brainsplotch

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 ...

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 ...

[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 bu...

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...

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.

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...

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 ...

[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 an...

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).

(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 excit...

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. 

(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 th...

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 accomplishme...

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....