Larry’s Pretty Good Journal

The souvenirs I collect while touristing are the informative brick-a-brack -- the disposable maps and pamphlets and the like. For some reason I also hold on to tickets long after they're useful, apparently on the off chance they'll help me remember the journeys, even though I always throw them away when I return. I mean, every single tram fare bopping around a city? Not needed, norwise the train ticket for Munich to Basel via Ulm. But the stuff that marks where I've been and seen, rather than how I've gone, yes.

On the table in front of me, in a roughly chronological line I have:

• Concert playbill for the 20th anniversary concert of Cembalomusik in der Stadt Basel (German)
  
• Small tourist map of downtown Freiburg (ads in German and English)
  
• Guide pamphlet to the choir and chapels of Freiburg cathedral (slightly fractured English)
  
• Map of a network of German backpacker hostels (English)
  
• Tourist map of downtown Prague (English) *
  
• Panoramic map of the Black Forest, indexed with day trips (English)
  
• Guidebook of day-hikes in the Schwarzwald (German)
  
• Topographic trail map (1:25.000) of the area around Feldberg (German)
  
• City map of Munich (English)
  
• Guide pamphlet to the Deutsches Museum (one each in English and Japanese) **
  
• Small city map of Zug (German)
  
• Pamphlet about the towers of the old city walls of Zug (English)
  
• Booklet of the exhibit "Hermes statt SMS", on Hermes as a means of communication in the ancient world, from the Antiquities Museum Basel (German)
  
• Booklet of selected works of art in the Antiquities Museum Basel (English)
  
• Map of the Basel Zoo (German, with French and English)

* No, we didn't go there -- I picked it up in a hostel lobby for its stylish design.

** Imagine a version of the Metropolitan Museum of Art that's devoted to science and technology. Geek. Out. Heaven. And in two visits, we managed to take in only glass, ceramics, papermaking, printing, sundials, and musical instruments, plus about half the sailing ships hall, complete with a cutaway two-masted trawler and, lurking appropriately in the basement, the first U1 boat.

Eventually, I'll figure out how to use these to tell a coherent story, instead of simply spatially organizing chronology. No point in poeticizing the lot -- how to select out the telling details?

Or maybe they'll just stay a way of sequencing memories.

---L.

Back late last night (over 25 hours of travel) from two weeks in Switzerland and Germany for tourism and meeting the new nephew. Both parts were good: Basel, hiking in the Black Forest, a couple days in Freiburg and Munich, and a day-trip to Zug (*waves to mummo74*). Trip reading was Don Juan (I had Milton, but he wasn't ... Continental enough) plus Tim Powers' Declare. Language observation: it took a full week for the German-processing part of my brain to fully engage gears, at which point the clutch for Japanese slipped, and now needs a new pad.

No photos (we accidentally erased our camera near the end) and no trip poetry.

Or maybe I lie about that last. I did write down scattered details that may be the raw material for one. Or may be an early draft of a prose poem. Hard to tell.

( Cut for arty pretentiousness )

So has anything been happening in the greater world? Or on LJ?

(previous posts about the trip, which had been f-locked, are now public.)

Off to Switzerland next week, to meet the new nephew and others. I'm f-locking this and posts made on the road until our return.

Books: Even though this is a low-luggage trip, I'm allowing myself three reading volumes instead of two, because the Japanese grammar I want to review is a slim paperback (All About Particles, Naoko Chino). For poetry, I plan to risk Paradise Lost on the theory that if I can finally finish Aeneid, maybe I'll find PL readable if it's all I have on hand -- especially among the Alps. But I reserve the right to dither at the last minute and swap it for Don Juan plus a third-round draft pick. For fiction, I'm leaning towards Declare by Tim Powers. Plus of course my journal. And Lonely Planet, natch. Especially since part of our itinerary will be worked out upon arrival.

I'm a lot less panicked about preparations than I possibly ought to be, given that. And that I still need new walking shoes and a haircut.

At the moment, ash looks okay for the flight out, but the return is during one of BA's scheduled strikes. We'll see how long it takes us to get back home.

---L.