Fill up on questionable hotel breakfast then take tube
to train
to airport
to France
Limoges is three or four hours south of Paris.
We arrive around 1:30 p.m. and Leni picks us up.
Anlhaic, the area where Leni runs her farm is another hour south of Limoges. We drive thru the country and my face is practically pushed out the window. Rolling hills. Winding thru the tiniest villages with buildings that have no context in my head and so I think I'm in a cartoon.
Silly, of course. Since if anything is to be labeled: real/authentic it's
the three-hundred year old farm house I'm going
to be sleeping in.
What I learned on the drive:
Narrow roads.
Spectacular scenery.
Cows. Sheep. Cows - not like northern Michigan.
People drive faaast out here.
Some villages have fifty people.
Ours has around three hundred.
We live on Le Bourmier. There is no house number.
The postman just remembers who lives in
what houses.
London day 2 - 4/29
Spend the day exploring the city. Incredible old building alongside marvelous old building across from stone church in the middle of the street. In high school, I took a trip here with a group of my classmates. As I'm walking I try to retrace my footsteps. Find the first tube exit we exited from. Stand outside the tower of London. Clumps of rowdy school children speaking French, Italian, American English. I cross the square and look down to the old moat where period piece British people put on a show for tourists, use a giant wooden catapult to hurl blue water balloons at the castle. The contraption takes forever to load and as Lord Eddy talks about history Master Bill works the gears. Then all together: '1-2-3.' Ka-chunk. When the balloon bursts onto the grass everyone claps.
There's something about the layout of London that lets it breathe more than big time American cities. Smaller buildings. Less congested. My neck isn't folded backwards as in New York city.
Around lunchtime, I find myself at St. Paul's. White marble cathedral gleaming from the afternoon sun. In the square, speckled pigeons flutter by the fountain, to the steps where a group of children wear pressed shirts and snack on crackers. From the far entrance, a single row of Buddhist monks, their robes the brightest reds and yellows crossing slowly thru the square before disappearing behind a tall set of columns. The battery to my camera dies out soon after. I kick myself each time I see another picture.
In the evening we take a bus thru the city on our way to Brick Lane. Home of Rough Trade record shop. Little Lower East Side. I feel like I should be playing Piano's or smoking 10 dollar Camel's. There are lots of vintage clothing stores, hip little coffee bars and Indian restaurants. We decide to eat at the one that doesn't feature bouncers ordering us to eat their dinner special. Afterward we walk back to the hotel.
There's something about the layout of London that lets it breathe more than big time American cities. Smaller buildings. Less congested. My neck isn't folded backwards as in New York city.
Around lunchtime, I find myself at St. Paul's. White marble cathedral gleaming from the afternoon sun. In the square, speckled pigeons flutter by the fountain, to the steps where a group of children wear pressed shirts and snack on crackers. From the far entrance, a single row of Buddhist monks, their robes the brightest reds and yellows crossing slowly thru the square before disappearing behind a tall set of columns. The battery to my camera dies out soon after. I kick myself each time I see another picture.
In the evening we take a bus thru the city on our way to Brick Lane. Home of Rough Trade record shop. Little Lower East Side. I feel like I should be playing Piano's or smoking 10 dollar Camel's. There are lots of vintage clothing stores, hip little coffee bars and Indian restaurants. We decide to eat at the one that doesn't feature bouncers ordering us to eat their dinner special. Afterward we walk back to the hotel.
Arrive in London - 4/28
after flying in airplanes for fourteen hours. Detroit to Newark Newark to London. No sickness but bleary eyed, a little delirious. In Heathrow, the gate is broken and we exit down a tall set of metal stairs. On the televisions in the terminal, news reporters warn of swine flu, show maps with red clumps that glow and get bigger. I'm surprised at how easy it is to get thru customs.
Afterward, we board the tube and ride through the country, the back yards of peoples' homes, London looming ahead. There is a kind of green in England that does not exist in Michigan. Richer, more wet.
Emergency service on the train line means waiting, means waiting. A congested voice reiterates the reason but is impossible to untangle. 'I think he said we don't stop at those stops.' 'I think he said we need to get off now.' The two of us so beat and not trying to look like tourists with our bags stuffed up to the ceiling. At some point, all cleeer to hamursmeeeth! all cleer to hammursmeeth! and we lurch forward.
Enter London and exit from the tube. Drag bags through busy streets toward hotel. The skies are gray but no rain. We check in to the Presidential Hotel. Find our room. Rearrange ourselves into something less like pack mules. By the sink there are crumpled packets of instant coffee and an electric water heater. Katie says, 'This is their coffee and you'll have to get used to it' then hands me some kleenex to clean up my nose bleed. When finished we walk to the river and spend the rest of the day in the Tate Modern.
[ statue outside the Tate ]
[ Robert Therrien - No Title (table and four chairs) ]
[ Turbine Hall in the Tate ]
[ Outside the Tate ]
[ Katie ]
Emergency service on the train line means waiting, means waiting. A congested voice reiterates the reason but is impossible to untangle. 'I think he said we don't stop at those stops.' 'I think he said we need to get off now.' The two of us so beat and not trying to look like tourists with our bags stuffed up to the ceiling. At some point, all cleeer to hamursmeeeth! all cleer to hammursmeeth! and we lurch forward.
Enter London and exit from the tube. Drag bags through busy streets toward hotel. The skies are gray but no rain. We check in to the Presidential Hotel. Find our room. Rearrange ourselves into something less like pack mules. By the sink there are crumpled packets of instant coffee and an electric water heater. Katie says, 'This is their coffee and you'll have to get used to it' then hands me some kleenex to clean up my nose bleed. When finished we walk to the river and spend the rest of the day in the Tate Modern.
[ statue outside the Tate ]
[ Robert Therrien - No Title (table and four chairs) ]
[ Turbine Hall in the Tate ]
[ Outside the Tate ]
[ Katie ]A sprawling mess of a museum. Dark and disorienting. Old power station ironwork still crawling up the walls. Special exhibition on Rodchenko with rooms full of enormous tables and paintings like this:
The Tate wins, the Tate wins.
The Tate wins, the Tate wins.
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