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EUROPE, RUSSIA, AND CHINA 2 of 5

THURDAY, JULY 9. Wake refreshed and check clock, only 4:10AM. Memory of dream of prize-winning scientist being awarded his prize by a humorous colleague who shuffles through presentation booklet and jokes "Now for tomorrow's assignment" --- and there's another fragment of someone speaking from the "highest podium in the world" from a sort of OBELISK in a mad "Adding Machine" auditorium-courtroom. Lie debating, sleeping, then when it feels OK to be UP (don't know why, it's 11PM in NYC!), I get up and dress and write this. Now writing at 4:55AM 7/9. Hear 5:30 alarm click on at 5:15 and start bubbling at 5:25, making steam and bubbling into pot on right when alarm rings at 5:30. Nice entry, ready for day. Alarm goes exactly at 5:30 when water's done, sip tea, pack, and it DOES shut off from wall, then "off" in no known order. One's DELAYED realizations are strange: (1) Only Tuesday on train did it occur to me I bought Britrail without THINKING that this WAS a railroad-oriented trip, and (2) "This is the age of the train" in Waverly Station would not say HOW OLD the trains are, but tell of the ERA of the train. Lots of pigeons, gray buildings, some traffic this AM, and a FAIR quota of sexy travelers with nice crotches and thick-thighed blue jeans, one with T-shirt from Sheatless(?). People sit at closed gate at 6AM for 6:10 train as it pulls in. JUST Before train boards I notice I'd circled "Inverness-Glasgow" at 7:40AM and PANIC that I scheduled it WRONG. But as I sit in my for-now private car, I check that's for RETURN, and I'd scheduled OK. Whew. COULD see more of Edinburgh, but as skies get cloudier today I feel the weather was favorable for my visit. May RAIN today? Look at map to THINK to return to NORTH, but it'll depend on how today's sightseeing and scenery work out. Felt FLUSHED at 4AM: delayed niacin from 11PM ingestion? And irritation at being fucked? Cold from fresh breezes all day? Thank God for "No Smoking" section on car. 6:05 and written out. City windows BLOCKED to reduce some king's LIGHT tax! Eastern hills look more like high slag-heaps from some MINE. Rabbit running. Masses of white, then like TREES of Queen Anne's Lace, then yellow, then purple-spears of flowers. HUGE stands of yellow and red-purple and blue-purple lupine. Funny WASHING smell as we stop at stations. Men walk past REEKING of pipe-smoke. Lots of Edinburgh-Glasgow train-track in a TRENCH. Sometimes masses of white, red, and pink ROSES near stations, which are often PLANTED. HAD rained in Falkirk, and I try to contact Findhorn deva to get GOOD weather. She's haughty; well, impatient with me, then. Nice university(?) just west of Lenzie. ABSENCE of umbrellas, though it has JUST rained. Into Glasgow by tunnel. Car fills with EXHAUST. In at 7:21 exact. Off at 7:40. Buffet car HEATED: pork pie: fatty ham and aspic in hard dough for 45P; tomato and egg on wheat for 43P; oxtail soup (instant) tasting of CAN for 25P, passable breakfast for £1.13. Ride GRADUALLY turns less cloudy, but with squaky kid across way and DOG in front that's talked to seriously by its smoking parents, I'm in a grim mood --- and keep nodding off to sleep, too. Many EVERGREENS now, but sometimes hilltops are only GRASSY. SOME yellow patches on hills in sunlight, some nice streams in valleys, one ruined castle tower, some hotel-resort towns, and a couple GREAT brick-arch bridges, but all in all NOT a place to repeat. In early at 11:40, search Inverness for a place to eat, but end up at Wayfarers in the station for fairly decent salad with corned beef for £1.25, with orange juice. Still lots of sexy guys. Get schedules for LONG treks out of Inverness, debating. Will depend WHICH way I leave out of Forres depending on end of Findhorn tour. Leave Inverness in 6-people CABIN at 12:40. In Forres, walk to bus, it's 1:20 and busses are at 1:05 and 2:05! Phone to find they're on the message until 1:45. Have to taxi, a PAIN for £2.20. Small group stands outside at 1:45; I get brochures and Hilary leads tour. Place seems scattered: her tour-talk scatters, the facilities are scattered --- though the PEOPLE all seem HAPPY. Of course, THIS is the best time of year --- though it only snows 2-3 weeks, she says, but is IS damp. And you need a LARGE coat for INSULATION. Tour dining room, original garden, meditation hall, University Hall, pottery and candle and weaving shops, and outer gardens till 3:55. Talk to Swedish couple and they drive (after 3 tries) to Cluny Hill College for MORE scatter: shops open and closed, people moving about, nothing really ORGANIZED. Great building somewhat ill-used. Leave with NOT a good experience. Not even tempted to stay for a week's experience. Guide was turned off by nearby RAF base, though I commented that plant devas worked DESPITE jets' presence! Walk back to station at 5 and read Findhorn stuff and maps and decide to AVOID Aberdeen and go EAST, tomorrow, early, and next train is to Inverness at 5:47, which it about is. It arrives, leaves, goes, and I nod out of LOT. Into Inverness and wander looking for a hotel, toward castle, and come to Bed and Breakfast land, getting "No singles" from 3-4, at £5, then around to Ardross Hotel, for £7, and put down bag and at 6:55 get told of the Piper at 7 and Dickens to eat at. To castle and watch sexy crotches till piper arrives at 7:30, and to Dickens at 8 for International hors d'ouvres (dry sardine, juiceless smoked salmon, STRONG pate, cuke, pepper, carrots, shrimp under good sauce, buttered bread, peas, small bit of ham, small bit of smoked pork, small bits of other things --- and Soo Chen (?) duck: duck in shrimp and pork sauce, GREAT DISH on fried rice. And half bottle Moselle that seems to have NO alcohol. Interesting male singles to watch, one of whom says "This is a strange combination of English and Chinese" to one of the uncomprehending all-Chinese staff. Understatement! Back across COLD city to look at accordionist and piper at Northern Memorial Park across from my hotel, and to bed at 9:45, after long, good, HOT shower, hoping to be up at 6.

FRIDAY, JULY 10. Up at 1 (why 1?), 4, 5, and 5:30, and out at 6:10 to drizzle that hardly gets to the top of my head by the station. Comparatively many people but I still get separate 4-section in non-smoking with GREAT blond German-Scandinavian family with BEAUTIFUL husband and two boys and boy-faced wife behind me and two WET loaded campers in front with SODDEN hair. Off at 6:33 by my watch. Seeing large tracts of new, clean, uniform cream and yellow CONCRETE houses leads me to appreciate the rough STONE of dirty color from BEFORE. Part of the BEAUTY of the countryside is merely being able to SEE it after the rain and CLOUDS lift. CANNY Scots, to praise terrain somewhat less breathtaking than OHIO! THREE DEER yesterday, and lots of rabbits yesterday and today. Stray exhaust smell from engine --- no wonder car behind it is empty. Small patches of real WOODS look invitingly dim and tangled compared to neat farms and roads. It is possible that a "Wander-yahr" for young folks makes them realize that "having everything you want" (freedom, food, travel, adventure, luck, friends) is NOT having EVERYTHING (happiness, accomplishment, solid friends, real true possessions, CONTENT). As HOME is never so appreciated as after TRIP. At Dingwall the track north LOOKS like it leads to FLATTER hills than to the south. Better to LEAVE north to trip that would INCLUDE transportation to ISLANDS of north! Picturesque valley west of Dingwall. Now blossoms of yellow broom and purple heather---lovely. Buttercups by the yard, white march-flags, huge magenta spikes of delphinium (they were said to be larkspur). Marsh birds (bitterns or cranes), sea birds (terns and gulls), and land birds all intermingled. Another deer, big, running, and the two Germans and nodding sweet American (?) miss it. A second after I take up my "Achnasheen station" picture, a train pulls in across view! Two Germans talk of geography and their trip in the tender tones of lovers. 9:30 into Kyle --- NICE ride at end. Sign for NO ferry to Mallaig, but there IS one --- at 5PM! Yes, there IS a bus from Kyleakin to Armadale (and no idea if there's a ferry from Armadale to Mallaig). Up to tourist information to find if I have time to eat, but it's so jammed I dash back to ferry JUST as it leaves. HUGE jellyfish, "crowned" with orange and red to a diameter of about 8"! Quick five-minute ride, NO paying of 22P fare because there's no time to COLLECT it, and beeline for bus that leaves at 10:15 and 1:15. So at 10 there's STILL no time to eat! BUT shop for a Scotch pie (fatty and containing merely "meat") and a pork pie, both for 55P, and THAT fills me up. Skye is BARREN and EMPTY, and my idea to see Orkneys and ALL the others seems DIM: Switzerland surely has more impressive SCENERY, and for ferns and mosses give me Olympic Rainforest, for ruins and castles the chateau country of France or even Italy. Though the clear waters with jellyfish were fun, the Caribbean has better --- AGAIN, it's a canny country making the MOST of what it HAS: Open spaces, fabulous flowers, "different" people, and remoteness and "mystery." Bus across, some good shots, and right to ferry slip at 11:15 and it leaves at 11:15. So get on and watch cars on turntable as elevator accommodates 10-foot tides. Thirty minute ride, wild clouds, BARREN coasts, and in at 12:15. Off quick and there's train station and next train leaves for Fort William at 12:35! Down road to Bank of Scotland for lovely rate for $200 at 1.89, "Quite a good rate" on Friday, LAST chance before weekend, getting £10.5 my spoonless yogurt (for 19P, on train in last free 4-some, and write this while fingering yogurt and looking at people and wondering what to do NEXT as train starts at 12:45, do we go to Glasgow? People IN swimming at Airsaig! Just as I change from heavy sweater to regular jacket! Sleepy on trip! Maybe it DOES depend WHERE you go: between Lochailert and Glennfinnan the crags got VERY steep and towery, the train had to go through 3-4 tunnels through hill-spurs, and even a few waterfalls tumbled down and the brown pretty river, the road, and the rail had to jockey for the final space. Into Fort Williams at 2:20, having had a good look at Ben Nevis, which must be the clouded one. It COULD look smaller and be "the one in the middle." Hear we don't leave till 3:10, so I'm out for fish and chips and soup for £1.59, then get Oban schedule and find I can get there TONIGHT and get out to Glasgow TOMORROW if all goes well. We'll try! Off at 3:10, train crowded, fish messy. Photo of SNOW on mountains, and part of Finnish family sit across from me. Past Bay Bridge in STEEP carved Monisee Gap, with waterfall and bridges across scene. Corrour Summit at 1350 feet, FEW trees, and a STATION with a dirt road leading to it, guy on bicycle, girl on horse, NO houses! Here, all SCOTLAND looks like Skye. Tree roots --- rotted by bog? Odd to see YELLOW sand on bog-pool snow remains! OLD beach? FOREST fire killed PATCHES of trees, then BOTTOMS of trees, but bright red and brown against ALL new-green undergrowth --- too boxed in by threesome to get camera to door in time. Read in "Uncle Oswald" about poppy leaf from Findhorn and wool from Crainlerich field! Off train at 5 and find path to river, where it looks like the white bull MAY mount the brown cow suckling the gray calf, and I marvel at my cock-draw, but sadly he "doesn't come off." I get GREAT shots and LOVELY quiet. But at 6:30 it starts raining for SECOND time today, so I turn back toward Hotel Crainlerich. Into lounge and a whole bunch of tourists come in: they stay for a week and take day trips on bus. They go in to eat and I have a pint of Tartan, not so great. A foursome comes in and exchanges no conversation. At 7:30 I leave for the Public House, for a pint of McEwan's special. GREAT cast: humpy locals ogling passing girls from windows, a heavy-eyed (and heavy-titted) barmaid who's seen and been bored by it all ALREADY, old duffers red of cheek and eyeball who've been drinking for years, and in comes a leather dyke in bleached-blond crewcut that the barmaid hardly raises a heavy eyelid for. My second pint is making me full (piss) and stoned, so I enjoy everything immensely, including the pool player who graduates to the slots, wins four pounds, and his last win chunks out no 10P coins. "Turn'er off, mate, there's nothin' I can do, it's empty," she says boredly. He grumbles but doesn't argue. At 7:50 I finish and get up to "tearoom" for a full house and get an "egg roll" that's SCRAMBLED egg IN a roll, not BAD, and sit across from either an imbecile or a stoned-out person who's been on Iona for a few days taking pictures. He shows me books and chats about sun and rain. Train comes in and there's the cute little guy I'd seen earlier, and I ask him if this is the train to Oban and he says he hopes so with a charming modest smile and accent. I ask if I can join him. We sit silently watching scenery and slowly begin chatting, dashing back and forth to see increasingly beautiful scenery before it starts raining and clouds up. Does scenery just GROW on me or is it IN FACT getting more spectacular? He's Gilles ("in Scotland they call me Guiles," and I speak of Gilles de Mirbeck) Le Guen, no relation to Ursula Le Guin, who he's never heard of. Into Oban to Coliseum over town and busy streets, walk toward slide and I suggest we stay together and he says it's OK. Will he go along with EVERYTHING? Roam idly and up road and past what may be a loud all-male gay bar and up to FIRST B&B that's full and we're just told to continue up road. Next asks for £7 apiece and I say "For two?" as it's usually £5 for one, and she says "I'll not bargain, you can go elsewhere to shop around, do you want it?" and we say yes. LARGE room, one big and one small bed and HE says he always pays after, and I've always paid BEFORE. Bags down and out UP hill for MORE B&Bs, probably cheaper, reminding me of Mont St. Michel (he's from Brittany). To top, gate's closed, but path over wall is obvious and we're up to hollow, grassy, benched center, but it starts to drizzle and view is better from OUTSIDE, so we circle it quickly, other people through, check that main entrance IS through gate, and down to harbor to check full bar with puny sandwiches, empty restaurant, and back to bar for cider and a meat sandwich that's TINY (for 30P) and then an egg and tomato that's OK, and it empties out by 10:30, so we're up to room and I take bath and get back in towel to find him alert on his back in bed, so I say "What I have to say is difficult," "Yes?" "Can you guess?" "No," and I say with much nervous pauses "I think it'd be nice if we slept together." "No" very quickly, a tight smile. "OK." To bed, up to lock door, he says he'll wake me at 8. Sleep easily.

SATURDAY, JULY 11. Wake at 7:30 and up at 7:45 to wash and dress and out at 8:15 to look over town. Breakfast at 8:30 at tiniest table with quiet Gilles, other couples chatting, and one egg, lots of bacon, toast and tea adequate, dry oatcakes, and out at 8:45 to shake hands, pay bill, and down to north dock for ticket and over to south dock for a john visit, and record "Alas alack/my aching back/no one ere/ to suck/ and thas a fact." "I know this guy called Andy/ I think he's very randy/ he stuck his cock up her nose instead of up her fanny." "This wall is avelbel in paper back." "I have got a gigantic piece," with a drawing a handspan long: "Andy Baird is a wank." "I love cock sucking/ As I write this I'm having a wank. I want to suck your cock if you are between 14-19. I'm a poof. I like sucking big cocks, my name is xxxxxx." "As in Poofter's Froth, Wyoming?" "Painter, painter, all in vain, the shit house artist strikes again." I pick up more brochures and join CROWD as the Caledonian comes in and CAL-MAC is Caledonian (hotel chain) MacBrayne (ferry chain) conglomerate. People off quickly and on quickly, waiting ramp for one last running couple. Fast, fast: ferry leaves Oban 9:58, sit on deck with binox, to Craignure at 10:30, bus leaves at 11, into Fionhport at 12:23, told to catch ferry at 2:40. Onto ferry at 12:26 and it leaves at 12:30. When sun is out, hills ARE grand, and Staffa looks spectacular from LAND. Inclination now IS to take the Northern Scotland package and use the maximum out of it. Land at Iona 12:39. NOT a great feeling (1) the monastery ITSELF is mainly 15th Century, having fallen into disrepair because funds were misused. Argyll gave it to Scotland in 1899, a year before he died, and NOW it's a boisterous community that used the OLD buildings in a NEW way, rather than preserving OLD ways and usages. "Chapel" is green-curtained and wood-chained, Abbey itself a mishmash of old and middle-aged and new, and it seems ANOTHER "canny Scot" thing to get tourists HERE. Coffee shop rather charming with all sweets and toasted ham and cheese for 65P, WITH a brownie and 2 10P glasses of orange squash, which is the only drink not "fizzy." Home-made banners decorate the walls with religious motifs, and I get chance to take notes 1:45-1:55 as they toast my sandwich. No time to eat and rush back at same time, and they take GREAT individual care with wrapping (fudge 15P). Toasted sandwich for 30P was GREAT. To Episcopal Church for visit, supermarket for Staffa/ Iona/ Mull picture book for 85P. As I walk toward ship at 2:45 it hits me: I left my bag ON the ship under the seat! Look; it's NOT under seat. Ask happy humpy watchman: "Ask the captain," Ask captain, "You've got a lot of checks in there." Gasp. "Thank you," and didn't get the FEELING he wanted money, only APPRECIATION of his TRUST. "Thank you," I said again. Count (guiltily) and they're all there. Back to SAME front seat behind driver of bus, and now patchy SUN'S out for photos. Into bus at 3 and take off warm sweater. Bus off at 3:04. Deer high on hill, sheep and goats near on road, seals on rocks and in lochs, waterfalls, and clouds and green greens. Looking at "The Mount" I can see how people built CASTLES. ONE-lane roads ALL through, with "passing zones" for two cars to pass. Tide usually colorfully out. Forget Shetland ponies and HORSES on bluff-tops. Onto boat at 5, looks good to BE on schedule! Binox for Toronsay and Dunt (?) back, gulls fighting in wake, clouds over hills, water still dotted with jellyfish and again first down ramp at 5:33 and really WALK FAST to station. Foodstand closed at 5:30, train leaves QUICKLY though they say they WAIT, and it's pretty FULL. I sit next to old wife and it REALLY starts raining. We chat, more and more warmly, she gives me part of candy, he'd worked on railroad, knows conductor, who gave him tea with milk SHE doesn't like, offers it to me, and I say I'd had no dinner, they bring out chocolate-covered wafers and two meat and tomato sandwiches! Pass MILITARY installations: explosive storage depots, undergroups that he serviced by rail and passwords; Army training grounds, and Polaris submarine sites, ALL West of Glasgow, and sunken Greek sugar ship. She talks of war: husband blown out of basement and lives in far-north hospital; baby hanging by nappie from picture-hook on wall; eggs on plate whole in ruined house. Drivers EXCHANGE on trains and sleep home EVERY night --- and spectacular scenery, though rain over Loch Lomond hides Ben Lomond but makes surrounding woods VERY romantic. Lots of flowers. I thank them MANY times, into Glasgow on time at 9:02, and out to HEAVY rain so I'm across to North British Hotel and get room for WEEKEND for £17 (£20 during week for business usage) and up to room to drop bag and down to AWFUL Scotch Broth soup ("Hebridean soup" indeed) and mixed grill that's underdone and same doughy sausage and good small steak and oily headwaiter takes LONG time for wine and I take it in CUP first. Kid finally brings toast and butter since they didn't have rolls and I finish at 10:05 as everyone leaves. Up to jerk off with spit after trying all THREE mirrors (closet too HIGH for sitting in chairs on pillows, dresser triptych too SMALL for good view, so it's sink biggie, quickly. TV on and catch end of Ponelle's "La Clemenza di Tito" with James Levine conducting, with Tito of Eric Tappy, Sesto of Tatiana Troyanos, Vitello of Carol Neblett, and Anne Howells and Catherine Molfitano and Vienna Philharmonia, using Tivoli in Rome and Caracalla as phony backdrops and LAVISH costumes and HUGE phony scales. Garishly great. It's ITALTELEVISION and GERMAN production. Hear announcements for films tomorrow and watch end of "The Cat People" with a VAPID man and Simone Simon changing into a panther and getting killed. Tom Conway a STUPID psychiatrist. Exhausted to sleep at 12:30 at TV end.

SUNDAY, JULY 12. Wake at 7:30 and debate lightwork, but my mind's not on it. Turn on TV and get ENGROSSED. Some religion, but mainly news and education (duck-observer talking of population increases, someone teaching Gaelic, something on computers and lots of weather reports that usually say the same THING: "clear early but showers likely later," or "showers now but clearing later" for different parts of the country. Then I get addicted to CEEFAX, computerized, with news, sports, recipes, and biblical quotes. Sort through my bags putting things in order, having decided to stay here again tonight, and come across my receipt that has "full English breakfast" checked! Quick look at the information brochure, breakfast till 10; quick look at my watch, 10! Dash down and the waitress says "It's up to the chef," and I'm seated at 10:05 for a "full house:" fairly uncooked bacon, fat and white, but not mushy, and sausages doughy, and egg too-hastily cooked --- frazzled around edges and rawish in the middle. Eat quickly but I'm the last out. Feel guilty about not tipping and get change and give her 30P. Feel better. Set schedule for rest of day and dress and put stuff away and get out at 11 after saying I'll stay for another day and is museum open SUNDAY AM? "Oh, yes," says porter. Wait for 1 or 6 bus and "Oh, no" says museum sign: 2-5 on Sunday. I debate writing, but walk down Kelvin Lane past Kelvin Hall to the Hunterian on the University of Glasgow campus, and posters say it's closed all DAY Sunday. Guard assures me botanical gardens are open Sunday. Walk up closed Byres St., fellow sitting reading with huge yellow antiques placard between knees, lots of sexy crotches on rather plain-faced men. Gardens ARE open. Kibble House small, glasshouses opulent in orchid-smell and bird-chirp and flowers of many kinds. Look at silkworms and Kelvin River and decide not to buy guide and return to Museum: it's huge. Through armor to paintings: Dali's "Crucifixion" and Whistler's "Gray and White #2" interesting, and lots of French and Italian --- like Monticelli, A.J.T., 1824-1888 --- more modern than Turner? VERY impressive. --- and English and Scotch work. Down to history and zoology and modern exhibits, long line at coffee shop, and find I'd missed EARLY Italy! Back up at 4 and catch it, buy £1.25 of books and out at 4:30 to wait for bus in SUN SO BRIGHT I WINCE. Get bus driver to let me off closest and go to the cathedral. Arrive at 5:15 to find it's only open 2-4 on Sunday! Wander FLAT tombstones and then leave dejectedly when I notice the plaque saying there's and EVENING service at 6:30! So I walk to Necropolis Gate, that closes at 6, and wander around VERY phallic pyramids and statues and tombs, taking a few shots, and get BACK down at 5:55 to see two men enter cathedral. I stand at door (which, since they didn't SEEM to have a key, may have been UNLOCKED (as in Crainlerich) and they come out to put out a sign, "Church service now in progress." "No visitors allowed," he says. We chat back and forth and he says I can come in for the hour-long service of anthems and prayers. "You can sing with us." Fat CHANCE! This recalls earlier today when Japanese girl accosted me with "You Christian?" "No," and she pointed to her written script about "the Messiah." In at 6:10 and look around: dim, unified, with a pleasant Peter allowing me to look, glad to have me for service. Decide I don't want to wait till 7:30 to leave and exit at 6:20. Provand's Lordship looks permanently closed. Walk along George St. to find Kentucky Fried Chicken: 1 leg and 3 meaty ribs and "limon (lemon) drink" and apple pie for £2.12.5 (15% VAT for eating in). Very tight boxes on passing kids. Out at 7 to hotel for "The Spiral Road" from 7:15-9:30, Rock Hudson finding God and his need for Else (a wide-spaced-eyed Gina Rowlands) in the Bornean Jungle healing lepers under Burl Ives. Pretty jungles and some nice-chested natives. At 10:20 I decide I'm hungry, or would like a pint. Check-list: restaurant closed at 9, bar at 10PM! Take bath and back for various series and news for "The Killing of a Chinese Bookie" with an improvising Ben Gazarra being totally unlikable as a strip-joint owner who gets into debt and is forced to kill three people. Ridiculous that he DOES it, getting shot and wandering off to NO ending at ALL. 10:30-12:15 and I don't even feel like jerking off. Had got train schedule, too: 10:10-3:10 and 12:05-5:36, and I'll probably take earlier. To sleep reviewing trip to date.

MONDAY, JULY 13. Wake at 6:30 and lay till 7 and write till 7:45 and down to breakfast of Peterhead kippers, VERY bony, though the bones are so small I GUESS they're edible. Nice smoky taste and pleasing texture, but lots of skin and GUNK. Lots of bread to push down bones. Up to shit and worry about hemorrhoids and SMELL. Hope nothing's wrong. Back to CEEFAX and they're worried about Russia invading POLAND again. Tenth straight night of teenage-mob violence on British unemployment, though I've SEEN nothing at all. Great weather report: on left "Rain in places," on right: "Rain at times." Yep. Finish this at 9:15, up to date, and sky partly CLEAR outside. Getting jitters for last lap of "Overture to trip." Sort stuff into "past" and "present," remembering to sort out (1) ticket for suitcase, (2) London map, (3) rate sheet for hotel, (4) intro to tour. Clothes together, CEEFAX went OFF at 9AM so NOTHING to watch on TV. Pay £25 bill, getting rid of some change, and have £57 left for possible book shopping, taking CASH with me too. Train still not announced at 9:55 as I sit in sun-filled Glasgow Station --- another MAP PAGE gone with Glasgow! AND today is LAST day Britrail pass is good, AND last day for pounds (well, tomorrow AM, too). Why should I be STRAINING to write anything? AGAIN it happens: at 10:01 I decided to ASK "London trains leave from here?" "No, Central Station." "How far?" "Ten minutes --- two blocks to Garden Street and turn right." I dash out, down, right, down, in, train 3: "Over there?" "Which CHANNEL?" "One." Dash over and get on train at 10:09! Announcement we'll be DIVERTED. Buffet car opens at 11. Diverted WHERE for how LONG? It's good it's CLEAR, since it's so flat one sees FAR. Girl behind babbles on and on and guitar amateur twangs and thumps. I blaze up for QUIET NON-SMOKER for partner (If he insists on smoking, I decide, I'll not bathe. Paper and window FULL of Charles and Di, over two weeks away on 29th. Party Congress starts in Poland tomorrow. Check Scotch tour booklet ($110 for 10 days) and it does NOT include Mull and Iona, which I've SEEN, and includes most of the islands I'd LIKE to see. How great! 11AM pass FIRST freight train: cool. Observe how the YOUNG tend to be OPEN and CHARMING (and busy and noisy and lively) and old are closed and irritable and gruff (and lazy and quiet and nearer quiet of the grave(?)). When urge for quiet OVERPOWERS, one grows deaf and blind and eventually dies for REAL, as quiet and unlively as you can get! Dead SHEEP earlier in week and now dead CALF so bloated its legs spread WIDE apart over round gassy belly. Turns out that the route through Kilmarnock is the diversion: we'll be in London about 30 minutes late, this route is 55 miles LONGER than central one. Leaves THIRD way for NEXT time --- and third LOOKS sightliest. Lovely quote by Hermione Badderly recounted by the actress who'd worked with Noel Coward (chattering woman in movie of "Brief Encounter"), "If I don't work, I sit around thinking how bad I feel," like me on train idly fearing worst for next stages of trip. Seems to be DELAY in Carlisle --- thank goodness it's not a day I'd planned close CONNECTIONS for! Though I DO want stamps and books in London. Lunch at 2 with fellow who explains EVERYTHING to me. ELECTRIC line was out so we had to go DIESEL, which was why doors, buffet car, and air conditioning didn't work, being geared for electric only. He's from Glasgow, with train and trams and toyshops. Blackpool's IS Coney Island and he's looking forward to Disneyland. Roast chicken and bacon and "Chipolata" (sausage) and potatoes and peas and carrots and oxtail soup and cheese and wine for £10.20, GOOD, but it's the luxury, not the QUALITY. He recommends FOGLE'S bookshop SOMEWHERE south of Euston, so I'll just grab a cab THERE. GOOD SHOW. Very content at 3:05. Into Rugby at 3:40; well, not ONLY 30 minutes late! 4:15, 65 minutes late, just pass Wolverton --- TIRED of train and it'll be NO time to shop! SWORE he said the Biffie Bar, but it was the BUFFET Bar that was closing. Over two hours late --- imagine if I'd planned to get in at 5:35 and was 2 hours late! In at 5:05 SAID to be 94 minutes late, making the LATER one 7:09. Bad ENOUGH. £24.5 for room leaves me £11 and change. No more worry about SPENDING! Into room at 6. Two breakfasts, no drinking glasses. Shower, put stuff together, and get Chris, our guide, at 7:20 for these notes: luggage in lobby by 8:15, train car 14, seat 62; we're duty free and will lose an hour. Breakfast at 8:30, Victoria to Folkstone 10:04-11:26, Folkstone to Calais 12-2:50; Calais to Paris 3:30-6:30, and dinner AT the Sheraton (given 60F per person per meal. AM tour of city, then free. 7:30AM Thursday train to Berlin. Russia, Hotel Cosmos. Need pounds for lunch on boat. EMPTY camera into East Berlin, Poland, Russia, China, and particularly Mongolia. Chris says, "After Russia, I don't drink water." Russia trains just LEAVE, so don't wander. 10 women and 14 men, including Chris, I count, but some of THESE are from the OTHER group. No shorts in Kremlin and Lenin's tomb OR revered places. NO shoulder bag in the Kremlin. Paris tour: leave hotel 10AM, return 12:30-1. Seat 15 on Paris-Berlin train, train 435, coach 13 at 7:30. Back to my room, reminded of Bette Davis's altered line: "Fasten your seat belts, it's gonna be a rough train ride!" Lots of LOUD, SMOKING, querulous, stupid couples, though it's rather nice to be 15 men and 10 women. Out to pass LOTS of lovely form-fitting, bleached and worn blue jeans over NICE thighs and arms, and down Victoria Street past lovely glass block-houses incorporating the best of Lever House and Habitat. Lovely FEEL. They're CLEANING Westminster Abbey, a REAL kick, and there are festive light on the embankment. Busy walk, past Downing Street, which I'd never passed before, and to Nelson Column and dizzying array of lit buildings, pubs, royal guards, and tourists. To the Post Office and not many STAMPS but buy telephone and TV licenses and spend £8, quite perfect. Back along castles on Pall Mall and wander past Clarence House and Marlborough House and seem to find the Royal Enclave: guards all over, blocked roads, lovely country-like manors in City-Center. Lit windows hit Charlie and Di, and out to Buckingham Palace Square, festive for marriage with torcheres on poles to Buckingham Palace Road and hotel, MORE nice arms and chests and crotches. Up to room and watch "Hammer House of Horror" and Laurel and Hardy in "The Chimp" until 12:30. Bed setting alarm for 7:40, but lie awake awhile (having eaten two breakfasts and two teas) rehearsing the trip. EXCITEMENT can occur WITHOUT fear and STILL feel vaguely uncomfortable and sleep-avoiding.

TUESDAY, JULY 14. Wake at 5:30 and lay and think and up at 6:45 to jerk off rather quickly and shower and repack and get ready for the day and PARIS. Down with bag at 8. Chris in blue jeans already, and I write this before our champagne (I hope there are more bottles than the 4 table white and one table red we had no trouble killing last night) breakfast at 8:15. We're not seated till 8:30, and I move toward a group with George, that looks like it won't overflow the table, but after I sit, one fellow's obviously left out. The single old woman at the table monopolizes the conversation with "bathroom door," "Students," "Vladivostok" and other nonsense. Interestingly, another single moves from a 6-table so a couple can sit, so we're a couple. Olga from Canada is charming, PARENTS from Paris and never overseas. "Champagne" is Asti Spumanti; which she calls "glorified ginger ale." Same breakfast, quickly served, and I look at brochures before we snake to platform 7 for the 10:04 to Folkstone. More smoker places wanted, so smokers have to sit in non-smoking. We're full up and I write while others sit quietly. Ken chimneys: turn with wind. Chris assigns our seats on Calais-Paris train. Into Folkstone 11:33. Onto boat at 12. For $50 I get 261.5F, leave at 12:15, AWFUL line for meal (and entry, reading "Oswald,"), end up paying ALL English money EXCEPT 50P, 10P, 5P, 2P, 1P, 1/2P! Go for Cointreau and it's 70F or £5.95, but ONLY ENGLISH CHANGE. Damn! Midge, however, is there and gives me 20£ bill! I GIVE her change (she says "You owe me," yeah!) and owe her 70F. Sit on top past BROAD beach at Calais, in at 2:55, having gained an hour. Made UP 10 minutes! First people off at 3. Into train at 3:11 and of course the smokers are right in the nonsmoking section and nonsmokers (me) are in smoking sections. The goony UCLA tax teacher talks drivel ALL the TIME. Italian type (Hungarian?) smokers won't change with me. LOVELY train! Leave Calais 3:40. England: hilly with TREES separating fields, or stone fences. France is FLATTER and tends to have bigger fields and GROUP the trees into copses more. People jabber in car behind. French have FAR fewer flowers and more farm animals: geese, ducks, pigs. "Joe, I know you were in the arms of Orpheus." In at 6:27 EXACT, but to 6:47 onto bus, JAMMED station. Bus moves 7:10. Paris is wrought-iron balconies! Into hotel about 7:30, ask for message, must have room number. Get room number (510, change from 317) and he gives message by NAME. ? "Why didn't you give me the message BEFORE?" "You had to have a ROOM." Also, not two KEYS. I say to Chris, "That's not good," but they DO have a spare. I phone JJ (after phone doesn't work FIRST time) and he says he'll be over at 8:15. I put things out of bag and meet him at his YELLOW Porsche, resplendent in PINK-striped suit, laughs at my GRAY-striped jacket. He'd made reservations at 8:30 at Quai d'Orsay, and I have HOT Pleurotes and Girolle salad, and he has great taste and texture in brains in aspic. We both order duck in raisins and apricots, tasty sauce, and he has a rhubarb tart and apricot tart TOO and I a VERY tangy gateau aux cassis frais. Out at 10:30 and he says "something may happen" around the Trocadero. Some bridges jammed, footbridge closed, sidewalks dangerous with fireworks being thrown. Move up and up, river filled with bateaux mouches, some with spotlights piercing air. We get down to river edge and it starts at 10:55, still LIGHT. Streamers up, then floral bouquets, then aerial shots, music, narration, then more shots, alternating, with some HUGE expanses, even from bridge, even from lower level of Eiffel Tower, denuded of restaurant for loss of weight. Again and again, taking pictures beyond end of reel, possibly. Last one is great, but there were some GREAT colors: pink and beige and violet, and some very BRIGHT ones like white flares, and sounds of whistles. They diverge, converge, run parallel, and go up singly and in bunches. Ends at 11:35, and a HUGE traffic jam, so we walk to Champs de Mars, where they are STILL sending up private crackers, SOME people with bandaged hands. Royal police supplement local police, but they don't seem to arrest kids who throw crackers at people's FEET. My ears ring a bit. Slowly back to car through smell of satay, lots of places folding up. Drive back through wild traffic to hotel by 1:10, getting in JUST as George is going to bed. He saw them too, but Chris could only see reflections off adjacent buildings.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 15. Wake at 6 for some reason, and up at 7 to shower and put on fresh clothes. Down to breakfast at 8:30 with George, who's becoming fast with loud others, and I put plan for today together. Bus tour goes out for the Paris AM tour at 10:05. MANY OTHER tour busses. Cool weather (but more sunny) is TYPICAL of July! FABULOUS FIREWORKS remnants ALL over. Pass and STOP at Trocadero, pass Invalides, Concorde, Champs Elysee, Parc Monceau (Montparnasse Cemetery open till 6, Sartre there). There's still ONE vineyard on Montmartre, yielding "Le Piquette de Montmartre," the very bad wine of Montmartre!" "Opera House is the biggest theater in the world." LIVING TRUST re-explained: have 8 to reduce $800,000 tax at 70% to 30% for $100,000 for each of 8. TRUSTEE can be anyone. Off at 12:20 at Tour St. Jacques which has a statue inscription changed skillfully from Experience to Barometre to Experience du Shitometre! Also toured art exhibit below Sacre-Coeur, sorry that our time there didn't allow me to climb to the tower, which I hadn't realized you could do. 12:35 into Train exhibit --- Orient Express in 1883 permitted tourists to CROSS boundaries without changing trains. Contest can be mailed: (1) Le Bon Usage author; (2) Tintin author; (3) Adolphe Saxe, (4) Rene (?) Magritte; (5) Ne me quitte pas is Brel? (6) Maigret --- Simenon is BELGIAN? I get 577F for $100, MUCH better!! Buy two 100F tickets for ballet after phoning JJ at 3:30. Also eat, ordering Mechoi, but he GIVES me sausage and liver and steak and potatoes, and a Kronenbourg beer, which IS from Alsace. Sit looking at people, two beers sitting well. Pleased with exchanged rate. Then realize that the stamp place closes at 4, so I grab a cab for a VERY slow ride. Fare starts at 8F and moves up to 36F, for which I pay 40F, over $7. Of course I get there at 4:10 and they're closed. I'd been unified with them that I was coming; they look at me, and one buzzes door after I mouth at them. They joke in French, which I obviously don't understand, and youngest one OPENS for me. I say I have 400F and she totals up all of two sheets to 419F, so I get those, VERY pleased. Stand on corner content, then decide to walk to Montparnasse Cemetery. But it soon palls, Metro is a transfer, but bus 28 passes by. Try wrong direction, then right, and bus is 3F and comes right away, quick ride, and Gaite stop is right AT a gate that's closest to hotel. Wander through 4:30-5:30, debating vaguely that I'm looking at "dear Grandmother, dear friend, dear neighbor, dear pumper of station 453, dear husband" because I'll NOT have any of that BY myself of FOR myself. Tired and rather bored at similarity of little outhouses or flat slabs, don't bother looking for Sartre, and out to SIT on bench, acutely aware of HOW MUCH of my life is on SEX: to ballet for crotches, opera for ballet, dance for bodies, movies for pretty men, cemeteries for sexy nude men covering their faces and mourning as man reaches up from beneath (as in Montparnasse, with no NAME), and sit watching PEOPLE as CRUISING. Rather many women look, too, and men rather DON'T. Some sexy numbers. At 6 back to hotel to pack for tomorrow, and George is in and tells me tomorrow's plans: Paris-Berlin via Jeumont, Maubege(Fr)-Charleroi(Belge)-Liege(Belg)-Germany: Aachen, Koln, Wuppertal, Hamm, Hannover, Helmstedt, Marienborn, Berlin. Downstairs to moon over young Californian writing postcards next to me, and Jean-Jacques arrives at 7 sharp. We're up to Ruche(?) (they said before they'd change dollars) and he has liver which he says is OK and I have veal CHOP cordon bleu, not bad, and a red wine and he takes a fig tart and I get 7-8 profiterolles and biscuits of sugar that I put in my bag --- one breaks and crumbs. He says it'll take half an hour to get to the ballet, so I wolf down the dessert and go to pay the bill, and though wine is 37F he only charges me 32F, so he totaled the whole thing and subtracted 120F, which is great. Down and he's parked RIGHT at the DOOR. Quick drive across town and we're parked close to theater at 8:30! Program is 15F, which JJ wants to pay, but he has no CHANGE, except to tip the elegant lady who shows us our seats. It feels like a royal box in the tiny theater with only about ten orchestra rows visible below us, but three levels ABOVE us (with fourth above that). Stage is bare at start, with too many characters, and they're doing the play AND the opera. It's pretty bad. We agree it's academically interesting only. Man is oldish and unpleasantly dressed in loose white satin. She's oldish and overthin. Chorus looks like it stepped off the street with NO rehearsal at ALL: Never together, but it COULD be "canonic" choreography, but with no discernible RHYTHM. Men are over-made-up, and try to be too pretty with dark hair greasy and slicked back and over-brilliant eyes. No male costume is the least bit sexy, but the woman's slit gowns in black velvet lined with white satin over pink-white leotards is VERY pretty. We walk to top levels, for spotlights, during intermission, but WORST seats are BETTER than our classic 10F Paris Opera seats. Down for second act, SOMEWHAT better, and masks dropping on dead Violetta is nice touch, but we BOTH think of how well BEJART would have done it. We talk VERY agreeably and may share a trip on the Orient Express to Istanbul and HE may come to NYC in October. Hotel at 11:30, amicable goodbye, and George is asleep. I toss a bit and sleep about 12.

THURDAY, JULY 16. Wake a few minutes before THEY ring OUR alarm (set at 9) at 5AM. I shower quickly and pack and get suitcase out and we're down to breakfast at 5:45, me last one in, no more orange juice (CANALS in France), and I'm last to leave at 6:05. We board bus at 6:15, get to Gare du Nord at 6:30, train arrives at 7, and from LOVELY lit Trans-European Express for Brussels and LOVELY double-decker train to Dunkirk, WE get an old-fashioned green-velvet-seated, compartmented, non-airconditioned, non-luggage-carred (bags in HALLWAY and overhead) train for 13.5 hours! "Smiley ("Talkie," says another) Bob" begins to REALLY wear about his $8 "real plastic leather" bag with wheels from Hong Kong and his singing and his idle chatter. Dour Mr. Hoerning is across from me and only smiles when I suggest we open the window, finding a PERFECT 1/2" prop in a beer-can top that fell out of the air-valve enclosure that had been used as an ashtray. Mrs. Blum complains about leaving bag of cheese and Mr. Blum worked as an engineer on Cape Canaveral, his son was in computing before he died, and HIS sons graduated from Albuquerque and will stay on as a computer consultant. He's charming and intelligent, retired 16 years, and she's just a harridan. The Amer-Eng couple completes our 6-some and agrees that we really SHOULD have had a better train for our 13-hour ride. (START OF BOOK 2, PAGE 47) Blums go for stroll at 8:35 and the compartment lapses into total silence. Into Belgium past Jeumont at 9:35. Belgium is mostly villages, and we leave to eat lunch at 10:30. Start at 11, ordering wine for 20F, and at 22F I'm left with 5F piece and 2F piece, RATHER like BRITAIN. Good breaded veal, potatoes, and salad, and chocolate "sundae" for dessert. Horning opens up: was in German Army, then in Nice, and to Australia in 1956. Chris is British, going to "10,000 LI TRIP" next and then to America to new Jules Verne branch in NYC. Better after 1/2 liter wine, and we're into Aachen about 11:50 and sit until 12:25. Into Cologne at 1:20 after nodding for maybe 15 minutes. Out 1:28. German houses have dark timbers cross-hatching their white stucco sides. Glad it's NOT sunny and hot (merely gray and warm) in the non-airconditioned car. 2:22 into Hagen, trip just half over. Had never noticed before that staring at a railroad track produced the illusion of a track STATIONARILY FASTENED to my train with the ground zipping along somewhere BENEATH it. At DIVERGENCES, of course, the tracks become ALIVE AND GROWING. German churches and towers have a TIGHT ECONOMICAL GEOMETRICITY that's rather UNromantic and strait-laced. At 5:50, about to enter my first communist country, I feel small anticipation, but no foreboding. West Germany is neat, green, fielded, canaled, industrial. Pass a cemetery with flowers. Sexy guys in jeans common enough. Single people working in fields. What will the change be? Helmstedt last totally free city before New Territories! I tried beaming out and what I GOT was delicious anticipation of Hansjorg and Christel. Dinner at 6 with the Hennings and Paul, and these people have TRAVELED; Paul to Kathmandu and by "Encounter Group" 16 weeks overland from Tierra del Fuego to north Brazil and then to 17 weeks overland from Capetown to Tangier. The Henins have built rafts for their truck in Africa between Uganda and Rwanda (or somewhere) and have been to Tirupati and actually STAYED in Buckingham Palace on Dal Lake (where she bought the furniture and never got it!). Beer is 3.2M @4.5/S = $1.44, and when I give him $1 and choice of 2F and 5F he just takes 7F, so I paid $1.14 for it! Stand in aisle watching and there's a deer about 4' high with two 5" prongs, tan and wide-eyed, not 20 feet from roaring train. We're told we must carry our own luggage to platform. Blums sleep almost ALL day and people have fun trying to set Mrs. Henin's computer-card ALARM. East seems like TAMED: more woods, more fallow land, more slop around factories. IN guardhouse of photo 3.7 were two guards ON TOP and two HIDDEN behind door on bottom, door open against direction of travel. Past large tracts of trees which make living in West Berlin possible, and into station. Look right out window and THERE'S Hansjorg! George agrees to bring my bag in from the hall so we drive off to Le Bou Bou. I have Tomate; pastis and grenadine half and half, they champagne and raspberry. Pfifferlinge mushrooms are GIROLES in France! Have strong but good kidney for dinner, managing four meals today OK. We talk of travel and Amy and how much we like each other. They insist the Gevray Chambertin is great (for 52M), but it's not and they're disappointed. Talk and talk, they drive me back to hotel at 1:30AM. Knock and George says he HEARD but thought it was next door. Down for spare key and to bed.

FRIDAY, JULY 17. Again wake early, but don't feel at all tired. Shower and down to fabulous breakfast buffet: scrambled eggs, sausage, cereal, ham, cold cuts, orange juice, coffee. Out to bus at 9 and grab first seat. 2.32 for $5 for 11. 60M. Tour bus at 9: Kaiser Wilhelm Church, streets, military buildings, Templehof now U.S. Air Force base --- city ruled by four allied Commandants, MILITARY people with NO PLANS to change. Two million West Berliners, 1.2 million East Berliners. Baroque interlinking East-West railroad/ employees/ pension/ payment ludicrous involvements. Off at 10:30 to Reichstag. Out at 11: very ACADEMIC: photos, MUCH text, few THINGS save for toys and dollhouses and military equipment in central panel in basement. Some INCREDIBLE tight jeans and thick thighs and large crotches and full chests and beautiful faces. Most time at FILMS of Hitler and military displays and concentration camps. First stop at Checkpoint Charlie, second at observation point over wall, third at Reichstag. Egyptian Museum (Nefertiti) CLOSED Fridays. To hotel at dot of 12, wolf down buffet lunch (nice fruit for dessert) by 12:30 and dash off to Zoo, 5M entrance and 4M book. Around for birds, zebras, raptors, etc., and pandas. Dash back to bus at 2, it leaves at 2:03. To Checkpoint Charlie at 2:15, sit in bus, no one seeming to know what to do. I worry that my zoo book and WEST Berlin guide will be confiscated as propaganda. Is it propaganda that West Berlin guard smiles and East Berlin guard that lowers the gate for the bus to drive into the "no man's land parking lot" is dour? Second bus arrives. Our driver returns with form to fill out. Second driver chats with ours, third bus drives in. Is this bus visiting hour? Buildings AT wall seem overly grim: lived in, but windows open onto total blankness make it look deserted. Third driver comes to chat. We sit. 2:24 guard comes on and checks photos (making Mr. Henin take his glasses off to match his passport photo), stolid. By 2:29 he's left by the back door, but as fourth bus full of Indians moves in, the drivers still stand talking. Off at 2:31 --- drive to driveway, waiting for signal? For westward-bound car to pass? Through gate at 2:35, then we stop and door opens; waiting for guide? Who TIMES these things? He boards briskly at 2:37: "Guten tag mien Herr." No Damen? Out for Russia War Memorial at 3:25, big and unimpressive. "Why the wall?" "Coexistence." "Why end the blockade?" "It was illegal." "You'd kill me if I want to cross." "West Berlin is a mistake, it's a center for espionage against the Socialist government. They say, you know, that the entire world will be Communist. That's what they say!" Quite adamant, very party. Buy a book and 4 cards for 2M. Rest stop 3:50-4:20. Into Pergamon Museum 4:50-5:30, mind-boggling, and pay 8M for three great books. Guide leaves at 5:40, we make stop at inner gate, back to same lot where two busses are waiting for us. Drive on at 6:03 to WEST Berlin gate, which we leave at 6:04. OUT! To room TIRED and George comes up with message from Christel that they're coming at 7:30. I dine with Olga 6:45-7:30, four dessert-tastes, and JUST exist door as they JUST leave car! To a beer garden in town and get GOOD looks at SEXY guy in shorts, others in full motorcycle leather, other VERY sexy in jeans. Bowls, Pfirsich mit Erdbeer: Mix fruit and two glasses brandy and bit of sugar. Let stand 2-3 hours. Add white wine and champagne half and half. They eat wurst and pizza and we talk about tape, and we leave at 9:30 for Turkish area and sit on canal edge on blanket and have wine and three cheeses. They want to try a park bench, "It's very safe at night," says Christel. Bicycles outside, men inside, MORE men inside --- they're CRUISING, right off highway before Victory pole. Lovely! They laugh and say that Christel was VERY out of place, "But you two could succeed!" To hotel at 12:10 to lay on hands, and up to room at 12:35 to find George not THERE yet. Shower and bed 12:50, he's in about 1:30.

SATURDAY, JULY 18. Wake 5:30, suitcase and breakfast at 6, meet in lobby at 6:40. Packed lunch on train. 17:14 into Warsaw, dinner THERE. Into train at 7:15, 3 of 4 compartments locked. We jam in hall and wander. George comes on at 7:19. Hassle of each getting our bag in own compartment. Remarks of all the Indians wrapped in blankets and sleeping in the Berlin train-station. 7:35 train leaves at 7:53. Into East Berlin after long delays, and at 8:23 we're asked for our passports. Confusion about who pays the 5M, but everyone agrees that's what Chris is to pay. He does, and things seem to go slowly but well. Train finally pulls out at 8:43. In the Berlin Ostbanhof it's the 8:35 to Warsaw as we arrive at 8:50. Fill out money form for Poland, everyone sitting covertly thumbing traveler's checks and cash. Loads of people on platform, in next train --- everyone waiting quietly. I'm reminded of trains to concentration camps: people simply waiting for whatever comes to them, following orders, trying to look on the bright side of things. Into Frankfurt at 10:45. Since Polish border to Warsaw is eight hours, it seems our 5PM arrival is at LEAST 7PM. Poor customs man comes on and the MONEY form causes pain: "Figures" means "22" and "Say" means "Twenty-two." One fellow (Andre?) put down how many tens, twenties, etc, and guard made out a new form. Out of Frankfurt 11:15. Leave Kunowice 11:38. Gray day again, would Poland look better if it were sunny with blue skies? Streets are wet and in fact it's drizzling. Pass Novy Tomysi at 1:20, noon into Poznan. Poland looks JUST like Ohio! Train a BIT better today, no WATER in john; beer for 1M makes people cheery after long border pauses. Watch a horse being trained to run in circus circles. Lots of forests along tract, passengers speaking Polish, BETTER than German which LOTS of people know and Germans EXPECT you to know, and into Poland, where they CAN'T expect you to know the language. Paul passes around Campari, Rene gin, Werner vodka, Edith napkins, and me Cointreau. We're all feeling happy DESPITE rain. Read a bit of book in pauses, eat lunch with OILY-skinned (?) (Bob Henin doesn't drink at ALL, has bad eczema on elbows), and catch up on notes. 15Ε warmer (75Ε) in cabin than in windy hall (60Ε). Long red-timbered pine trees outside. Not much of ANYTHING to look at. Over Odor on military-looking bridges, so we can't take pictures. Paul flakes out in sleep, his amused smiled fixed on his lips. Rene puts down "Taipan" and dozes. Bob goes off. Train drones on, and I copied names of everyone from Joe Blum's list. Probably George is youngest (Joe Blum oldest, he says, at 75), maybe Paddy or Rene, then me pretty quick. Old (but fun) group. LOTS of generating plants and high-tension poles, but mainly farms and a FEW villages with nondescript houses. Into Poznan and CROWDS on platform and in train at 2PM, sign saying train SHOULD leave 13:24, it DOES leave 14:10. Occurs to me: bought NEITHER DDR NOR Bundespost NOR Berlin stamps. Pity! AND have 28M left! There are more and more trains passing going west. Scenery QUITE uninteresting for COMPLETELY new country --- AND my FATHERLAND! THOUSANDS of white butterflies in fields. Finally, about 4:30, it cleared up and sunned, and we passed hundreds of scattered people and families working in the fields: harvesting grain, riding wagons, picking fruit, staking hay, bundling grain, driving cars and bicycles. Old TRAINS cars seems used for RESIDENCES AND to hide scenes in stations they don't want tourists to see. Birds in flocks over grain fields. Kilometer signs seem to change at random. Shirtless fellows NOT tanned (so not much sun), NOT overmuscled (so not much work), flabby (so good food), and hairy chested (so not dewy and young). Not terribly sexy, but I seem to be terribly HORNY (Horses and cows VERY bothered by flies). Lots of new red-block homes, by coincidence along rail route? We have to pass out over our bags, getting into Warsaw-Gdansk at 6:15, an hour late. Hazy again, the block of the Forum and the Spassky-Tower-like building stand out among other apartment blocks. As we board the bus at 6:30, it's just beginning to shower. A humpy Pole gives me a very straightforward up and down. I have an itchy BITE on the inside of my right ankle. Rain REALLY starts at 6:33; driver wears a Solidarity button on his jacket and there's jumpy nationalistic Polish singing and clapping on the bus radio. Bus off at 6:38, to Hotel at 7:50. 27.90DM into 391Z, thus 3£/Z. Room's average. Luggage arrives, down to dinner at 7:45 to real STORM outside with lightning and thunder, and Paul later says a ROAD fell in the middle. Small dinner, awful, "formed" meat, but GREAT white asparagus and herbed tiny potatoes and cherry-cake dessert. Millers and I have wine, 100Z for mine and $1 for theirs! I take back 100Z and give $1, refusing his offer to give him $5 and get "change." I have NICE talk with them, then decided to go to BED. Jerk off at 9:30 and get to sleep at 10, wakened at 12 by George phoning to enter. Needed sleep.

SUNDAY, JULY 19. Wake at 5:30, then 6:30 and George occupies bathroom till 7, at which time I shower and shave and write two postcards to Mom and Dennis and down at 8 to complaining group. I'm HUNGRY, and listen to people's tales: George VERY confused about "change" and pocketing zlotys for dollars in change. Mrs. Blum complains that Chris implied we'd eat at a different HOTEL when he only said different RESTAURANT. "Take the wax out of your ears, dear," says Mr. Miller. Bob talks of "Change zlotys on street." I guess I feel I'll just come BACK to see the place properly. We eat like starved peasants, draining them dry of coffee and bread. I get a double ham slice, gratefully, and Mrs. Blum drains the milk from the pitcher and THEN complains when there's none for her second cup of coffee that CLIFF has to pay the 15Z for. She DOES get more bread and I get a packet of gouda for my "train food." Back to room to piss asparagus piss and brush my teeth and take my pills and get down to get on tour bus at 9:10. Guide: "From this day, after 35 years, the EMOTIONAL end of the party congress, with the election of Kania by POLISH Socialism (war of MIND) not by Russian (Byzantine, war of ARMY) Socialism." "Notice how MUCH the president's house, though smaller, looks like your White House." Sweet, childlike Tadusz. In here, Pope of Rome stayed with Gmerek, President. Pass Soviet Embassy BEFORE, he told ME, not the group. (He DID tell group, says Cliff, and I MISSED it). GUIDE stresses UNTYPICAL view or statistic. He wants to stress ENGLISH look of park. PRESERVED because used by GERMANS. Get asked for "Change, sir?" IN park. Guide tells Edith about Polish RELIGION-holding being HARD for RUSSIANS to take. He calls Lazienki Park MOST English and MOST beautiful in Poland. He deplores "heavy elaborate" Stalin architecture in city. Guide seems to DISCUSS with bus driver where to take us for the BEST view. Group CHOOSES old town OVER walk through Palace park. I ask about Mass and he says part of strike settlement was Mass on RADIO from 9-10AM every Sunday, stressing AGAIN 80-90% Roman Catholic Poland, saying it gave boost to "Polish SPIRIT." He stresses "highway without COLLISIONS," by which he means CROSSINGS. Service "Alleluia" in Cathedral --- emotional. 10:30-11 at Square. HUMPY Poles, and one did NOT ask for MONEY. Those who DO ask for change do so in the sweetest, gentlest way, THANKING after I say "No." Beautiful and sweet and SAD. HUMPY numbers in corduroys crotches. Though ADMIRABLE for RECONSTRUCTION, Place Royale in Belgium (and even Bruges and Ghent) takes priority for sheer BEAUTY of a square. Now it's the canny POLES. Other more frantic, they PASS and whisper from BEHIND, "Change money?" Warsaw walls OLDEST in Middle Europe. Map for 12Z. What MUST the guide think of us: Werner complaining in his ears, the Henin-Freiss flight constantly, the Blums complain, Bob is childlike with woman DESPERATE to change money, the older couple dither and complain. Mrs. Blum limps WAY behind. Woman wants to change $100 --- how could ANYONE hide SUCH amounts. (Guide later says they need LOTS of money, and it's easier to hide I hundred-dollar note than 100 singles.) He shows us monument to Jews of Warsaw Ghetto, sculpture on front of men who saved Jews, on back, Jews going to Treblinka, child looking back. He's kind enough to wait and re-explain for Mrs. Blum, but I take no picture because it's not interesting. "One of three most impressive monuments: Warsaw Revolution against Germany, the Nike: this, and Chopin." It's 11:30 and I feel he's cheating Chopin's place. TREES down from storm last night! Tour ends 11:45, bags out 12:20, lunch 12:30, leave for train 1:15. Finish "Uncle Oswald" and start Huxley's "On Art and Artists." To Central Station at 1:30 and to trainless platform, onto wagon-lit, NICE, and train pulls out at 2:10. Film reel #4 had gotten CRIMPED and Cliff helped talk me through taking it OUT and "cutting losses" and putting in NEW one. May have NO pix of "Old Square." George takes bottom and leaves, I spread stuff on top and write. We ride FORWARD, every other is BACK. 4:30, having had some Cointreau and put on tee-shirt and shorts, I feel VERY good: john works, water pours from sink. Into Terespol at 5:20, out at 5:35. Toward Brest after passing over bridged, featureless Bug River, then great shot (which I didn't get) of four shirtless fishermen hip deep in algae-covered pond. Pass under metal bridge proclaiming CCCP and MIR, with MIR on train station; the best shot AROUND soldiers. In at 5:45, they check first money declaration, then passports, then start moving at 5:55. Into Brest at 6:02 (8:02 on their local clock). Woman looks at our stuff and says "Books and magazines" and leaves. We put books out. Paddy is taken away at 6:10, Rene and Paul at 6:15, waving to group. Paul in "jammies:" short pants and matching shirt. At 6:16 they say she's LEFT and we can put stuff away. At 6:18 we pull out of station BACK toward border, 6:23 re-reverse toward wheel-changing sheds. Wheeling finishes at 7:15, and we tootle back to Brest. Interesting people to watch on the platform, CHRIS was taken because he had a Time Magazine, and EVERYONE got back before the train pulled out at 10 (having moved watch ahead two hours). All forest. HUGE back and white hawk flaps away. Sun sets about 10:30. Share drinks with Millers (are they lonely?) till 11:20. Crawl up to roomy SIDE storage chamber and bed and get flat (removing pillow, wedge, and quilt from sheet-case) at 11:45. Doze fitfully, stopping train, but sleep at times.

MONDAY, JULY 20. Wake about 5:30, doze, up at 6:10 to dress and piss and have ham sandwich and some water and take "AM Russia" picture. There's no VARIATION: farmhouses are MIDDLE, not very poor, not very rich; apartment blocks are MIDDLE, not rundown, not elegant. The paint COLORS are the same: the green the same pale bluey-yellowy green; the red the same dark browny scabby color; the blue watery and washed out. A few yellow-brown stucco structures break it up a bit. Fewer cows than in the west, a wonderful picture of a horse-drawn haycart with a man on top driving over a modern bridge surrounded by high-tension wires. Into Vjas'ma at 7:30 for great green station with red banners. Leave 7:47, past people walking ALL OVER train yards: THROUGH parked trains to get to platforms, between two strips of moving cars, around, behind and in front of engines. Dangerous! Sun bright, lifting dew. Same pink weed-flowers as all through Scotland and England and France and Germany, AND new BRIGHT red flowers like roses. Have a TINY shit, now a combination "morning blanket" and "new seeded field" allergy keeps nose wet and eyes red. George has same thing. Actually pass a church and cemetery! Pack up everything by 8:45, READY for breakfast. NICE breakfast of HOT fried eggs, cheese, GOOD tea, bread, GOOD apple jam and butter. Everyone laughs at Mrs. Blum, who asks "Who had two years of acrylic?" and I said I didn't take CYRILLIC, but Russian. Back LONG walk to cabin at 10:50. Into Moscow 11AM, switching brigade has FEMALES (?) working on it! Some sure-as-hell sexy jeans and tight shirts! Into bus 11:15. Guide Nadya, leave her in Irkutsk. In at Byelorussia Station, NORTH to Cosmos Hotel. Lunch at 1, 2:30 sightseeing tour, and FREE tonight. Money exchange on terrace from 9-9. See first queues INSTANTLY. Schedule: Monday and Wednesday FREE nights, see theater desk for others. Tuesday AM for Kremlin, Armory museum, armory chambers, Czar's treasury. PM Exhibition fair across from hotel. Concert at Tchaikovsky Hall of Bashkiri Dance Co., which I misinterpret to be BASHKAR! Wednesday morning Museum of Lenin, afternoon at Tretyakov. Thrusday morning shopping and subway tour, afternoon leave for Irkutsk. No pictures of bridges or railway stations IN MOSCOW. Ostankino is tall tower, 539 meters, but the one in Toronto is higher. 5K for Metro. To hotel 11:30. From theater desk: Monday Bashkiri reserved for tonight, dinner at 5:30; Tuesday Uzbek opera for 3R or $4.50 from 7-10; Wednesday Sleeping Beauty at Congress Hall from 7-10. Restaurant open 9-9. To hotel at 11L45. Dash downstairs for 14.64R for $20, get to theater desk for tickets. Back up for shower at 12:30 and bag comes. I change, get three shirts laundered for 1R apiece and NOT spend 3R for jeans. To lunch at 1 till 2, FREE beer great, poor meat, good cherry ice cream. THEN to theater desk, get two tickets for 6.70R, they have NO change. I pay 6.64! Book ticket, go to CASH, back for TICKETS, to lobby at 2:30 for tour. Bus leaves 2:40. LENIN Library has 26 million books in 170 languages! Kremlin-Red Square stop 3:30-3:45. Huge expanse, we stood LOWER, which made it look SMALLER --- from OTHER side would get an expanse sloping DOWN from around St. Basil's. Saint Basil's is too "neat" and "unchurchy" to be impressive, but the Kremlin as a WHOLE is breathtaking from almost any view, particularly from a huge-windowed bus sweeping around the enormous boulevards and ramps around the bridges and entrances to "carless" Red Square. Gum is HUGE, open 8AM-9PM, and NO one took pictures of the small raised parapet that was the FIRST construction on the highest point of the Kremlin hill. Loads of parked busses and probably more TOURIST than the total number of people in Gum and anywhere ELSE. Nadya retains her patience through perfectly horrid group. Tchaikovsky Hall used for every-other-year contest of ballet and music (Van Cliburn won). To University --- somewhat weed-overgrown, VERY hot day! Tretyakov Wednesday at 4, dinner at 7, EARLY dinner for ballet people. Back to city center. Dinner at 6, breakfast at 8:30, tour at 9:30. Nadya gets off at Metropole hotel at 5. Back to hotel at 5:20 and try to change 200 zlotys. Wait in line and find I need Talon. Tear luggage apart and find exchange coupon in WALLET. Back down to wait in line just before 6, argue with person in BACK of person I thought I was NEXT to, but they shout AGAIN about "talon" and one shows me a "specimen" of a form I've never seen. "Where do I get that?" (27k for postcard stamp). "I don't speak English." Downstairs to Information and get "I don't know finances." Back to room and change and my SHIRTS are back ALREADY! Dinner at 5:50 with Olga and Chris, and CHRIS has "same" zloty problem with black-market money. Asked for taxi at hotel, but at 6:08 she says it's too late for 7PM, should be ONE HOUR. Down to dinner and back up early, but she says taxi from hotel will only accept U.S. funds. I ask "Why?" and she only shrugs. Then she confides that I can easily catch cab on street. I go out door at 6:45 and take cab in front of hotel and show him address on ticket. He goes, frantic, and motions that it's so far he must pick up someone else, but they aren't going in same direction. To "belt" parkway and get there when meter says 1.94. OTHER Cosmos people paid 5R for cab hired from hotel. Under street to flow of people in and get Second Amphitheater (blocked off from first amphitheater) and it's pleasant folk-type dancing and singing and band, taking few photos. Woman says "Up there?" and sits next to me and I talk to charming Tiu from Estonia. She's with group from Cosmos with map of metro. I go back with them 9:30-10:10, through three changes and lovely stations and underground passage to hotel --- they even paid my 5k. In at 10:20 to watch TV to 11:30, folk choruses, but I'm EXHAUSTED, so to bed at 11:45, leaving key outside for George, but he comes in instantly, Sleep WELL from 12 to 7:45, when phone rings.

TUESDAY, JULY 21. Shower and breakfast at 8:30-9, bus at 9:30, drive from 9:50-10:20. Armory tour staggering and MUCH too fast from 12:25-1:35. (Opera-ballet "Tahir and Zihra" (names); "Sotvorenya mira" (Creation of the world), and ballet "Lyubov and Mech" (Love and Sword)) Armory book for 1.72R, jewelry 45k. Five minutes for pictures; try to enter cathedral. "Billet?" "Where?" "Kiosk," about hour's line! Bell NEVER rung; cannon NEVER fired. Misty morning, long line at money changer, so now at lunch it depends on line for how much I do, including getting lunch reservations for Ostankino. Fabulous exhibits --- Christopher Lee asks me where I got my book. Rene agrees it's him. Nadya takes us to about 1/8 exhibits and I dash around searching out the one and two-star attractions as described by the brochure. Walk past bell and cannon and Congress Hall for list of operas: Tosca, Don Carlos, and Buran ONLY tonight, and ballets of Don Quixote, Legend of Lovers, Anna Karenina, War and Peace, and a few others. Guide says Tania is now at the Intourist hotel and knows her room and phone number. Hot ride back and SHORT money-changer line, but NEW girl demands "Talon" too and I finally change $40 by 1PM. Ostankino booth CLOSED for lunch and ticket office closed till 2. So I just go up to lunch---steak and fries yesterday lunch, fish and boiled potatoes for dinner --- good beer, good vanilla-flavored soda and mineral water to drink. Milk for coffee at BREAKFAST, but not at lunch and dinner. Beef Stroganoff with rice for lunch today --- SALMON caviar as appetizers yesterday and black STURGEON --- good --- today, and shav soup --- and more cherry ice-cream. Up to take pictures of view and down to stand in line to buy map for 83k and NOT stamps for 30k in lieu of 27k needed. 30k difference for 10 stamps is 40 cents! Catch group of 6 men and Olga as it leaves hotel at 2:35 and into bus at 2.40 for ride to gate at 2:45. Train takes off at 3:05. Into space building at 3:15 and I'm on my own. Space, then Industry and Computers, then Vegetables by THOUSANDS, fish seem to be GASPING a lot, dams and water ecology (empty of PEOPLE), elegant restaurant and bar, botanical gardens 4:35-5:15 --- boating on lake and people RESTING! Dash back to hotel, grabbing train for 10k, to restaurant at 5:45, Nadya STILL saying I can get ride on bus. Good fish, cold cuts, beer, another from a second table, and upstairs at 6:15 to change and get binox. No one's waiting for bus at 6:30, so I grab CUTE cabdriver. ??? 7:05-8:05, 8:30-9! 3R for THIS trip. Opera SEEMS to be in Uzbek! Grotesque plot: Buran loves girl, who's loved by a cripple. Hetman and General appear to battle for town. Old woman comes out and sings in semi-Chinese wavery reedy cantillation and gets only applause of evening. Officer came in with GOOD bass voice and rapes her, but is KILLED in the next scene! Another officer hides the body, but something goes wrong and they fire the village and Buran saves her. End Act I. Oh, there's a big DANCE-celebration by Hetman reading some terrible edict while EVERYONE wails. Act II below flaming village, guerillas meet, train goes by on hillside and they explode it. Next scene in palace under ruins, a grand mazurka is danced by elegant couples to brass band. Peasants break in. BURAN is shot as he goes for leader, then whole group breaks in and breaks up the party. Sword-waving climax! Photos in SUNNY theater and buffet (MAD scramble and TREMENDOUS consumption of ice cream, cake, blinis, green soda, some champagne for 1.68R in biggish glass, and beer. GREAT scene!) Wait for Tania in Intourist hotel, less elegant than Cosmos, and finally, after watching dozens of tourists, I see two, ask them, and they ARE on General Tour, she takes me to find leaders, who say Tania isn't in today but will be at Kalinka Restaurant at 2PM or in Congress Room at 6PM. Walk long way underground to Metro, find NO third line, ride back one stop, forward to hotel at 11, SEXY people in Metro. Chat with George till 12:15 and sleep WELL.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 22. Wake at 8:15, breakfast at 9 with scrambled eggs and cheese and coffee. Up for toothbrushing, forget key and get dupe to get it, down to lobby at 10 and to bus at 10:10. Announce Museum of Lenin, lunch at 2, 3:30 to Tretyakov, 5:30 dinner for early ballet at 7. To red Square at 10:30, and she tells me I MAY join an Intourist BUS group for Lenin's Tomb. I get off and there are DOZENS of busses and what look to be HUNDREDS of groups, mostly Russian, and somehow NO special lines, particularly for individuals, so I wander looking for English speakers and find NONE, so I wander past Gum and decide to see churches, but realize that OTHERS are IN Kremlin, so I join queue for tickets to St. Basil's at 10:55. It's to be 35Ε (95ΕF) today, at least St. Basil's line is in SHADE of St. Basil's. Watch people. Spasski Tower strikes 11, policeman tells people not to sit on church steps. Twenty people queue for water hose. I finish numbering notebook pages, wondering how long lines would be for Lenin Museum or Armory Museum WITHOUT a group. AND if we DON'T see inside St. Basil's and Kremlin churches BECAUSE of the lines (or because they're not worth it?) Bricks are PAINTED on church --- all stucco? Flowers are all free-form and unpatterned. Tuned in: Gold to clear, SW to protect, Wisdom to see: saw nothing, smelled nothing, the THOUGHT of hearing groans of suppression seemed appropriate. Looked toward St. Basil and Kremlin and got NOTHING, thought I seem to recall that Breznev's offices had a shadowy quality. BUT the people seem like PEOPLE, so maybe it's a HISTORICAL repression, or a very-well HIDDEN repression that's there. Possibly I may be THWARTED, but I don't FEEL limited or sad, as I did in Mexico City. There's no sense of pervasive DARKNESS, but that's hard in a cool breeze, in bright sunlight and blue skies, and patient people and irritable kids on a one-hour queue. But then I don't particularly get bad vibes on Times Square except for the OBVIOUS down-and-outers. In at 11:55, 50k. Pay and wait for guided TOUR at 12:05. Plan: EACH has vault to TOP of tower, EACH has iconostasis, EACH has passage THROUGH and AROUND that's BARRED. SOME still under construction. Constant REFERENCE to museum, but the PIECES on display are ALTARS and RELIGIOUS symbols. English talk for 5k almost worthless --- mostly about how NEW stuff was destroyed to get to original whitewash. Hm. Out at 12:40, HOT. GUM till 1. 1/3 pink/blue/green. Huge three-story glasshouses. Two BLOCKED in middle on third level, but not in last, pink, photoed one. Possibility for duplex-level offices on second and third levels --- upper halves mostly empty. Some lovely arms and shoulders on undershirted men. Floors here solid marble, compared with tacked-down rubber squares in Exposition park. Museum of History 1:05-1:40, POLITICAL rooms empty, true HISTORY and ART rooms full of people. Ground floor from stone ages (interesting stone STATUES) thru modern times; second floor 1918-present, POLITICALLY academic and boring. NO one reads ANYTHING, all pass through ABOUT as fast as I do. Photo Lenin's tomb. To Lenin Museum 1:45-2:05 --- his spoons, coat, tie, study, print shop, Rolls-Royce, model of Kremlin apartments, paintings, books, letters, writing --- ALL! A God! Some of the English earphones worked, but whole ROOMS were devoted to ONE uprising or ONE conference that he acted as President for, drew up the decisions for, and implemented the results for. Spacious modern layout but there's NO line and it's FREE. Lots of red banners with his words, HUNDREDS of his systems. The History Museum, on the square, was OLD, overcrowded, and for 40k MORE people seemed to be enjoying it. Burials and wall-paintings and jewelry and scenes and books and tools and precious stones and clothing and toys and models of rooms and furniture and fortresses and palisades and NO guide to the HUGE place. Wood carriages and remnants of buildings, iron remnants, stonework, coats from LONG ago, from pre-history of 500BC to present individuals and present industry. Try to find cab but there are none, so remember the way back I took last night WITHOUT referring to the map. Write this at 2:15 --- hope they save a lunch appetizer for me. I guess what I got in exchange for Lenin's tomb was OK! Lots of muscular lovely arms and chests that they show off in short sleeves and semi-transparent materials. VERY nice to look at --- THICK bodies and CLEAN skin and TANS. To hotel at 2:35, dash into Kalinka, find someone to show me Bob, who thinks I meant blonde Tania Mideast. No, Tania Surivillo. Bob, sick, gets up and searches, and THERE she is. She's delighted to hear of Catherine's play and Dennis's indexing, and says I should phone her in the evening if she gets back from the airport early. I dash upstairs at 2:45, the Blums eating at a last table, I wolf down many tongue cold cuts, they indicate the watery soup and good meatballs, and the waiter plunks down my (cold) fish and boiled potatoes. Borrow bottle opener from George and drink two beers with the ice I demand. I begin to feel GREAT! Lunch goes down by 3:15 and I even get BIG scoop of ice cream. To room to wash and say goodbye to George, who's not going to Tretyakov, and down at 3:30 to hear Rene talking of SOMETHING at 10 tomorrow. Nadya on bus at 3:40 talks of Pushkin gallery, open at 10, and she says THAT's what RENE wants to see! Arrange to go with him. Bob ordered a cab for tonight's ballet, but Nadya says there's a Dutch group going by BUS to Congress Hall at 6:15. Great! George asks if I know people in CHINA, too? Bus stops at ticket offices for "Eugene Onegin" at the Stanislavsky, and I catch up, not listening to Mrs. Blum with one ear, and it's 4:15 ALREADY, dinner at 5:30. INTO Tretkyakov at 4:30! Schedrin, Matveyev are good, Ivanov. Tomorrow's schedule: 8:30 breakfast, 9:30 to Rossiya Hotel for shopping, 12 lunch at Hotel, 12:45 leave to rail station. Luggage IN room in AM. CHECK luggage in Rossiya. 2:05 train. Zip through Tretyakov, some nice stuff, some in book, leave 5:15, LATE! Raining HARD, darkening galleries, then pours as we get stuck in traffic. To hotel at 5:35 and driver gets applause as he drives up ramp. I dash to room to change shirt and grab binox, then down to be first to start eating caviar (salmon) and fish, then steak and peas and boiled potatoes with water and coke and tea for dessert, having to demand sugar. Bob checks cab number and we're out to 86k tariff at 6:15, and he agrees to pick us up at 22 hours. Great! In and it IS pretty full, but they're 8th row, seat 2 and 3, and I'm 7th row, seat 53. Orchestra BLOWS first trumpet (2 ways) call at 7:05, and the chorus is poor. One cavalier stands out (in FRONT, too, and in dance) and Aurora isn't bad. Prologue, intermission, first act, intermission, then last part starts at 9. Congress Hall VERY humid and tacky and people STILL talk and try to steal seats. She ends up "sleeping" above the heads of her four cavaliers! No forest grows up, either. No one takes ANY chances dancing at ALL. She even moves her hand LEAST during shifting cavaliers in Rose Adagio, but at least she gets her trailing foot high in leaps. "My" cavalier is graceful and precise. GOOD legs and FORWARD cock and long straight dark hair. Yum! I need SEX! (AFTER Moscow and Leningrad, Bob recommends Kiev and Odessa, first; Tashkent and Samarkand and Baku all mentioned as secondary). It's THREE intermissions and over at 10:20! Dash out and cab starts as we ENTER, so I suggest 3R for 2.10R ride, and driver thanks me. Phone Tania and get her New York address --- returning September 15. She wants to hear about my trip; worked two years with people and had ENOUGH of them. I said I had enough with two TOURS. George in and we chat in bed about his year in the seminary and Archbishop great uncle until 12. Sleep till phone at 5;45.

THRUSDAY, JULY 23. Wake at 6:30 and lay till 7:30, then up to find it clear and COOL, outside, from 90Ε to 70Ε. Shower and down to cheese blintzes with sugar and sour cream, coffee and cheese for breakfast, and buttermilk. Back up to pack and get ready for first leg of train trip. Down to wait for bus at 9:30 to Pushkin. (Forgot to mention NUDE sunbathing beach in West Berlin!) Onto bus at 9:42, nothing like close scheduling. Driver TAKES me to Pushkin and they ALL let me PASS. In at 10:20, and some MARVELOUS diagrams in the exhibition: Krutikov (1928). Modernism and people really STUDYING it. Art on pottery, canvas, materials (stone, wood, plastic), railroad cars, dishes, movie ads, posters. FABULOUS ballet decor: Bakst, Cocteau, Goncharova, Delaunay, Golovine, Benois, Serov, for Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky, Fokine, Ulyanov, Gabo. EXTRAORDINARY Chagalls! Picasso! Matisse dancers in ring. GREAT (Carriage 11, cabin 5 on Trans-Siberian) collection and NO good booklet. So sad not to have MEMORY of the Greek, Assyrian, Roman, Cycladic, Byzantine, Dutch (Maestart, Alstadt, Breugel the Elder), Italian (many old Pisan and Genoan and Florentine and SUMPTUOUS Guardi and Piombo and MANY others). Out at 11:45 and walk toward Red Square and get a taxi for 2.20 to Hotel at 12:05. Up to room to pack the rest of the stuff JUST as they come to pick it up. Down to lunch at 12:15 and have DELICIOUS ham/ boiled egg/ cheese MOUSSE covered with chopped egg yolk, chicken soup, and beef and peas and potatoes, with beer and coffee whitened with LOVELY ice cream as usual. Cliff volunteers to check MY bag when he checks his, and he finds they're there and we leave to find everyone in bus already at 12:50. Ride to Russian-style Yaroslavl RR station for Trans-Siberian, on same square as trains to Kazan and to Kiev. Off bus at 1:15 in DELIGHTFUL sun and fresh non-humid breeze. At 2PM, watching people and pestering Nadya with questions (NO city between Moscow and Irkutsk open. Novosibirsk is BUILDING toward REopening; you CAN book individual trips abroad on Trans-Siberian but LOTS of people travel and accommodations are SCARCE). Edith talks with cute Russian boy; Blums try to give chewing gum to children---porters will take bags INTO carriage; the station platform is OUTDOORS --- what do they do in rain and snow? Constructing huge market/department store across for the three stations. Platform 1 announced at 2:01 for 2:05 train. Luggage handled well, car is LOVELY, space for 4 given to 2. Rather loud radio plays folksongs. Doors and window WORK but carpet slides on floor. Leave at 2:25, into countryside quickly. Everyone seems pleased. LOVELY golden towers in Zagorsk at 3:30. Tea at 4:30, quite strong. Lovely forests, more pines now, but countryside STILL looks more OHIO than foreign. Rostov on schedule at 5:31. Poor George is bored already. Lovely changing clouds fill blue skies. On page 95 of log I make a list of the 15 SSR's: Russia, Belorussia, Ukrania, Moldavia, Kazakstan, Uzbek, Turkmen, Armenia, Kirgiz, Tadzik, Azerbajan, Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian, and Georgian, along with two ASSR's, Tatar and Baskir. Lovely wide Volga. WITH bridge and barge, at 6:40. At 7:30 everyone's gathered to drink, and I DO feel left out! Everyone VERY cheerful on Danilov platform at 8PM. Buy 20R from Werner for $10! To dinner of a small, rather tender, rather ungristly, no-fat steak (though Olga's remnant had gristle), greasy fried potatoes, a good Lebanon bologna/sausage appetizer, and what Olga called Pastum. Passable white wine for 4.60R, no dessert. Party in hall gets louder and I drink alone in dark watching sun set at 9:45 and last pink leaves sky about 10:50. Re-read Newby and marvel at how MUCH he found to write about. Bed 11:30 on a short top bunk, sweaty under wool blanket but cool from slightly open window. Earplugs a blessing.

FRIDAY, JULY 24. Wake at 4:15 to STRONG memory, that George denies, that train REVERSED DIRECTION last night. Doze back off and have odd dream of being with Mom in French university town, her saying I was BORN in France, though in the dream I think "But she said she walked in AKRON snow before I was born." We're at an algae-covered tarn when she embarrassedly confesses to having seen Mother Seton walking on the water. Then we're in a train pulling away from the tarn and I think how awful it would be if the connection broke and the train rolled backward into the waters. Wake again at 5:15 in outskirts of Kirov. George is up and dressed, saying it hailed very heavily most of the night. We watch station traffic, he from a seat, me from the top bunk, and we leave 15 minutes late at 6. I wash arms and face and ears in awkward sink that requires GREAT upward push on a sharpish prong to release the water. Write this by 6:45, sun breaking through scattering clouds. Look out till breakfast at 8: salami, cheese, bread, butter and --- surprise --- RICE cereal, pudding-like, with a pat of butter in the middle, palatable with lots of sugar and milk. Bernice wants to see "Great Red Train Ride" and we're into Balezeno at 9:40, 36 minutes late. Leave at 10, 41 minutes late. 11:30 pass stucco framing bricks spelling out the boundary of two oblasts. About 12 the sky CLEARS and the steppe is BEAUTIFUL with trees (and vodka and orange served by George). Flowers: same red fire-weed, now at spike-end; masses of yellows and whites and some pretty little daisies, and things that looked like Golden Queen Anne's Lace. Sadly, lots of TRASH and papers and cans, too! 50-55 car trains pass ABOUT once every 5 minutes. First into lunch at 1, hoping to catch Kam River before Perm at 1:30, but train STOPS as we eat cucumbers in buttermilk, chicken noodle soup in a HUGE hot bowl, and sturgeon (?) and mashed potatoes, with a fruit soup in a glass for dessert. Out to pick 7-8 varieties of wildflowers and then look at shirtless tanned passengers out until 2:20, when we finally move slowly. Across the broad Kama at 2:50, when again my film goes harder and harder and I change it, under a blanket, after only 9 shots. DAMN! We FINALLY start moving out of Perm at 3:20, one hour and a half late. People swim in ALL the rivers and ponds. Even in the URALS the men wear exercise pants. LOVELY trees and hills in Urals. Due in Schalya at 5:07, in at 6:37. MAY pass Asia border AFTER sunset. The stewardesses are CONSTANTLY offering tea, dusting sills, straightening carpets, cleaning johns. What a CHANGE since 1977's "Big Red Train Ride!" Km 1777 passes with a flurry of shots of the Europe-Asia obelisk at 8PM (10PM local time, sun JUST set), and then to a TINY dinner of 1/8 SMALL chicken and TWO forks of peas and FIVE forks of potatoes, so I load up on bread and butter. True, the appetizer WAS caviar and Heikl DID order the RED wine, but at 6.40R for 19% alcohol it was SWEET as sweet sherry or even muscatel. Two Werners and Swiss Paul talked GERMAN most of the meal. (Marvelous wooden CARRIAGE bumped over trail outside, man lifting himself from his seat in the bottom with one hand to soften the bumps while the other retaining the reins that led to the full-harnessed horse.) (Now 4 people, 3 ON motorscooter and one on car, drove past. TRAKT remnant?) Back to talk with BOMBED Midge ("Hello Mudda, Hello Fadda, We are here in Camp Renata.") and lucid Polly, drinking their precious Scotch (though for TONIGHT they've had ENOUGH) with Paddy, then leave as they make DEFINITE sexual overtones in slurs. At 9:30 realize it's 11:30 local time, and up at 6 for breakfast is ONLY 8 1/2 hours away, so I climb up to bed while George has a nightcap in the clubcar (Rene and Paul's pad, holding Cliff and Chris and George as extras). Almost instantly to sleep.

SATURDAY, JULY 25. Wake briefly with memories of VIVID LUXURIANT dreams (and HARD cock), but don't write THEN so no memory NOW. Up at 5:30 feeling VERY rested and even COMFORTABLE. Wash hands and face, have breakfast of bread and butter and cheese and vinegary cider and two eggs in pan and coffee with milk that makes it COLD. Bob Henin reports the loss of his 90 radio and two bottles of French wine. Mrs. Blum excoriates her way through breakfast to the hilarity of Paul and Chris and me. Back to stop in Nosvayevskaya at 7:35, 25 minutes behind schedule, just past the halfway point, and wash my HAIR in the quiet. LOVELY. Return to shave just as it starts again at 7:50, then again to shit and wash ass that leaves traces of blood on the dissolving toilet paper. Back to sit and flatter land after the Urals, realizing that WITH the constant passing of trains there'd be NO wildlife close to the tracks EVER. Now in purely DECIDUOUS (as opposed to PINEY Urals) country that George notes would be VERY bleak in winter with white snow on ground, gray sky, white dead branches in the air, and yellow piss-trails between the tracks and gray surround on the snow from the cooking stacks. He snores as I catch up at 8:25, close to four hours time-difference in our trip. Yesterday my face was BLACK with soot and dust ("You look like a coal-miner," said George), jeans made black by dusting hands and schedules and book covers and handbag covers on them. Today the air conditioner's on so the windows are SHUT and at this moment the temperature feels a PERFECT 74Ε. LOVELY park-like scenery: hayfields trimmed to groves of birches in LOVELY proportions of open and forested areas. Lots MORE old railway cars used as private apartments. HUGE helicopter floats by Industrial Omsk, but couldn't get both together in picture because of intervening windscreen trees. At 9:37 stop 9 km short of Omsk, 9 km short of being on time. OUT in Omsk Station at 10: exotic-looking people, some BEAUTIFUL oriental women, but afraid of train leaving early and losing me! Nadya puts her name on my photo list, wanting a copy of the photo of her and Chris and the train. Leave at 10:25, lunch at 10:40 Moscow, 1:40 local time. Delicious boiled egg/pickle/onion salad in yogurt, followed by abundant cabbage soup with beef chunks, and beef stroganoff with rice and cucumbers, with watery grape cider, water, coffee (ALWAYS here, versus Hotel Cosmos, WITH milk) and sweet wafers for the first time. Good meal! Beautiful drained flat hayfields and LOTS of cattle before Tatarsk. INTO Tatarsk EXACTLY on time at 12:40, but leave 8 minutes late. Weather is really PERFECT: beautiful clouds and cool in AM, cloudless and warm in PM, transparent air; so beautiful I wonder what hideous heat may be awaiting in the Gobi Desert. George tells me I've been going about mango-tree growing all wrong: DRY the seed until it RATTLES, then split the shell and plant the INNER seed, and it won't ROT! Also said that the acid in the skin of the mango can be avoided by not PEELING the mango and eating it, but by SLICING it into three parts along the seed, then INVERTING it and either spooning or eating from INSIDE the skin. He talks of coconut growing, too. An education! Trains gradually getting larger--- what were 49-50 car trains are now 69 and 73 cars long. Water mainly DRAINED, so there were NO mirage effects as described by Newby. LOVELY blue lakes outside Barabinsk at 3PM (7PM locally). Polly comes in and chats, then Paddy joins us at 4 for cocktails till dinner at 5. Caviar again, then a steak so tender it might be filet mignon, a sort of onion-cabbage ratatouille, and cucumber slices. Paul busy white wine, Mr. Blum takes Polaroid shots, the scenery is pure beauty. Back at 6 to brush teeth and piss out lots of wine and George's screwdrivers, then watch for the industrial area west of Novosibirsk, then the Ob River too dark to photograph, private boats at shore, huge barges at center, LARGE city stretching to north and to bulk of what must be Intourist Hotel to South. Into enormous station at 8 and out with four who reduce to Paul to cover top floor of baby room, child room, reading room, food areas, book areas, lockers, restrooms, and huge waiting rooms with some TIRED people waiting for trains this Saturday midnight. Back to train at 8:15, exhilarated, and out through huge city, maybe through Akademigorsk to east with apartment blocks, till 8:40, then write this till 9, or 1AM, being told that breakfast is at 5 Moscow time, only 6 hours away. Everyone's hanging out windows though it's COOL now, and "the guys" drink away in Rene's room; Chris now using my cup. Last full day on train tomorrow, and my blue shirt's really starting to SMELL and it feels as if my crabs are SPREADING. Hope everyone's booze lasts to keep them happy tomorrow night too. Large new hotel not yet complete in Novosibirsk, finds Nadya from stewardess, since NADYA's never been here before.

SUNDAY, JULY 26. Wake at 12:10 at the stop in Taiga and can't go back to sleep, so when the stop continues I get up at 12:20 and take a towel into the john and thoroughly soap and rinse my genitals, ass, then armpits, feeling fresher. Search again for crabs but maybe I'm just itching from dirt. Back to bed at 1 but lay for a long time without sleeping, so at 1:50 I get my pillow, a book as an excuse of reading if George happens to stop snoring below and inquire about my light being on, and jerk off quite quickly simply to relieve the about 10-day pressures. Then feel tired enough to doze off until 4:15, and get up at 4:40 to change jeans and shirt and socks and shorts for the first time in three days. Breakfast is salami and bread and butter and an egg omelet in those warming pans. Back to shit slightly at 6 and write this as we pull into Achinsk three minutes late. Cool enough so that everyone's wearing sweaters and saying how cool it is (on July 26!) and the sky is mostly covered with dark billowy clouds that soon obscure all but the tiniest patches of clear blue. I read more of "Great Red Train Ride," really FOLLOWING, soaking up (for it's VERY wet and puddly) bits of The Trakt along the roads, looking forward to real Taiga and the Yenesi outside Krasnoyarsk at 9. They play "My Fair Lady" in English, Marty, NOT Russian. Novosibirsk spelled out in BUSHES before city and every so often (about 12 hours) is a white-brick name in red bricks --- borders, announcing the passage from one district to the next, but so far it's hard to read. Appear to be dividing PYT's, which are TRACKS, I thought. Girl VACUUMS hall at 8AM (now), JUST when everyone else is SLEEPING. Let's hope ONLY film rolls 4 and 6 are short. I seem to have recovered roll 7! Taiga is THOROUGHLY removed from around Krasnoyarsk. Another HUGE city and again into terminal 9:09-9:19, same delicious feeling of risk and danger in RUSSIA in a forbidden city. Again crowds, this time with flies: on palled leftover noodles, on gray hunks of meat, on bottle tops. Queues even for a goods shop selling socks for 2.60R with no salesperson on duty. Zip around and back to train, delayed till 9:26. The outskirts go on for at least half an hour, ending with beautiful Swiss chalets overlooking a river. Eat 10-11:05: cucumbers in buttermilk zapped by Paul's example of salt AND pepper, good "cabbage borscht" that Nadya explained "would never be called borscht in Ukrania, they'd call it schee." Bob tells us about HIS trip to China, much easier to take than Russia. LOVELY MASSES of red and purple wildflowers in park-like settings out windows. EXTRAORDINARY FLOWERS! Of course, WHEN we stop there's no SUN and no RED flowers. At Ilanskaya there are buckets of BERRIES: currants and strawberries and raspberries for 50k a good glassful. EVERYONE has them: I add Cointreau to my raspberries, George marinates his black currants in whiskey, and Nadya serves a plate combining the three: the strawberries are red THROUGH AND MEATY AND SWEET, not plastic and cotton and white. I fantasize EVERYONE lining up at the john tonight with the shits. Cointreau to purify my system and at 3 I'm no longer nodding to sleep at the beautiful park views. Sit and chat about his job (he hates training therapists but needs to stay in his government job) and travel till 4:40. I wash and he visits "the Merry Widows." Dinner is caviar, steak, and mashed potatoes livened by salt and red pepper, and only the awful "caramel" candy for dessert. Back to room at 5:45, actually 10:45, sun just set, with breakfast at 3AM/8AM. George got his OWN copy of the schedule, I'm glad. Parts of the Trakt look COMPLETELY impassable with disheveled logs from bridges mostly covered with water of undetermined depth. FOG comes up as it gets chillier. (Forgot the great AM Moscow TV fare: exercises with pretty people, travelogues, and animation.) So many of these lumber-storage depots look just plain ABANDONED, lots of cut wood just going to ROT! Brush teeth and piss again by 6:15. Watch till 6:45, nodding Bed and sleep fairly quickly.