Moving on

It's Tuesday morning (Tuesday I think?) and we're about to move on. It's been a good visit, except for the stinking hot bit (Mad Dogs and Englishmen have nothing on it - walking home from the supermarket yesterday at 6.30pm felt like being hit by a brick.) Repton's pretty glad to move, he says he has language fatigue and figures he'll feel a bit better in Germany where at least he's studied the language some.

It's been pretty interesting to be here. I mean, there's stuff that's supposed to be the Official Tourist Experience, both the putting the city's best foot forward like going off to look at important buildings, and concerts as 'cultural experiences', and being shown places that were significant to famous people that lived in the city, and then there's the worst foot, like being a target for pickpockets and sellers of smutty playing cards (hasn't been a problem, actually, but was in Athens), but there's also the experience of just being in a different city and seeing the way things are different, like the buses and trams always start with a terrific jerk and you never talk to the driver (they're actually in a little cabinet with a door to further discourage importunate tourists), and the way the tap water tastes really good, and the standard font on official signs is a bit different - not Arial, but a slightly wider sans serif font, and that the street signs are plaques on buildings and never have an equivalency for "St", it's always things like "Melanouva 2".

Anyway, we have to go get on our train soon. Looking forward to the scenery, but also being able to put my feet up for 5 hours. :-)