Well I am still having email problems, though I hope you have been receiving the letters I have been writing and sending though my web mail. I think I just need to call Mac tech support and reconfigure My Entire Internet and email settings. Or I can wait and see if things work better in France.
Either way I am on the train again heading west towards Heidelberg. I plan to stay with the parents of my friend Andrea that I met in NY, then head south to a small village at the foot of the Black Forest and then take a late train into Paris for the week.
I spent yesterday walking around Munich Center with Valerie’s friend Christoph. Another artist with a similar interest in working with time. We climbed up a church tower to get a fogged over view of the city, then walked over to the site of a future Jewish Synagogue and Cultural Center. When we first met up we had said we should meet by the fountain at old Marianplatz, well he forgot that the Christmas Market would be set up and that I could not find the fountain, so instead we met at the column in the center that looks like the one in Columbus Circle. Thank goodness for having rented my temporary cell phone. Christoph was also very open to just walking around and pointing out various sites around the city. We meandered around the open vegetable market eyeing out a mouth-watering installation of mushroom Truffles. 6 Euro a gram.
We then walked toward the city castle which is now a Museum but after only a little meandering in the park I just had to go in to a cafe to warm up with a tea. The place we entered was like entering into Austria, with dark red walls, heavy tables covered in cloth with candles and chandeliers, Christoph said that the ceilings just needed to be higher. He then went through every page of my portfolio looking at my work.
We stayed until the sun went down and upon leaving the cafe could hear what sounded like fireworks or firecrackers, but it was almost musical. We could then see that they were setting up for a holiday parade. But what a strange one it was. First of all there were four people dressed in what looked to me like traditional African grass covered costumes. They would then walk in a line snapping what looked like extra long riding crops to create the music like fire cracker sound. But our efforts to follow these fellows was thwarted by a gaggle of black goblins who carried smaller cat-o-nine tails, and were wacking the butts of tourists who tried to take their pictures. And then in the middle of all this was a man dressed as St. Nicolas. Not quite your Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade.
I then rode on the back of Christoph’s bicycle to his studio to look at his work. Felt like a little kid again, ogling over the American like shopping street lit up at night.
We then met up with Dina and Sibylle for dinner in of all places in an Italian restaurant. While cutting into my vegetarian pizza I suddenly wished my hosts a happy Thanksgiving. They then responded with oh now that explains why no one in the US was returning our emails. Christoph took off after his expresso and we three hammered out more details about the exhibition until midnight. I don’t think Dina and Sibylle were quite prepared for the high maintenance and technical complexities of my work. Such as needing to visit a local Botanic garden for local lake grasses, or how the rye used in bread is the same as the grass we see in people’s lawns, just not mowed down all the time. And then there is all the watering to figure out. But I managed to explain it all and thankfully they are still willing to take my work on.
It is still rainy and foggy today, as we are just about to arrive in Heidelberg. So far I feel like this trip has trip has brought me closer to a new set of European Friends. I just wish the weather was a bit better for photographing the landscape. When I return from France I plan to rent a car and drive out into the mountains and local villages to see what I discover of the surrounding environment of Bavaria.
