the career of Maltese painter Edward Caruana Dingli who died in 1950.

A large portion of the exhibit consists of portraits in various sizes--some quite large--of notable Maltese of Caruana Dingli's time, as well as "ordinary" people, and even kings of England George V and George VI and Princess Alexandra, who was, I believe, George V's wife. The enormous portrait of George VI, who was Elizabeth II's father, shows him in brightly colored and complicated regalia, but with a rather impish face done in sharper, rather photographic detail. George V is represented here by a full-length formal portrait and a bozzetto (a smaller version of the same pose and sitting), as well as a sketchier, more impressionistic portrait bust which is much more interesting, I think. Because Caruana Dingli was painting throughout the first half of the 20th century, some of the portraits make me think of old movies: his subjects look ready to do a dance routine with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, or step out for the evening with Grace Kelly. There are professors, monsignors, chevaliers, a judge, an archbishop and so forth, as well as less upper-crusty portraits such as "Portrait of a Lady in Military Uniform," two fortune-teller portraits, and an impressionistic long-bearded monk with skull cap. In his portrait, Professor Salvatore Cassar looks, holding a book, with the right forefinger lifted up, looks like he is just about to launch into the introduction to an episode of "Masterpiece Theatre." Two of the best of the portraits, in my opinion, are ones done in pastel chalk instead of oil.

The exhibit also includes a great many scenes of Malta and Maltese daily life about a century ago: two different Valletta fish-markets, one in watercolor, one in oil; boys playing marbles; a peanut seller; church festivals and celebrations; the promenade at Sliema (I think this is the same place that I usually call the "sea wall"); and "The Shelter", a painting in dark tones of people waiting out an air raid in 1941. There is a beautiful watercolor of the ancient temple of Hagar Qim, and an interesting scene from an expedition he made with the Royal Malta Artillery to Egypt: "The Egyptian Barber," characterized by the mud-coloured buildings and the bright robes of the people and in which the barber is shaving a customer. The bulk of the work in this exhibition is in oil, but in my opinion Caruana Dingli was best working in pastel and oil.

After having my lunch in the Upper Barrakka Gardens, I worked for a while on a sketch which looks from the arcade, through one of the arches to some table umbrellas and a snack kiosk beyond. After sketching out the main lines, I moved to another spot, as the sun was shining directly on my paper. A man stopped to look, and I had to explain to him that I wasn't drawing mostly from where I was sitting, but from farther back and over, on the other side of the arches.

Then I took a stroll through Floriana to the Argotti Botanical Gardens and got a few photos there for you. You're forgiven if you think I actually sneaked this one in from El Paso or Arizona. This big cactus of some sort would look right at home in the American Southwest. Remember that Malta is relatively dry and rarely has freezing temperatures.

This photo gives you a bit more sense of life. While that cactus may be native to Malta, I wonder about these splashes of color.

And this man seemed to be sleeping the sleep of the just (or of children) with his shoes parked on the bench beneath him. Obviously he is more attuned to the temperature than I am!

This last photo for the day is another stab at the Lower Barrakka Gardens from the Upper. Not quite as late in the afternoon as yesterday's shot, so the Ball Monument is highlighted.

I had my supper earlier because I needed to be cleaned up and ready for the concert at Manoel Theatre. Tonight's show with the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra was called "The Composer Conducts" because the second of the three pieces performed was written by the composer Joseph Vella. The first piece was a work by Benjamin Britten, but I don't have a program and don't know the name. It wasn't familiar to me, but I especially liked the second section when the string players did a good bit of playing with their hands instead of their bows. Vella's piece, which was a world premiere, featured only 13 players of wind instruments. The first section of it was quite sprightly, and it made me think of the decades-old Disney animation films--and I don't mean that in a negative way at all. The second section was slower and more melancholy, with a bit of discordant tones, and the third sort of combined the moods of the first two.

After the interval, the full Orchestra performed one of Mahler's works, but again, I don't know which one. It concludes with a vocal performance by a soprano. Does that help? The Britten and Vella compositions totaled only about 45 minutes, but the Mahler work was about an hour long. One thing that surprised (and annoyed) me about the show was that I could hear traffic passing outside. I realize the theatre is quite old, but I certainly would have thought they could do something about that. I didn't notice anything of the sort at the Ars Ludi performance, but maybe that was because the percussion works were inherently louder, or because we were sitting in the highest seats, the gallery, whereas for this show I was on the main floor, very near the back and the door. I was also a little surprised (and annoyed) on a few occasions to hear people talking in the audience while the music was playing.

And finally, you've all been waiting for a weather note, haven't you? So hear it is:

Enough with the north wind already! Jiminy Cricket, is it EVER going to be warm again anywhere in the world? If I go to Death Valley on July 15th at high noon, will it maybe creep up to 72 degrees? I take it as a given that London will be cool to chilly, but that's London. People come to Malta TO GET WARM, which can't happen if the jet stream won't go back where it belongs. Walking back from the theatre tonight, I was wearing blue jeans, a polyester t-shirt (which is usually warmer than cotton), a long sleeved shirt and a windbreaker, and I was walking fast, and I was freezing. Good grief. It's May 18, not New Year's Day.

New luggage, eh?

2010-05-17T12:25:00.000-07:00

A kind of low-key day again today, though that doesn't mean I did any less walking. I'm consciously trying to eat more, even if it's "junk", just to be sure my body has something to digest besides itself! And I've pondered once or twice if I expend more energy walking somewhere to get something to eat than I get back when I eat whatever it is. I think by this point my metabolism is racing even more than before.

One thing I did today was buy a new suitcase. The large-size carry-on which I brought with me (borrowed from my mom) needed replacing because I broke one of the wheel assemblies in Ft Lauderdale before I even got on the ship. I've looked at luggage at several different places, including at least 2 previous visits to the store I bought at today--only 3 blocks away. I was there four times today: first to look at the luggage again and discuss size (largest carry-on or medium non-carry-on), second to buy (largest carry-on), third to find out if they were still open (they were), fourth to exchange largest carry-on for medium non-carry-on. Between visits 2 and 3, I had moved things into the new bag from the old bag (and elsewhere I have things located at the moment) and decided I really needed a little more space, both so I wouldn't have to cram so much and so that I could carry less in the backpack when I'm making a flight. On the Air Malta flight to London, it will be no problem checking the bag. Flying American from London to the US, I will probably have to pay an additional fee to check the bag. Ridiculous, isn't it?, since American is not a "budget" airline.

Anyway, now the new, larger suitcase is sitting on its 8 little wheels to the side of the old one, which I won't bother unpacking again and rearranging, since some of the things I want to go into the bottom of the new suitcase are things I'd rather keep out right now.

One of the bad things about Sundays in Malta is that many things are closed, including Marks & Spencer, which means I can't have tea at Cafe Stretto and have to find other options. But today is Monday, so the cafe was there for me. I had my late morning tea there. My mid-morning tea (and don't forget my tea with breakfast at the guesthouse) was at CaffeCafe. I discovered it when I was in Malta in 2007 and visited there several times, using it as a wifi base the last few days before I left for London.

It's no longer a wifi hotspot, but it has done well enough that there are now three CaffeCafe locations on the island. One of them is in Sliema, within the Europa Hotel where I stayed for a month in 2007. CaffeCafe occupies the space that was a sort of lounge or living room for the guests at that time. That location caters primarily to tourists of course, but the other, in Mosta, is in a shopping center/mall and the owner told me its clientele is mostly university students. This is quite a success story for a small cafe that only first opened in 2006. I asked the owner if he lives in Valletta. He doesn't, but lives in Balzan, toward the middle of the island and near the San Anton Gardens where the presidential residence is.

While I was there, a friend of his came in. He was riding this lovely motorcycle. You'll notice the DHL emblem on it. DHL was a sponsor for the bike in a race in 2008, the young man said. I told them that DHL was out of business in the U.S. (it is, isn't it?) but apparently it's still cranking along in Europe.

After these two morning coffees I headed over to Sliema where I sat in a little park and drew a couple of sketches. Then I went to the Tex-Mex Bar & Grill again for jacket potatoes and a pot of tea. While waiting for the potatoes to be ready--I was there before the lunch crowd--I read on my current novel, "Lady Audley's Secret," first published in 1861-62. It's now reissued by Penguin in a new series called "Victorian Bestsellers" which also includes two of Wilkie Collins's books and "The String of Pearls," the cover of which proclaims it the "original Sweeney Todd". I don't know if this series will be available in the U.S. or not. I'm thinking I might also want to read "Paul Clifford" by Edward Bulwer-Lytton. He is primarily remembered in the U.S., if at all, for "The Last Days of Pompeii" and for the first line of "Paul Clifford," which has passed into "bad writing" lore: "It was a dark and stormy night." Myself, I don't find it such a bad line. Of course nights are dark, you say. Yes, but some are darker than others.

I also visited Books Plus, both to give my copy of "The Return of the Native" to the guy who works there and to buy another book to read. The clerk Kris Green mentioned when I bought "Return" that he had never read it, so I told him he could have it when I finished. Certainly I don't need to be carting it around in the luggage. The book I bought is a mystery, set in Vienna about a century ago, called "Fatal Lies" by Frank Tallis. From the blurbs on the cover, it looks like this book is (or was) available in the U.S., but I wasn't sure I had seen it. The clerk and I got to talking as I checked out. He is part of a writers' group here that runs an online magazine called "Schlock" which I want to look up. He is interested in writing himself, primarily in science fiction, but wants work which is well-written rather than just standard potboiler material. He mentioned particularly being impressed with Philip K. Dick, an American writer who died a few decades ago. The movie "Blade Runner" was based on one of his novels.

By this time my jacket potatoes had worn off, so I headed to the supermarket to get another tube of detergent for hand-washing clothes, a six-pack of tomato juice, and 150 grams of ham to supplement the jacket potatoes. I ate it sitting on a bench on the sea wall in the shade. (Shade is scarce in public places in Malta, unless you are in an outdoor restaurant. It seems like they would plant trees and put up umbrellas and screens, since this is one of the sunniest and warmest places in Europe, but they mostly don't.)

Back in Valletta I took care of the luggage, though that wasn't done all at once; had another cup of tea at M&S, along with some sandwich creme cookies; and spent some more time in the National Library. This time I concentrated on the book from 1810 intended as a guide to Malta (particularly Valletta) for convalescents needing a warm sunny climate. At that time the city had 24,000 residents Dr Domeier says, and you'll be glad to know that pigs were by then no longer allowed to run in the streets. The "milk man," however, did bring his goats from house to house, where he milked them and sold the fresh from the tap milk to his customers. There were also frequent performances by the regimental bands, as well as operas, tragedies and comedies at the theatre. All in all, it sounds like the English both tried to bring a bit of England with them to Malta as well as enjoying the Italian cultural elements which remained from the days of the knights.

I had my supper at Upper Barrakka Gardens again--the wind was quite chilly--and tried once again to get a decent shot for you of the Lower Barrakka Gardens from the Upper. I thought this one is maybe a little interesting because the gardens are pretty much in shadow as the sun has lowered, but the low dome of the Siege Bell Monument has caught the sun, as has the breakwater farther behind. In fact the breakwater is so bright is washed out to some extent.

Cafe Deux Baronnes, Harbour Cruise and the Cat Cafe

2010-05-16T12:35:00.001-07:00

This morning I had my mid-morning pot of tea from the Cafe Deux Baronnes, which is just up the road from the guesthouse. It is on the same terrace as the Saluting Battery (where they fire the cannons at noon every day) at the Upper Barrakka Gardens, and one of the other guesthouse guests had mentioned several days ago that it was a nice place to watch the firing. I was there too early for that, but I had a nice pot of tea and a bit of reading before getting into my day in earnest. Here's a shot of the table area of the cafe, looking out toward the Grand Harbour.

I had initially planned to go to the 11 a.m. concert at St Catherine's, and then in the afternoon take the free harbour cruise from Latini Cruises which I would receive as a bonus for having used the hop-on/hop-off bus tour the other day. But when I check the cruise time for Sunday, I realized I wouldn't be able to easily do both, as the second and last Sunday cruise leaves from the Sliema Strand at 12:30, and I wanted to have lunch before the cruise. So I decided to skip the concert. I went back to the guesthouse and packed for my "trip", then stopped by Wembley's for a packet of chicken roll and some chips (sigh--the only chip they had that I could eat was Pringle's: no PomSticks!) to accompany an apple and some tomato juice. I opened and began eating the chicken roll as I walked from Wembley's to the dock where the ferry runs between Valletta and Sliema.

Some of you may recall from the 2007 blog that many of Valletta's streets are steeply hilled, and some are actually stone staircases. I normally try to walk on the street near the curb, rather than the sidewalks, in Valletta, because the sidewalks and outdoor staircases in Malta are so slick--whether it's the stonework itself, or an oily residue from the relatively dry climate--that I find myself slipping, even in rubber-soled shoes. The curving road that leads down to the ferry dock is especially tricky because the sidewalks are slick, there are usually cars parked on one side, the road is narrow, and there is motor-traffic on it. It's the kind of thing we don't even think about in the U.S. of course.

Anyway, once I got to Sliema, I had the rest of my lunch, having finished the chicken roll before getting on the ferry. The Latini Cruise was full, and is on a smaller boat than some of the other harbour cruises, particularly Captain Morgan, which uses a boat large enough for probably a couple of hundred tourists. There was light blankets on the boat for us to use, and I snagged one. I was wearing shorts, but I put on my sweatshirt and windbreaker both over my t-shirt before the cruise got underway. I wrapped the blanket more or less around my legs, though by the later part of the 90 minute cruise I was also rolling my hands into it when I wasn't trying to take a picture.

This particular cruise covers the two harbours that flank Valletta and Floriana--Marsamxett to the north, and the Grand Harbour to the south. One of the first things we learned is that the cruise is called the Latini Cruise because that was the kind of sailboat this boat used to be: I think we would say "lateen", but I may have that wrong. Sailing lore isn't my strength.

In order to go from Marsamxett where the cruise begins and where the Sliema Strand is, we have to exit the relatively calm waters of the harbour and enter the Mediterranean proper as we round the east end of Valletta and head through one of the openings in the breakwater into the Grand Harbour. The wind was up today--what else is new?--and the Mediterranean gave us a few big waves as we went from one harbour to the other and back again. Our guide--I think he called himself Captain Joe--gave us history on the various sites he pointed out to us, much of it dealing with the Knights, of course, but also with the times before and after. This shot is of a ship which has nothing to do with the knights: it's called the "Black Pearl" and is, as you can see, on land. It's now a restaurant but once belonged to Errol Flynn and was taken onto land after being used in a movie--I forget which one--and then being found no longer seaworthy.

One of the interesting things about these two big harbours is that the little nooks or branches of them are called "creeks", though they just look like an arm of the harbour. Certainly nothing like what we Americans would call creeks. Joe said the Grand Harbour is actually 2.5 miles long, which I would never have guessed (but if you look on a map you can see it does cut almost halfway into the island), and that the length of its coastline is 9.5 miles. (I just now consciously realized that he said miles and not kilometers. Normally kilometers--well, kilometres--are used here.) There are a number of marinas in the various parts of the harbour, of course, and here's a shot of one of them. Would you like to have a boat tied up here, do you think?

Joe also explained something that I have had entirely wrong. When looking across from the Upper Barrakka Gardens and seeing all these cranes to the south, as well as a large hole in the ground--with water right on the outside of it--and what looks, from the Gardens, almost like the kind of bandshell that the Hollywood Bowl is, I thought some kind of big new construction was in progress, but I had no idea what it was. I was completely wrong. The cranes are for loading and unloading ships, and that big rectangular hole is one of several dry-docks in Malta for ship repair and maintenance. And that bandshell--it's not shell-shaped at all--it's a half cylinder, sort of like a really big quonset hut open at both ends. If I followed Joe correctly, it's a place for repairing yachts. And yes indeed, you will see some big yachts around here.

Another interesting thing about the cruise was being able to see Valletta from the water. This seemed like the kind of panoramic shot you might want to see. If I've got my memory straight, this is just a little bit west of where the Lower Barrakka Gardens and the Siege Bell are.

This last shot from the cruise is of a tower built by the knights out onto the steeply sloped hillside above the water. It's pretty cool looking, I think. And of course you also get a look at Captain Joe, with the microphone, and the heads of some of my fellow sojourners.

After the tour, I came back over on the ferry and headed toward the Valletta Waterfront. One of the things we had seen from the cruise was the Malta Ford Show (I think that was the name) on the docks there. I had read about this and thought I would go, and then had forgotten. Along the way I took this picture, which I'll direct especially to my sister Teresa and my friend Lou Ann. I had first seen a sign like this in Floriana near the Scout Headquarters, but hadn't gotten a photo of it. This one I came across on my way to the waterfront. Apparently Floriana takes its feral cat problem seriously, and also humanely. I hope you can read at least the right had side of the sign. The left is in Maltese.

The Ford Show wasn't mostly "old" cars, at least not old by my definition, as I had expected. Some of them looked rather new, and many others seemed to be from the '60s and '70s, about the vintage of the Grand Prix cars, so I won't bother you with any photos here. Most of the cars were Fiestas, Escorts, Sierras (yep, that's a Ford car model over here; not a GMC pickup) and Focuses. But they weren't necessarily what we think of. The Fiestas were mostly a few decades old and had model numbers like GT1300, RS1600 and RS2000. One of the vehicles, which looked more or less the same as the others, was labeled a Pinto, but it wasn't like our Pinto of '70s notoriety. Instead it was a small two-door sedan.

I had another pot of tea later at the Deux Baronnes, and this time I sketched while there.

Then I had my little supper of tuna, applesauce and Pringle's at Upper Barrakka where a sort of fair was going on, promoting conservation and local farmers and so on. One booth sold a bunch of different kinds of tea, another had ceramics and other household items, one had displays about how many liters of water it takes to get various kinds of food to market. I did a little people-watching and a little reading, and then headed back to the guesthouse for shower and "personals" washing.

Blow Wind Blow

2010-05-15T12:06:00.000-07:00

All right, folks, I think I've been pretty patient so far, but I've had it. This May in Malta is more like March in Texas. We have had rain; we have had high winds at least half of the days I've been here; there has been only one day, I think, when I didn't need my windbreaker at any point, and yesterday and today my sweatshirt might have come in handy. I guess the brief and shining moment that was Camelot was last night around 11 o'clock when, after a downpour (which I missed, being inside), the winds shifted to the south and were still quite irritating, but were at least WARM. It was probably the warmest it has been since I have arrived, at almost midnight last night. Today back to chilly to cold winds, roaring all day, though we did have sun. I feel like the cruise weather has followed me: I want to sit outside and read and draw, but it can be mighty difficult to find a warm place out of the wind. Sheesh.

Okay, that's off my chest.

Anyway, this little group of about six was making music/noise and marching down Republic Street this morning about 9:45 or 10. The banner, which you cannot see because of the wind whipping it around, says "World Fest '10". I don't know what World Fest is, do you? The guy farthest to the left is also holding some kind of poster, but I couldn't make out what it is: a performance of some sort, maybe?

Kim and Linda headed back to England this morning, but they gave me their email addresses so I can contact them once I get to London, if I think I might have the time and energy to make it down to Bournemouth to see the sights.

I spent 45 minutes or so before lunch in Marks & Spencer having a cup of tea and a muffin and working on a drawing. They didn't seem to mind my hanging around so long: there wasn't a big crowd needing the table space. Then I went to Wembley's for another packet of "chicken roll" and some apples for my lunch. I stopped by the guesthouse and got my tomato juice and the remains of my package of PomSticks, and headed up the hill and around the corner to the Upper Barrakka Gardens. I was able to find a place where the wind wasn't too bad, though I had to sit right out in the midday sun, rather than in the shade to do so. While I was eating, a couple from the guesthouse came through. They had been to St John's Co-Cathedral this morning and were heading to Mdina for the afternoon. Tomorrow is their last full day here, and they were lucky to purchase tickets to the Hypogeum before they left Canada, so they will go to see it tomorrow. The Hypogeum is one of the premier prehistoric "structures" of Malta. Probably an expanded natural cavern, used possibly both as temple as well as burial ground, and in use for a number of centuries (millennia?) a very long time ago. Only 10 people at a time are allowed inside on the guided tour, and there are only 7 or 8 tours a day.

From the Upper Barrakka Gardens I took a photo looking east and a bit north toward the Lower Barrakka Gardens out toward the end of the peninsula. You can see this photo is kind of washed out looking: the air is somewhat hazy. Whether that's because of the wind or the humidity, I don't know. Anyway, this maybe gives you some sense of the size of the defensive walls of the city. That temple-looking building, just left and a little above the center, is the memorial to the first British governor of the island, Sir Alexander Ball. He's the one the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge worked for for a while. And just a bit to the right of center, and farther away than the Ball monument, is the top of the Siege Bell monument. It's that shallow-domed building. It's not in the Gardens, but is across a road which is a good distance below the level of the Gardens and the Siege Bell. If you look closely you can see where that road turns left and vanishes behind the walls. This road was part of the route for the Valletta Grand Prix last Sunday and from the Gardens you could look down--I guess it's at least 100 feet, maybe more, to the cars as they zoomed past. Later in the day I went to the Lower Barrakka Gardens and worked on a drawing of a couple of the arches in the gardens, with the Siege Bell behind.

This photo is taken inside St James Cavalier Centre for Creativity. It's a large sculpture from 2004 done by an artist named Raphael Vella. I can't remember the name for sure: something like "A Horse for the Names of God." It's a tall--maybe twelve to fifteen feet--metal clothes-horse with sixteen or eighteen metal "books" hanging on the rods, each of which has one of the ways of saying God in various European languages cut into the cover. It was created in response to a controversy several years ago about the fact that a proposed constitution for the European Union nowhere used the word God.

These next three photos were all taken from the either the Upper or Lower Barrakka Gardens. The first shows a sailing ship, possibly one of the ones that sails tourists around the harbours and gives them a meal, in the Grand Harbour. You can see that this photo too has that "distant" look, like there is some kind of film between us and it.

This next one is a cruise ship called Amadea leaving the Grand Harbour. For whatever reason, this photo is much brighter and cleaner. Maybe it's not the haze, but my camera. Or maybe the sky had just lightened a bit by the time I took this one. You can see that this cruise ship looks to have about 7 decks of cabins, maybe 8. So this is a good bit smaller than the ship I made the transatlantic crossing on. It may of course do nothing but Mediterranean and maybe Baltic cruises, and may not need the additional size for smoother oceanic crossings. I don't know what cruise line it's from, though the logo seems to be a bird in flight, if you can spot it on the rear, blue smokestack.

And finally in this shot I am looking down at the area where they perform the Battery Salute every day at no0n. They were getting it ready for a celebration of Toyota's 50th anniversary in Malta One of the men getting things ready told me that Malta was Toyota's first European market. The car in the lower part of the photo looks too big to be a 1960 era Toyota, but I wasn't able to read the name plate on the front fender, as I looked down from the upper level of the gardens. While I was sitting up there reading, the drummer was warming up and making a lot of noise, and now--it's about 8:45 p.m. here--I can hear music through the window, which I assume is coming from that celebration.

Well, it wasn't a terribly exciting day, was it? I kind of took it easy, after all the running around of yesterday, and tried to stay out of the wind. Oh, and I bought a new book. I'm just about done with Thomas Hardy's "The Return of the Native", and next up is Mary Elizabeth Braddon's "Lady Audley's Secret."

Phoenician Glassblowers, St Agatha's Catacombs and other delights

2010-05-14T12:21:00.000-07:00

Today I was part of a foursome of guests from the guesthouse who spent several hours together running around. We left about 10:15 and headed for the bus terminus with Mdina and the Ta' Qali crafts village as our goals. As we headed out, it was cloudy, but I thought it might clear, as it has on other days, and wasn't particularly chilly. As the day advanced, though, the chill stayed mostly with us, except for one brief bit of sun and warmth, and we even had a couple of light showers. At one point, the sky was positively brown, not quite as much so as El Paso during a dust storm, but ugly enough. More like a May day in London than Malta. There is an English couple at the guesthouse right now who are leaving for a few days in Gozo tomorrow. The husband told us that they were planning to take the floatplane to Gozo (so THAT is what that floatplane in the Harbour is up to!), but the pilot called last night and cancelled the flight. He said winds of almost gale force are predicted for tomorrow and that he is taking the plane out of the water tonight. So they will have to take the ferry over to Gozo (and will probably hope that it's not too choppy a ride.) I am of course hoping the forecast will not be so grim!

Anyway, our foursome today consisted of Kim and Linda, the two women with whom I heard Ars Ludi a couple of nights ago; Dominique, a dancer and actress who is part of the musical production of "Dirty Dancing" now playing in London; and yours truly. We had intended to stop at the crafts village on the way to Mdina, since it is in fact on the way, but we missed the stop, since none of us exactly knows what we are doing. I was remembering the bus driving right through the village in 2007, but either the routes have changed or that is a different bus. So once we got to Mdina and Rabat, it was only about 11, not lunch time yet, and so we went first to Rabat to see St Agatha's Catacombs. On our stroll to find the catacombs, we passed a gas station where a dog was walking back and forth along the roof. I tried to get a photo of him, but he was in motion and the one I got wasn't very good. But as we rounded the corner, we saw him again. He had left the station roof and was walking atop the wall that ran out from behind it: a good six feet or so off the ground. There I managed to get this photo.

Anyway, we moseyed on, trying to follow signs but not always succeeding. At one point I asked a man at a sidewalk cafe, and he pointed us on around the corner, not too far. The guidebooks tend to rate St Agatha's Catacombs higher than St Paul's Catacombs, also in Rabat. After we bought our tickets, we wandered the small museum at the church until it was time for our time. The museum mostly contains artifacts, Greek pottery and so forth, and I'm not sure if it was all found on Malta or not. Certainly the mummified Nile alligator on display--said to be 4000 years old--is not likely to have been found on Malta. But I suppose stranger things have happened. There is also a display of Maltese money in the museum, some of which were Maltese pounds, from the days, I suppose, when Malta was still a British dependency or in the earliest days of its independence.

The tour of the catacombs was only 15 minutes long and was conducted by a young archaeologist who is working at the site. I don't honestly remember having a guide last time, but I suppose I did. He told us the tours were limited to 15 minutes both for the "health and safety" of the guests and for the preservation of the frescoes on the walls, which are sensitive to changes in humidity. Photographs are strictly forbidden! There is a small church built/carved into what is partly natural cave, I assume, with an altar, a small nave, and so forth. The frescoes here are from two different time periods, but all within the past several hundred years, certainly not dating back to St Agatha's time, about 250 CE/AD. The passageways in the catacombs are quite low, so that even a short guy like me has to duck a good deal of the time, and we had quite a tall man in our small group--certainly he was over 6 feet tall. Some of the tombs have one or two niches for adult burials, along with others for infants. As the guide pointed out, as many as four of five children might die before reaching one year old in the times when burials were being conducted here. Other tombs are long ones for adults, with the niches side by side. Some of the niches do indeed have bones in them, but they weren't found right there in place. The bones were instead for in an ossuarium within the catacombs: a place where the bones of many people had been gathered. Archaeologists selected some of them to be put back into burial niches as representations of what had once been there. The archaeologist said that the tombs had been looted long ago.

Down deep there is what seems to be a little chapel, also with some wall decorations. This area and these decorations are presumed to be more than 1600 years old, going back to the century after St Agatha lived. The simple fresco art here seems to be symbolic, he explained, but because there is no writing connected to it, and certainly no surviving documentation about it, the scientists can only surmise.

Then we wandered on, just sort of following interesting looking streets and going in the general direction of the main gate to Mdina, until we came out to the Howard Gardens, and then I knew where we were. We went along into the "silent city", not succumbing to the man wanting to sell tourists a book of the history of Mdina, or the men wanting to take you for a ride in their horse-drawn carriages, or the hawkers for the Mdina Dungeons and the natural history museum. Kim and Linda wanted to have something to drink and a dessert (in lieu of lunch) at the Fontanella restaurant on/in the walls, more or less on the east side of the city. So we found it--in 2007 I had a cup of tea and a piece of cake there myself--and we arranged to all meet up again in an hour. The two of them went into the restaurant and Dominique and I went on just a little farther to where there is an open plaza and a great view out to the east and north of island. We were able to spot what I'm pretty sure is the teeming mass of the cities clustered around Marsamxett Harbour and the Grand Harbour, and we saw the Mosta Dome, which was the landmark that helped me be pretty sure of the Valletta location. Then I went back out to the Howard Gardens to have my little picnic lunch--tuna, applesauce, tomato juice, potato sticks and a muffin--and Dominique roamed the city for a while.

After we all met up again, we decided not to take the little tourist train that gives a tour of and history of Mdina, Rabat and nearby Mtarfa, but to go on to the crafts village instead. My number one goal here was to buy a glass head that one of my sisters and her husband, who collect glass, wanted me to get for them. So I got the head purchased and wrapped solidly in bubble wrap and a box, while the ladies looked around the village shops as well. Dominique wondered if we could actually watch the glassworkers, and we were told yes! But the men had just gone on break. We browsed a while, sat for a while at one of the cafes and rested, then headed back to Phoenician Glass where I took these photos. The first one, which is mostly quite dark, shows the oven the men draw the molten glass out of.

Then this one shows the glowing blob one of the men drew out, to make a vase from.

In this third shot, he has already shaped the vase and is inserting a rod into the narrow top to create the opening.

This final shot is posed. I just missed getting a decent shot of the man actually blowing through the tube into the glass, so he lifted the tube to his mouth again and posed for me.

Even though it was cool to chilly day, they had several fans going in the work area, to offset the heat coming off the oven.

Well, Kim and Linda return to England tomorrow, and Dominique returns on Sunday. I hope I meet some other guests in the coming week who would like to pal up and do some things. If not, I will be on my own. I will likely go back to the National Library for a while at least and try to get some useful information from the book on "amusements" for convalescents. I am also pondering the long bus ride to Cirkiewwa, and then the ferry ride to Gozo, and then the hop-on/hop-off bus for Gozo. Even though I wasn't entirely satisfied with my hop-on experience last week, I think this may be the most economical and practical way to see some of the sites along the coast of Gozo which I didn't see last time. And maybe the Gozo ride won't be so crowded anyway. I also need to do the free harbour cruise which I'm allowed due to buying the hop-on ticket last week. I believe that cruise leaves only at 3 every afternoon from Sliema. In either case I only want to make the journey if the weather is nice. The Gozo trip would be a long day, but I don't think, at this point, that I want to go to the trouble of packing up and leaving here for an overnighter or two there.

Regaling You with My Diet and other oddities

2010-05-13T12:11:00.000-07:00

Those of you who know me well know of my dietary irregularities. Allergies and food issues run in my family on both sides. All three of my siblings and I have one or more (sometimes many more) complications, and so do my most of my nieces and nephews. Ditto my mother, even though she's virtually a poster child for the AMA's dietary recommendations. So I thought I'd give you a line-up of today's consumptions. Do keep in mind that normally there would be an apple or applesauce in here, but I skipped that today because my GI system was a little off-kilter earlier this week.

8:30 Oatmeal, a small (individual-sized) loaf of fresh bread, and 3 cups of tea
11:15 Croissant (just a plain croissant: you'd be surprised how hard that can be to find over here)
12:15 About 4.5 oz. of sliced "chicken roll" and part of a 7-Up
1:30 4 oz. bottle of tomato juice
2:00 Cup of green tea and a "chococcino" muffin (Marks & Spencer: if they'd had just a plain vanilla muffin, I would have been ecstatic. At least the chococcino had some vanilla bits. I spit out the chocolate chips in this and just ate the cake part.)
3:30 Two small jacket potatoes (with butter and a bit of salt) and a cup of tea. These two potatoes were about the size we call "new potatoes" in the US. I had these at the Tex-Mex Bar & Grill in Sliema.
5:30 About 5 oz. of sliced "chicken roll" and some Pomsticks (potato sticks--more on these below)

It's now almost 8:30 here. Before long I'll probably have some vanilla cream sandwich cookies and some cola I didn't finish yesterday. I'd prefer tea, of course, but hotels and guesthouses in Malta don't have tea fixings in the rooms, like hotels in the UK do.

Now about these potato sticks. According to the package, a 100 gram serving (the entire packet size--I hope you wouldn't eat the entire packet at once) has: 6 grams of protein; 51 grams of carbohydrate, less than 0.5 of which is 'sugar'; 34 grams of fat; 4.2 grams of fiber; and 0.53 grams of salt. According to most American health recommendations, about 60% of one's calories should be carbohydrate, so this is a little low, taken in isolation, but of course one's entire diet wouldn't be Pomsticks. About 10% should be protein, so again this is a little low, but not bad at all for a non-meat or non-bean food. About 30% of your calories should be fat, so this is a little high, but not nearly as high as American potato chips which are about 60% fat. And with 4 grams of fiber to boot! Pomsticks are practically a health food.

What's particularly interesting to me about the fiber is this: those of you who have been to the UK know that the Brits are fond of "digestive biscuits," i.e. cookies that have some extra fiber thrown in. I reckon they'd rather eat a few cookies than drink Metamucil. But here's the deal: this afternoon I picked up one of those packets of digestive biscuits to see just how much fiber it had, and guess what: 100 grams of that particular cookie had 4 grams of fiber, LESS than the Pomsticks. Go figure.

Well, wasn't that an exciting story?

Today I attended my fifth concert, another Thursday noontimer at St Catherine's. Today it was Ramona Zammit Formosa on harpsichord (last week she played the piano because the harpsichord was having a bad time with the humidity) and her husband Silvio Zammit on flute. (Are they related to yesterday's James Zammit? I don't know.) They played works by Gluck, Bach and Stanley, an 18th century English composer I don't remember having heard of before. The restoration work inside the church continues, and we sat beneath scaffolding. The cupola above the nave is being redone right now, and there are boards blocking view of it: I suppose these boards are the platform the workmen are on. The main painting that belongs behind the altar is currently on display a few blocks away so that it's not damaged by the dust, etc. A photographic reproduction of it in its restored state is on display in St Catherine's right now, and can you guess? The subject of the painting is St Catherine! This church was the church of the Italian knights. The Knights of Malta (aka the Order of St John) were divided into 8 language groups, each of which had its own church. But the languages aren't exactly what we would expect, reaching back several hundred years as the knights do. Spain and Italy weren't single unified countries at that time, and even France was probably not as large as it is today. So three of the languages, if I remember correctly, originated from what we would call Spain today. And I think three also came out of France.

I also took a walk along the Valletta Waterfront (which is actually in Floriana). This is right near where the cruise ships come, and of course other kinds of ships and boats as well. There are shops along here, including Sterling Jewellery (sic), which I suppose is the same company as in the US. Also restaurants and clubs. Sometimes at night there are live music performances here, and there is supposed to be one of Italian music tomorrow night. If it's outside (and free!), the English ladies and I may see what it's like.

The waterfront faces the Grand Harbour which is quite deep and is to the south of the peninsula Valletta and Floriana occupy. Originally the knights were mainly located in towns on the south side of the harbour (the Three Cities), but Valletta and Floriana were built and fortified after the Great Siege of 1565 when the Ottoman Turks invaded in an attempt to wipe out the Knights. This first picture is of one of the ships docked there today. You can see it's not as large as the transatlantic ships, though I believe they do occasionally stop here too when they are doing Mediterranean cruises in the summer. I'm assuming the Disney ship that stopped here last week was an enormous one, though I didn't see it. This ship is called the Aurora.

And here are two young men--two boys?--in a boat. Definitely not a cruise ship.

It is also in the Grand Harbour that I have seen jet skies zipping around and a float plane taking off--and in fact the float plane took off while I was there today. I tried to get a photo of it, but it escaped me.

Another Mini-Concert and a bit of this and that.

2010-05-12T12:00:00.000-07:00

Today I went to my fourth concert since arriving and my first "noontime" performance at the Music Room at St James Cavalier. The concert was about 30 minutes long and included the 1st movement of Moonlight Sonata, 5 Preludes by Chopin, and "Theme from Warsaw Concerto" by Richard Addinsell, whose work I'm not familiar with. (But then I'm not exactly Joe Classical Music, now am I?) The pianist was James Zammit who is a banker by trade and a violinist on the side. He has played with the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra, the St James Consort and other orchestras, but has also been studying piano for a number of years. Today's performance was his public debut as a pianist. It was a fine show. As is often my habit, I drew while listening. The woman next to me thought I ought to show the drawing to Mr Zammit, who came back into the Music Room to greet people after the show. I did so, and he and family members liked it, so I asked he would like to have it. He said yes, so I took a photo of it right then, then signed and dated it. Unfortunately the light was too low in the music room, so the definition on the photograph is not very good. It was a sketchy sort of sketch anyway, but not quite as hazy as the photo, which I adjusted as best I could. Since I no longer own the drawing, however, this photo of it will have to do.

Earlier in the day I went to Hastings Gardens again and worked on a sketch adapted on the base of column there. It's quite a large base and there is no column upon it. But the inscription explains: "THE COLUMN 70 FEET HIGH ERECTED ON THIS BASE / TO THE MEMORY OF SIR FREDERICK PONSONBY / WAS DESTROYED BY LIGHTNING IN JANUARY 1864." I wonder what his family thought when they heard about it! On my walk over to the gardens, I took this photo which sort of encapsulates the way old and new can come together in Malta: here is what looks like an exhaust fan built into an old window in a thick stone wall with flowering weeds growing out of the crevices.

I also spent some time in Sliema, including my first stop at Stella's Coffee Shop in the Plaza shopping center. When I paid the owner for my tea, he said, "You've been here before, haven't you?" I reminded him about my earlier trip and mentioned that I was going on from Malta to London in a bit. He said he had taken his wife and son to northern England on a trip with his wife and son not long ago. It was cool that he had remembered me from so long ago, but I had been in the shop quite a number of times. You know how I am about tea.

The couple who own the Hollywood Grocery in Valletta go to London fairly regularly and always stay near Oxford Street and Debenham's Department Store, so business must be pretty good for Stella's and the grocery both, since England is not a cheap place to visit.

Before going over to Sliema I took a couple of photos at two of the places where some of my Grand Prix shots were taken on Sunday. I thought you might get a kick out of seeing what the 'raceway' normally looks like.

Then later this afternoon, after returning from Sliema, I walked along a road, just above the water, where I hadn't walked before--it goes on from where the ferry landing is, at the base of the city walls. I had always thought of that as kind of a dead end there, but it's not. There is a large swimming pool there, just above the harbour, a sort of lido, I think they call it, and farther along what looked to be private dwellings. After a bit, it turned to the right, and there was an area where cars where parked and then an arched opening in the bottom of the walls with a street coming through. I saw several people walking down it, apparently leaving work inside the walls and coming to their cars parked outside. I walked a bit farther along there, then turned back and went through the gate and back inside the walls. Here is a photo of some of the worn rock--sandstone, I suppose--along the water side of the road. It has been so weathered and smoothed that it looks almost like that fake rock at Six Flags inside the old Cave ride!

After having some fries and tea (I had already had some turkey from the supermarket's deli in Sliema), I was walking near the city gates when a couple noticed my shirt and asked me if I were from Portugal. They are Portuguese and have been living and working here about 2 and a half years in a factory that makes toys. I believe they said the name was PlayMobile. They mentioned that gasoline is cheaper in Malta than Portugal because the Maltese get it from Libya (not much more than 100 miles away), but that food is less expensive in Portugal than here. They said their town in Portugal is on the south side of the Tagus River, across from Lisbon, and they mentioned the big suspension bridge that crosses the river. I was able to tell them I knew what they were talking about, that I had seen it, and had in fact done a drawing including it and the big statue of Christ nearby.

Percussionista da Guardarte

2010-05-11T13:40:00.000-07:00

Tonight I attended a performance at the Manoel Theatre, the knights' old theatre, about 250 years old, if my memory is right. There's seating on the main floor, just a little lower than the stage, then three tiers of boxes, each with four chairs in it, and then the gallery, with a sort of padded bleachers, just under the roof level. As the theatre is quite narrow, only about 20 seats across at floor level, the angle that you look down from, way up in the gallery, is pretty steep.

The acoustics in the place are amazing. The performance was called "Percussionista da Guardarte" (Watching the Percussionist) and the ensemble is Ars Ludi. Or maybe the four-man ensemble is Percussionista da Guardarte and the concert was called "Ars Ludi." One way or another, it was a percussion concert. The men played on glockenspiels, the most conventionally musical instruments of the evening, as well as various kinds of drums, plates, saucers, chairs, a dining table, the upright stem of a music stand, the stage floor, and the wall of the theatre. They also stamped their feet, clapped their hands, and slapped their thighs and the backs of their hands for one number. For the number using plates and saucers, they sat at a dining table, which they also played. The second half of this song was vocal, with them mostly saying what sounded like short words or syllables, possibly based out of a rhyming couplet which began, "Happily ever after the world is flat." I didn't catch the second line, probably because of the speaker's accent. The band is Italian.

The first set was the more "classical" set, including what sounded like Mozart's "A Little Night Music," the William Tell Overture, and the Sugar Plum Fairy's song from "The Nutcracker". (Keep in mind it can be a little difficult to be sure you are recognizing something played entirely on percussion, even if that includes glockenspiels.) The second set, after the intermission, was a bit more avant-garde, beginning with a piece that sounded like it might have been by Steve Reich. All four of the musicians played drums on this one, though one of them principally played a glockenspiel. Some of the drumming on this one sounded like a rock band. On one song in this set, they all played what looked like bongos--though they were playing with sticks--and about halfway through, the lights went down, and the sticks glowed in the dark. Then the sticks stopped glowing, and the musicians' right hands glowed. Then some of the sticks started glowing again and two of the hands stopped glowing. It was a cool visual effect.

The whole show, with intermission and encores, lasted about 90 minutes and cost 10 to 20 euros, depending on where you sat. The two English women and I, who went together from the guesthouse, opted for the gallery and the cheap seats, so it was a bargain. A performance like this, in a setting like this, would probably cost three or four times this much in most countries. It's interesting too that the performance was not considered rock or pop, but instead "classical" (or avant-garde classical.) Yes, they were performing using sheet music!

Otherwise today I took it pretty easy. I took a 30-minute or so walk this morning before cleaning up and officially starting the day. I had tea at Marks & Spencer twice (once with muffin), while reading Thomas Hardy. And I sat at Great Siege Square (Pjazza l-Assedju l-Kbir), on the northwest face of St John's Co-Cathedral and drew. (Here's one of the drawings--folks lined up to go inside and see the cathedral.)

While I was drawing a little girl, and later a little boy with her, came and looked at what I was doing. I think they were English. They had these little jumping spider toys on a string that are for sale just a few yards away.

And hey, the electricity just went out! Fortunately the rooms and the halls have some kind of emergency light system--there's a small fluorescent tube burning now in the room. But the buildings across the street still have light. And now we have light too. Good. I don't think we ever had an outage when I was here before.

I took a few pictures today, but not really of touristy things--some of the signs on buildings. I thought you might get a kick out of the way Maltese mingles words from various root languages, much as English does.

And this one just struck me as being a funny sort of official job to have.

Office of the Ombudsman.

And finally a drawing from the cruise, a cellist, drawn while I was watching the Bel Canto String Quartet play one day.

Bibljoteka Nazzjonali and other things

2010-05-10T12:46:00.001-07:00

Today I spent an hour and a half or so at the National Library (Bibljoteka Nazzjonali).

The "j" in Maltese is pronounced like an "i", and the "z" is either like "ts" or "ds", depending on whether it has a dot above it or not. I believe the library's name would be something like "BIB-lee-oh-TEH-kah NATS-ee-oh-NAH-lee".

That lovely lady out front is Queen Victoria. And in the plaza to both sides of her are the tables, chairs and sun umbrellas of the Cafe Cordina, whose kitchens and so forth are across the street.

Maltese libraries use a form of the Dewey Decimal System familiar to most Americans. I suppose it was brought to Malta by the British. They also use a form of card catalog similar to our old card catalogs, as well as cards bound into little books. I don't know how many ways there are of searching for books: in the US, of course, we search mostly by author, title or subject. The card catalog I used briefly had the cards, however, in shelf order--that is, by the way the books are arranged on the shelf, in their Dewey Decimal Order. So to use it, you have to know the Dewey Decimal number you need. I had started going through a drawer showing books for Malta, when one of the librarians (or clerks--I don't know) came and pointed the bound cards out to me. The "catalog" I was looking in had hand-written cards for the books specializing in Malta as a place, kind of like geography books might be, and the style of handwriting was quite difficult for me to make out sometimes. Words were fairly easy to piece out, but individual letters--which are used to identify where the books are located--were more difficult. They looked as though they had been done decades ago, though that might have been the case. It may simply have been an issue of writing style.

When you find the book or books you want to look at, you have to fill out a slip and give it to the librarian to go get the books for you. In my case, as a visitor to Malta, I had to list on the request where I am staying in Malta. (I also had to present photo ID and sign in to enter the library, and as far as I could tell the woman at the reception desk was typing my name into the computer: perhaps they keep a permanent log.) You are allowed to take only paper and pencil, or laptop, into the "reading room".

I spent most of my time taking notes from a book the librarian seemed to think highly of. It was a facsimile printing of a book first published in Malta in 1838, written, I presume, for the English living and visiting there. It's called "Description of Malta and Gozo", by George Percy Badger, and gives a summary of Maltese history before entering into facets of daily life, such as what men and women wear, what the agricultural products are, and so forth. It had a very interesting short version of the last decades of the knights, the invasion by the French under Napoleon, and the subsequent expulsion of the French and assumption of power by the English.

The other book was an original edition of a book published 200 years ago in London called "Observations on the Climate, Manners and Amusements of Malta" by William Domeier, M.D., who seems to have written the book for English people who needed a warm climate to convalesce in. The Napoleonic wars had rendered the warmer parts of Europe's mainland unaccessible to the English, so Malta was a handy substitute. I didn't look at this one much, though I may go back and examine it more later to see what they were doing for "amusement".

I'm looking into this time period with the idea of writing a novel set during that era--another one of my Maltese werewolf stories.

Earlier in the day I had been to Sliema, mostly doing functional things, like checking back with the hotel I will stay with when I leave the guesthouse and stopping by the bookstore there to see about the possibility of special orders. (No go--the orders can take as long as 6 weeks to arrive from the U.K. and I'll be leaving for the U.K. myself on June 15.) The most unusual thing I did there, unusual only for me and not for regular folks, is that I ate out for lunch. A Tex-Mex (yes, you read that right) restaurant near the hotel I'll be moving into later has "jacket potatoes". [We call them baked potatoes.] I had gathered on my first trip to Malta that these were seasoned/basted before baking, making them impossible for me to eat. But I went in anyway and asked the lady, and she said that theirs were simply baked potatoes. So I sat down and had two small jacket potatoes, with butter and salt, and a pot of tea. I'm sure I'll visit them again once I'm staying in Sliema, if not sooner.

Earlier in the day I stopped by the ticket office of the Teatru Manoel (Manoel Theatre) and asked about prices on tomorrow's performance of experimental music by an Italian percussion group. It's possible that I may go to that show with two English women I met here at the guesthouse. Tickets range from 10 to 20 euros, so if we can get seats at the 10 or 12.50 price, we may very well go. If so, I'll be writing about that late tomorrow night, or possibly the following day.

My friend Lou Ann will be glad to know I solved the mystery of Boots the Chemist. Boots is an English-based pharmacy chain, and Lou Ann has recommended that I try the English/European version of acetaminophen for my arthritic hands. Well, I could NOT find a Maltese location for Boots, though Lou Ann said she found one on the Internet, and people here told me Boots is here. Well, it's not, BUT the chain called Chemimart sells some of Boots's products (and may once have been Boots for all I know, since people think of it still as being here), and the store in Sliema actually has the Boots name on one of its store signs. So tomorrow morning, I will try Panadol and see if I get more relief than I do from aspirin. Wish me luck.

Valletta Grand Prix, Mother's Day, and My Nephew's Birthday

2010-05-09T12:11:00.000-07:00

Happy Mother's Day to one and all, and especially to Mom and my sisters and nieces, mothers all. Today is also my nephew's birthday--Happy birthday, Maddison!

Those of you who like to know that men can, occasionally, do something patently useful will be glad to know that before I went out today (officially, that is--I had already had a short walk earlier) I did a bit of stitching in the armpits of my Portugal shirt. Don't know if the shirt simply wasn't well-made, or if my hand-washing and -wringing it out is too much stress for it.

Today was principally devoted to the Valletta Grand Prix. I went out first to the Valletta bus terminus where the cars where coming around the ring-around there (but my photos from there were worthless), then to several spots on the sort of northwestern part of the peninsula near the ferry dock, and finally to the Lower Barrakka Gardens (where I principally sat to draw, though I took a few useless pictures there as well.) So the photos of today's race will be coming from the western side of the course, where once, and only once, I actually saw a passing maneuver (photo below). The race was based on timing, as I understand it, and not on laps counted, and took place in 20 minute sections. The narrowness of the streets where the course was laid out means that the cars left in staggered fashion. As you'll see from the photographs below, the cars are principally older models: mostly, I think, from the '60s (and maybe '70s), though one looked to be from the '30s. There was one (or maybe a couple) of newer-looking vehicles, and I don't know if they were judged by a different standard or not. Yesterday I saw on the course a quite new Mini Cooper, but I don't recall seeing it at all today. And the VW which one of the other observers yesterday was convinced had wrecked was nowhere in evidence either: so I guess it was definitely out of the running! At one point during the morning an Austin Healy convertible was in first place, but I don't know if he held that position or not. I didn't hear who won. Perhaps it will be in tomorrow's paper (though whether I will manage to see it is another matter. In 2007 one or two of the kiosks outside the main gate of the city sold Sunday papers, but I didn't see one today. Of course tomorrow the bookstores will be open, and they will have papers.)

So here are a few of the many shots I took today. First, one of a Sunbeam with the really old car hot on his tail. The old car has a picnic basket on the rear, with a sign on it. I don't know what the sign said.

Next a little red guy burning smoke in a Mini's face. Some of you may recognize the logo on the front of the red car. I don't know it.

In this shot I managed, pure happenstance, to get five cars at once in. I think it's the Jaguar sedan at the back.

And here's the one and only passing incident I saw.

I like this one because the tilt of the bodies, as they swerve around the corner, actually gives the sensation of movement.

And finally, this one, the blur of motion.

I'll also include one of the photos I took at the auto display at the terminus. There were a few American cars there, but mostly they were older European models, some quite old. Some beautiful MGs, for example. This one is the one that said, I'm pretty sure, "ROYCE MOTOMETER" on the hood ornament. Not Rolls-Royce, just Royce. Another was a Singer! Same as the sewing machine company? I don't know.

In one of the breaks I took from the race, I went to a restaurant called La Valette on Republic Street for a pot of tea. I was sitting and reading, when a young man walked up and asked if he and his companion could share the table--it sat four, and I was alone. He was from Ireland, and I'm not sure if he was officially helping the woman--from Quebec--with her English or if they had just met up for the day. She was an older woman (though not, I think, as old as I am) who had come to Malta for three weeks to study English. She has been staying with a family and attending classes during the day, just like the college kids from Europe do. I thought that was pretty cool. The young man said he had seen several Americans during his time here and also mentioned the possibility of the Icelandic volcano interfering with his flight back to Dublin on Tuesday, but let's hope that little puffery will be done with. What a lot of trouble it has caused. (Maybe it's involved in the chillier than normal weather right now in Northern Europe? Guys, I'm not getting much news.)

I also talked for a while with another man photographing the race. He and his wife are, judging by accent, from England. He mentioned that he still has a 50s model Triumph, which he bought in 1971, his first cool car to own. It's pretty amazing to think of buying a vehicle at 20 or so and keeping it for 39 years and counting, but a car like that would definitely be worth it.

May 8 is Mother's Day in Malta, so I guess next year the US and Malta will match up!

Street Magic and Grand Prix Racers

2010-05-08T13:28:00.001-07:00

This evening I watched Keiichi Iwasaki perform magic on Republic Street, the main street of Valletta. Keiichi is bicycling around the world, earning money as he goes by doing magic. He left Japan in 2002, for what he initially planned as a ten-year endeavor; now he says he'll maybe be done by 2015.

Since leaving Japan, he's been in 42 nations, including South Korea, China, Tibet and Nepal (where he climbed Mt Everest in 2005), India, Iran, and many of the countries of Europe. He came to Malta via Sicily where he intends to go again next, and then on to several other European nations before heading back to Middle Eastern nations he has missed, then Africa, South America and North America, with Alaska as the targeted last stop. His magic is a lot of fun and certainly pleasing the audience.

Earlier today I spent a good deal of time, on three separate occasions, watching some of the cars in tomorrow's Valletta Grand Prix in their "Motor Sprint Run." (This was not, as far as I could tell, an actual competition.) The major part of the course seems to be on the "ring road", often close to the water and outside the main city walls. My first viewpoint was at a curve in the road, right near Marsamxett Harbour where the Valletta-Sliema ferry runs, where I struck up a conversation with a Maltese-Australian who was also there taking photographs. He said he was pretty sure there had been a wreck not too long before I came along. A Volkswagen had fishtailed at the curve where it first came into view, then at the sharp curve right near where we stood it had actually done a three-sixty. Not long after it passed on and out of sight, they stopped more vehicles coming for a while and an ambulance came through. We never knew saw the VW again, so we're assuming the driver wiped out somewhere. Maybe it will be in tomorrow's papers.

After taking quite a number of photos and having a good conversation with the other man, I went on to lunch, stopping in at Hollywood Grocery (one of my prior hangouts) for a bag of chips, some ham and a Coca-Cola to supplement my tomato juice and apple. I had my lunch at Hastings Gardens, near Valletta's main gate, so after eating, I went out to the bus terminus where they were letting folks sit on the Triton fountain and watch as some of the race cars came around the circle there. Here I visited with a Danish-Scottish couple. In this case the wife seemed as entertained by the cars as the husband, which was not the case with the Maltese-Australian's wife.

My final vantage point for the day was at the Lower Barrakka Gardens, high on the city walls above the ring road near what would be sort of the southeast corner of the city (and the peninsula it's on). Along the way I stopped a couple of other places briefly and took the photo of the classic Jaguar cresting a hill near (if I'm remembering the name correctly) the Siege Bell Monument.

From Lower Barrakka, on the other hand, it was possible to take photos of the cars from above, where they looked very tiny, and I'll include one of those shots here.

In amongst these other activities, I also had time to draw, read and visit Marks & Spencer twice for tea. A good day, though a bit windy and chilly.

"A Night at the Opera"

2010-05-07T14:09:00.000-07:00

Some of you will be shocked to know that I was out past dark tonight. I went just a few short blocks away to "A Night at the Opera" at St James Cavalier Centre for Creativity. You might be even more shocked to know that I wore a long-sleeved tucked-in shirt with tie! Soprano Rosabelle Bianchi, Pianist Gisele Grima, Clarinetist Lino Pirotta, and French horn player Charles Abela performed in various configurations, for a total of 10 songs, plus encore. Only Grima played on every number. The concert lasted about 80 to 90 minutes, I suppose, of music, with a 15 minute "interval" in the middle, and included music of Mozart, Purcell, Schubert, and others, one of whom was Maltese--Camilleri. This was my first performance to attend in the Music Room at St James Cavalier, rather than in St Catherine's Church around the corner. There will be a daytime performance one day next week--Wednesday, I think. I was drawing during the show--one drawing of the stage without the performers, another of a part of the side wall of the room--and a man sitting a couple of seats away was kind enough to tell me, after the show, that I had done a good job. I appreciated that.

I did something else today I had never done before, though it wasn't quite as delightful: I took a "hop on/hop off" sightseeing tour of the northern half of the island. Maybe it was just a bad day, but the buses were often late (if you hop off at one site, theoretically the next bus will come along in one hour to pick you up) and at the Mdina stop the bus was already so crowded when it pulled up, and so many of us were waiting, that we couldn't all get on. Fortunately they called for another bus, so that we didn't have to wait for the next normal run, but we still spent about 30 minutes that we could have been sightseeing instead of twiddling our thumbs. On the final leg, however, I talked for just a few minutes with two young ladies from Florida, who were on the island just for the day: the Disney cruise ship they were on had made a stop in Valletta. Perhaps the lowest of lowlights of the trip--worse even than not having sufficient seating--was the large group that hopped on at one stop: 9 adults and 3 children. It would be hard to say if the almost perpetually screeching toddler or the one or two loud-mouthed adults in the bunch were more obnoxious. The Floridians told me they were pretty sure that was the same crew that got into some fit earlier, screaming and presumably cursing in their language at another passenger. Yikes.

I did at least get something productive out of the trip: one of my sisters likes to collect decorative/art glass, and I took several photos at three different glass companies, so that I can email her the photos and let her see if there is anything she likes. I'm not sure if the companies would like me to post the photos, though, so I won't do that here. Malta is noted for glasswork: apparently the Phoenicians are the earliest known people to create glass, and the Phoenicians did certainly come to Malta, though I don't know if there is a direct connection there. Lace and silverwork are also Maltese specialties. And according to the recorded "tour guide" on the sightseeing bus, Maltese cotton was especially noted during the Roman empire. It seems very odd to me that such a small island could have produced a substantial amount of cotton, but perhaps the raw material was brought from Egypt or elsewhere and then worked into cotton cloth on Malta.

After the tour, I talked to my mother from a Sliema call/Internet center. Because of the time difference and her schedule on Sunday, I thought I might not be able to reach her for Mother's Day, so today was an early greeting. I also called my niece who celebrated her birthday on Monday to talk to her a bit. She said she had a good birthday, but didn't mention whether she was pleased to be 43 or not!

After realizing how expensive today had been, I decided I ought to start keeping some kind of record of cash outlays beyond having a cup of tea at Marks & Spencer, buying chips and a soda, etc., just so I'll know where my cash is going. Today I spent 15 euros on the sightseeing tour, another 15 on the eyeglass repair, 13 at the grocery, and 10 for the concert. Normally I don't lay out quite so much money in one day! And yes, I did return to Marks & Spencer for a cup of tea and a bit of Hardy reading after all my daily travels.

I'll close with a photo of a band that was playing and parading down Republic Street this morning. I don't know what the occasion was, but they were making a good noise!

The Association of Model Engineers and other happenings

2010-05-06T14:02:00.000-07:00

May 6, 2010

Another eventful day, beginning with a good conversation with a couple from Lyons, Julian and Andrea, over breakfast. Julian is a retired headmaster, and they are RVers! (Not full-time.) Tomorrow they will go to Gozo for a couple of days, then return to Valletta for another day or two before flying to Barcelona, where they will visit with the family of one of their children and then go on in their mini-camper to Valencia to visit the family of their other child.

After breakfast I walked through Floriana and down the slope to the Ta' Braxia Cemetery where I worked on a drawing of some broken statuary, which I will probably work into my illuminated novel Disbelief. As I strolled the cemetery on my way out, I met a young German who on Friday finishes an internship here in stonemasonry. He has been working on restoring stonework, which decays here very quickly because of the climate. He has already been studying in Germany, and I suppose this may complete or come near completing his degree (certificate?) I think he would have been fascinating to interview if he had not been working (I didn't want to interrupt him for very long), and if he weren't about to leave the country. (Next Wednesday, I think he said.)

Then it was on to the Scout Headquarters, back up the slope, to visit the exhibition of The Association of Model Engineers. I didn't have a great deal of time because I needed to be at St Catherine's Church in Valletta for a 12:30 performance, so I returned later in the afternoon. (I'll combine the two visits here.) The modelers do all kinds of work, from kit cars, beautifully painted and detailed, to figures and figurines (which are mass-produced, but then hand-painted), to ships (some based on Maltese forms), to completely "scratch-built" model engines and houses. I found the "engineering" section particularly fascinating. Joseph Cutajar's work was represented by quite a number of hand-built replicas of steam engines, all of which operate (though on electricity). The one I have photographed for you here is the Victoria 2: the blurring on the left is because the engine was operating at the time!

Another engineering modeler was Carmelo Farrugia, whose Beam Steam Engine I have photographed. It too is in operation in the photo, so the spokes of the red wheel are a blur. You can also see Mr Farrugia's hand in the photo.

Other engines, including an aeolipile, were the work of Raymond Calleja, who was unfortunately not there when I was. There was also a small train unit represented. The members of this division don't make their own model trains, of course, but rather the settings for them. A work in progress--an imaginary English village--was on display. Two of the three current members of the group are emigrants from England, including Chris Holland who was running the trains at the time.

The 12:30 performance at St Catherine's, my first for this trip, was by Ramona Zammit Formosa. She had intended to play a harpsichord, but just before the performance it had broken three strings and couldn't be gotten into tune again in time--humidity was a factor, the host said. Instead she played an 18th century piano, the same kind Beethoven played, we were told, and in fact this particular piano's serial number is only a few numbers different from Beethoven's.

Mrs Zammit Formosa played works by Purcell and others in the concert of about 45 minutes. Here is a sketch I worked on during the performance, even though my glasses were skewed. Yes, after I sat down inside, I took off my sunglasses (prescription), and the right temple/leg of my regular glasses broke as I put them on! Fortunately I have an old pair of glasses with me on this trip, and the prescription is not terribly different. Also fortunately for me, I was able to get the glasses to an optician later in the afternoon and the repaired frames should be ready for me about 4:30 tomorrow.

I spent a little time in the Lower Barrakka Gardens, reading Thomas Hardy's The Return of the Native and taking a few photos. One was of a floatplane taking off from the Grand Harbour, but it's probably not interesting enough to post--it just looks like a plane over water! There were also two jet skis in operation on the harbour at the time I was there. While I was reading, a young couple who are also staying at the guesthouse where I am walked by, so we talked for several minutes. They are here for the first time and are actually in a room just a couple of doors away from me.

I visited Marks & Spencer in Valletta--I can't remember if I went into it in 2007 or not. It has a larger "food hall" than Sliema's store, though of course it is nowhere nearly as large as those in London. But it also has, like the London stores and unlike the Sliema store, a Cafe Stretto. I had a cup of Assam tea and a vanilla/chocolate muffin. It was the biggest cup of tea I have had in Malta (though some shops also offer pots of tea), and was only one euro. Let's hear it for Marks & Spencer! At the Champion (yes, the American sports company) I bought another polyester t-shirt, just plain white. Now I will have three polyester shirts (one from Lisbon [coming unstitched in the underarms, but I think I brought a tiny sewing kit], one from Barcelona, and this new one) for easy washing and drying. I mentioned that I was doing that to the woman at the register, and she said that this one would even dry out while you are wearing it! I don't think I'll need to put it on wet, but I guess I can in a pinch.

Lou Ann will be glad to know that I am talking more on this trip--to the people I am sharing breakfast table with (two of three mornings so far, but who knows what tomorrow will bring?) and sometimes just to people I stumble across, like the student stonemason or the street artist I profiled yesterday.

And here are two minor health notes for Mom (and for Jessie, if Faye conveys this info to her when she reads the blog):

1] the heat rash which has been bugging me for months at a time the past couple of years (you'd think I'd become 8 years old again!) seems to be improving now that I am in Malta. I don't know if it's something about the climate or if switching mostly into these polyester shirts;

and 2] the arthritis pain in my thumbs has gotten much worse, beginning by at least the middle of the cruise. I could understand if it was only my right thumb, since I probably grip pens and pencils much harder than I ought to and since I broke one of the bones behind that thumb many years ago, but it's both left and right, so it's a mystery to me. Is it because I've got more potatoes in my daily diet since I have limited options while traveling in this fashion, and potatoes are supposed to aggravate arthritis? Your guess is as good as mine. Another peculiarity of the cruise was that, for a great deal of the time, the underside of the third knuckle of my right hand was incredibly sensitive if I put any pressure on it at all. I don't know if the weight machines on the ship were irritating the nerve endings, or if it was just something crazy. But that sensitivity is gone now.

Well, I think I need to get a can of tuna and go supplement it with a cup of tea and probably (don't sigh too much--my options are limited) an order of fries. I'll probably hit McDonalds tonight--their fries aren't bad. Y'all take care!

Happy Cinco de Mayo

2010-05-05T13:52:00.001-07:00

May 5, 2010
A Busy Day

Part One: Introducing Atasso

Atasso is a Bulgarian-Canadian artist who has been spending summers in Malta for several years, doing caricatures of passersby. Born and raised in Bulgaria (he began drawing at age 4), he emigrated to Canada in 1990, as the Soviet Union was falling apart and it became possible for people to get out. He has since become a Canadian citizen and, besides working in Canada, has worked during the warm months in many places, earning money with this "popular" art, while carrying on more serious art and university course work as well. Among the places other than Malta where he has spent time: Cancún, Miami, Puerta Vallarta, Berlin, Munich, London, Athens. His work has also been exhibited in Canada, Bulgaria and Spain. He is currently working on an academic fine arts Ph.D. from Bulgaria and U.K. certification as a university instructor through the Institute for Learning. Once these academic hurdles are behind he would like to teach at the university level in the U.K. if possible, but if not, in any English-speaking country. He is particularly interested in creating historical landscapes and cites Italy and Greece, along with Malta, as places with historical depth. Though he still has family in Bulgaria, the work situation there is not good, and he does not envision returning there to work. He said you can see samples of his work here.

These drawings are of course realistic portraits and not caricatures, as you can see!

Part Two:

A busy day today. I spent longer over breakfast this morning, not just because I ate a little more and had an extra cup of tea, but also because the dining room was so full, another single traveler shared my table with me and we had an interesting talk. She is English and had already spent several days in Malta and was leaving today for four days in Gozo before returning to England on Sunday.

After breakfast and shower, I went back to Vodafone with my computer to let them figure out why my mobile broadband wasn't showing me how much of my data usage I had used. As it turned out there was a Mac interface (I guess that is what you would call it) that had to be installed, but which I didn't have initially. Then it was off to the airport to talk with Air Malta about changing my flight date to London. The bus ride takes about 30 minutes each way. While there I also got information about "flyaway" vacation packages the airline offers, in case I want to spend a few days in Rome while I am sort of "in the neighborhood."

Back in Valletta I had lunch, conducted the interview with Atasso, and had a cup of tea at Caffe Cafe. (I will hope to have an interview later with its owner. The fine coffeeshop has been in operation since 2006, and I visited it many times on my first trip to Malta. In fact today, when I told the owner I wanted to interview him and write about Caffe Cafe, he wouldn't even let me pay for my tea.) Then I went down to the public library in Floriana and spent a while taking notes from a book on the Maltese nobility, which will hopefully contribute some verisimilitude to the next Malta novel I am pondering. I will need to get more information there later, on daily life, significant events, population centers, and so forth in the latter half of the 18th century and the very early years of British rule. Then (get ready to laugh, ladies) I spent time at one of the local groceries reading ingredients of various cookie possibilities. I decided this time on "custard creams."

After a quick trip back to the guesthouse (one of several for the day), I went down to catch the ferry over to Sliema, but had to wait a while, so I wrote a postcard to one of my nieces and did the basic sketch work on a small drawing of Fortizza Manoel as seen from the ferry dock. Once in Sliema I visited Marks & Spencer, and I discovered that, just like in the U.K., M&S Malta also sells groceries, though on a much smaller scale. And boy oh boy, do they ever have the cookies! I'll be heading back in there, believe me. They don't however sell deli meat. Shucks! I made a quick contact with the travel agency in Cedar Hill and then, on the way out of the phone center, two young men in white shirts and black pants noticed my accent about the same time I noticed theirs, so we chatted for a while. They are both on their LDS (Mormon) missions: one has been here about 4 months if I remember correctly, and the other about 3. Before that, both were in southern Italy for several months, though I don't know if they were in the same place. One is from Colorado, the other from Michigan, and they are living in Mosta (famous for its huge domed church) and working from there, traveling by bus, not bicycle. (Personally I think it would be quite dangerous to ride a bicycle on rural Maltese roads, which are very narrow.) Of course they invited me to church, but they were quite pleasant about it.

So I have done more talking today than I normally so when traveling. I'll probably have a sore throat tomorrow! Happy Cinco de Mayo!

**

This photo is from the cruise. It was a day that was pleasant enough to sit out and I was rather taken by the odd shadows and curves and so forth in the way this man was lying out in the sun in relation to the angle I was at. That left shoulder looks almost thrown out of socket, and the "dip" between collar-bone, shoulder blade and neck on the right shoulder looks deep enough to cook oatmeal in!

On the Island

2010-05-04T14:05:00.001-07:00

Arrival in Malta
May 3-4, 2010

These past two days have been a little too tumultuous and changeable for the dullness of Renner. On Monday morning, I left the ship about 8 a.m. for a bus ride to Rome's airport (which is a long way from Rome and has two names: some call it Fiumicino; some, Leonardo da Vinci). Got there with no problem about 9:30 or a little earlier, had a baggage trolley provided without charge by the cruise line (I guess it was included in the $91 fare to the airport), and wasted a little time (eating!) waiting for Air Malta to begin printing boarding passes and accepting luggage. That went without a hitch too and, with only my backpack to weigh me down, I could wander a little more freely. I had some bottled fizzy water and some cookies at a little eatery, and there met two couples from the Tulsa area. I had heard one of the men talking and thought, "There's an American accent," so I told them that after I sat down. They had flown in from Chicago, were awaiting another couple, and were flying on to Venice to begin a two week vacation also to include Florence and somewhere else--maybe Milan. It was funny to run across "nearly neighbors" so far across the ocean.

It wasn't too much longer before I boarded the plane and we were off. Once again I saw Mt Etna from the window as we flew over Sicily--a nice sight. When we landed in Luqa, there was no going through passport control because we had flown from one Schengen Visa country to another. The Schengen Visa is a joint visa arrangement that most EU countries share. I wasn't sure that I was supposed to be here without having my passport stamped with an entry and expiration date, but I was assured by the information center that I was all right. Soon I was on a bus and riding a roundabout way to Valletta. It was kind of strange because, even with my very elongated (or slow) sense of time, I felt as I looked out the windows that I just been here: it all seemed so familiar. I talked briefly to two girls on the bus who had also just come from the airport and are from Seattle! I told them not many Americans come to Malta and one of them said, "That's fine!" Then this morning I saw one of them again in the breakfast room of a nearby hotel (more on that later)--apparently they have come to work, not just to visit: perhaps some kind of internship. Or maybe they have Maltese family.

I also talked to a high school boy on the bus who was on his way to take an English exam. He said he would like to live and work in the UK or Italy once he finishes school: Malta is boring for him, since it's home. He also explained that his parents were very adamant about speaking Maltese and that he only began to learn English when he began school.

This is the Grand Excelsior, a hotel that probably wouldn't take to the likes of me inside.

And then we were at the bus terminus at Valletta: terminus not terminal, I suppose, because there isn't a building. It's just the parking lot the buses run from. It was a bright sunny day, and I was feeling really good about being back here, but I got a jolt when I got to the guesthouse. The owner explained to me something I had not understood on the phone when I made the reservation for several weeks: she operates as a bed and breakfast and charges by the person, not the room. Therefore my room, which has two beds, would normally make twice as much money for her if a couple were staying there. So she suggested I should pay more (not double) but more than the 20 euros I was expecting to pay if I wanted to stay for such a long time as I was planning. Those of you who know me well know that sudden changes of plan make me very anxious and uneasy. I wasn't ready to think about staying the entire length of time at a rather higher rate, and spend more money than I had such of loosely alloted in my head, but I understood her interest in making more money off the room if possible. Several ideas and possibilities and ponderings passed through my mind as well as between her and me over the next 24 hours, and I checked out other places to stay, not immediately, but later this month--and that's why I ran into the girl from Seattle again: the hotel where she is working is right down the street from the guesthouse. I also looked into another guesthouse--significantly cheaper, but not as attractive and spruced up--and the Europa Hotel, which I stayed in last time in Sliema. After all this worrying and fretting and feeling disoriented, the upshoot is this: I will stay here in Valletta for three more weeks (22 days in all) at the original price I thought I would have, and then I will move over to Sliema and stay in the Europa again: it will cost a little more, but I will have my own bath and TV. I won't have a room overlooking the Mediterranean this time, but the booking agent promised me a room at the back, which will have a balcony overlooking the backyard--whatever that turns out to be--and I will be on the top or next to the top floor, which should be quieter. The Europa has been spruced up in the past three years, so it doesn't seem a bad deal to pay a little more than before. I saw lots of students there, but also a number of old people like me, so hopefully it will be quiet enough for me, especially as I will be at the back away from the club on the ground floor.

Well, all of that didn't get finalized until about 4 p.m. today so I was feeling frazzled and fretful for a while. Fortunately I had things to do which kept me occupied--though one or two of them were kind of frazzling as well. I went to a Vodafone shop to buy an "Internet key" (which is what they call the USB modem for mobile broadband) and a month's (or 3 GB) of usage. Since I had not had terribly rewarding experiences with mobile broadband before, I was apprehensive, but was hoping (and still am) that Malta's size will make coverage more regular. A few hours later when I got back to the room, got showered, got ready to plug it up and see if it would work, it didn't! I kept trying and trying, though, and finally it just sort of clicked in. I don't know why it didn't at first, but I'm glad it did later. I'm hoping it will start right up later this evening when I try it again (and hope to get this entry posted) with no problem. I guess you can't wish me luck because by the time you are reading this, it will either already have performed or I will have had to return to the Vodafone store to have things checked out, and then have had it perform correctly.

These ruins are just outside Valletta's walls and inside what I consider the moat, though it's dry and not filled with water. I suppose they must have been government buildings, but they seem abandoned now.

So, today I worked on the "housing issue"; bought The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy at Books Plus, the cool independent bookstore still alive in Sliema; visited again with one of the owners of the Hollywood Grocery who does remember me (Check out one of the last Malta postings from 2007--something like June 20th, maybe?) and was giving me advice on suggestions on places to stay; registered with the American Embassy; stumbled onto the Public Library and found out that I can indeed use the Maltese history reference section to take notes for yet another Maltese werewolf novel I would like to do, set mostly in the second half of the 18th century; visited with a young woman and her child from Holland who were walking the same way I was into a section of Floriana I had never seen before, near the Grand Excelsior Hotel (!); and sat down to sketch in the Upper Barrakka Gardens. For the drawing, I used the "autographs and sketches" section of the Destinations journal which my travel agent Donna (Red Bird Travel in Cedar Hill, Texas) kindly had waiting for me when I arrived on the Equinox.

Malta is relatively inexpensive by European standards, but I guess the grass is always greener somewhere else.

Now soon here I will need to carry a packet of tuna with me and head, probably, to Burger King for some fries and a cup of tea to accompany the tuna. My lunch was turkey from the supermarket, an apple, a small bottle of tomato juice, and some potato chips. I know that some of you will chastise me for having potato chips and fries in the same day, but I have to get vegetable matter somehow, and I can't exactly cook up a couple of tablespoons of peas in the hot water from the sink in my room, now can I? So I will hope the apple and tomato juice, which I will try to have daily, along with a multivitamin at breakfast and supper, will keep me fit. I also had oatmeal for breakfast, and that is certainly healthy.

Well, I guess I will wind it down for now, and tell you more later.

And One More Posting About the Cruise:
Body Hair on Board

On a transatlantic cruise many of the guests spend a lot of time on the sundecks, in their swimsuits, so one has the opportunity to see a lot of body types and variations. To be sure, most of the guests are older than I am, so it's a study in senior science! I have not yet seen unshaven armpits or legs on a woman, but there are several men on board who might serve very well as extras on filmed versions of my Maltese lycanthropy stories. A couple of them have more hair on their backs than most men do on their chests, and it's interesting to see that, just as most men's heads tend to start going grey at the temples, there is also a pattern to white body hair, which seems to begin on the upper chest, especially in the center, almost like the white 'star' one sees on the chests of German shepherd dogs and some horses. In a hairiest chest contest, I don't think that I would make even the top 100 on this ship, but I think I would come in second in the legs contest. The clear winner would be the elderly man I saw sunning with his wife one morning. There are chihuahuas in the world with less hair than that man.

Cruise Week 2

2010-05-03T14:55:00.001-07:00

April 26, 2010
Oops! No Azores!

While it hasn't been an entirely miserable day, in terms of weather, it has certainly been miserable enough. This morning the waves and the wind were both so high that, after several attempts, the captain, advised by local port officials, made the decision that it was too risky to try to dock at Ponta Delgada on the island of São Miguel. Needless to say, much disappointment. I was not looking forward to the possibility of taking my onshore tour in chilly, dank (and possibly rainy) weather, but I did indeed want to have some time ashore and to see Ribeira Grande on the north side of the island, an old city I didn't see on my 2007 cruise. There is apparently no intention to give us a second day (or an extended day) at any of our other stops. Sigh. Obviously Celebrity can't control the weather, but they ought to do something to compensate us for this loss of one of our five day-visits: if not an extension elsewhere, then at least an onboard voucher or even free soft drinks for the rest of the cruise.

Another pretty much lost day on deck, though I made myself do some walking outside, if only because I hate treadmills so much. Rough seas and a southeast wind. Only last Saturday gave us a wind coming more from the west than the east, making the decks pleasant. After lunch the clouds finally began to lift, so that it was possible to believe there was actually air between ocean and cloud, and later still there was even the occasional bit of sunshine, but we have yet (as of 8:45 p.m.) to break out of the low pressure system entirely and encounter blue sky. I certainly hope the weather in Europe is better than what we have had crossing the Atlantic.

I worked on a new string quartet drawing today and gave it and two others to the group today. There is still one of the violinists I have only gotten into the group drawing and will try to get a solo drawing of her tomorrow, as she's feeling left out. Unfortunately where I'm able to find a seat for a performance limits whom I can see clearly.

This afternoon I watched Angels & Demons, a movie I hadn't seen, and found it rather better than the movie of The DaVinci Code, though I enjoyed that book more. I've also watched (pretty much, that is--sometimes I nod off) Miracle at St Anna and Brideshead Revisited. Both are worth watching though, since I haven't read either of those books, I can't comment on their accuracy. I seem to recall at BBC or Masterpiece Theatre version of Brideshead from the '70s, but that's too long ago for me to remember.

Another time change tonight, our fifth of the voyage. I don't know if our sixth comes between Lisbon and Cadiz, or Cadiz and Barcelona.

April 27, 2010
Lawzy! Good weather!

Yep, a nice day: mild wind, mostly sunny skies, calm seas. Finally a day like almost every day on the 2007 cruise. Whether it was actually warmer, or just felt warmer, I don't know. But they say it much reach the upper 70s in Lisbon tomorrow, which would be really nice! It was so pleasant to walk easily on the open decks and even to sit out and read a bit.

I worked on another violinist drawing today, taking two photos of the drawing--one of the music and mike stands I drew before the performance began; and then the second after I drew in the violinist. I also worked on Disbelief again, adding in the drawing for a text I wrote a few days ago and doing a new text and drawing as well. There are now 29 "panels" for the collection, counting the title page.

April 28, 2010
Óbidos, Portugal

Today two fine things happened: 1, I stepped onto solid ground for the first time in 8 and a half days; and 2, I had Lay's Potato Chips for the first time in longer than that. No surprise that we did not disembark from the ship on time: cruise lines always have excuses (which may be legitimate but still feel like evidence of poor planning) and never seem to feel that they owe their customers anything for depriving them of shore time. I've been assured that things will go smoothly at Cádiz tomorrow, but I won't hold my breath.

My trip today was a visit to Óbidos (pronounced something like AH-bee-dohsh), a walled hilltop city north of Lisbon, still looking much like it must have a few hundred years ago. We had a great guide, and the town is really lovely. The streets are made of stones about four or five inches square, with a smoother center walk of larger stones, and are of course narrow. The streets go up and down, following the contours of the original hill, I assume, and the buildings are mostly painted (or white-washed?) white, though there are blue highlights in places, plants trained to grow up walls, or flowerpots suspended outside windows. A rather Mediterranean sort of look. Many of the houses have become cafes or tourist shops, but much of the town looks still lived in, which is not always the case with these preserved cities. I noticed also several guest-houses which would probably be beautiful to stay in, but I wonder how expensive they would be!

After our group tour I did a little shop-browsing and bought a touristy shirt (made of polyester) which will be much easier to wash in the shower than cotton t-shirts are. Then I went to the mini-mercado which had lots of juices, but no V8 or tomato juice: it did however have LAY'S potato chips and Coca-Cola, both of which I bought. The prices were quite reasonable: the half-liter Coca-Cola was 0.90 euro, or something like $1.20, which is cheaper than they often are in the US, and the 5 ounce package of Lay's was 1.25 euro, if I remember correctly. I went back to the square, shaded by huge sycamores and near one of the churches where the guide had brought us earlier, and sat on the wall in the shade and had my picnic lunch: apple, muffin and tuna packet, along with some of the Coca-Cola. I saved the Lay's for later as time was growing short and the rest had already filled me up. This was the first time in over a week that I have had anything like my 'normal' lunch, but perhaps I'll be able to do likewise tomorrow in Cádiz. The church dates from the 16th to 19th centuries, the guide told us, but is on the site of an earlier church, which replaced the mosque of the Moorish centuries, which had replaced a Visigoth temple. Before the Visigoths, there were Romans and Celts in the city.

After returning to the ship, I worked on a drawing of the south bank of the Tagus River, where there is a Christ statue similar to the one in South America and one end of the suspension bridge which crosses the Tagus. It's one of the longest suspension bridges in the world, designed by the same firm which did the Golden Gate Bridge. It was originally named for the dictator Salazar who had it constructed, but was renamed several years later Ponte 25 de Abril (25th of April Bridge), after the date of a left-wing military coup which overthrew the decades-long dictatorship in 1974. Portugal is now a democracy. It was interesting to sit on deck and work on the drawing, with the bridge off to my right, humming away as traffic crossed it. It was quite a loud sound, perhaps intensified by the water beneath it.

Cádiz / At Sea
April 29-30, 2010

On Thursday we had our longest day-stop, about 11 hours in Cádiz, built on a peninsula on the Atlantic coast of Spain. It's the perfect city for a visit from a cruise ship. The port is right next to the city, and the city is compact and easy to navigate on foot. I took a sightseeing tour which began with a bus ride around the outer rim of the city (with the sea mostly to our right) and then continued with a walking tour within the city, where the streets are much too narrow for buses. We visited the cathedral, large and lovely with quite a number of chapels (16, I think) along the outer walls, and a spacious and not at all gloomy crypt underneath. The composer Manuel de Falla is buried here. Many of the buildings have businesses on the ground floor and dwellings above them. Looking up you see windows and balconies, sometimes decorated with flowerpots. Because it is confined to a peninsula, Cádiz is even today less than twice as populous as it was during the Roman period. Its history stretches back more than 3000 years to its founding by the Phoenicians, though the myth claims Hercules as its founder. Cádiz is outside the Straits of Gibraltar (aka the Pillars of Hercules), once considered to be more or less the western end of the world. We both began and concluded the walking tour at the Plaza de España, which celebrates the Constitution of 1812. This Constitution upheld the monarchy of Ferdinand VII, whom the Spanish considered the rightful king, rather than Napoleon's pupper (whose name I can't remember), but also established freedom of the press and of religion and championed small farmers against the large semi-feudal landowners who had previously controlled most of the land.

After lunch back on the ship, I walked back into Cádiz, an easy thing to do here, and first took a stroll along the walkway by the ocean and into the Parque Genoves. At one point an old man had two rod-and-reels set up, braced against the wall with their lines trailing down into the ocean. After leaving the park and sight of the water, I promptly got lost--partly, I suppose, my fault, but also partly to blame on the not-very-good map the cruise ship provided, which left far too many streets unnamed. Anyway, I eventually stumbled back onto the street where the walking tour guide had shown me a cool bookstore I wanted to revisit. Called Quorum, it's quite a large store for a city this size--less than 150,000 people, not counting suburbs--and I in no way gave it as much time as it probably deserved. I came away with mass-market paperbacks of El hacedor by Jorge Luis Borges and Bartleby y companía by Enrique Vila-Matas. The Borges book is a mix of fiction, essay and verse, and is the only book of Borges fiction I haven't read, so I was pleased to find it. (It's available in English as Dreamtigers, but I want to read the Spanish.) I also bought a Coca-Cola and a Spanish donut from a local bakery. I was quite surprised to see donuts. While drinking the cola I walked back toward the shore and the walkway along the city walls, and then turned back toward the plaza and away from the water. I found some grafitti near a school, one of which seemed to be directed, in imperfect English, at an instructor, unless TACHER is a Spanish verb I'm not familiar with. Nearby was a stick-figure boy who was very well-endowed (or suffering from a terrible tumor).

We passed through the Straits of Gibraltar around midnight, but I was already in bed by then, I think. On my previous transatlantic, we passed the Straits by daylight when it was possible to see. At night it didn't seem worth the effort!

Today was our final sea day as we cruised north-northeast up the coast of Spain toward Barcelona. A chilly day--mid 60s temperature--with a great deal of haze, but some sun. I hope tomorrow will be warmer, but who knows?

Barcelona!
May 1, 2010

Today I took the Gaudí tour offered by the cruise line--some bus riding, some walking, a good mix. We saw a bit of Gaudí from the bus, but mostly Barcelona's Modernist architecture along the way. Our Gaudí focus (Gaudí, 1854-1926 [I think]) is one of Spain's most important architects) was Parc Güell and the Temple of La Sagrada Familia (The Holy Family). The park is up on a slope overlooking the city and was not originally intended to be a park at all, but rather a gated community for 60 families, a bit removed from the hubbub of Barcelona. But the community, funded by a rich man named Güell, failed due both to the distance and to the unsettled conditions in Barcelona at the time (90 years ago?) Only three houses were occupied, including Güell's and Gaudí's. Gaudí's is now the site of the museum dedicated to him, and Güell's (which was actually a building already there and renovated for Güell, who had 10 kids) is now a public school. The third house, way up on the ridge, is still a private residence. All the other lots which never sold are now the heart of the park, which also contains a public area designed by Gaudí, featuring a large open plaza built upon dozens of pillars above a second area now used for musical performances and so forth. The plaza is ringed by an undulating continuous bench, hundreds of feet long, encased in mosaic designs and including a lumbar-support ridge and holes for rain water to drain off through. Some of the outside support columns tilt outward and thus serve both as columns and as buttresses to support the weight of the roof/plaza above. There are also an arched viaduct where visitors can walk above and below and, at the gate, two smaller (but not exactly small) buildings, at least one of which was for the gatekeeper's family, if I remember correctly. Both are multi-storied and have towers.

La Sagrada Familia was begun in the 1880s and was still under construction when Gaudí died in the 1920s. And it's still under construction today, following Gaudí's plans where possible and trying to keep more or less to his spirit where not possible. During the Spanish Civil War, which began about a decade after the architect's death, much of Gaudí's surviving plans and designs were destroyed. Gaudí was very Catholic, and the Church tended to support General Franco in the war, leading to animosity from the anti-Franco republican forces. The nave is still undergoing construction, but the church is scheduled to be consecrated this November anyway. The current lead architect plans to have the church finished in 15 years, but looking at what remains to be done makes one wonder if this is at all likely. The highest tower, when finished, is supposed to be over 500 feet tall, making it the highest church tower in the world, if it comes to pass. All together the church is to have 18 towers.

Gaudí used organic forms, inspired by plants and trees, in his architecture, and his works have been seen as being fantastic and even fairy-tale-like. The northern side entrance to the church, currently in production and representing the Passion of Christ, features work designed by a younger Barcelonan architect, much more angular in shape and somewhat controversial for this reason as well as for the nudity of Christ on the cross. One of the figures designed for the scenes depicted around this entrance has Gaudí's face, as a tribute to him.

Today's tour, and Thursday's in Cádiz, both left the ship on time! Amazing. But today's weird event occurred about 5:45 this afternoon. I was about to shave and shower so I could have an early supper and then go to the 7 p.m. musical performance. But when I turned on the water to shave, the sink tap ran brown! I had to wait about 45 minutes, while the ship's technicians tinkered with the system to get the problem corrected. Apparently something to do with chlorinating the fresh water they had taken on. Hmmm. Anyway, once I got finished shaving, showering and washing clothes, I went straight to the theatre for the show, but left after 10 minutes or so. Too show-tune-y poppish for me. So I had a peaceable supper, reading my Vila-Matas book, and talking for a few minutes to one of the waiters who is from Peru and is quite a fan of Mario Vargas Llosa

Nice & Eze
May 2, 2010

The last full day of the cruise. We are scheduled to arrive in Civitavecchia (port of Rome) during the wee hours, for early disembarkation to airport or train station or hotel. Some passengers will remain for a Mediterranean cruise. My tour today included Nice, on the coast, and Eze up in the hills high above the city. We anchored in the bay outside Villefranche and took "tenders" to shore. There we boarded a bus to the old center of Nice (or the center of old Nice) for some time to wander and look around. There is a really nice flower market and produce market along one of the streets and of course restaurants and cafes and bakeries. In 2007 I had tea many times on the sea wall at Sliema overlooking the Mediterranean, but I think people in general are more impressed if I say, "I had morning tea at a sidewalk cafe in Nice, just across the street from the Mediterranean." And I did, in fact, have morning tea in Nice this morning. Our guide told us that the name Cote d'Azur actually comes from the name of a book written in the 19th century. The people here liked that designation for their coast and so they adopted it.

The flower and produce market was a couple of streets back from the sea, and flanked by many places for food and drink. Perhaps most interesting is the fact that Les 3 Diables is right next door to Heaven. Before doing our walk here, we took a driving tour of Nice along the coast, including the stretch of road named in honor of Princess Grace of Monaco. The guide also told us that Tina Turner and Elton John have houses in Nice.

Our drive up into the mountains was beautiful and not terribly long. There are actually two towns called Eze, one up in the hills where we went, another near the shore. Eze in the mountains is quite small, with up and down brick pedestrian streets, lots of shops and cafes, and houses which have been in the same families for as long as 6 generations. It was originally a lookout town, watching out for invading ships. The exotic garden (Jardin Exotique) was pretty, but for a former resident of El Paso the plants looked mostly like things you'd see every day there or in New Mexico and Arizona.

For those of you keeping score: 1] a half-liter bottle of Coca-Cola in Eze, 1.50 euro (In Obidos it was 0.90 euro); 2] that pot of tea in the sidewalk cafe in Nice was 3.20 euro.

Cruise rules: 1] Be really nice to cruise ship staff. Most of them will do whatever they can to help you. 2] It doesn't matter if you're nice to most of your fellow passengers. Most of them won't notice or acknowledge any courtesy (though they might react to outright rudeness.)

Cruise Week 1

2010-05-03T13:41:00.001-07:00

Bon Voyage / At Sea
April 19, 2010

Today began with drizzle and cloudy skies in West Palm Beach and ended with the Equinox headed out to sea under mostly sunny skies: first stop, Ponta Delgada in the Azores Islands, next Monday. Meanwhile, 6 full days at open sea.

After my hostess from the B&B kindly delivered me to the WPB Tri-Rail station, I was fortunate to strike up a conversation with a Peruvian woman, in the States visiting family, who was also taking the train to Ft Lauderdale. She had made the journey before and knew how to get from the train station to the bus terminal: a great help to me. We talked while awaiting the train and while riding south. She has visited so many countries, not simply in South America, but also in Europe. Interestingly, she doesn't mind flying at all, but doesn't like travel by boat.

From the downtown terminal of the Broward County bus system, I took the bus to a stop near Port Everglades and had my lunch at Einstein Bros Bagels: tea and a bagel from the restaurant; applesauce, V8 and some Fritos from my backpack. After lunch I made a few photocopies of the main page of my passport, which I had forgotten to do earlier, then took a cab to Pier (or Terminal 18) where the Equinox was docked. Though I was earlier than my scheduled arrival time, I was checked in quickly and was soon in my stateroom. The woman who took care of my documentation told me that there had been a number of last-minute cancellations for this cruise because passengers were unable to reach Ft Lauderdale from Europe because of the Icelandic volcano's eruption. Likewise many who were intending to fly to Europe snatched up these newly-available staterooms as an alternative to waiting till they could make a flight.

The Equinox is a newer ship (at least it looks newer [NOTE: Yep, it's been in operation less than a year]) than the Grand Princess on which I crossed the Atlantic in 2007. On that crossing I was on the 12th deck, just under one of the entertainment (pools, food, outdoor movies, etc.) decks: a handy place to be. On this voyage I am on the 3rd deck (just under the Casino!), a 9- or 10-flight climb to the two main outdoor and casual dining decks. Since I usually avoid the elevators, this lower location will mean I probably won't need to do much exercise walking on this cruise! I don't know how many flights I have walked this afternoon and evening--80 to 100 maybe?

After putting my clothes and luggage away and changing into shorts, I began to explore the ship. Of course I found the library and a copy of Marjane Satrapi's memoir-in-graphic-novel format The Complete Persepolis, which my friend Lou Ann has recommended, so I carried it back to the room. I also called my mother and three sisters to bid them farewell for a while and received a call from Tsipi in West Palm Beach, checking to see how my day was going. She was surprised, I think, to find me already aboard.

A couple of other ships in Port Everglades

I had both a mid-afternoon semi-supper and a mid-evening semi-supper in the Oceanview Cafe, the ship's buffet restaurant, open something like 17 hours a day. We pulled away from the pier about 6 p.m. Eastern time and the cruise began. I've been already to the 'fitness room' for a little exercise and into one of the whirlpools on deck 12. I've drunk four (or five?) cups of tea and begun book two of Dickens' Little Dorrit, which I certainly hope to finish before reaching the Azores.

One thing I find very interesting about being on a cruise ship again is how closely it loops me back to my first cruise three years ago. Those of you who know me well know that 3 years is, to me, practically a lifetime: last summer as I began thinking seriously about the contours of a return trip to Malta, I couldn't believe that it would be 3 years before I returned to it. Couldn't believe it will still be 8 or 9 months before I arrived. But once I got checked into my room and began to move around the ship, it seemed like such a fresh part of my past: it seemed so natural to be on a ship again, and even so familiar, though I am not on the same boat. I suppose that means my first cruise made quite an impression on me.

The Equinox seems swanker in some ways than the Grand Princess, but I haven't decided yet if that necessarily means that I like it better. I will have to see, for example, if the Equinox offers as many movies as the Grand Princess did, a feature of my first cruise which I quite enjoyed. My stateroom is, I think, longer on the Equinox, but not as wide. On the Grand Princess I had a larger desk area, and maybe a larger closet, but here I have a couch as well as my bed. Whether I actually spend enough time in the room to make use of it is another question!

And a nice gift greeted my arrival in my stateroom too: my travel agent Donna sent me a Destinations journal to use on the trip and a Celebrity pen. Thank you, Donna! Who knows? I may draw more pictures than write words in the journal.

Note to Lou Ann: Free ice cream on the Equinox.

My stateroom in B&W

April 20, 2010

Mostly sunny today; swells moderate a good part of the day; temperatures in the upper 60s with a lot of wind. Kind of chilly on the deck. I went to an intro to acupuncture lecture today (there are two licensed acupuncturists on board ship) and part of another lecture on important inventions of the last several hundred years. I also worked on Disbelief, continued reading Little Dorrit, went up and down a lot of stairs, and ate. Pretty relaxing, no?

April 21, 2010

Another mostly sunny day, quite windy, temperatures still in the 60s. Chillier than my 2007 crossing, which began not quite 2 weeks later in the year. Is this just another sign that the winter of 2009-10 hasn't given up yet, or do two weeks make so much difference?

A couple of really unusual finds on the fiction shelves of the library today. Mostly one expects former bestsellers, classics, genre titles, and mostly that's what one gets. But I had the serendipity of finding two distinctly oddball acquisitions: the 1974 Ecco Press poetry bookThe Breathers by James Reiss and Katschen & The Book of Joseph, a 1998 New Directions volume pairing two novellas by Israeli author Yoel Hoffmann, whom I'd never heard of. I'd seen the Reiss collection long ago, and probably even read a bit of it, but how odd of it to show up here, on the "fiction" shelves. I read the book today and began work on a review of it which may be the heart of my next "In Dissent" column at Web Del Sol.

The Equinox library is much larger than the Grand Princess's was, but it has the disadvantage of being part of the central open-air shaft of the ship, which goes from the 3rd floor all the way up. A wall of windows lets in a great deal of light from above the library--a plus--but the location on the shaft also means that the electrified band playing (loudly) several floors below at various times of the day can be easily heard. At those times, one sitting in the library to read really does need ear plugs (which I have, and used in the library yesterday). On the Grand Princess, the library was small, but had its own room with windows looking out to sea.

Tonight's performance in the Equinox Theater was by Doug Cameron, a violinist I have not previously heard of. Accomplished, but distinctly middle-brow (at least for this performance).

April 23, 2010

I'm curious about crossing the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, as I was last time, and one of the advantages of the Equinox is an enormous globe on deck 7, based on satellite photos, which shows the ocean floor as well as the continents. What you can clearly see on this globe is that the Azores are a part of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge--I suppose you would say that the islands are mountain peaks from the ridge--and that some of the ocean floor in the vicinity is relatively shallow, less than 1000 meters deep. Since we are scheduled to reach Sao Miguel on Monday, we will be crossing the ridge on Sunday. Cool to know.

This afternoon Shirley Jones ("Mrs Partridge") gave a lecture (the first of three scheduled for the voyage) in which she talked principally about her career. I really hadn't known how successful she was, pre-Partridge, and it was interesting to hear her discuss co-stars and her astonishingly quick and easy rise into prominent roles on stage and screen. Tonight ventriloquist Ronn Lucas performed--an amusing and sometimes offbeat show. I'd like to stumble across him sometime on deck and ask him about his childhood because he mentioned growing up in--get ready--El Paso!

On my way back to my room after supper, I stopped by the library and saw David Small's memoir Stitches, written in graphic-novel format. It's a very interesting (and quick) read, both traumatic and triumphant. Small is a cartoonist and illustrator who has won the Caldecott Award for children's books.

April 24, 2010

Today was our roughest, choppiest day. At ten this morning, the captain told us the waves were about 12 feet high and had been 15-20 feet earlier. For the first time, white 'sick-sacks' were placed on the staircases for easy snagging, if required. But we had a southerly (or southwesterly) wind coming up behind us, rather than a head wind, and so for the first time on this cruise one could walk and sit on the sundecks without feeling that one was likely to lifted off the deck and hurled to sea. Perhaps because of this the temperature also felt better, though I don't think it was actually any warmer. Later in the afternoon the seas calmed somewhat, but most of us did a lot of lurching (instead of walking) for a good part of the day.

This afternoon Doug Cameron performed again with the house musicians, a much more strictly jazz offering and certainly more musically pleasing than the sort of theme-park-jazz show he delivered as the headliner a few nights ago. My guess would be that this show is probably closer to what he would choose to do, given his druthers. Tonight's headliner was British magician and comic Martin Lewis, who really shone with variations on classic small-scale magic: card tricks, scarves, steel rings.

I finally finished Dickens's Little Dorrit, which I've been reading for about three weeks. Although the pieces of the plot do finally pretty well fit together, the book feels, as one reads, far too sprawling and formless for its own good. There is a great deal of fine work in it, and a characterization such as Mr Pancks is absolutely priceless, but one certainly gets the sense of something not quite wrong: Dickens unsure where he was headed, or expanding for expansion's sake (or commercial reasons?), or perhaps so involved in his theme that he let the narrative sag. Dickens's heart is certainly in the right place, and a satiric look at financial speculators and unwarranted exuberance could hardly be more appropriate in 2010, but the book needs work.

April 25, 2010

Today is our last sea day before reaching the Azores. At some point today we crossed the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Cool. But it's been an ugly day. The wind has been high, the sky has been almost totally cloudy, and it's rained at times. Not at all a pleasant day to be on deck. In fact, so far, only yesterday was really pleasant on deck--and that with the higher seas and more rolling in the waves.

Today I also did some drawings of the all-female Bel Canto String Quartet which plays several times a day. I have already given the first two to two of the musicians and have shown 2 others a third drawing, which I promised to them after getting it photographed for my files. They seemed to like them.

Although this is not quite the midpoint of the cruise, and although there will be two more sea days (Tuesday and Friday), today does mark the end of the long sea crossing and thus a convenient point at which to compare this to my 2007 crossing.

1. Weather

No contest. 2007 wins hands down. We had only one wettish, chilly day on that crossing. Whether it's the weather itself or the design of the Equinox, I don't know, but it was much easier and more comfortable to spend time outside in 2007.

2. Entertainment

Both cruises have been good, given the age range of the passengers, at the live evening shows, but the Grand Princess presented more films in a theatre-like setting, which I enjoyed. The Equinox has a great variety of films-on-demand, and a much larger television set, in my room, but I don't really want to sit for 2 hours at a go in my room. I'd rather go 'out' to the movies. 2007 wins.

3. Elegance

This one goes to 2010. The Equinox is newer and more chic than the Grand Princess. Of course in 10 more years, it may look old-fashioned.

4. Practical design

2007 wins again. The Equinox doesn't have a promenade deck, though on deck 5 there is an open area on each side where one can walk back and forth. But on the GP one could circle the entire ship on deck 7, with a short jump up to 8 at the prow, for a nice long walk. And of course one could do likewise, using decks 14 and 15, the sun and exercise decks. On the EQ one can only circle the whole ship by using decks 14 and 15, some of which is kind of an obstacle course. The official jogging track is only 1/8 of a mile and can get quite crowded.

There's also the problem of the central shaft, which I've already mentioned. While quite lovely and often useful in orientation, it becomes an annoyance when one of the house bands is playing overly loud amplified music on deck 3: that music travels all the way up the shaft, disturbing readers in the library and games players in the game room, both of which open onto the shaft.

5. Food

The food is more elegant and maybe a little more diverse on the EQ than the GP, which probably suits most of the passengers just fine. For me, it's a drawback, making it harder for me to get enough to eat without getting a bit further off my normal diet than I'm completely comfortable with. I preferred the offerings on the GP.

Tomorrow the Azores! Unfortunately the weather prediction is 64 degrees and 70% chance of rain. Let's hope it's sunnier than that!

2nd from West Palm Beach

2010-04-18T09:22:00.001-07:00

April 17, 2010

Today too I spent some time doing email and Internet work, but after lunch Tsipi took me for a tour of Lake Worth and Palm Beach. First we drove south on Dixie Highway (also called Highway 1, I think) from West Palm Beach to Lake Worth. The town center of Lake Worth is several blocks of small shops, a live theater, and so forth: interesting, unusual, not chain-store-paradise. Lots of houses and apartments for rent in the vicinity. We parked near the beach and walked over, took our shoes off and strolled the beach. At one point there was either a wedding or wedding photography going on. One small portion of the beach was 'taped off' where sea turtles had laid their eggs on the 14th (just 3 days ago!) The wind was up a bit, and so were the waves. Though it was not terribly sunny at the time, the beach was fairly crowded with families, young couples and friends and -- up near the fancy resort called The Breakers -- a bunch of young guys doing acrobatics in the sand, overhead flips and so forth.

We then drove along Highway A1A to Palm Beach where we visited several beautiful spots. One was Bethesda-by-the-Sea, an Episcopal church, very English in its lineaments, though it also features Japanese gardens and a pond of large carp (whom one is not to feed.) Not too far away from B-b-t-S are the Four Gardens, with bamboo, banana trees, hibiscus and so forth, (as well as a library, closed at the time). I can't remember the name of another place we walked, facing the intercoastal waterway, where there is a huge tree with roots shaped almost like low walls, instead of the usual more rounded variety.

Later, back at the B&B, I worked more on Disbelief. It's almost always soothing to me to work on drawing: a good feeling when one is a bit disoriented from too many changes in too short a time (i.e. selling "Alhambra of the South", relocating temporarily to my mother's guest room, making visits with friends and family before heading to Malta, selling the car, flying to Florida, and so on.) Here's a photo I took while out on foot today: Yes, it says "Anointed Meals on Wheels". I "painted" out the phone number, so that's why part of the side of the vehicle is coloured funny.

PS: This is quite likely my last posting here until I get to Malta and get "connected".

2010-04-17T07:47:00.000-07:00

(This is not me in the convertible. I just liked the look of it, and I thought I should crop high enough to leave the Florida road sign in as well.)

April 16, 2010

I arrived in West Palm Beach yesterday evening after an eventful/eventual departure from Dallas/Ft Worth airport. After American Airlines boarded us on the plane while maintenance men worked on a mechanical problem, the crew had us deplane when the jet was taken out of service. We then had to go to another terminal and board another plane. We arrived in West Palm Beach, Florida, almost an hour and a half late -- but in a functioning plane!

I took a cab to the bed and breakfast where I am staying, just a few miles from the airport, and met the hostess and the writer contact/friend of mine who had recommended the B&B to me. The house has an enormous banyan tree in the front yard and, in the backyard, a pool and the small cottage where I am staying.

Today I spent a good part of the day walking, seeing the neighborhoods, and catching up on email and Internet errands. I had lunch outside on a bench in CityPlace, a mall and entertainment complex, after doing my Internet work and then took a walk over to the TriRail train station. On Monday morning I will take the train several stations south to the Ft Lauderdale station, where I will catch a bus or cab to the port to board the Equinox. I then returned to CityPlace and spent some time reading and drinking tea at the bookstore.

We had a little bit of everything today, weather-wise: sun, a nice breeze, some light rain, lots of clouds. After going back to the B&B for some afternoon time working on Disbelief and resting, I visited a bit more with my hostess, then walked back to the grocery store for some ham and a croissant to go with my supper. This evening, supper, TV, tea, reading and typing!

Off to Malta

2010-04-16T09:34:00.001-07:00

I am currently in West Palm Beach, Florida (a possible place to live when I return from Malta?), preparatory to embarking for Europe from Ft Lauderdale on Monday. While I am the ship, I will be mostly if not entirely Internet-free, but I hope to get the blog going again with regularity by May 5 or so. In the meantime here is the latest panel in my illuminated book Disbelief (based on the novella of the same name), excerpted this spring in two magazines, in New York Tyrant (print) and The Anemone Sidecar, Chapter 6 (online PDF). If you want to see the entire story in progress you can go here.

Next Tuesday

2010-03-02T14:02:00.000-08:00

March 9 I'll be doing a reading of prose and poetry at South Texas College in McAllen.

Restless Renner Ready to Move On

2010-02-24T14:09:00.000-08:00

Yes, the Alhambra de Tejas is on the market.

An old parody

2010-02-23T07:58:00.000-08:00

I wrote this parody of Housman's "Loveliest of trees" when I was an undergrad:

Sneakiest of Thieves

Sneakiest of thieves, the burglar now
Is hanging heavy from the bough,
And elsewhere in the woodland ride
Hang nineteen more caught at his side.

Now of the twenty thieves I know
All twenty hang here in the snow,
And take from twenty thieves a score
It leaves no thieves, and nothing more.

And since these lads gave less than took,
Men laughed to see them get the hook,
And through the woodland no one grieves
To see the boughs weighed down with thieves.

Thought for the day

2010-01-21T14:53:00.000-08:00

From Los fantasmas (Ghosts) by César Aira:

"And while habits, sedentary or nomadic, are made of time, dreams are free of it. The dream is purely spatial, a placement of the human race in eternity."

Blossoming aloe

2010-01-18T12:57:00.000-08:00

A new drawing

2010-01-17T20:23:00.001-08:00

celebrating my attempt to learn a bit of Maltese. If you click on it, you get a slightly bigger version of the drawing.

An important Maltese phrase

2010-01-16T13:22:00.001-08:00

hanut tal-kotba = bookstore (literally, store of books)

The singular book is ktieb.

I'm hoping that the very fine small hanut tal-kotba in Sliema will still be in business when I arrive. I can't remember the name, but I remember how to get there. In the malls there is a chain called Agenda, which also sells pens and pencils.

The Jones Thing

2010-01-16T13:10:00.000-08:00

About a quarter of a century ago, when I was teaching high school world history, one of my students was Jeff Jones. If you like smart pop music--the kind you might hear from Elvis Costello, XTC or the Magnetic Fields--you ought to take a listen to Isolated Twins, the Jones Things' record. You can hear samples (and buy it) here and probably other places as well.

Maltese!

2010-01-15T11:38:00.000-08:00

One of my sisters gave me a Learn Maltese CD-ROM for Christmas, and I've been working with it to get some basic words and phrases down. It's nice to hear the correct pronunciation.

Here's your question: What is xemx (pronounced shemsh)? Here's your clue: We get very little of it in south Texas. (Answer below.)

Today I picked up my special order from the bookstore: Grazio Falzon's Maltese Dictionary & Phrasebook. It will help me build a broader vocabulary, as well as giving me some basic information on the structure of the language and so forth. Trying to pick up some words in a new language is fun. Right now, for example, using words I've learned from the CD-ROM, I can tell you I'm wearing: flokk, qalziet qasir, kalzetti and zraben. (T-shirt, short pants, socks and shoes. Yes, I'm wearing boxer shorts too, but I don't know how to say that yet!)

ANSWER to "What is xemx?": Sun

"All it ever does here is rain."

2010-01-13T13:55:00.001-08:00

One of the best sounds in the world is the quiet after the rain finally stops pelting the roof.

Howdy, folks

2010-01-12T16:27:00.000-08:00

Even though I don't get on the ship to return to Europe and Malta until April 19, I thought I might go ahead and crank this up again. I may include information on the trip's planning as it develops, but otherwise I'll probably just blog about what I'm reading or thinking or who knows what? Maybe it'll even be interesting.

Stay warm!

My Homelet in the Valley

2008-10-23T14:09:00.000-07:00

October 23, 2008

This is not a travel log entry in character, to be sure, though I drove 550 miles south from Dallas County to get here. I've bought a 'park model RV' in Alamo, Texas (not to be confused with San Antonio, where the Alamo is located), and I hope to like it down here enough to make this my home for a good while. The lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas--let's say the last 100 miles before the Rio enters the Gulf of Mexico near Brownsville)--is a semi-tropical environment where average morning lows in January are somewhere between 45 and 50 degrees--about 15 degrees or so warmer than El Paso and Dallas, the cities where I've spent most of my life. That is one of the big draws of this area for me: I hate to be cold, and my arthritis doesn't like it much either. Another draw is the border environment, like El Paso, a place I enjoyed living (though not in winter). And yet another draw is the available quality of RV parks--because so many 'snowbirds' come here for 3 to 5 months every year, the RV parks can be like little communities, more 'homey' than other areas like San Antonio and El Paso. If I like it as much as I hope to, this won't be just a winter home for me, but my actual home, except when I can afford to travel! (And if I'm lucky, living here will be inexpensive enough to allow for more travel before too long.

A park model RV is not a travel trailer, fifth wheel or motor home: it's more like a tiny, one-bedroom mobile home, but its dimensions are planned so that it can fit on a lot in an RV park rather than the oft-maligned trailer park. I bought a 1984 model already set up in the park here. It's about 30 or so feet long and about 10 wide--I'm not positive of its exact dimensions. At one end is the living room, roughly a 10x10 foot square. Immediately next to it is the kitchen and dining area (also about 10 feet square), with no wall separating them from the living room. So this is the big open space of the RV. Then there is a short hall with a bathroom on one side and closets on the other. At the rear is the bedroom, with built-in cabinets and closets and just barely enough floor space for a full-size bed and space to walk around it. Mine has a full-length covered patio on the long west side, roughly the same side as the trailer itself. It has lattice work from about 3 feet above ground up to the eaves of the cover. Here's a photo.

On the left side of the photo, you can see the shed, which was included with the RV. It contains a simple washer and dryer (very few settings on either) and some shelving units. The shed is much newer than the RV itself. The RV has a new roof because it suffered damage in Hurricane Dolly a few months back. Alamo is about 45 or 50 miles inland, so the storms are muted by the time they get here, with winds generally not much faster than a really bad dust storm in El Paso, some of which I sat out in a regular travel trailer!

This photo shows the living room, with the two pieces of furniture which have pride of place:

These two chairs are purchases I made for the trailer to replace a not-terribly old lounge chair and an older sleeper sofa. I brought the glider in yesterday afternoon from the furniture store, and the chaise lounge was delivered this morning. Unfortunately it came shortly after the park shut the water off, owing to a broken pipe somewhere, and the water is still not fixed, which is irritating. Today I was hoping to wash clothes, shower, things like that, for which water is essential.

Here is a shot from the south end of the RV, showing the living room windows, the orange tree, and my Element parked in its new place.

The RV came fully furnished--dishes, sheets and towels, furniture--but most of it I don't really want. So a good deal of it is going to a woman who lives here and has family in Mexico who can put it to use. Since I live alone, I don't really need plates, cups and bowls for 20! And since I don't do much real cooking, I really don't need a couple of dozen pots and pans either. I'm glad the things can be cleared out of here and put to good use.

Wish me luck in my new environments, both microl- and macro-.

The Last Full Day of the Trip

2007-10-06T08:47:00.001-07:00

September 28, 2007

Friday was the last full day of the trip, since we had to leave for the airport at 7:45 Saturday morning. The distance from Lungern to Lucerne (Luzern in German) isn't great, so we had plenty of time for a stop to see the Lucerne Lion before heading into the center of the old town by 9:30.

The Lion commemorates the deaths of some Swiss soldiers. You can check Wikipedia for details: I believe the soldiers were mercenaries working for French king Louis XVI, but I may be remembering wrong. As Cristian told us, the artist who designed the Lion, carved into a starkly sloped cliffside overlooking a little pond, died before he was able to do the carving but after the design had been approved. The leaders of Lucerne hired another artist, but insisted he use the dead artist's design. Angry at not being able to create his own work, the second artist shaped the nook in which the Lion rests so that it resembles the outline of a pig! Look carefully at the upper left for the pig's ear, and at the lower left for his snout.

After snapping our photos here, we got back on the bus and reached the center of Lucerne by 9:30. There the bus let us off right near where the river flows out of the lake and right in front of Bucherer Jewelry store. Bucherer provided map/tourist packets for all of us, including a voucher for a free commemorative spoon. As Cristian pointed out, we had to go upstairs to the rear of the store to retrieve the spoon, Bucherer's ploy to get us deep inside, among their wares, which include stuffed animals and various souvenirs as well as jewelry and watches. Bucherer also kindly allows bus tourists to use their restrooms!

After a brief stroll in the streets and a morning snack at Migros, we met Cristian back in front of Bucherer for a 45-minute historical tour of old Lucerne. First up was the Kapell-Brücke--the Chapel Bridge. In the past the bridge came right up to the church from which it takes its name, but in later times a street was added along the lake shore, so that now the bridge ends a block or a little less short of the church.

The bridge, which dates back several hundred years, was unfortunately damaged by a fire, apparently caused by a careless smoker, in 1993. So the middle of the bridge is now a reconstruction, but the two ends, closer to the opposite banks of the river, are much older. As you can see from the photo, it's a covered wooden foot bridge. What you can't see is that, at regular intervals, there are triangular paintings under the bridge's roof: war scenes with beheadings are on several of the painted boards. Paintings which are blackened and damaged on one side indicate how far the fire of 1993 reached. We crossed from one bank to the next on the bridge and walked along the shore, stopping in to visit the Jesuit church along the way. We recrossed the river on another bridge and went into the confusing streets of the old town center, tucked between riverside, lakeside and old city walls.

There are lots of smallish plazas in this part of the city, mostly named after their old functions, such as the various types of merchants who sold goods there. The old city also features a number of buildings with frescoes painted on the outside. The building in this photo (partially blocked at the bottom by a parked delivery truck) shows the Last Supper, with women present!

Another building represented the tale of William Tell.

Cristian told us in no uncertain times that the story of William Tell is just a legend, quite similar in fact to an older Norwegian story. But the legend serves the purpose of indicating the feelings of those Swiss who were determined to break free of Hapsburg rule in the 13th century and live free of outside control.

At the end of the walking tour, Cristian and a number of our group left for a boat tour of Lucerne, followed for most of them by a trip up the mountain nearby in hopes of seeing yet more mountains in the distance. (Dashed hope, I heard later.) I stayed in town and explored. Along with my typical lunch, I also spent a good deal of time in the Stocker bookstore; roamed the city center some more, including a stroll on part of the city walls and up a couple of towers; and bought some souvenirs.

The walls include a number of towers, a few of which you can enter (if you don't mind climbing) and get a long view of the city beneath. I ran into two of my fellow-tourers here (a couple from a Denver suburb) and walked and visited with them for a while. Our walk took us, finally, to a staircase going back down, but outside, rather than inside, the city walls. That is, we were still in Lucerne, but we were on the otherside of the walls, and had to walk around a block or so and come under the walls to get back to where we had been. On the way we passed a field where several cows were grazing--yep, right in the middle of Lucerne. Funny thing is these cows were hairy! Were they part yak? You decide.

I also picked up a few gifts at the Manora department store and bought an afternoon cup of tea and a couple of very plain pastries called (spelling?) schenkeli before rejoining the excursionists at 3:30. We left Lucerne for the short drive back to Zürich: short, that is, in terms of mileage; Friday afternoon traffic made it not exactly short in terms of time.

Well, the trip was ending. We were back at Novotel for our last night: packing, resting, visiting a bit--before the long flight back to Dallas/Ft Worth International Airport on Saturday.

The Highlight of the Trip

2007-10-05T08:21:00.001-07:00

September 27, 2007

It was wet and chilly Thursday morning in Lausanne. As we rode in the bus toward our first stop of the day--a cheese factory--Cristian joked, but with (he claimed) substantial accuracy, about another bit of roadwork we were passing through. In Switzerland, he said, there is always roadwork going on, though the roads are in great shape; in Italy (his homeland, remember) the roads never get repaired, no matter how much they need it.

At the cheese factory (whose name I cannot remember, but which was in or near the town of Gruyeres), we actually saw a huge gleaming vat of yellowy liquid being churned around by a big mechanical stirrer, as well as an actual human being using what was obviously a very sharp blade cutting a large cheese into rectangular pieces. In the snack shop, Cristian passed out samples of the factory's cheese: little plastic packages with three small slices inside, a mild cheese of only a few months in age; a "medium" cheese around six months old; and a sharp "old" cheese of around ten months. I ate the mild slice and passed on the others, but the girls sampled all three.

After the cheese factory, our next stop was up the hill to the old section of Gruyeres. Here in this defensive location was the castle itself and what has survived of the old town from several centuries ago, now full of shops for the tourists. This picture looks along the main street of the old town, toward the castle:

As we walked toward the castle, which most of us chose to visit, Cristian mentioned the museum of an artist here in town. At first I didn't understand who it was, but as it turned out it was H. R. Giger, best-known in the U.S. for creating the monster of Alien and for designing one of Emerson Lake & Palmer's LP jackets. I may have known at some point that Giger was Swiss, but certainly had forgotten if I did, and I certainly didn't expect to see his museum in this little "old" town. Giger's work can be very disturbing, but I was torn as to whether I should skip the castle and go to the museum.

I finally decided for the castle, and--although I would have liked to have browsed the museum--I'm glad I made the choice I did: for me, the castle/chateau at Gruyeres was the highlight of the trip. It was clearly a castle--not a palace. Even though some of the rooms were "polished" and decorated for the usage of the baron (?) and his family, it was obviously intended first for defense: rough stone walls, large rough wooden beams, rampart, windows from which weapons could obviously be fired at attackers below, and so forth. I took several photos looking through the windows to the scenes outside. This one shows a small church outside the walls:

There was also a sculpture exhibit currently being housed at the chateau, and statues of people were scattered around the grounds and inside the rooms. The artist is (was?) Hanneke Beaumont, about whom I know nothing. This photo shows figures inside the courtyard of the castle:

Underneath the protective overhang of the upper story on what I think of as the west side of the chateau (though there's a 75% chance I'm wrong!) there is also a long wall painting, some of which has been damaged by the years but which is generally quite bright and fresh looking:

Inside one of the rooms there was another painting, done onto wood as well as I could tell, and apparently covering an older fresco underneath. One piece of the later painting was cut and lifted up, so that we could see the wall beneath, where it is easy to make out some kind of damage to the wall: chunks of plaster seem to be gone:

I could have stayed longer at the chateau, even though I stayed there as long as I could and didn't have a chance to dip into the Giger museum. In the parking lot as we prepared to leave, I took this photo of a Morgan automobile.

After leaving Gruyeres, we went to Bern, the capital, for lunch and time to browse. Once again, Janis, Debbie and I had our lunch at the Swiss combo restaurant/grocery and wandered the heart of the old town. It continued to be damp, cloudy and cold as we visited the cathedral, the clock tower, and a CD store. We also saw a sign identifying an apartment where Einstein lived from 1903-1905 (which means, I suppose, that his 1905 relativity paper may have been written there), and I had fun taking a photo of a business sign reading: SCHMUCK-CAFE. (My photo program is, unfortunately, refusing to export the photo for me.) (And I suppose I should mention that schmuck means jewelry.)

After Bern, we drove to Interlaken where we had a brief halt during which Jungfrau (the mountain) did not make an appearance through the clouds. Five of our compatriots disembarked here for a week's stay, and fourteen other tourists who had just spent a week in Interlaken joined us for the end of our tour. The girls and I walked the main strip but couldn't even find a little to-go bakery for a hot cup of something and a pastry!

From Interlaken we headed on to Lungern for the night. Along the way we passed the falls at which, Cristian told us, A. Conan Doyle had Sherlock Holmes die for a while before public demand made him "resurrect" and explain away the detective's death. The moving bus and my camera batteries weren't cooperating, so I never got a decent shot of the falls.

Lungern's a pretty little town, on the banks of the Obsee, where I discovered a sort of RV park in which folks had built additional rooms/cabins directly onto the sides of their RVs. There were also stand-alone cabins in the park. The hotel didn't impress me much: my room was chilly and had a mildly bad smell to it. But I got a nice photo of the town from the church grounds. You can see tombstones in the foreground of the photo: the entrance sidewalk goes up through the cemetery to the church.

There was another optional excursion this evening which I skipped for walking around and spending time in my room reading. Tomorrow: Lucerne.

To the Matterhorn!

2007-10-04T08:31:00.000-07:00

September 26, 2007

Wednesday morning, a damp gray mess, we strolled from the Walliserhof to the train station to catch a ride up to Zermatt. There most of us switched over to the Gornergratbahn, the Matterhorn train which takes about 40 minutes going up to Gornergrat station at 10132 feet above sea level, from which we would have--with any luck--a great view of the mountains as well as a chance to get a snack and drink and browse a touristy gift shop. Outside the station, a local company also snaps group and individual photos, and we were scheduled to have that done as well.

As we ascended the mountainside in the train, we watched the rain turning to snow outside. Lots of us were lowering windows and snapping photos of the scenery, even though it made the train a bit nippy. Some of us even saw a fox or two in the forest, though I missed out. Rats!

When we reached Gornergrat Station, we hurried out to have our photos taken as the snow was coming down fairly heavily, and the thick gray clouds were allowing no site of the Matterhorn. We lined up on a three-stepped set of bleachers for the group photo--just like school!--and then had our individual photos taken with the photographer's St Bernard dog. The photos would be available for viewing and purchasing when we returned to Zermatt.

Here's a picture one of the girls snapped of me, standing next to the station sign. Please note the amount of snow on the wall behind me, and even on top of the sign itself.

After getting photos shot here near the station building, we hurried up to the observation building where there's a nice enough cafe and another (enclosed) observation point. I had tea of course, though Janis and Debbie opted for hot chocolate, I believe. I snapped photos of each of them with Cristian, the guide, and we talked to him a bit about music. Switzerland is not a non-smoking country, and the cigarette smoke inside the building gave me a headache, though I didn't notice any particular effects of the higher altitude.

The snow continued to fall, and the clouds continued not to part, and the Matterhorn was not in evidence.

We wandered back down to the station building and looked at souvenir gifts for a few minutes, and then it was time to make a decision: leave with the next train to go back down to Zermatt, or hang around another 25 minutes on the off chance that the clouds might part and allow us a sight of the mountain. We asked the photographer what he thought, and he said it would probably be a couple more days before the Matterhorn was visible again, so we decided to get on the train and head back down, leaving ourselves a little over an hour to have lunch and a little bit of wandering in Zermatt.

Here's the photo I took of the station as we prepared to leave, snow still falling.

We were all disappointed, to be sure. We'd spent $62 a person to take the train up to see the Matterhorn, and hadn't seen the Matterhorn. Of course we had what was surely, for many of us, our earliest snowfall of any year of our lives! On the way down, I took this photo of snow on the trees in the forest.

Back in Zermatt, we ate lunch, and the girls bought the group photo--in which the Matterhorn magically appears! Then we wandered town a bit before time to meet the train back to Täsch and the bus.

We spent most of the afternoon in transit from Zermatt to Lausanne, though we had a nice snack break at a Marché stop along the highway. Along the way we passed the castle of Chillon, famous from Byron's poem, and Montreux, site of the international jazz festival every year. I suppose it was 4:30 or so when we reached Hotel City in the heart of old Lausanne. While the girls settled into their room, I zipped over to the Coop grocery to get some food for my supper. Then we walked uphill to the old cathedral (closed, so we didn't get to go inside) and the Chateau of St Marie. Then we circled back around past the Palais de Rumine--which now contains museums and libraries. The girls were amused that I stepped in dog poop and tried to wash it off my shoe in water splashed from a fountain. As we wandered another street or two on our way back toward the hotel, a young couple asked us to take their photo at yet another fountain. Then the girls went to a pizzeria for supper, and I did some more walking.

I got my camera, which I had forgotten when we left the first time, and headed for the Rue de Bourg, Lausanne's "high street". It was full of expensive shops, most of which were closed or closing by this time. The street sort of angled downhill toward a Protestant church--the Eglise St Francois. It was open, and I went inside and sat for a few minutes and listened to the organist practice. While he (she? I never saw him/her) played, a young man at the rear of the church seemed to be working out some sort of dance routine to the music. Whether he was actually preparing for a performance at the church, or was just a little "touched," I have no way of knowing!

After leaving the church, I picked up a cup of tea at--gasp!--Starbuck's. The only one I saw in Switzerland, though I assume there are others. It was the only place in Switzerland where I had a large cup of tea--24 ounces, I assume. That was nice!

Then I headed off in the waning light of the evening downhill toward Lake Geneva. It was a mile or so, I suppose. I passed shops, an art gallery, an "English church" and buses as I stretched my legs. By the time I got to the shore of the lake, it was clear I didn't have much time if I wanted to get back to the hotel before full dark. I took a photo of a swan, whom I was unable to convince that I didn't have food on me, and this photo, looking out across the lake:

Now since I had a fairly easy downhill walk to the lake, a not-so-easy uphill climb faced me on my return. Bus tours don't allow one lots of time for any sustained exercise, but I certainly got my workout in Lausanne.

Back at the hotel, I got cleaned up, then went over to the girls' room. We played a couple of games of Yahtzee (believe it or not, I won) and I snapped this photo of the Cathedral out their window:

My window, on the other hand, overlooked the intersection the hotel sits upon. Sigh.

Lugano to Täsch by way of Italy

2007-10-03T08:27:00.000-07:00

September 25, 2007

Tuesday morning we had some foot time in Lugano before leaving for our first "field trip" of the day. I walked with Janis and Debbie along the main drag by the lake, back down to the church of Santa Maria degli Angioli (St Mary of the Angels) which they had not yet seen. Quite a few of our group made the walk there before dispersing into the center of town for shopping.

The evening before I had seen a coin shop, just closing, which looked like it might be interesting: there were, for example, some ancient Roman coins on display in the window. While the girls went into another shop, I headed on down the "high street" in search of the numismatist. One coin I would have liked to see more closely was a coin of Julian "the Apostate", the 4th century emperor who wanted to restore the ancient worship of Zeus and the gods. I couldn't find the shop, but I did notice that the bookstore I'd seen on Monday also sold Wenger Swiss Army knives. I needed a pocket-knife for slicing up my apples so I browsed the display windows outside, then went in.

Besides looking at the knives, I also decided to buy a German-language book called Hermann Hesses Indienreise (something like Hermann Hesse's Trip to India) which I thought might be simple enough for me to work my way through, with a dictionary of course. While I was browsing, the girls found me, because Debbie was also interested in looking for knives for gifts. I bought a small and simple knife, with a short blade, a nail-file and a pair of tiny scissors, and Debbie bought two, I believe, a little more elaborate than what I wanted.

In the U.S. one normally sees Victorinox Swiss Army products--not just knives, but also watches and even clothing. (In fact, my "Malta pants" are Victorinox, as is my smaller pocket watch, the one which accompanied me on my journeys.) But these knives were Wenger. Wenger calls itself "the genuine Swiss Army knife" and Victorinox goes with "the original Swiss Army knife". I did a little Wikipedia reading, after returning to the U.S., and learned that the two companies made an agreement, long ago, to use these variant terminologies. According to Wikipedia, Victorinox is indeed the "original" manufacturer of the Swiss Army knife. (Before Victorinox got into the business, Swiss soldiers were carrying knives made in [gasp!] Germany.) Wenger began making similar knives just a few years later. As it turns out, the Victorinox company bought Wenger just a few years ago, but the two names and designs, as well as the two claims, are still used by the unified company. Wenger products feature a rounded square logo with the cross in the middle. Victorinox uses a shield-style logo. The Wenger knives cost a little more, though I don't know what, if anything, this means.

When we left Lugano, we went to the Alprose chocolate factory. Here we had, no joke, a sort of field trip, going through the factory to see the conveyor belts and so forth--and with signs warning that photography was not allowed. (Even so, one of our tour members, who was video-ing incessantly, was video-ing inside the factory.) After one completes the short tour of the factory, one is routed, to be sure, into the factory store, to purchase chocolate to one's heart's content. I didn't buy any, but Janis and Debbie both did, and so did, I imagine, most of our colleagues.

After leaving the factory, our next destination was Stressa, Italy, on the shores of Lake Maggiore. Here there was an optional excursion out to one of the islands (Isola Bella) in the lake to tour a palace of the Boromeo family and its gardens. Janis and Debbie toured while I wandered Stressa. I had my tuna, chips and apple at the lakeside, then went to the Irish Bar (yep, that's its name) for an after-lunch glass of wine. Afterward I strolled town some more and bought a croissant at a local bakery. When I offered the woman a 5 euro note to pay for my 1 euro purchase, she was quite upset. But I didn't have a euro in change, so she took the bill. I was more than a little piqued at such distress over giving me 4 euros in change!

I walked along the lake through a small park which also, like the park at Lugano, featured sculpture. One of the sculptures was actually a monument, expressing the sympathy of the people of Stressa with the U.S. after the attacks of September 11, 2001.

Another was this exuberant horse, behind which you can see one of the islands in the lake, though I don't know which one it is.

Yet another was a World War II memorial.

After this stroll, I had a cup of tea at a cafe across the street from the lake, then rejoined the bus and those returning for the island excursion.

Off to Täsch for a night downvalley from the Matterhorn. Our good weather had somewhat forsaken us today already, the sun leaving us for clouds, and we reached Täsch in an icky drizzle. Our hotel, the Walliserhof, was somewhat charming, though, in the manner of Hotel Bären in St Moritz. This photo was taken out my balcony, looking toward the mountains.

Dinner was included this evening in the package (apparently because dining options are fairly limited in Täsch), and the waitress was very solicitous of my food limitations. The cook prepared me a plate of boiled potatoes, sliced and buttered, which were quite tasty. I also had hot tea (how could I not?), though, oddly, only water was included with the meal and any other drink had to be paid for.

Our plans for the next day were aimed at one of the trip's highlights: a train ride 4000 feet higher up the mountain in order to see the Matterhorn!

Into the Alps and Italy

2007-10-02T07:36:00.000-07:00

September 24, 2007

Monday morning our schedule called for leaving the hotel at 8:20 to head for the train station. I zipped out early for a buchhandlung that opened at 8:00. I was hoping to find a dictionary of or grammar on the Rumantsch language before we left that part of the country. Luckily for me, the folks at Wega St Moritz were friendly enough, and spoke enough English, to send me on my way with Schweizer Sprachen, a conversation guide to all four Swiss languages, and Romansh: Facts & Figures, an English-language book about the language and its speakers. I also hurried by Hanselmann's to see if I'd left my clip-on sunglasses there the day before (I had), but still made it back to the hotel before the bus left, though Cristian had told me I could just walk to the train station and meet them there.

Our train ride, leaving St Moritz and ending up in Tirano, Italy, aimed to introduce us more closely to the Alps and to let us catch sight of three glaciers: Monteratsch, Cambrina and Palü. But don't ask me which one this is: in a pinch, I'd say Palü, but I might be wrong.

In this photo, you can see part of a glacier in the background, and the train curving around a bend in the tracks in the foreground:

For part of the ride, we traveled through the Poschiavo Valley, which had been a battleground (I'm not sure how literally) in the past between Swiss Catholics and Protestants. The highest point on the trip was 7403 feet above sea level, at one of the depots. The sign outside the depot gives the elevation in Italian, German and English. Given that all of these shots were taken from the train, generally while it was moving, I don't think this one turned out too bad:

Our last town to pass through before crossing the Swiss-Italian border was Campocologno, which we reached about 11 a.m. We stopped afterward in Tirano, Italy, not too far over the border, for a lunch break and, for those who wanted, a visit to the Basilica di Madonna, whose tower you can see in this photo. Note also the hillsides, terraced for the vinyards.

If I recall correctly, Cristian told us that the organ inside the church has 2000 pipes. Here's a photo of some of them:

After visiting the church, Janis, Debbie and I made our way back to Ai Portici, the restaurant Cristian recommended for lunch. The "girls" were able to eat real Italian food of course, while I had an order of plain French fries to supplement my packet of tuna. Sigh. By the time we finished it was time to scurry back to the bus for our drive through some more of Italy before returning to Switzerland to spend the night in Lugano.

We skirted the shirts of Lake Como, including a town called (I believe) Dongo where Mussolini was apprehended while trying to escape to Switzerland with his mistress. He was shot here. When he was later hanged in disgrace in public in Milan, he was already dead. As we passed, Cristian pointed out the square where the former dictator was shot. Cristian also told us that left-wing dissidents had been hiding in the hills in this area throughout the war. We stopped in a smallish town, whose name escapes me, on the shores of Lake Como and had our afternoon break, most of us using the time to have gelato, as Cristian suggested.

We reached Lugano about 5. Our hotel here was the one, I think, which most of us gave the strongest (or perhaps only) thumbs-down to. Right in the center of town, the hotel has one wing built directly over the tracks of the funicular which goes from the town center up to a higher point on the mountainside. Some of our fellow tourers had rooms in this wing. My room did not, but it did look out onto the "square" where the funicular ran and which had cafes at the bottom with outdoor tables. Too noisy!

Most of the group took an "optional excursion" here--an evening lake cruise and dinner. Avoiding meal events as I do, I instead strolled the town center and took care of my supper myself. I walked along the shore of the lake, around toward the Church of Santa Maria degli Angioli, which Cristian said we should see for its frescoes. (Unfortunately I don't remember the artist's name.) Here are two shots from the inside, the first being, I assume, St Sebastian:

The structure of the church is quite simple and the walls are mostly undecorated. I'm not sure if this makes it Romanesque or not, but it's definitely not an elaborate and "soaring" Gothic structure. Unfortunately the facade of the church is currently covered in plastic sheeting to protect it from work going on at a high-rise next door.

Across the street from the church, on the lakeside, is a park featuring a number of sculptures scattered about--a sort of sculpture garden--but it was too dark by the time I reached the park to take photos without flash.

The Tour Begins

2007-10-01T08:22:00.000-07:00

Departure for Switzerland was set for 2:55 p.m. on Friday, September 21. My kindly niece April got me to the airport in plenty of time; I got checked in, certified secure, deloused; I looked for some snacks to take on the plane. About 1:30 my traveling partners Janis and Debbie showed up.

We visited a bit, then boarded the 767 around 2:30. At 2:55, we didn't take off. Finally they told us that the fuel tank wasn't communicating with the fuel gauge, so that their full tank wasn't registering on the instruments. We sat. And sat. And sat until they got that problem solved. We finally took off about 4:35 for the long flight to Zürich. I snoozed some, but not a great deal. I read from R.F. Delderfield's To Serve Them All My Days, a novel I had first read in the '70s when it was new. I watched TV. I listened to music.

Did I mention the flight was long?

We finally arrived in Zürich about 9:30 a.m. on Saturday, September 22, which was of course about 2:30 a.m. to our North American Central Daylight Time bodies. While I was still waiting for my suitcase to come onto the carousel, we got a PA announcement asking us to show up at the information desk for our connection to the hotel. It was nice that we didn't have to wait for that ride, since we were already over an hour and a half late getting into Zürich, and very tired. A young couple from Ohio was waiting the bus as well, so they were the first folks of our tour we met, along with our tour guide, Cristian. Cristian is a young Italian, who lives not far from the Swiss-Italian border when he is not directing Cosmos tours. With curly blond hair and blue eyes, he was quite the charmer for our ladies, including Janis and Debbie. He likes to sing Dean Martin songs, which he told us he learned from listening to the CDs, since Dino was long since retired by the time Cristian was born. Our driver, Massimo, also an Italian, was probably in his 30s, and didn't speak English, so we mostly just nodded and smiled at him. Massimo has thinning red hair, so neither he nor Cristian have the stereotypical Mediterranean "look."

After getting checked in at the hotel (Novotel, near Zürich's Technopark, about a mile or so from the city center), we walked over to a Migros grocery store which Cristian pointed out to us. Migros has a hot foods section as well as groceries for the home, so Janis and Debbie and I got ourselves some lunch and sat outside to eat. After lunch Janis decided to return to the hotel to rest. Debbie and I went for a walk down toward the city center. We didn't quite make it all the way there, but we walked for a good while (for jet-lagged people), passing factories and high-rise apartments and stores. When we reached the last street before the bridge over the Sihl River, we came upon the demonstration I already mentioned--building trades people marching for higher wages.

After they passed, we crossed the street and looked down at the river, then began our walk back to the hotel. Debbie went in to rest, and I went back out. I walked around the somewhat industrialized area, took a few photos

and stopped in at a coffee shop and bookstore to get a cup of tea to go. Now you may be asking yourself, "Since Renner is carrying bags of instant oatmeal and tea bags, why does he need to buy a cup of tea?" The answer is simple: Swiss hotels, unlike English and Irish hotels, don't have "tea fixin's" in the rooms. No electric kettle; no tea and coffee bags; no sugar; no coffee cups. And since the cups in the room were plastic, rather than paper or styrofoam, I was a little leery of using them with hot water from the faucet.

Yes, I used hot water from the faucet to make tea and oatmeal. The water was quite hot, and so it was the best a non-electric-kettle-having room could offer. I re-used the cup from the coffee shop. Now at some point I noticed that the room also featured some small wine glasses, and I used one of them for both oatmeal and tea when we returned to Zürich at tour's end, but on this occasion, the first night in Zürich, the coffee shop's disposable tea cup had to do.

And in case you're wondering, a small cup of to-go tea is not cheap in Switzerland. This first cup on the go cost me, I believe, four francs--but at least it had the advantage of being good quality loose leaf tea prepared for me at the shop. All the other to-go tea I had on the trip was tea-bag tea, generally (if not always) Lipton's "yellow label" tea, and the price never dropped below 2 francs 90, and usually was 3 francs to 3 francs 50. Three francs is roughly $2.50, so that's a pretty expensive 8 to 10 ounce cup of Lipton's. Other than that first coffee shop, the best tea offering I found in Switzerland was at the Novotel breakfast, where we were able to drink as much as we wanted, selecting from at least a dozen varieties.

Didn't you non-tea-drinkers just love that paragraph?

Here is some general information about Switzerland, garnered mostly from Cristian's intro as we rode from the airport to the hotel, from our tour meeting the first evening at the hotel, or from our bus ride Sunday morning to Appenzell:

1. Zürich is the biggest city, with about 350,000 inhabitants, and is a Protestant city.

2. Bern(e), the capital, has about 120,000 inhabitants.

3. There are German-speaking (about 65%), French-speaking (about 25%) and Italian-speaking (about 9%) sectors (plus a small area where Rumantsch is spoken by about 1% of the population. More on that later.)

4. The country is evenly split between Catholics and Protestants.

5. A low salary in Switzerland--the salary of a housekeeper or beginning factory worker--is about $3000 a month (not including the amount the employer pays in taxes to the government).

6. A high salary (Cristian used, as an example, a bank director) is about $9000 a month.

7. About 80% of Swiss imports come from Germany; about 60% of their exports go to Germany. They export watches, chocolate, cheese and (of course) Swiss army knives.

8. Only about 4% of the population is involved in agriculture.

9. Unemployment is very low.

Sunday, September 23, 2007

We left the hotel before nine on our way to Appenzell, on our way to Liechtenstein and St Moritz. Appenzell

is in an agricultural region where the alpenhorn and yodeling originated, as a means of communicating from hill to hill. We spent some time on foot here, wandering around, visiting the cemetery where I took the photo of the stained-glass-and-metal "tombstone" posted yesterday. I noticed here, and later in Lungern, how many residents had lived into their 80s and 90s.

In Liechtenstein, we also had time to wander about. Janis and Debbie bought some souvenir gifts for family members, and I had another cup of tea! I also snapped photos of sculpture on display in the middle of the city. I posted a photo of the Henry Moore sculpture yesterday; here's a photo of a rather lovely abstract:

There is a small booth, right near where the bus let us off, where one can pay 2 francs to have one's passport stamped for Liechtenstein: and that's what I did.

From Liechtenstein we went back into Switzerland and made a stop at a much better version of a U.S. truck stop for lunch and WC (water closet--toilet) break. "Heidiland" is in the Heidi part of Switzerland and features a tower out of which Heidi, the goat and Peter appear once every thirty minutes, to the strains of the "Heidi" song (which Cristian was also glad to sing for us, upon request). Instead of a greasy spoon restaurant and a convenience store mostly full of snack food, Heidiland features a "self-service" restaurant and a small grocery store. The restaurant contains several buffet-style displays of various kinds of food--breads and pastries, soups, salad bar, fresh fruit, hot drinks--and the grocery carries actual groceries as well as prepared sandwiches and junk food. After eating another picnic-style lunch, the girls and I also walked out onto a bridge Cristian had pointed out to us which spans the Rhine River here where it is fairly narrow. The water is a very powdery blue, containing lots of minerals from the glacial run-off.

When we left Heidiland, we began a long driving climb into the mountains on our way to St Moritz, going through the Julier Pass to reach it. The Rhine was often far below us in the bottom of the valley, and the hillsides were covered with trees except in places where the cliffside had sheared off, leaving almost vertical drops. There were lots of tunnels on the road, and we began to see square-wire fencing and wooden triangles and fences, all of which are there to prevent avalanches and earth slides. At one point traffic was backed up as an old woman herded cows down the road!

We stopped on the shores of Lake Marmorera, where I took a photo of this restaurant, closed on Sunday.

The word ustareia is the Rumantsch word for restaurant. AGL LAI' means on the lake, I think. Rumantsch is yet another language derived from Latin, with only 60,000 or so speakers. It is an official language of Switzerland, and the speakers live in a canton (state) called the Graubünden. St Moritz is in the Rumantsch area. Apparently, there are 5 variants of the language we might call "natural" (spoken in different valleys) and a sixth which is kind of an artificially created generic version.

We arrived in St Moritz later in the afternoon and got checked into the Hotel Bären, an older hotel with a lot of character. This is the view from my balcony.

As you can see, I looked out over the hotel, but could also see into the mountains. The town is named for St Mauritius (spelling?) who lived around 300 CE. Cristian took us on a walking tour of the town's center. We passed by the old school (a photo of which I posted yesterday) and the "leaning tower" of St Moritz. There used to be a church attached to this tower, and the tower only began to lean when the church was torn down. It was supported in order to keep the lean from getting worse.

We also went down past a rather marvelous bakery and conditorei (spelled with a K in "normal" German) called Hanselmann's and to an elevated walkway that comes out over the shore of the lake. As we passed some of the expensive shops, Cristian, perhaps joking, told us that visitors buy things in St Moritz, paying twice as much as they would in their hometown, just so they can say they bought it in St Moritz.

Later that evening I had a meal of croissant and oatmeal in my room, then got on the Internet long enough to make the short posting I made on September 23. I also asked the woman at the hotel desk about the Rumantsch saying painted onto the wall above the desk: Minch ün voul dvanter ed üngün no voul esser. She said it means: Everyone wants to become it, but no one wants to be it. It's a kind of riddle. Can you figure it out?

A little logy, maybe

2007-09-30T09:01:00.000-07:00

I just returned from Switzerland yesterday afternoon, and I slept a long time last night. It was a 31-hour day for me! I hope to start arranging and writing up accounts, from my notes, maybe tonight. I'd like to start posting a more organized version of the trip tomorrow. We'll see. In the meantime, a few photos.

This is from a little park (?) right next to our hotel in Zürich.

On the first day of the bus touring itself, we went to a little place called Appenzell, on to Liechtenstein, and then on to St. Moritz. This is an old Citroen, parked in the Appenzell town center.

And this is one of many tombstones there which featured stained glass. I obscured part of the name, just for privacy reasons.

The castle of the prince of Liechtenstein, overlooking the town of Vaduz. You can see, by the crane, that work must be going on:

A sculpture by Henry Moore on display in Vaduz:

And this is the "old" school building in St. Moritz. If you can zoom in on this (if the file is large enough), you can see the writing which goes across the front of the building. It's in Romansch, which is spoken by about 1% of the Swiss:

More to follow!