How to do Europe in five days

 

Jackie and Jilly, who used to be friends and colleagues while both lived in L.A., are finally meeting again at a bar in Boise, Idaho, for the first time in years.
“I hear you went on a trip last year?”
“Yes, we did Europe in five days. It was great.”
“What do you mean by you did Europe?”
“Well, we looked up What to see in Europe on the Internet and planned accordingly.”
“I see.”
“It worked perfectly. We did France, Spain, Italy, Germany and England.”
“And saw them in five days?”
“Yes! And the beauty of it is we’ll never have to go back there.”
“Because you’ve seen all there is to see?”
“Everything worth seeing!”
“Good for you and your blessed little eyes!”
“Are you being sarcastic by any chance?”
“Never! Europe and the wisdom of the Internet would never recover!”

Photos
Top left: Paris, France; top right: Rome, Italy
Center right: Heidelberg, Germany
Bottom left: London, England; bottom right: Madrid, Spain

Slow March

When I posted the preceding haiku, I realized that I had not posted a single thing in all of March.

Guess I didn't have anything to say that couldn't wait 😃. 

However, I also went on a trip for a week, being on the road in Italy, Switzerland and Germany. Of which the above photo is witness.

Taken in Chur, Switzerland. Leica R4 with 50 mm Summilux-R on Silberra Color 100 film, scanned from negative.

Much more of my photo work can be seen here (Tumblr) and here (Unsplash).

Sails in the Sunset

Now if you'd drop that stupid demand to get close to Crinkle Island, I'd be happy to navigate you all to that forsaken part of the beautiful stormy South Seas, my friends.

As to Norah Femme Fatale, however, I'd rather not have her on board because she might try to persuade me after all. And we all know from Italy how that can end.

– Captain Leonard Blumfeld (© 2012)

Written around crinkle, demand and navigate from 3WW.

A blatant derivative of the Costa Concordia disaster.

Roads and roads and roads

Roads
and
roads and
roads I've been
on lately - black and
grey and long. Roads and roads and roads.

- Leonard "On the Road" Blumfeld

Written for One Single Impression and 'Roads' from on the road. I've been traveling in Utah and Colorado for the past two weeks. It's been a wonderful trip, and the roads, even though they were indeed black and grey and long, were great and took us through amazing landscapes.

Blumfeld's back

Oh no - it's been weeks since my last appearance here.

What have I been doing?

Lots.

Let's see - there was an Indian event here in Stuttgart, for which I organized some of the music (Subroto Roy Chowdhury on sitar, accompanied by Sanjib Pal). There was a trip to Munich to see my daughter before the end of her semester break. We dived into the art world by visiting an exhibition of Pakistani sufi posters and the gigantic Alfons Mucha show (art nouveau), which included some of his well-known posters but other works as well, including some bombastic Pan-slavic megalomania paintings.

My love life's been on the rocks and mostly in the dumps.

Strangely enough, I can't seem to enjoy life when I do not allow myself to be in love (and yes, with that one particular woman I've been writing for, to and about for the last year and a half).

Bye for now during a break in work.

Don't tell the boss.

– Len "Heartbreaker" Blumfeld

Back from southern Italy

Vividity

The green hills of
Trulli country in
white spring blossom –
such allure from my
perch in Locorotondo’s
main piazza

– Leonard “Gone Puglia” Blumfeld

Written around allure, perch and vivid from 3WW.

Note
I wrote the poem from memory, i.e. from the memory of looking down onto the green hillscape from the elevated city park in Locorotondo, and had in mind numerous trees in white blossom among the scattered trulli (cute dwellings with cone-shaped roofs typical of that area of southern Italy – see picture below). When I went back to compare with the pictures I'd taken, there were hardly any trees in white blossom. However, there were plenty of such trees in other parts of the area I'd passed through. Memory can be a treacherous thing!