August 30, 12:03 pm

Holy merde, I’m on a train to Paris.

Those of you who know me know that this is a huge deal. It’s the culmination of 20 years of talking and whining and procrastinating and pontificating about how much French I know, but am not willing actually to GO to France to speak, for some reason. But now I’m on a Eurostar train (I’m told “Chunnel” is an outdated term), bound for that very city.

Last night I came back from Edinburgh to London, to get ready for this trip - I didn’t really want to try and cram 7 hours worth of travel into one day if I could help it. Because it was the end of a bank holiday, the train from Edinburgh was packed and the London tube, on the way to my hotel, was utter mayhem, but kind of a fun mayhem. On the Edinburgh train Sonia, eBeth and I were all forced to stand in the galley car with all our luggage for a few legs of the trip, since we hadn’t reserved seats and everything was taken. I was carrying the 1915 photo I mentioned I bought, and it became conversational fodder - the MOST gorgeous man I’ve seen my whole trip (and Britain has proved a country full of lovely extra-tall men) tilted his head curiously to look at it, and I got to explain it to him. He was towering and broad-shouldered and redheaded with a bit of a beard and a twinkle in his very blue eyes that reminded me of Ewan MacGregor. (le grand sigh.) Turns out he was an actor in one of the Fringe plays (so I’ll be looking up their website), a pitch dark-sounding piece about a man with diabetes slowly going blind and breaking up relationships with two different women (big fun). But whether or not the play was fun, talking to him was, and I got about 20 minutes worth of belly-flips watching him smile. But as it was just a nice conversation, and not a big meet-up, once a seat became available I took it.

Sonia and eBeth got off somewhere along the route, I forget where, and I came into London solo. I had to take the tube from Kings Cross station to Victoria, and so did every other possible citizen, evidently. Some guy walking near me had a plastic party horn, and he kept blasting it CONSTANTLY. It sounded like an angry, flatulent goose, and furthermore the acoustics of the tube corridors magnified it by 1000%. I was getting annoyed, and so were some other people, but then I realized there were other horn and party favor sounds coming from down the way as well as shouts and laughs, and the other people in the guy’s party were giggling, and suddenly I realized it was a “happening” and it had just broken out spontaneously and I was a part of it, and suddenly I was smiling and chuckling myself. It was silly and human and good.

Still, I was glad to find that very few people were taking my train, and after about 20 minutes of riding and wrestling my luggage up and down stairs, I was at Victoria, at about 9:30 pm. I walked out into the quiet night and felt huge relief at the warmer weather - I could hardly wait to get into some shorts, cause I was sweating and my jeans were heavy and sticking to me like wallpaper. I followed the little email-printed map the short distance to my hotel - picked out of the Rick Steves’ guidebook for being a cute, intimate, budget B&B - and came face to face with the smallest, skinniest accomodations I’ve ever encountered in my life.

First off, I couldn’t believe the front door was the front door - it seemed like a side exit. I had to be buzzed in. The lady at reception was a lot nicer in the morning, but when I checked in she seemed kind of abrupt - she totally knew my name the whole time, though. She told me my room was on the second floor - I thought she said room 7 or 8, but couldn’t remember for sure. I struggled up the extra-skinny flight of stairs…and found rooms 3, 4 and 5. Ah, she means the other second floor - in Europe the ground floor doesn’t count. I lumbered up the next flight. I found three identical doors — all closer together than I’ve ever seen doors in my life. I still wasn’t sure of the room number, and didn’t treasure the idea of trying the wrong door and having someone emerge angry because I was trying to break into his room. Still, not much else to do, so I tried 8 - no luck. Okay, here goes: 7. No luck either. Bloody hell. Back and forth - no luck, but no screaming inhabitants, either. I went back downstairs - the lady had disappeared. I went back upstairs. I tried both doors again. Finally, I tried 6, too, just in case - and got in. And there I saw the tiniest hotel room in the history of architecture.
(more…)

Okay, I have to admit something– my giddy infatuation with Edinburgh is proving shortlived. Not entirely gone! Not by any means– it’s still a perfectly lovely place–but after a few days I realized…it wasn’t going to warm up. Like, ever. This wasn’t just a cold day, like in London, and tomorrow would be ridiculously hot. This rainy, windy 50-degree weather was going to keep up…all the time. And we couldn’t come back at a time when the weather was better because…this is it! This is August– this is the best weather they get! Evidently I’m coming to terms with the deep spoiled-ness of my California self (although, in an interesting twist, I met a Scotsman today who’d just come back from Los Angeles, and when asked how he liked it, smiled embarrassedly and didn’t answer, saying without saying that he’d obviously hated it. “It wasn’t what I was used to,” he said diplomatically. “All sprawling. I went looking for the Royal Mile…” and of course, never found it, because there is no central gathering place in L.A. And if there was, you’d have to be on The List to get in.)

The other thing that’s breaking my lazy little heart is the fact that evidently, as long as I’m here, I’m never going to be driven anywhere ever again. And I hate that I hate that, but apparently, I hate that. Initially I got by on adrenaline, and really, walking is a lovely activity and lets you see the city and the people in far greater intimacy than driving…but goddammit, I’m tired! It can’t be the only way I get anywhere! And again, I hate that I feel this way! I wanted to be getting used to it by now–and probably if I lived here I eventually would–walking around in better shape than at home and full of vim and vigor to go tackle every sight there is to see. And intellectually I’m not at all opposed to walking. But after five days of showing up everywhere completely bedraggled by the weather, looking like I swam there, and the deep bone tiredness that’s settling into my out-of-shape self, I’m quite guiltily going to admit I feel lousy. And spoiled. And old and out of shape and lazy and wet-blankety, but if you’ll just excuse me I’m going to sit down.

Maybe I just never lived in a place like this for long enough to know what you can and can’t accomplish, on foot. You can’t go to 4 different far-flung places in an evening–the car lets you do that, your feet don’t. Maybe the locals never set out to accomplish as much as I thought I should. And maybe it’s just that my brain has never caught up to the fact that I’m not 26 anymore…

One interesting aspect of the place: you know how everywhere you visit, the locals joke about “If you don’t like the weather, just wait five minutes!”? Most of the time I don’t find that terribly true…except here. This is the only place I’ve found that lives up to that little joke perfectly. You can never say what kind of day it was, because it was always 14 different types of weather all day (all cold, but in varying flavors). One minute the sun will lift your spirits, the next you’re breaking out the umbrella. Dressing in layers is more than an option, it’s kind of a religion. And one other thing: I like British coins. They’re so heavy and sturdy and substantial. I think a pound actually weighs one. American coins now feel like Monopoly money.

Okay, it’s time for another photo post, I think. I’ll show you some of the good stuff, to keep this post from whining forever. That and there are just too many images and stories and everything happening every day for me to even hope to store them all up and wait to post till I’m home–the only way to report faithfully is to try and do it as close as possible to when it happens.

I’ll catch up on London on a day when I’m back there (I’m using it as a kind of hub through the trip, and I stop in two more times). Right now I’ll introduce some more of Edinburgh.
(more…)

Okay, I’ve reached the conclusion that I’m not going to be able to do a picture posting every day as I first thought–first off, there’s just not enough time to sit there and arrange and post and write everything while one is vacating, especially while number two, one does not have free or affordable or sometimes ANY wireless where one is staying. Money, times places are open, etc., make it hard to just unwind in front of the computer late at night when the day’s all through, when posting would make the most sense. And I’m taking about 35 pictures a day, it seems, so uploading and keeping them all straight uses a lot of time and brain power. So perhaps there’ll be a retrospective once I’m back. Maybe I’ll get a few more posted before I come home. But for today I’m going to jump ahead to where I am now–Edinburgh, in the heat of the Fringe Festival –and put down some plain old words.
(more…)

Okay, I’ve got a lot to catch up on with these pictures/the story behind them, so let’s get to it.

So, we set off for London. In an unusual move, we flew there.
(more…)

I’m actually using my blog space! Mostly because, I’m in Europe, taking a vacation, and you all need to see loads of pictures from it.

Which unfortunately, I can’t post now. Because I spent too much time having to figure out how to make my blog work again, which it didn’t used to because my webhost changed all their server stuff. Which you don’t need to know. But I will be back to regale everyone as soon as I have a spare moment. For now, I’m off to see some London THEA-tah!

Hee hee!