The Turning Point

I haven't finished my Russian blogs yet. They are maturing as drafts at the moment. However, while it is still fresh, I want to write about the last week in which I have been making the transition from Russia to Spain. I didn't think about this part of the trip very clearly and there have been a couple of minor bugs and it has turned out to be a little more expensive than it would have been if I had done a little planning. Nevertheless, I am having a good time and this transition time has been a time for much needed rest and recuperation despite all the travel.

I am now in Arnhem in the Netherlands. Tomorrow I get on the train for a 12-hour trip to Bayonne, France. After Russia, where I was on trains for a total of 80 hours, 12 hours is nothing at all. I do have to change three times but they are easy changes and I will welcome the chance to walk a little. For some reason, my sprained ankle doesn't like train or airplane travel very much. At the moment I am recovering from an all-night excursion to Amsterdam. My friend Tibor with whom I am staying in Arnhem insisted that I see Amsterdam so we caught the train at 10:30 P.M. and arrived in Amsterdam about midnight. We went from bar to bar and other disreptutable gay venues with little excursions to see the redlight district, the Queen's Palace and other notable sights. The first train back was at 6 in the morning so I was up all night. As my friend Angela said in Moscow when she caught me running from place to place at the Contact Festival, "Act your age." It was fun though and I don't seem to have any ill-effects despite being caught in two thunderstorms.

It is strange being in The Netherlands. I had looked forward to seeing Tibor whom I had met in Hungary about four years ago, but I hadn't thought about the fact that he was in Holland. Holland turns out to be pretty much like it was in the stories I read as a child. The houses have pyramidal fronts. People ride bicycles. There are a lot of canals. There is a lot of cheese but none in red wax coverings. So far I haven't seen a windmill but maybe I will tomorrow on the train. I go from here to Rotterdam and from Rotterdam to Paris where I change for Bayonne.

Arnhem is a smallish big city with great parks, impressive churches and a large, pedestrian only shopping district where Tibor lives. I'm very annoyed I don't know Dutch. At the moment, I want to learn every language in the world. I am happy to be going to Spain where I at least have a clue about the language although I don't speak it very well. I'm thinking of studying Russian when I get back. Something stuck after 50 years since I last studied it and I think I might have a chance of upgrading a little.

This transition period started in Moscow where I arrived very tired. I had intended to look up friends but instead checked into a strange hotel that used to serve people who worked at the Khazatstan Embassy. No one spoke Russian except a security guard. They didn't even speak German which is usually the fall-back language in Russia. It was a huge cavernous place with about five people staying in it. They did have a great breakfast buffet that came with the room but there were never more than five people eating and usually it was only me and someone else. There was kasha (Russian for breakfast porridge which comes in astounding variety), omelets (which were really an egg custard which was a great idea because it kept warm better than omelets), cold meats, cheese, hot sausages, raw cucumbers, tomatoes, dill, parsley, a range of breads, a toaster, great sweet cakes, and several different stuffed blinis. One of the hot sausages was perhaps the best sausage I have ever had, succulent, porky and earthy.

The hotel was within walking distance of central Moscow but there were also good metro connections. I walked a lot trying to absorb Moscow which I like. I took a walk laid out in the Lonely Planet to a street with a lot of old churches. Very nice. I went to a nesting doll museum. I had weird Uzbek soup and a great Uzbek pilav in a restaurant (I never realized before that "plov" is the same word as "pilaf." I kept thinking I should look up friends but I was too tired and had been in constant contact with people for a month and a half and for a solitary person, that is a lot.

Then on to London, this time in a shabby but cheap hotel near Victoria Station. The room was the smallest hotel room I have ever stayed in, but it was adequate. I tried to see my friend Janet but again we were frustrated. This is the third time we have been in the same city or state and still couldn't meet. We are hoping to get together when I get back to London in October.

In London I took a walk in the Rough Guide to Walks in Southeastern England, a book I recommend. The walk followed the Regent Canal into the docklands with a stop at the Ragged School Musem, a museum about charitable work in the East End in the 19th century. A great place. It functions as a afterschool place for local children as well as a museum. I recommend this too. It's a small treat, but a treat. In the morning I had been to see the Tower of London which I had never seen before despite having been going to London off and on since 1976. I went early, avoided the crowds, saw the two chapels and the Royal Jewels and was happy to be able to cross that off my list. In the late afternoon, I queued for an intellectual play at the National Theaters but realized there was no way I was going to last through the play so went to see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince which almost did me in as well. I think, by and large, that the movies are better than the books but unfortunately they are so compressed that you have to have read the books to follow them.
O.K. I had an easy flight from London to Amsterdam and an easy train ride from Amsterdam to Arnhem. I will be sorry to leave Tibor and Holland which I like (but now that I'm old I seem to like everything--somehow that seems annoying). Tomorrow on to France and then on the 1st of September I start walking.