London, England

Near where the chartered Thames does flow

An endless array of vertical shadows on watercolor gray, all crosshatched with vapor trails at their ragged tips.

Forlorn memories, haunting our dreams like a fleeting glimpse of Earth's favored.

A charcoal flicker between the bedimmed beneath and a suspiciously innocent sky.



My decision to visit London was completely impromptu (in truth, I was mostly interested in breaking my own land-speed record via the Eurostar Chunnel train), and accompanied two fundamental expectations. First, that I would find some exceptional teas. And second, that I would have to endure Yakety Sax playing in my mind on perpetual repeat. Only one of these came to pass.

I suppose there's only so much that anyone can do with crumbled leaves and hot water.



The British are a total parody of The British. Among the more amusing evidence of this is that the entire city of London seems to insist on being my overprotective English nanny for my stay's duration. Every corner reminds me to look before crossing the street. Signs on the Thames footbridges remind me that London is occasionally very windy, and to hold onto railings as I cross. Even the computerized subway voice comments that "in such warm weather, you should carry a bottle of water."

I keep expecting fire hydrants to tell me I'm special and bake me cookies. Er, biscuits.



I walk through a string of London's Royal Parks, following a beautiful precision of geometric pathways that never fail to converge on a pavilion of activity. Hot dog vendors urge me to try their brand-new "New York" style concessions. Street musicians deliver abrupt cacophonies from fiddles, tin whistles and bagpipes. Ticket scalpers suggest that I see Neil Young in concert tonight for only double the normal price. It is the ice cream stand that delivers me from such frivolity and madness.

I am sitting on the steps leading to an enormous statue commemorating the courage of London's air force in the second World War. The monument's shadow stretches far - it drapes over one of the park's vividly-colored structures, where three small children scramble the wrong way up the playground slide, screaming wildly. I slowly consume my mint-chocolate chip ice cream and waffle cone, and for just a moment I terribly miss my childhood.



I sit beneath the Millennium Bridge, just outside the (free!) Tate Museum, gazing skyward as enormous raindrops begin to fall, landing with audible splashes all around me. Within minutes, the dark sky has begun to split, issuing tiny violet flashes alongside the sharp cracks of thunder and hushed awe from my fellow onlookers.

It's magnificent. I don't think I quite understand London, but this I get.

Paris, France

In Which I Mostly Talk About Squares

Le sigh.



I am sitting beside one of the circular ponds outside the Louvre at an almost preternaturally late sunset. A few minutes past 11, neon rose firelight begins to fade from the three spotted clouds resting low on the horizon, and darkness begins its very brief reign over the City of Light. As though following some celestial encore, the crowd around me gathers and departs with only a quiet murmur.

I sit there a while longer, waiting to see what tiny starlight dares peek through the dark curtain on this summer solstice.



Wandering Paris has been a peculiar undertaking - none of its notable landmarks are constructed with any sense of human scale, and most of them rest along perfect linear paths. Paris becomes a city of endless walkways and Platonic solids.



From atop the Arc de Triomphe, I let my gaze wander northwest into the dim of distant low-contrast, where all lines converge and details fade to the faintest shimmer. I'm a bit surprised to find that there is a small square in that spot - a curiously distinct cube on an otherwise featureless jumble of buildings, all washed with the colors of dust.

It seems worth checking out.



Thirty minutes later, I've made no apparent progress toward this enigmatic box. It just hangs on the distant sky, ever constant and never closer. I begin to consider the possibility of a trickster mirage, and decide to stop for lunch.

(Well, in this case, lunch = an éclair fresh from the oven. In retrospect, it would have done very little to dissuade a hallucinatory state. All the same, it was damned good.)



An hour passes, and while I never actually get the impression that I am drawing nearer to my cubic goal, the object itself begins to grow larger. And larger still. Staggeringly greater in height. Inconceivably greater. Maddeningly greater. Before I even arrive at its base, my perceptions are reeling at the sheer size of this thing. It dwarfs neighboring skyscrapers, and it's quite some time before I realize that the little specks beneath it are people.

I am soon one of those specks. A very dizzy speck, craning upwards at the defiant climb of the Parisian Hypercube, amazed and ready to stop walking for a while.



I wander my afternoons through busy marketplaces, taking in the chaotic exchange of both currency and language. Tantalizing aromas pour out of each pâtisserie I pass, winding their way through strangely planned streets that follow the contours of preposterous hills, reminding me sharply of San Francisco. I intentionally get off at the wrong metro stop, because I'm good at finding my way in this place. I stroll through cemeteries that may be called cities in their own right. I spend way too much money on sushi.

What can I say - I'm a sucker for food on a conveyor belt.



Paris is very difficult to depart.

Life here seems really, really good.

Tours, Calcane & Mont Saint Michel, France

I Hang Out On Infinite Planes: Clearing The Queue Part Two

I have more need of France than it has of me.



In the demeanor of continued deliberate transgressions, here are a bunch more photos to tell you of where I've been, since I've heard that each of these is worth quite a few words.



Departing my friends and guides, I've ventured northward, again a lone traveler. My humbly acquired French is far from useless here, but I've been repeatedly told that I have a southern-France accent. Hmm.



Tours appears as a quilt of carpentry - houses that seem stitched together, all patchwork stripes and diagonals. Mornings here are quiet as a hushed thought, while the evenings bring absolute raucous revelry. There's a large pavilion filled with chairs and tables, where a dozen different bars fight for your patronage.

There's also a circle of Heaven that's been described as such.







Ever northward, until the sea halts my progress. The tiny port town of Calcane reminds me of my early days back in Iceland - except that the shores of Normandy all appear to be absurdly level, causing the waters to recede huge distances at low tide. This will be even more notable in a couple pictures...









A low tide that drags out its waters for numerous kilometers, until it slips entirely from view. Mont Saint Michel is a surrealist paradise - it really appears that a giant medieval castle has been listlessly dropped into the center of a soggy endless desert.

Life's just better on infinite planes. Ask anyone who's tried it.



Can you believe this place? I had no idea.

I love it when the world just looks wrong.

Carcassonne, Toulouse & Bordeaux, France

At Least A Breach Of Etiquette: Clearing The Queue Part One

It is surely at least a breach of etiquette to admit inattentiveness to one's adoring public. Nonetheless, I simply haven't had the time to put together proper postings lately. Therefore, I present to you the following in style over substance:

















Will this be Mark's favorite photo?



Or will it be this one?



If I were to take the time to tell you a story, it would be about the Bordeaux performing arts festival and a physics-defying activity entitled "diabolo". It was like The 3 Stooges guest starring on Mr. Wizard. And following that, a percussion show utilizing pyrotechnics as musical instruments:



Many thanks to my hosts and tour guides over the past few weeks - you have all fully succeeded in showing me a good time and spicing up my wanderings with a bit of direction.

I think this very sensible photo says it all:



That's all for now! Look for another barrage of photos when Matthew visits the northern part of the country!

Protip: It already happened!

Barcelona, Spain

Like A Jewel In The Sun

The rain in Spain may have been misrepresented in its typically logistical falling point.

People who don't live in California perhaps take summer rainfall for granted. There is something wonderful in the midday downpour sweeping away dust and sweat, leaving the world glistening and dark beneath the suggestion of promptly returning sunlight. Or at the crest of a warm summer evening, invisible storm clouds in the starless night yawning wide and drenching the city in unanticipated deluge. Paving the streets with mirrors and filling the air with the sweet scent of the sea.

I love the rain. Seeing its international variants is incredibly enjoyable.



Barcelona feels more alive than most places I've been - in two distinct definitions of the adjective.

This seems a city in the adolescence of self-discovery - youthful energy is its most readily apparent trait. Midnight to dawn finds the many district plazas filled with drinking, biking, juggling, and thousands of wanderers selling canned beers for a euro a piece.

The juxtaposition between ancient environs and modernity always feels a bit awkward, and Barcelona is no exception to that. However, watching kids deftly slide their skateboards along centuries-old stonework feels strangely fitting. There is a new appropriation growing here, and it fills the city with a sense of exhilaration.



And in another take on "being alive" - the architectural works of Antoni Gaudí were one of my favorite glimpses into Barcelona. Walking a hallway in Casa Batlló feels like creeping through the belly of a dozing behemoth. Obviously inspired by nature, his structures seem to have a pulse that matches its visitors' footsteps.

I spent 45 minutes with my camera playing on refracted shapes through the circus-glass windows. The whole place is just fun. Except for the complementary audio guide: "Look, here's the dining room. This room is nice. Oh, and next is the stairway. Isn't this nice?"

I guess you get what you pay for.



Sagrada Familia is ridiculous. Trying to look at it (or more accurately, its proposed final form) is like getting drunk and trying to do one of those Magic Eye things. There are crazy spires coming out of twisty spires, a mess of shapes that shouldn't exist in the third dimension, and an infinitum of little tiny details covering the entire structure. Creativity and madness have a close relationship. Maybe they're never meant to finish the thing, lest madness find form...

I totally hate Magic Eye. "Oh, it's an airplane!" "Oh, it's a pony!" How about "Oh, it's a hoax and you're all in on it!"



It is 7:13pm and I am sitting on a narrow 10th floor balcony, which slants slightly and terrifyingly toward the 30 meters of empty space between me and the street. Storm clouds tumble visibly on the distant horizon like boiling water - you know when clouds shift quickly enough that you can see it happening? I guess that means it's really windy somewhere.

I'm sipping a Chianti that I've carried here all the way from Tuscany, happy with both its deep plum finish and the fact that my bag will finally be a little lighter. The bassline to Radiohead's "National Anthem" is stuck in my head from an hour earlier when Austin was using it to assail his guitar strings, but I think I've got one of the notes a little off and it's bugging me enough that I've got it on perpetual repeat.

The street is uncharacteristically quiet in this small time between jackhammers and nightlife, and my maddening internal melody goes undisturbed. It's still very early, by local standards, and diffused sunlight seems to linger at the edges of the cloud cover in respect of that fact. In a few hours the night will begin, and the world will change, as will the tune in my head.



Everything is a subject, and each subject contains a rhythm. Discovering that movement, that little bit of energy - it's like catching a silhouette through the curtain of the world. A tiny hint of how and why everything works. A suggestion of divinity.



I won't expand on this thought because of its weight, but watching the world fall apart through the eyes of a different country every week makes the whole of humanity seem comically surreal. Moreso than it normally does, I guess.



Instead of newspapers, I've been reading the things I've always meant to read but for some reason never did. I think this has me internalizing my thoughts more than usual, if that is at all possible. I'll provide more witticism next time.

The Alps, France

Regaining Elevation

The weekend led me to lofty spires of the French Alps, and a welcome return to single-digit temperatures. Suddenly the burden of an Icelandic wardrobe is pleasantly relevant.



It's a little bit strange to spend a summer weekend visiting a small mountain town which features skiing as its primary attraction - on a national holiday weekend, no less. I have no doubt that people do indeed reside in the tiny town of Bessans, but on a morning such as this, it appears to be solely populated by wandering collar-free dogs.

Happy dogs, as for all they know, they may govern a village.



The tranquility of Tuscany is a veritable cacophony beside the absolute stillness inscribed on this place. My walks lead me through waist-deep grassy fields, perpetually damp with cool dew. Along babbling rivers, speckled with tall reeds and ancient crumbled bridges. Along rocky trails that once serviced clusters of stone cottages, their roofs long since collapsed and their rafters all splintered and splayed upward. Through scatterings of flowerpot houses, a town asleep beneath cold flickering of sunlight through tumbling clouds.



The Alps are staggeringly huge, skewing perspective and distance to a dizzying degree. I gaze from my windswept perch into comely verdant valleys, wondering whether those are cows or chalets in the distance.

A small lake sparkles over the next hill, its surface a blue so pale it might be ice.



I pass a few more days amid overgrown trails and quiet hanging rains, looking forward to shattering such concepts as relaxation in my next destination.