Interesting times in London

Interesting that our best  experiences in London have involved natural history. There was George Monbiot the other night. Today we went to the London Wetlands Center. It operates a vast  restored wetland in the southern part of London. There were huge numbers of water birds. A few were familiar, but most were species we do not know. Very beautiful creatures. They are also protecting otters, and trying to restore populations of aquatic voles. We were both quite impressed with the work they are doing, and I plan to keep in touch. There is an article in this!

We are rushing again tonight, so I am being brief. London is a very interesting city, I have a feeling we will pass through here again in some ways. There are hidden treasures, like the one we found today. We leave tomorrow for 2 days in Wales, I think we will have internet access from there. If not, expect to hear from us Sunday as we prepare to fly across the pond. Be well, all.

London is a collage

I think all of humanity must pass through here. We are staying in a Turkish neighborhood, and have probably heard every possible language while walking down the streets. This is a neighborhood of neat, brick rowhouses. Businesses include Turkish restaurants, Turkish groceries and nut stores, a Bulgarian restaurant, Chinese restaurants, a number of dental surgery offices (I do not know why), stores where you can get many things for a pound (about $1.30), stores where you can get incredibly elaborate cakes, etc. It is a very friendly and safe area, people really watch out for each other.

Today we visited the British Museum. Astonishing, it has collections of many ancient art works from the Romans, Etruscans, other pre- Roman cultures in Italy, Roman Britain, Egypt, ancient Mesopotamia... all very beautiful stuff, with good descriptions of the history. I got to handle a silver plate from Roman britain, a love letter someone wrote on some wood, and an 8,000 year old axe. We also saw the Rosetta Stone in the Egyptian room, but people had crowded around it so much we couldn't get a close look. But everything else was groovy.

One think about London is it isn't a walking city like Paris is, and like Rome sort of is. The big historical buildings are certainly awesome, but they are seperated by lots of urban space, complete with massive traffic and very polluted air. They really need pedestrian walkways here. Also, the Tower, Westminster Abbey, Parliament all cost 20 pounds (about $30/) There is supposedly an admission charge for St. Paul's Cathedral, but nobody asked for it when we went in. Definetly an impressive cathedral, quite different from the Baroque ones we saw in Italy and the Romanesque ones in Germany. Oh yes, it really is fun to be at the base of Big Ben when it chimes the hour.

I hope to add more tomorrow. Meantime, I will just comment that one side of the 10 pound note has a picture of Charles Darwin and a hummingbird. These people are with it! And, oh yes, can somebody PLEASE tell me how I can stop singing "I'm Henry VIII, I Am" to myself/

Quick note from London

First impressions: a city more of brick buildings than of high ones with terraces and shuttered windows. Paris is multicultural too, but more in the Belleville district than in the Lfet Bank, Isle de la Citie, etc. In London, every neighbourhood we have passed through so far appears to be multicultural. Life is quite tough here, our Air B&B host was telling us about problems renters have, proposed cuts to health care and social services, etc.

Tonight we heard George Monbiot speak. He is one of our favourite environmental writers, and presented a very interesting presentation on re-wilding. This is a call for allowing nature to take its course in wile ecosystems, rather than trying to manage their operations. The issues are quite complex, to find out more about him see www.georgemonbiot.com.I believe that is the website,
let me know if it doesn't work.

Just a note to say we are still alive and quite well... expect more.

Paris is hot...

...and lovely. This will be quick, we are rushing. The Grqnd Hall of Evolution qt the Nqturql History Museum is bequtifully done, with interactive exhibits, films, qnd more. They need someone who cqn trqnslqte things into ,English, who can that be? Pere lachasse cemetqry, where many fqmous folk qre buried is fascinqting too. Someone left a can of beer qt Jim Morrisons grave. The most movong part includes memorials to the French Resistance, qnd the concentration camps. We walked through Belleville, the very multicultural part of Paris. Many Africans and Middme East folks are here... this is also the current place of street art, community gardens, food coops, ane community organizing.

Paris is wonderful, but demands visits in cooler weather. Tomorrow we are off to  London. We plan to heqr the environmental writer George Monbiot speak tomorrow night and may not be able to post until Wednesday... see you then.

Nous allon bien en Paris

We are fine, no worries. We had an awful time finding good computersin Strasbourg. But the city itself is gorgeous. This region has been contested betzeen Germany and France forever, it has officially been part of France for some time. This is the Alsace region. The town is surrounded by rivers, including the Rhine.  It They are crossed by countless arched bridges. The architecture is a mixture of French and German, and the buildings wind along the river banks, dancing.We visited q nice urban park where crqnes were nssting on platforms built for them. Mozart did a lot of concerts here, and this is where Marie Antoinette entered France to marry Louis XVI. We wandered into a restaurant the first night and would up having the regional specialty, tart flambe. They bake toppings on wonderful flatbread. Kates zwas chicken tarragon, mine was a mixture of potatoes, mushrooms, tomatoes with cheese, herbs, and mustqrd. Very fine... and very different from pizza. This town needs a closer look!

So what can I say about Paris that has not been said? I love this town, that is a big compliment from someone who is not a city person.  But in summer it is hot, has bad air, and is overrun with tourists. Knowing this we planned a short stop this trip. We do expect to pass through here again.

The Left Bank is fascinating, but tourist city. We had dinner in the Latin Quarter, which is bequtiful, but jammed. What would Sartre say? ¨Hell is other people.¨When you are jammed in an alley in the heat, that makes sense.

We walked by the Seine, out of the tourist district, and found real Parisian gatherings. Parisians love picnics. We found jamming musicians, and places where people were getting salsa,tango, and other dance lessons.
We made our way to the Natural History Museum, which we may visit tomorrow. There is a statue of ¨"one of the giants of evolutionary biology... Jean Baptiste Lamarck.¨Agreed, no argument, but this may be a touch of French nationalism, saying he was as smart as that Darwin dude. We also visited an Arab cultural center, which was very interesting.

There are still book sellers by the Seine, and musicians on Left Bank streets. Shakespeare and Company is a great; though crowded bookstore, home of Hemingway, Fitzgerald, James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, etc. You must see Notre Dame at least once. And you must experience the Paris Metro at least once... you dont know chaos until you do.

More tomorrow. Pardon typos, French keyboards are bizarre.

WE LOVE FREIBURG!!!

This area has been a true treasure. Freiburg is a beautiful city that dates back to at least the 1300s. Our German is non existant, so it has been difficult to get information about history and culture, but the old town, with wilding streets and very old houses is very German, and very beautiful. Germany gets a bad rap as the place of Hitler, but it is also the homeland of Beethoven, Herman Hesse, Hannah Arendt, Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill, Ranier Maria Rilke, the White Rose and other resistance movements against the Nazis, and many other great folks. It is also home to the ancestors of a writer-naturalist you all know. We wandered all over town yesterday. The cathedral here is my favorite of the ones we have seen in Europe. Our wanderings took us along the edge of the Black Forest to a nice neighborhood where we visited a botanical garden. They had giant sequoias and coast redwoods!!!

Freiburg is a true eco city. Public transit is amaying, and there are bike and pedestrian lanes everywhere. It is also a center of the solar industry. This place demands a closer look.

Today we took a train out of town to hike in the Black Forest. We made a mistake of sitting in first class seats with second class tickets. The official who checked our tickets wanted to fine us 40 Euros each for this mistake. He was a real toughie, and would have done well in the SS, but we managed to talk our way out of the fine.

The Black Forest is unbelievable. We hiked thwough a canzon of oaks, maples, firs, alders, and infonite ferns. We passed by a stream that crashed over a mile long series of cascades. Incredible. We stopped at a small guest house on the edge of the forest, they have teriffic apricot cheesecake!

Leaving Germany is sad, it demands more time and a deeper look. We also need to speak some German... this has been a barrier, to say the least at connecting with people. But we are finding most Germans to be very warm and generous... more time here is needed.

Tomorrow we will head for Strousburg, France - this is the beginning of a slow loop towards Dublin and the flight back to the U.S.  Much more to come. Oh yes, we have many pictures and will post some when we have a computer where we can download them. Guten tag!!!

ALIVE AND WELL IN FREIBURG

Alright, we have regular access again. We would have needed to use our AIR BnB host´s office computer, which we didn´t want to do long term. The one Internet cafe was also a casino, full of cigarette smoke. AAARRRGGGHHH!!!
Beyond that, tShielklingen was wonderful. It is a small German town, workaday kind of place - very interesting to me with my German background.  The people of Germany, contrary to rumor, are very welcoming and friendly. nly problem is our knowledge of German is limited to Guten Tag, Ja, Denke, etc., so when people stopped and talked with us on the street we were really not able to respond. Frustrating, we need a class in German before returning.

We were in the Swalbian Alb region, a place of folling, heavily forested hills that resembles my native Pennsylvania... I have heard that many German immigrants settled there because of this resemblance.
Of course we hiked long distances through these bird song filled forests. Wildflowers were everywhere, along with timy frogs, orange/gold slugs, and pure white snails.

On our first day the hike took us through the nearby town of Hausen, a picturesque farming town. There was a fire department benefit going on, complete with a brass band. It was a good contact with Germany - the onlz#y sad thing about Hausen was a cemetary where all the gravestones were for 20 something men who died in 1944. There was a lot of anti Nazi graffiti in this region, with good reason... I hope they are not trying to reestablish themselves.

After the hike yesterday we spontaneously jumped on a bus to the neighboring town of Hutton. This was a lovely town, close to the rolling hills and thick forests. But people told us we couldnot get back to Shielklingen that day. After a lot of talking, laughing and gesturingwith a woman who lived near the train station, we determined there was one train we could get a train in 20 minutes. It cut our time in this area short, but it seemed like a good idea to take it.

Mark, our host told us we saw about 1% of what is available. There are castles, caves, and many miles of forest. We hope to return. We are now in Freiburg, a beautiful city where we are staying literally a short walk from the Black Forest. More to come.

Oh yes, we drink lightly, but can report that Italian wine and German beer are as good as you have heard.