Jan 2004
Dear Patient Readers,
Having read far too much Hemingway in the last few months, and wanting a break from Germany:
It was dark, foggy and cold as the night train pulled out of the Leipzig station just after Christmas. I had a tiny bed in a sleeping compartment and quickly fell asleep; a half-sleep, dreaming and half-waking at various stops, until arriving in Munich just before dawn. Enough time for a quick coffee (which I notice tastes better the further south one travels in Europe!) and then settled into the train to Italy. Passing through the grey Alps, watching as a wintry light slowly increased and then emerging into warm valleys, made me realise that if I´d flown I would have missed far too much. To fly would have been cheaper and much faster (but...!)
Shortly after midday I was in Venice. The fabled, faded and fabulous Venice: every bit what the books and films and music and works of art pay homage to. Everything you heard is true, but you can´t realise what it means until you go there!
Still, I only had a few days, so with a cheap hotel sorted in 10 minutes, I was off to explore...and photograph of course. And I did - cliches galore but it doesn't matter - you could spend days in one tiny alley or canal or plaza/piazza/piazzola (whatever they call them) or on a bridge, just watching. It even crossed my mind that this was a place that could be photographed in colour! ...so shocked I immediately rushed into Harry´s Bar for a mind numbing martini. Just kidding about the drink - you need a wad of notes for a drink in some of the bars here, but I did allow myself a couple of espressos in the Gritti Palace bar where EH stayed and set "Across the River and into the Trees".
However, I managed to leave the sinking city as reluctantly but in somewhat better condition than his autobiographical character and arrive back "home" in time to celebrate New Year in the usual mad German style...back to the classrooms, and late sessions in darkrooms; but I bet Papa Ernest would never in his darkest hour have stooped to write postcards from a McDonalds in a dead industrial suburb...and then ride a bike home in the icy drizzle at 2 o´clock in the morning...!
Naja, so ist das Leben.
Dean