Summer Courses at City Lit & ‘Humumentizing’

This summer I’m pleased to be part of the extension of courses at City Lit reaching into the field of science. City Lit is London’s centre for adult learning, offering part-time and short courses in a huge range of fields.

In July, I’ll be leading an exploration into ‘London’s Curiosity Cabinets’ as well as offering a Medical Humanities course.

More here on London’s Curiosity Cabinets.

More here on Medical Humanities.

These courses are for anyone, though I would especially encourage those in the medical profession to take a look at the Medical Humanities course.

I’m also pleased to note that the Public Astronomer at the Royal Observatory Greenwich, Dr Marek Kukula, is going to be running a summer course on astronomy, and Wellcome Trust Public Engagement Fellow, medical historian Dr Richard Barnett, will be giving guided walks & lectures on the history of medicine in London. Go to City Lit Courses and click on the ‘Science and Nature’ section for more.

I’d like to flag up a rewarding outcome of recent Medical Humanities teaching: For the third year in a row, I was invited by Giskin Day, course co-ordinator for Imperial College London’s Medical Humanities, to give a workshop on poetry and medicine to medical students. For part of the afternoon, I introduced them to the marvellous, unique book – what I would call an art book - A Humument, by Tom Phillips. There is an excellent review of it here: ‘Double Act’ by Adam Smyth, LRB Oct 2012.

So far, I’ve found students really enjoy being introduced to and creating projects using the idea of A Humument; my Global Health students also responded enthusiastically to it this year. In fact, it’s become a verb: we ‘Humumentize’ a piece of writing that is medically relevant, combining the art of Phillips’s ‘Humumentizing’ his selected novel (A Human Document, from whence the title ‘Humument’ comes,) with the medicine of a medical text. With Giskin’s class, we used extracts from Gray’s Anatomy, including images.

Imperial College London Medical Humanities students at the 2013 International Symposium on Poetry & Medicine, London. Students: K. Bettany, R. Davies, P. Davis, C. Kowa, J. Lee, Z. Tai

A group of students from the class then decided to take pieces from The Francis Inquiry (an essential and  harrowing report on the failing of care in the Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust – I recommend the video on the above link,) to create ‘Carers or Criminals? The Francis Inquiry in Humuments,’ which they presented as a poster at the 2013 International Symposium on Poetry & Medicine.

They said that by focussing closely on selected elements of the text, and ‘pulling out’ (or ‘excavating,’ as Phillips says, like a geologist or sculptor,) fragments of text that stood out to them, they were able to interpret the writing in a way that they hoped brought out the essence, or most important, or most poignant parts, of it. I pointed out how this act – shaving away all the words they felt were not absolutely necessary – was a type of poetry, and one of the students called it ‘found poetry’.

The students also mis-interpreted something in a very positive way: referencing the original title of Phillips’s treated novel (A Human Document,) these Medical Humanities students felt they were ‘discovering’ the ‘human documents’ within the Francis Inquiry: the human stories, and stories of humanity, that otherwise might have been lost amidst a sea of mistakes and pain in danger of blending into one anonymous voice of discontent.

This is a rewarding outcome and encouraging early experience in my teaching, and I’m  proud of the students for their creative thinking and work. It is important to remember that any text we take up and ‘treat’ must be respected and that its original intent not be lost, but I think that ‘Humumentizing’ a work can allow all of us to shed new and important light on something that might be dense, technical, or difficult to approach in the traditional manner. It is also creative and fun, and these aren’t elements to be cast aside lightly – the students working on this project will always think of The Francis Inquiry in a uniquely critical way. Well done.

Forthcoming, Autumn 2013…

Forthcoming collection of poems by the Nevada Street Poets. Cover photo by Marcos Avlonitis. Illustrations by Cassie Herschel-Shorland. Published by Valley Press. Introduction by Don Paterson.

A pocket horizon is an instrument used for navigation: a small, smooth, darkened glass providing a reflective surface from which to take bearings with a sextant, when one’s view at sea is shrouded in fog or mist, or when the true horizon cannot be seen.  In Pocket Horizon, an array of objects drawn from the collections of the Whipple Museum in Cambridge and Wellcome Collection in London serve as points of navigation for the Nevada Street Poets.  Pieces from a Masterclass with leading poet Don Paterson developed into the poems collected here.

Along the way, we glimpse stories and histories of models varied as horses’ teeth and a clockwork orrery depicting the universe. There are fragile, hand-made glass fungi, and the glass prism used by Newton in his ‘Crucial Experiment’. A parade of amputees marches the reader past a case full of artificial limbs, as one of the first clocks in Britain tolls the hour. A wave machine immerses us in the currents of human love, and votive models murmur questions from the past. Each poem is paired with artwork by Cassie Herschel-Shorland. Pocket Horizon is a book of excursions into the human mind and body, and the story of the world we feel compelled to map.

Cambs 24 Interview

You know how author photos are always about 20 years old? And then you meet the person and it’s kind of odd? This is a recent photo for my Templar poetry pamphlet, Opera di Cera.

I was recently contacted by Leanne Moden, writer for Cambs 24.

Her blog focuses on ‘those passionate about poetry and fiction in the East Cambridgeshire Area,’ and some of my work has been based in Cambridge.

Leanne was enthusiastic about hearing details of all my latest projects, Cambridge-based or not, including poetry pamphlets Pocket Horizon  (forthcoming, Valley Press, 2013) and Opera di Cera (forthcoming, Templar Poetry, 2013).

It also turned out to be a rather sweeping tale of my work to date, and where all of this writing, teaching, and coordinating might be heading…

Read the interview here.

The ‘Kelley’ Scarf by Badaude for Age of Reason Studios

Have a look at the first piece of fashion I’ve directly inspired!

Badaude is doing a giveaway for the small version of this beautiful silk scarf on her website, and explains more about the work here.

I write about the origins of the scarf design, and my role as muse, in my work-in-progress, The Naked Muse, a non-fiction memoir about my experiences as an artist’s model.

Modelling the ‘Kelley Scarf’ by Badaude.

Where Rockets Burn Through

Available now!

I’m delighted to announce the publication of Where Rockets Burn Through: Contemporary Science Fiction Poems from the UK, edited by Russell Jones.

I’m glad to say that myself and a number of poetry friends have poems in this anthology, which is published by Penned in the Margins.

‘Blasting into the future, across alien worlds and distant galaxies, fantastic technologies and potential threats to humanity, Where Rockets Burn Through brings science fiction and poetry together in one explosive, genre-busting collection.

Discover an array of poems by more than forty contemporary UK writers, including Edwin Morgan, Jane Yolen, Ron Butlin, WN Herbert, Ken MacLeod and Kirsten Irving, plus an exclusive essay on Sci-fi poetry by Steve Sneyd.’

This is full of a wonderful range of work, and being a contributor has helped open my mind up to what Sci-fi means. The pieces I have in the collection are what I might think of as astronomically-inspired poems, whilst other contributions are ethereal, abstract, or eerie.

It’s grand to be in an anthology with pieces by Edwin Morgan. One of my favourite poems is ‘The Loch Ness Monster’s Song’, which I’ve heard performed to perfection by Dr John Holmes, author of Darwin’s Bards.

Week one at the Atelier

Gate to the Flemish Classical Atelier.

Last Friday, I took my first journey on the Eurostar to Brussels, and made the short connection to Bruges. I’ve settled in to my somewhat quirky guest house (described as ‘bohemian’ by a friend,) and I’ve worked for one week so far as a model for the Flemish Classical Atelier down the road. The gig is for the month of June.

We’ve fixed on a pose that may last the entire month: I’m seated, with a robe just off of my shoulders, my hands holding it closed in front of me, my back supported by the chair. It is comfortable but not so comfortable that I’m struggling to stay awake (except for that time about half an hour after I eat lunch…)

Building which is home to the Atelier.

There are six students in the class, one of whom organises the Atelier. There is a guest artist who is teaching the class, William Whitaker – Bill. He’s an absolutely lovely guy, and sets the tone for the rest of us; I must say this is an exceptionally pleasant group – polite, mostly laid-back, fairly quiet. Diverse enough to be interesting but also comfortable hanging out together or doing what we’d like on our own. It’s quite peaceful so far.

Over the first few days – half of Saturday and all of Sunday – everyone was settling in, setting things up, running back and forth to the art shop down the road, and discussing poses with me.

I spent Sunday modelling nude, but the studio was (is) freezing and the space heaters simply weren’t enough of a heat source in the huge, dark room. I was exhausted.

The pose.

We scrapped that idea and set me up with an electric blanket! Thank goodness. Bill emphasised right away that I had to be comfortable and warm, for my own sake, and also because they can’t have their model catching pneumonia.

I feel cared for in a way that a precious commodity might be handled. ‘Get some rest’ is a phrase I hear quite a bit. ‘Bill wouldn’t want you to be tired.’

Bill discussing natural light: the key to painting like the Old Masters.

It feels odd to need to look after myself for my looks; to some extent, my brains probably don’t matter very much in this situation. That said, I’ve been able to have some excellent conversations with Bill and some of the students about their thoughts on art. My own knowledge (not about art, but about other things – like how theories of child development might have influenced 18th c paintings of baby Jesus) – is something I can keep to myself or share as I wish.

I’m writing many notes about this experience, and hope to shape it into a more formal non-fiction piece; hence my brevity here.

Work-in-progress by Laura Post.
http://laurapostart.com/

Today was my first day off, and I went to the Groening Museum, meeting Bill and his wife and a few of the students. It was excellent to go around and hear Bill’s thoughts on the paintings, especially his appreciation for Jan Van Eyck.

Afterwards, I went to lunch with a few of the students who’d joined us – there are six students of all ages; the youngest is 27, exactly my age, and the oldest are just about 50; we think Bill’s in his 70s. Oddly, everyone, from the woman who lives here and runs the Atelier, all but one student, Bill, and myself, is American. How did we end up in Bruges? One student is from Manchester, England. So, not a particularly exotic bunch, but friendly.

Work-in-progress by Leslie Duke.
http://www.lesliedukeart.com/

Bruges is a pocket-sized city, and fantastically walk-able, but tricky, too. I got completely lost this morning trying to find the Groening Museum, even though I’d walked there a few days before. I’ve spent my evenings going for wonderful long rambles, to stretch my legs and move, after sitting from 9 -12:30 in the morning and 2 – 5 in the afternoons. I sit in 20-minute blocks with 5-minute breaks.

It’s going well so far, and I think it’s important that I do yoga stretches between poses, and go for walks in the evenings. It stays light here until 10 or 11pm, so it feels like the afternoons are extraordinarily long.

Work-in-progress by Meghan Sours.
http://meghansours.com/

I’m hoping to learn Bruges well, and I’d been navigating confidently. I must look like a local because people keep asking me for directions if they’re tourists & speaking to me in Dutch if they’re locals.

The city must have felt I’d become overly confident, because I was about a block away from the museum this morning, walking all around it but not finding it, for nearly half an hour, with two different maps, ready to burst into tears. I think the city is a trickster like that, because I’ve noticed many lost-looking tourists and overheard not a few tense spats about directions. My evening walks are wonderful and stress-free, because Bruges works if you don’t need to strictly navigate it. Just walk, and you’ll end up where you’re going eventually. But if you try to navigate & need to be there at a certain time? Forget it. Thank goodness the Atelier is five minutes from my house!

Once I finally found the museum, I had a lovely day.

I’ve taken some photos of a few of the works-in-progress by some of the students/painters in the workshop. It’s amazing to see the variety of styles and the progress they’re making in even one week.

A Day with Peirene

On Friday 11 May, I trekked up to Crouch End Broadway for my first day of book-selling for Peirene Press. Lucky for me, it was a sunny day.

I first hiked to the far-flung reaches of North London (I live near Greenwich, so it really does seem far away,) to meet Meike, the publisher and mastermind behind this successful independent press which exclusively translates award-winning European fiction into English for the first time. On that afternoon a few weeks ago, it was cold and rainy, and after two and a half hours standing by the book-stall with Meike, I was absolutely frozen.

Undaunted, I resolved to carry out a full day of book-selling, not least because I love the concept behind Peirene – novellas (and one short story collection thus far) which can be read in the time it takes to watch a film.

The lovely Peirene Press books!

I was also pleased to no end, upon arranging the book-selling with Meike, when she sent me a copy of each of their books so I could read them (in order to talk about them, in order to enthuse about them) — and I absolutely love the books, which are dark & deeply intellectual, but quick reads. There is a lot to think about if you choose, but zippy stories are at the fore. Each book is very different from the next, and they vary in their origins – there are German, French, Catalan, and Danish texts. This is stuff that I admit I haven’t read much of, save Pushkin’s Eugine Onegin, (loved it,) and I quickly discovered two more presses whom I’m in love with, though Peirene gets credit for opening my mind to European literature.

Pushkin Press has a similar bent to Peirene – or perhaps I should say Peirene is like Pushkin, as Pushkin have been around longer. Pushkin Press produce deliciously pocket-sized books, or at least purse-sized books, translated from European literature. I just finished ‘Dying’ by Arthur Schnitzler. There’s a good review of it here. The story and characters ring absolutely true, emotionally. I spent the first half of the book slightly distracted by the fact that I was not convinced that Felix was actually dying, but it didn’t matter because the whole point was how his conviction that he is dying preys on his mind. The psychology and philosophy in this book is rich, and I want to come back to it. It would be a brilliant book to teach in a philosophy course, or a literature course.

Another press I’ve discovered, whose books I would like one copy of each (please. My birthday’s in January, for the record.) is Persephone Books. Meike has taken a cue from this successful press in setting up Peirene, and I feel like I’m getting to know, and help grow, something that will make a difference, and could last a long time. Creating a community of readers, creating beautiful books whose exteriors and interiors are treated with equal import – form and function, cover and contents. I want a book that will enlighten and transport me, and if I want to stroke it and sniff the pages, so much the better. Peirene’s doing that for me, and I’m so very excited to see where she goes next.

How best to arrange the books…

If that isn’t enough of a reading list for you (all books from Peirene, Persephone, and Pushkin,) I’m going to try to refocus this post and talk a little bit about my day book-selling. It was absolutely lovely, a sunny day, with lots of people walking up and down the Broad Street. It was our first day trying a Friday – so far, the Roaming Store has only been out on Saturdays, so Meike was curious about how that might be different.

The morning was busy, and I set up the stall with great care, worrying that I might miss something (Meike wasn’t coming until the afternoon, when she’d stand in while I wen to get lunch). I set up the stall to my satisfaction, and then stood and smiled and wondered what would happen. I quickly realised that, as Meike had explained, we need to be active in talking to people, and drawing them in, but it is a delicate balance of noticing when a person is pausing or hesitating – when they are expressing an inkling of interest in the Stall (even if it is simply ‘what is this?’) that I step in and say, ‘Can I give you more information?’ ‘Have you heard of Peirene Press?’ or something similar.

I would say only two or three times in the entire day did I get a ‘no’ to one of those types of question, and even then, there were only maybe two grumpy people, so that was pretty good. The best times were engaging with chats with people, getting across the message about the books, and sharing my own enthusiasm and recommendations. There were a few exciting encounters where someone was already familiar with us and had read a lot of the books, and wanted to know when the next was coming out, or had read about us online and wanted to know more. And I did sell books!

I was on my feet the whole day, but buoyed up by intermittent conversations. Fortunately, it didn’t get very windy, and the sun was actually in my face for much of the morning – probably an unusual occurrence. I’m wracking my brain for where in the Blackheath / Greenwich area would be suitable for a Peirene Roaming Store / book-stall, and I have a few ideas…

Breakfast with Leonardo and the Queen, revisited

Martin Clayton explains the exhibition.

Before I went to Vienna, I mentioned that I’d been invited to a ‘Blogger’s Breakfast’ and exclusive tour of the ‘Leonardo da Vinci: Anatomist’ exhibit at the Queen’s Gallery in Buckingham Palace.

I’m pleased to say that my review of this has led to my first piece with the British Medical Journal, which is posted here. So I shall not say too much in this post about the exhibit, and ask that you kindly read it in the link, but I will put up a photo of the delightful Martin Clayton, Exhibition Curator, whose job we all must envy enormously.

I also think it’s brilliant that, despite the fact that I was joking in my post about ‘meeting the Queen’ for this event, I did actually see the Queen! By pure coincidence, just as I was leaving the exhibition, I ran smack into crowds assembled to see her ride past in her Carriage to give her Speech at Parliament.

I was able to snap a photo of the Regalia going past in a slightly less ornate carriage, and then I decided to look at the Queen rather than look through my screen, so I didn’t take a photo of her. But it was a perfect end to the morning.

The Regalia.

Vienna: cake, a Schubert ‘Messe’, and an education

Church of St Augustin.

Megan volunteered to sing with the St Augustin choir when she moved to Vienna, and she invited me to attend Mass on Sunday to hear the music. I was stunned to enter a cathedral-sized church, with not only the organ, but what sounded like a full orchestra, and a many-voiced choir high up in the back. It was a stunning performance, and I’m also amazed that many of the singers are volunteers: Megan is of course a trained singer, but I really think to get that sound they must have to tell some people that they can’t join? Anyway, I sat in a beautifully carved, desperately uncomfortable pew (wood, with a panel right across the lower-shoulder blades that meant one could not lean back comfortably, but this isn’t about comfort, after all,) and was steeped in clouds of incense.

Megan’s choir sang a ‘Messe C-Dur,’ which I take to mean a Mass in C-Minor, with music from Schubert.

One of the characters about whom M writes in her own blog is a formidable lady who apparently runs things, whom M dubbed ‘Mildred’ because she didn’t catch the lady’s first name. This very lady exchanged addresses with M so they could write to one another, upon which M learned the lady’s name is actually Lisa. Lisa invited M to lunch after Mass, and Megan had already arranged to meet me, so I was absorbed into the invitation. Later, M & I decided that ‘Mildred’ was a more apt name than Lisa for our hostess. Tugging a wheeled shopping bag behind her at alarming speed, this 80-year-old lady blazed down the road to Cafe Mozart, explaining (in perfect English – she taught as an English teacher for much of her life,) that she wanted us to see the professionalism of the waiters at this Cafe, and that it had been re-built on the site of the oldest Cafe in Vienna, and that all the tourists go to cafes for the cake (guilty!) but the food is in fact amazing and we had to try the lamb…

The tornado calmed somewhat: we were seated straight away, and Mildred announced that she was there for her usual lamb, and helped us select some traditional dishes. I chose Tafelspitz. This was beautifully boiled beef in a clear broth, floating beside a knuckle of bone with perfectly softened marrow ready to eat. There were slices of boiled parsnip and carrot, and a separate small dish of creamed spinach, accompanied by a perfect dome of golden-fried potato shreds, and finally, two small dishes: cream with chives, and apple sauce with shreds of fresh horseradish. Mildred instructed me to mix the latter sauces all together to get a ‘blend of sweet and sour,’ and it really did taste amazing. I cut off the strip of perfect fat along the crescent of boiled beef with some guilt, feeling like I should eat every morsel of this carefully prepared dish, and I even made sure to try the bone marrow (not bad for a former vegetarian).

Megan had a large, fluffy pancake chopped up and served with cream and sweet berry sauce. She later said she’d had three cakes in one meal: that was her main course, another traditional dish treated as a main course. Mildred had her lamb – the best in Vienna! – and then she continued to force-feed us by ordering two cakes for dessert. One was an enormous thin, crunchy waffle cone coated in hard chocolate, filled with cream and fresh strawberries, with a bit of shortcake and strawberry mousse hiding within the cone. The second was a marzipan and coffee flavoured layer cake. We also had coffee (I carefully tried a tiny espresso – I’ve learned that coffee with milk makes me jittery to the point of being unwell for hours, but for some reason coffee with no milk seems ok) and Mildred dashed back to the church to find her coat, which she was convinced she’d brought with her, but we gently insisted she hadn’t.

An important point to note about this lunch was that Mildred, with the help of our waiter, selected a glass of white wine for Megan and me, and a glass of red for herself, which she offered to us to try. ‘Is this Austrian wine?’ I asked with surprise – ‘Of course!’ Mildred said, ‘But it has a French name.’ (She’d picked a Cabernet for us.) It was incredible wine, as was her red, and it restored my faith in Austrian wine which had been severely tested the night before, in the taverns.

‘Mildred’ (Lisa) and Megan in front of the Sisi Fountain.

Throughout lunch, Megan and I sat and listened to Mildred’s stories. We talked about the concert and opera Megan had taken me to, and Megan was amazed at some of the famous people Mildred has heard perform in Vienna throughout her lifetime – (I’m afraid I don’t have the understanding of this subject to be suitably impressed, but I’m sure Megan will name the correct names with the correct amount of respect on her blog when she writes about this). At one point, Mildred told us that she’d finally come to appreciate how important it was to buy herself tickets to get good seats to shows. ‘When I was young, I was too worried about saving money,’ she said, ‘My mother wanted to have a good seat for the opera, but I never got her one…I wish I had now.’ We all got teary at that, and then the tornado took off again, and we hurried behind like ducklings, careful not to get run over by her two-wheeled shopping bag, as she took us on a swift walking tour through the city, to the Volksgarten.

‘We used to have to queue for hours for potatoes,’ Mildred told us, ‘I remember getting up at three in the morning, and standing there until eight in the morning…and the people two, three ahead of me, they got the last two potatoes. There were none left…They gave us peas. We realised every single pea - every single pea – had a worm in it: we soaked the peas overnight, we peeled them apart, one by one: into one bucket went the peas; into one bucket went the worms. We made everything out of peas: bread made of peas, soup made of peas, flour made of peas…I remember we had to take a train to cross the border; the train was so full of people, and we did not know when it would leave. I was young and not afraid: I climbed right to the top of the train, to sit on the roof! My mother was afraid, but she would not leave me: she climbed up beside me. We waited and waited; we climbed on that train at 10 in the  morning…it left at eight at night. In the night, the Russian soldiers climbed on the train: they were looking for women. I was twelve years old. My mother, she covered me with a blanket, she hid me…’

The impromptu tour from this remarkable woman, woven with her remarkable memories, helped me revise my opinion of Vienna. It has the same sort of love for life, food, family and friends as I’ve felt travelling in Bulgaria: the feel of a satisfied being which still remembers the pangs of hunger, the memory of fear. A culture that knows what it is to want, but no longer has to want, and so rejoices in a bounty it did not always have. A culture entitled to its cake.

Vienna: no cake, but a monastery, a Danube River cruise…and an all-too-friendly accordion player

Melk Abbey.

I remember riding up a steep, winding road on my Vespa, going at about 20 miles per hour, ‘vrim-vrimming’ towards a perched village in the South of France in the winter sunshine, my friend Caitlin bravely holding onto my waist. When we made it to the top, and paused to overlook the sprawling landscape, I said, ‘This is one of the most romantic things I’ve ever done.’

Saturday in Vienna was like that, and I laughed about it with Megan, but we also acknowledged that (and forgive me for a hugely sexist comment,) maybe it is easier for us to share these sublime moments with our girlfriends, because frequently the men in our lives just don’t experience it the same way (thus far, I can think of exactly one exception).

So, cruising the Danube River in the sunshine, passing vineyards and ruined castles, was one of the most romantic things I’ve ever done in my life with a girl friend.

But first, we took the train to Melk Abbey. It is a sprawling complex perched atop a rocky outcrop, overlooking the charming, tiny town of Melk. The abbey is painted a similar rich yellow to Schonbrunn Palace, and all I could say as we approached, was, ‘well, it gives you an idea of the wealth of the church, doesn’t it?’ We were blessed with a gorgeous, sunny day, so we took a walk around the gardens first, admiring a cafe/orangerie gazebo that surely must be used for weddings. It is like a cake itself, painted with pastel murals inside; baroque, beautiful, and over-the-top.

In the Herb Garden, overlooking Melk, and beyond.

The gardens are dotted with a surprising variety of what we could only conclude was ‘modern art,’ including mirrors with words you could read by looking into the opposite mirror, metal grates for vine flowers which also employed the use of phrases and words, and a mirrored gazebo with a mirror in the ceiling so you could read more sayings and phrases. There were quite a few mirrors, come to think of it. It was a great chance for Megan to stretch her German vocabulary, and she did an admirable job, but as far as we could conclude, the words and phrases ‘friendship, life, death,’ etc didn’t amount to any deep philosophy. The gardens were beautiful, though, and we especially admired the herb garden perched on the south-facing side of the hill overlooking the village.

Finally, we gave up the sunshine to go through the Abbey. I do admire the organisation of these tours – again, like Schonbrunn, you aren’t pelted with information, but enough is there to get a very good idea of the history of the place, without feeling like your brain has been drained of all ability to think. I also got a distinct flavour of how carefully constructed these stories are; a definite bias or possibly even propaganda element: but then, surely that is true of how any place (palace, museum, monastery,) presents itself, and I’m perhaps being sensitive to being in Eastern Europe (ish).

Ecclesiastical bling.

Megan and I were particularly taken with the famous library, and here I’m going to go into a painfully American reference. Most girls, growing up, will have seen the Disney film version of Beauty and the Beast, and most girls who are like me will remember that they cared little for the Beast and his castle, but would have given their right arm for the library, into which Belle is absorbed. The floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, the impossibly huge room, and, crucially, the ladders which reach from floor-to-ceiling, giving access to any book. Melk Abbey’s library is a real version of this dream-library.

We gawped. We pined. We gazed. And we were desperately curious as to whether the monks (who presumably reside in much of the complex that tourists aren’t allowed into,) still make use of the books here. God I hope so. If these books are chained away for tourist eyes (and we can’t take photos!) – and I saw sugar ants running a path through one of the windows, making my guts constrict – oh, no, the books, the books…(Swoon.)

The church within the abbey is a riot of baroque gold, in-your-face theatrical drama. We later learned (from Mildred, whom you’ll meet in the next blog post,) that it was in fact designed by someone who designed theatre sets, which explains a lot. I had a great discussion with Megan about how this sort of ostentation does not befit what I would think of as a concept of ‘god’ if I believed in ‘god’ – and to be fair, the nearest, most comfortable religion, or spirituality, I’ve come to in recent years is Quakerism, so that is the other end of the spectrum.

Along the Danube.

Megan made an excellent point that at the time, this church needed to draw people in, or back in, and creating high drama and theatre drew people to church. The spectacle for the rich, was something that impressed the poor, and seemed unreachable but worth worshipping, aspiring to, even if that would only be reached in heaven. As we looked at the gold decor and considered this, some startlingly modern music began to play – and a wedding party began to process out! So we stayed to watch the bride (I, all the while, amazed that this spectacle had become a living spectacle, and that these people having the wedding must be aware of and ok with the fact that they too were on display,) and we admired her dress, and Megan cried a little bit because ‘I always cry at weddings,’ and then we went back out into the sunshine.

A rather important part of our day excursion to Melk was the round-trip nature of our transport. We’d bought a ‘package deal’ that included rail fare to Melk, entrance to the Abbey, a river boat cruise to another village (name escapes me at the moment,) and rail fare from there back to Vienna. We were aware that there were only four boats per day, so M kept careful track of the time in order for us to be on time for our boat. Upon arriving in Melk, we’d seen the well-marked sign, pointing across a footbridge to where the boats were.

So we gave ourselves a bit of time – plenty, so we thought – to walk there. Except, upon crossing the bridge, all sign-posting broke down, and we found ourselves in a car park, not beside a river with boats as we’d anticipated. We were slightly nervous, but still convinced we had enough time, and M asked the car park attendants about the boats; they waved us in a direction, and we followed it. There were signs for about four different docks, pointing in four different directions.

Village along the Danube.

Nothing on our tickets, or in our guidebook, or on the signs, indicated which dock we needed to go to. It was then that the ‘hero’ of our day appeared: a battered-looking taxi driven by an equally battered-looking cab driver, asking if we were looking for the tour boat (we were,) and of course, instead of telling us where to go, attempting to usher us into his cab because he would take us. We declined and hurried to the nearest dock, following a short path along the river, only to be told by the man at the dock that we were meant to go to the dock over there, (far enough that it would take too long to walk, at that point,) and we were probably going to miss the boat.

At which point, our cab driver pulls up, grinning, and says (it doesn’t matter that it was in German; it translates into any language,) ‘I told you so.’

So we climb into the cab, and he break necks it to the dock, in a huge fluster of worked-up excitement, scrambling out and saying ‘you must get the tickets!’ and the lady at the ticket booth shouting, ‘no, just go to the boat!’ and the true hero of our day, the man at the correct dock (young, blonde, and handsome,) smiling and saying ‘calm down, the Captain has seen you, you will make it on board.’

And then our cab driver charging €10 (TEN EUROS) for this favour he did us. We didn’t have the time to argue. I concluded that we would not have made the boat if it weren’t for him, and he probably made a killing on this whole procedure, ‘panic-inducing’ included, and he must be in cahoots with whomever put up the poorly marked signs. Once we settled aboard, I had a beer.

Sunshine!

Laughing and sweating, Megan and I felt like silly tourists indeed, but once we were off, the cruise unwound into an unreally beautiful stretch of lazy blue sky, John Constable-esque clouds, ruined castles, and terraced vineyards. It was here I acknowledged the romance of the day, and felt that despite being dependant on the weather (as any outdoor trip is,) this would make a brilliant honeymoon. Just try to give yourself time to find the right boat dock.

On the train back to Vienna, I watched lightning cut through the sky as Megan had a nap; we were tired from walking and from sunshine, and we realised that we hadn’t even had lunch (an no cake! But we made up for it the next day…) so we shared some cheese, crackers, and nuts on the train. A heavy storm lashed across the train as we sped through the flat, green landscape back to the city. By the time we arrived, the storm had passed (or we’d passed through the storm,) and we decided to press on with our original plan of visiting a classic tavern for supper.

At supper, with the obligatory accordion player in the background.

Heurigen, or wine taverns, are classic locals’ places, found on the outskirts of the city. They sell their own wine, and have a buffet from which you can choose your own salads, sides, and roasted meat. The plate of food is weighed up and you are charged by the weight; this amounts to a much cheaper meal than ordering from the menu, and you also are able to get just the right amount of food. Megan and I weren’t terribly hungry after our picnic of cheese and nuts, but we wanted to try the real Heurigen experience, so we popped into a few taverns before settling on one with a bustling atmosphere that was more full of locals than tour groups (choose carefully).

There was an accordion player, and too much cigarette smoke for my liking (the only complaint I have about Vienna,) but we enjoyed modest plates of potato salad, bean salad, and a perfect piece of roast pork each, and a glass of absolutely awful, sour white wine. I was intrigued that the wine was so terrible.

The advertising is true! This even looked like the guy in the above photo, and I’m sure it is him…he wasn’t quite so smiley in real life…

We took our time over supper, and then wandered towards the tram, before peeling off and deciding to poke our heads into a different Heurigen, unsure whether we’d be able to try another glass of wine (I was still hopeful,) or whether we’d be expected to have another buffet. We were welcomed into a bustling tavern, more busy than the last and equally full of locals, and were served glasses of red wine just as the accordion player and violin player struck up a song accompanied by a young lady singing bawdily.

For the next hour, we were somehow caught up in a whirlwind of music, in which the accordion player, who had patted Megan’s behind upon entry, took it in turns to sit beside us and make us seriously consider leaving (if it weren’t for being trapped and also deafened by the accordion – not my favourite instrument!) and also conversation with the sweet young woman singing – it was her first night there, ‘you could tell those two were Spanish,’ (she said, referring to the harmless but leering musicians,) she was training as a singer…she and Megan had a good chat about music (shouting a bit over the noise). Then the tables around us struck up some local songs, and everyone was singing, and the red wine was just as vinegary and terrible as the white wine, but it didn’t matter.

The too-friendly-but-harmless accordion player, from whom we made a calculated escape!

We escaped when the musicians moved to the far end of the room to serenade other customers, and caught the tram home to Schwester Christine’s apartment.