Dateline: Rome, Italy

I had a bit of a lie in this morning as I waited around the hotel for Thomas Cagle, the last of my traveling companions, as he was on the red eye from Atlanta last night. He landed relatively early, then had to deal with the crowds at Rome airport and make his way into the city. He got to the hotel around 10:30 AM. I fed him breakfast and he got his second wind and we set out to do some exploring of the eternal city. Thomas’ degree is in Biological Anthropology from Columbia and as part of his work, he has been invited to participate in an archeological dig at Hadrian’s Villa in Tivoli for a month. He was there last summer, was invited back in a more senior position this summer and I added the Rome leg of the trip on so we could spend a couple of days living it up here before he has to spend a month or so in the Italian summer sun with a pick axe. More power to him.

The hotel is just outside of the Vatican wall on the north, close to the entrance to the Vatican Museums. We wandered over to St Peters Square first as it’s only a ten to fifteen minute walk. Rome is very hot and incredibly crowded. It was 11 am and St Peter’s Square was already full to bursting with a three hour wait to get inside the church. We opted to leave that for another time, marveled at the Bernini colonnade and then marched down the main avenue to the Castel San Angelo. I so want to have a sign made reading Danger! Beware Falling Divas and have it placed outside. There were no falling people, Divas or otherwise so we walked on past (it’s not all that interesting inside – we’ve both been in it before and continued on down the banks of the Tiber, and then swung round towards the forum. (Pseudolus not in residence) before taking a break from the heat with a light lunch of pasta, salad and limoncello spritzes at a hotel rooftop bar.

After lunch, on to the fountain of Trevi. And you can tell it’s entirely too crowded in Rome when they have fencing and admission tickets to a fountain. I still tossed a coin in the fountain from behind the barriers. I just made sure none of the officious Italians in the aqua blue vests enforcing the rules were looking. We did purchase tickets to enter the Pantheon, still the largest freestanding concrete dome in the world, even at 2000 plus years old. I’ve always regarded it more of an engineering marvel than an artistic marvel. The baroque marble interior when it was converted into a church in the 17th century does nothing for me. Then it was back to the hotel for a nap before dinner. It’s been in the low 90s all day and humid and walking in that heat for hours saps the strength.

Refreshed, we headed out to find some dinner and found a wine bar cafe called Soprasso near the Vatican which had truly excellent food and beverage. Fresh mozerella and prosciutto, aperetifs, wild boar ragu fettucine and pesto gnocchi and a bottle of Italian Barbera later we wandered back into St. Peter’s square at dusk (much less crowded), waved at Leo who did not wave back, and headed to bed relatively early so that Thomas can get a good night’s sleep and adjust to the time change.

Thomas has conked out. I spent a little time reading the headlines in the US news, groaned to myself on realizing that I will have to pay attention again in less than a week, and am looking for something to watch on the TV that does not involve politics. Not sure what’s on the docket for tomorrow. I’ve been to Rome several times in the past, have seen most of the tourist sites, and am happy to just wander and see where my feet take me or let Thomas, who knows the city better than I, make suggestions.

Dateline: Rome, Italy

Sorry there was no travelogue last night but when the train is four hours late and you don’t get to the hotel until after midnight, you don’t exactly feel like doing much of anything other than lying there and decompressing. Writing multiple paragraphs of coherent prose was just not going to happen. I’m pretty good at doing a brain dump under most circumstances but even I have certain limits. And then there’s the age thing. Paw paw doesn’t like being kept up past his bed time unless it’s by his choice.

Yesterday started well enough. I awoke on a last Paris morning. The heat had not yet descended. I had a few hours before I needed to make my way to the Gare de Lyon so I took a little walk down the Blvd Italiens to the Opera Garnier and back. (It was still covered by a large advertisement for Tiffany & Co as they are busy sandblasting the facade or some such). I shoved everything into my suitcase, now about 3/4 laundry, and rolled it out to the sidewalk. There were a dearth of cabs and, as the Metro entrance was right there, I figured I’d just haul myself down to the station the cheap way. My large roller bag is a bit unwieldy and there are lots of stairs in the Paris Metro so I was cursing that decision by the time I arrive at the station. I had had a large breakfast so I didn’t feel like lunch but downed two bottles of water as the temperature was climbing and the humidity was rising and I was sweating like Birmingham in mid-July.

I was booked on the TGV train direct to Milan. It’s about a seven hour ride under normal circumstances as the train usually goes 70-90 miles an hour. For reasons known only to European Rail companies, we were delayed an hour leaving the station. This led to a series of cascading delays as tracks were occupied that ended up adding roughly four hours to the journey. The train ride itself was pleasant enough. I splurged for first class so the seat was comfortable. The scenery, once we left the more decrepit banlieus of Paris, was lovely. French countryside with fields and woods until we hit Dijon, then we turned south and passed through the outskirts of Lyon before heading East and up through the higher and higher peaks of the Alps until we dove under them and across the border to Italy through the Frejus tunnel. Then down through more mountain valleys into the Piedmont and the outskirts of Turin where we got stuck in a rail siding yard for two hours. What that was all about I could not say. The PA announcements were in Italian (and my vocabulary is limited to opera subjects and there’s not a lot of Verdi or Puccini about transportation difficulties) or in French with a thick Italian accent and all I could tell about that was that it was some sort of Romance language.

We eventually arrived in Milan. The locals were as grumpy as I was. It was now nearly midnight and fifty people converged on a taxi stand with no taxis. I got smart and ordered an Uber and was on my way in about fifteen minutes while most people remained in line for the few Milan taxis working the late shift. I was deposited at the Hotel Puccini, got my key and fell into bed.

Some reasonable sleep had me feeling better this morning so I had hotel breakfast (better breakfast bar than in Paris), arranged for a late check out and headed out to do a little exploring of Milan. It was already in the high 70s at 8:30 AM and promising to be another scorcher so I figured it best to wander before it got too unbearably hot. My hotel was on the Corso Buenos Aires, which turned out to be a major upscale shopping street so I peeked into windows at various high fashions while I made my way down to the historic center of town (about a mile or so). The historic center, like many European cities, is pedestrian only and dominated by the cathedral, the Duomo, which with its facade of marble and multiple delicate gothic spires, looks like a rather oversized wedding cake. I have seen lots of pictures over the years but it’s always nice to see such a building in person and in context. It wasn’t overly crowded so I paid my admission to go in (not the most interesting cathedral I’ve ever been in. It’s actually somewhat dull compared to Cologne or Chartres or Seville or York Minster) but refrained from paying the extra fees to take the elevator to the roof.

After touring one house of worship, I headed over a couple of blocks to the house of worship in which I had a great deal more interest, La Scala. It was open for touring so I spent an hour in their museum which immortalizes the greats of several centuries of Italian Opera. Their special exhibit was on Wagner’s Ring and how the house has approached it over the years, complete with production photographs, film clips, costumes, set renderings etc. Interesting how interpretations have changed and what is emphasized now versus what was emphasized then. The house itself was busy with a rehearsal (The opening of Act III of Carmen) but we were allowed to watch a little from a box. They have a few more resources than Opera Birmingham. It looks like this is going to be a modern dress Carmen set someplace in the interminable wars of the Middle East. I don’t know who was singing Carmen but she was marking.

The only other thing in Milan I had major interest in was Leonardo’s Last Summer but tickets to that are needed months in advance so it was pretty much out of the question. So, I had gelato instead, went back to the hotel to get my bags, and was smart enough to take a taxi to Milan Stazione Centrale. Unlike yesterday, the train from Milan to Rome left precisely on time and was not delayed. We rolled through the Po Valley, stopped at Bologna, then ascended into the Tuscan hills with lots of lovely views of villas and small walled towns looking out over vineyards and fields. We rolled through Florence and then on to Rome. As I watched the countryside flash by, I had visions of myself selling up and purchasing a Tuscan Villa for retirement. But knowing my luck, one of my friends would have a lot worse things to say than ‘Your toilet is on fire’ in a Sandra Oh deadpan.

The train pulled into Rome about 7 PM. A very long line at the taxi stand and, of course, the man behind me pulled out a rather smelly cigar. When I got to the head, forty-five minutes later, the luck of the draw gave me a surly cabby with aggressive driving habits and what I have to assume were Italian expletives as he hurled them at pedestrians, traffic lights and other cabbies. I did arrive at my hotel in one piece. It’s right off the north wall of the Vatican City, about two blocks from the entrance to the Vatican museums. I was hungry so I found a local taverna, ordered two kinds of pasta, a limoncello spritz, and retired early for the night. I can sightsee tomorrow when Thomas, my travel companion for the next couple of days, gets here

Dateline: Paris, France

Last night in Paris tonight. Up in the morning for a leisurely breakfast, packing and then off to the Gare de Lyon to catch a TGV (Tres Grand Vitesse) train to Milan. I think it’s about six hours. I spend the night and the next morning/early afternoon in Milan and then another train (Italian rail so I won’t expect Tres Grand Vitesse) to Rome to arrive around dinner time on Wednesday. I then meet my last traveling companion of the trip on Thursday and get to hang out in Italy for a few days before heading back to the USA. With the traveling, I have no idea if I’ll have the abilities or the energy to do a daily update. Stay tuned. I noticed I forgot to do a photo dump yesterday. Sorry. I put up yesterday and today earlier this evening.

I had a very long and restful sleep last night and felt back in fighting form this morning. After hotel breakfast (the hot bar still looks suspicious), I headed for Montmartre, everyone’s favorite Parisian neighborhood. It was still relatively early and the sun was not yet a blazing as I wandered up some side streets to the top of the hill. Montmartre these days seems to be a mix of old residential, souvenir shops stuffed with identical merchandise straight from China, tourist restaurants, and an occasional landmark from when it was the Artists’ quarter. I didn’t buy anything. I have my share of cheap souvenirs often bought as jokes but now I tend to buy inexpensive but original art… and socks. Albus Dumbledore and I have that in common. Most of the cities I have lived in have had a tourist district and they’re the same the world over. Seattle – Pike Place Market. Sacramento – Old Sacramento (the Gold Rush part of town). Birmingham – well it really doesn’t have one and as far as I am concerned that’s just as well.

I climbed the steps to the top of the hill to the Basilica de Sacre Coeur for the view but I did not go in. I have been in it before and I don’t recall it being something I needed to revisit and the line was quite long. And so I continued to wander, past the Maison Rose, the Lapin Agile, the Moulin Rouge, and the bust of Dalida which invites inappropriate contact. I had a drink at a sidewalk cafe and contemplated what to do with the afternoon. I decided, with the weather getting hotter by the minute, that something indoors was in order. I thought through the various museums and decided upon a visit to the military museums at Les Invalides and so I headed back across the Seine.

Les Invalides, originally intended when founded by Louis XIV as a rest home for wounded veterans, is now a large complex of museums including a large domed church which is the resting place of Napoleon Bonaparte. I spent a number of hours refreshing myself on French history (from the military perspective in exhibits from the middle ages to the modern day. I’m particularly fond of 19th century French history when they kept throwing out their government, going through three forms of monarchy, two imperial governments, and three different republics in roughly a century. Lots of artifacts, historical paintings, those crazy 19th century European dress uniforms and the like. Up on the top floor is my favorite gallery. Dozens of intricately crafted scale models of French fortifications and armored towns made in the 17th and 18th centuries. The painstaking hours that craftsmen must have spent building these pieces. And the galleries were air conditioned and practically empty. I finished up by paying my respects to Napoleon. His tomb is cleverly designed so that you have to bow your head to look at it, being below the viewing gallery. Some have compared our current president to Napoleon. It’s the wrong comparison. Napoleon was a military genius who one more battles than any other commander over his career by a wide margin. He also had a head for organization. Trump is Louis XIV. Louis never saw a public space that he didn’t want to rebuild with gold leaf and baroque embellishments, was addicted to having his portrait painted in grand costumes, and made absolutely terrible political, military and financial decisions throughout his reign that set up all that trouble for his family in later years.

I picked a restaurant around the corner from Les Invalides for dinner. As I was sitting down and ordering (duck breast, mashed potatoes and baba au rhum), a very long parade started down the boulevard past the restaurant. It appeared to consist of every boy and girl scout troop in France, all behind their city banners. I don’t know what the occasion was but rather than joyful brass band music, it was an amplified tenor singing some French dirge that seemed to have about forty verses. It was a different dining experience. Finished up, went back to the hotel for a post prandial snooze and got my second wind about 8 pm.

Paris is a bit north of Seattle (latitude 49 vs 47) so I was quite aware that the sun wasn’t going to go down until about 9:30 PM so there was plenty of time for one last stroll along the Seine in golden hour light. Of course ABBA’s ‘Our Last Summer’ was playing in my head. Shouldn’t have watched both Mamma Mia movies on the plane coming over. I suppose it could have been worse and it might have been Pierce Brosnan’s rendition of SOS providing the soundtrack. This hotel has A/C in the lobby but not in the rooms so it’s a bit warm tonight. Going to take a cool shower before crawling into bed. Next stop, Italia.

Dateline: Paris, France

As I’m slightly past the half way point of this trek and, according to my pedometer, I’ve logged seventy miles of my feet over the last ten days, I decided I needed a slower paced day today. I was a bit afraid that last night’s merriment might get the best of me this morning, but I was up at my usual time and moving within an hour, and sat down to the usual tourist hotel breakfast buffet. I’m rather suspicious of the hot bar so I’ve been doing mainly pastries, fruit, yogurt, and cereal. Jonathan and David and I said our goodbyes last night and, last heard of, they were boarding a plane at Charles de Gaulle for the return to NYC. Due to the holiday weekend, they will get a day to recuperate before having to return to work.

I set out to do a little more sight seeing before the day became too hot. It’s now in the 80s. July weather in May. At least it’s not too humid yet. I remember that being problematic the last time I was here more than forty years ago. I headed out to the Champs Elysee (a wide boulevard of upscale stores and fast food restaurants), and ambled on up the avenue, feeling a bit like Kay Thompson in the Bonjour Paris sequence from Funny Face. At the far end, the Arc de Triomphe reigned above the Parisian drivers courting death in the madhouse that is the roundabout of the Place d’Etoile or Place Charles de Gaulle as I think it was renamed some years ago. The arch is massive, roughly 165 feet tall, and with the people who braved the 284 steps to the top looking like multicolor insects from my distance, I could not help but speculate what an arch to the scale of that planned by our president will actually look like. His plans call for it to be roughly 50% taller and, in order for the proportions to look right, it will need to be 50% wider and 50% deeper. The last time I checked 1.5 cubed was 3.375 so we’re talking nearly three and a half times the size of the Arc de Triomphe. Those who have been to Paris can now start to see how out of scale with the other DC monuments it’s going to be. I forsee one of a couple of futures. 1. It never gets built. 2. It gets built but is quickly taken down again. 3. It gets built and it actually catches on. This third possibility is what happened with my next stop.

The Eiffel Tower was built in the late 1880s to be the centerpiece of the World Exposition of 1889 and to celebrate the centenary of the French Revolution. It was a marvel of engineering and iron work then, and now and remains, at 330 feet, the tallest structure in Paris. (This means that Trump’s arch is about 3/4 of it’s height). When it was first proposed and constructed, it was not met with universal favor but within a few years it became a legendary symbol of the city and the country and it’s difficult to imagine the Paris skyline without it. I headed to the Plaza Trocadero (the best view) and then a couple of more Metro stops to the tower itself. I paid to go to the top on my last trip and I have found that my desire to climb to the top of various monuments has sharply decreased over the years. I looked up at it, not from the angle I wanted to as late stage vulture capitalism has decreed that the entire tower be surrounded with plexiglass and that admission must be paid to even stand by the feet. I wasn’t feeing it.

After some lunch, I did a little shopping, a little sitting in cafes and a little napping. I have one more full day in Paris tomorrow which I plan to spend the morning of in Montmartre. Haven’t decided on the afternoon/evening yet. It’s likely to be something indoors if it does not cool down some. Perhaps some of the smaller museums that are off the beaten track. We shall see.

Dateline: Paris, France

Today was a day of celebration. I must note that this celebration of David Pohler‘s official engagement to Jonathan Uday Ramteke was capped off with three bottles of champagne and three bottles of red wine. Now this was consumed over six or seven hours by three grown men so don’t judge too harshly but if there are a few typos here and there, please forgive. I knew that the proposal was coming. but it was not public knowledge. My job was to make sure that David did not know and that he would not plan anything that might get in the way of Jonathan’s plan for a romantic proposal on the top deck of a Seine dinner cruise last night. I played my part and stayed out of the way until today.

This morning, I devoted to art and artists. I spent time in both the Musee D’Orsay and the Louvre this morning and early afternoon. It’s been 42 years since my last visit to Paris (why do I feel like Gloria Stuart in Titanic while I’m writing this?) and the Musee D’Orsay didn’t exist the last time I was here and the I M Pei pyramids at the Louvre were also nonexistent. The Musee d’Orsay, built into an what was once a 19th century train station is a gorgeous piece of architecture. It’s dedicated to art form the mid 1800s onward. The Impressionist galleries with their superb collections fo Manet. Monet, Van Gogh, Cezanne and the like were mobbed but I enjoyed the quieter parts of the museum dedicated to the pre-Raphaelites, Art Nouveau design, and Rodin sculpture. I’m a bit spoiled when it comes to Rodin. The largest collection of Rodin outside of Europe is on the Stanford campus (thank you Gerald Cantor of Cantor-Fitzgerald) and I walked past the Burghers of Calais and the Gates of Hell fairly routinely in my younger years.

The Louvre was a mob scene, especially in the galleries around the Mona Lisa. That painting isn’t all that impressive in person. There are four other Leonardos, most of them larger and of better quality in the next hall but we’ve all been conditioned to regard it as the greatest paining ever so that’s where attention must be paid. It’s a good thing I am not agoraphobic. The crowds were a bit reminiscent of the time I was on the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade. My favorite pieces in the Louvre are the massive early 19th century neo-classic paintings of Ingres and David and their contemporaries. They were less crowded. The Louvre is a lot cleaner than my last visit. What stays with me from my time in Paris in 1984, aside from the art, is that the Louvre was filthy, as if no one had taken a mop to the place since Marie Antoinette. I still have the handwritten travel diary I kept from my race around Europe that summer. I really should transcribe it and compare 22 year old Andy’s thoughts to 64 year old Andy’s thoughts. If anyone is interested in reading it, encourage me to undertake that task.

After art and tourist crowds, I met up with David and Jonathan for lunch (Vietnamese on la Rive Gauche). We then decided to head for the flea markets at St Ouen, not something I would have ever thought about but a favorite of Jonathan’s so into the Metro and off to the banlieus. A lovely afternoon poking through various antiques and fines. I ended up purchasing a water color of the Pont Neuf (currently shrouded in canvas and resembling a miniature mountain range. It’s apparently becoming a walk through art installation of some sort and a homage to Christo and Jean Claude). I also bought a new casquette as it’s been quite sunny and in the 80s and the one thing I forgot to pack is a hat and my thinning hair leaves my scalp quite exposed.

We parted to our respective hotels and then met up again for the real celebration. We started with a bottle of champagne in a lovely wine bar to toast the happy occasion and then proceeded to Jardins Latin for dinner and the cabaret floor show (more champagne and red wine). My budget last time I was in Paris did not allow for cabaret performances so this was my first time. Think Las Vegas revue on steroids with a European flair. A lovely three course dinner. An hour long preshow with a rather Rubenesque singer and the dance corps, and then the main revue itself. Can cans. Pegasus descending from the ceiling. Lots of bare breasts. A hysterical female comic magician. ABBA sing along. It had it all. Afterwards, back to the wine bar for more and then a meander across Paris to respective hotels.

David and Jonathan depart tomorrow for New York. I have two more full days in Paris before heading towards Italy. There will likely be less alcohol involved. I’m getting old

Dateline: Paris, France

Last night was the first night I had trouble sleeping all vacation. Wide awake around 2 am for no particular reason and none of my usual tricks helped so I did my usual thing which is put the TV on mute and make up my own dialogue in my head. It usually ends up lulling me into at least a doze. It did that and I got enough sleep to be functional. Today was a transition day from the UK to the continent. In Agatha Christie novels, they’re usually racing to catch the boat train from Waterloo in order to cross the channel. Now, you take the tube to St Pancras/Kings Cross station and catch the Eurostar non-stop high speed train from London to Paris. (They also offer non-stops to Brussels and Amsterdam if you’re bored with France). And so I did. And I’ve determined that the day is coming where I need to budget for a travel companion to handle the luggage.

St. Pancras was a bit of a zoo but I did manage to get in the correct queue and through security and customs with minimal fuss (thank you Brexit) and found my seat in Coach 6. The Eurostar heads underground until out of suburban London, then spends about a half hour crossing southeastern England before diving into the Chunnel for the journey to France. It doesn’t take all that long and then you pop out into the French countryside which looks pretty much the same as the English countryside only the street signs, flashing by at a hasty clip, are in (surprise) French. The entire trip from St Pancras to Gare de Nord Paris is only about two and a half hours but three and a half on the clock due to the time change. But those of us who drive routinely between Birmingham and Atlanta are familiar with that one.

On arrival at Gare de Nord, it was full of noisy fans of some French football club that had just done well so it required some delicate maneuvering to get around the inebriated young men in red and yellow singing some sort of chant at the top of their lungs. Once loaded, into a taxi, I had time to draw my breath and look about. This is my first visit to Paris in forty-two years. It looks about the same with the boulevards and the acre upon acre of six story apartment blocks. My hotel (serviceable but not overly luxurious) is in the 2me arrondisement about half way between Opera Garnier and Les Halles. I checked in, wrestled with an elevator which has room for one but not quite for one with rolling suitcase, and put my feet up for a bit before heading out. It’s quite warm in the 80s and I thought waiting a few hours for the temperature to cool off before heading on a trek of several miles might be a good idea.

It was then out to a sidewalk cafe for dinner and a limoncello spritz, and then a walk through Les Halles down to the Seine, across L’Isle de la Cite (where Notre Dame is mostly repaired from the disastrous fire of a few years back) and then up the Rive Gauche, past the Louvre and back towards Opera Garnier and my hotel. Opera Garnier, home of the phantom and a few other things, is undergoing a resurfacing and is covered with a very large advertisement for Tiffany and Company. So much for a good photo of that. Had dessert and a drink at another bistro across the street from my hotel and then headed up to try and get some decent sleep tonight before meeting up with David and Jonathan tomorrow. They needed a day to themselves and I’m not about to go full Jacqueline de Bellefort on them.

Dateline: London, England.

And tonight is the last night on this sceptered isle. Off to the continent in the morning with three stops prior to returning to Birmingham and the workaday world. It the other stops are as magical as the first two have been, it will have been a grand tour indeed. Fairly amazing for something that kind of fell together around a lot of other people’s schedules.

Today began with clear skies so I met up with David Pohler at Sloane Square (prior home of Princess Di and her Sloane Rangers set of many decades ago) where we took a look at some of the floral installations that are part of the Chelsea Flower Show. Think stationary and smaller Tournament of Roses floats. We really should have done that yesterday, Eliza Doolittle Day, but this is just the way things worked out. I didn’t get the visual decorative gene that so many of my gay brothers have. Tommy and Steve both had it. Hand them some tissue paper, cardboard and a hot glue gun and they would have a parade float ready in a couple of hours. I, on the other hand, would likely create something completely unrecognizable in either form or function.

We then decided to do something cultural so we headed up to Marylebone and spent a couple of hours in Hertford House gazing at the Wallace Collection. Like the Frick, it’s one of those smaller off the beaten path museums with multiple excellent pieces and a size that keeps you from feeling completely overwhelmed. It was my maternal grandmother’s favorite museum in the world. I visited it on my first trip to London more than forty years ago but hadn’t been back since. It has a lot of very good 17th and 18th century paintings and sculptural pieces courtesy of the Marquesses of Hertford and the Wallace family. I particularly liked the room full of Canaletto’s views of Venice.

Then we headed off to the South Bank of the Thames for a pub lunch followed by the matinee of Into The Woods at the Bridge Theatre. I had fallen in love with the Bridge as a venue after seeing their arena production of Guys and Dolls a few years ago. I was hoping for something equally revolutionary. It wasn’t as they had reconfigured the space back to a fairly traditional proscenium house. The woods set, however was spectacular. The performances were uniformly good. And, most importantly, it was a production which more or less solved the biggest flaw in the material. The three moralistic ballads that end the show – No More, No One is Alone, and Children Will Listen. That last twenty minutes usually drags and drags but there was some alchemy here that prevented that from happening. No More was devastating and it’s usually the weakest of the three numbers. That provided the impetus to take us through to the end.

After the show, David went off to join his other half and I made my way across Tower Bridge and into the City of London to meet my cousin Jack for a belated birthday dinner. We’re both May babies. He happened to be in town on business – something about a supply chain of building materials from quarries in Wales to the greater London area. We had dinner together in a Japanese/Brazilian fusion place called Sushi Samba on top of one of the new glass towers that have arisen over central London this century. From the dining room on the 39th floor, looking down over the gherkin, the Thames, and St Pauls, we enjoyed cocktails, short ribs, sushi, edamame and a chocolate mousse dessert. It was nice to catch up on various family matters. We are the bookends of our generation – I the eldest and he the youngest but as we have reached our middle years, we have found ourselves more and more simpatico and enjoy getting together when we can. I headed back to the hotel after, calling it an early night as I have to get up tomorrow and get myself on the Eurostar.

It’s been very nice not being inundated with American political news here in Europe so I am going to continue refraining from commenting on it for a while longer. On the public health front, it seems pretty clear that withdrawing from the WHO, decimating foreign aid, and hamstringing the CDC has helped Ebola emerge again in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Ebola and the other filoviruses are the ones we really don’t want getting loose in the US. They kill somewhere between 30-90% of patients, depending on the strain and they are fairly easily transmitted through body fluids. Previous administrations, understanding the danger, have always made the resources available to combat outbreaks where they occur so that they don’t make their way here. This administration has destroyed our ability to do that. There’s no need to worry yet but all it’s going to take is the wrong person getting on the wrong flight and it could easily seed in one of the USA’s international travel hubs. No need to panic, just a need to remember that viruses have no interest in human politics and will go wherever they are given an opportunity to spread. There’s no need to panic over hantavirus yet either. That appears to be properly contained. At least I have not heard of any new cases breaking out related to the cruise ship affected for some weeks. Keep those hands washed.

Dateline: London, England

The Northwest Marine climate system that I grew up with has been in full evidence today. It’s cloudy and a lovely temperature. The sun comes out and it gets too hot and off comes the extra layer. It clouds up again. It spits rain for ten minutes. Maybe the climate is one of the reasons I love this city so much. Well that and affordable theater tickets. And an international ambiance. And two thousand years of sustained history. And every other block bringing some cultural allusion or other to mind.

After a light breakfast, I met David Pohler at Buckingham Palace in time for the Changing of the Guard… which wasn’t. Apparently they weren’t feeling it today or something so only a dozen horse guards wandered down the boulevard and that was it. I still quoted my A A Milne “They’re changing guards at Buckingham Palace. Christopher Robin went down with Alice. Alice is marrying one of the guards. ‘A soldier’s life is terribly hard’ says Alice. As we wandered down to Victoria Station in search of a pub, we were treated to a file of elderly Korean ladies in red hats playing ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic’ on some sort of electric kazoos marching for Jesus. It almost made up for the canceled changing of the guard, not quite.

Fortified with a pint, our next stop was the King’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace where David had scored us tickets to a special exhibit of Elizabeth II’s wardrobe over her nearly century of life. Everything from her christening gown to her wedding dress to her coronation dress to decades of evening dresses for diplomatic affairs to the matching bright colored dress/coat/hat ensembles she favored in later years. It was very impressive seeing how her fashions and sense of style changed over the years and being able to look closely at the details of the embroidery and beading. The various news photos of her wearing them over the years sent me back on a Cooks Tour of my memories of her from boyhood on. I think I first became aware of her from my maternal grandparents, who always remained British citizens and staunch monarchists. They would bring me magazines on the doings of the Royals when they came to visit.

Then a walk up the Mall and through Trafalgar Square with some West End window shopping and a late lunch/early dinner at Dishoom Covent Garden which has become one of my favorite restaurants and I try to eat at least one meal there per London trip. David then went off to do things with his other half while I went back to the hotel and took a brief nap before setting out for the theatre. My choice this evening was the long running Witness for the Prosecution which I had heard good things about but had not yet seen. It’s immersively staged in an opulent, but no longer used court room at London County Hall, just across the Thames from the Houses of Parliament and next door to the London Eye. The audience sits in the spectator’s seats and there’s a three quarter thrust stage built from the judge’s bench which is large enough to be a good playing area and where they can easily set up and take down the non-courtroom scenes. One goes for the experience, and the Agatha Christie mystery (which I have known the solution to since I first read the short story when I was about twelve), not for brilliant acting. The cast were perfectly serviceable but none gave a performance that I would call exceptional. The sound and light team deserve kudos however as I could hear every word in a space not designed for performance acoustics and the lights helped us define where we were at all times and helped with mood and suspense. Afterwards, a walk back towards Westminster to admire the city at night and then back to the hotel. Tomorrow is the last full London day. I have a lot of things planned. And so, to bed.

Dateline: London, England

It’s the end of a very long day that started about 8 am on Monday the 18th and is just now drawing to a close. Not a whole lot of it took place on the Monday. The morning was spent in leisurely pursuits and in making sure that Patti Steelman got placed in a car headed to the correct airport for her return to Birmingham. Once she had been safely sent on her way, I went downtown a few blocks to Herald Square and to Macy’s. It’s not holiday time so the store wasn’t especially decked out but I do have a Macy’s account and like to exercise it occasionally. My perusal of all six floors of the men’s department ended with me purchasing a polo shirt and a Karl Lagerfeld black and white shirt that I thought was quite comely but which apparently no one else liked as it had been marked down about eight times so I got it for a very reasonable price.

I then had a snack, collected my bags and headed uptown to meet up with David Pohler for our parallel trips across the pond. He was on Virgin and I on Delta but our flights were within a half hour of each other so we thought traveling together was reasonable. He and his other half have a lovely apartment in Harlem (very different now from the images you may have conjured up at that word) and, after a long chat, we hauled our suitcases down to the subway out to Jamaica and transfer to the Sky Train to JFK. Light dinner and cocktails at the Amex lounge (I knew my card was good for something) and then our separate ways for our respective redeyes. Due to various delays, both in take off and landing, we arrived at Heathrow within fifteen minutes of each other and met up again in baggage claim. Can’t say much about the flight. I got some sleep and watched both Mamma Mia movies somewhere over Iceland as they seemed mindless. The second one has grown on me a bunch after a rewatch or two. There’s apparently a third one in production but I can’t imagine that there’s much left in the ABBA catalogue from which they can draw. And i don’t think the world needs the song stylings of a 73 year old Pierce Brosnan,.

David and I, slightly bleary eyed, caught the Lizzie Line of the Underground from Heathrow. I changed trains at Paddington to head to my hotel in South Kensington while he went on to meet his other half Jonathan Uday Ramteke near Tower Bridge. My room was, of course, not ready at 11 am when I arrived so I dropped my bags, had something to eat and headed up the street to the Natural History Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum which are conveniently only a few blocks away. I had not been to the Natural History Museum for many years. It hasn’t changed much, being mainly about getting small children and exhibits about dinosaurs into close proximity. I waved at various fossils, animatronics, taxidermy specimens, and ubiquitous portraits of David Attenborough and then headed next door to the V and A. I have been here several times in recent years but I always find some new corner to explore. This time it was the Theater and Performance galleries which had been closed for renovation pretty much every other visit over the last decade. Costumes from film, period TV series, the West End. Ephemera from theatrical production going back to the Victorians. Models of stage sets. I was in my element.

A quick return to the hotel (The Queens Gate at the corner of Queens Gate and Old Brompton Road) part of the Hilton Curio Collection. I think it’s called that as my room is about the size of a curio cabinet. But as I’m not planning on spending a great deal of time in it, that’s fine. It’s built into a lovely row of Georgian town homes so I feel very Upstairs Downstairs when I pass through the front door. After a nice hot shower and a change of clothes, I headed East to the West End (if you know your London geography, that will make sense) and met up with David to wander Covent Garden and then to meet up with Jonathan. We had some lovely nosh and polished off two bottles of wine together in a very nice wine bar and after, David headed for the musical Hercules while Jonathan and I went highbrow and went to the Royal Opera Covent Garden. (A suitable thing to do on the eve of Eliza Doolittle Day).

Tonight’s opera was Saint-Saens’ Samson et Dalila. It was musically lovely with some powerful voices (other than the tenor playing the Philistine High Priest who sand through his nose all night). It suffered from a bit of European Regietheatre. I want my grand opera to be grand with stunning costumes and huge sets and slightly over the top. The current fashion in Europe, however, is for directors to take the material and strip it down and go for minimalism, often with political overtones. Therefore, the set was serviceable, but uninspired. The costumes, off the rack, and it was all pretty tame until the fourth act. Then things came alive. Dalila appeared in a costume from a provincial tour of Follies with rhinestones everywhere. The Philistine army started Irish step dancing. Dagon, the god of the Philistines, was revealed to be an unkind comment on a certain American president. I enjoyed it. Another wine bar after, and then a tube back to South Kensington where I am catching up on correspondence and putting myself to bed. Tomorrow’s plans are still in flux but I hope to do some things I have never done before in London. And given this is my fourth trip in the last four years and seventh trip in total, that’s saying something.

Dateline: New York, New York

Last full day in NYC on my Cooks tour of the four major cultural capitals of Western Civilization and another day stuffed with all the things the city has to offer. The weather has continued to hold and, has in fact, warmed up to the point of being nearly too hot for comfortable walking having topped out somewhere in the mid 80s. Fortunately, the humidity has not yet set in so it wasn’t too bad. Just as well as it was another 20,000+ step or eight mile day.

We actually began moving relatively early this morning (if you call 8 am early) as we had an appointment at 10:45. We headed across town to the Museum of Modern Art to meet Lois, long term friend from Unitarian Universalist Church of Birmingham circles. The initial plan was to attend church services at All Souls UU as we have done with her before but then the decision was made to worship at a somewhat different temple, MoMA and to spend the time in the company of the Braques and Chagalls and all that. I hadn’t been to MoMA since sometime in the early 90s and it was nice to revisit Vincent’s Starry Night, Picasso’s Demoiselles D’Avignon (which did not go down on the Titanic no matter what James Cameron might have suggested), Matisse’s circle of dancing naked women and all the rest in the permanent collection. This was followed by an excellent brunch at The Harvard Club where we all over ate.

Making our way from MoMA to the Harvard Club was a bit fraught as 6th Avenue was shut down for the Asian American Heritage Parade. Floats full of women in native costumes, Chinese dragons, various drum corps. We had to thread our way through the staging areas. As Lois is now in her 90s, I was a bit worried about her balance and her stamina, especially after she was mowed down in the street by a passing car a few months ago, but she’s a true New Yorker and galumphed her way down ten blocks of sidewalk without the least bit of difficulty.

Following brunch and a farewell to Lois, we headed back to the theatre district for our last Broadway show of the weekend, the comedy Oh Mary, currently starring Maya Rudolph and Cheyenne Jackson. Martin Landry (whom I once directed in Kiss Me Kate) is in the company as an alternate but was not on for our performance which is too bad, as I would have liked to have seen him on stage again. The play is vulgar, juvenile, and outrageously funny. The whole thing depends on the performer in the central role of Mary Todd Lincoln (whom in this telling longs to return to the cabaret stage). Maya Rudolph did a phenomenal job of balancing all of the elements so that the character came across as a human, rather than just some sort of sick cartoon.

While watching the play, I had a major moment of deja vu. Many years ago, I had a patient who was brought to me by his family for complaints of cognitive decline. (He was in his 80s and therefore this was not completely unexpected). The family decided he needed to see me after they took him in to have his drivers license renewed and the California Department of Motor Vehicles decided he needed a road test. He was willing – and immediately drove the examiner into the dumpster which ended that test. When I saw him, he told me that he was fine except for the metal valve that had mysteriously been implanted in his nose and which he was afraid would close one day causing him to suffocate. No assurances from me or anyone else that no such valve existed would shake his delusion. He then proceeded to tell me that he had discovered a way to keep the valve open. He just needed to put a we washcloth on his head, and then rubber band a plastic bag over it. He then put a scoop of vanilla ice cream on it, crammed a stocking cap over it and went to bed. Worked like a charm. The only follow up question I could think to ask him was ‘Does it have to be vanilla?’ which was also the punch line of one of the best jokes in Oh Mary. But I thought of it first, back when Cole Escola was in elementary school.

After the show, Patti and I took a long and leisurely stroll from Times Square over to Hells Kitchen, and then down to Hudson Yards, and down the Highline. We stopped in the meat packing district, killed a bottle of white wine between us at a sidewalk cafe, and then continued on to the West Village where I introduced Patti to Stonewall and we ensconced ourselves at Marie’s Crisis for piano bar sing along, shortly joined by my friends David Pohler and Calliope whom we had hung out with earlier in the week. Then it was across the street to Buvette for more drinks and a nosh where are bartender server was Alex Belli whom I had not seen for some years. Feeling no pain, we returned unscathed to our hotel to get some sleep before our separate journeys tomorrow. Patti Steelman returns to Birmingham while I and David head across the pond to London and to meet up with David’s other half Jonathan Uday Ramteke. There may or may not be an update tomorrow as I’m not doing much besides prepping for leaving the country and getting on a redeye to the UK.

In the midst of all this, I received a text from Bill McMullen who is vacationing in Egypt. He was wearing a T-shirt with my mantra ‘Get up, Get Dressed, Go Out, Do Good’ on it. It apparently caught the eye of some of the locals who wanted to know where they could get one. I have let him know if he wishes to have the T-shirt concession in the Arab World for my pithy sayings, he’s more than welcome. I never expected my philosophy to have international reach…