Standing on the Hands of Time

Standing on the Hands of Time
Originally uploaded by adraskoy

It's funny how your routine changes when you stop travelling. Not travelling means not blogging the trip. Hence the big gap in entries here. Now that I am missing travel, I remembered this blog.

So, I did in fact finish the trip. Vicenza was visually spectacular, and Mantua as well, though I've been there before. Somehow I missed this clock, though. Though its not as spectacular as the main one next to it, this one had the advantage of a pigeon posing on the hands. Obligingly in profile. I've come to really like this photo. My trip photos are available at flickr.com/photos/adraskoy It actually took me twice as long to go through them and process them as it did to take the trip in the first place.

Next up was Switzerland, visiting two of my favourite friends (are you allowed to have favourite friends???) Fiona and Marcus. A last visit to their sleepy little town at the bottom of the Alps, as they have now moved back to Germany. As always, it was simply a fun relaxing time with friends in a nice place. Epic journeys are nice, but relaxing with good friends for a week is a really welcome event as well!

On to London then, for two days at the very end of my adventure. This time staying with a friend I'd met again through sheer coincidence and trust of intuition on the first leg of the trip. Gemma and her friends showed me a side of London I didn't know about. They've turned their part of East London into a beautiful little community, in the human sense of the word. Great food, conversation, picnics in the sun, conversations with other friends met while wandering about. It was quite a lovely time. Best of all was the discovery of a common interest in singing, and a good bit of harmonizing around the kitchen table. Big cities don't generally interest me all that much, but I think I could happily live in that neighbourhood. I'd be the one wandering around imagining what it was like there hundreds of years ago and singing my way into the future-- or at least to the next gathering of friends.