two wonderful weekends
3 august 2001

i readily admit that i try to take advantage of gary literally being in a different country every week. this eases the strain of constantly being alone; somehow it's worth it when i can hop on a plane to join him in an interesting place. england is one such place and every time we go there we try to do something different. a country of many options. this particular weekend can be defined as "shakespearean". i had been whining for quite some time about the fact that i hadn't seen a shakespearean play in england, only in america. for some reason this really bothered me. now i know why; it's really imcomparable. details in a moment. my arrival at heathrow was less than smooth, having to wait in a very long queue to get through immigration only to realize that i was supposed to meet gary at starbucks, which is in terminal four. neither of us considered that i would fly into terminal one. oy vey! too bad i have that mobile phone that only works in holland. anyway, an hour later, we both figured out what had happened and i took the train to the other terminal. heathrow is an alarmingly big airport.

this of course put us into "rush mode" to get to the theatre in stratford upon avon, shakespeare's birthplace. tempers were high as we slid into our seats 3 minutes before curtain. it didn't take too long to calm down and be transformed into another time and place, sitting in the swan, an elizabethan-style theatre. The setting was intimate, two tiered and made mostly of wood, and we had center seats. you could just picture those groundlings standing in the middle of the theatre but fortunately our seats were extremely comfy. { i never would have made it standing for 3 hours. } the stage was more like an open platform, jutting out towards the audience and no sets or curtains were used. the actors used a minimum of props; the focus being on the language to convey the action. and what language it is. don't get me wrong, i didn't understand much of what was actually being said but the words rolled off those actor's tongues "like buttah" and the general concept was clear. natural is the word that mostly comes to mind, not straining to be a character or stumbling over a mouthful of long ago vocabulary. by the way, the play was "king john", one of the less popular ones. i'm not sure why. i found it more interesting than some of the "richards". perhaps it's all in the performance.

originally, we had planned to drive to a more remote village to find a bed and breakfast but upon leaving the theatre we noticed a pretty hotel directly across the street and lo and behold they had a room. and then we turned mad! we got the wild idea that we should see one more shakespeare play that night- two in one day. but how often were we in stratford with the chance to experience the royal shakespeare company? "twelfth night" was playing but they were sold out. gary was not to be deterred, and with his patience for waiting in the returns queue and his amazing theatre karma he scored us some tickets. it turned out to be a disappointment, very poorly directed. pity because the actors were great, the stage was huge {different theatre and very contemporary}, the play itself is very zany. somehow, the director completely missed and the action was stilted with no shred of the craziness inherent in the script. i literally fell asleep. oh well, so much for the marathon.

the next day dawned chilly and rainy. not a big surprise for england, nevertheless, time to be touristas. we couldn't leave stratford without viewing the actual house billy the bard was born in. over the centuries it has of course been re-done but some features, like the stone kitchen floor, were original. one interesting piece was one of the windows, no longer part of the house, but on display with many famous signatures etched into it. i just assumed that shakespeare was a starving artist but really he was quite wealthy. we also toured nash's house which at one time adjoined a huge mansion, owned by shakespeare, now demolished, where he died. as always, the history came alive for me by being there. i've never seen as many flowers as in the nash house garden. rows and rows of marigolds, begonias, giant lavender bushes, and every other imaginable form of floral botany. in the late afternoon, we took a drive through the cotswolds, an area of english countryside marked by beautiful old stone architecture, mostly residences and churches. now and then, we had a castle sighting.

foot and mouth disease is still around in these parts; we happened upon a few signs indicating closures of public places or farms. before heading back to london to have dinner at gary's boss's house, we stopped for tea at a picturesque hotel with an outdoor patio. we fantasized about going back to spend a week just traipsing from village to village on the many provided public footpaths in the cotswolds.....

new week, new country for mr. traveller. gary flew back to amsterdam on tuesday night and was en route to vienna the next morning. quality, not quantity is a crucial concept for us these days. i managed to seek out yet another cheap fare {they just love seeing me coming at the travel agency} so off i went for the weekend. i abandoned our friends lorraine and lisa who were visiting, but luckily we got to hang out together before and after i went. gary was booked into a sports hotel because it was near his workplace. he advised me to bring appropriate tennis attire. was he for real? i haven't played tennis for about 30 years and really who would want to play with me anyway? but he was motivated so on saturday morning at the crack of ten, we were playing tennis! not a real game, just content to get a good volley going. i wasn't as bad as i had feared and we didn't get into any arguments so i consider that a successful tennis experience. i was now definitely ready for some pool time, being especially excited by the hot, actual summer weather. yipee! so i went to check out the area and feel the pool temperature and i noticed that EVERYONE was completely naked. i love the human form but i have to say, seeing a bunch of oldish, out of shape, overly tanned men didn't do it for me. i've never seen so many dangling body parts at once and it wasn't pretty. honey, we're not in kansas anymore, if you know what i mean. i guess it was pretty obvious what country we're from, although eventually i got brave and took my top off. why not? i know i look better than most of those people in their leather-like skin. anyway, we didn't come to vienna to lounge by the pool all day so after a scrumptious lunch, we headed for the center of town. i should mention that i have been on a detoxification diet for my food allergies. this makes travelling and eating in a restaurant a monumental challenge. somehow i've managed to stick with it, i'm not sure how. it's been five weeks and i have seven more to go. ugh! some restaurants are more accomodating and the one at the hotel was prima! so it really was a scrumptious lunch!

we hopped on the metro and then ambled over to the museum quarter. vienna is the cleanest city ever. no trash, no dog poop, and pretty quiet for a capital city in the dead of summer. as expected, it has its share of gorgeous buildings, elaborately designed from the baroque period with statues and fountains in abundance. the interior of the historical museum, like the louvre, is a masterpiece in itself with its central dome and marble columns illuminated by sunlight streaming in. it was hard to tear ourselves away to the galleries. on exhibit were many paintings by el greco, the greek artist who eventually settled in spain. {i always thought he was spanish; now i know}. his expressions are mostly religious, unconventional and fascinating to look at, and our experience was enhanced by the explanations given on the audio tour. we now had a few hours to kill before going to a dance performance. we took a scenic walk, sat in a park inundated with roses, and parked ourselves at a cafe where we could view the people action. this is a fun thing to do in any country, i've decided.

i'm always very curious to see what's happening in the world of contemporary dance and gary is always a good sport about going to these off the wall shows. we both appreciate good dance but unfortunately, this was really bad dance. we couldn't figure out why it was sold out because the choreography was in the self righteous crap genre, my least favorite to view. and guess what? they were naked! not the whole time and not all of the dancers and not for any particular artistic reason. at least the bodies were a lot better than the ones we had to endure at the pool. it was just all around bad choreography and we knew it in the first five minutes. luckily, it wasn't that long so we high tailed it outta there while the applause was still going on.

it was our intention to play tennis again on sunday but we talked ourselves out of it. i needed a pool fix, not for the scenery but for the sun, and we had to check out by noon. again, we metroed into town and explored some funky architecture along the lines of the spanish architect gaudi. there was a shopping mall done in colorful tiled patterns with uneven floors and very swirly lines. i love that stuff, it's just so nutty. there's even a building here in a'dam in that style but i have no idea who the designer is. we never did get the name of the creator of these crazy edifices in vienna. i'm slackin' on my history. these structures were certainly a contrast to the ones of baroque origin and it almost felt like a completely different city. while strolling, we came upon a statue of johannes brahms, the composer and i made gary climb up right next to his face so i could take his picture. our last stop before leaving was a traditional viennese cafe with long tables and chandeliers. mostly i just drooled over everything i wasn't allowed to eat or drink while sipping my mineral water. did i mention i hate this diet? poor gary; i don't know how he's endured my "i'm starving because i can't eat what i want” moods. i can barely endure them myself. regardless, it was another precious weekend in yet another country and i'm ever so grateful.....

i would love to hear what's happening in your world so please keep writing, y'all.

with love, deb