Stuff!

Day 6 - Wednesday, 30 November 2011 - Tiergarten und Museum Insel

I don't know which surprises me most.  Is it the fact that there is a tractor parked in front of our hotel in the Hansaviertel?  Or is it that the tractor was built by Porsche?  Both are intriguing.

Arthur got up very early to catch a train to Köln, where he visited our last trip here, and wanted to go back for more.  Who can blame him - it's a delightful place.  I image that he'll especially go to the Kolumba, a very unusual museum there that seems to delight the both of us.  My plans were to go to Leipzig, however a long date with Mr. Sandman seems to have ruled that out, so I will do something else.  I go back to Kulturforum next to Potsdamer Platz, and on the way look to see if I can find the restaurant there that I went to with Günter and Franziska.  It was in an older building (something quite unusual for Potsdamer Platz) however I couldn't find it, although I did find a fine older building wrapped up protectively by newer stuff.

Moving through the Weinachtsmarkt, I make my way over to the Gamäldegalerie, which we visited yesterday.  I had an early lunch and then went over to the Kunstgewerbemuseum, to see their collection. It wasn't what I thought it would be, but it is a very fine collection of decorative arts.  There is a film on cabinets that are part automata, and part desks - it was fascinating.  There were secret doors, organs, theatre sets, doors within doors, all very inventive.  

What I began to wonder was, and I began this wondering at the GemäldegalerieI, where did all of this stuff come from?  With the division of the city at the end of World War II, all of the interesting collections were on the Russian side, the East.  Where did the West Berlin collections come from, as they struggled to build a cultural life in their island city during the cold war?  This I shall have spend some time researching.

Since we went together in 2009, and I didn't think that Arthur was ripe for another visit, I returned to the Alte Nationalgalerie.  It is like coming home for me, visiting old friends - friends that I didn't meet there but in books and encyclopaedias.  I started out by having coffee in the Café, and having a delightful conversation with a native of Berlin.  She wondered why I spoke German, and why I liked coming to Germany.  We talked of my parents, and their upbringing in Kansas and Colorado where German was the house-language, and how that was abandoned in the mid '20s.  She wondered why, and I responded that it was for "political" reasons.  We each had a glance of understanding - over, I think, a deep deep gulf that still exists.  Then we went on to talk about two of my favorite painters, Feuerbach and Böcklin. I ran into her later in the upper floors of the museum, and wished that we could have talked more.

Arnold Böcklin has been a favorite of mine since I read about him in a book called Dreamers of Decadence in the '70s.  It was filled with a number of symbolist painters, and he among a few others stood out for me.  There are several works by him there, but the Toteninsul - "Isle of the Dead" is the piece that has captured my imagination.

There are several versions of the painting, and there is another version that I like more.  This one, however, I could see in the canvas and oil.  It appeals to the introvert that I think I really am (in spite of my ENFP Myers-Briggs Type).  The quiet, the calm, and the stand of evergreen trees in the midst of the collection of graben speak to me in a very fundamental way.

His friend, Anselm Feuerbach, is also in evidence in the museum.  They share a corner of the gallery with a few others.  Feuerbach is not as dark as is Böcklin, but they all share classical qualities that I find quite handsome.  I wonder if I could have lived in their world?  Or was it a world of privilege that would have not been available, either materially or intellectually.  How stimulating it is, however, to look back and admire.

It is a short distance over to Hackescher Markt, so I go their and find a nice little Italian restaurant (I have had my fill of schnitzel) so some vitello tonnato does quite nicely.  On my way back, I stop off at the Hauptbahnhof and buy a ticket for Leipzig.  I do this at a kiosk, which asks me all kinds of questions: when am I traveling, when do I want to depart, when do I want to return, if I stay over in Lutherstadt - Wittenburg how long will I be there?  When I finally print the ticket, it is generic - good until 2013!

All of this stuff!  Time for bed.

My Life!

Day 4 - 29 November 2011 - Berlin, Tiergarten

Yesterday, we walked from the KPM site to the Gropius site by way of the Tiergarten.  Today we're taking the S Bahn to Potsdamer Platz.  The goal is to see the cultural institutions in the Tiergarten that we have somehow avoided in past visits.  We're off to the Neue Nationalgalerie which is ensconsed in a wonderful building by Mies Van der Rohe.  There are two exhibitions that we want to see.  The first is called Der geteilte Himmel (A divided Heaven) a look at the painting of East and West Germany immediately following the war, and the decades following.  The second is "A Living Man Declared Dead and other Chapters" by Taryn Simon.

We start with the first, because we're not so certain that we want to see the second.  What a disturbing exhibition this is!

The eastern group seems to offer a dim vision, as Wilhelm Lachnit's Gleiderpuppe well shows.  People seem to be operating as automata as they relate to the things (the good things) of ordinary life.  A more direct view, and one that condemns is Werner Tübke's Lebenserinnerungen des Dr. jur. Schulze (III) (The Life Memories of Judge Schulze).

Here the artist places blame and demands answers from those in the position to have done better under the Third Reich.  In contrast, the material from the West is like a dream - a dream of denial.  There is no angst and there are no questions.  Everything seems to be pastel and promising.  From this point on, however, it was I who was in a bit of denial.  It came round to me with this painting by Victor Vasarely.

Did I like this at one time?   Did I think that Josef Alber's would grow into this, or that Chuck Close would benefit from it?  There were several artists represented who I really liked, Francis Bacon, Adolf Gottlieb, and others.  There was however, a lot of stuff that seemed vapid now.  One room was dominated by a screening of The Yellow Submarine by the Beatles.  I realized as I looked at all this stuff that this was my life.  This represented the decades of my living and breathing - and it didn't feel good.


A wonderful Loozy Kirsche Nektar cooled me down.


Upstairs, at Taryn Simon's photo essay, "A Living Man..." things were different.  Here were several chapters, each about an individual, pictured with his or her bloodline (I'm not counting the one about the rabbits), which document oddities, realities, and tragedies that surround all of us who live.  It really brought me back to earth.  Pictures, text, and further notes submerse the viewer into another life.  It is a view that serves as contrast to one's own, and gives a sense of balance (thank you Moholy-Nagy) in living.  


We then wandered over to the Gemäldegalerie right next door, sort of.  Here was everything that I sort of revel in, especially stuff like Jean Fouquet's "Estienne Chevalier with Saint Stephen".  

Ever since it graced the cover of a new translation of Jan Huizinga's The Waning of the Middle Ages, I have admired this picture, and here it was.  The remainder, however, left me behind.  I was still in the funk of a "Divided Heaven".  I had to sit and think about it a bit.  Part of me was disappointed because I thought this gallery had a collection of Otto Dix, Max Beckmann, Georg Groß, and the like.  Not so.

Life comes rushing in as we make our way back to Sony Center.  And as if to top it with whipped cream with a cherry on top we go to KaDeWe where I buy a T Shirt, and we have dinner.  Back to reality.

Purity and Mammon

Day 3, 28 November 2011

There is the usual breakfast, and our destination is only a couple of blocks away.  A little explanation must be made.  We are going to see the Königliche Porzellan-Manufaktur (KPM) in Berlin.  We first became aware of this institution when we saw some remarkable dishes in a now defunkt shop in San Francisco.  The design of the dishes was very simple with the exception of a bisque medallion of a classical theme.  The pieces were both stunning and excrutiatingly expensive.  That's the only reason we didn't buy any - then.  When I was in Berlin in 2004(?), I purchased a chocolate set for Arthur.

Now we wanted to see where this stuff had been made, and who had designed it.  We wandered through their galleries, which educated the visitor about how porcelain had come to Europe and the difficulty of its manufacture; along with the history of design.  Our pieces had been affixed to a pattern by Trudi Petri with medallions by Siegmund Schütz.  Several things came to mind as we looked at past and present work by KPM.  Many of the artists of the last century came to work for the concern around 1937, when their teaching posts were "terminated".  My mind quickly leapt to the Bauhaus dissolution, first in Dessau and then, finally in a converted warehouse in Berlin, where both students and teachers were arrested.

The other aspect of being here was to be close to all the artists who had worked here.  Some 150,000 moulds and pieces are archived, representing the work of the firm for over 200 years.  All those people, and the delicacy of their work, not only produced everyday wear, but to some extent a history of the national time.  We would bump into some of them later.  Until then, however, we browsed the shops, still found everything too costly, and retreated to the Café where I had a wonderful hot chocolate that was not unlike the Spanish chocolate that those people dip their churros in.  

Our next goal was the Bauhaus Archiv, a museum, educational institution, and center for all things Bauhaus.  The building is based on plans by Walter Gropius, and the long walkway, which you see above, takes you from the far end of the site on Klingelhöferstaße, through the gardens, into the midst of the buildings, and then curves around into the court that allows you to enter a very simple entrance into the complex.  A sign explains that the journey is a "glimpse of eternity", the eternity that is known in an augenblick - a moment.  That sentiment has summed up the day, so far, as we journeyed from the luxurious and the historical, to the simple and influential.

There were two installations to be seen: 1) the collection of Bauhaus materials (of all sorts) and 2) a proposal by Gropius for a Stadtkrone an acropolis at the city of Halle.  The materials are stunning.  After a group of chairs and furniture that show the influence of the group (Tom Wolfe once said that any aspiring architect, designer, painter, printer, or sculptor longed to own at least one Wassily Chair.

I know, I bought one.  There was stuff their that I knew from living in an Eero Saarinen environment during my college days.  Most moving was a couple of samples from László Moholy-Nagy's "first course" that every student had to take.  Using basic materials: cardboard, wood, tin or brass, wire, string, and other basic materials, students were required to make something "elemental". I wondered, who starts at the very beginning any more?  Preachers can't read Greek or Hebrew, accountants know nothing of Babylonian records, and painters can't draw.  I wonder what it would be like if we all somehow got back to the basics?  Perhaps that is the Lutheran remaining in my soul.  Perhaps this longing is too naïve.

Konstruction - László Moholy-Nagy

This painting, Konstruction, seems to say it all.  The assemblage that bisects the field in both directions, seems balanced and satisfying.  However, floating near by, in a reflected manner, the whole composition drifts, mirrors the balance, but is something different.  It's almost Platonic in its meaning, and it seemed to symbolize for me the remainder of the collection.  A balance was being sought in the textiles, photography (which Nagy introduced into the curriculum), the metal and wood work, and above all the architectural work - from the Barcelona Pavilion to the Red House.  It seems to be a balance that today's architecture has difficulty in approaching, let alone achieving.  A good book, if you're interested, is Nicholas Fox Weber's The Bauhaus Group - Six Master's of Modernism.

Lunch and the Gropius, which was both forward looking, especially in comparison with the other submissions, and then a look at the shop.  I'm tired, so we go back for a bit of a nap, and then off to the Universität de Kunst for a trumpet concert by students.  Uneven, but pleasant.  Dinner at Faustus near Wittenberger Platz, and then home.

Searching for Advent

Day 2 - Berlin, 27 November 2011

We get up later than we thought.  I had hoped we could somehow get out to Saint George's Church, somewhere in Charottenburg, but that was not to be.  There is breakfast in the breakfast room with all the usual characters.  I think that this is the first First Sunday in Advent that I will have missed either attending or celebrating the Liturgy in a long, long time.  God is merciful, however.  After the quiet breakfast we make our way down to Kurfurstendamm, and run into the Weinachtsmarkt at Kaiser Wilhelm Gedachtniskirche.  It is completely surrounded, and after spending a few moments in the church itself, found ourselves best by either Curry Wurst, or Trockene Früchte.  Mammon, we are here.

KaDaWe is righteously closed, so our visions of their food hall are quickly cooled.  Some orientation is needed.  We get on the S Bahn, and take the clock-wise circular route around the northern half of the city.  So much can be seen from this vantage point from the port facilities at Westhafen, to the abandoned buildings still in shell-shock after the war.  It shows another side of things, reminding us that things are still in transition.  We end up at Frankfurter Tor, and then train in to Alexander Platz.  Our goal is to be somewhere near Nikolaikirche for an Advent concert that late afternoon.  It is very cold, and all of the attention seems to be given to the Glühwein booths at the markets.  They are crowded, and the crowds are being regaled with Christmas music in English.  It's difficult to bear, so we make our way over to the Nikolaiviertel.  In search of lunch.  It is found in a small place, where tables are shared, and a good goulaschsuppe was to be had.

It's still not anywhere near 16:00, so we do some more walking, noting to historic plaques documenting anti-Jewish pograms in the 16th Century.  They are very difficult to read or to understand.  We find a little tea shop and have a Johannisbeerkuchen, and then go stand in line at Nikolaikirche.

Destroyed in the second world war, and now a part of the Berlin Museum, this old church has a remarkable acoustic, and a wonderful altar area in which the baroque elements are hung about where the altar was and is no more.  This is where I hope to find Advent.  We purchase tickets and sit under the pulpit in the nave.  The singers file in and begin with Conditor alme siderum.  I think of my dad, and tear up a bit - he would have loved this.

Twenty-five percent of the program is Advent hymns, with the remaining parts organ works (Reger and Bach) and Christmas fare.  At the end, however, the conductor invites us all to sing with the chorus in the Advent hymn Macht hoch die Tor.  It is here that Advent happened, at least for me, as I heard the entire audience with out the benefit of a hymnbook, belt out this wonderful hymn - three verses from memory.  When Jesus comes again in glory, the faithful may have some difficulty in remembering him.  They will however remember the hymns that served as the core (bad pun: chor) of their faith.

Dinner at Giraffe in the Hansaviertel near our Hotel (Rote grütze mit Vanilliensause).  Now I can rest.

Germany in Winter - 2011

Day 1 – 25 November 2011

We’re in Austin, finishing up a delightful visit with Arthur’s family.  There have been dinners with Patty and Dan, with Big Art and Marji, along with Arthur’s brother, Tim.  The children have all grown up and are either in their last years of high school, or are almost completing college.  Relating to them is new and different, and quite satisfying. 

Our time here has been in awe of what has happened because of the drought in the area, with vast areas of the lake dry, and cliffs suddenly rearing their stone walls over a smaller lake.  Yet, the night sky is still lovely, with a desert quiet, and the almost iridescent blues and purples of a late evening sky.

On Friday morning, at 6:00, Patty drives us to the airport, where we worry about making it back to SFO for a 2:30 flight to Frankfurt, Germany.  She gets us there swiftly and safely.  The actual flight is a fog of sleep and breakfast, and soon, we are home to change luggage and refresh ourselves a bit.

I use “Taxi Magic” (taximagic.com) to summon a new cab, and soon we’re off to SFO for our flight to Frankfurt.  We check in quickly, and go through security, and have lunch in the Terminal, spend some time in the lounge (which we find disappointing), and soon we’re on the flight, playing with our chairs, the visual system, and the other oddities of the plane.  There is dinner and then sleep. (The chair moves to lie flat so that there can indeed be genuine sleep.) Oblivion.

Day 2 – 26 November 2011

I wake up over the Hebrides, but there is heavy cloud cover, so there is nothing to be seen other than white as we passover Amsterdam and Köln.  There are bits of green down there, but you can tell it will be cold.  There is a nice breakfast, efficiently served, and then we are quick to land at Frankfurt, one of the most improved airports I’ve ever experienced.  No, really!

We have three hours to kill, so we go to the lounge, and catch up electronically with the world left behind.  The fellow travelers are as diverse as ever, and capture our imaginations as they pass through and go on.  We attempt shopping, but there’s not much happening around us, so we go to our gate and wait.  The trip is short, and the cloud cover is still with us.  Landing at Tegel, one has no idea of the size of the city that lies to the southeast of the airport.  The baggage comes later than I thought it would, however at least it is there.  We taxi to Hotel Hansablik, and immediately enjoy our small room overlooking the Spree River.

We take an S Bahn over to Hackesche Höfe, and are immediately surrounded by one of the Weinachtsmarkt, that we have come to see.  We wander through the booths, guided only by our hunger and the cold.  Soon we have dinner (I thought the waitress said Gänse (Goose), but it was actually ganze (whole, entire, as in fish).  It was very good, but not what I was expecting.  S Bahn back, and then to sleep.

A Circuit of Time - 29 August 2011

A Visit with Anna

I am, for the first time in my life, alone in Alma, Kansas.  It is a small village some 40 miles west of Topeka the State Capitol, and is itself the county seat of Wabaunsee County, Kansas.  It is where my mother was born, and it is a place that we visited faithfully as children, journeying either from another part of Kansas, or Monte Vista, or Denver, Colorado, or from either Sante Fé, or Albuquerque, New Mexico.  We would come to see my grandmother, Augusta Ringel Terrass (Gusti), or my grandfather, William Terrass, staying in the home he built and eating the produce that my grandmother faithfully grew in the large lot next to and behind their home.  Visits there were always replete with aunts, uncles, cousins, great aunts and uncles, and other assorted relatives.  Alma was about people, family, and food.  Now I was here alone.  The sidewalk pictured above seem to represent my feeling about being here - a path, guided and certain that ends in freedom and something new.

  

Column at Alma City Hall

I came over to Alma in the morning to have breakfast at "Deb's Cafe" (you don't want to know) which was filled with sun and wind-burned farmers have their "regular" and families entertaining a visiting family members from other parts - catching up on who had died and who was sick.  I thought back on our own gatherings at this cafe at my Aunt Lola's funeral, and somewhat later at my Uncle Edgar's funeral as well.  We would have been doing the same thing.  Catching up, hearing intimate news.  

I wanted to wander around the business area, looking at the wonderful stonework, largely fashioned from the native limestone that lurks just below the rocky soil that covers the hills here.  

Western Window at St. Johns

St. John's Lutheran Church would be an important visit as well, filled with memories of earlier visits and of my own mother's history here.  There were the windows that fascinated me as a child, when I looked at the semicircle of orange in the arch of each window and imagined that it was an orange.  Or there was the organ chamber that my father would open up and lift us into - playing "Ein feste Burg" as loudly as possible.  We loved it.  I remember especially the fans that were given out in the summer time - which would open up into a full representation of the Last Supper or the Good Shepherd.  None were in evidence this morning.  The mechanical carillon rang out the quarter hour as I left Saint John's and walked over to the adjoining Holy Family Catholic Church, smaller, but older, and built with the same stone.  It was locked.  

Wabaunsee County Courthouse

I walked across the street to look at the courthouse, having never done so in the past.  It's a handsome building, actually, appearing to have been created sometime in the thirties, judging from the architecture. I came upon a balcony, window and deco panel - the balcony at least worthy of an Albert Speer.

At this point I became acutely aware of being alone, and crowded in by so many memories.  I needed to visit the cemetery - a short ride west of town, and up the hill.  There are four parts: The Alma Cemetery, the Holy Family Cemetery, the Saint John Lutheran Cemetery (in two parts), and the Peace UCC Cemetary.  The names, however, are all mostly German: Diepenbrok, Zeckser, Steuwe, and so on.  There they all were, all of those uncles and aunts.  

I tried to find my Uncle Edgar and Uncle Milford's (Jiggs') graves, however they eluded me.  I did leave some memorial rocks on the tombstone of my grandmother and grandfather which presides over the burial place of two lost children.  The birds were singing, the breeze was strong, and the grass was swaying.  I looked for some cedar arches (a series of pairs of trees that had been bound together to produces arches) but they had broken loose and were now free.  Sitting just to the left of them was my Aunt Lola's tombstone.

The freed cedars

I must make one quick visit before I leave.  I go to the Alma Creamery and buy the cheese that my mother will be expecting to receive when I return home.  She likes the cured curds and that is what I buy as the desk clerk wonders who I am and then discovers that she knows most of my family.  There is a quick drive by the house that my Great Uncle Jake and Great Aunt Pauline lived in, directly across the street from the house that my Grandfather built, now so altered that the only recognizable aspect is the leaded glass window that rides above the living room window.

The Great Prairie

On the way back I stop off at an overlook that allows one to see the great prairie stretching toward west, the old limestone hills giving way to flat grasslands to extend into Colorado.  It is quite awesome, this display, dappled with thistle, sunflowers, and Queen Anne's lace.  Once these lands covered all of the Midwest, beginning in Michigan.  It was only that limestone in Kansas, the remains of a "great inland sea" as every national park will tell you, that broke the plow and saved the grasslands.  

Anna meets me, and we go have lunch - lots of talk about her new position, the classes, the students, the colleagues.  Then we're off to see her new home, still being slowly settled and organized, but it is a home, a cozy one at that.

There are, of course, books everywhere, a nice room downstairs for crafts, a dining room, and a kitchen where things are actually happening.  It was very satisfying to me.  

It was time, however, to see the campus and the buildings there - offices and classrooms that were now a part of her life.  And there was more limestone, and more carving.  I had wanted to drive over to Wamego to see their limestone buildings again, but it was more important to talk and be together, and soon I would discover beautiful carvings on Anna's campus.

Carving at K State

KSAC - Kansas State Agricultural College - caught in the 19th Century craftsmanship

1878

The campus is restful and quiet, full of trees and lots of green grass.  A nice spaziergang was just the order of the day, before heading off to dinner.  I was amazed, that this land, which gave birth to my forbears and to my mother, would now be a part of my daughter's future.  A circle of time coming back in on itself.  I was reminded of the passage in Hebrews (12:1):

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us rid ourselves of every burden that clings to us, and persevere in running the race that lies before us."

Sunflower detail at Tad's

The photo above is a stone sunflower that graces the building that used to house Tad's Barber Shop.  My father would take me there as a kid, and now I come back to it to behold its beauty.  The sunflower, which finds its way on the side of the roads here, lends beauty and a story to this land.  Its circle of yellow, and its perfection of that orbit reminds me that my past and my daughter's future are somehow tied to the same land - a land that will give nourishment and perspective, and that will release her to be nourishment and a future to others.  It is the perfect closing symbol.

What a wonderful day this has been!

Köln - Thursday, 28 July 2011

Es tut mir leid!

It is my last half day - I shall have to get back to London to catch my flight to SFO tomorrow morning.  I have a couple of things to do before I go, however.  I grab breakfast at Hotel Domstern, and then go out to take a couple of exterior shots at the Dom.  My real intent is to find my way over to Antoninkirche so that I can see the Barlach Engel.  On the way, I stop at Kolumba, one last time for a couple of photographs, and a moment in the chapel, and then make my way over to the other church.  As I approach it, I get a very bad feeling.  It is Evangelisch, and likely to be locked.  

Pentecost Door at Antonio

I am right.  The doors are locked tighter than a drum - I try each one but to no avail.  I read every bulletin and announcement, and it looks like Sundays only.  In the courtyard a gentleman is closing the door.  I ask him when the Church is open, "Nur am Samstag" is the reply.  I tell him that I had hoped to see the angel (hoping he would let me in for just a couple of minutes.  "Nein, es tut mir leid" (No, I'm sorry) "Schade" (Too bad), I reply, and he says "Bitteschön!" (You're welcome!).

Every Lutheran Church that I have seen in Köln has been closed, and uninviting.  Every Catholic Church has been open and quite welcoming.  I should talk, my own church is closed, except for mid-day Mass during the week.  This will make me think a bit.  It appears that the Evangelical Church has a huge restaurant - information center that surrounds the church on two sides.  Coffee? Yes!  Art and Prayer? No?  I am disappointed.  So I wander away, hoping that something else will come up.

Pyx at Apostelnkloister

And indeed it does, as I wander away from the closed church, I see a familiar profile up ahead.  It is Apostelnkloister,  a Romanesque Church of great beauty.  It is open, and once inside, a gentleman comes up to me and allows me to wander and take photos.  There is a remarkable hanging pyx above the altar.  I have read and seen photos of such things, and always wanted to see one in use.  A pyx is a vessel for holding the consecrated host (the box being held in the claws of the dove).  It is quite beautiful, along with the other furnishings.  Heavily bombed in the IInd World War, it is heavily rebuilt with new windows, some doors, and vault and ceiling frescoes.  God has given me something else other than the Engel, and I am grateful.

Mariahimmelfahrt

I've been walking too much, so I find a place for a macchiato and two thumbprint cookies, made with marzipan, however.  I sit and relax and watch the world walk by.  There are (and have been) lots of men walking their dogs - eye candy.  I wander around looking for a Süßwarenladen where I might find some marzipan fruits for Mom.  None are to be found.  I am going to have to rely on the store at the Hbf, or at the Flughafen.  I am on a mission, however.  I want to go back to Egino Weinhert's studio and store next to the Erzbischofsvikariat, near the train station.  He is the artist that is responsible for a great deal of the metal work that I have been seeing.  In the studio it is all lying around, like so much hardware - but such beautiful hardware. Yesterday I saw an aspergillum that was afordable and a good example of the metal work of which I have been bragging in these posts.  Now it is mine, my souvenir of a wonderful trip to Köln.

I go back to the hotel and prepare to check out.  It is an ugly day in Köln, with thunder and lightening.  I really enjoyed the Hotel Domstern - the hosts are really quite nice.  I lug my stuff to the Hbf, buy a ticket (getting here it was €8,60, and the return was only €2,50).  I get there quickly and with no hassles - why can't we do this in America?  There lunch and then waiting for Passport Control to get there, and finally we board.  Once again the Channel is covered over by clouds, but as we approach the mouth of the Thames, it clears off.  We streak over Eton and Windsor, and I crash at a Holiday Inn.  It was just a few days - but it was utterly refreshing.