Florence to Rome

Knowing I would be leaving for Rome later in the day, I set my expectations low: il Duomo and one museum (of course, soaking up as much ambiance as possible).

For breakfast I stopped by a small market, which I later found was unnecessary: plenty of places in Florence have cheap breakfast. Though the upside of eating market food is you run into other vagabonds on the street trying to find a place to sit and eat. At the entrance to one of the bridges I met Tara and Mallory. They happened to be eating a similar breakfast and we also shared a similar pace when it came to our city-hopping rate. The main danger with the side of the road in Florence is due to the buses: when they turn the corner you are certain you will lose your legs and be crushed. Fortunately the turning radius is wider than they initially let on.

Walking to il Duomo I remember best the smell of leather from all the tourist hungry street vendors. At the Dome itself I remember best all the tourists with their cameras, taking the same picture. I got in line to walk the 450+ stairs to the top and thought about this second impression some more.

I think we need a philosophy of travel, in the same way we have a philosophy of science. There are some really pressing questions worth asking:

• What does it mean to be a tourist?
• Why do we disdain "touristy" place, and what makes them that way?
• Why travel at all?
• Is it worth taking a photo when it has been taking so many times before?
• At the end of our travels, what are we left with?

I think these questions first came to me in Paris, seeing crowds around the Mona Lisa and playing "spot the tourist" with Pierre (perhaps I was under the influence of some existential philosopher's ghost). But waiting in the long line to il Duomo I had some more time to reflect. I'll pepper these entries with "answers" to these questions as I dream them up.

The path up the Dome is really confusing. There are plenty of circular staircases, but it stops intermittently for longer hallways and right angles. Then, halfway up, you circle the base of the dome itself and follow an even more confusing path with slanted walls, narrow hallways, and steep stairs. I liked how the brick layers had to adopt unusual diagonal patterns to create the actual dome.

At the very top you step into the sunlight, which is the best part. Especially feeling the wind at the top on a hot dry day. I'm pretty sure it's the highest point in Florence, you can see everything (anything more than a block away). That was my simple lesson from the dome: when you're on top of something big, it can be hard to see the things nearby. I sat up there for maybe twenty minutes appreciating the view of the city.

After descending, because it was so hot and water wasn't cutting it, I had my first Gelato in Italy. It was a piccolo limone from this crazily lit place called "Festival del Gelato".

Walking around afterwards, browsing the windows of stores on main streets, I made some notes on what binds Western culture (as best I could tell from the cities I'd visited): food, materialism (more pronounced in America than Europe), and Harry Potter. The last book was released while I was in Lyon, and it seemed like everyone was advertising it.

Not meaning to, I found Luggia di Lanzi — a semi-enclosed square adjacent to a large piazza. It was filled with wonderful sculpture, and since it's Florence these weren't just any sculptures but most were second century AD. I get the impression that the city is overflowing with art.

I walked next to the "Firenze Mvsei", containing the Palatine gallery and modern art gallery (amongst others). Since I was in Florence just to be ironic I went to the Modern Art gallery first. There was a great exhibition with all these dresses and concept art for modern theater. The Palatine gallery had a ton of Florentine and related art, mostly paintings.

There were plaques with descriptions to introduce each of the rooms, and as the end of the 19th century approached they started a big discussion about the role of "reality" in art. I had an idea for a manifesto a few days earlier that dealt with this issue. It would say something about the futility of attempting to capture "reality" in art — whether with photography or film or anything. There is an illusion that photography captures reality better than painting, and that film captures reality better than photography (film with sound more so). In fact the "reality" we're trying to capture is a subjective experience, and not until we can record and induce those experiences directly will we be able to capture "reality". In the meantime, anything goes. Any sense pairings and content pairings. I'm not saying that any of this would be pleasant, just that's it's all equally "real" — which is to say, it's not "real" at all.

The other thing the Palatine gallery reminded me was how little I know about any city I've gone to, and how little I know about art especially. I think it's best for me to play critic and philosopher rather than historian.

From the museum I went back to the train station, where I picked up my backpack and got on the train to Rome. There was some sort of movie being filmed on the platform so I had to walk around the crew. No actors I knew, just an Asian girl that was strolling in and out of the shot, waiting for "action".

From the first moment off the train I could tell things moved quickly in Rome. At the end of the platform I met the endlessly kind Giovanni Giametta, a friend of my uncle's. We walked to his car and raced off to the hotel he'd booked for me through an old friend from Boy scouts. The hotel was once a cathedral and monastery that had only recently been renovated.

In Florence I had first hand experience of the fabled Italian driving, and was cautious when Giovanni first launched out of the parking lot, but once we got to the traffic everything instantly made sense. There is a "flow" to Italian driving that's hard to see from the sidewalk. There is a reason there aren't many lines painted on the Italian streets: the lanes are created and destroyed on the fly, everyone adapting to the situation at hand. It's like they've transcended the need for certain road regulations by acknowledging that any rule has limited use, and the road is far too complex to impose a single standard on (or maybe they're all just equally crazy). They tend to stay on the right and stop at major lights, but besides that most everything is fair game. Giovanni added, as I mentioned these things to him, that it would be nice if they had something like in America at four way stops for determining the order.

From the hotel we went to Giovanni's house (really a multi-building mini-villa near the main park in North Rome) to visit his wife and some family. On the road I was thinking about how fast Rome seemed, faster even than New York City. But sitting down for a few minutes outdoors at his place — this is when I realized Rome is slower as well. Or at least it can be.

Giovanni took me out to a very nice restaurant called "Scala", his "kitchen away from home". Everyone knows him there, and they managed to find us a table even though they were "full". This kind of social engineering always amazes me. We had some great appetizers, then an octopus pasta I really liked (but Giovanni thought was "eh"). I'm also not the best judge of food on as an empty-stomached traveller. We finished with a pasta Giovanni recommended, which was tasty as well but seemed very simple. Then again, the best always seems effortless (whether it's an Olympic athlete pulling off some maneuver or a chef preparing a dish).

We discussed a variety of topics over dinner, from the Italian character to the graffiti problem in Rome to a little stand on the corner of the street that's become famous for a single drink. After dinner he took me to the stand, where they serve "Lemon Coco". It's basically just southern Italian lemons squeezed and mixed with sugar water and coconut juice. Possibly one of the most refreshing drinks ever.

We went back to his house and I tried speaking half Spanish and half English with his wife while he sorted out something else. When he was done he took me on a whirlwind evening tour of Rome — the Colosseum, Roman Forum, the view from the Spanish embassy, the Vatican, etc. Around ten the traffic got worse and my full stomach was getting the best of me, so we called it an evening. I gladly crashed on the huge hotel bed, a very welcome alternative to the hostels I'd been staying at up to this point.

Bern

The internet access I bought the day before wasn't working anymore this morning. Which was disappointing — it was supposed to work for three days. The front desk called the company managing the wifi and we found out the credit card didn't go through. I think I may have mistyped some info, so note to self: if you're desperately in need of internet and have no money, as a last resort you can mistype your credit card "confirmation number" on the back of the card.

After I told Becky and Toni about Paul Klee, they decided they were interested in the seeing museum — so we planned to meet there at 1:00. In the meantime, I did my laundry and they visited the Einsteinhaus. I met two more Aussies in the laundry room. They're everywhere, and seem to travel in pairs.

The museum was pricey (I think 16 or 18 CHF) but worth it. We looked at everything in the permanent collection and temporary exhibition. I think Toni's favorites were the puppets. I love how Klee paired titles and images, and explored so many possibilities without worrying too much about the outcome. At least that's how his work feels to me. When we were done we got some food from the restaurant there and went to a stage where there was a puppeteer improvising with replicas of Klee's puppets. It was incredibly entertaining — kids and adults alike laughed at each "skit" featuring a different puppet or pair of puppets. A lot of it you didn't need to know German to understand, testifying both to the skill of the puppeteer and the composition of the audience.

Rain clouds were gathering outside, but they didn't look gloomy yet. We took the bus back to Central Bern and checked if the museum of theater was still open (Becky and Toni study theater). It wasn't — though there was a guy who told us "it's not open tomorrow either, but if you come at 9:00 am someone might be here to let you in anyway." In most big cities in America that would sound sketchy, but here it is a reasonable business practice for a museum that doesn't get much traffic.

As we walked back to the hostel the rain picked up. We were basically drenched by the time we got back. Or at least I was, Becky and Toni had rain jackets. It was warm, so I didn't mind.

We walked into the room somewhere around 6:00 pm. My laptop was no longer sitting where I left it charging. I looked around the room a bit, went upstairs to the internet area to see if someone borrowed it, and finally just sat down to fold my laundry from earlier. I was in disbelief, so I hadn't said anything yet. When I finished my laundry I went to the reception desk. No help, really. I knew I couldn't do anything but try and narrow the time down by asking people when they where around and last saw it. The worst part is that when you've been robbed, everyone looks like a thief. Even after playing cards the day before.

Becky, Toni and I went out for dinner, settling on a Chinese place. I had a Thai dish, which was strangely authentic for a Chinese place in Switzerland. I asked Becky and Toni more about their school and the people they study with. This lead to a conversation involving me contributing some thoughts from Sartre, and them giving examples of how people act in groups, and why leaders are necessary. It was a good existential yet practical conversation.

Back at the hostel we talked a bit more, some other people came and went, but it wasn't long before we crashed. Which is good, considering my attention was pretty well diverted.

Lyon

I woke up this morning with some ideas but, as usual, little set in stone. Breakfast and the view from the hostel kept my attention for a bit, and eventually I walked down the hill and over the Saône to Place Bellecour, billed as "Europe's largest completely clear public square". Basically this means that Lyon has the biggest public square filled only with sand. I kept walking, over the Rhône to what looks like a recently built riverbank area. There were two bowls for skaters, lots of stairs, shallow running water alongside the river, etc. Just North of the bridge I crossed was one of Lyon's two farmers markets. I'm thinking I'll get lunch there tomorrow, bananas are about two euros a kilo.

Today I got lunch near the main metro entrance on the East side of the Rhône. There were three kebab shops next to each other, all with the same prices, so I just picked the one with a guy that looked happy. I didn't know you could have "kebabs" without the "shish", but it's a lot like a gyro.

From the kebab shop I took the metro to the other market, which was a bit smaller and starting to close. The Lumière museum was just across the street, which is what I really wanted to see. The Lumière brothers were the guys who basically invented cinematography in the form we know now. The museum was dedicated to their ideas and accomplishments, and had plenty of replicas, models and artifacts. Plus it was located in their super cool Art Nouveau home. I'm not really a cinematographer, but it felt like a pilgrimage anyway considering the leap they made in time-based media and experimental art.

From the Lumière Museum I went to the big park in the Northern part of Lyon, which has a huge lake with little islands you can get to via underground passageways. I heard some singing coming from the edge of the park and happened upon a African lady in very African clothes who gave me tracts in French. I could see the Musée d'Art Contemporain from here, which I'd heard about earlier, so I headed in that direction. The first floor had an exhibit called "Freak Show", with lots of strange objects commissioned from a number of artists: 10 feet tall rain boots, a brush with hair coming out instead of bristles, an acoustic guitar with a square body, a chair that looked like it was just about to tip over, etc. My favorite was the two cubes in the corner that were attached to opposite walls but suspended in mid air next to each other, presumably magnetically attracted. I wasn't sure it was worth five euros, but the second floor, an Erwin Wurm exhibition, redeemed it for me. His video work isn't so great (unless it's in the context of an installation, like the fat house), and pieces like "Thinking About Philosophers" are more fun to think about than view; his photography, "one minute sculptures" and "interactive sculptures" were my favorite. Of the "interactive sculptures", one instructs you to sit on the ground with your legs forward and think about Spinoza. Another asks you to hold a Pepsi can between your chest and chin. I like that his work is really simple and silly but still asks "bigger questions" about the boundaries of different media.

From the museum I took the bus, subway, and tram to the top of the main mountain in the older part of Lyon. It was starting to rain hard so I just got a quick look of the cathedral and the amazing view before rushing back down the hill and up on the other tram to the hostel.

At the hostel I waited for the rain to let up so I could get dinner. As I was walking out, a girl stopped me because she noticed my RPI shirt. We both happened to know the same person at RPI, so we talked for a bit and she showed me a great place that did a sandwich, drink and dessert for five euros. I also got a crepe from a guy making them on the street, which I'd wanted to do for a while.

Back at the hostel we sat around a table with some of her friends, but she was mostly ignoring the other conversations and just talking to me. She was coming from a small town, and going to community college because she wanted to stay with her family. No one believed that she'd be able to travel Europe for a month — much less by herself. It was a little rough at first, but now she's scared to go back. She feels like she's changed so much, and if she goes back people will put her in an old box.

Paris

There isn't much to say about the high-speed train from Brussels to Paris other than "it's really fast". That and I met two business and agriculture students from Uzbekistan named Nuri and Share (I'm probably transliterating their names wrong).

Paris is another place like New York City or London that hosts a variety of different cultures and languages and makes me wonder: what makes a city a city? If the definition of a city has anything to do with the characteristics of the people who live there, these melting pot places make me think there will come a day when communication and travel will be so ubiquitous we stop thinking about "cities" and group people and space in other terms.

The cheapest hostel I could find that was still close to a metro stop was a block and a half from the Louvre. In a strange mirroring of fates, I met two more Aussies named Josh and Alex, and a Southern Californian named Austin who had just been in Southeast Asia.

With my backpack off my shoulders, I went for a walk. Past Le Louvre, over Le Seine, to Le Cafe a few blocks away. I don't remember the name of the Cafe, I think it said "Flores" on one of its menus. There are so many cafes in Paris, I stopped at this one because I was tired of walking and it was on a nice busy corner. I saw something called a "Caesar salad" that was most certainly not Caesar (there was steak in it, but more essentially, there were no anchovies in the dressing and a poached egg sat in the center). That said, it was excellent. Though I'm no connoisseur, I had a Bordeaux with it that was one of the best wines I've ever had. Though that may have just been my tongue, which last tasted food in Delft.

I got to bed early, which is good because the next day was tremendous. I woke up at 7:45 to go to the Louvre with the three other guys from my dorm, and the line was less than 20 minutes. Of course we went to the Mona Lisa first, when only 20 people were surrounding it. We saw a lot of other amazing art, but the Mona Lisa stuck with me. Or rather, the crowd around it stuck with me. I think it's really interesting how art is "ordained" by aficionados and the general public. There were plenty of other really impressive pieces in the museum, but everyone gathered around the few famous ones: the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, Victory of Samothrace, etc. When the other guys left I went back to see the Mona Lisa again. There were maybe 80 people around it, so I waited and found my way to front and center. It was mad and wonderful. An art mosh pit.

I walked to the Notre Dame cathedral and grabbed a panini on the way there. There's a great garden just to the east of the Cathedral, where I took a nap for a while before heading back to the dorm.

I was planning on just writing for the rest of the day, but back at the hostel I met Pierre. He just got a job as a teacher in Paris and was looking for an apartment. He was just about to go to the Museum d'Orsay to meet some friends and see the exhibit "Cezanne to Picasso", so I went with him. We went the other way first and stopped at a cafe. "What beer do the French drink?" I asked. "The real French drink Belgian beer. But don't let them know." he said, with a very thick French accent. So we had a Belgian beer, "Leff". We talked about language and culture differences and played the game "spot the tourist". Outside the museum the game got easier: the tourists were the ones who stopped to look at the street artist's work. The museum was wonderful; I like Gauguin and Cezanne, but also a group vaguely related group called "Nabis" I didn't know about. After the exhibition Pierre and his friends went for drinks and I stayed to wander the museum some more. My favorites were the three or four rooms dedicated to Art Nouveau furniture and art, and the entire top floor just for Impressionists and Post-Impressionists.

At this point the sun would set in the next half hour, so I walked to the Eiffel tower, which seemed about a mile away. The lines were ridiculous of course, so I just walked around appreciating the strange structure.

Pierre had recommended I see Montmarte, which I knew from the movie "Amelie", with the scene where she follows the arrows up the mountain. I rushed over on subway and practically ran to the top. I reminded myself "it's not the hand", and ran back to the subway to catch it before they stopped running at midnight. Montmarte is a really sketchy area at night when you're further down the mountain side, but it's wonderful at the top.

The next day was dedicated mainly for traveling from Paris to Lyon. And having a fresh baked croissant in Paris. I was hoping to reserve a high speed train, but they were all taken. So I left Paris at 4:00 in the afternoon and arrived in Lyon 9:00. I knew where the hostel was, so I just had to follow the map. This wasn't so easy, the streets have to underlying structure and, as in Amsterdam and Delft, the rain was following me. After walking half a kilometer south and a a hundred meters uphill, I found the hostel and soaked in the view from the hostel's balcony. I met some people, a mechanical engineer from New Zealand and a teacher from Philadelphia, and we talked about where we'd been and where we were going. A good ending to a long day.

The Netherlands

On the train from Hoek van Holland to Amsterdam I got my first impressions of the Netherlands: narrow roads, green fields, rabbits, horses, sheep, cows, chicken, and lots of graffiti. As I started hearing more Dutch, I had the strangest feeling I was hearing British English. Some Dutch has really similar vowels and prosody to British English, but once you listen to the words you realize it's foreign. This is especially strange considering in London I kept thinking I was hearing a foreign language whenever someone spoke with a thick British accent.

Eventually we got off at Amsterdam Centraal. Amsterdam is a very strange city. It's beautiful in that it has a lot of older architecture and narrow alleyways, but it has a strange spirit. And I don't think it's the smoke coming from the "coffeeshops". As I found out later, there's a thriving underground art and music scene there, but the only signs you see on the surface are bits of interesting design here and there and some wonderful graffiti. Most of what is immediately visible caters very heavily to tourists.

In the late afternoon I found a bed at a Christian Hostel ironically located in the middle of the red light district. The first time I walked past all the scantily clad women with blacklit auras it seemed outrageous. Later I realized it's a lot like going to the beach in California. Kind of.

It's interesting to see what happens when a city decides to legalize prostitution and ignore all the marijuana. Most of the city is like most every other city. The red light district is weird, but that's fairly confined. There are a lot of people in the US fighting for different "liberties", and especially the legalization of marijuana. If the main side effects are just more hippies and laid back people, that's great. Everyone working on the "war on drugs" could focus on real drugs, and some sketchy groups of people would dissolve as their trade is usurped by standardized products.

The next morning a few things were vying for my attention: it had been a week so it was time to do my laundry, I wanted to see my friend Koen Mostert a little South of Amsterdam in Delft, and then there is the Van Gogh museum in Southern Amsterdam. And of course, I was still considering the possibility of staying another day or leaving immediately for some other city. While mulling over my options in the hostel hallway I ran into three girls who noticed my laptop and were trying to transfer photos from their cameras to iPods. We all ended up going to the Van Gogh museum together and I caught the train to Delft in the late afternoon. They were going North and I South, but we'll both be in Rome at the end of this month so I'm sure we'll meet again.

I met people on the train to Delft, as always:

• A mother, originally from Finland, who does customer service for Adobe in the Netherlands. We talked about the variations in different countries and languages. She says I'll like Copenahgen, and that I have to see Helsinki some day.
• An older guy from Haarlem who works for the telephone company in Amsterdam. Again, langauge is an easy target: I asked about the differences between Southern and Northern Dutch — and he smiled and told me how Northern Dutch sounds "ugly".

In Delft, Koen met me with a wonderful sign with pen and cardboard, reading only "Kyle" but in a great serif face he did by hand. We walked around Delft a bit before it started raining too hard to walk anymore. Pretty much immediately we started talking typography and generative art — it's nice to talk with someone you've never met face to face and still "know" them. Over breakfast the next day he told me about some of the posters hanging in his kitchen (he shares the house with a bunch of other people from his school). One advertised a "silent disco", which sounded amazing.

London to the Netherlands

After spending so much time at the Science Museum, I decided I'd visit the Natural History Museum the next day, before leaving for the Netherlands. Before I left, Basia took me over to see her mother. We only talked for a few minutes, but decided that when I came back through London we would all go to a pub and chat.

A busker playing Queen at Ealing Commons

Nearby the Natural History Museum is a restaurant called Daquise. I heard from Basia that my grandparents went there when they were in London, so I had some barszcz for lunch and soaked up all the Polish conversation.

The Natural History Museum had a huge line outside, but it moved quickly. Plus you don't really notice because the building itself is so impressive it keeps your interest. The Museum had tonnes of everything you can imagine. From birds to plants to dinosaurs. I was most amazed by this piece taken from a medieval trough that showed the work/rest days like tree rings. And of course there's the earthquake room, which is such a low magnitude I didn't notice the floor was moving until I looked at the walls. I guess California does that to you.

I still had some time until my train left for the ferry to the Netherlands, so I went to the British Museum — known best for its many "acquired" treasures. There were a few pieces I wanted to see, but it was closing so I could only get into the central area where I promptly began experimenting with the acoustics. Certain spots in that space have some of the longest natural delay I've ever heard.

Clapping at the British Museum

My train left from the Liverpool Street station, so I went over there and got dinner from Marks and Spencer. Marks and Spencer absolutely amazes me. It's really just a small grocery store, but every single product is "Marks and Spencer brand". Every product has the same design for their packaging — and it all looks very hip. I think their hummus is really good, too, but everything tastes good when you're hungry.

The only problem with buying food in the Liverpool Street station is that there are absolutely no rubbish bins in the entire station. The central area is two stories and bigger than a football field, and there isn't a single trash can. I looked for at least half an hour. If you find, let me know where. I'll give you a gold star and my empty yogurt cup.

From London the train went to Harwich (though no one knows where "har-witch" is, only "hair-itch"). There was a beautiful sunset followed by some staff leading a few passengers through a surreal empty train station onto a bus, which then drove into the ferry. It all seemed really sketchy, but then we took the elevator up and there were plenty of carpeted hallways and whatnot. The room was probably the nicest I'll stay in for a while. I got my first hints of a necessary bilingualism when the started announcing things in Dutch, and then English.

Inside my cabin, Harwich to Hoek Van Holland

We lost an hour crossing the timezones, and arrived at Hoek van Holland (Hook of Holland) at 7:30 in the morning. We had breakfast before disembarking, and I had a great meal with some sinaasappelsap. Somehow orange juice tastes better when it has such a ridiculous name.

There's plenty more to say about the Netherlands, but I'll save it for the next post — I'm still catching up on translating my short scribbles from the last few days into full sentences.

London

Getting off the plane, I felt like I was just in another American airport. That perception was fixed as I turned a corner into a narrow hallway and tried to pass a chap driving a cart on the right. He smiled knowingly and pointed to my left.

The next thing that lets you know you're in London is the CCTV cameras. You begin to understand why both punk and 1984 were born in London.

London's Circle Line Train

I sat next to a business professor on the plane. He was taking his students through London to get an idea of how things work over here. I followed them through immigration and found my own way to the train station. After accidentally getting on the wrong train to London and getting that figured out, I figured out the oyster cards, the underground, and caught a train towards Notting Hill. I was looking for Wake up! London, a hostel I saw in the Europe on a Shoestring guide, but it seemed to be under renovation. My next choice, Leinster Inn, was only a few blocks away.

Leinster Inn was borderline sketchy but pretty great. It looked like a lot of people were staying longer than a few days, and the rooms smelled like something foreign, but it worked out alright. I think there were 10 people on 5 bunk beds in my room.

I grabbed a late lunch, took a nap, and dropped my backpack before returning to central London to walk West down the Thames; starting at the London Eye and walking towards Parliament.

I returned to Leinster Inn for some rest, and met two people. One before I went to sleep: Carlos, an architecture student from Barcelona who came to work on his English; and one as I was falling asleep: Giem, who dropped his jacket on me. It turned out the next day Giem was pretty nice, even if I couldn't understand most of what he said because of his accent. I also met Malcolm, an Australian finishing a few months of travel; he told me how wonderful Porto was.

Leinster Inn at Midnight

The next day I decided I'd visit some galleries. To prep, I got breakfast at Natural Cafe, which is one of the kindest and tastiest organic cafes I've been to. The manager saw me looking at the menu outside and gave me a free drink coupon; I got a free mocha and he told me to keep the receipt for next time.

I went first to Trafalgar square and the National Gallery. It's strange how any large open space surrounded by buildings and containing sculpture will draw a crowd. The National Gallery was exquisite. I was most drawn to the Dutch painters they had in the permanent collection, but it's hard to forget Van Gogh and Rembrandt. The Degas were great, but not my favorites from him.

Next I took the underground to near St. Pauls, which I walked by, and over the Millennium bridge to Tate Modern. It was closing early for some reason, so I missed maybe a sixth of it, but eighty percent of what I did see was incredible. My favorites were Giamcometti and Rothko. Giacometti I've never seen in person before, and it's very different when you stand closely to one of his elongated figures and can only focus on the head, while the rest becomes abstract. Rothko was wonderful because there was a centralized dimly lit room dedicated to his large scale work (the "pause" paintings, as I remember them, the stillness/meditative ones with two large holes or stripes).

I walked West from Tate Modern and mingled with the various groups of tourists and listened to conversations: some highschool students, some Americans, a group of friends. Eventually I got to an area called "morelondon", quite the hip and stylized after-work hangout it seemed. There's a Marks and Spencers there, the first I saw — I'm amazed by the idea of a store where every product has the same branding. I got some mixed berries, hummus, and pita bread (or "pitta" over here) and walked over to "The Scoop" (an open air free music venue) where I had a tasty dinner and listened to some popish music.

I walked by the London Eye the day before because I new there was an installation nearby, "Wind to Light", but I should have walked East instead of West. I went back and walked the other direction, eventually finding it and being very inspired. It's interesting how a lot of the installation has fallen apart; I'd be curious to see what it would look like if it actively made use of that process. It also made me think more about how it is a sort of "physical transcoding", with no software in between, and what exactly software is. Software requires abstraction of some form, but to what extent before it is necessarily software?

That evening I finally managed to contact Basia's daughter, Klara, and found my way to their home (all the way to the Ealing Broadway station). I had a wonderful sleep and awoke to Klara's breakfast the next day. After breakfast I worked out the train and ferry from London to Amsterdam for the next day, and took off to the Science Center. I stayed longer than I expected, admiring their history of the steam engine, before grabbing some food from a street vendor and eating on the steps of the fountain outside Buckingham palace.

Another time-honoured English tradition, I returned to Basia's to watch "Big Brother" with Klara and two of her friends. Stefan came downstairs and we ended up talking philosophy until Basia got home from the opera, at which point we, of course, went outside and talked opera. Except I mostly listened: as Basia's friend pointed out, the US does not have an Opera tradition.

I wasn't sure about how I felt about London when I first arrived, it's a bit like New York City's younger brother, but how can you not love people who use phrases like "with the faeries" (not all there) and have headlines like "Yanks take Mickey out of Becks and Posh"?

Warsaw: Łazienki and the Warsaw National Museum

It's the last day of the tour, tomorrow we leave. We went only to Łazienki today, but it was amazing. It's this park with a palace in the southern part of Warsaw, near the park with the Chopin monument. The palace itself is on a small island, surrounded by bridges and random birds (I noticed maybe seven peacocks outside). They make you put slippers on your shoes before entering the building — it was unclear why at first, but very quickly you come across exquisite wooden floors that they want to preserve. The entire palace is decorated with frescoes, gold leaf, statues in a very Greek/Roman influenced style, and very dark (in light, not spirit) paintings I won't try and classify with a few early Romantic pieces. Of course, at some point the Nazis stormed the palace and shattered most of the statues, but they've been reconstructed. One made a really big influence on me: Hercules, in the second or third room, who towers above you with a slain monster at his side. He just looked so overwhelmingly strong, but not in a comic book superhero way. It made me think, "Maybe he wasn't a myth, but a real person who was turned into one." All the rooms really must be seen, there's so much wonderful art; photographs and explanations wouldn't do it justice.

From Łazienki we came back to the hotel. We had a few hours until we were to meet again for dinner, so I set out on a mission to find Matejko's "Stańczyk". Fortunately, the Warsaw National Museum isn't too far, but I wanted lunch first. I decided I'd try something new: McDonald's in Poland. It didn't work out, the place was so packed I could barely move, and I decided to find something else. Walking by H&M I heard "King Without a Crown" playing from some speakers hidden in the building. Tak. I found my way to the underground and got some pizza for 3,20 złotych (about a dollar) — it was a great deal, fresh, with some toppings; what's more, it was tasty. With pizza in hand I began walking east down Aleje Jerozolimskie (Jerusalem Avenue), and stumbled across the museum after four or five blocks. Inside, I tried to figure out the "procedure" without looking like a helpless tourist... which, I should mention, was almost successful: I dropped off my backpack with the coat-check lady, walked through the metal detector without buzzing, and got a ticket. Unfortunately, when he told me to go "left on the first floor", I forgot that meant "go up the stairs first", so I was scolded by one of the museum workers in Polish for entering an exhibition I didn't have a ticket for. But it all worked out, and I found the Polish painters. It started with some newer work, then a few Zakopane folk artists, and finally moved into a more classical style. You could spend days there and not get bored, so I tried spending as much time as I could with the paintings and sculptures that caught my eye. One of the recent pieces by Jacek Malczewski surprised me: a very simple line drawing on a small piece of paper, some of the lightest markings I've ever seen, but it was so beautiful. I see subtlety like that everywhere, but I need to learn to express it as delicately as he does. Another, a painting by Kazimierz Sichulski, gave me an interesting idea: he had a triptych, a study for some stained glass, and it reminded me of early Art Nouveau. I'm no art history buff, but I'd like to know if those sort of studies influenced the style of the movement. Eventually I found Stańczyk, he was waiting at the very end with some other work by Matejko. I didn't know what size to expect, I never looked up the dimensions, but it was about what I had hoped. I remember some vague thoughts on the crumpled letter next to him, the curtains, the sadness in his eyes... I let the thoughts flash through me, the other paintings already had my mind for that day. As I was walking away, I could sympathize with him: "That's it, that's all for now." It said on the plaque next to the painting that Stańczyk takes on Matejko's features. I can see that.

I took a long way back to the hotel, once I got to Nowy Świat I walked up and down for a while. I ran across an amazing accordionist from the Ukraine, and his Polish partner in crime, Bartez, holding a tip cup. One of the most comical things I've seen yet, Bartez half-danced for nonexistent tips, with exaggerated movements, while his partner lived and died with the notes from his accordion. I gave them everything I had left, and said thanks for the beautiful music. It started raining, so I shuffled quickly back to the hotel.

There was a dinner tonight with some żurek, gołąbki ("Little Pigeons", beef wrapped in cabbage), and some dessert. I had a very sour white wine — it must have been young, or just bad. It was kind of nice to see everyone one last time... but the end of the day, for me, was with Stańczyk and the accordionist.