NORWAY AND EUROPE TRIP 3of 3
WURZBURG RESIDENZ AND MUSEUM: BALLET EVENING
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 11. Up for great and shooting sex, both shower, then change rooms across the way after having a breakfast---croissants finally---that eventually cost us 4DM! Out at 9:30 across bridge and up steps for good view of churches of town to the Marian Fortress/Festung, take a walk around the walls, most of which they're reconstructing, and start with ONLY FOUR English-speakers, and end up with about 30 English and German, black and white, young and old. Even Tillman Riemanschneider spent three months in the jail "only one reached by a door, others lowered by hole in roof." Impressive 300 foot wall, reconstructed Mary's church with LOTS of bones of "V&M" "Virgins and Martyrs?"---are they the same thing??? [The neatness of logs sawed, separated with slats for drying, but kept AS A TREE, seen through a diffraction grating. Nice compositions of trunks on trucks of "whole" logs.] [Conical young bean plants on poles looking like forests of Thai temples. Tiepolo clouds, so precise that I can place Zeus, Athena, Hermes, Mercury, Apollo, and all the other host on their fluffy seats with ease. Or make a "cloud" turn into a haze of CHERUBS at the edge of the painting.] Into vaults and jails and the ONE so-far refurnished room, then out to the terrace-garden in the form of a boatful of marigolds, and to the museum for the floors of stuff, Riemenschneiders with their pressed lips and constipated knock-knees, and the smaller Tiepolos and nice porcelain nude maids with sturdy assclefts, and lots of dishes and cutlery and furniture and clothing and ex votos and a nice wine room. John's too tired to go to the church on the other hill, so we're down to cash money, buy tickets for tonight, have lunch, and get to the Residenz. Buy tickets and look at the English description before the crowded tour starts, and the gold and blue is VERY impressive, and we even get BOTH the north and south apartments. The Zick paintings of the seasons and the elements are GREAT for their encyclopedic detail. Then to Grack (?) museum for all their goodies, and tired back to hotel at 4:30, and I debate going to church, but my suitcase has been bursting out of its sides for the last day, so I REPACK while John washes and sleeps, and finally get everything laid out, including brochures in boots, so that it'll last for the remaining week and a half of the trip, allowing for even MORE weight of books. Fifty pounds on the flight at LEAST. Sew pants and write a card to Mrs. Johnson about not paying rent, and then at 6 out to the Hungarian Puszta Restaurant in the large-dropped rain. Two guys serving, us, two other guys come in and order from the grill, and only a STRANGE woman who comes in a natty blue raincoat, shyly requests service, sits elegantly in her red-flowered silk-cotton dress, and eats her stew with a spoon, thumb hooked over the edge as a CHILD would eat. VERY strange. I have 4DM cocktail, harsh with Barack, and John has a 4.40 DOUBLE shot, and the bill is the highest yet: 36DM. But the rum flavored, "nut-cream filled, chocolate covered "special grand palancinta"" for 4DM EACH is tasty but dear. Out at 7:35 and through side streets to theater for the Ballet Abend. [The WATER is so hard John says his hair stays right in place, and I resist urge to say that's why he's CONSTIPATED, too, the CEMENT in the stomach. White DUST flies from Rothenburg washed socks, and they feel POWDERED, as do my hands and hair. My bowels remain fine, sinuses running horribly, not a DAY without a sniffle or cough. Thankfully, eyes are FINALLY clear again. Days start cool, heat up in the afternoons, cloud up and cool again at night. Pleasant. Tiepolo clouds now more GRAY than befits heavenly glory.] Crowd is nicely dressed, women in long skirts, men in suits. The "white" ballet has all the awful women in ORANGE and only the GUY in white. Women are nervous, older, unused to performing, unsure. The sole fellow is MUCH too young and inexperienced to be dancing professionally, his spins are a pain, leaps aborted, poise absent. Movie camera grinds away in box, and John say's that's common throughout Europe, and explains the stupidities in Indonesia and the "no pictures" in all the NYC programs. Intermission is a long bore counting burnt-out lights in pleasant plain auditorium, and "the Mantel" is such a sustained piece of acting and singing and sets and lights that John LIKES it, and Udo Holder shows a GREAT heldentenor voice. Pity he's so FAT and SLOBBERS down the front of his shirt! Out at 10:10 and hassle barman for 5 10-pfenning pieces and John for one to get 60pf on the card to Mrs. Johnson, and John says it'll get there in a month and I'm too disgusted to CARE. Disgusted with myself for getting so angry so easily. To hotel and get keys for WATER faucets in shower, and get to bed, earplugged, at 11:15.
TRAIN TO HEIDELBERG; NIGHT CONCERT
THURSDAY, JULY 12. Wake again at 6:15, up at 7:30 for breakfast and large bill. Out for streetcar to station, write, and train leaves promptly at 9:25. Cloudy day, and heavy rain starts in Necker Valley at 11. Loud kid who still sucks thumb at 5 and gabbling old women fill train. FINALLY find ourselves on the map at Mosbach, and think of taking the Necker, Rhine AND Mosel rivers, if possible. Frustrating NOW, at 11:15, to KNOW we're on the Neckar, with castles about, and be able to SEE none from train. Better when I didn't know where I was and didn't know what I was missing. In and out of tunnels and tree-lined rights of way with views of river blocked by trees. Pass Zwingenberg low on the hill, but can only see it from curve before and curve after, a pile of red stones with largeness but no real style. More romantic, on the other side, were bare walls with sky showing through the windows, fun to get hurt in. Some vaguely nice guys coming on train. [7/13. Simply ALWAYS DISGUSTED. Students waiting for tickets to Schloss and the ticket taker reaches through the window, looks at a ticket, fills out a form, makes a duplicate, takes money, gives a coupon, exchanges money, makes a copy, checks a guidebook, thumbs through a manual, talks on a phone, and I get VERY impatient. Then John comes back and says "Omnibus kaput." We WALK.] [Apoteke Museum: everything's "semen" German or Latin for SEED. Marijuana seeds and Hash. Old laboratory a large chamber of various alembics in state of intercourse with many beakers] [The permanent plight of these small museums is the plethora of painting by local artists of NO merit taking up LEAGUES of wall space. And they're made even WORSE by the few GOOD pieces.] Want to get out at Karl Tor Station, but John's not around and we get to the Information Office in Hauptbanhof to get maps and guides and music schedules and bus tickets. To bus 5, then 6, across to Montpellier Hotel and get settled and John showers in "sink-attachment shower" while I wash one shirt and we're down to lunch in airy, fly-y, French-y restaurant. Send back two mushroom omelets and watch a stewing poor Steak Diane at next table until we get our ordered ham and cheese omelets. Good, but onion soup was dreadful. Out to walk town, across bridge and over busy river, and get to center of town to have it start to rain! John cashes in 300SF to get a permanent US$/DM exchange rate of 2.45 DM to $. Wait until 4, and see Haus zum Ritter, Renaissance like the castle facade, and the church, quite plain, and locate the Whisky a Gogo gay bar. Back to find the opera house closed for the day (ticket office of opera house) and slog in gentle rain back to bus to hotel. I buy shampoo finally and get back to shampoo and we're [oh, forgot the MUSEUM, for a badly worm-eaten one wing of Reimanschneider's Twelve Apostles altar and a nice Francia and many busts and heads and paintings of Heidelberg University Dr. Drs.] Out at 6 to Die Argonauten restaurant for a HUGE gyro portion (though dry, don't they have sauce for it?) and John has cold good octopus in lemon and olive oil, and then across to climb the HARD walk to the Schloss, and it's ENORMOUS [Stupid American woman on cable car: "They have it timed so perfectly it always meets the other one in the middle."] Gape at house-large wine tun, out to cross bridge and look at fallen tower before it starts raining again. Down for raincoat and out again on deserted terraces. Walk WAY the heck around the old garden terrace, on ENORMOUS scale, and then in, wet, to concert. Violone is the leader, I guess, and I and everyone else HATE his totally unwarranted assurance of his excellence as a personality, a conductor, or even a violinist. Out at 10 and take a fairly empty cable car down for 1.50, dear since round trip is only 2. Into Whiskey a Gogo, downstairs, and it's noisy and dancy, so I sit in a corner, sandals off, and drink beer while John tries to make contact, and I'm struck unfavorably by the tight-lipped dourness of his look in his Chinese collar. Out at 11:30 and catch last bus back at 11:40, and we get into bed at 12. I go right to sleep, which is a blessing, because I'm thinking that very LITTLE could happen yet on this trip of real INTEREST. All German places seem somewhat alike, the castles are boring after the initial impression, I wouldn't care if I never saw another small-town museum, and the gay bars are alike in being full of self-centered people who are NOT the best-looking ones in the town. Tired, I guess, but going on and trying DIFFERENT places has as little interest as staying in the same place. John said early "mountain-chasing" part of the trip was foolish compared with this, and I DEFEND it as being the SAME as this, but leave UNSAID that it's ALL rather foolish. Well, maybe he's RIGHT, except with people: he with Gilles in Annency and Hans-Jorg in Bergamo, me with Edgardo and Erik in Milan. Well, home soon.
TOUR HEIDELBERG CASTLE; WALK TOWN
FRIDAY, JULY 13. Wake at 6:30, urinate at 8, and sex John up THOROUGHLY for a FELT orgasm at 9:15. Shower and breakfast in pleasant summery room with SEXY Canadian, and across to Schloss. [Sit in square writing this, and Heidelberg DOES have some JAMMED crotches and some NICE bodies. ALMOST as good as Milan. Now it's 4 and I can go and buy my opera ticket for tonight.] Endless wait is caused by the Bergbahn being broken, so we have to walk up AGAIN, taking the lower terrace and going around the BOTTOM of the castle, looking up while John reads from Michelin. Hordes of children look down on us and call to us from the terraces. Explore the Sprung Tower from both sides, it's marvelous pictorial qualities of askew planes totally ignored by the post cards. Clamber up and down rock walls to walk in which was once the INSIDE of the walls, and look up at the towers and the windows, Magritte-like, which reveal white clouds moving across the sky. Inside to MORE hordes of shouting tourists and guides shouting to be heard OVER the confusion. More words from Michelin, and decide to go only into the Apothecary Museum. Pleasant, particularly the old laboratory, and hashish mentioned, and out to cold plate and GROG (hot water and rum and sugar) lunch at a restaurant there and get back to the now-working Bergbahn, and we get a round-trip to the top from the BOTTOM for 4, where the one-WAY from the Schloss to the bottom is 1.50! Up to the top, and to the tower for another 50pf, and a great view of the VACANT WOODS all around Heidelberg, suburby off in the north west toward Mannheim, where the airport is clear, but all untouched woodland to the south and west and east. Down to the terrace and order the 3.50 fruit and ice and cream, and AGAIN the waiter misunderstands and brings TWO of them. Good view of top of castle from there, and then down to walk the busy streets back to the hotel at 4:45, and I write 17 postcards (we stopped at the post office for stamps and stickers) and we get down at 6:15 to eat downstairs, at $10.40 the most expensive meal of the trip: John has a "white martini" that he says is pure vermouth for 2.50, 2 beers for 5, I have wine, fairly good and grapey for 3.50, I have hors d'oeuvres (shrimp, too), he snails for 6 and 6, then he the fillet of sole and I the PORK and SHRIMP and béarnaise (butter) sauce, the kosher DELIGHT of a meal, 16 and 15, for a total of 52DM. I pay and walk back through town, early, and see the finish of the chalk painter's work on the sidewalk (off-culture of beggars, artisans, talkers, strummers, sleepers, loafers, junk/kitsch painters and crotch watchers around the main street) and back to back stairs for the TINY theater and the notes that I took on the program during the fairly horribly-sung production, in German, of Rossini's "Barber of Seville." Gape at lit castle from the windows during intermission. Hot auditorium and dirty. Out at 10:30 and back to hotel to drop off binox, and see John on entrance to Philosopher's Way; he says bar is just a LOCAL one but he's going back to it. I walk up Way in light then dark, passing car stopped for guy, loud people on walkway, and BEAUTIFUL view over city from Gardens, not many lights, lights on castle go off when I'm not looking at 11:15. Deserted walk makes me want to jerk off in the light of the full moon, so I unzip and get going, and get to the railing to finish off, and JUST as last spasm spasms, two people come up Schlangenveg, or whatever, and I zip up and walk rapidly back up, but no one follows, so I MAY have been seeing things. Walk back along dark way debating about telling John some story about someone doing me, but decide it's not worth it. Anyway, there's no sex for 24 hours. Back to room with door key and find John already in bed, so I read some of guide and get wearily into bed at 12:15 with earplugs to block out street noises, glad that we've decided to take an early train to Mannheim tomorrow.
TRAIN TO MANNHEIM; WALK TOWN
SATURDAY, JULY 14. Wake at 6:45, later at least, then again at 8 after dream in which John actually COMES just before I do, and we're up and to breakfast and bus to station at 9:30 and get the 9:35 train to Mannheim at 9:55, only 10 miles! [Things don't go well on Sunday, either. John asks for milk, gets CONDENSED milk, asks for milk, waiter shouts in a loud voice that it IS milk. I ask John what the word for "fresh" is and John asks "Haben Sie frais milch?" and the waiter shouts that there IS no milk. That's the way it goes. Then he trips while coming up the stairs and drops the bottle of wine, breaking it into a pool in the bottom of the plastic bag. Then while he's getting a refill on the wine I find that all the cars are marked first class, and after a nice English conference with the English-speaking information source, I find that our train leaves at 11:15, changing in Cologne for a half-hour, and gets into Brussels at 6 pm. Oh, well, a night in Brussels. We then sit from 10:30, John reading "October Country," me writing all this.] Information booth is only TRAIN information, and we can find NO information about boats on the Rhine. Decide on a hotel near the station, and I suggest the Banhof hotel, and we're in to a prolonged interchange about one bed, ein grosse bet, two beds, zwei bettezimmer, and finally settle into a room for 44DM, not bad, overlooking the street which is fairly quiet, but the shower has only ONE valve and that controls (or DOESN't control) EVERYTHING. Shower semi-well and we're out to walk the streets. John annoys me by going into tunnel and coming out on OTHER side of street, and I see sign for a weekend boat to Rudesheim (but it turns out not to be THIS weekend) and we pass watertower and get up to the theater for tickets at 11, good seats, and back to tower, to look at nice fountains and lovely flowers in park and have dessert of apricot torte after breakfast, and chocolate (had only tea and coffee in Montpellier!) (and condensed milk from first day was replaced by coffee the second), and then we're into the small, pleasant Municipal Art Museum for about 45 minutes---nice modern sculpture, good selection of paintings, spectacularly shaded purply "View of Amsterdam" by Kokoscha that doesn't reproduce at ALL well, the over-praised "Manet shooting Maximillian in Mexico" and a pleasant average Gauguin. Early Monet and Renoirs. Across to Copenhagen to eat after watching nude four-year-old girl cavort in the fountain, and have a good meal watching the fresh and salt water fish tanks (though they DO get very DEPRESSING after a bit). Waiters in tuxes. Out to go toward center of "Quadrastatte" along busy department store streets, and John's unfavorably impressed: 1984's here already with workers laboring all week to spend their money shopping on Saturday. He dislikes the uniformity of everything on sale, the uniformly neatly-dressed look of passersby, and the very squareness of the city streets that are famous. Drop into a bookstore to see what the Red Michelin says, and it cops out by only giving ONE star for a good restaurant, and Garmisch had only Partenkirchen Hof (French menu, undoubtedly) and the Alpina. Heidelberg had three forks ONLY for the Bayerishes Hof restaurant, and two forks for the Montpellier. Mannheim had only 4-5 two fork restaurants as the BEST in town, and the Kopenhagen and the Peking were two of them. Walk to Jesuit church, only roof bombed out, and it's light inside as Michelin cued us. Around end of Schloss and try to get to river, but John won't cross tracks, so we have to go up and back and take WALKWAY to cross tracks and find a boat that's already got a tour to Dusseldorf. Only OTHER thing along seedy rocky riverfront are rowing docks and clubs. Back to castle and it doesn't OPEN at 3, and John leaves, I write, others come to try door, I walk around place in disgust and get back toward station. Private travel agency that was so crowded this morning (public information booth looks to be in a PERMANENT state of "in construction," leading me to my fantasy list of "forbidden cities that don't have at LEAST 18 hours of information EVERY day.") is CLOSED, check out post bus which only goes to a VERY few towns VERY often, there are NO notices of ANYTHING on the Rhine except "ask at the train office," which is JAMMED with people asking questions. Get schedule to Rudesheim, only once a day, and then to Mainz, more frequent, and pick up a brochure about BELGIUM and a schedule to that, since I'm just TIRED of Germany. Up to talk depressedly with John, and he finds a good TEE to Brussels at 10:30 to 4, and we're dressed and down to buy tickets for it, then walk to the Peking for fairly good food and LOUSY service. John highly spices everything and then sweats through the meal. I wait minutes for tea, and the bill is pretty high, though John LOVED his two lychee martinis. Across to marvelously large public area for the two theaters of the National Theater, and in to see their funny stairs to each loge above doors to orchestra rows. Balcony is so far back I CAN'T see the reason for charging orchestra prices. Work is HIGHLY flawed, VERY uninteresting musically most of the time except for the forester's highly felt final aria which must give Janacek's ideas of love for all as happens in the woods. "Cunning Little Vixen." Even I thought it was overproduced with flying logs and raising and lowering leaves and screens. Champagne at intermission. Walk home, John concluding "Mannheim is REAL Germany." Bed after sex at 11.
TRAIN UP RHINE, COLOGNE, GHENT FIREWORKS
SUNDAY, JULY 15. Light wakes me at 6:30, then up at 8:50. Expensive coffee and chocolate and train hassle as described earlier. I sit on aisle and write during boring parts of trip. "Electro Nuhn" brings up funny visions of an electronic nun. Smoker looks quite ADDICTED to smoking in aisle of non-smoking compartment. ALL the trees in the flatland north of Mannheim look YOUNG, all planted since WAR 30 years ago? If it's dreadful to tour the country NOW, how must it have been BEFORE now?? But no bomb craters in fields, no shells of buildings, anyway. Earth recovers quickly. LOTS of Turks and Italians working (men) in Mannheim: family arriving from Naples with frightened kids and white plastic five-gallon cans of wine and cardboard boxes of clothes. Greek newspapers in station. Potential race-riots in Germany? Everything looks dull and functions: theater last night with dirty curtains, prematurely old concrete houses, plain church steeples. Made more depressing by gray clouded day. Very flat farmlands, even very few trees until Mainz. Then across busy (ore boats, small pleasure craft, sightseeing boats) Rhine to Wiesbaden, the disheveled, old, unsightly backyard of it, anyway, then back across the Rhine, to flatlands again and rain to Benjin, across from Rudesheim, blocked by long strips of freight cars, and then start the hills and the castles. Gray day, remember, with patches of rain. The river seems a slate gray, constantly moved by passing ore boats. The train zipped past VERY fast, as if under contract not to give competition to the leisurely quiet round of car or steamer. Many castles, against the sky since the train was much higher than any boat deck would be, which would throw town towers up against castle up against peaks (NOT very impressive peaks). Most castles looked partially lived in, many flew flags, some had cottages built on old terraces, some looked thoroughly renovated with casement windows and waterproofing. Looked out for the Lorelei, but Bear Mountain and High Tor are FAR more impressive. Remember that on a BOAT one would have time to read colorful histories of each castle, little blurbs about each flat narrow town along the river bank, have time to enjoy the water, the towns, the beer, the music. We clipped right along, following EACH castle precisely out of Michelin. GLAD to be on train, but SOME of the tiny valleys look nice, if you knew someone who lived up there, as John would say. Koblenz is big and busy, and good view of Festung Ehrenbreitstein at the mouth of the Mozelle, but Marienburg looked more elaborate. Then zip north out of Koblenz right on time at 1:31. Flat again, lots of factories, many views blocked by GREAT trains of freight cars on sidings. THIS is the time to mention the LEGIONS of German campers and trailers and tents and tourists encamped on riverbank and mountainside and stream bank ALL over Germany. Blue and orange tents, white trailers, brown people, all "joyfully" clumped together to enjoy their weekend of "solitude." UGH. Stolzenfels VERY colorful. Many old churches left now, but houses are STILL not as picturesque as, say, Honingsvag! North is rather flat, some spectacle at Drachenfels, looking like a Hudson Castle, and there is some huge, distant, hotel-monastery complex beyond it, at Petersburg? In Bad Godesburg is the castle with HUGE picture windows in the bottom and the square tower on top. Be a nice place to stay, but still the rain and gray continue; John reads most of the time; I browse back and forth from side to side to see the sights of each. MUCH better to do it in 4 hours rather than 2 hours, but that's much better than 8 or 12 on the river. Zip into Bern, lots of building in process, and quickly zip out again in 2 minutes. What an important city! Pass ANOTHER series of throughway bridges---no throughway, just BRIDGES, another series of MAJOR road works that seems to have fallen through, as were those north of Rothenberg. Cologne just as dim and rainy as is was the evening I was there. Heavy rain hits train just before it clears enough to see a BIT of the cathedral, and we transfer bags to 7b (almost as far from cathedral as possible) and he goes off to see the Dom. I sit and write, happy at the thought that in about an hour we'll pass through Aachen on the way into Belgium, and we may STAY there through the whole eight days left on the trip. Except for Munich, I really feel as if I've SEEN Germany! Crowd starts gathering early for the train to Brussels, probably another hassle for seats. Maybe I'll have to dig into the book to read. Lots of English in the station. I really feel all WRITTEN OUT. Throat finally NOT sore this morning, though there are still crusts to be raked out of eye-corners in the morning. Good crap this morning, too, more than John can be thankful for. Counting only DAYS left at this point, not even % of time left. Think of flight once or twice a day, but THEN I think of the 120 agents, and my stomach REALLY gets uptight. Also think of ACC about twice, wondering if I'll have work there. John is excited about my owing the kitty $400+, and he has cash to boot. I'll probably have enough cash for the rent for the month, and have enough in the bank till EITHER the first paycheck OR the first unemployment check. 2:55 pm now, only 12 minutes till train is due to LEAVE. Not much suspense. John WILL make it back; we WILL be on train, we WILL see lots of Belgium. Guess I WILL be glad to get back home. Except the BANAL American's conversation going on to my left doesn't help my enthusiasm for New York. Yep, this train WILL be jammed. Platform PACKED: students, equally kids, people. But John DOES get backs before train pulls in, door STOPS near us and I grab an empty non-smoker's compartment for 8 which contains 5 of us by the time the train pulls out at 3:07:15, 15 seconds LATE! Watching rain fall in Duren reminds me of quiet childhood afternoons in Akron, watching the summer day darken, the first raindrops fall, watching for the last dry sidewalk patch to vanish, the matte finish to get shinier, the first puddle to gently form, and then watch the rivulet starting to run its way down the street to the sewer. Hours spent in gently process-watching, as I sometimes STILL sit on the john, and, mesmerized, watch the drops form and drop and well into the drain in the bathroom sink. [Entertainments for the Very Rich: Earthquake Village: CONSTRUCTED for earthquakes to take place in, say, a 6-hour period. Pay to go in, wonder when it will HAPPEN, maybe a rock falls and kills SOMEONE to make it more exciting. It's the CHANCE you take. Also a FIRE building, a shipwreck, a submarine disaster. FUN!] Then John decides we CAN continue to Oostende, and when we make lots of little stops, I figure maybe we can get off in Ghent (which John has lots of gay addresses, too). So we stay on through Brussels (Italian crew making life miserable for some minutes before they get off) and look as bored and long-riding as possible when the ticket-taker comes around, and he DOESN'T check our tickets. At 6:30 the train stops at "Ghent-St. Peters," but if we HAVE tickets we obviously can't ask conductor "Is there another stop in Ghent?" So we pile off, find EVERYTHING closed, we're in outskirts of town, and we check for map in Hotel Carlton (snooty, John says) and catch a bus for 7F to the center of town. John immediately wants to start walking, but I follow one way, then to the Keller, then REFUSE to go any further, and John goes off to check some others on the map, then remembers the Dutch couple's mention of the St. George, finds it, and it's been built in 1228, looks fine, and seems to serve good food. Lug baggage, hands blistering and battered, upstairs into 30 foot ceilinged room with private bath for 600+F/day. Change and down to dinner, about 540F for GOOD veal steak and John likes chicken, even though the apricots ARE on the side. My country paté is good, his herring less so, the ice cream and hot chocolate nice. Eat 8:15-9:15, slow service, and up to check things to do and John naps to 10:45, and out for good fireworks 11-11:20 on Koornmarkt, and we wander town to find the Kiosque VERY dreadful with awful old people, and past Chateau du Diable and church and quiet streets, back to the hotel just after midnight to fall into high narrow beds.
GHENT CATHEDRAL;CANALS; VIELLE STRASBOURG
MONDAY, JUNE 16. Wake with light at 6:30, then at 8, down for breakfast of good rolls and I have an omelet with fatty rawish very tasty bacon on the side, and we're out to the tourist office to pick up GOOD brochures, then to the cathedral. It's high, wide, and grand, stylish and filled with chapels and crypts and art and remains from every century since the 11th. Rubens and Juris of Ghent and Jordaens and other painters, loads of silver and ornaments and dozens of tomb covers being scuffed blank in the floor. The van Eyck "Mystic Lamb" is staggering in its detail, photographs NEEDED to convey the beauty of its detail. Fantastic work. Climb to top of tower, 444 exhausting steps, bump head HARD on stone going up side door to top of nave, good view of clouds and sun and inner courts and far-off harbor and large buildings around and churches and all VERY flat, and SEE rain coming, down to hotel for raincoats and wander for restaurant, finding waffle place where John has a cheese omelet, strawberry milk, and a waffle with cream for dessert. I have Siberian crepe (good rum and ice cream and crisp crepe) and Russian milk (coffee and whipped cream and sugar) and a toasted ham and cheese with a fried egg and tomatoes on top. Then at 1:15 John decides, since sun comes out after rain which caused him to say, "Well, let's take the boat tomorrow, and see the museums today," to TAKE the ship. I gulp down rest of food, he pays bill at 1:20, we leave at 1:22, get to ship at 1:25, and are settled on board at 1:30, thanks to a small town. River is polluted and smelly and bubbly, but it dies off as we go further and further, past walls like Amsterdam, then fields after bridges for roads and canals and lots of crumbly back-walls of old gardens. Locate La Caravelle and decide it'll be a slow trip, and glide past cows and horses and pigs and sheep, DOZENS of ducks and geese and dogs and cats and chickens on various lawns, vistas of sun and shadow and rain, poor houses and very rich castles, restaurants and pleasure boats and even some kids swimming in the tea-colored water, where bubbling decomposition is never far out of sight. Faster past pastoral fields, slower past embankments trying to stem the erosion of the tidal wave caused by the boat. People PASSING wave, but people who LIVE there sometimes stand with hands on hips with stern looks on their faces. See Ooydonk's onion bulbs rising black in the distance just before we turn around before really getting to Duerk at 3:50, and down to read magazines and the sensationalistic English tabloids that seem to be the only English reading around, sexy underwear ad in the Paris Match, and pay 2F from a 100F bill for the "service" of the john. Cigar smokers and screaming, jumping, tripping kids make the trip somewhat less than perfect, but the countryside is pleasant enough and the time passes easily watching the houses (and too VERY sexy-bodied swimmers) pass by. No more rain, but it's windy and chilly out, so the raincoats are on most of the time. Back at 6, and stroll around town to find bookstores closed, and back to check the guide for the "best" restaurant in town and decide it must be one of the first three, each with a French name, each expensive. Dress and take $25US for insurance, not REALLY believing that each meal can cost 500F and walk over, stopping at the Kouter for the magnified music and announcements of the old-fashioned costumed dance contest. Menu is outside and it IS expensive, and John gets 145F Coquille St. Jacques which is mostly potatoes, some mussels, and something sandy that I get a bit of with mushrooms, and sole with Chablis for 220 that's VERY creamy and soley, but he doesn't care for it, and he gets a wine from Chablis for 485, very fruity at the start, but as it "improves" with age, all the grape taste goes and only a tartness is left. I have Velouté de Vollaile for 45, rather thin, with bits of chicken in it, and Ris de Veau Casino de Paris for 300, sweetbreads so pink and tender they could be RAW, and delicious, a Strasbourg paté de fois gras that is true babyshit in richness, creaminess, and filling qualities, and 3-4 CHUNKS of truffle each as big as a baby's fingertip, so lustrously black they looked like soft bits of charcoal. THAT was worth $9. So the whole thing (with rather slow service, and many strangely disheveled and dilapidated customers) cost 1185, and John gave his $20 and 500F, and he gave us back 20, so that was a 35.25 they gave us in exchange, rather than the bank's 36 of next day, so they charged us 45 for the exchange. Out at 9:10 and THERE'S Kleine Vleeshiustrat, right off Kouter, and down to ring bell for "Club, no strangers admitted," and woman hollers down "Be open in 10 minutes" in French. Other place is burnt out, wander around in rain to the two on Korce Meer. One is an insurance company, the other is closed, as if IT were burned out, too, and I'm ready to find "Le Bateau" but John doesn't feel like walking in the rain, so he's back to hotel and I'm alone in rain to Bijlokkaii, find A boat, but it's got ONE old guy and cute young with a crotch, and two COUPLES, old men and women, drinking at tables. Up the hill under a dry tree to watch to 10, three men come out and two take taxi (one man to john?) and no one ELSE goes in. Back and the lights are dimmer and the couples are DANCING and the same two sit, rather more glumly. Raining harder but I want to finish SOMETHING. Back to Kouter and watch kids jitterbugging and twisting to "Gal from Amarilla, under my Villow," and jumping girl who gets partnered by old fart who can barely MOVE, and a perky Byrd Hoffman type dancer stepping high. Into salesroom for leather and shells and books and floor and window cleaners and mixers and radar ranges and ice, then past dyke bar with gal staring harshly down street, peer into Kiosque and see two costumed old women and NO one else, not even gay bartender. Back to center and find Chez Jean is closed for July, Gousse d'ail is small and not QUITE so expensive, and the band is STILL blaring to empty streets and full awnings at the Koornmarkt. Raining harder, some FEW gay guys pass, but I can never be sure even WHEN they look, and get back at 11:10 feeling chilled in rain, so into hot tub to get VERY sweaty, so I have to cool down from THAT, shutting drapes that sleeping John (now reading "Body Electric") didn't shut perfectly, and stuff in earplugs and fall quickly asleep at 11:45.
MUSEUM, WALK TOWN, MUSEUM, FIREWORKS
TUESDAY, JULY 17. John joins me at 7:30 and I do him slowly and nicely to 8, but he doesn't TOUCH me. Then to breakfast to 9, and out to look at the miniature town and the story of Charles V. [At noon I get to feeling VERY sorry for myself, can't REALLY shake it. So I walk to museum at 1 and start writing. It opens at 1:30 and I sit on bench till 2, and the awful feeling has managed pretty well to dissipate. We really don't think of EACH OTHER very much, it seems. Ourselves, yes, but NOT each OTHER. HE gets food when HE sees it, wants to eat when HE wants to eat. I can't break schedule for HIS eating, or HIS ease, so we part until 2, he sad that we're not "picnicking" together, I sad that we DON'T seem to be together. Maybe I'm getting constipated, too, and then the museum this morning WAS a bit of a disappointment. Well, now I'm FINISHED with this book and can start on the LAST one, with exactly SEVEN days of the trip to go into it! "English version in 2 minutes," he says as we pay our 30F. "Oh, that's too long to wait," I joke, but he doesn't understand. The model is a real beauty: the details on the facades of EACH HOUSE are quite lifelike. John expresses sadness that they don't play any of the beautiful Burgundian music, and that they talk ONLY of the period 1500-1566. Out at 9:30 and look at the Michelin Guide (Belgium DOES have conveniences: urinals EVERYWHERE, and Eeklo has MARVELOUSLY wide cycle lanes on street.] [IS an Isenbrandt in Cathedral MUSEUM. ALSO reliquary of O.L. Vrouw and St. Petrus and Paulus, Ap. and a GOOD Bout's "Legend of St. Hypolyte" torn by horses. St. Bridget's Mantle (6th Century); St. Michan's staff (6th Century)! Murals from 1270, funeral tablet from 1067, AND woman teaching son to ride BICYCLE in hall, and of course he falls and CRIES.] [Gerard David likes dogs in strange poses: Hypolitus I, licking his cock, II, scratching his ear.] [EXAMPLES of too much cleaning: seeing the WALL "through an ax in a Memling, or the arm THROUGH the pages of a book in his St. Christopher. DOG'S face (black, staring orange eyes) on SIDE of Memling's St. Christopher!! Backs of David are marvelous, but the "St. Lucy Legends" are only grisailles saints, poorly done, and the Memling also are two HUGE Sts: St. George and St. Peter, not so interesting. BRILLIANT red, blue, green on St. Andrew on back of Pieta, copy of Memling.] to find that the hotel restaurant isn't even MENTIONED and that the Vielle Strasburg IS considered one of the best in the city---worth two forks. Then catch the bus south, pass the stop, and walk back to the art museum. No cheap guidebooks, I put my loaded bag on a chair in the tapestry hall, and start around the walls. They have a few nice things, but the Bosch is quite poor, only beastly heads surrounding a serene Christ, and the exhibit quickly degenerates into second rate unknown artists and 18th and 19th century local painters and then the moderns. A three-piece "man" with mirrors on various parts is fun to look at and walk through, with your feet and chest and crotch showing up in strange, unexpected and repeated places. A huge round side rotunda contains ghastly modern stuff, and only a pall of black dust settling on white plaster bodies on a huge relief above the doors, highlighting more skillfully than the artist could, the muscles and lines of the bodies. Out at 11:30, John bought a shrimp salad, saying "We'll have a picnic, won't we?" at 10, and carried it all day, something I'd never do. So we walked toward the next place, the abbey of Bijlok, and there wasn't any place to buy things. Finally at 12 he said "I'll sit on this bench and wait for you to buy stuff." I get disgusted, knowing it's not at ALL clear where I'll be able to buy something ("There were shops up that street," he said, where I was quite sure there were no FOOD shops), so in depressed exasperated tones I say "Why don't we just meet at the museum at 2." "But we were supposed to have a picnic," said John plaintively, and I said with a grunt, "I don't know what ELSE to do." And he had no further suggestions, so we parted sadly. I strolled and walked inland and stopped at a greengrocers to find nothing, then at a meat shop for 200g. of tongue. Wander around to a park with a few benches and eat in the growing wind and cold, and it begins to rain. Feeling VERY depressed and after about half an hour (12:30-1) of agony I pull myself up and get to museum to write outside until doors open at 1:30, then inside until 2:10, finishing the second book, and start through the exhibit, assuming John's gone back to the hotel because of the rain. But in the fifth or sixth room, just as I was looking at the iron I was sorry he was to miss, he shows up, saying he had a whole bottle of wine for lunch and got lost---he doesn't know HOW, and we go through armor and Chinese stuff and paintings and STUFF until about 3, across St. Peters Plain for the plain church and the Landyut exhibit, which struck me VERY strongly with his Muhl-like strength (or was it Golub?) in the nudes, his oddly brainless heads and large---but hardly Keene-like---blank eyes. His jewelry is precise and beautiful, less fantastic but more imaginative and beautiful then Dali's. His ripped heads in sculpture and paint are forceful, and his black holes for eyes in crushed skulls are quite terrifying. Buy a book, catch a bus back to the hotel and lie there exhaustedly until time for the mime-evening. Poor, but the directed applause bit was pleasantly new. Out at 9:30 to eat soup and pork cutlet with green beans and a wine brings the bill to 1070, John goes right up to bed, and while we're in the bathroom there's the sound of fireworks. Out on a dash to Antwerp Plain, and see the last 20 minutes, FIVE standing displays going, but the very effective string of firecrackers has already been done, leaving a carpet of bits of red paper around the base of the pole. Not such a grand exhibit at the end, sadly enough. Leave with the mob at 11:10, and get back to the St. Jacob's Church (which was closed when we left the bus earlier on Friday Market and looked around at its sights---the main old building COVERED with billboards for the lower two floors) to see a CROWD of people at the folk festival (John went on the recommendation of the shyly talkative fellow who left during the second half of the mime-show), all cheering a Commander Whitehead type playing a Scotch fiddle. Urinals completely used, suspiciously wet around their bases, smell pervasive, no one seeming to question it: also in museums, right in public square, next to "La Potence" that I stopped to check in the Groentenmarkt, gay if not La Rive, empty, ON the canal. BUSY evening, loud crowds, all seeming to make an EFFORT to be cheerful. Back to the hotel just before midnight to look at the drawn nipples on the coy shepherdesses in the public john on the floor.
GHENT CASTLE, BUS TO BRUGES; MUSEUMS & CANAL TRIP
WEDNESDAY, JULY 18. (The Ride by train on Friday BACK across from Ghent to Leuven was AGAIN mainly in the valleys so that the train is hidden from view and the view is hidden from the train. Almost cloudless morning has gotten clouds by 10 and an almost total overcast of leaden clouds in color and weight by 11. We're both bored out of our skulls, irritable, and wish the trip would be over NOW. This morning's dream shows SOME sort of frustration: I'm in the Army, just outside Fort Meade, and have to get a plane INTO Fort Meade by 10 pm. But the next morning I've MISSED it and have trouble with elaborate foreign telephone with instructions and slots and buttons and lights and alternatives that I don't understand, and call the Fort Army operator and she asks for the name I have on a little slip of paper. Find it in my shoulder bag, give it to her, but I need it again and have to search all through my LUGGAGE to find it. Lost it AGAIN and I have to search through the DESK at which I'm sitting, which is covered with papers and computer output. "But plane left at 20:01," she says, after I apologized CONTINUALLY to first one, who's already hung up, and I say "Two thousand and one," and think it's 10 pm. but it's only 8, which must be why I MISSED it. So she says I've failed the test, though I remonstrate that they can't DO this to me. Wake VERY glad it all didn't happen, but it shows, I guess, my anxiety for the end of the trip.] [Add to OLD things: hardened, scabby, flaky, grainy elbow skin, sores on insides of lips] John wakes feeling VERY ill in the stomach, and has dire diarrhea three times even before breakfast. We eat and he goes right up to bed, and I continue with the walking tour of the town, passing through the boarded up St. Nicholas shell with him, then over to closed St. Michael's and along the canal to the Castle of the Dukes of Ghent, and the self-guided tour is quite impressive with vaults and crypts and dungeons and thick walls and machicolations used as johns and LOVELY stairs. Around to find that the bus to Bruges leaves from the Friday Market at 1:45, and see the rest of the sights in the compact center of the old town before noon. Generally fairly few cars and crowds, though there ARE lots of tourists at the Triptych, but they sort of vanish otherwise. Lunch, John ordering tomato soup and apples and cheese, I having fairly good beef and French fries (invented meal, I probably had pork and green beans, FORGET what I had LAST night), and I carry BOTH bags to the Market, putting a severe strain on my left forearm from my ludicrously heavy bag. Bill is cheap because they FORGET to add the 1070 bill from last night. We ask for a hotel in Bruges, and they recommend the Le Sablon, and we fear being CAUGHT there and getting the bill ANYWAY. Hot sun in squares and I worry about John, but apples seem to have helped, as did mineral waters. Bus comes fairly full, and we're all doubled up until people start getting off, about two turnovers for the whole trip, we being the ONLY ones going through. It IS strange to think of international travelers, luggage and passports in hand, going on a LOCAL bus to the tiny villages served by this line. Flat lands, farming, occasional canals and their FOUL stenches, some bubbly foam and shit smell, and town centers with their little statues and banks and town halls and houses of the rich. Into treeless, almost sidewalkless residential outskirts of Bruges and break into the crowded square with a BLAZE of towers and churches and old curved facades and sidewalk cafes. Out of bus and I trip around square to pick up everything I can at the tourist office, and then carry luggage to hotel, not QUITE Cour St. Georges, and it's 650F for a room WITHOUT bath, though it's hopefully quiet, on the back. John's ready for the square and ONE church, so we're out and looking, and get to Our Lady's Church and a Michelangelo that seems VERY early (Virgin and Child looking both short and a bit stubby), and LOTS of paintings hanging on the walls, and pay to get into the tomb of Mary of Burgundy, and there's a Pourbus and an Isenbrandt on the wall just THROWN away. LOTS of stuff on the walls and in chapels, really QUITE a place, and out to walk to the Groeninge Museum and get STAGGERED by the van Eycks and Weydens and Memlings and Bosch and Davids. Then there's a short downturn with a sexy painting in greens and chartreuses and lots of awful modern things. The "Imaginary Eyck collection" is VERY nice, slides of ALL his paintings. Walk back "the long way" and pass the Portinari Hotel, which looks nice, but when we get back, John say's he's too tired to go anywhere but the place on the street. OK. Out to eat at 6:30 and the food is fairly good, even the wine, but the place, though nice, seems somehow plastic. Then for a boat trip around the canals, artfully arranged for deadends at both ends, and there are lots of pleasant facades and churches and some VERY low bridges that must hike their insurance rates and would really bloody up the boat if anyone HIT the metal stanchions about two feet above the gunwales. Everyone, thanks to INSISTENT boatman, gets WAY down, including round woman in front of me. Out to plaza, VERY busy with cars and tourists, VERY junky stuff in windows, TOTALLY tourist-oriented, for the start of the carillon concert, and at 9:30 John goes to bed. I listen for a bit and walk to the Gruntse and pay 20F to sit in the last row away from the kids and ALL the SMOKERS, and though the lights are VERY lugubriously done, and they don't use the most EXCITING "Pictures" recorded, the flicker of fire in the fireplace, the bright church-cross shadows, and the area lighting on roofs and inside is fairly effective, though the END is woefully static. No cruising that I see, and at 10:30 the town appears to be closing down. Home to bed.
WALK BRUGES; EAT AT DUC DE BOURGOGNE
THURSDAY, JULY 19. Wake at 9, still feeling tired, but John's feeling somewhat better. Breakfast IS part of the rate, so we eat at 10, and then out to see more churches, starting with the Cathedral, which is REALLY loaded with lots of old paintings, sometimes three high, and take a tour through the Treasury while John sits this one out. (notes of 6th century earlier). Then go through a long back route to the sadly over-parked t-sand, where we find a Chinese restaurant, but I say that since it'll rain in an hour, it's silly to eat and then come OUT in the rain, why not wait TILL it rains. So we walk onward but it never really rains. Out toward the Donkey Gate, but there are NO parks in which to eat. Finally see a park at the gate, but John doesn't want to go back for picnic stuff. So we look at the HUNDREDS of swans in the water and on the grass, down and feathers fluttering against the fence, and look at the old moss-covered bricks rising from the remains of the moat, and then along the encircling main street, home of many of the rich, since each house is quite new or newly restored, grand, and immaculate. Down a street that turns into St. Joris Straat, and check out a couple of places to eat before settling on the Au Louvre, crowded and smoky. Have much trouble even getting beers, but finally John's omelet is large and greasy and my croque Monsieur is filling with the salad and French fries and soup and stout. Walk toward the square, then return for the TINY embankment that's all that's left of St. Donatius church, and into the fireplace room to MARVEL at the intricacy of the carving---literally a sculpture in wood, and John again remarks about the stalwartness of the codpieces. A grand piece of work, worth the 5F. Peek into the Salle Gothique of the City Hall and decide that gleaming wooden ceiling isn't worth 10F, and wait till the Sacred Blood Chapel Museum opens at 2:30 to see the church but not the museum, though I buy a book for 20F to read the history of the relic. It ALMOST sounds BELIEVABLE. Almost 900 years HERE. Then past the Duc de Boulogne again and get out to the Gruntse museum, a MARVELOUS Zolnerzak (as John puts it) of archeology, glass, sculpture, and oils of babies [Flemish is SO funny: newspaper contents reads: "In Dit Nummer."] and women getting enemas. Can't resist buying the catalog (which pleasantly turns out to be available in French) for 5. Tired, so we're across the way for $1 Dame Blanches and Caramel Sundaes to relax, and then into the Groininge again to get all the paintings TURNED (notes before). Out about 5 after buying the van Eyck book and get ready for dinner, and out to the Duc de Boulogne. They make us sit in the antechamber for a good long time looking at the menu and ordering, while having no cocktails as everyone else does, and then into the false posh dining room with the RIDICULOUS copies of the Rubens and Hals on the walls, and nowhere NEAR the windows overlooking the canals that brought us up there in the FIRST place. The serving table is right at our elbows so we can see all the cutting and mixing and stirring, and John remarks about the silliness of cutting the ham and putting it on a PLATTER to take it to the serving table, and then arranging the ham on the extracted melon at the serving stable and taking it to the person. "Let the cook do all that," he says. The Chateauneuf du Pape 1969 turns out to be ALMOST a gone-bad Hernandez, and I AGAIN get the feeling of "What am I doing in THIS kind of restaurant?" I DON'T know what the wines are, generally like a TASTY wine as I like a TASTY drink, but you're supposed to relish the varieties of SCOTCH and the acidities of WINE. A taste I STILL haven't managed to acquire though I find anchovies, lobster, and octopus very good and even scallops acceptable. I fantasy an interview with ANY paper that I'd want to be food writer for, saying "You've ordered this, what WINE would you like?" Not the FOGGIEST idea. Wine is SO expensive that the number of bottles that would have to be drunk to get a basic knowledge of the NAMES of the wines from the REGIONS, let alone the VINEYARDS in the regions, or the best YEARS for the vineyards of the regions, and when they DEVELOP to their peak and they PASS their peak, is so astronomical as to be ridiculous. And I KEEP trying onion soup, and so few of them are any GOOD---yet I have no idea what a "good" onion soup "should" taste like, and if it "should" taste like something that doesn't PERSONALLY please me, should I REALLY make the effort to "teach" myself the "good" taste? Wasn't even really sure if the delicious butter and cream sauce on the kidneys was REALLY a Béarnaise sauce, though it was SO good that it SHOULD have a name as classic as that, though the menu said only "facon du chef" and I didn't have the NERVE to ask "Is this Béarnaise?" since I should already KNOW it. I guess any good CRITIC of food should also COOK it, so that he can compare a RESTAURANT'S successes and failures with his OWN. I've tried to start again and again, and pooped out even BEFORE I found a John who would do all the experimenting FOR me with great pleasure. Tired, so walk back to the hotel in the barely dark, and John's almost immediately into bed with a book. I want to smoke, so we share a few puffs on the bidi, but I just get dizzy and the hands on the arms do nothing, so I have another few unshared puffs while John picks up the book again, put the earplugs in, and turn over to go to sleep instantly. Lost TWO sets of earplugs ALREADY and down to the last 3. So every morning I make SURE I put them away, knowing they help me to sleep so that I don't have TIME to worry about the flight. Each morning and evening I think of the number of mornings and evenings yet to go, and each time I shave and shit I think of how hard it would be to burn out the transformer or become constipated before getting home. These last few days are ALWAYS the roughest!
TRAIN TO LOUVAIN: CATHEDRAL,ITALIAN RESTAURANT
FRIDAY, JUNE 20. [Since I'm writing this at 9:30 am Saturday, only two days before the day we go home, I feel GREAT to be so caught up.] Wake about 6:45 with the hotel alive with people walking in the halls and going in and out of the johns and showers. Shower and John's downstairs at 8, and when we finish packing he says he'll be downstairs "waiting for his tour leader." I finish slowly and get down at 8:30 and THEN he wonders what to do. What IS there to do but SIT until the 10:07 train? So he makes notes for the paper on the Death of the Renaissance that he's writing, and I fill up some of the diary, and then tell him to cash his checks, but he says he can find no banks in the square. I insist on a taxi because I don't EVEN want to carry my suitcase to the BUS stop, and call a cab from the hotel which comes in two minutes with 32F ALREADY on the meter that should start at 22, and it gets only up to 38 before we get to the station and he says 60! I gulp, but pay him, and then into the station to find that there isn't any CHANGE booth, and the ticket taker REFUSES to take US$. John wants to take a cab BACK to town to cash money, but I REFUSE, storming into buffet where the son of a bitch gives me 30 when he SHOULD give me 35, making 20F or 60 on the deal, but that's STILL cheaper than a CAB would be. BANG the door and pay for the ticket with only 7F left! Write on platform till train comes, then the same flat, pretty, frilly-clouded trip back to Louvain, seeing the Atomium again, and out at 11:45 to have John cash his check, I back into the station to wait for the guy before me to send railway telegraph a la India: pasting and stamping and forms and money and rituals. Final tickets bought and into the bus to the center of town. Send John to look for an information booth, but he goes straight to the Majestic Hotel, for a GOOD room with a DOUBLE bed (first in AGES) and a shower ENCRUSTED with the stony deposits from the water. Settle in and out in the rain to look for lunch, one place has no food, and into Rubens for confusion. Select ham omelet and notice THAT menu's for 6-10 pm. Only one afternoon menu of meat and salad and soup and dessert for 125. Order it and just about to get soup when they say "menu's over." To FIRST page and order Croque Monsieur, but John starts ordering from the PM menu and it's ON. End up with the ham omelet, French fries and salad that I WANTED, and beer. Over budget for lunch already, but bank gives 3500, more than I thought, and we get information from office, finding a festival tomorrow, and out to walk in circles until the City Hall tour at 3 pm. All reconstructed since war, outside scaffolded to be redone AGAIN, and some nice reception rooms nice for weddings. Down streets with IMPOSSIBLE maps, and finally just walk and see what we pass. Down to the Great Beguinage and wander through the little brick streets BEFORE all the people move into their beautifully restored houses and clutter the streets up with their cars. Nice places, lots of tourists, but Louvain DOES seem like a quiet pleasant town, LOADED with old university buildings on the Naamstraat---all streets named for the city they go TOWARD. Around St. Quentin church but it's all locked and John's tired, so we walk back and detour to the Pope Adrian College to sit on benches and relax and watch the wedding reception at the Tyl, which is closed this week. Back to the hotel when I simply LAY on the bed, tired, while John showers, then change and out to look for a restaurant. Main square one "closed for transformations," and down side street to find Da Gianni. EVERY German city should have such an Italian restaurant with a DOZEN things on the menu I'd LOVE to try and their most EXPENSIVE 2-people meals are only 360F. Fabulous. And the waiters are cute, too, one slender and self-conscious like Azak in his fly-away tux, another with curved and recurved and full and lush lips to go below the PERFECT nose of the waiter in the RUBENS this afternoon! I have a BLUE Grotta Azzura cocktail with vodka, gin, and Bols, and it's sweet and good and I'm HIGH. Zuppa Pavese is good with a cheese that DOESN'T stick to the spoon like last night, NOT so hot, with a GOOD beef bouillon base. John fears my steak has been RUINED by the liquid boiling off, but the tournedos are TENDER, done JUST as I like them (not VERY blue as at the next table) and the KIDNEYS around are good TOO. HIS lasagna, he says, is better than this. And it's STILL a deal and WITHIN our budget. Out to roam street toward Michelen and the Lesser Beguinage, and John stops when it starts to rain and I go up pleasant street of small neat homes, around back to the canal, up in back of the church to see that IT is closed, too, and back to WANT to go into the Good Penny, or whatever, that I THINK is gay, but John's in his "I won't look, I don't care, I won't see" mood, and I TELL him so! He's sad to hear it. Back to main square and look for movies, down to Forum to see Peter Lee Lawrence (a Peter O'Toole double) in "The Band of Khyber Rifles," but he says no to that, and I see the City University built by American funds and we're into the blond-wooded reading room, VERY nice, though empty now that school's out, and to the john for "22 cm." and I look at columns from Bryn Mawr, and Harvard and Wellesley and NYU and Tilton and many other schools, feeling vaguely fond of the US at this point. Back to hotel and shower, and John SAID he wanted an orgy but says, "There's the light switch." When he asks "Aren't YOU tired?" I say "Ye-es," with the tone, "But I STILL want sex," and he falls asleep. I'm up at 10:30 to piss and take a drink of the rocky water, and put in earplugs though the traffic on the street has faded away to nothing, and thankfully have NO trouble falling asleep on the THIRD last night before the flight back to NYC and HOME!
BORED IN LOUVAIN
SATURDAY, JULY 21. Wake at 6 and have sex until 7, he eager and shooting, I soft and shooting ANYWAY. Down to breakfast after I doze till 8, and they have TOAST from HAND toaster that I operate MYSELF. Good! BACK up to shit and write, and John reads, then takes 2000F and goes shopping! I write till 10:10, then take off to the Cathedral to have a look at the Treasury before the Te Deum starts at 11. Up to DATE, and only today and TOMORROW to write up before TYPING Monday on MONDAY! Or even SUNDAY! Bullfrog/dyke voiced woman says that she may go OUT for lunch, and gives me the #19 key to the front door. Down. Up to put key to ROOM downstairs, as she told us last night. Down. Up to get MAPS. Down. Guide (and treasury) in church only from 1 to 4:30. Damn! Decide to visit MUSEUM to check hours. Right, the guide WAS wrong (as it changed 6 and 9) (and left and right!) again. SATURDAYS, Sundays and Holidays from 11 to 1 (not 10 to 1). So since EVERYTHING'S closed I go back to church again at 10:45 to watch people gather, blue-uniformed knights of something-or-other with bronze spears walk importantly up and down the aisle, the big bells go into a FRENZY of ringing, and the almost swallow-TAIL suited (section of seat from bottom: ) organist rushes impatiently about with his graying blond hair permanently swept back in his mental wind. A blat of trumpets as some khaki-suited VIP comes in bedecked with medals, lead to his corner seat by the Napoleon-hatted leader of the blue troops, and the bells go wild AGAIN. Maybe 15 of the 500 wooden seats filled, some ceremoniously standing, me and the gray old lady behind dumbly sitting. The armed guard appears to be awaiting MORE VIPs. Cluster around organ has grown to 10. Surely they're not ALL going to play? Who looks to be the MAYOR arrives and does NOT like his seat until the person in khaki is moved one MORE from the center! Various MASSES of black-robed UNIVERSITY (John says "Town Council") people arrive. Flags are placed and John arrives at 11 as the organ takes off. The organ's not very noble, the singing's ghastly, the chanting almost interminable, and the whole thing's over about 11:20. Over to the museum to balk at the 20F entry-fee for the drinking collection, but they let us BOTH in for 20F, and there's one cock and that's all (You'd think that was all I look for.) Everything's closed because of the holiday, but we find a Chinese restaurant and the roast-pork-fried rice isn't bad, and the whole thing is quite cheap. Walk to MORE closed churches, and back to hotel; John wanting to nap, I content to walk to the Forum in a HEAVY rain to find it not open until 2, up to station to watch a truck lose his tire, back at 2 for a GHASTLY "Fury of the Khybers" with a NOTHING cast, and back to the hotel. Out and walk the streets until 7, when we're back to the Italian restaurant, John having the Grotta Azurra and I graduating to an Alexander, good and creamy, but the meals themselves aren't that good this time, and we get out for the band concert, fairly good, walk to look at the lights on the buildings, back for the fireworks at 10 in the BARELY dark sky, for the MOST spectacular exhibit yet, MANY going at once, GREAT blazing beams of gold fountains, and stop for a beer, John pets a dog, and to the hotel at 11:30, when I WHACK my toe in the dark, drawing BLOOD to make it raw.
TRAIN TO LUXEMBOURG, WALK CITY, LIGHTS AT NIGHT
SUNDAY, JULY 22. Wake at 7, have breakfast, pack, and get out about 9 to hope there are busses running on Sunday, and we have the luck to get one at 9:15 on their hourly schedule. Find there's an earlier train to Brussels, and get the 9:27 in the hopes of finding a shop open in Brussels for lunch material, since there was nothing open in Louvain. Train is comfortable and uncrowded, but Brussels is more bustling, John goes off shopping and again finds nothing except overly expensive sandwich shops, but he doesn't want to buy anything from them, despite my protestations of HIS feeling of hunger past 12:15! Read and write before the 10:55 train to Luxembourg, and it's VERY crowded; we even start out in different sections, I in the smoking, he in the non-smoking, both on aisle, but as the trip goes on (enlivened by incredibly NAIVE conversation by a corn-fed boy from Iowa talking to a physically repulsive man from Belgium who happens to be an astronomer TOO) people leave, and I can move away from the two old women who are going to Luxembourg, and finally John and I sit together, though he claims the forward-moving seat, since he's been sitting backwards the whole time. Some views over grand vistas of gently rolling hills are very easy to look at, but things begin getting built up over Luxembourg, and we're in on schedule to a JAMMED train station filled with backpackers and budget tourists of all ages and nationalities. Onto the plaza to see a number of deluxe hotels, and John sends me to find a double, without bath, for 600, and I try a few that start at 900, then find a double WITH bath at the Empire for 620. John demands that I try the Kons, but they're 750, and we're into the Empire, finding it not bad, and then dash out to the street at 2:15 to find a lunch place, about the only one still serving, the smoky loud hot Ems, where we have not bad long sausages and beef stew for 210 in all with beer. To the tourist office and back to the window THREE times to pick up various brochures, finally a walking tour of the city, and we go across the bridge to the fortress/town, look over the parapets, then to the museum, which is on many floors, mostly bad ones, though I remember particularly a smiling Buddha's head, more or less asking "What do you think THIS is all about?" in the middle of a horrid room of slashing moderns. Some of the worst paintings I've ever seen, but some of the Roman remains are intellectually interesting, though most are pitted beyond any physical beauty. Out to the Casemates in the center of town, but they're closed, so we walk around the top part of town BACK to the parapet, down partway and walk along on the tour, and get to the OTHER casemates, which we pay the fee, stupidly follow the instructions for a fruitless walk all the way DOWN and then all the way UP the spiral staircases under the road, nursing my bloody great toe all the while, and look out side windows, smell the piss in dark corridors, and get impressed by the city in generals. Out to the 12th century ruins, back around the other way, but don't do the bottom quite yet, since John's tired and it's starting to rain. Stop for an ice cream, and then John leaves me at 5 to rest at the hotel. I keep wandering, down into the gardens themselves (where John napped by the fountain hoping to feel better, but he didn't), watch three kids playing ball on one of the longest grassy slopes I've ever seen, roam the paved river to a putatively cruisy section at the end, then up the back, looking for an Italian restaurant, but at the hotel John's located a chicken in beer menu that he likes, so we're over to the Kons for 1100, champagne, quiche Lorraine (called Paysanne), and Stroganov flambé, not bad, not good, though the champagne makes things nice. Out to walk toward the lights, but John doubles back, we look for bars but seem to find none, though we're sure there ARE some, and I get BACK to the bridge, wander the darkness below, beautifully impressed by the orange and green lightings on the trees, bridges, and slopes, particularly on the hazy fountain, around the base of the parapet to see that the fort isn't very brightly lit, back around to find the fountain off, climb the stairs, looking for someone, but there aren't many cruising, and VERY tired back to the hotel at 11:30, wrapping the toe in tissues so it won't bleed on the bedding, and go to sleep in a strange bad for the LAST night of the trip, falling asleep SURPRISINGLY easily!
FLY FROM LUXEMBOURG TO NEW YORK CITY
MONDAY, JULY 23. Wake at 6 and leisurely contemplate the plane ride, not really nervous at ALL. Up at 8, pack, down for breakfast in the busy dining room overlooking the train station and bustling humanity, and then to the Icelandic Airlines office to check the tickets, and she said we didn't even HAVE to do that, and check that the LOCAL bus goes to the air terminal for about 1/3 the price of the Luxair bus. Catch the 9:30 bus with lots of packers from America, John talking to a chipper girl who ends up sitting next to us on the plane. There at 10, having to carry the bags up the slope to the gate, rather silly, and every place is totally jammed. Weigh our bags together, and surprised to find that, with a bit of help by wedging both against the side of the desk, they BOTH come to 39 kilos! So mine's been getting heavier more PSYCHOLOGICALLY than actually! A relief to bid farewell to the bags in Europe, and we bustle around changing the last of the money and getting a 1000 lire note that we owe Svein and buying Grand Marnier and Drambuie (no, in Iceland), and then settle in to read while waiting for the plane. There are delays, the place fills up, there aren't any more places to sit, and then a few other flights leave, and noon comes and goes, and we're onto the plane at 1. I have a seat near the window, thanks to John, in about row 4, which is just where the windows START, as opposed to the awful seats RIGHT in front with a window every TWO rows. We're off quite quickly, and John's bought a container of Cognac which we start having with ginger ale, and I very quickly get quite high, and the lunch of beef comes and I'm feeling just GREAT. So stoned that I'm not even concerned that it's quite cloudy below, not able to see anything, and the baby behind has SOME moments of quietness before its final squalling for the last four hours of the flight. Get to Keflavik at 4:05 and have ONE time change to 11:05 after buying booze and perfumes for Mom, and we're on for ANOTHER meal of fish, and we leave at 12 and the ocean is VERY calm, there are a few BEAUTIFUL icebergs with VERY blue undersides in the water, and all goes well until we pass the interminable forests and rivers and lakes of Maine, then right over Boston, the hook of Cape Cod looking quite small and close to the mainland, and over Connecticut and Long Island, where the plane starts descending, turning VERY sharply in one direction and another, and I get MORE and more nervous as they first say they'll be down DIRECTLY, and then it'll be 20 minutes on ANOTHER pathway. Finally, after about a half-hour of torture, while the screaming baby is FINALLY taken up by a stewardess who shows him some ATTENTION and of course he's a jewel, we head due south, over the Atlantic, and I set with fingers clutching, booze quite worn off, not even counting the minutes, just wanting to be DOWN. Lower and lower, and finally land with a jounce, roar to cruising speed, and we're HOME AGAIN! Feeling GOOD about not ANTICIPATING how BAD the last part of the trip ALWAYS is. Into the terminal and the bags come fairly quickly, though ours are among the last pile, and the customs people don't even demand that I OPEN my suitcase, and John's through very quickly, too. Out to walk a long ways for a taxi, and roar through the streets to Brooklyn Heights and home at 6:30, paying $12.30 as a last trip expense, and up the stairs to find the apartment looking like it's been newly vacuumed, though the tub is rather dirty and there's a layer of dust over everything. PILES of mail from the agents, but MOST of them are just formal rejections, and I'm not even THINKING of my disappointment at not being swept up with offers. There are about a half a dozen asking for money, and maybe TWO nibbles which I intend to follow up on. Put the rest of the mail aside, don't even OPEN the suitcase, and John says he's not hungry, so I have a somewhat moldy muffin and margarine for dinner, and get to bed at 9:30, feeling VERY worn out from the tensions of the flight, and (provided there WAS a seven-hour time change, though I think I made a mistake up there and it was only SIX hours) since it's 3:30, at the EARLIEST, in the morning in Europe, it IS very late, and I don't even need my earplugs to fall gratefully into OUR bed, next to the already sleeping John, and wondering if I'll have a JOB to go to tomorrow.
EXPENSE TABULATION
JUNE 9 $10.50 Taxi to airport (partly paid with $3 from last of the old kitty)
10 $10.85 Iceland stamps and Luxembourg stamps
10 24 DM Bus-Luxembourg-Cologne ($9.60)
10 103.30DM Train Cologne-Copenhagen ($39)
10 Cologne restaurant $5
11 56K, Copenhagen 2 nights ($9)
13 189.40DK, Copenhagen-Oslo ($32)
13 Food on train $5
11 Nimb restaurant $10 60KR ($10)
11 Tivoli 18Kr ($3)
12 Els restaurant 24K ($4)
12.5 Food in station 15K ($2.50)
13 Danish stamps 25.50 ($4) $30/day in 5 days!
14 139K Oslo-Trondhiem NORWAY ($23)
14 food on train, 2 smorrebrod and one cookies and one wiener 18KR ($3)
14 160K Trondhiem-Fauske ($27) $121 train!
14 Dinner in Larssen's-Trondhiem 30K ($5)5.5 NK to $1
15 Bus Fauske-Narvik 66.06Kr ($11)
15 Food 42K ($7)
15 Room 28K ($5)
16 Bus Narvik-Sorkjosen 77K ($13)
16 Bus Sorkjosen-Alta 55K ($9)
17 Room and Breakfast, Alta 47K ($8)
17 Bus Alta-Russenes 29K ($6)
17 Bus Russenes-Repvag 12K ($2.50)
17 Ferry Repvag-Honningsvag 10.50K ($2)
17 Honningsvag-Nordkapp-Honningsvag 24K ($5)
18 Book and Certificate 47K ($9)
18 Honningsvag-Repvag Ferry 10.50K ($2)
18 Bus Repvag-Russenes 12K ($2.50)
18 Bus Russenes-Hammerfest 21K ($4)
18 Groceries-Hammerfest 11.50K ($2)
18 Boat Hammerfest-Tromso 90K ($18)
19 Plane Tromso-Bodo-Oslo 400K ($73)
19 Plane Oslo-Copenhagen-Geneva 940K ($170) NORWAY
19 Dinner at La Bellotte 30SF ($10) SWITZERLAND
20 Rhinopront 11.15SF ($3) get $542 US from Anita, and note IOU $310.
20 DTW kitty for lunches 15SP ($5)
21 Dinner at Pied au Cochon 21SF ($7) BOOK 1
23 42SF Train Geneva-Zermatt BOOK 2
23 2.60 Breakfast
23 4.9 Lunch
23 25 Round trip-Zermatt-Gornergrat
23 42 Room and dinner and breakfast Kulm Hotel
24 50 Zermatt-Lugano/ 24 10.40 Lunch
24 24 Room at La Cristallina (Disentis)
24 1.50 Beer at "Alte Bundnerstube"
25 10 Lunch
25-26 59 Room at City Hotel
25 16 Dinner at Monte Ceneri
25 5 Cablecar to Monte San Salvador
26 6 Lunch in park
26 8.80 Boat on Lake Lugano
26 38 Dinner at Huguenin
26 7 Wine and candy at shop
26 African dancers
27 4.40 Boat to Porto Ciresio
27 1.20 Drink at Villa da Lugano
27 6 Cheeses for lunch SWITZERLAND
EXPENSE TABULATION
JUNE 27 650L Train Porto Ciresio-Milan ITALY
27 50L Telephone Edgardo
28 500L Scala Program
28 3000L Drinks at "New People"
28 6000L Entrance to Idroscola
28 3000L SECOND drinks at Idroscola
28 2000L Drinks at Black Horse
29 11000L Ariosto Hotel
29 4800L Lunch on Monte Bre
29 2000L Villa Favorita and book
29 3000L Drinks at Lugano
29 8000L Dinner on barge
30 10500L Ariosto Hotel
30 700L Bus to Bergamo
30 200L Map of Bergamo
30 300L Drinks in Bergamo Dom plaza
30 3600L Dinner in garden
20 2000L Lunch in garden
30 400L Drinks on Promenade
JULY 1 3000L Half of San Marco Hotel
1 500L Train to Milan
1 600L Lunch of pizza and desserts
1 500L 16th Century Lombard entry and paper
1 3000 Dinner in Brera
2 5500 Half of Ariosto Hotel
2 5000 Train: Milan-Innsbruck
2 2000 Catching lunch from train ITALY
2 830S Dinner AUSTRIA
2 50S Bus to hotel
3 10 Schloss Ambras
3 5 Bus
2 70 Lunch at Gasthaus (Turkey ragout)
3 99 Hafelkar
3 10 Round Painting and book
3 7.5 Church of crypt
3 135 Dinner in Alt Jnnsprung (mixed grilled meats)
3 15 Three streetcars
3 18 Drinks
4 220 Hotel Menegheni 2 nights
45 Train Innsbruck-Garmisch
10 Hofburg castle tour AUSTRIA
12DM Lunch in Partenkirchen Hof (Omelette) GERMANY (I take kitty)
20 Zugspitz
16 Dinner at Drei Mohren (Poor veal)
5 6.40 Bus GP-Linderhof-GP
2 Ettal Book
9 Lunch-Wolf Hotel (Special pork)
3+1 Linderhof+ice cream
3.5 Drinks at Posthotel
10 Dinner at "Derr Lamm" (meat)
6 38 Two nights at Frotsze Gasthaus
8.4 Bus: GP-Fussen
6 Lunch-Fussen (cold chops)
10 Two castles in Fussen
10 Dinner in Fussen (Gasthaus Adler (Mixed salad, mixed meats)
26 Room in Pension Elizabeth
1 Bus to castles (Hitching back)
JULY 7 11.90 Romantic Strasse from Fussen to Augsburg
7 Pick-up lunch in Augsburg (asst. cold cuts)
16 Bus from Augsburg to Rothenburg
8 Dinner in Ratsstube (Little Sausages)
4 Organ recital
.50 Malaga ice cream
16 Bathless room in Rothenburg
8 8 Lunch in Detwang (Omelette)
1 Two churches
11 Dinner in Hotel (Bratwurst-good)
2 Greta Goetz recital
9 5 Pick up lunch in park (cheese and meal and beer and torte)
2.80 Rothenburg book
12.50 Tour to Suppack-Bad Mergentheim
1 Grunewald Madonna
3.40 Goulash soup and beer at cafe
16 Dinner at Bauermeister Haus (Young pork)
10 66 Bill for 3 days at Reichskuchenmeister
5+2 Lunch of chicken+wine
7 Bus from Rothenburg to Wurzburg
17 Dinner (Hawaii veal) at Russ Hotel
11 2 Marian Festung Wurzburg
2.5 Book at Museum
8 Lunch at Theater Cafe (Hawaii toast, banana milk, beer, torte)
6 Tix for Ballet Abend
4 Residenz
4 Coupe Danmark at Palace
18 Dinner at Puszta (Szekely Goulash, cocktail, Grand Palancinta)
12 41 Two nights and breakfasts at Hotel Russ
17 Rail to Heidelburg
1.25 Bus fares
2.5 Reservation and 2DM of rent
13 Lunch at Montpellier (onion soup, omelette, wine)
7+1 Concert in Schloss and+ program
1. 50 Cable car down
11 Dinner in Argonauts (Gyro)
2 Beer at Whisky a Gogo
13 4 Top of hill
11 Lunch at Schloss-level, cold plate and GROG
3.50 Ice cream
9.30 Ticket to "Barber of Seville"
26 Dinner at Montpellier(Pork&shrimp&Bearnaise sauce&hors d'ouvres+win
14 39 Two nights at Montpellier
1.60 Train to Mannheim
16.70 Lunch at Kopenhagen rest (veal and champignons and spaetzel)
3.20 Mannheim snack in AM
.30 Museum card
13 Opera Tix (Janacek's Cunning Vixen)
1 Program
2 Champagne
21 Dinner at Peking (Diced Capon Szechuan,wine,egg soup,pork&"morels")
22 Hotel in Station
15 50.30 Train from Mannheim to Brussels 0~
2.5 Chocolate for breakfast
12 Lunch-Bought GERMANY DM
7 Bus to center of town BELGIUM BF
350 Dinner in St. George Hotel
JULY 16 25 Omelette for breakfast
260+5 Cathedral Two books and cards + tower
110 Lunch--Siberian crepe, Russian milk, egg bread (Ham and cheese)
70+2 Boat tour + john
592.5 Dinner at Vielle Strasbourg
17 15 Miniature Ghent
7 Bus to Museum
6 Bosch postcard
52 Tongue for lunch
5 Book of Bijlok Abbey
350 Book of Landuyt
535 Dinner at St. Georges(Pork & green beans & wine) (NOT CHARGED!)
18 20 Castle and book
200 Lunch at St. George (Beef and potatoes)
938 Three nights at St. George
73 Bus from Ghent to Bruges
100 Bruges book and church book (80+20)
450 Dinner at Hugo (Veal Archiduc with mushrooms and LOTS of ham/melon
20 Groeninge museum
20 Grunthuse "Pictures"
19 25 Memling book
100 Lunch at "Au Louvre" (Soup, uitsmijter)
33 Dame Blanche (museum (across from) restaurant)
30 Fireplace(5), Holy Blood Book (20), Church(5)
40 Combo ticket to 4 museums
120 Van Eyck book
600 Dinner at Duc de Bourgogne (Kidney and BEARNAISE sauce)
20 650 Two nights at Le Sablon
60 Taxi to Station
173 Train Bruges-Leuven
382 Train Louvain-Luxembourg
6 Bus to Grote Markt
110 Lunch at Rubens (ham omelette)
10 Dessert
368 Dinner at Da Gianni (Grotta azzura cocktail, zuppa pavese,
tournedos opera)
21 50 Movie
10 Museum
350 Dinner at Da Gianni
120 Lunch in Chinese
22 6 Bus to station BELGIUM
310 Room at Hotel Empire
20 Bus to airport
600 Dinner at Kons
Hotel
Grand Marnier
$8.25 Perfumes for Mom LUXEMBOURG
$12.30 taxi airport home
ORIGINAL ITINERARY
DATE DAY TRAVEL LOCATION KILOMETERS STAY PUT
June 23 Sat Geneva to Zermatt 230 to turn-off,then40
June 24 Sun Zermatt *1
June 25 Mon Zermatt to Sils Maria 40+260
June 26 Tue Sils Maria to Bergamo/Milan 140-160
June 28-29 Thu-Fri Bergamo/Milan *2
June 30 Sat Bergamo to Innsbruck 200
July 1-2 Sun-Mon Salzburg *2
July 3 Tue Salzburg-Garmisch 250
July 4-5 Wed-Thu Garmisch, Zugspitze, Oberammergau *2
July 6 Fri Garmisch-Fussen 150
July 7-8 Sat-Sun Fussen and Castles *2
July 9 Mon Fussen to Ottobeuren 200
July 10 Tue Ottobeuren *1
July 11 Wed Ottobeuren to Augsburg 230
July 12 Thu Augsburg-Rothenburg 180
July 13 Fri Rothenburg *1
July 14 Sat Rothenburg-Heidelberg 200
July 15-16 Sun-Mon Heidelberg-Baden Baden via two towns 300
July 17 Tue Baden-Baden *1
July 18 Wed Baden-Baden to Rudesheim 250
July 19 Thu Rudesheim to Koblenz (on Rhine) Boat ride
July 20 Fri Koblenz to Bernkastle (on Mosel) Boat ride
July 20 Fri Bernkastle to Trier 70
July 21 Sat Trier to Luxembourg 50
July 22 Sun Luxembourg to New York City
Maximum 3500 kilometers