When I first arrived at Budapest, stepping from the metro into Deak Ter, a square close in to the centre on the Pest side of the river, men and women stood standing silently, in ones, very much alone like statues. They were waiting for someone, someone special, romantic ones presumably as they all looked a little excitably tense. I, the newly arrived hobo, slightly harassed and needing a wash slumped down on the steps of the church to wait for Zoltan, my host for my first 4 days in the city, sitting as opposed to eagerly standing.
And so he came, in between these twitching figures and plucked me from their midst to his little flat in a practically silent early 20th complex, pseudo-art deco in design. With a trim goatee, his narrow face resembled in part the Turkish roots he had. Staying too was Damian, another stray, whom Zoltan had found dropping his water bottle from his touring bike and, serendipity throwing its dice into the equation, he suggested he stayed here too. He had travelled a similar distance, but not on the back of other peoples lifts but on his own pedal power!
Together the two of us saw the Memento Park the next day, a curious collection of rather stridently physically enhanced soviet statues, long removed from their city homesteads to stud way out at the edge of the city. One had both fists clenched, his eyes blank but his face physically committed in nerve and sinew, raw passion running around every feature, and his 20 foot high frame was running down towards the awed visitor in a fit of communist fervour. Their too a museum to the "Young Pests", Budapests famous youth who stood upto the socialist regime in 1956 and were killed off in their thousands in their attempt to lay siege to the radio, and were nevertheless an inspiration to resistance across the soviet controlled east. A comical KGB videotape for training recruits in how to track, interview suspects or make new recruits, accompanied by incidental jazz music and some hammy acting, added a rather lighthearted, and so therefore a sinister, complement to the history. Well worth seeing if you go.
Another day, and I doze, stretch, lie, eat, drink, eat and finally after a wander outside, come back again for an early night. Am tired. Another day and I take a lift with zoltan out to the east where he drops me at a thermal bath, and relying on its flotation properties, i dangle my whole body there in its mineral rich waters and reconnect my mind with my body again and once again, a day of rest and I hitchhike home, really easy with just 3 lifts.
In one lift, with Ferenc, we were at crosspurposes in our conversation. Sitting there, I was observing out of the corner of my eye women standing by the side of the road, one every kilometre or so, and women they all of them were! Hmmm, i thought. Meanwhile, he was mentioning the speed cameras and that he was having to travel slowly at certain points. I, my mind wondering to the site of boobies at 90km/hour, point to the side of the road and go "sex?". Ferenc, it appears, hasn't heard me, but continuing on his story he writes on the dashbaord the numbers 60000. Now this is in florints, which is 200 pounds sterling, a lot of money. And in his words... "Hot Money!".
Eh? Yup, his face is lit up in quite exquisite expression; does he mean that's what one must pay for sex? Well, as it turns out this was for a road fine, but as i am sure you will appreciate, this is no less extraordinary by english standards anyhow and it certainly foxed me, his choice of "hot" as an adjective with his look of strained enthusiasm. So watch your speed in Hungary, but dont drive too slow or you will be stopped for curbcrawling. Maintain a balance.
IT was the next day that I went to Budapests favourite feature, the bath house. The most beautiful of these, the name escapes me, is a vast yellow and white building, a cross between a hotal and a mansion, upon entering and oaying you enter a reassuringly luxurious changing block with wodden changing rooms, their doors like cupboards, and some rather severe looking attendants in all white uniforms. A quick change and a prompt exposure of glistening white flesh, I escorted myself through to the bathing area and upon entering found myself in a maze of quite decadent proportions. To describe it, it can only be described as like a dream, room after room of nipple-tweaklingly hot baths, head-noddingly hot saunas and throat-throttling cold plunge pools opening up to you one after the other, and when you get so far in it is hard to remember where you are as the rooms all seem to look the same. Watch Last Year in Marienbad and you will see the fully clothed version of this, except in a luxury hotel and not a bath house and in these rooms each one packed with beautiful and bizzarre bodies, walking sitting or reclining and not stiff society people in black tie and evening dresses. To the artist, or the downright pervert, this was heaven and I, being an artist of course, had a good look/ Again, I let my body relax and let time run its course, and so it did and quickly too, and after nearly 4 hours of skinwrinkling fun I wandered over the river to the east side, to Pest, where Dodo was awaiting me with a tent for the night. As it turned out he was late home, so it was not practical to set up the tent, so i had the floor in his room, and before bed chatting with the 4 other guests and drinking beer,and then he and two spanish girls and I went for a walk to see Pest from a nearby hilltop. Lovely! So to bed and to dream. The next day again was a day of chillaxing, a little nap in his garden by an ant infested lizard, some exercises, a wander to the supermarket and then in the evening some vegetables, lots of them in fact, and then after a fiery thunderstorm and meeting Dodos lovely partner Andrea, to bed again. Another simple day, and much needed. Especially as for the next 3 nights i wound have no sleep at all!
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Monday, August 10, 2009
Berlin - a tour
So we rolled up, Waseem, my new travelling companion freshly arrived from moist Preston, and your good author, at the place to meet the tour guideTheo, an Australian, part-guide, part-artist, our "Voice" for the day. And his tour was terrific and it is related to you, dear reader, for your enjoyment, below.
We began at Kastaneinalle, a trendy and bohemian quarter of the Mitte central region. He showed us a 17th century stable block in among the 4 story maze of streets, used by none other than King Friedrich. "Old Fritz", as he was known, was a liberal regent, a talented flute player, friend of Voltaire and an excellent ruler and town planner by all accounts. Which causes shock when the building is covered in graffiti and sandwiched in a rather unruly way behind a grubby wall. Berlin, as apparently is its wont, has let this building "go" but as its metier has passed it on to artists to make a go of it. Further evidence of creative recycling is seen at the Tachalus centre, a Jewish department store that was left vacant and squatters seized control of its whopping 5 stories and 200 rooms, making way for a sculpture studio, painters workshop, cinema, drama studio, bar and night club. Leading us on, we pass briefly through one of the notorious courtyards, displaying enigmatic and humorous graffiti, my favourite a bearded lady where the beard is made of real dandelions!
Berlin, it seems, is creative and adaptive not just to change but also catastrophe. The huge rubble heap left by world war II created an unprecedented gap in the urban landscape, 80% of structures being levelled. Even before this, the Nazi machine itself was manhandling the city, Hitler had uprooted the city grass, torched the Reichstag and constructed some rather offensive architecture, the Aviation Ministry an exuberantly cruel-looking block of impervious stone.
As Hitler disposed of himself, below the spot where we later sat in a car park and felt, in my case, rather sick, the allies were 50 km away and advancing in on foot, and the city they discovered was remarkably devastated. The men being dead in their millions, the Trummer Frau (or Rubble Women) set to work, and in 10 days trams and buses were able to pass across the whole diameter of the city. Later, the excess rubble was heaped to form a great hill beside the city, apparently now bought by the film director David Lynch, another odd connection in a bold and interesting town.
And the tour passed on, with great poignancies, such as the empty book shelves to remind one of the burning of 20000 books beside the Unter der Lindel, Berlins major avenue. Alongside, the quote: "Where they burn books they will also burn people.". A story of wonder, a family of east germans escaping the enclosure by building their own hot air balloon and making it away, Sound of Music style, was related to us at Checkpoint Charlie, at the point where the Berlin wall once stood. This was one exception in a great dark age of creativity, and as we strolled into the west, to eat at "Snackpoint Charlie', I noticed a shock to my back and feeling it, liquid was flowing there. I had been shot by the man on the checkpoint! But not with a rifle but with a water pistol. This was perhaps the cultural low point of the tour, but also a welcome dose of irony to the heavy subject matter!
The Jewish war dead memorial was brilliant, a strangely relaxing and enjoyable park of grey concrete blocks in a vast gridwork, the interlayed spaces making paths along which a single human can walk. As you penetrate the centre of it, people jump out from behind corners, children whimper that they have become lost, and several of the 2000 blocks tower above you at wonky angles, the urban compass spun in circles as you have entered a bizarre piece of contemporary sculpture (on a piece of real estate large enough to house an entire ministry). The blocks are grey, a nothing-grey that is an almost palpably wasted colour that permits only a superimposition of meaning over the top of it, it itself having no grain, depth or surface with which to grapple or sense-make. A sinister colour, but most of all the scale calls to mind the immensity of its title, the "Memorial to the Jewish War Dead", and its many heavy stone blocks suggest the throngs of war dead, their 3D shape a precise mirror of the actuality of individual grave ditches.
And so a chapter in Berlin's history is made sense through the medium of the city and its structure. Further examples of this amalgamation are seen in the many rather grim, half derelict buldings that are now graffitied and contain squatters. According to Theo, Berlin is a poor city economically.
One chapter of the City Life is seen in Potsdamer Platz, where in the 1920s Berlin was swinging with cabaret and people such as Marlene Dietrich and Fritz Lang appeared at film premiers. Then Berlin was known as the "Cocaine Capital" of europe, but now Potsdamer Platz is a pristine monument to modern architecture and clean skyscraping ingenuity, Daniel Baremboim at one point leading a battalion of construction cranes in a dance, via walky talky, to the music of the Berlin philharmonic, known as the Ballet of the Cranes. Indeed, at one point Berlin lay claim to a third of the worlds construction cranes! Similar stories of reinvention can be found elsewhere, the excellent British designed dome of the Reichstag poised above the new "transparent" legislature in the government building below, replacing the dome razed at the end of the war. Its glass design enables you to actually look down at the politicians below, its beautiful apex is open tot he elements where exhausted at the end of 5 hours on the tour we lay looking up at the sky, trying to tempt a butterfly to land on my hand for Waseem to photograph.
And at no point did you feel buzzed or bustled by busy city life. Instead, you had the feeling of taking a stroll in a great urban park and architectural garden, indeed below the Brandenburg gate trees run for several kilometres in parkland, the fabulously golden goddess victory on a giant column raising civilisation above nature, but only just. Berlin means 'swamp", and within just 30 minutes of the centre, lakes and woodland abound among the many digited prongs of the suburban spread. And like these green lungs, the visitor must certainly take a deep breath, or at least a well chosen and reasonably lengthy walking tour, to try and comprehend the true extent to which this city might be appreciated.
We began at Kastaneinalle, a trendy and bohemian quarter of the Mitte central region. He showed us a 17th century stable block in among the 4 story maze of streets, used by none other than King Friedrich. "Old Fritz", as he was known, was a liberal regent, a talented flute player, friend of Voltaire and an excellent ruler and town planner by all accounts. Which causes shock when the building is covered in graffiti and sandwiched in a rather unruly way behind a grubby wall. Berlin, as apparently is its wont, has let this building "go" but as its metier has passed it on to artists to make a go of it. Further evidence of creative recycling is seen at the Tachalus centre, a Jewish department store that was left vacant and squatters seized control of its whopping 5 stories and 200 rooms, making way for a sculpture studio, painters workshop, cinema, drama studio, bar and night club. Leading us on, we pass briefly through one of the notorious courtyards, displaying enigmatic and humorous graffiti, my favourite a bearded lady where the beard is made of real dandelions!
Berlin, it seems, is creative and adaptive not just to change but also catastrophe. The huge rubble heap left by world war II created an unprecedented gap in the urban landscape, 80% of structures being levelled. Even before this, the Nazi machine itself was manhandling the city, Hitler had uprooted the city grass, torched the Reichstag and constructed some rather offensive architecture, the Aviation Ministry an exuberantly cruel-looking block of impervious stone.
As Hitler disposed of himself, below the spot where we later sat in a car park and felt, in my case, rather sick, the allies were 50 km away and advancing in on foot, and the city they discovered was remarkably devastated. The men being dead in their millions, the Trummer Frau (or Rubble Women) set to work, and in 10 days trams and buses were able to pass across the whole diameter of the city. Later, the excess rubble was heaped to form a great hill beside the city, apparently now bought by the film director David Lynch, another odd connection in a bold and interesting town.
And the tour passed on, with great poignancies, such as the empty book shelves to remind one of the burning of 20000 books beside the Unter der Lindel, Berlins major avenue. Alongside, the quote: "Where they burn books they will also burn people.". A story of wonder, a family of east germans escaping the enclosure by building their own hot air balloon and making it away, Sound of Music style, was related to us at Checkpoint Charlie, at the point where the Berlin wall once stood. This was one exception in a great dark age of creativity, and as we strolled into the west, to eat at "Snackpoint Charlie', I noticed a shock to my back and feeling it, liquid was flowing there. I had been shot by the man on the checkpoint! But not with a rifle but with a water pistol. This was perhaps the cultural low point of the tour, but also a welcome dose of irony to the heavy subject matter!
The Jewish war dead memorial was brilliant, a strangely relaxing and enjoyable park of grey concrete blocks in a vast gridwork, the interlayed spaces making paths along which a single human can walk. As you penetrate the centre of it, people jump out from behind corners, children whimper that they have become lost, and several of the 2000 blocks tower above you at wonky angles, the urban compass spun in circles as you have entered a bizarre piece of contemporary sculpture (on a piece of real estate large enough to house an entire ministry). The blocks are grey, a nothing-grey that is an almost palpably wasted colour that permits only a superimposition of meaning over the top of it, it itself having no grain, depth or surface with which to grapple or sense-make. A sinister colour, but most of all the scale calls to mind the immensity of its title, the "Memorial to the Jewish War Dead", and its many heavy stone blocks suggest the throngs of war dead, their 3D shape a precise mirror of the actuality of individual grave ditches.
And so a chapter in Berlin's history is made sense through the medium of the city and its structure. Further examples of this amalgamation are seen in the many rather grim, half derelict buldings that are now graffitied and contain squatters. According to Theo, Berlin is a poor city economically.
One chapter of the City Life is seen in Potsdamer Platz, where in the 1920s Berlin was swinging with cabaret and people such as Marlene Dietrich and Fritz Lang appeared at film premiers. Then Berlin was known as the "Cocaine Capital" of europe, but now Potsdamer Platz is a pristine monument to modern architecture and clean skyscraping ingenuity, Daniel Baremboim at one point leading a battalion of construction cranes in a dance, via walky talky, to the music of the Berlin philharmonic, known as the Ballet of the Cranes. Indeed, at one point Berlin lay claim to a third of the worlds construction cranes! Similar stories of reinvention can be found elsewhere, the excellent British designed dome of the Reichstag poised above the new "transparent" legislature in the government building below, replacing the dome razed at the end of the war. Its glass design enables you to actually look down at the politicians below, its beautiful apex is open tot he elements where exhausted at the end of 5 hours on the tour we lay looking up at the sky, trying to tempt a butterfly to land on my hand for Waseem to photograph.
And at no point did you feel buzzed or bustled by busy city life. Instead, you had the feeling of taking a stroll in a great urban park and architectural garden, indeed below the Brandenburg gate trees run for several kilometres in parkland, the fabulously golden goddess victory on a giant column raising civilisation above nature, but only just. Berlin means 'swamp", and within just 30 minutes of the centre, lakes and woodland abound among the many digited prongs of the suburban spread. And like these green lungs, the visitor must certainly take a deep breath, or at least a well chosen and reasonably lengthy walking tour, to try and comprehend the true extent to which this city might be appreciated.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
The author is on holiday
Ironically, I am on holiday. I have been lying low, so apologies if you havent been able to hear from me recently, i have been in the compost heap of rejuvenation. Tomorrow I hitchhike to berlin, fingers crossed... it is 740 kilometres, so wish me luck. I hope you are all well. Am missing home actually, the trip has gone full circle in that sense. I am also a little bored, so am trrying to reinvent the experience a little, but just mainly drifting along and things will find themselves again i feel. Ciao for now, tom.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Belgrade day 2
Morning comes to visit me in my slumber and I grunt at it for a while, then reluctantly give in to it and get up. I walk to the market, it saying in my tourist book that you should "go to the market and speak to the people there" and as I am also interested in buying some fruit I take my city map and go for a wander. En route, I am reassured to find myself lost a little, it really feels comforting for me, I don1t know why! Perhaps it is an excuse to ask for directions and strike up a conversation, or maybe because it forebodes adventure. Anyhow, I get both. First the asking for directions, and a young couple Ivan and Dusan are going in that direction so walk with me, they are very friendly and it put me straight by some fruit stalls. SO I wander in, and spying a rather perfect looking onion (I have decided to cook for myself now I am in a hostel!)I approach the old lady behind the stall and ask her how much for it. She looks a bit like Mother Theresa and her waving away of my attempt to pay is one of polite and kind saintliness. So I grab a chili and a clove of garlic, and then inquire as to whether she will take money for them. She begrudgingly accepts 15 pence worth of Dinars, but perhaps to make things fair on her side, she closes the deal by giving me two tomatoes. Well, I have been learning that morning the extra special words of VERY good and thankyou VERY MUCH, so I fish into my own handwritten phrase book and with quite a few "just a minute" eyebrow gestures to keep her attention, I extract jacko dobro and hvala mnugo to in some way "pay", or at least express my gratitude. After all, as a lover of most comestibles, this sort of sales tactic was like a red rag to a bull, so off I go to the next stalls, the nectarines sitting plump and looking at me. So for 2o pence I acquire 6 nectarnines, and then I see some blackberries, and a large punnet of very fat blackberries are mine for 20 pence. Thinking I might have actually payed for something on this charitable continent, I decide to buy something luxurious, Turkish Delight. It says 140 dinars (47 pence) on the box, so I ask for this amount (sto centri deset) of dinars worth, and what comes back but a kilogram of turkish delight! I give up, each time I try to, I fail to spend what things seem worth. So I rest on the "bar" of this stall, and try the guidebooks tip of chatting to the people there. The first guy I speak to, a veteran fellow with brown skin and not many teeth straight away gives me a sausage. Not outdone, i offer him some turkish delight, which he declines, but we chat a little with mime and a few brief words and it is very nice and I am grateful for the sausage (even if he will take nothing for it!). And then i chat to a guy called Milos, who is drinking a beer. I inquire the cost, quite innocently, and he then buys me not one but 2 beers! Great, the sunshine begins to look even lovelier. He will not take turkish delight either, on account of his heart, and slightly hilariously ina black sort of way, I am thwarted from offerring soem to the next guy becuase of great scar down his chest indicating where he was cut open for heart surgery. No sugar for him then. But the charity doesnt wend here, as Milos is impressed by my word knowledge of serbo-bosnian-croat, and we get along pretty well and at the very zenith of chairty in my trip to the market comes with him paying for me to take a taxi ride home, at a cost of 5 pounds! Incredible. So I get back to the hostel in time to brag about my exploits to the gathered backpackers, feeling very Marco Polo and quite a superior travelling person, if I say so myself. Tonight I sleep on an island with lots of mosquitos and a towel over my face, but I will leave that for the next one. Bye for now.
Belgrade (am about a week behind)
Today I do very little, just lounge around in the youth hostel, which is appropriately called the Backpackers Lounge , as it feels a bit like being on the set of Friends, the furniture is very modern in design and open planned and people mill to and fro without any notices on the walls and it almost difficult to realise where people sleep, everything is tucked away from view. I stay out of the never ending 35 degree heat during the day, but later in the afternoon i walk over to the Hill Of Contemplation, on which sits the castle on a corner of a large bend in the Danube. People are walking and taking it easy and the air is still hot and sleepy. A bird flies down towards the river, off the side of the cliff. In line between the sun and my vantage the sun sparkles like flasbulbs in the water and behind me a pram rolls by, its sound deep and sonorous as a tram. In the distance, beyond the out and in left jab of the river, smoke rises into the sky and makes a deft wave as it breaks in the wind, and all around minor things make a happening.
I hear Slavic voices, passing behind me in ther opposite direction to the pram, their voices edged thick and thin in elegant origami, coming in and out of emphasis with the virtuosity of a caligrapher, the strokes easy, rhythmical and cordial, forming a blend like a mixture of cool water and warm apple juice.
On my way back, I meet a girl who is begging for money, the source of her monetary concern is her large belly, the baby within needing medicine. At first, I follow habit and actually not having money, I revert to my normal behaviour and discard her plea. However, on my journey, the main lesson I have learned is that you see a lot of goodness in people when you ask for things, upto this point in time I have received a lot for my "begging", in fact a princely sum. So, I go back to her (Ana) and we swap numbers and I agree to meet her the next day to give her the 15 euros she needs, and in a funny reward to me she gives me a packet of condoms. In the end, being me I leave it late and text her to meet me the next day, by which point she may well have got the money, I hope she did, but she doesnt return my call so I assume someone else helped her. The point is, though, that I learned that giving should be a matter of freeness and we should give well and without reserve, for we will also receive the same back in the end too, even though that is not the point of course.
I hear Slavic voices, passing behind me in ther opposite direction to the pram, their voices edged thick and thin in elegant origami, coming in and out of emphasis with the virtuosity of a caligrapher, the strokes easy, rhythmical and cordial, forming a blend like a mixture of cool water and warm apple juice.
On my way back, I meet a girl who is begging for money, the source of her monetary concern is her large belly, the baby within needing medicine. At first, I follow habit and actually not having money, I revert to my normal behaviour and discard her plea. However, on my journey, the main lesson I have learned is that you see a lot of goodness in people when you ask for things, upto this point in time I have received a lot for my "begging", in fact a princely sum. So, I go back to her (Ana) and we swap numbers and I agree to meet her the next day to give her the 15 euros she needs, and in a funny reward to me she gives me a packet of condoms. In the end, being me I leave it late and text her to meet me the next day, by which point she may well have got the money, I hope she did, but she doesnt return my call so I assume someone else helped her. The point is, though, that I learned that giving should be a matter of freeness and we should give well and without reserve, for we will also receive the same back in the end too, even though that is not the point of course.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Serbia...the countryside til belgrade, and entering the city!
Yes, its cobbled...we continue the journey. We enter z wealthier part and my preconceptions are thus blown away. I expected the poorest country so far, yet new tudor white plastered buildings with clean red tiled roofs and dark window and roof trimmings. The country itself is richer than before the border, but we have entered a large plain, the land behind riddled with by mountains, alkes and tight valleys. The sky is vast, and vague, corn in one direction stretches for a kilometre at least, in the sunshine it all seems to be blessed by riches. And ah! Telegraph lines on wonky nude weathered tree stems, grey and brave like crutches, old materials holding up the new.
A bit like Belgian town planning, the plain is strewn with hamlets, diverged to appropriate distances, private but social. Thus town size is demphasised in this plan, ruralising the populace and by carefully cohered townlets placed like gems among the corn, Nature takes on a convivial and civilisingly friendly appeal. The odd palm tree reiterates the southern, continental climate.
We stop again, the drivers tucking into yet another kebab (called Cevapi) and coffee, I help myself to a large 45 pence cappuccino. An Australian couple are stung for 6 euros for two sandwiches, at the time I heartily disapprove of the opportunism of the restaurateur, but then I remember the story of Robin Hood and think that it is only the poor robbing the rich. A flotilla of clouds rides over us, in the bus again, like liberated heads of gigantic foaming flagons of beer, abstracted from pint and glass and taken by the wind and quiffed, raised into a boiling magnifence, a hundred in one direction, rarified by the light and the pressure of their Elysial couch.
I notice from the way the other people on the coach seem to me, and how I seem to them, that I am growing a little wild! I am sensitive when approached, like a young deer, the hours alone, away from familiarity, have worked their wonder upon me. Like the deer, I am patterned into my own private domain of the traveller, my own niche in the landscape. This mould is a surprisingly comfortable dressing. As Herman Hesse once said, music came about at the edges of forests, where humanity was alone and watchful for predator and prey. In the silence and simplicity of their existence, music sauntered before them and illumined their olfactory gaze. And so for writing I think it helps to 'feel' alone, I am writing better now because I feel I cannot care less about others in an important way. So this is my kind of music.
We cross a great river with a boat upon it, a pleasure boat, each back clad with long fingered willows, and a chapter of my book later we are in the city.
Holy Tito! Is this a new world? The star coach Enterprise has docked on a strange new planet. A double block of beige flats stands by the road, joined at their summit by a concrete Bridge Of Sighs, an eighty foot high advertising poster inexplicably covering the view of at least 100 windows and on top, a space needle looks a lot like some sort of robotic probe. Communist architecture! Next we pass a colony of small blocks, uniquely in appearance as battered concrete hedgehogs and then the plush and more sophisticated splendour of the Belgrade Arena, home of the Red Star Belgrade football team, a set of at least 30 flags outside the stadium flaps as the coach speeds by. Next a leisure centre, its greened windows and damp concrete make it seem as if it is filled internally by pond water. We cross the Danube, and Belgrade looks like a Serbian Newcastle, the town reaching upto the top of a small hill by the river, crams loom orange and insect like and boats are moored, ready to take clubbers on a swirling dance and drinking escapade of the riverway. And here a sign says M, Im lovin it - McDonalds is even here, and on the coach radio Slavic lyrics rolls around the coach like lusty sailors.
We get off, and I go straight to the internet cafe, and find a message to meet Began and Marko at 8. They take me into their home and it seems they dont have room after all, but I have a Reikja (60% strength) and we go for walk/waddle to the Orthodox church here, still under construction after over 100 years, its interior big enough to house a power station, a bigger Orthodox church than in the whole of Russia. They are unexpectedly helpful, and though I cant stay with them, Marco rings a friend and I get a bed for a 3 euro discount at a central hostel. Tomorrow I sleep and decide not to sleep in a corn field. I am ashamed.
A bit like Belgian town planning, the plain is strewn with hamlets, diverged to appropriate distances, private but social. Thus town size is demphasised in this plan, ruralising the populace and by carefully cohered townlets placed like gems among the corn, Nature takes on a convivial and civilisingly friendly appeal. The odd palm tree reiterates the southern, continental climate.
We stop again, the drivers tucking into yet another kebab (called Cevapi) and coffee, I help myself to a large 45 pence cappuccino. An Australian couple are stung for 6 euros for two sandwiches, at the time I heartily disapprove of the opportunism of the restaurateur, but then I remember the story of Robin Hood and think that it is only the poor robbing the rich. A flotilla of clouds rides over us, in the bus again, like liberated heads of gigantic foaming flagons of beer, abstracted from pint and glass and taken by the wind and quiffed, raised into a boiling magnifence, a hundred in one direction, rarified by the light and the pressure of their Elysial couch.
I notice from the way the other people on the coach seem to me, and how I seem to them, that I am growing a little wild! I am sensitive when approached, like a young deer, the hours alone, away from familiarity, have worked their wonder upon me. Like the deer, I am patterned into my own private domain of the traveller, my own niche in the landscape. This mould is a surprisingly comfortable dressing. As Herman Hesse once said, music came about at the edges of forests, where humanity was alone and watchful for predator and prey. In the silence and simplicity of their existence, music sauntered before them and illumined their olfactory gaze. And so for writing I think it helps to 'feel' alone, I am writing better now because I feel I cannot care less about others in an important way. So this is my kind of music.
We cross a great river with a boat upon it, a pleasure boat, each back clad with long fingered willows, and a chapter of my book later we are in the city.
Holy Tito! Is this a new world? The star coach Enterprise has docked on a strange new planet. A double block of beige flats stands by the road, joined at their summit by a concrete Bridge Of Sighs, an eighty foot high advertising poster inexplicably covering the view of at least 100 windows and on top, a space needle looks a lot like some sort of robotic probe. Communist architecture! Next we pass a colony of small blocks, uniquely in appearance as battered concrete hedgehogs and then the plush and more sophisticated splendour of the Belgrade Arena, home of the Red Star Belgrade football team, a set of at least 30 flags outside the stadium flaps as the coach speeds by. Next a leisure centre, its greened windows and damp concrete make it seem as if it is filled internally by pond water. We cross the Danube, and Belgrade looks like a Serbian Newcastle, the town reaching upto the top of a small hill by the river, crams loom orange and insect like and boats are moored, ready to take clubbers on a swirling dance and drinking escapade of the riverway. And here a sign says M, Im lovin it - McDonalds is even here, and on the coach radio Slavic lyrics rolls around the coach like lusty sailors.
We get off, and I go straight to the internet cafe, and find a message to meet Began and Marko at 8. They take me into their home and it seems they dont have room after all, but I have a Reikja (60% strength) and we go for walk/waddle to the Orthodox church here, still under construction after over 100 years, its interior big enough to house a power station, a bigger Orthodox church than in the whole of Russia. They are unexpectedly helpful, and though I cant stay with them, Marco rings a friend and I get a bed for a 3 euro discount at a central hostel. Tomorrow I sleep and decide not to sleep in a corn field. I am ashamed.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Serbia - they batter hedgehogs here...and please comment, I am REALLY wanting for constructive words!
Part of the mainroad into this nation is actually cobbled! It makes a pleasant change from the earlier potholed stretch. At one point we run by an overgrown factory, foliuage fringing its rooftops, its rusty corrugated iron sides and gateways are firm and woodern like weather beaten sundried cardboard, eerily crisp and breakable. In a town a couple wait with cigarrettes and shopping bags by the road to cross, in front of them the road has gathered into loose folds like skin where detritus has gathered. People look grey.
A man on a scooter marks a change from the very old automobiles that are visible everywhere, Yugo, Opel, Zastava and Lada.
A wealthier part comes, newer white plastered houses... sorry, am so tired, will finish writing this tomorrow (smiley face thingy), ciao for now.
A man on a scooter marks a change from the very old automobiles that are visible everywhere, Yugo, Opel, Zastava and Lada.
A wealthier part comes, newer white plastered houses... sorry, am so tired, will finish writing this tomorrow (smiley face thingy), ciao for now.
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