The Abbey Road pilgrimage

Aside from Waterloo Station and Waterloo Bridge, my only other "must do" in London was Abbey Road Studios and the most famous zebra crossing in the world.

I need to write this now before I forget important details.

On Wednesday morning, August 23, L..and I set off at about 8 AM to the Westminster Underground station to take the tube to the St. John's Wood station, a trip of about 20 minutes (about ten minutes to walk to the station and ten minutes on the train).

When we disembarked at St. John's Wood, I was immediately reminded of the Rolling Stones song "Play With Fire," with its heiress who owns a block in St. John's Wood. As it turns out, much of St. John's Wood--or at least Acacia Road--is a rather toney and quiet neighborhood of large (by London standards) houses.

We made our way down leafy, quiet Acacia Road until we reached the intersection of Abbey Road, at which point we turned and continued walking for a few blocks into an area that bore no resemblance whatsoever to the Beatles' Abbey Road album cover. As Google Maps on our phones indicated we were getting further and further away from our destination, we discovered we'd headed in the wrong direction. We turned around and headed north rather than south.

As the map on my phone finally told me I was getting closer and closer, my excitement level built. Once we saw a crowd of people on the east side of Abbey Road, it was clear we were almost there. I truly felt like I was floating.

The crowd turned out to be a group of--I am guessing--Beatles fans from Central or South America: perhaps Argentina or Brazil. At one point, like a flash mob, they all gathered together on the zebra stripes and someone took a photograph of them enthusiastically whooping and waving at the camera. It was quite amusing and touching.

I peered through the gates surrounding the studio, which from the front is a modest-looking structure. Honestly, I've read enough Beatles books and seen enough photos of the studio that I pretty much knew what to expect. Still, seeing the place in reality is quite another experience. The visuals in your head don't always match reality, and that can be jarring. It's like you need to re-orient yourself, do mental re-calibrations. Does that make sense? I felt that not only at Abbey Road, but elsewhere in London. (As much as I have read about London over the years, my image of it was jumbled. Seeing the place "in the flesh" recontextualized the entire city, or maybe more accurately the parts of the city I saw with my own eyes).

So back to Abbey Road. I knew the the wall/gates/signs surrounding the place were full of scribbling and graffiti, but I was a bit unprepared for how much. It's a lot. At least the actual building is pristine. Fans have a need to "prove they were there," and leave a little piece of themselves in the location, even though I doubt anybody reads the graffiti or cares about the scribbles of some Joe Blow from Columbus, Ohio or Brisbane, Australia, or wherever. (I did not leave any graffiti behind, if you're wondering).

It was enough for me to soak in the environment, walk/jog across the zebra stripes a few times, have L. snap a few pictures of my silly self waving at the camera without (I hope) annoying the absolute hell out of any drivers. 

There is an Abbey Road Store adjacent to the studio, but it didn't open until 10 AM and it was only about 9:40 when I felt that I'd exhausted all I could get out of the Abbey Road experience. I didn't feel like waiting around for the store to open and, at this point, I don't think I really need any more Beatles "stuff," and my luggage had already essentially reached maximum density.

We headed back towards the train station, going a little out of our way at one point to see Lord's cricket grounds (mainly because my brother is an enormous cricket aficionado and I wanted to snap some pictures for him).

And THAT, my friends, was my Beatles/Abbey Road pilgrimage experience.

Places I didn't get to in London...and other meanderings

We were in London for about 5 1/2 days and I feel like I/we just scratched the surface. (L. was here in 1999 for about two weeks--give or take, so she'd seen more).

I wanted to see a Premier League football ground "in the flesh," or should I say, "in the brick." There are none in central London: none in Westminster, none in Soho, none by Waterloo. By the time I felt comfortable enough navigating the Underground, I ran out of time. I thought about getting up insanely early on Thursday and taking the tube from St. James's Park to the Fulham Broadway stop in Fulham to see venerable Craven Cottage, a small ancient ground that intrigued me when I watched Fulham play a match on television last year. Thursday was also the day we'd planned to go to Kew Gardens, which is way out in Richmond about as far as one can get on the Underground heading west (unless one's destination is Heathrow). I knew that if I arrived back late from Fulham and held up our trip to Kew, it wouldn't go over well. My compromise was going to be Chelsea, but that didn't seem much more feasible. Add on top of that I just didn't feel excited about crawling out of bed at 5:30 AM. So, seeing a real football ground will need to wait.

(I did, however, see the Lord's cricket ground in St. John's Wood. I'm not as big on cricket as Premier League football, but Lord's was still neat to see).

As a big fan of The Kinks, it was a thrill to see Waterloo Bridge and Waterloo Station (though I didn't actually enter Waterloo Station, I did walk across Waterloo Bridge twice). I could imagine the "Waterloo Sunset" characters of Terry and Julie meeting at Waterloo Station "every Friday night" and then "cross[ing] over the river" where they feel "safe and sound." But in truth, I felt more like the narrator who, though he is alone, insists that as long as he gazes at Waterloo sunset, he "is in paradise." It was too early in the day for me to see the sunset, but I did see the "dirty old river" Thames from the bridge and it was as powerful and moving a moment as I could possibly imagine.

Though I would have loved to visit Muswell Hill and the Archway Tavern (that feature prominently in Kinks history), that was far too distant from Westminster to venture to on this vacation. Quite frankly, I am not sure they would equal Waterloo Bridge in emotional resonance anyway.

London (again), part II

[In the Leipzig Marriott].

Back to London:

So, as I was saying, the Tower of London was much larger and more extensive than I imagined. Honestly, I don't know that I ever gave it much thought before other than an ancient place that tourists were sort of required to visit. "Tower" seems a misnomer, for one thing. "Fortress of London" might be more accurate. I had no idea that it was comprised of so many buildings, and the moat surrounding it is impressive. (Kudos to the Tower administrators/governing body for planting beautiful wildflowers in the moat to promote a green environment).

Before I go on to yet more blow-by-blow accounts of "things seen, places visited," I will take a step back and just mention fun or funny occurences that don't generally make the travelogue:

I was walking down the street towards the St. James's Park Underground station when I saw this 30-something bloke rapidly approaching me from the other direction. His face was buried in his phone (yep, this is a universal predicament with smartphone obsession) and he wasn't watching where he was going. I didn't know when or if he'd notice me and was trying how to plot not running into this guy head-on. At the last second, he noticed me and skipped out of the way and said a quick, "Oh, sorry, mate!" Being addressed as "mate" made up for almost getting plowed into.

Yesterday, Will Sergeant's new memoir Echoes was published in the UK. Since the autobiography of Echo & the Bunnymen's guitarist is not nearly as cared about in the States, the release date there isn't scheduled for at least another several months. (I can't even find a listing for it). It was beyond fortuitous to be in London on the publication date, so I placed a hold on a copy at the Victoria Street Waterstone's, about a kilometer from our rental on Greycoat Lane. As soon as we returned from Kew Gardens yesterday, and after I purchased the requisite Starbucks "London" coffee mug to add to our now massive Starbucks "place mugs" collection, I was off like a shot down Victoria to Waterstone's. (Avery and Calder tagged along). When I got into the store, I immediately went to the counter. In the sing-songy Midwestern (but trying not to be too Midwestern) voice I adopted when talking to Brits here, I said, "Hel-loow, I should have a book on hold here?" The young woman replied, "Surname?" It took me a slight delay of a half-second or a second to process what she'd said. I'm just used to Americans/Michiganders saying, "Last name?" Or, "What's yer last name?" Thankfully, I gathered myself enough to not look like an idiot. As I have learned to do, I didn't even reply with my name, but immediately spelled it out because nobody in the U.S. ever gets it right and I figured there was no chance of them getting it right in Britain.

The upshot is that: YES, I got my book and I'm very happy about that...AND I found another book, too (Absolute Beginners by Colin MacInnes, part of his London Trilogy and definitely the most famous one due to the 1986 movie, but oddly the only one I have yet to read). Oh, and Calder bought a book about the English Civil War, so we all won!

Stay tuned for more vacation adventures...

London (again)

I've been neglectful with my travelogue, probably because after finally meeting "in person" for the first time, London and I had a torrid love affair and I had no time or energy to post.

I think I left off with the National Gallery, et al.

Some quick observations in the few mins I have until we board our plane to Frankfurt. (We are returning to Germany until Monday).

The National Gallery was amazing. One of the best art museums I have ever been to. 

The Tower of London is much much bigger and wide open than I expected. The history there is stunning.

More later...

Catching up in London

It's hard to believe we've only been in London since Saturday afternoon. We really have done so much that it seems longer than that.

So far: British Museum, Kensington Palace, Tower of London, National Gallery.

I walked early Monday morning and saw Westminster Abbey, Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, Scotland Yard, Waterloo Bridge, Waterloo Station, then stumbled into Drury Lane/Strand and some of the historic theatres there including the Lyceum.

Just writing this makes me feel a bit guilty just sitting here at 7:44 AM and not seeing something right now, but I need a little recovery time. 

I just wish we had more time here, but I suppose not enough time is better than no time at all.

London

The journey from Leipzig to London was an adventure, so much so that at times we weren't sure if we'd make our connecting flight from Munich to London, and even if we did, would we be able to get from Heathrow to our airbnb in Westminster.

Well thankfully, it all worked out. It got a little hairy at times (we briefly thought we'd lost Calder in customs at Heathrow and I wondered how we'd explain that to his parents) but we DID find him and made it to our place. Our wonderful driver navigated the streets of London with aplomb.

I ate my first British fish & chips last night at a place called the Barley Mow just a stone's throw from our flat. It at least "looked" like a "real pub" to this hayseed from the Midwest (though I must assume it gets its fair share of tourists, and being in Westminster likely lacks the grit of a genuine English pub). That said, it was good enough for me. I also had my first mushy peas (I liked them) and my first beer in England was a Camden Hells lager.

Now, we are discovering all the little, er, eccentricities of this airbnb flat. The shower overflows and floods, the lights don't seem to all work properly, the TV is only equipped for streaming services (no concern of mine because I don't plan on watching television), the clothes dryer is not functioning. So yes, these bits have been annoyances. But what the hell, at least we're in London.

Random vacation observations

Favorite t-shirts seen: 

"Fuckstar" (worn by a teen girl on a school field trip at the Kunstmuseum).

"Do I Look Like a Bitch?" with picture of Samuel L. Jackson from Pulp Fiction (worn by middle-aged dude at Leipzig airport).

"Still Dedicated to Hardcore" (worn by musclebound, heavily tatted-up shaved head 30-something dude at Leipzig airport).

Rolling Stones (?) t-shirt with just the word ROLLING with tongue and lips 💋 that loosely resembled Rolling Stones logo. (Worn by attractive* 20-something woman on train from Halle to Leipzig airport).

*I hope it's not pervy or "male-gazey" of me to note she was attractive. The t-shirt intrigued me the most.

We made it through security at the Leipzig "flughafen" and now await our "flugzeug" to "flug" to Munich, where we must quickly walk to our next "flugzeug" to London.

Oh, Avery fashioned a necklace out of a spent WW2 shell that he found in Halle. He stuffed it in his carry-on and it must have set off alarm bells because security took almost everything out of his bag until they found it. Luckily, they let him keep it. [UPDATE: The security man, in fact, threw it in the trash. Sad face emoji].

Ah, the fun of travel.

A day in Dresden

[Sipping espresso in the hotel room].

We took a day trip to a hot, humid, sunsplashed Dresden yesterday to meet up with Nora, who was our "tour guide."

We took a short little train ride to Leipzig, and the transferred to another train for the last hour or so to Dresden. Aside from being mesmerized by a fellow passenger who looked like a cross between 2023 versions of musician Paul Weller and actor Scott Glenn (silverhaired and wiry) it was a rather uneventful train trip.

Nora met us at the Dresden hauptbahnhof and we ambled from the neustadt to the altstadt. (We really were not in the neustadt much at all in 2021). We came across an eccentric middle-aged German "herren" on a bicycle (this was on a pedestrian-only thoroughfare in the neustadt with shops and restaurants on either side. I will need to "google" it later. EDIT: Hauptstraße of the Neustadter Markthalle). The gentleman engaged me in conversation, raving about the greatness of the United States and its superiority to Europe. I tried to make the point that, sure, the U.S. has its good points and has continually untapped potential, but is very "un-united" right now. He wasn't having this and me, wanting to get on my/our way, didn't want to press very hard. He bid us a cheerful gooodbye and bicycled away to wherever he was going (maybe to seek out more Americans?).

The rest of the day was spent ambling around the altstadt of Dresden, seeing the Zwinger and Frauenkirche again. Dresden was preparing for a big city festival this weekend, so it was buzzing with activity.

Unfortunately, the heat sort of drained us of energy and we didn't see as much as I'd have liked. There are certain factors in this trip that limit our ability to really deeply explore (IYKYK). I don't really want to get into it here.

At about 5:30 PM, we bid our goodbyes (for now) to Nora and took what ended up being a much longer train trip back to Halle. The fun part was I had a chance to spend about a half-hour on the train platform in the most polluted city in the GDR: the unfortunately named Bitterfeld.

Doppelganger auf der bahn.

There's a fellow on the train to Leipzig who looks like a combination of these two. (You just need to take my word for it).

Germany, Day five

(In the Halle train station [hauptbahnhof, I think that should permanently be part of my German lexicon]).

Wednesday was a essentially a "recovery day" from Berlin.

Avery and Calder seemed to want to spend time together, which was fine. 

Lynda and I went out for a walk through sunny and humid Halle in the early afternoon. We sat down in Joliot-Currie-Platz where we saw a guy pick up a bottle, dip it in the fountain, and drink it. Almost made us physically ill watching it. Maybe he's immune to dirty fountain "wasser."

We wandered a bit more and stumbled to B12 Musics again. (No, it was not planned, I swear). I found a CD compilation of the 1980s East German punk band Namenlos and the shop clerk--about my age--lit up. In his halting English (hey, better than my non-German-speaking ass) talked about the lead singer and how (if we got it right) someone he knew had been her "loverboy" (in his words). I couldn't catch everything he said, but he was excited. I said I hoped to return to the store again some day and he said we were welcome anytime.

Berlin

Berlin was yesterday, and I don't know where to start with this one. I may need to scribble down some ideas and get back to it later. 

Halle, Day three

(On the train to Berlin).

We got off to a late start yesterday, since Avery had to show a room in his apartment to a prospective renter.

So after breakfast--I should mention how much I have enjoyed the buffet in our hotel, as it seems a perfect combination of what an American (or Brit) might enjoy as well as what I remember from eating at the Winge's house in Radebeul--we went back to our rooms where I promptly fell asleep for about an hour.

Avery and Calder arrived at the hotel around 1:30 (or should I say 13:30) and headed out to too some shopping. (Though in truth it was more watching L.'s mom and a patient L. poke around shops while the rest of us stood around watching the crowds of people walking up Leipzigerstraße). I did find an oddball shop that sold a bit of everything: computer games, old magazines, and most pivotal: DDR relics. I bought a "7-year plan aktivist 1966" medal for a whopping 5€. I was happy with that find.

We eventually made it to the large church in the market square--I'll add the name in here later--where Martin Luther once preached and Handel was baptised. It was built in the 16th century. I will never tire of the sheer number of ancient/old buildings here.

We made it to the church just as a thunderstorm started raging outside and buckets of rain fell for about a half-hour. Thankfully, the storm ended at 4:00, just as the church was closing for the day.

I then finally made it to B12 Music, the record shop in Halle I really wanted to hit up. It's a great place: small but with plenty of great stuff. I could have spent hundreds of euros there, but ultimately only bought an old Kinks compilation on the East German Amiga label. The proprietor of the record shop, an aging--which means he's probably only slightly older than me--hippyish dude asked me and Avery where we were from. I said, "United States, U.S., Michigan." He excitedly exclaimed, "Ah! Detroit!" And I said, "Yes! Detroit!" It was a funny moment.

We concluded the evening with a truly great dinner in the hotel restaurant.

Halle, Day two

Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away...because we went to the Beatles Museum right here in Halle!

Yes, who'd have figured Halle, of all places, would have a museum dedicated to the Fab Four, but they do, and it's quite a place. Three floors of an unassuming former residence on Alter Markt, filled to the brim with every sort of Beatle memorabilia one could imagine, (and many one could NOT). The Beatles vinyl records on the East German Amigo label were my favorite items. They were apparently issued until 1965, when the GDR (DDR) government decided the Fabs were too subversive and had a bad influence on East German youth.

After the Beatles Museum, the "kids" (Avery and his friend Calder, also visiting from Michigan) took all of us to the Handel Museum. Yes, that is Handel of "Handel's Messiah" fame. The museum is in the residence where the great composer and son of Halle lived as a youth. Now it is dedicated to his life and accomplishments, but also has an impressive collection of old string instruments (lutes, violins, violas, etc.) as well as harpsichords and clavinets. It so happens that Calder is an accomplished harpsichord and piano player. He and Avery would often play music together (Calder on keyboard, Avery on violin). Sone of the harpsichords and one clavinet are available for guests to play, so we all had a chance to tinker: Calder played some lovely tunes, Avery played a bit (Calder had taught Avery a little keyboard) and I plunked some ridiculous collection of notes loosely approximating a tune, sounding more like Thelonious Monk drunkenly playing "Louie Louie" on a clavinet. (I love music, but sadly am not a musician).

In the early evening, after some appetizers and a beer at a Greek restaurant called Hermes in which we encountered a slightly salty waiter who eventually warmed up, we met Avery's university friends Adrian and Lucia (pronounced WOOT-see-ya) and had dinner at a place called Le Feu. They are delightful and friendly young people who I hope were at least somewhat entertained by Avery's strange American family.

Our walk through the Halle city cemetery will have to wait for another post.

Halle, Day one

I'm coming to you from my phone, so I apologize in advance for any typos.

We just completed Day 1 of our European vacation. 

We landed in Leipzig at about 8 AM Germany time, Friday morning. After a little trouble finding each other, we and Avery finally connected and traveled from the airport to Halle via a short bus trip to the train stop, then the train to the Halle train station.

Literally as we disembarked from the train, we encountered a massive group of singing, beer-swilling, blue-and-white clad Hertha BSC football supporters as they were about to head in the opposite direction to their football match in Berlin. Welcome to Germany!

We made our way, via tram, to our hotel (Dorint Charlottenhof) and checked into the one room that was ready at that early time. After fighting off sleep as much as possible but feeling quite groggy from being up for 24 hours straight, we finally headed out and walked around a quite toasty Halle. My immediate reaction was I liked the grit of Halle. It's not touristy and doesn't try to be. It feels lived-in. It forces the visitor to like it on its terms and isn't trying to be loved.

Like every German city I've seen, the architecture--both ancient and modern--is stunning. I of course took a kajillion pictures on my phone.

We got to see Avery's place, which is not bad for student housing. Basically four bedrooms opening into a tiny hallway with a postage stamp sized kitchen. Avery's room has a window that opens out to Beesenerstraße, a main thoroughfare in the south section of Halle.

By about 3 PM Germany time, everyone was hungry, so we "trammed" back up to central Halle for Burgerheart. Happy to have Avery there who could make ordering easier because he can translate for us (sometimes annoying and definitely non-German speaking and loopy from no sleep) Americans. The food was great. I didn"t necessarily want a cheeseburger, but that was the consensus so I went with. I was hungry anyway.

Well, gotta get this phone on a charger to get ready for more fun today. Ta-ta for now.