Back and Brain-dead

Back home again and still walking around in a fog trying to sort out suitcases, papers, wash clothes and think of something for dinner. Flying from London to Seattle is not pretty. We broke our trip in D.C. for a night's sleep and a re-group, but 6 hours plus another 5 1/2 hour's flight really whacks your clock. Besides which - all the check-in lines, security lines, suitcase dragging and hikes to more lines to catch a train or to be bussed to yet another hike to find a departure gate. T'was getting a bit tedious. Flying isn't fun anymore. We've got our packing down to one suitcase each that holds about 35 lbs and a regulation carry-on. Thank heavens for the compression bags! They really make clothes go flat and save space. But still.....

Anyway

Went to many museums and venues in D.C., London and Madrid during the trip. Filled up a travel dairy with notes and drawings to use as references for new forms in clay. It's great to get out there and look at so much stuff that you go into total overload. I loved going into the stores and looking at all the new modern things. Europe is so much ahead of us in design. Also spent hours in museums looking at historical collections. I'd love to just rent a room across from the V&A and go there every day for about a month.

This time in London we not only returned to many of our favorite spots (We lived there for 4 1/2 years), but also made an effort to visit the places we never got to in that time. I truly love London and the UK.

Also had a great time listening to the people of Madrid and finding my tongue getting looser every day. Give me a couple of months and I'd be rattling off Spanish again pretty easily even though I haven't spoken it extensively to another soul for at least 40 years. We were also in the Catalan area. I'd never been there before and they put an interesting spin on the language.

Part of the trip was business which meant a lot of social events and a packed schedule, but the London part was purely enjoyment.

More later.........