1988 2 of 3
TUESDAY, JULY 26: Up at 6:45 to repack. Breakfast with sausage, photo "Beautiful fountain" and buy dented 44.80DM Guide Michelin for 40DM! LOTS of art in St. Lawrence Church, UNLIKE St. Sebold's! And St. Lawrence is tuning its organ. To Museum and STAGGERED with paintings, carvings, antiques, armor, horsemen, house models, acres of clothing, and even relocated prehistoric objects that aren't much of anything. Hall after hall after people-vacant hall except for scurrying old Frenchies on tour. Out at 10:15 and back to hotel to close bag nicely after shit (connected?) and pay 32DM and stagger from 10:35 to 10:45 in HOT sun with HEAVY bag to track, and I VERIFY Pegnitz-Bayreuth. On at 10:50, having ripped BUTTON off shirt! TWO buttons to care for in Bayreuth. Now 10:55 and we're off. But we're NOT off, and the kid next door beeps with electronic games and Czech language sounds bad. I assume Pegnitz WAITS for connection? At 11:13 he REASSURES me not to worry as engine and four cars are hooked onto "rear." Leave at 11:18. Stand through 6-7 tunnels and arrive in hilly Pegnitz at 12. Under to track 3 and sit right front, hot at 12:02. Leave 12:17. [MUST not forget that AWFUL automobile wash-splash JUST ahead of me at the Berlin flooded road.] At 2:45 it's 32 degrees C or 90 F. "Hotel" closed at 2:05. At 2:10 I start walking, and at 2:25 I land in the center. Try bus #7, then off for TAXI to Festival Ticket Office and find returns are usually only at 10AM on the day of the performance! Including August 1. Not so good. Back on taxi at 2:50 for 12DM. Dress and call cab at 3:05 and he says "Ten minutes." I get down at 3:10, irk at 3:15, panic at 3:20, and despair at 3:25. Dash back up and phone again and down to find cab there! "Festspielhaus?" "Naturlich!" JAM of cars and people, cops flagging cabs and limos and tourists up, and out to a MIX of tourists and ticketholders, no separation til the THEATRE. Buy "only" program for 10DM, then CHECK bag and camera. Try food, every night til end. People mill and gawk; I go up tower VI and it's locked! Mill and look, then bell rings and everyone STANDS till middle people get in. I take jacket off and COUGH with mass-mind through magical prologue. LOVELY veils of sound. Lots of coughs until curtain. Strange holes in floor, cement-block eggboxes on side, trees growing up, and SOMETHING sketchy in back (Man's head? Woman?) All have LOVELY voices, even for Met's Waltraute, Jerusalem's nice style. Then things LAY and it FLIPS to side, Amfortas does Monty-Python Everest Climb. GLORIOUS male chorus. Old sage on top. Oratory in FRONT glints off microphone stop (?), and people shuffle and must be shushed at start and after against applause. Great light effects, "God in sky" looked like the back of a man's shoulders from the start. 28 x 2 = 56 male choristers, though self-giving communion is a bit much. Lots of applause, woman crashes to floor (forgot HANDRAIL visible at rear and plastic WHEEL and two supports at LOWER edge. I try photo but am stopped and led AWAY. Meet younger of brothers seeing with their parents' tickets (from Barcelona to US). They see SAME five as me! Woman asks for taxi, ends in OUR hotel, from London seeing all SEVEN in series; we drink water and campari & orange and bed at 12, exhausted.
WEDNESDAY, JULY 27: Wake at 7:20 and lay til 8:15, down and find boys GONE and woman not down YET. Saddened, and ask for laundry and get conflicting confused directions and lost. Getting VERY irked! Decide to find a place in town, and get to "corner" quickly (by knowing way) and turn LEFT to "Markt." But does one expect a LAUNDRY on Fifth or Madison? Around and FIND one on Kranzlerstrasse, and ready FRIDAY and open EVERY day! Then get to "Alte Schloss" and try for entrance around WHOLE place before another passing guide (with trailing group) says "That's in SUBURBS" and I'd MISREAD guide. Into Marktoper at 10:50 and tour's at 11. Card to Pope, slides and GERMANIC (Puccini's was lovely in Salerno) and PIANO player! Out at 11:20 to Wagner's Strasse and House Wanfried, from 11:30-2:30 with a GUIDEBOOK, GOOD. LOOK for food on my way back, starting to sprinkle, and to hotel and see Spaniards' car, knock on their door and give them "Rheingold" book, agree to meet at 5:15. Then shower, knock up woman downstairs who eats in the basement at Herti's (all over Germany) and I'm to EKA (Erati Kulmbach Actienbraurerei) (open at 3:30) at 3:40 and have GOOD 1/2 L. beer for 2.50 and Fleishekuckle (hamburg) mit salat for 7DM, from growly guy, who tells cook to whisk her utensils in kitchen. Really RAINING at 3:55, as record player plays OLD song: "Morgen." STILL GOING. Change and meet at 5:15, traffic, and cancel my evening buffet reservation. Different people around EXCEPT for guy to my right (and BOTH sides CLOSE IN on one!). Oriental woman passes in hour in MY row about to throw up, after woman leaves from 5th row! Lights down and curtain OPENS on nondescript people LOOKING OUT at us, then THEY leave and music STARTS to LASER beams from point (out of my view) in back, to 16 beams/side, and Rhinemaidens are doxies, the gods leaf-decked plastic-luggaged travelers from the 1920s. Huge mylar SHAPE for second scene, and voices GOOD, but it's more FUN when Alberich jumps in surprise at a jet of steam from below (audience titters) and Wotan stumbles on goldplate, sending golden marbles flying (as PEARLS broke LAST night)(and BOTH nights FILLED with smoke---first for "romance" and second for LASERS). Third scene RISES in yellow gridwork, and Erda appears in BEST spectacle: Tomlinson STRONG voice, "best" is Loge, but Jerusalem was better. Men BOO strongly at very first, causing others to CHEER sets even more loudly. Starts 6:05PM, over 8:40PM, applause to 8:55PM, rain stopped, boys liked it, woman delighted; straight back foodless at 9:15. I read book (7DM) to 10:20 & sleep.
THURSDAY, JULY 28: Wake at 6:40 and lay til 8, grumpy, and down BEFORE boys, going to Wannfried, woman still undown. Out after saying I want food AFTER, no stamps, and into town in COOL weather at 9:15. To post office for five 90-Pf stamps and mail to Pope, wander market looking at books and buying cards for 1.50, then to State Museum at 10:05 and two dull floors of photos of Bayreuth through the years and out at 10:40. Back to New Castle at 10:45 and it's closed until tour at 11:10. Catch up with this to 11:03, hoping boys will DRIVE tomorrow OR I go to Ulm for overnight! My "museumed out" coincides with "nothing to do." Oh, checked Information and there's NO tour of neighborhood, only TOWNS, and tour of Festhaus MAY or MAY NOT go, depending on rehearsals. Since they're opening, they're probably CLOSED to tourists. I'm really scraping the bottom of the barrel, may just get book and sit on a bench and READ for most of time; pity it's so long to GET here---my RAIL card is going to WASTE. Door opens for tour at 11:04, now. Oh, and HOF menu is QUITE expensive at 10DM for soup and 27-30 for entrees! What a RATRACE it must have been to be a petty lord in a small town and have mediocre castles, gardens, parties, furniture, tapestry, help, luxury, goodies, etc. Talk about keeping up with the Hohenzollerns! #9 Dining hall in New Schloss on tour 11:10-11:40, being BORING! Advice to me: rest, read, get some VERVE back! Sit on Wagnerstrasse from 11:50 to 1. Wave to boys going IN at 11:50, and they return at 12:50, had lunch, will LOOK at my "tour" idea for tomorrow. Talk up Britisher who tried for tickets for ten YEARS, who said he saw me last night, and he's a member of the Wagner Society! I told him to try "It's 10 years" and he says it MAY be easy to get a single ticket! Good seat! [Almost forgot "Kevin Costner" dream from this morning: I'm looking at a PRESS kit from him, how he invested heavily in SILVER to become RICH, has a number of cars, exhibits facsimiles of stock certificates, even gives postage stamps to be invested in!] Buy a sandwich at Metzgerei for 2.50DM, then WEINER for 1.30DM, and a chocolate bar for .79DM. Getting GOOD! To hotel to shower and have woman write note and get to Festhaus EARLY. Cancel ALL restaurants and get Meistersinger ticket and make friends with ticket woman! Walkure starts with WHOLE FLOOR opening for Hundig's cave; Hoffman TARZANS down. Hoffman in BETTER voice, Sieglinde not so great, but OK age and looking and acting. Hunding dynamite. Wotan stil best; Brunhilde only ACTING, not singing. Her NEON cube at end STROBES as I move my binoculars, so impressive. Again we see "off-wing" junk at side. Audience roars approval, but booed Barenboim, AGAIN causing others to roar more approval. Bouquets from men, too, Hoffman hero of Act I and II, no stars of Act III. They're televising; I ask kids to join me for dessert, they say no; they say they must visit their "ticket-ordering friends" in Nurnberg. OK, so I plan Ulm. Applause 9:55-10:05 and car is WAITING. Ask for "sample of best" and get zucchini cream soup with tomato added, lovely; smoked salmon under caviar surrounded by quail-egg halves, OK; and WONDERFUL gooseberry, cherry, and strawberry sherbets surrounded by stems of currants, sugared blueberries, halved grapes and strawberries, all on mint leaves, and taste HER Capucine flower: yellow. My bill is 42DM + 6DM tip. Not BAD for $25! I tell her I'm gay, we chat nicely of her free "friendly" visit to Berlin which she affected as a Jew. This only her second German trip. Bed tired at 12:20, up at 6??
FRIDAY, JULY 29: Up at 6:10, OK; tear Ulm, Stuttgart, and Schwabisch Hall pages from both Michelins. Eat at 7:25 as FAMILY eats. I pack sandwich, tell her I'm away for a day, brush teeth, pack bag, and get lost three times walking to station 7:45-8:20. Get turned from Schwabisch departure at 10:59 to Ulm departure at 8:49! Get information and get on train for lovely seven-terminal trip back direct to Nurnberg at 10:11 exactly. Get information for Ulm-Stuttgart 17:06-18:02, and for Stuttgart-Schwabisch Hall 7:35-8:49, GREAT! Up to track 4 and train to MUNICH (next time!) waits for my good seat at 10:31. Catch up at 10:40, great! Good exact-timed ride Nurnberg-Augsberg, but military JET glimpsed throws me into "what's going on in the WORLD?" Lots of thoughts of ECB, too, check with her? Onto track 2 for 12:21 at 11:59, not in yet. VERY happy on train; I DO LOVE TRAVEL! At 12:17 they announce MY train delayed 20 minutes; others rush to faster train to Stuttgart, but two Americans who UNDERSTAND say it's best for ME to ULM to wait the 20 minutes. OOPS! Chat up the two (gay?) guys from Milwaukee FROM Bayreuth (in 1979, 1983, 1987, and twice in 1988!). Train arrives and leaves at 12:32! Ulm, on the Danube, at 1:15. Notes from belfry: St. Paul's London 111m, Canterbury 74m, Seville Giralda 114m, St. Peter's 138m, Ulm 161m, Strasburg 142m, Vienna St. Stephens 137m, Cologne 156m, Berne not stated, Frieburg in Breisgau 116m, Hamburg St. Michael's 148m. Down at 2:45 to VERY klunky (3-star!) choir carving, and RAIN that closets us with a choir-loft of villiage idiots: shouting, rocking, picking at bandages. Dark and German, but buy 2.5DM book and 1DM slide and 50Pf postcard. Guys from Milwaukee left, to eat no doubt, and return to Bayreuth. I have three sights to go. Use umbrella to get to Ulm Museum, surprisingly good for something I'd heard nothing about. Then across river to photo Munster from vantage point and back to station in rain. To Stuttgart, where the hotel is out on a trolley line, looking Egyptian and risky, but I leave stuff and get into town to try to find sights, but get lost in Metro system and squares: the town is VERY spread out and I end up calling it "the Los Angeles of Germany." Look into Michelin to see what restaurant would take me and end up at Zeppelin in a hotel, which is fairly dressy but doesn't seem to mind my blue jeans. Stuttgart Fellbocher Limnauer red "medium" (not dry) wine was VERY good for 6.70 for 1/4 liter. Stuttgart Hot-Pot of three chops (pork, beef, veal), spaetzle and salad; started with Schwabish onion soup and croutons ("sippettes") and END with Chaudeau---egg yolks and cherries on top, sort of cheesecakey. #20 Stuttgart sunset. Stuttgart's subway CARS EACH indicate WHAT STOP and DIRECTION train is going in. And outdoor escalators and inclined moving roadways ALL WORK IN RAIN. LOTS of Stuttgart BUMS in the elegant malls: shouting, begging, sleeping, commenting, squatting, acting crazy---as do MANY today, in AND out of crazy GROUPS. 9:50 for Zeppelin and I'm TIRED and hope the damn Egyptian kid beggars are ASLEEP when I return. Bed at 10:20 and sleep quickly though I'm stuffed with food.
SATURDAY, JULY 30: Wake at 2:10AM and 4:10AM and 5:30AM and up at 6:20AM to shit the good shit and sort stuff out and down to leave key. No one at reception. Up to leave key in room. Exit door locked; up to take key and leave it in door. Cool but sunny out as I sit in jacket and finish this at 7AM as three two-car trains come in either direction in five minutes, mine last. Watch-date is HARD to read after scratching it on Ulm stair-stones. But MICHELIN is getting hard to read, too, as are these NOTES. Are my EYES going? How AWFUL THAT would be! Into terminal at 7:05, buy breakfast ham and lettuce for 3DM; train pulls in. SOME cute guys along the way, but few so far to tear at my heart. Mostly straight acting and FEW obvious mincers. 7:27, eight minutes to go. Schedule was to HESSENTAL, and conductor marks in 8:55-9:02 to Schwabisch Hall but DOESN'T say "CHANGE trains." I fuss at station, hear SOMETHING about "Gleis Eins" but look out and see NO train on it---then one LEAVES. Conductor smacks head as he says I must go to CRAILSHEIM and come back at 10:22! I TRY not to fuss. Read. Out at 10:23 and call cab from kiosk; it comes at 10:30 and takes me up at 10:35. "Footpath" down to telephone for taxi! Panic! Get to south entrance and chandelier IS lovely (thank God there's SUN to light it) and I get photos and slides and she even TELLS me of "Kapitalsalle" for gravestones and cloisters and relics. DASH down but fear getting LOST in WOODS at 10:55, with train at 11:30! Walk down road and BUS seems ;slow, so I HITCH a ride with THIRD car, a guy with GOOD school English who drops me off at the station at 11! THANK HIM! Write this to 11:11, waiting for 11:31 train. Last leg! Read, on train past Crailsheim again, have a salami and beer, and onto Bayreuth train at 1:10, peaceful. Blind Fred talks to me all the way to Bayreuth, blind for last 13 years from tumor (he indicates a mass the size of his fist) in his brain. Taxi to hotel, change, and join three at 3PM. She DOES TALK!! Again no luck with Lohengrin ticket, but now people are TAUSCHE--swapping---one for another---obviously they bought too MANY. In for "Siegfried" and Act I takes place in what looks like a space shuttle wreck: enormous clutter-filled metal shell. Mime and Siegfried go up and down and around and around; Mime a comic sometimes with Jimmy Durante's razzy-raspy basso, sometimes only needing a cigar to go with his glasses to perfect a Marx brother when he coyly sits one-legged on Siegfried's lap. And the twirling hanky is from Tevya? Grimly through bratwurst and beer at first intermission---ALL these tourists mixing in and commenting---about this one's ugly clear-plastic shoes you can see her feet steaming in, that one's ugly suit, etc. WHY allow them on the grounds, what joy do they get sharing expensive bratwurst with blue-haired ladies in ballgowns? Then decide I MUST be tired!! Act II is totally ugly---a messy mess that looks like the ruin of the set! Fafnir is a MASS of vacuum-cleaner tubes now, with claws that snatch and some that seem seductively (or calculatingly (?)) between his pantlegs. I think there are more lasers but it's only Siegfried sending reflections into the audience from "the Tarnhelm," a surgeon's oversized head-mirror. Siegfried sounds loud and strained, not melodic, and Alberich is too ugly to be good. Act I lasts forever and Act II only half as long. At second intermission I walk down through gardens: success: bubbly fountain is perfect sound, somewhat masking nearby traffic: a steady parade of elegant couples walk down thru trees to "special lower" restaurant. Lovely border of powder-blue, crimson, pink, burnt-orange flowers and masses of multicolored dahlias line a deep green pool in which fish jump for flies and doves skim across to produce ripples behind them---minnows snapping at drowning fleas? Some kids shout to break magic, but in general it's a SAVING place over the tourist-mad upper terraces. A mossy green Hercules regards my bench coyly from under his club, his knotted loincloth making it seem he's pleased to see me writing here. Few TOURISTS distract the park, except for families USING it, and the slow majestic parade of dinner clothes starts up the hill for the final act, proclaimed by the trumpets (FORGOT to note that time on the rail station platform that I felt SO sad and forlorn, then thought that I MAY have been picking up the GENERAL sadness of parting connected with the train platform ITSELF, ANOTHER example of MY feeling something that "can't be felt"! But then I may just be seeking excuses for my OWN feelings!] which ONCE are heard plainly from southern end of park 15 minutes before, TWICE are heard ten minutes before, and I stroll north, and THREE at five minutes before as I enter "enclave." Third act has laser-fire and smoke effects, Wanderer seems much muted, Brunhilde STARTS good but gets QUITE poor, and Siegfried's Siegfried tries VERY hard but sounds overtaxed and rather strained. And the climax has SO much grappling and crawling and gripping and grasping and groping and gargling that they're quite EXHAUSTED and have no energy left for singing! At hotel, herb soup is VERY gardeny, venison for 27DM is a bit overpriced with marrow and a nice crusty
potato casserole, and the MOUSSES are three: a chocolate, chocolate cherry, and vanilla, GOOD, and bit of fruit. I VISA it for 55.5DM and give 6DM tip. Bed JUST at 12, exhausted; to Munich tomorrow.
SUNDAY, JULY 31: Wake unreasonably BRIGHT at 6:30 and wonder "does 8:49 train go on SUNDAY?" And check codes and find it's only Monday-Saturday, AS IS one after it (and I check NOW that "auser" means EXCEPT, and I've been assuming it was ALSO) is only Monday-Friday, and 10:59 gets in at 14:49, too late, and EARLIER is 7:32!! [Pass KATZWANG.] [Joos Van Cleve about 1580, painted PARTS of carpets ON LOWER FRAME of paintings! on both wings of tryptich! "Death of Mary," and Jan Gossaert de Mabuse painted "Danae" with BLUE sclerae! #16 Joachim WTEWAEL, Peleus and Thetis, ERECTION on left! #17 Hermann Hahn, Adam of 1896.] [Dessert fruit: lychee in mint, mango, currants, blueberries, star apple, cavaillon melon, kiwi, TINY WILD strawberries, white chocolate mousse, strawberry sherbet, and mango-like WHAT? Papaya! and the tomato-like? Tamarillo! and bilberry, NOT blueberries at all! And the star-apple, she says has the international name CARAMBULEY. MARVELS! OLD town hall is game-toy museum! OPEN Monday at 10-5:30. After wonderful meal, and nice walk, and DICKMILCH and RADIO-RIM signs, it's TIME for BED at 10:25! [Would the six great painting collections be 1) Metropolitan, 2) National in London, 3) Louvre, 4) Leningrad, 5) Berlin, 6) Munich?? Where's Florence and Rome?] [Paleontology: Homo sapiens sapiens, Telgni, Australia; Homo sapiens sapiens, Laguna Beach!] NOW they have Angara + Euramerica + Gondwana forming Pangaea, which then splits into Laurasia and Gondwana, which then splits into current continents. Photos: #18: Paleontology court, #19: Propylea roof, #20, Justice from OLD botanic gardens, #21: Maze from Rathaus Tower, otherwise NO good view of museums. Then BMW pavilion cum salesroom. #22: St. Peter's Church tower and ALPS ON BOTH SIDES! #23: Rathaus and Marien-Pillar. And CAN'T find TELEPHONE card for taxi, so I JAM stuff into bag (forgetting SHAMPOO) and DASH out at 7:05. And get to station at 7:22, a new record! There IS no bus, it's just on Track 2. South as clouds clear, change in Nurnberg, and can't see Nymphenburg but get into Munich at 11AM. Laughingly ask for 35DM hotel between station and Alte Pinacotek and get 45DM hotel JUST AT station, Hotel Helvetia, not BAD. Out with map to INCREDIBLE Glyptotek, and GOOD avocado/cheese/beer lunch by noon. GREAT STATUES. Across to antiques collection: GREAT ERECTIONS. ASTOUNDING STUFF! Around to photo chess players and change film and decide to RETURN to Glyptotek (about eight photos) and antiques (about 6 photos) and buy MORE stuff by 2PM. Get to Alte Pinacotek and get mind blown. GREAT STUFF, DAZZLING, one of the BEST. Out at 4 to buy slides & book to close place at 4:30. Then dash to Lenbackhaus for middling Kandinsky (trivial after old masters!) til 5:30, then to hotel to COLLAPSE a bit, then shower and out to promenade and find the Wine Restaurant at 8:15 and eat, ordering rinderfilet (raw?) and cowais (?) and salat, and GREAT Ruhmedaillons and veggies and potato "nuns" and GREAT dessert fruit (before) with one white and one red wine to VISA. LOVELY city, but I'm TIRED, so back to bed at 10:30, then jerk off to limp-cock silhouette to 11:05, and drop INSTANTLY to sleep.
MONDAY, AUGUST 1: Wake at 6:45, feeling good, and laze til 7:45 breakfast, only roll and tea, and out at 8:05 to small (but nice and empty) Paleontology Museum to 9:15, then study Paygles (?), Marienkirche (and it's so plain it's not worth a picture), and out to top of Rathaus tower by 3DM ELEVATOR and see bits of Alps. Down and up OLD Rathaus for nice 3DM toy museum, and then think to catch 11AM glockenspiel performance and start dashing back to hotel at 10:41, but it takes 12 minutes, so I just pack and leave hotel on dot of checkout-time at 11AM and to station to platform (train comes then) and on to find that by 11:30, compartment on "Adler" for myself for 11:34 departure. Leave 11:37. A blond APOLLO is bronzing himself in white shorts JUST alongside suburban tracks! Have salami and beer and second set of pills (AM) in 63 minutes. Into Nurnberg at 1:13 and over for window seat for Bayreuth at 1:18 for 1:23 departure. We leave at 1:31 and have fast HOT trip back at 2:40. Only 7DM ride back and quick wash and change has them all waiting for me at the car at PRECISELY 3PM. Woman in box office says "See me at 11 tomorrow" when I ask how many tickets CAME back (two today) and how many outside (maybe not 200 but maybe 100) and how early do they start lining up? And then she SEEMS to promise me HELP. "Gotterdammerung" is perhaps worst. Three Norns re-wire their televison antennas for better reception and disappear into the triangular hole in the floor. Brunnhilde and (a DIFFERENT) Siegfried live in a sliced-off cave that rises from the floor and lowers as they use the fire escape down to the fluorescent-white floor. Brunnhilde is LOUDER but not BETTER. Gunther and Gutrune are overacting George Grosz caricatures of decadent elegance (director obviously HATES women!) and Siegfried stumbles and FALLS on crappy floor, like his namesake did a twist on Brunnhilde's SHIELD the evening before, kicking it out from underfoot. Hagen is good, with a nice echo of his having been Fafnir, BOTH greedy for the ring. Eat weeners (DARK) and beer and SWEAT through second act of quadrupod steps for triangular arrangements of protagonists for no discernible reason. The PLOT here seems DANKEST, and I almost RETCH with ill-will toward the greed and self-contentedness of the Nibelung's offspring and the silliness of Siegfried's sharing blood with ANYONE; and Brunnhilde's dumbfounded poleaxed stagger after stagger after STAGGER is almost laughable as she sees Siegfried marrying Gutrune. Guy at my left is still playing kneesies, guy on my right still drapes his coat as much over ME as over his shoulders, and at LEAST guy behind me DOESN'T rattle his program through the SECOND act. At LEAST I won't be sitting with THESE people thru the next two operas, though I still wouldn't MISS them, I just hope they're BETTER---at least have been TRIED and KEPT from before! And it only NOW occurs to me I can have a drink of TAP water from the john!!! But I DON'T, I have another BEER. Third act opens with dentists' apparatus in which Rhinemaiders "swim" and holler. Chorus is good again, and the apparatus vanishes in the rear and the slides of Manhattan flicker and fall (three times, just to be SURE) and fog-lit laser show Rhine flows toward stage, and SLANT GUILLOTINE curtain is very effective after "Twilight" is cornified as TV lighting. Hotel at 11:15 (applause from 10:40 to 11PM) for fennel soup and caviar and fruit dessert for two of us for 50 + 2DM tip. Bed 12:15AM. This ends GERMANY - BOOK 1.
Inside front cover of GERMANY - BOOK 2 are tour wake-up times and luggage-out times and breakfast-times and tour-guide recommendations, like Tzantziki (which I never found) and Tsantali wine good, and Chivashtichi and dinner-times.
TUESDAY, AUGUST 2: Wake 6:45 and up at 8AM to tear five volume-pages from Bayreuth programs. Breakfast at 9 and shower and out at 10:40 to call taxi to Festhaus. Give her "wrong" Visa receipt, put SOME stuff away, still lots to sort. Sit on steps at 10:52 and start to worry about taxi's coming AGAIN. Photo #24 Ermitage Fountains; #0: Lower grotto]. Arrives, 9DM to Festhaus; she waves sternly "Wait a minute." I hold breath; other women explaining they have 50,000 requests (for about 60,000 SEATINGS) and can't hope to fill all: many wait FIVE YEARS---maybe she and I just had our 5-6 year CYCLE, but that doesn't explain Milwaukee's every 2-3 years! Another "special" case wants to pay extra and woman smiles it off, and I decide NOT to try to tip. She returns and brusquely shoves a yellow L1 ticket at me: "39 marks." "Gruss Gott!" as I'd rehearsed, and TREMBLE as I get out 50DM and get 11DM back. "Put it away," she snaps, and I think I don't even say THANK you, I'm that carried away. Pass DOZENS of people BEGGING for tickets, and I squeak and grunt and gasp with sheer pleasure and happiness. Down through park in highest elation, flowers lovely, people smiling, earth wonderful! Past station and finally go to pick up laundry for 14.8DM for one pants and two shirts: $8 = $4 + 2x$2? Pass #2 bus and take it at 11:40, to Ermitage at 11:55, and have LUCK to see large fountain (only first five minutes of each hour) playing and go to under-grotto JUST before 12:15 and see IT play for its five minutes, and get to tour-sign (starts 1PM) saying schedule is ONLY five minutes each hour! Real serendipity! Look at LOVELY wildflowers (& loud watering-meter) and have lunch of breakfast two-slice meant-and-cheese (making up for my missing breakfast?) sandwich, and decide wildflowers really don't PHOTOGRAPH---they have no LIFE (and bees and butterflies) in photo, only being IN them counts! First in Hermitage (there ARE two monks' cells!) at 1 and race through rooms, but told of GROTTO fountain at 1:20. Straight flow, a neat three-level covered-twister, and a marvelous water-levitated, candle-ringed CROWN that bobbed from one to ten feet above the faucet. Fun. Out to bus at 1:52, feeling tinily pressed, reading Heinlein. [FORGOT the CLATTER onstage at "Gotterdammerung" when the TV antennas were removed; WACHT, should be AHT, Korean said VASHT, and the LIGHT on the center column of the Rheincolumn should have been shielded---and then there was the RIDICULOUS PLASTIC HOUSE.] Bus comes and I get to Marketplace as it RAINS. Use laundry bag as umbrella (#6 is Stephanie Berger), and find the "Groshangers Passage" between the Market and the Dammallee. Back to wash underwear and socks (despite posted notice not to) and dress in time to get down at 3 to Stephanie in the taxi and a 10DM ride to the Festhaus. Take pictures and feel GREAT in cool clothes. "Lohengrin" is anti-traditional: GRAND cones of laser light, naked-boy swan and swirling clouds and vapors and VERY handsome Paul Fry as the godly Lohengrin. Everyone sings well, the chorus is good, and Act II ends with EIGHT rocks glowing gold in the silver-smog air. Read book by pond after photos and Act II has LAPPING WATER which (audibly) gurgles away down a drain to allow a people-massed scene (that faces SOUTH since moon rose in lower left and moved to upper right) at the end. The gallery is wood-seated but has ARMS. Fellow next to me a first-timer from Tubingen, south of Stuttgart. The sound is OK and the central view is better, but still the gallery is hot though I hear it raining and when Act II ends at 7:30 the roads are damp and most of the tourists are gone and it's cool enough for me to sit on bench in lobby and write this to 7:50, trying to keep my gentle hunger for the TASTING menu tonight, after which I should call Jean-Jacques and ask that MORE tasting menus be reserved for September! Oh, and two people fell UP the highly polished stairs the first time up; by the end, they weren't so slippery. Third act has HARD gold bed surrounded by wolves and killers. The swan returns with wings folding across his groin. Fry remains beautiful. Out at 9:30 and WANT to try the tasting menu, but it's not much good. Have bouillon with tongue and roast lamb, good with vegetables. Talk long with Stephanie and bed at 12:20.
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3: Wake about 7 and up at 8 to start packing books away, and down to breakfast from 9:15-9:50 chatting over a rainy morning. Up to continue sorting, not even eating breakfast-sandwich [FORGOT to mention Ring FATE motif: descending DA da-da da-da da-da da-DUM in Lohengrin and something LIKE another motif in Meistersinger] and at 1:55 it HAD stopped raining, still VERY dark gray, so I put on jacket and take umbrella to Tiergarden and Rohrwasser (rowing, but no one there) and geyser and ducks and swans and, later, deer and an ostrich with dragging wet feathers and emus and peacocks and a diamond and a gold pheasant, and feed apples to goats. Out at 2:40 to change and BEAT Stephanie to taxi. Reserve for 44DM dinner and Stephanie does too, and buy beer to have with sandwich and read book. Meistersinger VERY traditional: ORDINARY church, ORDINARY town streets, ORDINARY (somewhat sterile) room and field for last act with about 300 people onstage and much gaity. Stephanie loves Wiekl and production, saying Hoffman goofed only few times. I read about Wagner's "Leubold" and see just START of rainbow over Bayreuth. Ends at 10:30 and I sit watching to 10:55, longest applause ever, and she's PISSED she was down first and stood for cab. Back for 11DM and bed at 11:50.
THURSDAY, AUGUST 4: Woke at 6:30 (bedside lamp not yet fixed where I unscrewed it and told her about it through Stephanie) and raise shade to let in light. Up at 7:40 to shower and pack EVERYTHING TIGHTLY into bag---surprise! But GOT to leave stuff in Frankfort, though hotel is TOO expensive (214DM for the least single!) to stay in even ONE night. Plan to taxi out books and LEAVE them. Pay 219DM final bill with Visa at breakfast and up at 9 to piss and rinse mouth (feeling of FOREBODING last night and rather WEARY this morning) and down at 9:15 to be told I can sit inside. Just take out notebook and taxi comes, 7DM
to Banhof and train is to Lichtenfels by 10:41, catch up with this at 9:35, no sign of 9:44 train YET. My watch runs about a MINUTE fast per day now. Get it cleaned? Feel "between:" probably anticipating 24-day major upcoming chunk of trip starting in just 48 hours! AGONIZED through first scene of third act last night: NOTHING to look at or understand, just boring singing: "Why am I here," "What do I want," etc. Maybe it just wasn't an exciting production, though it was good to see Wolfgang Wagner spryly hopping about onstage retrieving bouquets and bowing and walking with toad-like or dwarf-like hunched large steps and assuming that MAY have been how his GRANDFATHER looked! Now 9:39, TOTALLY up to date---and no train. I read about Bamburg and at 9:44 they annouce "ten minutes late!" Thank God I'm not in a RUSH for an OPERA. On train at 10! Train gets in at 11:08 and CONNECTION leaves at 11:09. Whew! Rolling fields all the way. [#11 and 12 Old Rathaus on River in Bamburg.] Check case for 1DM and out at 11:35! [#13 Ober Pfarrkuchen Alter, #14 View, #15 Bamberg Tomb***, and #16 Wtewael, Sintflut (from Nurnberg, in Bamburg). #17 Skyline---note GUY working on distant ROOF! LOTS to see in Bamburg: FIRST to Pfarrkirche by error, THEN to Diocesan Museum, then Dom, then Old Residence National Museum, for Sintflut special, old stonework, woodwork, altar chalices and votaries, then up to guns and lances and halbards and powderhorns and buckles. Then UP to remains of old church, and astronomy on top. THEN to New Residenz for rooms of dark paintings and rose garden at 2PM, obviously not making 2:11 train. [Photo #19 Kaisersall in New Residenz] The tour starts through LARGE stuccoed rooms with SOME pieces of GREAT furniture. Out halfway through at 2:25, having had enough. Dash through VERY colorful town (save for US soldiers in old camoflage fatigues) to station at 2:50 to recover bag---heavier than before--- and sit for 3:10 train at 2:56. Crowded train, and I sit across from black couple speaking pidgen English. Into Frankfurt at 5:45 and get sent to Hotel Bristol, WITH shower for 54DM, MARKED price of 75DM. Unpack for two days and phone. Steinbrenner Hotel for meal in "Restaurant Francais" at 8. Dress and out at 7:05 along sex-ridden Kaiserstrasse, and get in early ALONE to 125DM Tasting Menu. Headwaiter looks like Marshall Efron, waiter like Ron Howard with thick glasses. Japanese couple (he smokes a PIPE), single guy to left wolfs food, single guy to right looks frightened and ill, party of 8 is loud, others enter. Food OK but overpriced. Feel good with kir, white, red, and sauterne wines, about 750ml! Home reeling at 10:30 and to bed, loud room but not unbearable.
FRIDAY, AUGUST 5: Wake at 1:30 and 4:30 and 7:10, get out map to decide to LET Vienna-Prague-Dresden to the END of the trip and try to SNEAK Dresden quietly from Prague, as I could have confirmed in EAST Berlin. Sort things out AGAIN and down to breakfast at 9. Only a roll and tea; Jim Foght has moved to LONDON three years ago and left Dupont, and his former secretary is on vacation. AND there's now no room for August 28 (he'll look out for me, however), but he'll KEEP my books! Out at 9:30 to 9:51 train here for Marburg. [Photo #21 Marburg town FROM castle window, #22 Marketplace Houses and fountain, #23 castle on left, St. Elizabeth's church on right] Hazy out. Don't get into Marburg til 11, a bit of worry if I got on the wrong train. Bounce to church, go thru rope to find snake-eaten skeleton under body, see all the sights (NOT gold altars, surely), then struggle up Steinweg to castle, free but mostly closed for renovation. Down quick, buying "kleine verhangschloz," a padlock, at Woolworth's and go up RAIL-bridge for my final shot of Marburg Castle. Platform a circus for 13:05 back to Frankfurt (though there are nice faces, chests, and arms in that circus). Get a salami and beer for 6.70DM and get off at 14:05 to get on 14:17 for Mainz, debating giving pass to clerk at Bristol Hotel, IF he wants it! [Paper history: Tsai Lun: 105AD (Central China); Dunhuang 150AD, per Aurel Stein; Loulan 200AD, per Sven Hedin; Samarkand in 751, Bagdad in 793, Damascus and Cairo in Tenth Century; Sicily and Fez about 1100AD, Valencia in 1144; Troyes in 1348, Nurnberg in 1390, England in 1494, Korea in 600, Kyoto in 610]; Photo #24: Mainz Cathedral, #0 and 1 TWO views of Mainz Cathedral for two-star view from Leichhof. Wearily back to train and catch S-bahn for which my ticket is illegal, but a "sacrificial goat" of an American gets caught and conductor trundles him off to 40DM fine! In at 6:45 and rest and call Brukekeller for 8PM, taking 11.10DM cab from station. Cold tomato soup for 14DM is refreshing, marinated beef knuckle for 26DM is good but plain, fresh bread is too mushy, pfefferling, carrots, celery and GOOD leeks is OK, and fruit and sherbet for 16DM is OK too, but BEST is Auslese wine. Done at 10, and 11.10DM cab back---both taking SAME long way? Even festival lights can't attract me. Wearily brush teeth and get to bed at 11PM.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 6: Wake at 6:15 and mentally fuss, and up at 7 to shower and pack last things. Breakfast at 8:15 and out to Paleontology from 8:35 to 8:55 there, 9:55-10:10 back, for GOOD human exhibits, NICE bones/forms in basement, messier upstairs, GREAT minerals and agates. Phone 10:25 to find PA2 DELAYED til NOON. Convey about 25 pounds of books to guy: only ID = Zolnerzak, and I pay my bill. Up to write this to 10:50, train at 11:47. Out for a walk, get LOST (don't expect Taunus Anlage to turn RIGHT at Taunusstrasse!) But back to hotel at 11:15, shit, leave at 11:30, get on crowded 11:47 train and to information booth #15 at 12. Expected around 12. At 12:05, expected arrival 2:30!! So-called "rolling delay." May be MORE delayed! I go to Meeting Point soft seat and read. Look at people, read. At 1:45 I check to find flight is "on approach" at 1:52! Go EAT, and back to sit and watch LOVELY legs as thousands of people pass. At 2:50 I ask woman TALKING about "she" and "bus" if she's with Trafalgar and she IS! Out to TRAVCO bus and then Montrealer finds REAL bus. On at 3:07 (right window 37) and leave at 3:21. 391 km to Munich at 3:28, 312 at 4:20. Half hour reststop where I watch bees around THYME, lovely. Hong Kong Gerald talks of Romantic Road. Into Munich traffic jam at 8:20, hotel Holiday Inn reached at 8:45, dinner from 9:15 to 10:30. HUGE room and BALCONY, #367. Bed at 11 after I phone and Ingo's in NYC! Mistake: didn't brush teeth.
SUNDAY, AUGUST 7: Wake at 5:45 from light fron SIDES of shades. Up at 6:20 and THINK to brush teeth AFTER, but put bag out ONCE, bring it back for SHOWER cap, put it out TWICE, bring it back for DEODORANT, put it out AGAIN, and bring it back for spare key. Decide to brush teeth after shower and put it ALL out. AUTOMATIC message at waking call at 6:30, so you NO LONGER worry about what to RESPOND. Down to breakfast at 7:15, into ORIGINAL room as told, and we're told it's WRONG. Down TWO flights to LINE for buffet of rolls and cheese and cold cuts and tea on serving table but no CUPS, and cups at table but no TEA. All bitch: Hong Kong pair told 6AM at hotel NOW: packing THEN waiting. Another sent letter to be at Crest Hotel in FRANKFURT. Another told planes arrived at 10:15. All complain about lack of organization. I tell Julia I had no rectangular TRAFALGAR tag and she said they weren't important. Hand in key to 70Pf phone charge. Out at 7:45 to check bag, but she says they COUNT them so we don't have to check. Hong Kong woman says, "But if mine isn't one of the 55, I've still LOST mine." Julia says HOTEL changed breakfast room, "So it's not OUR fault." Bus onto ROAD at 8:05 and SECOND Trafalgar bus drives in for OTHER luggage. I take WIDE window as everyone changes, and note it's nice to be on RIGHT for driving on Yugoslavian coast for the next three days. We're 45 this AM (3?, no ONE to join later), and capacity for 49; seat next to me DETERMINEDLY VACANT. At 8:15 Julia says: "Rudy's luggage left with the other bus, we're trying to get money from hotel." Leave 8:37, WITH money for Rudy. 8:50 stop in Munich center for Hofbrauhaus (#3) in which Hitler spoke in 1920s. It's open, too! #4 Priest asperging up aisle in St. Peter's Church mass, #5 WHAT does this fisherboy have in his LAP?, #6 Wonderful GARGOYLES and DRAGONS up on Rathaus. Marianplatz fountain has angels warring (inscribed on shields) against snakes, basilisks, lions, and dragons. MUNICH: "English Garden has nude walkers; fine city museums, good technical museum on Isar BEST in world." VICKS from US joined us in Munich. Julia: person who WAS to have guided is SICK and she took OVER. At Austrian border at 11:04. Leave 11:10. #7 Castle on Tauren Highway: Hohenwraten. LOVELY hills and peaks to Villach 12:35-1:20 lunch, bargain 105S (12.8S/$) dinner of matzoh ball soup, large salad, and pork cutlets and nockerl under tomato sauce, beside artificial waterfall and about 160-foot piers of tunnel to Villach. #8 from lunch patio, #9 from Tauern Highway. 2:22-2:39 last Austria stop in Villach, "ten minutes." 3:20 stop at Yugoslav border; #10 search of auto through window (forbidden photo). Off at 3:54. #11 Welcome to Yugoslavia! 4:50 #12 Side of Hotel Toplice in Bled, Lake Bled, Castle, Clouds. #13 Church on island in Lake Bled and Natna (?) (into sun). Pine-lined roads could just as well be MAINE! Ljubljana has uncut park-grass and "worn" look like Baikal. We're shifted from Hotel Lev (expensive) to Hotel Grand Union (moderate)! At 6:10 we enter (seedy dim) lobby. Cash $100 check for 273,115, 2731/dollar. #14 Sava River and ?? #15 and 16 in Ljubljana. Walk two or three circles in quiet Sunday evening town, noting 12-floor cabaret for after dinner. Back to hotel at 7:30 for dinner (auto-rent closed, open at 7AM, I must ask) of cold cuts, good salad and REAL tomatoes, and tough pork roast with GOOD mushroom gravy, and fruit and ice cream for dessert. I get beer and Lorraine wine that I share, and Julia says THIS is our welcoming drink. Then OUT comes a DANCING group to good high-school clarinet and accordian, in three sets of costumes from three provinces. At end they dance with customers and I whirl-raced round and round, then changed direction and hopped for a bit, then round in the other direction. At 9:30 to roof to views over dark city with landmarks lit on hills. Down and to bed after brushing teeth by 10:20PM.
MONDAY, AUGUST 8: Wake at 4 for longish while, then wake at 6:15 and up at 6:30 for non-draining shower and at 7 to reception desk to wait for auto-rental information. At 7:15 told to go to Kompas Hotel rental agency. They have NO cheap cars and NO automatics save on 3-4 day order AND to $44/day is added 45 cents for each kilometer of about 500 kilometers to Split. So about $300 for one day, but no one's downstairs to AGREE with me. Breakfast 7:30-7:45, my bag in stack, and onto bus at 7:55 to catch up to date by 8:05, being sat next to by new arrival, who SMELLS! Gerald sorts passports and Julia calls off numbers, which SHOULD have been put in our seating order which is more CONSTANT---two seats forward on right, two seats back on left, each DRIVING day, so I'll get coast-side for next three days. Pull out at 8:07. One fellow COUGHS awfully and other has pained hand to right ear under sympathetic arm of wife. Also note that we can't SEE lots of villages because of barricades erected to cut off TRAFFIC sound from OUR ROADS, the exhaust from which I'm sure MUST be connected to the lamentable "heat-haze" that clouds the days---with pollution? BACK out of road with HUGE bus and on way at 8:10AM. To START of Rijeka at 10:10, OUT at 10:30. #17 Adriatic highway behind coast town of Bakar at 10:45. 12:15 Rudy stops to "take hubcap off." Coast is nice, but so is Mexico, Africa, and Greece. NOT some spectacle like Maine, Southern France, Italian coast, or even California coasts. Nice places for swimming. Dry coast of karst; saw car-ferry from Jablanse to Pag at 1PM. #18 Lunch spot at Karlobag 1:45-2:25. Coast gets hotter and more desolate. Constant stream of barren islands across from the mainland. Tired. At 4:10 we stop "to stretch" at Zadar. Wander fruit sellers: plums, apples, watermelons, bananas; I have no idea of quality or price. Others cross street for ice cream, beer, trinkets, in a depressing shop-block. DREADFUL stop. Say "We'll leave in 15 minutes." 4:25? No, 4:40! ZADAR: leave Istrian Coast and enter Dalmatian Coast. [Did I remember those high fields of HOPS in Germany?] SMOG over Split! Near Split at 7. #19 Split from my corner balcony at 7:25!! 11:57: One MUST attempt to describe the ineffable. Down to dinner at 8. Mrs. McDonald "forces" herself with Lorraine and me and Gerald and Pat. Then Marilyn joins us. I order GLASS of red wine, then Pat and I agree to have BOTTLE, and by the end we have TWO bottles. Gerald one glass, Pat two glasses, Lorraine three glasses, Marilyn four glasses, me five glasses. Up to my place to love view, then at 9:55 down for "walk." Marilyn, Lorraine, Gerald, and me. Along sea to red-lighted Venice-like area where Italian couple dance beautifully and a mother steps elegantly with her blond cloche haircut and her black shoes with white piping in elegant steps around her six-year old son and three-year old daughter. We watch, Venice rapt, then back to sea and get entranced AGAIN by lights. Under lights, through coast-gate, past Tito's hero's style and to ROMAN arches and ETRUSCAN towers. Magic follows magic: gay guys and lovely gals and expensive shops and thick Roman walls and Renaissance arches and apartments and rock bands and ads and rockers and astounded quartet: US. To Palace precinct and restaurants and lights and find market, and Marilyn wants to turn back. We walk along sea and get back by 10:45. I want more. Gerald seems me going to room (to piss) and says "Are you going back?" and I say, "Yes." Back along coupled streets to VACANT dancefloor where once Mom hypnotized with mirrored mathematical steps. People eat, but they're past the magic. Through "more to the right" openings to street of UTTER SILENCE and then "breakthrough" to "biggest meatmarket in Europe" where men and women and couples and groups and singles are standing and buzzing and talking and having coffee and cruising ALL IN ONE HUGE ROMANESQUE PIAZZA. Then to totally SILENT streets and different courts and scaffolds and passages and dark entrances and shops and cruising to central market again. Farther to REAL cruising dockside benches and SIT to watch straight couples, old faggots with canes, and hatless men along benches, with "Hotel Marjan" visible "around the bend of the sea." Sit til 11:40 and walk BACK: drunks and street hosers and police sirens and frantic furtive last-minute seekers, to hotel at 12 to write this til 12:10. Totally STONED and HAPPY!!
TUESDAY, AUGUST 9: Undress and bed by 12:15, after one LAST look at seaside- lights, accordian-sounding, motorbike-broken silent lay of extraordinary SPLIT below, and write THIS with doors locked and shades down at 12:18. Wake at 4:45 STIFLING and open balcony door. Wake again at 6:20 and get called at 6:45. Shower slowly and inaugurate shorts and get down at 8 with Ruth, ALSO from Berlin, now from Australia. Egg and cheese and tea and out at 8:20 for 8:30 tour at 8:35. Wonderfully, they suggest we bus to the 12:30 departure point. Ljubljana capital of Slovenia, Split capital of Dalmatians (not black spots). "How you call mosquitoes?" "Mosquitos." "I no call them, they just come." Salona SECOND city in Roman Empire? Split GEOGRAPHIC CENTER of Roman Empire! And waters for rheumatism. Off bus 8:55 for 1.5 hr walking tour with Goya. 9:35 #20 Romanesque Tower (Mausoleum now a Cathedral) in Split. Buvina Door from 1214 of Walnut. Big Split book only 2000D, about 70 cents! Jugater Temple from 305 intact! #21 ACTUAL 305AD ceiling. Three thousand people STILL live inside walls, AS in PAST. Good tour of underground at Diocletian temple, cathedral, and GOOD book. Then to Archeological Museum, nice BUILDING but pedantic displays, and enter Mestrovic museum and chapel, with Gerald, sharing 4500D and 5600D taxis. Archeology from 10-11, Mestrovic from 11-11:45. #22 Cyclops and Gerald and onto bus after 1000D hot dog and two 2500D beers for lunch; off at 12:40 for Dubrovnik. 1:40 #23 Istrian coastline with road cut in. Makarska Riviera. 4PM Neum, hotel-laden, is enclave of Bosnia-Herzegovina on SEA. 4200 people in OLD town: MAHOGANY bodies, soft but supple. Most off at Tirana at 5:30, and the rear outer left TIRE is flat! We eight singles are at the Deluxe President! Down by bus to SIX rooms. Lorraine and Marilyn share, as also MacD and Julia. Huge A-C room, down diagonal glass elevator at 6 to wander LONG halls to meet Lorraine at 6:15, saying they're NOT going to town, and dinner is at 8. I relax numbly in room (1/2 hour to town to 6:45, only 45 minutes THERE before coming BACK), watching TV for CLOCK between 7:28:10 and 7:29:59, then Hanna-Barbera dubbed cartoons in black and white, and two AIDS ads (condoms and "casual contact" import) and AMATEURISH non-actors. Fires in Sebonnih. Up to GOOD dinner of tongue, fruit soup, beef goulash. Dubrovnik's 40,000 people are in CROATIA. Back down to beach in dark, few stars, few hotel lights. To room at 10 and jerk off, tired to nicely cool bed at 10:30.
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 10: Wake up well at 5:45, and doze and lay til 7:30 call. Jerk off again, shower and quick GOOD breakfast to 8:50, finding bus in at 9:10. Make tour to Medugorje for 75000D at 12:45, bus from hotel. Julia back
at 9:20 and Rudy drove bus to Bosnia, past Mostar, to get it fixed. Bus (new) arrives at 9:35 with guide for day. Down to traffic jam (bad getting back?). We're on Lapad peninsula for summer palaces and hotels. Oleaders bloom FIVE MONTHS. ENORMOUS traffic, in at 10:15, Pillar Gate. MOST buildings destroyed in earthquake of 1667. St. Savior built in 1540, not touched by quake. #24 10:45AM Up street in Dubrovnik. Fountain; Franciscan Monastery and Cloister. Dominican cloister and church; everyone hot and tired, other crowds of tourists, much needless guide-talk. St. Blaise Square; Rector's Palace; St. Mary's Cathedral. #0 St. Blaise's arm, leg, shawl, and largest piece of True Cross (whew!) and Raphael tondo on right (not in picture). #1 Rector's Palace facade on right and in center ONLY palace lasting from BEFORE 1667 quake and funicular hill on left. Tour ends 11:30. #3-5 Dubrovnik from funicular!! Dash up hill: 10 minutes to funicular. Up at 11:45, great though hazy view, photos, and get glass of soda (water?) and WRAPPED sandwich for lunch for 4000D. On line for down-funicular at 12, bells ringing. Down by 12:05, down to walls and walk AROUND half of them to get to taxi at 12:10 and hotel at 12:35. Get key, wash hands and face, change from shorts to white trousers, recheck "bus in front" and wait there at 12:40, cool breeze under canopy, grass-sprayers going. Bus comes with one Frenchwoman and guide at 12:45, and we go to three more hotels and pick up NO one. Finally four French are added and at the agency, two Italians, the fat fucking fellow of the couple squeezing into my FRONT SEAT!! I jostle him each time he sleeps. Stop at Metrovic at 3:15 for coffee and mixed-meat lunch as I bitch to good girl guide, narrating in French and Italian, and English just for me. #6 4:40PM first view of Medugorja. #7 "Vicka's" house, one of the girls. Inscription on one of the stones on the hill: VJERUJ U SUJETLOST/ VJECITU DA BI/ SVJETLOST UJECITU OSVOJIO!/ BAZO CETR DOCI PRED MENE/ SVI--SVAKI--DO POSLJEDNJEG!/ MISLITE LI ZIVOTA CETE MI POKAZA--. #16 Vicka. Taxi 5-5:40, plodding to top of Colony- like hill. Hot boring rosary 6-7, mass 7-8:15, and I take communion to no effect. To bus early, get a beer, and three postcards, and leave about 8:30 in driving mess. Harrowing dark road to within 40 kilometers of Dubrovnik, and driver stops at 10PM for coffee. I have Coke and tonic, both with ice. Back off at 10:15, to hotel at 11:15, giving her $2, which she seems to like. Room is WARM! Bed at 11:50, hoping my putting on the air conditioner will cool it!
THURSDAY, AUGUST 11: Wake at 5:25, but no call at 5:30. Is bus still not fixed? Rudy delayed? Plans changed and announced last night when I wasn't here and Julia forgot to leave me note in mailbox? What if I MISS bus? Call girls in Room 515 and WAKE them? Write this at 5:40, still no call. Look back to yesterday and I SAID 5:45, but I REMEMBER I wasn't sure of time. Get call at 5:43! Wash and breakfast with BEAUTIFUL Joel Levi, who writes his name and "Attorney, 4 Alomin St. Gival Shmuel, Tel Aviv, Tel: 232394" in the back of my notebook. #20 from atop FRONT SIDE corner of fifth floor roof of President Hotel at 6:57AM. Onto bus at 7:10, Rudy and bus OK. At 8:25 to Kaminari-Budva ferry, just missing a full ferry---and my EYES go out of focus for a few seconds!! #23 Budva at 9:40AM; #24 Coast down from Budva rest stop at 9:45AM. Notice spot fort at 10AM that's gone by 10:25. #25 Sveti Stefan in haze. Enter Titograd at 11. #0-1 Moraca Canyon at 11:40AM. 11:50 there's another awful THUMP, and Rudy pulls off and Julia announces an hour's lunch-break. SPECTACULAR gorge/river/tunnel panoramas from Titograd to here. Map of the six Socialist Republics: 1) Northernmost is Slovenia, capital Ljubljana, 2) Croatia contains Zagreb and we went to Dubrovnik and Split; 3) Bosnia and Hercegovina contains Sarajevo and I went to Medugorja, 4) Macedonia, capital Skopje; 5) Montenegro has Titograd and Moraca; 6) Serbia has Belgrade and two Autonomous Republics: Kosovo, we went through Pristina; and Vojvodina, we went through Subotica. So now I can decide I've definitely SEEN it, though I'd like to get back to Postojna Caves and Plitvic Lakes. We board bus at 1:25, being taken 12 kilometers "to a monastery" to wait "with more seats" for another bus to come from Dubrovnik for us. He couldn't get a spare LAST time and HAS NONE. I tell Julia that Rudy was angry with her for going off to telephone without telling
him. #2 2:50 up creek waiting for a bus in Moraca. #3 3:35 back from stream to "cool" shade and read, and dinner is at 3:45, over at 4:45: chicken soup, cole slaw, beef and potatoes and hard peas, and two beers, and I start reading again at 5 when Julia announces the new bus is HERE! [8/12: 6:50: Two dream fragments: 1) I'm an amazed guest at a wedding in a family with many beautiful blond daughters in white who kiss each other affectionately at the least provocation. How happy the family must be! 2) I'm trying to catch a boat about to leave a dock, and stepp off dock into water and effortlessly turn the boat about in my hands, looking for the easiest and widest point of entry between the smooth wooden lower rails and polished rosewood upper edges of the dock. A pair of "real problem" dreams.] [Joel Levi a combination of the bright-eyed intelligence of Ben Kingsley and the sexiness and outwardness of John Casavetes.] #5 Skopje view from hotel window at 3:25PM. Onto same kind of bus (next to second driver) and patterns of EXTREMELY steep, craggy, inhospitable hills followed after a valley by a range of SPOTTY farms, then TOTALLY farmed, then fairly flat, then QUICKLY back to inhospitable again. Sudden one-lane areas in dark; TOTALLY stopped tractor TOTALLY without lights, a series of swollen rivers almost lakes, that Julia agrees are formed by dams, and THREE measures of primitivity come to mind: 1) the extent of PEDESTRIAN traffic on "highways", 2) the extent of FIRES for cooking (by gypsy families lit by car headlights!) and 3) burning stubble (in nicely regular rows). SORRY to have missed so much terrain in the dark, but DID get first minaret in twilight. [#6 5:17 on old railroad clock at earthquake-destroyed monument in Skopje at 8:40AM. Ugly modern city, some fragmented balconies and buildings seeming to REMAIN from quate; smoky busses; dour pedestrians.] Lots of dark hills and plains and farms; lots of family groups with cows, sheep, and goats. Fear getting into me about 11:30; also from accident. Silly campers parked JUSTT off the side of the road. (They (two new Yugoslavian drivers) seem to know "quick" way, but it's still 123 kilometers by 9:15. Actually less traffic at night, and make good speed past Pristina, site of fighting between Serbians and ["Guitar Love Songs" has LOVELY extended cut of music.] and newly majority Albanians. Fires of stubble make passing a drama, as do pedestrians lining streets and IN the highway. Near city at 11PM and get slightly lost, not in Continental Hotel but Grand Hotel. Stagger VERY tired into dining room for cold cuts, salad, pork chop and potatoes, and awful red wine for 3200D and mineral water for 1200D for tonight. Ask for room 415 and there's no key. Up to 415 and see VICKS' bag. Up to 622 and LIGHT doesn't work. Down to Julia to find I'm in 419. In to brush teeth and collapse into warm bed (windows open) at 12:20.
FRIDAY, AUGUST 12: Wake at 5:45, laze til 7:05, feeling surprisingly good, and shower as wakeup call buzzes at 7:15. Packed bag out by 7:30, it's gone when I leave at 7:40. Tea without milk and buttered roll and egg fill me up, as it does Lorraine, whose hot chocolate never comes. Out at 8:15 to note modernistic theatre group, minarets, ugly river, and smoggy smoke. People joke about seat rotation as bus leaves at 8:30 sharp. Get lost finding stopped clock on station, get told about Mother Teresa from here, and leave town about 8:50, having again gotten lost on road to "Atina," (Athens) 630 kilometers away. Through hazy featureless nondescript farmland to 11:05 at Greek border. Yugoslavian drivers and bus can't go into Greece, they say, but they're quietly passed. Then stop at Greek side until new driver arrives at 11:25. Fill out white cards at 11:30 and Julia passes out passports that Gerald has just COLLECTED. Julia on rear right, book on left front. No one seems to know what to do---and it's hotter---and we're already seemingly encountered some of the "dreadful" Greek drivers. #7 People CAMPED OUT waiting to get into Greece at 11:35, going to johns. Change $40 cash for 5827D (Drachmas), only 50 cents commmission, at rate of 147.4/$, and buy Slice, icky taste, for 80D. Back and stand in VERY hot sun, then decide just to sit in bus at noon. Move clock one hour AHEAD and leave at 1:20PM. Things seem cheap: 60 cents for lovely watermelon, about $5 for whole lunch from 2:30-3:25, but it's hot. Copy names
from a map in Kalambaka: 1) 615m Great Meteoron, aka Metamorphosis, then 2) Anapausus low, 3) Varlaam at 600m, 4) Roussanou is low, 5) Agia Troas at 565m, 6) Agios Stephanos, and 7) in town is Kimissis Theotokos; 8) & 9) I can see from room, old Agios Nikolaus site and Agio Apostolo ruin at 630m. Into hotel at 5:30 to find that NONE of the monasteries are open this late. Get rooms assigned and at 5:40 Julia says, "You can go by cab." I dash to call cab, grab bag from bus and dash up to change, down at 5:45 to wait. And wait. At 5:55 up to CANCEL cab: "They didn't answer." "Too bad," I say, and go up to photo #8 & 9. At 6:05 my phone rings: "Pay 150D for taxi---it came 30 seconds later." "No." Julia: "Good." Look at map and out at 6:35: Nicholas is driving in bus. Leave at 6:44. THIS tour's EMPHASIS is WASHROOMS! 7PM: Great Meteoron open 9-1, 3:20-6, not Tuesday. Trip up is breathtaking, photos 10-16, buy BIG book for 600D. To 7:15---#5 is two-people picture of Great Meteoron at the top, Anapausus, ruin, Vaarlam below, and Roussanou in lower left. 7:35 #19 is St. Nicholas nunnery on "tooth." #20-21 Church of Assumption of Mary, from 7th Century, ONLY one with central pulpit aside from St. Sophia's. HAVING service (no photos allowed), "Relics from pagan temple in wall-lunette between Greek capitals." Back about 7:30 to TOWN and I try to find "corner monastery" and stumble into a 7th Century CHURCH SERVICE. Women in black ensconced around sides in narrow choirstools, women standing and bowing to floor each moment. Back to GOOD cream soup, tender veal, and tasty large creme caramel. Out again at 10 to walk streets, but it's noisy and "Life Cafe" has WOMEN in addition to the sexy men who were there earlier. Back at 10:30 to jerk off slowly and get to sleep after SHOWER by 11:30PM.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 13: Wake at 6:15, still rather dark, and phone at 7 and bag out at 7:45 and breakfast 7:50-8:30. Bus leaves at 8:40, large HAND luggage stashed ALL OVER! 12:15PM: bus going up to Delphi, a white car passes us, truck comes on other lane, Nicholas jams on brakes to give him room, but he can't get in, Nicholas hits him at right rear and Bill, IN front, says driver overcompensated and VEERED LEFT, spinning out his front, and the left front of the truck hits the right side in front of the white car. The driver leaps out, head bleeding, and tries to get his woman out of the right. Later they say there were TWO couples in the car, so TWO must have been driven off to hospital. Nicholas has to wait for police. Woman is pulled out (from death seat) and lies bleeding on highway for a bit. Julia very affected and crying. Julia later says "What could the truck do, it was at the right edge of the road. And if Nicholas went to his right, WE would have gone over the side." Cars pass through from behind us while trucks line up in back of truck by 12:35. #22 Moments after accident. #23 Final position of vehicles, note blood on road. Ambulance comes from BEHIND us and passes scene by. At 12:40 I start to read. At 1:05 Julia says "The driver as good as killed his wife." Out at 1:30 to LOOK at car: left front tire pushed off rim; car littered with sunglasses and broken windowglass. Blood on crushed-in right door. 1:28PM, ambulance comes from AHEAD carrying driver sitting up and his partner being given intravenous fluids---still alive? Eight large busses and trucks behind truck, and the OTHER line stretches beyond ten or twelve vehicles around bend. At 1:50 a HUGE semi pulls alongside to the left, TOTALLY blocking traffic. At once an argument starts, but at 1:54 the cops FINALLY arrive from in front, and take testimony and measurements; truck backs up a bit, Julia counts noses, and we pull away at 2:04. Into Amfissa at 2:19, so accident was about 15 kilometers north, around Drossohari peak-of-road. Get to "local taverna" obviously a cut for Nicholas, where everyone refuses the 1300D lunch menu. I buy a half-liter beer for 250D and eat my breakfast sandwich. 2:30-3:35 lunch. 400D for ten slides at Delphi tour-start at 3:55. Tour is 400D. Four centers: Delphi, Delos (economic center), Epidaurus (medical center), and Olympia (for peace and games). #24-25 Delphic Dogma: Peace, Love, Equality (no SLAVES!). Tour over at 4:30! Up for photos and down to museum at 4:45, photos 0-3, quick photos and back to BUS at 5:10! Last in! Rest stop at great place 5:50-6:05, beer 200D. 6:25 #4 gypsy camp of fruit pickers. Spain WORST current country to travel in. BE careful in Athens WITH foreigners. 8PM Acropolis photo; in to Divani Hotel, just down hill from entrance. We're asked downstairs for a drink ---ouzo and orange is GOOD---and I'm up to 210 to look at laundry list (about $3 for a shirt with 50% extra for express) and try to put on air conditioner. No luck. Try to put on bedroom light, no luck. Figure to exchange bulbs, since OTHER lights work. Unscrew and end up unscrewing SOCKET. Put it back in and try again and the FUSE blows. Down to report it at 8:30 and get frantic looks from captain and bellboy. Try to leave key WITH him and he says _I_ must go up. I do, write this, and am STILL waiting at 8:40. EVERYONE laughs. Turn in key and down to dinner at 8:45, sharing awful "Grande Trigon Bertoni" red with Pat Yung. Mrs. MacDonald ALSO says she wouldn't photograph disasters. Up to room and lights ARE fixed, but I DON'T try my bedlamp. Out to Acropolis entrance for EITHER ballet side-lighting OR Sound and Light effects from 10 to 10:30, then back to unpack for laundry allocation and pill collection. Too tired to jerk off, so just get to bed at 11:50, still too late for eight hours.
SUNDAY, AUGUST 14: Wake at 3:30 to open window in heat. Wake at 5:30, then at 6:45 with memories of three dreams: 1) Typical "must catch subway but I don't know where or when" fragment, 2) Playing an odd "marble chase" game that on third play I realize I don't even have to WATCH previous marble "work," just keep pressing button for "release" and they keep coming in long lines on final "rollercoaster tunnel" that observing kids watch and can somehow fling streamers of marbles colorfully around them in the "game box," 3) Talking to Mom about some relatives going to see someone "who was married on Saturday ANYWAY" and she gets amazed or hurt and leans her head against a wall and starts to cry (or rather KEEN) bitterly and I don't know what to do---but when I WAKE I remember how grateful she was when I put my arm around her in her sadness, frustration, and agony after her EKG in Akron last year (two years ago?). Shit while writing above to 7AM. See that I did last 12 days in 44 pages, not quite 4 pages/day. This 80-sheet, 160-page book then lasts 40 days at LEAST to September 12. Shower in CLEAN feeling water, and down to ask for laundry. "Call after breakfast." Good buffet (Lorraine gets CHOCOLATE!) and up at 8:40. "Call the chambermaid from your room." Dash up, get #67 to call: no answer. Dash down (thank goodness it's only two flights) and shout. HE calls and gets answer. I fuss. "Upstairs." I'm up and she IS there (I FORGOT slips!) I'm back at 7:55, STILL no bus. Depart 8:20 for _7:45_ departure on FULL bus, 3-4 people even STANDING on short trip along superhighway bordered by LOTS of English, getting to LOVELY yacht "Joy," which we pass for horrendously crowded "Hermes" where I find a spare seat with Greeks at 8:35 and write this. Two "nice" real estate couples from New Zealand with Lorraine and six others of us. Tom's wife says she got a jolt when slimy young fellow boarding next to her says he's from Libya. Searched bags at start, getting blue pass for passed. Other Bob crawls over my forearms to sit on wooden decking at rail, which I figured should be seats in first place. Great going. Epirotiki lines for Pireaus, leaves 8:45. At 9:15 our "leaders" report: Egina 10-11:30, and I give them 1100D for bus tour. Then Hydra (12:40-13:30) for 1:40 and Poros for 45 minutes from 15:00-16:30, both on your own. Arrive Egina 10, bus leaves 10:15. Dusty arrival at 10:40, at 10:46 she says "English lecture in 12 minutes." #5-8 Temple of Aphaia at Egina, 2000 inhabitants, erected 500-490BC, on earlier temple, remains from 790BC. Aphaia, daughter of Zeus, worshipped ONLY here since Second Millenium BC! Buy book for 560D (SAW pediments in MUNICH!!) and bus leaves at 11:10. 4000+ islands, only 200 inhabited: Saronic Gulf has seven islands, we see three. Egina 85 square miles. Aphaia is Goddess of LIGHT. #9 Port of Egina as we leave at 11:40AM. Lunch. #10 Port of Poros and Flying Dolphin II hydrofoil at 12:40. #11 Poros: Captain, upper right, berating bow-crossing Elpos I at 12:50. #12 Docking at Poros 12:52. #13 Poros OTHER side, 1:15PM. Last on boat at 1:40. #15 Hydra port at 3:10. #16 pistachios and Marvat. #17 from atop Hydra and bouganvilla at 4PM. Among last onto boat at 4:45 and they say we arrive in Athens at 7:15! Two and a half hours! And folkloric show in lounge at 5:15. Good bazouki player, then three fairly sexy guys do skirted and panted dances of Epirus, Cyprus, and other places. Then lots of audience participation. At 6:30 I go to front to watch Athens near; planes taking off and landing; avoiding Marvat. Dock at 7:20 and wait for 7:40 until bus #9 is found, AND Marvat found me and we shook hands and she said she enjoyed the day. We remember that Sound and Light leaves at 8:15 as we board and Italians shout back and forth and we leave at 7:45. Get LAUNDRY (sigh) but NO dry cleaning on Sunday and Monday. Down at 8:10 and at 8:28 the 8:15 bus leaves. Sound and Light is BORING from 9-9:45, and Nicholas drives us to Plaka (on my suggestion ONLY?) and Lorraine and I go to hilltop and have decent dinner with Santa Helena for my 1000D and her 760D. Back at 12 and wash socks and shorts til 12:30. Bought 1/2 liter water for 30D, 20 cents. Brush teeth to 12:45, bed at 12:50, NOT jerking off.
MONDAY, AUGUST 15: Wake 5:45, then 6:50 to jerk off nicely on marble table, put more laundry out (what I WORE yesterday), shower, breakfast 8:05-8:30, and tour bus starts at 8:40. To JAMMED Acropolis at 8:50. 9AM View from top of Acropolis (seats on left, Hyphaestion temple on right). They stopped allowing people INSIDE Parthenon 6-7 years ago. Acropolis Museum open til 5:45. Casts of sculpture at Makriyannis 2-4, first light to right, to 2PM. #20 Erectheum ---higher than before? #21 10:17 temple of Wingless Victory is tranquil above with crowd below. Exasperated guy to non-climbing mother-in-law: "It's ONE thing you can't not see!" Tours get madder and madder: two groups completely block one roadway. One group will start shouting immediately behind another group. I constantly have to watch my FEET while observing impeccable pecs, abs, legs, eyes, hair, faces, crotches, sex, legs, body, legs. Different languages vie, kids cry, radios blare, and mothers scream "Lay off me." Everyone shooting snapshots, films, videos (even videos of last night's Sound and Light). Total madness: plus sales of candy, books, slides, lousy statues, etc. Bus off at 11:35. Temple of Zeus had 132 columns, now 16 left. #22 President's Palace with line of Enzoon guards at 10:50. Tour over at 11:10. Change $100 for 14,100D at hotel, losing 400D or $3. Oh, well. Leave hotel at 11:45, to Makrigiani Museum for GREAT details on trials, trembles, "repairs" and tribulations of Acropolis buildings, to 1:15. Dine on chicken in Plaka for 800D, then back to Acropolis for museum, and at 3:05 photo #23 of "Critios' Boy," about 480BC work of Critios "Master of Myron." #24 Giant from 520BC in archaic pediment of Athena's battle against giants. #0 Rampin Horseman, 560BC (head plaster of original in Louvre). (Noted that paper-hanger cover given me yesterday was from Minerva French Cleaners, 29-09 Broadway, Astoria NY!] [Last minute "Of course ther's nothing left" check picks up black bow TIE in dark corner of shelf!] Though day is hot, lowered elevation and breeze (wind!) keeps museum cool. Odd rule: "You can photograph statues, but not FRIENDS and statues"! Out about 4:15 and back to hotel after sitting a bit on stone at stairs watching BEAUTIFUL tanned lithe young male bodies. Sort out things for packing til 5:30, then walk to Plaka to watch MORE lovely people, some of them clearly bodybuilders, but VERY few cruising and only two who "looked" at all. Awful. Back to hotel 7:45-8 to meet Marilyn, who asks me to change to trousers for dinner, "You're pushy, but you're not RUDE." Walk to place below Acropolis for GOOD Tzantali bottle and '84 Cambas white, mixed grill, and creme caramel to antidote slight bowel looseness from LOVELY lunch melon slices. End at 10:30 and find LOUD place UP STEPS that I recall from before: real HUCKSTER area too. Back and brush teeth and to bed at 11:30, ready for AM.
TUESDAY, AUGUST 16: Wake up well at 6:30 after dream: 6:30 wakeup call disturbs CHARMING dream: I'm cuddling with a lovely guy who wants a "coverup" so a sort of teacher gives him a chiffon tube skirt that JUST COVERS his brief sports shorts, tying at top and bottom to emphasize his slim tanned muscles; shower and my shorts are DRY. Pay bill for laundry I'd MISCALCULATED, of 1980D, good breakfast with Bill and Lorraine, and to bus at 7:55 (my bag in stack) to write this. Julia says she has telex from Rudy's boss that he'll be in Kavalla tonight, 678 kilometers away, one of the longer days. I'm at perfectly aligned window halfway back on left by now, as we pull away at 8:06AM. I'm also on photo #1 of LAST roll of 24 slides! 9:10 stopped at tolls to check tachograph for speed and driver's logbook for proper rest-days off, all of which should be OK. Three Harrier jets wobble to a landing to our left. Growing cotton, tobacco (like tiny PALMS when young), pistachios, potatoes, olives (the trees only produce after 15 years), and corn. Leonidas Monument at Thermopolae (he lost, was beheaded, and body crucified), but later battles at Salamis WON Second Persion War about 480BC. "Go tell the Spartans, thou that passeth by,/ That here, obedient to their laws, we lie." #1-2 at 10:55AM, 15 kilometers south of Lowic. 11:07-11:27 we stop at same AWFUL place and Lorraine and Marilyn discover a better CLEANER place just across the road---obviously they won't give the drivers a good enough commission. Julia says, "You can't cross the road," but the bus DID on the way DOWN. It seems to STUPID for farmers to burn PINETREES as they burn their STUBBLE! Mousaka lunch and beer and tomato salad for 700D at lunch 1:30-2:20. Peneios river with SPRINGS north of Lousas. #3 Mt. Olympus in haze at 3:47PM. 4:05 we turn BACK for washrooms for 15 minutes. I'm grumpy to see everyone eating pastry, drinking soda, going to john. I'm not hungry (lunch only two hours ago) or thirsty (over one liter left in 1.5 liter bottle), and he couldn't stop for ten minutes to let an energetic few see at least ONE spring. Of COURSE the ladies must piss, and the few who are sick are probably miserable. But I'm still grumpy as people reluctantly board at 4:30, and it's only 148 kilometers to Kavalla. Nick is blowing hard about "You must complain," and "If you ever see my bus number here again, you can throw me in jail." Sure. Very hazy now; at least I'm skimping on film! Why can't they satisfy EVERYone? Pull away at 4:34, 29 minutes for 15-minute stop. As we pass greenhouses of roses at 5PM, a faint scent of shit permeates the bus. #4-5 Lion of Amphipolis at 5:45PM; it's 18 feet high. We actually STOPPED! 338BC battle; remains of soldiers (254 skeletons) found inside. 5:55 #6 Terminally dusty almond trees---see ALMONDS! 6:27 stop for gas so Nick can get back to Athens early tomorrow. But he leaves when they don't have the right fuel. Stop again for gas 6:31-6:40. Into Kavala at 7:05 and GOOD-looking balconied Oceanis Hotel, but we get rooms in BACK. 7:25 #7 of town, our brown-doored hotel at right. Even at dusk the water at the dock is SO clear it's like snorkeling! Fish glinting silver as they turn to graze from rock-tops. Kiddie park is working, the Archeological Museum isn't. Poseidon bar at end of pier is LOVELY. Traffic is VERY loud for those in the front of the hotel, but the back is quiet. Swimming pool with LOVELY teenage bodies. Really looks like the Riviera, except things look dusky (may be dusk, may be haze, may be DIRT). Back to dinner at 8:30, buying wine for 690D for me and Lorraine and Marilyn, but Marilyn doesn't show up, and Julia smiles, "But we know who she's with, don't we?" She's referring to Nicholas, who left early after collecting my 300D tip and more from others. Out with Lorraine to crowded Poseidon for no seats, back to buy roast corn that's VERY tough, but salty and carbony, and watch bumper cars with one guy's shirt saying "No more AIDS" and another cute blond cruising. Back tired at 10, brush teeth and bed at 10:20.
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 17: Wake at 2:30 to feel like (taking) a shit, but only a BIT, like diarrhea. Oh-oh! Buzzed awake at 6 and record two dreams again at 6:05AM: 1) Wonderful episode of playing with a sexy hard cock that comes almost at once, but I can match his speed and we think we're wonderful together. 2) Large group of "past-Army" men are enrolled in a university-like class, and I'm talking on the phone with A about B's needing things, but _I_ don't want to mention B's name, but when A suggests "Moses," (a large black boxer) needing help, I say I agree HE might need help but I was thinking of sleepy-eyed possible-psychotic D! Try to shit AGAIN, AGAIN just a tiny bit of foul- smelling diarrhea-light liquid. Is it possible to have constipated diarrhea? Shower and put bag out before others, then down at 6:35 to write this while others gather outside still-closed restaurant. Trucks ROAR by on street CONSTANTLY---gorgeous tight light blue jeans cross street under cherry-red shirt. Everyone streams in as doors open at 6:45 and I wait for line to diminish. OK breakfast; pack sandwich; up to shit a bit MORE, getting to consolidated mass, good. Into bus at 7:20, away at 7:25, up west (in error) to turn back east. 7:40 #7 Aqueduct of Suleiman the Magnificent (16th Century) and docks of Kavalla. #8 clicked by error? #9 at 9:45 farms and forests of Greece (Thrace), Turkey---boring?! Stop at 10:10 in Alexandropolis til 10:30. Nothing; no film; stuck hand into sea; piss in ruined john at beach; trout pond; leave at 10:40. Stop at border at 11:18. Passports collected with Greek exit cards. Read article from Kitty on Turkey. 11:27 Julia returns and passes out passports. Dash off and buy five 36-slide films for 5250D, or $7.45 each, amortizing to $4.97 for 24, but WITHOUT processing. Decent ENOUGH for me to feel content: down to 277D AND have film! At 11:40 stop for TURKISH forms. NO films in TURKISH free shops at 11:45. In line individually with passports to "Police Passaport." I'm last in line at 11:50PM; exchange $100 for 152,500 local whatevers, and back into bus after pre-packed "lunch" at 12:20. #10 Turkey border from bus and FACILITIES. Pull out at 12:30, but stop at final BRIDGE. Finish nut brittle that ANOTHER couple found crawling with GRUBS! Mine didn't move. Rudy runs back at 12:37. Julia had to sign that we would not sell our videocameras "or Rudy will go to jail." Really? Then at 12:49 an officer comes through to check everyone's Turkish stamps---that we just got! Belt and suspenders? At LEAST the day is COOL, about 80 degrees in the shade. Over bridge at 12:51. West Turkey is ALL sunflowers. #11 Busy roads at Sea of Marmara entrance at 2:20PM. #12 Building mosque in Eceabat at 2:30. One ferry leaves at 2:35. #13 Our ferry Kinaliada docking at 2:40. #14 3:15 Two German bunkers and ships and Canakkale Asia across. #15 3:25 Asia! #16 1915 cannon for cross-channel fire at 3:33PM. #17 4:45 Wooden house (hollow). #18 4:55 Walls of Homer's Troy (which is Troy VI): 8 meters high. #19 5:03 Plain of Troy and remains of Athena's temple. #20 Sign at left: Troy IX, Athena's Temple 350BC-400AD. #21 at 5:22 Sign says Troy VIII Sanctuary, 900BC-350BC. Leave about 5:40 to Schliemann's house, filled with old photos, but I'm hot and tired. Slides are 4500 here that were only 4000 at hotel. Back to hotel about 6, having given Julia the number of the Bristol Hotel in Frankfurt, saying driver can drop THREE of us there. Beach is said to be nice, so I put on suit and go down to COLD water and 2-3 feet of rocks and Mr. Vick and Gerald with cute little abdominals. Very salty; I float and frogkick, and get out of the water with that strange NAUSEA and FATIGUE I've felt in jolts of swimming BEFORE. Up and shower and go to bar for drink, but AWFUL shouters are holding court, so I go to lobby and page through English/ Italian/German/Greek/Turkish magazines. Dinner at 7:30 with Vicks, who turn out NICE, and Marilyn comes with funny apologies for "fish dinner" absence last night, and we drink Villa Deluca for 8000, very dry, and Dorick for 7000, somewhat better. Kizilay on table, but we're uncertain whether it's foiled TAP water or real mineral water. Lorraine (THIS is her official spelling: "Province named after me.") seems to remember the name from her guidebook (indispensible), so I DRINK it. Lively evening, good schawerma---meat and STRONG onions and bulgar and salad with some STRONG peppers. Fingernail moon AGAIN. Bed at 10, GREAT luxury!
THURSDAY, AUGUST 18: Wake at 4:15 to shit, at 6 feeling GREAT and pack and out to walk beach and photo hotel #22 at 6:45. Breakfast at 7:15 with real orange juice, and only toast and cheese and butter and jam. 8:15 start is at 8:20, now. To ferry at 8:37. Wander port: souvenirs, hawkers, lovely fruit. Bus on ferry at 9:05. Ferry leaves 9:20. I'm up front with Turkish families and two Italian motorcyclists. #23 SEXY Milanese three weeks on road to Istanbul. Arrive at port at 9:50. Gallipoli Peninsula: 31 cemeteries and six memorials! #24 Anzac Cove at 10:10 and group. Husseyn VERY pedantic, TRYING for drama. Poor sap. #0 "Most moving" Ataturk quote. 10:50 END of Anzac Cove. "Having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well." #1 Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (Anzac) headstones at 10:35. #2 10:55 Ceremony at Lone Pine Memorial. 11:05 #3 Long Pine plaque and map. Got Husseyn to sign his book. Onto bus. Husseyn leaves (very soppily) at 11:25, back at Marmara Sea. Lunch at Galibolas 12:15-1 and leave. #4 World War II fort in fields in Turkey 1:15. ENDLESS sunflowers and stop for gas 2:15-2:30. Tom is 59, almost caught by war-end draft at 16; he seems MUCH younger. The other Bob is 52-53, about same as me, to his wife's surprise. #5 at 2:50, typical east Turkey-in-Europe landscape. 3:10 "Bilge Turistik" in KUMBAG. Last night AFTER Schawerma, which they call Donner Kebab, was Marrow Quiche, from Morocco, no doubt. Stop again at 4:30, 30 kilometers out, at NEW gas station (with new mosque), for ten minutes, preparing for TRAFFIC in Istanbul, leaving at 4:42. SO busy in rushhour at 5:15. #6 traffic and Blue Mosque(?) #7 Market and Constantine's Walls from 395AD. All flags half-mast. #8 Restored gate and workers (we're now LOST, led by CAB!) at 5:40. #9 Old Bazaar mosque at 5:50. At hotel 5:54 for #10, Ramada entrance. FABULOUS hotel, though room smells PISSY. Want to change to long pants but bag isn't left at my door---and I actually had to be told to PULL door to even OPEN it. Julia finds that my 4209 bag is at 2110! Change by 7:20 and out for quick look at market in drab Old Bazaar. Dinner at 7:45 (waitress thought 7:30 was to be at 8PM), good, and good Doluca wine. Down to casino with ten free tokens; I don't care for the BAR slot machines, win some on poker-deck slots, and win 13 tokens and 19 tokens on five-horse "pick-two" race. End at 10:30 with 12 tokens, for which I get 6000, about $4, good. J/O fast and sleep at 10:50, early at last.
FRIDAY, AUGUST 19: Great breakfast and times as noted in photos. GOOD city but too FAST. Hippodrome and Blue Mosque and Santa Sophia. Bus off at 8:20AM. #12 8:55 Blue Mosque interior. #13 9:25 Blue Mosque. #14 Santa Sophia at 9:27. #15-16 9:40 Santa Sophia 155 feet high. Back to bus 10AM. Oddly numb in mosques, but touched, when Mahmet says "This was a church for 900 years and a mosque for 500 years, started in 537; "Here there IS a Higher Being." One hour for two mosques, 10-12:30 for Bazaar 54. #17-18 10:30 Carpet display. Price for a 3x5 foot rug including delivery: $475. 4x6 $850. Tribal rug of 24 square feet for $810. Wool and cotton 7x10 $2600. Pure wool $2300. Silk: 3x5 $2000, 1x2 (smallest) $700. 11% off for carry---NO negotiations. Out of carpet place at 10:45. Shop in Grand Bazaar and get "Istanbul" book for 8000L. Back to Bazaar 54 for "Hagia Sophia" for 7000L, three sets of 12 slides for 4000L each, and 13 cards for 1300L. Postage 600L each for three to send. Onto warm bus at 12:30. #19 Grand Bazaar 11-12--almost LOST, almost PANIC! #20 Burnt column at 12:40. Topkapi 12:50-2: #21 Gate of White Eunuchs (to Treasury) at 1:05. #27 Golden Horn at 2:40, separating OLD city from NEW city. 14th Century Galatea Tower on left. #28 Topkapi Palace at 3PM and ferries. #29 Truka (r), Anadolufennes (r), Dolmadacia with 300 rooms, and Palace (centr) at 3:07. #30 3:15 Sixth longest suspension bridge in world, from Europe to Asia. 1) Verrazanno, 2) San Francisco Bay, 3) Mackinac, 4) Humber, 5) The NEXT bridge across the Bosporus. #31-32 at 3:55 Fifth longest suspension bridge, finished in 1988. Betlorbayi Pier and Asia from 4:15-5. #33 at 5:15, all the minarets in Istanbul. Back to bus 5:35. #34 6PM Aqueduct of Valens. Ate lunch on bus at break. To Bosporus cruise on little boat in FRONT. Back in haze, off with Marilyn at 6 to try for leather, but he ends up NOT selling me $130 coat I LIKE. German quartet causes problems, apple tea is nice, and Marilyn buys jacket with MY 90,000L. She owes me 80,000L at the exchange rate of 1510L/$. RAN back at 7:40 when a cab wants to charge us 3000L for a 1500L ride. Quick shower and don my newly-dry cleaned (for 8000L) silk shirt and dash down to bus at 8PM. Sweat through much of long drive that duplicates the route of the cruise, to fort just before the 5th-longest bridge. Large room, but we get close to front; Gerald in VERY front getting LOTS of shaken tits and kisses. Orchestra starts with AWFUL Western music, and first white wine is Satam, just awful, but Marilyn pouted and we got Doluca, then Doluca red, OK. Food is mediocre [Control-check before Edirne 12:05-12:15. #0 Edirne mosque at 12:25, lunch 12:15-1; #1 12:30 Interiors] but beef stroganoff isn't bad and cheese blini is good. Quartet of men do a combo Georgian-Greek dance of grace and charm. "Belly dancers" are ethnic STRIPPERS. AWFUL! Long-haired Indian-looking woman is good. It goes on and on, more and more and more. Over about 12. Shorter ride to hotel, and I pack and get to bed about 12:50.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 20: Wake at 5:45 to a real CHILL, and pull blanket over me and FEAR being SICK. Up at 6:05 to shit loosely and (as usual) not much, but feel OK as I stay up and pack and get down at 7:30 to pay 8000L for shirt dry-cleaning, give three cards that I wrote last night (100L/card GREAT!), and have large breakfast. Up to get bag at 8:15 for Rudy to put in "permanent storage" below bus. Bus leaves at 8:30 to enter ENORMOUS traffic, then more sunflowers and corn and fields to Edirne. Photo nice mosque and borrow 500L from Lorraine to buy an egg-like 1500L agate egg. Discover two 100L COINS, ask shoe-shine boy for change, but ADULT draws me into his shop, smiling, and gives me two 50L coins, then changes a 50L for two 25L coins, but no more. To five-star hotel for a look, and he says "Open restaurant," but I say "Two-minute look." Up to newsstand and guy gives me two 10L and one 5L coin for a 25L coin. I "half" 5L coin and he shakes head, then GIVES me 1L coin! Much thanks! Made 1/15 cent! Back to hotel-restaurant stop to piss, to bus to crow over egg and single lira. To Turkish border and get off at 1:15 and get stamped and back on at 1:30. Catch up with this at 1:40 as we wait (under binoculared gaze from green guard tower---Julia asks us NOT to take pictures) at Bulgarian border for a chance at the "best duty-free shop." I've negotiated with Marilyn to get ten Canadian dollars, of her $63.65 debt to me, in Bulgarian lev from HER lev from Lorraine's $20 traveler's check. Meticulously fill out entry/exit card to 1:53. Out of bus AGAIN at 1:57. Hand in passport at 1:59. At 2:05 he has me open my "book bag" and Marilyn shows her leather jacket. Get MY passport at 2:15 and go to Duty-Free Shop. Buy deodorant (ONLY thing I need, though $2-3 wine and $6.50 Cointreau is TEMPTING) for $2 and back to warm bus at 2:40. Bus moves out at 2:45. Peach and pear trees. No mosques, only churches; nice stream. #2 4:35: Forbidden the flawless stopping. Before Plovdiv: 4:50 we seem to be lost in Plovdiv. At LAST find Novotel in grimy, grim, dilapidated city at 5:05. #3-4 Novotel Plovdiv at 5:30. Museum open 9-12:30, 2-5:30 (2-5 Friday, closed Monday). #5 View of old city at 6PM. #6 Ethnographic Museum at 6:20. #7 balconies. #8 from VERY top of old walls at 6:30. #9 TURN to see Novotel from same spot. #10-11 7PM two bridge end-men (one at infinity, one at 10 feet). Climb to tops of old walls; restaurant for "programme" is closed; pass a wedding party; narrow streets; good views over NOTHING. Back over bridge to 7:10, down for noisy dinner at a table with eleven women, sharing two bottles of white wine that was quoted at 6L and charged at 8L. Lorraine and Marilyn are talking about Cyrillic letters and don't want to take a walk. I'm suddenly listless and tried and go to bed at 9:45, not even jerking off.
SUNDAY, AUGUST 21: Wake at 6:15, 8.5 hours sleep!! Shower and bag out at 7:20 and have awful breakfast, then write up dreams and notes: 6:25AM: Another two dreams: 1) I'm shamelessly hugging a new-found friend in the first row of a balcony, then pay some attention to a silly performance, and I know we have to get somewhere where we can be alone and more comfortable. 2) Again IBM: I'm in charge of a huge file conversion and I had somehow thought I must convert files manually on a keypunch, which should take two years. In dream I quickly move through two steps: a) wanting a PROGRAM to convert personnel codes, and b) only SPECIFYING the program for someone ELSE to write. Only ONE cup of coffee in Plovdiv AM, WORST breakfast of all, and dry bread, butter and jam, cheese; eggs on other tables. Milk for tea OK. Bus full at 8:15 as Julia calls off passport numbers. 8:21AM leave hotel to guided tour. Off bus at 8:27 to walk SLOWLY up cobbled streets, older ones lagging and complaining. Stop to talk at 8:35. 8:45 Roman Theatre which was discovered only EIGHT years ago! No GAS pollution on it! #12 Third Century AD. NO mention as we pass Lamartine's house. Someone asks "What's that?" of Lamartine's and he says, "Another house." 9:02AM back in bus to sulk about CRIMINAL neglect of Plovdiv in the 1/2 hour (would have been shorter if Julia had not pleaded three TIMES to go slower---though probably we might have walked FARTHER if group had been spryer)---not even invitation to peep through GATE at Ethnological Museum's building facade. He says he'll show ME a BETTER museum in Sofia and he's sure I'll be satisfied. Theatre WAS worth seeing, however; with scattered stones of OTHER ruins all OVER the place. Bus moves at 9:08. Dimitri talks our way out of town: "Thrace was earliest known civilization, from 5000BC." "They lived in TRIPES (tribes)". Frescos in 1259, 50 years before Italian Renaissance. Pass Plovdiv limits at 9:17AM. BULGARIAN language created by Cyril and Methodius, with a Cyrillic script, so they could speak to Russians. Eastern Rumelia (1885) caused Serbia-Carpathian War. Balkan War of 1912 between Macedonia and Greece. This is the BALKAN PENINSULA. "Bulgaria avoided Third National Catastrophe by allying with Russia against WWII Germany. 300L/month---with good salaries up to 1000L/ month. 70% gotten at retirement at age 60 for man, 55 for woman." HUGE crop of colored plastic buckets. #13 Bulgarian countryside at 10AM. Stop BEFORE Sofia at 10:45-11:12 (for 15 minutes). 11:35 off bus for tour of grimy, ugly-buildinged Sofia. Off in front of Sheraton Hotel in hot streets and pass old churches. #14 11:45 St. George Church and surrounding buildings "Closed for reconstruction." Three layers of frescos from 9th, 13th, and 14th centuries. #15 at 12:10 Palace on right, Party building on left, at Main square. #16 at 12:20 St. Nicholas and [words unclear]. #17 12:22 52 meter dome and 58m belfry of Alexander Nevski Cathedral. #18 12:36 God in Dome of Alexander Nevski. "Free" in Cathedral at 12:20. I buy cards and get out to bus. #19 12:42 Side of Alexander Nevski. Again, I'm grumpy. People file up to us to ask for money or illegal exchange. Mongolian-faced man avoids my camera. Bus is hot at 12:45 waiting for last to arrive to get to hotel for lunch. Off at 12:48. Wallet gone! Rudy opens bus so I can check I didn't drop it there, then a woman at my table suggests I could have left it at the shop in the Cathedral. Dimitri loans me 10L and I take cab and look around and return for only 2L. Try rest of lunch but have no taste. Dimitri says call to US is about $5/minute and other woman says she FOUND female with jacket over arm UNZIPPING her bag and cried out, but not loudly. Julia gives me London number and I get to room to stop VISA. Lost $18 US, 14L, VISA, and driver's licence. DAMN! Cab to center for 1L and go into St. Nicholas for old chapel. Next to Palace for AWFUL HOT picture gallery in SHODDY palace (but good photos). 3PM #20 Changing of guard at Dimitrov's Tomb. Out to see people entering tomb, check bag, and file through air-conditioned building to waxy figure with mussed hair on pillow. Out to JUMBLE of Archeological Museum, no entry to second floor, NO guidebook, and no photos allowed! Ugh! Back to Palace to buy two sets of slides for 3L, to Natural History Museum for ENORMOUS collection of flies and birds and animals and stones. #21 4:35 All monkeys in Natural Science Museum displayed stuffed with ERECTIONS! #22 4:45 top of St. Nicholas from Natural Science Museum window. #23 LOVELY EXPENSIVE SHELLS. To old church to find NO other museum there, and Ethnographic Museum is CLOSED in palace. #24 5PM Stolidity: Party Building on right and Mausoleum on left. Hot and tired and back to hotel after 5 to try for beer, but elevator's have stopped and there is NO beer. Join three couples outside hotel for two 1.5L beers, then back to room at 6 to lay, then decide to take a bubble bath from 6:15-7:20, down to dinner of apples, cole slaw, steak, awful peas and mushy fries. Girls don't want to walk. I get upstairs at 9 and jerk off VERY feelingly until 9:50. Bed at 10, TIRED!
MONDAY, AUGUST 22: Wake at 2:30, again at 5:30, and at 6 remember two dreams: There's a blank program name-slot where I stepped in to partner a ballerina, but I find and take STACK with my name PASTED on for my own archives. Then I'm pouring water over platform and thinking I may have washed off my INSTRUCTIONS. Then my table built in wall by a cute German in shorts who works before I get in, but that's OK. Up at 6:45 and down to buffet breakfast at 7:15 with Peggy and Brian and CUTE French muscleboy and faggotty older partner who wanted table to HIMSELF. Up at 8:15 to brush teeth and pack cash and wash face and wait three minutes for the elevator (finally pushing UP), and get city map and into bus at 8:30, leave 8:35. #25 9:10AM PERNIK with steel mills and pollution. Drive to commentary until 10:10 for ten-minute stop in Rila town to 10:30, up to date! Storks cause squawk. On the way to Rila Monastery, talk about puzzle
computers, [unknown] dishes, and automatic-adjusting binoculars! #26 Stalls like those that were INSIDE the Kalambaka church and modern frescos at 11:25, no time. #27 church from balcony 11:40. No photography inside anywhere, and slides only duplicate part of mine. Big book for 20L is too much of same thing. Buy cards for 3L and Ethnographic Museum is closed. Two audience rooms on top floor are nice. Rooms of icons and contemporary library can be seen only behind locked doors---VERY unsatisfying! ANOTHER decorated cupola-room visible ONLY through tiny window off STAIRS. A SIGN for Museum Neophyte Rulska over locked door. #28 Adam and Eve paintings---frescos only inside at 12:08. Great lunch in Hotel Riletz: tomatoes (and extra portions), feta cheese, bean soup (with extras), moussaka-like veal casserole under cheese, wine for 2L, and cream-cake roll. Eat MUCH too much and have no lira left! Started up hill at 12:15 and started eating at 12:25 and out to bus at 1:40. Leave 1:50. Back at 4, sit in lobby and stare at ALL kinds of people til 7:15: typical Socialists meet people from the West. Vitosha tower to right. At 7:35 we leave; I give Tom and Judy $8 US for 12.45L, they gave 1.23L for dollar. It's 30 centigrade (86 Fahrenheit) at 7:45PM. To restaurant with seats that put our chins on our knees. Feel AWFUL and eat nothing, not even impressed by Hexum-sexy face on one dancer. Leave at 10, Rudy scraping fender on road and playing LOUD music back to hotel. FALL into bed after walking wearily upstairs at 11:30PM.