I just realized, as I gazed wistfully at the Patagonian moon, that in the last three months I’ve been on three different continents. The two trips that preceded this one were:
Stockholm. The most expensive city in Europe, I believe. Even the cheapest-looking restaurants are just that: cheap looking. But you won’t get much change out of your month’s salary if you have anything more than bread and water. Admittedly the bread was fantastic... Almost as fantastic, but a definite tourist trap, was the Absolut Ice Bar - essentially a room that has been turned into a large fridge, into which they have fit a fairly standard-sized bar. It’s so cold that they give you protective clothing to wear and limit you to some small number of minutes. Not because they’re afraid that any harm will come to you, but to save the ice inside from melting from all that body heat... So the idea is you go in and marvel at the ice walls, the ice bar, the ice bench, the ice table, and the ice sculpture, and you then down a vodka that’s so sweet it makes a sugar cube taste bitter by comparison, and you then leave. The sugar, apparently, is to help you burn up the required calories with which to keep the frostbite at bay. I can attest to the cold, and the fact that if you do attempt to lick the walls your tongue will stick... Overall, the trip (to attend a conference) was worthwhile. Largely due to a couple of friends whom I went with, and various others whom I met over there. It’s just a shame that it cleaned me out financially.
Philadelphia. I went to the USA’s historical heartland to set up a collaborative project with a group there that do neuroimaging (brain scans, for any reader fortunate enough not to be an academic). The folk there were fantastically nice. Made me feel incredibly welcome. I guess they took pity on the visiting Brit who knew nothing about neuroimaging and had a bewildered look on his face most of the time... so the combination of friendliness and patience was much appreciated, as was the visit to the Barnes Foundation, which is an astonishing and unexpected place. The night that I arrived, I got off the plane, found my hotel, and made my way around the corner to a bar called Tria - the place for cheese and beer in Philadelphia. It was so noisy, full, and exhilarating that I barely stood out as the oldest person there by a decade or two. I did try my best to hide the fact that I couldn’t read the dimly illuminated menu without my reading glasses... but I failed miserably when it came to reading the bill... or rather not being able to read it. Or the pin machine that was thrust at me after I handed over my credit card. Someone recently told me that the best thing about reaching 50 (I’m not quite there yet) is that one ceases to care about such things. Yeah, right... The other thing I failed at, apparently, was being sociable.THE thing to do, I’m told, is to sit at the bar and just start chatting to whoever is sat next to you. I’m just too shy to risk anything as exciting as that. I also discovered on this trip, around a further corner just off Rittenhouse Square, the best café on the American continent: La Colombe. They don’t do sandwiches, or toasties, or fruit yoghurts drizzled on a bed of cereal and salad leaves... they just do coffee. Cappuccino to rival any cappuccino in Southern Italy. And the effortless way in which artistic patterns were poured into the froth was inspiring. So much so that I tried it myself when I got back home. It worked a treat - artistic patterns were poured, by an excited me, onto my coffee, the surrounding counter, and a substantial portion of the floor. Probably I shouldn’t have been quite so optimistic that anyone without years of experience could so instantly ascend to the level of a black belt barrista...
And now I am in Argentina, where I have been for the past two weeks. Next week I fly off again, after a day and a half in the UK, to Turkey for a week’s holiday with my kids (and most definitely without the journal). A couple of weeks later, I’m off to a conference in Barcelona. And then I’ll have an only-slightly interrupted 4 weeks before flying back to Washington. Maybe I’ll make a small detour and drop by La Colombe again...
