I imagine it is easy to make study here a full time job: unlike the courses I’ve taken in Australia, which only have one or two essays due a semester, the courses I am taking here will have work due every week. Both the New 18th Century and Dickens will require a weekly response paper of around 1000 words—in addition to a major paper at the end of semester. Approaches to Teaching Writing will have other work due—planning a syllabus in weekly stages for teaching a writing course. There’s something exhilarating about the idea of all this work—but it will also be a test. I assume from what I’ve heard that many undergraduate subjects function in a similar manner: there is a constant workload. This means, I suppose, it is difficult to put things off until the last minute—you can put off the weekly paper until the night before (or, I suppose, the morning of the class), but nevertheless you have to keep working throughout the semester. As an undergraduate I often tried to make this work, but it was only when I got to Honours that I had any kind of working method that would allow me to do this. When I began my research work on Henry James in Melbourne I consolidated a work pattern of daily reading and daily writing—if I hadn’t done so, I don’t know if I would be ready for this undertaking.

I am also beginning to find out more about my role as a Writing Center Associate (reluctantly I’ve begun to spell it the American way—it is, after all, their “center”) attached to Liberal Studies. It is in fact a new role, so it has a lot of responsibility attached to it. I will be facilitating a thesis support group for students undertaking a MA in Liberal Studies. These students are non-traditional—that is, they are by and large adults who work, who may be returning to study, or may be taking on a different field. I’ve been advised many of them may be professional writers, but unfamiliar with the writing requirements of academic work. In the coming weeks I’ll be meeting the teachers who run their initial Thesis Proposal Workshops, as well as Thesis Mentors to find out what areas the feel students may need assistance with, as well as meeting with the students themselves to find out what their main concerns are. I suspect that all I can do is play it by ear, keep careful notes of everything and find out what seems to work by doing it. I’m looking forward to it—I think it will be immensely rewarding, and I always think it is very brave to return to study as an adult—probably even more so here in the US, where college seems to be such a youth-oriented experience. I imagine I will act in some ways as a liaison between staff and students, that I will become a sounding board, and that I will also try to create a group whereby students can discuss work with each other, instead of feeling that the process of writing a thesis leaves them cut off from the rest of the world. Or at least, that's what I hope will happen.

Which is all to say, there is no lack of things going on that will keep me busy.

It seems I’m one of the lucky ones. There are thirty-seven in the starting class for the English Masters Program. We all had to register for classes today, the same classes that second year students also take, which all have a cap of 18 students. Some students were waitlisted on their first two choices and even their third choice for the two classes that they had to take. Because of my (say it with me) immigration status I have to take three classes to qualify as fulltime—but I managed to enrol in all three of my choices. So, starting this Wednesday I will be taking Approaches to Teaching Writing (compulsory for my position as a Writing Centre Associate, and no, I won’t spell Centre the odd American way), The New 18th Century (and don’t ask me what was wrong with the old one) and Dickens. I suppose my choices were unfashionable. Everyone seemed to want the Modernism subject and contemporary theory. But I’m happy.

It’s starting to feel like the period of arrival, and all the messiness that entails, is coming to an end. I’ve had a home for a week, I have a mattress arriving Tuesday, I have some clothes hanging on a clothes rack, a walked six blocks in the stifling heat with my new desk (it’s a card table. I won’t pretend it was some Herculean feat—just a little bit of a work. It’s a heavy card table.) I have a bookshelf, on which I have books stacks. All in all, my new home is starting to resemble a home, and not a temporary stopping place. I feel very lucky in the things I’ve picked up secondhand so far. By the time I get to Ikea next weekend (there is a real sense of relief when you get to a new country and the Ikea catalogue has all the same old items in it… some people might feel this way about a Big Mac, but for me it’s good old build-it-yourself-with-an-Allen-key furniture) I’m not sure there’ll be much left to do. And I finally bought some stamps, so I’ve embarked on my general letter-writing crusade.

A few days ago I went to the National Portrait Gallery—it felt like I was really taking a bit of a sprint through it. I was finding out what was there permanently to come back to later, and also taking a bit more time with a couple of temporary exhibitions ending very soon—including an exhibition of works from the British National Portrait Gallery. I found myself face-to-face with the John Singer Sargent portrait of Henry James that I’ve seen reproduced so often in my books. It’s always strangely moving when I have those experiences, finding myself suddenly in front of a painting I’ve known but never seen, and didn’t expect to here. In Firenze, it was the Bronzino portrait of Lucretia Panciatichi that James scholars have identified as that which Milly Theale encounters at Matcham. Here it was the master himself. I suppose it would be churlish in this instance to be disappointed that the Bronte portrait wasn’t also in DC—I’ve wanted to see that painting (that’s been through so much…) in person for years.

I have ventured out to a few farmers’ markets in the past few days—bought locally grown green tomatoes in Wednesday at Rose Park, and today I went to the larger Eastern Market. I plan to go to Dupont tomorrow—once I’ve had a chance to see them all, I can decide which will be the best to shop at.

Last night had a few people over—an impromptu evening where, no-one will be surprised to learn, I fed a few of my “orphans.” Gia, another Australian girl, came around with some cheese and crackers, as I’d bought a bottle of wine at Trader Joe’s earlier. Then Aga, a Polish girl here for a PhD in Economics, arrived and announced she was hungry. I was glad of a chance to get to feel more at home in the kitchen, and as I’ve already made a pesto a few days before, I made ravioli with pesto, cherry tomatoes, eggplant and spinach for us three. Soon after that Maryléne, a French exchange student who’s been staying with me while looking for a place, arrived home and joined in the cheese eating. Finally Sheena and Jeannine showed up as well. It was a nice, though relatively quiet, night. Gia, Aga and Jeannine went onto a party that was starting up at 10.30, while I went to do a little reading and then crashed.

I have a home, and a new network of friends.

I have a secret society, the Kennedy Orphans.

I have a permanent phone number. And a swanky new cell phone.

I have begun to compile a list of American journals to send work to, and have found work by a few very new poets who I’d like to contact.

I have subscribed to five magazines, and think I’m going to balance one more on top of that pile. (A couple are only bi-monthly or quarterly… I can manage!)

I have sat through long sessions informing me of all the ways I could violate my immigration status.

I have nine long-distance Scrabble matches on the boil care of Facebook and Scrabulous.

I have a plan to meet a couple of girls from the English program tomorrow at The Tombs.

I have real food in the cupboard, after a trip to Trader Joe’s. I bought organic strawberries. Cheap.

*

I don’t yet have a Social Security Number. That’s four hours of my life I’m yet to go through.

I don’t yet have a bed. I’m sleeping on my housemate’s futon, which will become our couch as soon as I find something to sleep on permanently.

I don’t yet have textbooks. But I’ve hardly had any time to read either. Next week.

I have not yet received any mail. But I only moved into a real address last Saturday.

I have not been to a single museum yet. I plan to remedy this today. National portrait gallery anyone?

*

I probably will never have stamps. I swear, post offices are scarce in this part of town.

My first surreal-celebrity experience. I was in “Creamcheese Annie”—a vintage store I couldn’t resist, looking at 50s dresses and designer jeans when I turned around and there was a girl who I thought was the spitting image of Nicole Richie. I just smiled and wandered to another rack, and then suddenly the store manager, the owner and the owner’s husband were all there, pulling out Pucci scarves and designer sunglasses, asking “Do you like YSL?” in amongst gushing “Thankyou for coming!” and “I’m such a fan!” (I have to admit, I’ve never really found out what she does, other than feuding with Paris Hilton. But I was heartened to see that “size zero” in the flesh wasn’t, in fact, scary looking .)

I’ve had something of a taste of being an international student since arriving in DC, though I’m not sure it is really comparable to the experiences of other international students, because English is my first language—even if I don’t quite speak (or spell) American. Still, it’s been a constant challenge that I’ve arrived at apartments, at houses, at basements and had to explain that I’m Australian, and figure cultural translations as I go. I assume that because I am Caucasian and speak English fluently I must have a much, much easier time than some of the other students I’ve met—but then, everyone I’ve met has been incredibly helpful. People are interested, ready with advice. I find it ironic that from the stories I have heard the Off-Campus Housing Department seem to have been the least friendly, least helpful people the students who’ve been looking for housing this week have met. In my part, these are only stories—I suppose I had already figured out that there was no magic equation to make finding a place easier. Everyone looking has access to the same resources—everyone has been sharing war stories of Craigslist for the past week. Dreary, expensive basements, ritzy condos, shared bedrooms, and, too, the rare bargain. It’s been quite a week.

Today I signed a lease. This in itself was a difficult process: I’ve found a home (a lovely, and too-expensive home—as far as I’m concerned it will be like living in the Hilton long term…) with a new flatmate, Annie. I met the landlord today, and provided every scrap of financial information I had with me. Because I’ve never had a US bank account before, or a credit card or social security number either, I have no credit history. Some international students haven’t had to go through that, while I was told that along with the letters and references I have provided, the landlord will also run a background check on me, and see if he can get an Australian credit report as well. Nonetheless, I’ve signed on for 12 months, and move in Saturday morning. Tomorrow I’ve got to go searching for a mattress, so I will at least have something to sleep on, and Annie is helping me with some basic furnishings—bookshelf, desk, chair—and bedding.

Tonight I went out with new friends. I met Sheena (a Londoner, and a linguistics grad student) a few nights ago in the bathroom while brushing my teeth, and chatted to her for a few hours again last night. This afternoon I dropped in to say hello to her and met Janine (from Luxembourg, studying German literature) who was starting to get distressed because she hadn’t found a place yet. We all talked it out, and reassured her that no matter what, on Saturday when we leave the Georgetown dorms, she would be able to stay with one of us until she found her home here too. After this conversation she got an email about a shared basement, and we walked her up to 37th and T: after a haphazard tour, it looks like she’ll be taking the place there, in a furnished student sharehouse. Knowing that we were all taken care of, we went to The Tombs and shared a plate of hummus (delicious) and had some drinks. Anna (Colombian, studying Foreign Service) regaled us with stories of her earlier American College experiences when she’d attended a college in Massachusetts. “You will see people turn up to classes half an hour late in their pyjamas. No pens, just a coffee. Wearing pyjamas is allowed. It’s considered free speech.” I suppose, when undergraduate students have to live on campus for their first two years, sometimes it must seem easier than getting dressed. But you won’t catch me doing it.

I never want to see this bed again.

When I was in Italy studying the language a few years ago, I met an American judge who was a friend of my flatmate’s mother. She told me that when she was young she’d joined the peace corps, and she still considered their method the best one for teaching a foreign tongue: when she had arrived in whichever South American country she was sent to, they threw her straight into the middle of it. Find a place to live, and find a way to communicate—the only rule was that you couldn’t live with other Americans. In that situation she learned Spanish pretty quickly. I feel like I’m learning DC just as quickly: so here I am, in the deep end. And it turns out American isn’t really a language I speak, though I’m getting there.

When I got up Saturday morning I just had this task in front of me: get to know the city, find a place to live. Well, I don’t think I’ve penetrated far into DC, but I’ve at least learned the bus system, visited quite a few different areas, found a few spots that provide drinkable coffee. I’ve been within 3 blocks of the White House and had no idea that that was the case, though, so I suppose being a tourist comes later. Or as a friend said to me: you’ve got your priorities—you’ve found vintage clothes, good books and fresh food. And when I’ve got two years ahead of me, and not two weeks, I suppose that it’s the everyday comforts which come first.

So here it is: the deep end. I’ve looked at three apartments. One lovely (but not available for another few weeks), one awful and one somewhere in between. I’m looking at two more shared apartments tomorrow, and waiting to hear back from a real estate agent about some new one bedroom places in Mt Pleasant that fit in my price range. I suppose house hunting is just as awful no matter where you do it, but I suppose it’s this feeling of potential freefall that goes alongside it: I have to be out of the dorms here in another five days.

Walking down the streets of Georgetown today, I feel like I’ve only just started to understand what affluence is: and no matter how materialistic I may be, I admit I find it quite disturbing. The row houses are beautiful, the cobbled streets poetic, but among other things, Georgetown feels like a particularly white enclave in the city. I went to Adams Morgan today, and found a much more vibrant mix of cultures—it felt more natural. And I got served the single biggest cup of coffee (and a proper caffe latte, too) I have ever drunk. It’s not all Starbucks.

I think I've found the deal of the century - at Firehook bakery I've gotten a lovely lunch of Chickpea Lemon Salad for $2.07 with tax, and, what's more, am able to pick up some open wireless network or other for free. The salad is good - and healthy - and its only a stone's throw away from Kramerbooks. I'm planning a visit there next. But no buying! Well, not today at least.

I got into a long conversation yesterday at Starbucks by a lady who is 76 and living at a shelter. She had studied music at the University of Indiana when she was young (when I was doing music, that was my dream school - I fell in love with Donald Freund's music and wanted to study with him) and then Theology at the Catholic University in DC. She lived with the nuns at the Catholic U, and worked for years typing up theses and manuscripts. She was an interesting lady - we talked about John Donne and Herrick. It was disheartening to see her sitting there with all her belongings, not sure when she would find a permanent place to live.

The first house interview today: with a divorced Algerian epic poet. He seemed very gentle - and looked, I must admit, like an Algerian Woody Allen. I think he's not used to people knowing where Algeria is - he took some time describing its position. We chatted about poetic forms and rhythm, as well as despotic rulers.

I made it downtown - very briefly - today. First went to Chapters, in its new location. It was shut. Stared inside, and thought it looked pretty, but I like any book shop that displays novels and not diet books in the window. Kramerbooks will do nicely for now anyway. After staring forlornly into Chapters I wandered down to the mall, which wasn't like I'd imagined it. I suppose it'll need a bit of rain to stop looking so parched, and then I'll get in some more time there.

ITomorrow I've got to try to tackle some more of the administrative side of things - to pay Georgetown fees and set up a bank account. I still haven't decided on a bank.

I am not jetlagged. This is a minor miracle - I managed to sleep enough on the plane(s) to survive the journey, but no so much that I had any problem going straight to sleep when I hit the pillow last night at 11pm. Woke to my travel alarm at 10am and made my way to Dean & Deluca where, sadly, Scott Speedman was not making the coffee.

My list of things to do today was not terribly strenuous: eat some food, get a cell phone, check some more housing ads and ring home to say I've arrived safely. I think the call home must have been about 4am Melbourne time, so I can only apologise for that, but I've achieved all the above. I'm blown away by the size of a "small" caffe latte, but they're drinkable, and not as expensive as I'd dreaded.

Walking along M street I encountered lots of fancy dress shops I plan to investigate further in the future. I also spied a vintage shop that was called (wait for it!) Creamcheese Annie. Now I'm definitely checking that out. I have largely managed to avoid tourist sites so far - I saw Georgetown's Old Stone House, but haven't been near the Mall or the Capitol or the White House yet. But I did entertain the guy who helped me with my cell phone (hey, I've got the lingo, straight up!) by showing him the pictures on Australia coins. He liked the echidna.

I was feeling a bit at sea - especially when I got to the old address for Chapters bookshop only to find it had moved - until I got to Kramerbooks. Oh! My new home! Feeling I should get into a Washingtonian spirit, I'm now the proud owner of "The Education of Henry Adams." I have to finish my Lionel Shriver - "The Post-Birthday World" care of Kevin and Jennifer, but after that I expect some serious reading to take place. And at some point I'll go check out this city. Right now, though, I'm happy with a few healthy, sensibly sized meals and sleep.

I've chosen my books. There will be heartache when I realise certain things aren't with me, and I'm sure there'll be an Amazon wishlist, requests for suddenly necessary books to be sent over and a truckload of new purchases. But it's done.

I am reading Lionel Shriver's new novel on the plane. I am taking the first volume of Peter Porter's collected poems and the complete Zbigniew Herbert, and buying new poetry to read upon arrival. I'm taking my comfort-zone stack of Anne Carson's.

I find it hard to realise that I'm taking perhaps one percent of my collection, and that the rest are sitting in boxes under my parents' house, or on shelves inside. I'm sure I'll collect a few books when I'm home at the end of the year, but in the mean time, I feel like I'm grieving my collection.

First things first - I haven't written anything here in an age, but as I'm heading back overseas, I thought I'd better get into the habit of writing again. This is at the very least a good way of keeping track of this trip for myself. So, we'll see how it all goes, eh?

Georgetown: I feel like I should have memorised its history and read up on its founder, but in truth, I know very little. I'm still in a state of denial about going, though I've recently started thinking of it more as a trip a la the trek of 2003 than as moving. The only snag there is that on my trip I got to book into hostels online, and didn't have to worry about finding a permanent place to live, with the followup concerns of buying a bed and bedding, and wondering if I'll need to find myself some other furniture along the way. Nor did I feel particularly tempted by amazing pairs of shoes (when did I start channeling Carrie Bradshaw?) as I knew anything with a heel would be a waste when I was on the hoof carrying a backpack. So, "travel" or "move", this is a little different from anything I've done before.

The Party: I know that I'm not going to catch up with everyone before I go, and that I will wake up in Washington one day and think - "I wonder what x is up to!?" If x is you, I'm sorry. And it's less than a week now until the going away party, and 12 days till I'm on a plane, wishing UA served halfway decent food. I have to admit that whenever I think about it, I freak out - but I'm not going to have time to freak out when I get there, because I'll be throwing myself in the deep end.

Washington: I've heard the good and the bad. I'm still excited.

I think, at the beginning of my last week before returning to Melbourne, I have been overcome by a little homesickness. Beautiful as it is here in Hanoi, I can't help but think about the fact that I'll get home at the very end of Winter, after the summer I've encountered everywhere else. I was in Cologne at the beginning of the heat wave there, and it was sweltering. Arriving in Hanoi, it was a different kind of heat - but one that left me feeling just as tired. Having a nice lazy time here, wandering around and around in the old quarter, visiting museums and galleries, and sitting in cafes, reading. Great coffee here, I'm glad to say.

Don't quite know what to write - I feel like my trip has turned to list-making. What I want to read when I get home, things I want to buy for people, the things left that I still have to see before getting on that plane, the songs I want to listen to when I get back and don't have to rely on headphones anymore. Movies I want to see and conversations I want to have. All the places in Melbourne I'm longing to visit again.

Before I left Denmark I went to Skagen, and walked off the northern end of Denmark - I walked into the water at the point where the North Sea and the Baltic Sea crash together, so that the one broke over my left leg, and the other broke over my right leg. I felt, standing there, that I was witnessing some endless war between the two bodies of water to gain ground, and imagined somehow that the seas were like bickering gods, never really gaining ground, but never content to give up the argument.

I also went to Silkeborg to see the Tollund Man - the original of my interest in Denmark's bog people. It is only his head that is the original - the body is a replica, as it was never preserved properly. There is something strange in see a human body turned to leather, to still see the open pores in the faces.

I spent a night on another bus, getting from Denmark to Cologne, with a change of buses at Hamburg. Arrived in Cologne at about 2 in the afternoon, and after dropping off my bags immediately went to the Cathedral and to the Ludwis Museum, the reason I decided to spend a night in Cologne. Moved among many more pieces of art that I'd had a craving to see. Especially the Rauschenberg's and the photography collection. It has been strange, though, in all the galleries I've visited, to never see any Australian art. I remember taking an Art History subject in twentieth century art, there were a number of exchange students enrolled in the course. When we got to Sidney Nolan they were puzzled by his inclusion, having never heard of him. So strange finding myself everywhere, and being from a forgotten place. I'm looking forward to a trip out to Heide when I get back, and to wandering among the Joy Hester's and the Charles Blackman's (particular favourites) among others.

Hanoi is crazy beautiful. I've been riding around on the back of a lot of motorbikes, because it's the easiest way to get around when things are too far for walking. Of course, wears helmets and there are hardly any traffic lights around the place. Everyone turns in every direction at once - gorgeous chaos!

I have been spending a lot of time at the Temple of Literature - today I visited it for the third time, sitting there to finsih reading Dante's Inferno, the wonderful Hollander translation. I've been reading it in English first, and then in the Italian - trying to learn more about Italian. I read Mrs Gaskell's biography of Charlotte Bronte a few days ago, and was struck by the way Emily and Charlotte learned French in Brussels - by how the Professor read them pieces of French prose so they could learn the style of good French, before they even had a good grounding in the grammar. Strange to think of them listening to the rhythms of this foreign tongue like that, Emily in her defiantly outmoded fashions. I also read Paradise Lost this last week - somehow a week for diving deep into the central texts of literature again. I don't know what will come next.

I'm hoping to make it out to the Museum of Ethnology tomorrow, and to see the water puppets another night this week. I've also made friends with a shop keeper here, and she has invited me to visit her home this week, and meet her family, which I am very much looking forward to. And in between - more reading and relaxing and thinking, before turning my footsteps home.

Hanoi

I've had another week of adventuring since leaving Krakow - I stayed overnight on the Baltic coast in Poland and then took the ferry across to Copenhagen. Now I'm in Århus, and this afternoon I took the bus no. 6 out to the Moesgård Museum of Prehistory where a long awaited meeting with the Grauballe man took place. It makes me want to track down a copy of P.V. Glob's "The Bog People" even more.

Denmark is beautiful - everything is so clean, people so friendly, and I've waited a long time to see the prehistory artefacts both here in Århus and in Copenhagen. I managed to get to the museum in Copenhagen the same morning I arrived in Denmark, after an overnight ferry trip which found me sleeping in a chair and later on the floor because I didn't have the money to pay for a cabin, and didn't really need one anyway. Iøve found my ability to sleep almost anywhere is becoming more and more pronounced - others appear quite jealous when they emerge from a bad nights sleep due to the traffic noise and I ask, "Oh, were there cars?". I'd been a little sick leaving Poland - a boring cold, fever etc - and so my day of getting up to the coast, then not being able to find accommodation there and eventually staying in a small town 15km away (which was lovely) ended up being an adventure, followed the next day by the adventure of getting to the ferry terminal and then sleeping anywhere I could find space to spread out!

I went to Elsinore, to the art museum Louisiana and Karen Blixen's home, now a museum and national parkland for birds. I also ventured into Tivoli where I heard the Kronos quartet play. Before all the musicians start cursing my very name, I have to say the concert was a bit of a letdown (though I can't complain too much, as I'd managed to get a VERY cheap ticket). The program mostly consisted of arrangements of the work of Mexican - composers. Except there wasn't a lot to the music, or the arrangements. A lot of the pieces were accompanied by an electronic backing, that seemed to be there only because the logistics of transporting the live players was too difficult. The pieces themselves didn't make a very sophisticated use of Mexican or European musical materials, though they were referred to in cliched ways. I was sitting next to Chris, a boy I met at the concert who is currently studying composition as a postgrad student in the UK, and after the first half of the program was over, all I could do was turn to him and say "That was all a bit kitsch." And no, it wasn't kitsch in a good way. The second half of the program, a single piece by a Finnish composer, was much more interesting, and I don't have a bad thing to say about that. They also gave, for an encore, a tribute to Jimi Hendrix's rendering of the American anthem at woodstock. I won't say much about it but that it was kitsch - in a good way. At least, it made me smile and not cringe!

I've been reading Karen Blixen since getting here. (I also stayed up till 3am one night last week reading Virginia Woolf's "To the Lighthouse." Like so many other books I've read while I've been away, I was so grateful so open this one up and find so much in it, that it's quality hadn't been exaggerated. I read "Out of Africa", mostly in a gorgeous park in Copenhagen near my hostel. Am now reading Judith Thurman's biography of her, "Isak Dinesen". Should last me most of the week, as, like her biography of Colette, it's a rather hefty volume!

Getting home is growing closer - possibly closer than previously planned, as I'm thinking of changing my flight to arrive home a week or two earlier, so I can start working and putting things together in earnest. I've got so much to go through, to think about, and Iøm very eager to start! But I've still got my trip to Hanoi, and tonight I've got to try to track down a few days accommodation in Cologne. We'll see how I manage.

It's my last night in Krakow, and I'm sorry to be leaving - somehow a week and a half feels like it will be an eternity, and then it's vanished. Tomorrow I'm heading up the the Baltic, and then the day after I catch a ferry for Denmark, to Copenhagen. It's a strange feeling to be leaving Eastern Europe now - I think this has been the most interesting part of my trip, and I've met so many fascinating people while in the Czech Republic and in Poland.

A few days ago I visited the Museum of Pharmacy here - it was fascinating, though slightly unnerving to be shown into each room, and have the light turned off after I left. A Norweigan boy, Aron, was there at the same time as me, and we were shown from room to room, given explanations in English to read, had a few extra cupboards opened up for us, and then showed out again. Such a wonderfully strange mix! As well as all the glass bottles and porcelain containers and wooden chests of all dates and styles, there were also pharmaceutical curiosities: a stuffed alligator suspended from the ceiling, mandrake root donated by an institute in Kew, England, a container which once contained human fat... There was a room of instruments which had previously been used in alchemist's attempts to improve on their materials, and had later been employed in the pharmacists laboratory. The museum is housed in a gorgeous building in the middle of the old town, and goes from the cellars to the attic.

I've spent the past couple of days wandering around with Julia Ambrose, a sculptor from the US who currently has work showing in a show in Warsaw. A rapid conversation about everything: politics, Africa (the more Kapuscinski I've read, the more Africa has opened up for me into something that, though still wildly tangled, I can begin to make sense of - or rather, begin to approach) folktales, amber. She has been buying up pieces of amber, rough and polished, all different colours, and has an impressive collection. A day of wandering around today from the Massolit bookstore to Demmers Teehaus to the Cloth Hall market in the middle of town.

I'm glad I've come to Eastern Europe: I feel like I've learned a lot here. I suppose it is because Australia is so far away - to arrive in Europe, there are always the sights people feel obligated to see. If you're in Paris, you visit the Eiffel tower, you visit the Louvre. When in Firenze it's Michaelangelo's David, and so forth. But at the same time, so many countries to the East seem to have somehow been lost behind the silence of their post-war status as "communist." Arriving in Praha, I feel like I'd forgotten that there was a Praha beyond the Prague Spring and the Velvet Revolution, until I can face to face with a sculpture celebrating Mozart's Don Giovanni. Wandering around Wawel castle, there's Tiepolo, not to mention the fact that one of Da Vinci's few oil paintings is a fixture of Krakow. I suppose I feel confused by the decision to privilege certain types of history: the raising of Brunelleschi's dome is an amazing feat - it's easy to be blinded by that. I suppose I feel that learning to think about different types of history, and to talk about those histories, discover their rhythms is the most important thing I've learned so far, though it is another obvious lesson...

I've laid down Kapuscinski for now (I've read nearly all his books - or rather devoured them) and am wading through Annie Dillard's quiet observations in her "An American Childhood". After a lull, a few days rest from words at the end of my time in Prague, it's suddenly exploded again, and my mind is racing with ideas from everywhere.

Sometimes the dull ache of homesickness grasps it's way through me, but I think September will be soon enough for coming home. I've always dreamed of going to Denmark, and I'm going - my mind is a collage of Bog people and viking ships and medieval towns, Hans Christian Anderson, Karen Blixen and the Danish resistance helping Jews escape across the narrow slither of water to safety in Sweden.

Krakow

Yesterday I went to Auschwitz, which, not surprisingly, ended up being quite an upsetting day - it was strange though. Not just upsetting because of the terrible history of the site, but also because of the tourism there. One of the first things you read upon entering the museum is that it is not recommended that children under 14 visit the site - but everywhere I went there were young children running around. These strange juxtapositions - the death wall, where so many people were executed became a place for children to place chasey. In the cellars downstairs in Block 11, where the nazis first used the poison they eventually used in the all their gas chambers, a man answered his mobile phone, and chatted away. I saw people getting their photographs taken beside signs, cell blocks and the railway line, as if to say "I was here" in the same manner they might take the same photographs in front of the Eiffel Tower or the Colosseum. It was quite surreal - this lightness, as though "just another site of human atrocities" (and I'm quite aware the world isn't lacking in those) alongside a room filled with human hair that the nazis had not yet sold when the camp was liberated. The tins the poison came in, the tangled mess of spectacles culled from the Jews who died there. Such a strange place - and so green. I found it hard to understand that the landscape was so green. I felt that, by rights, it should be utterly barren - or at least that same burnt look of the Australian countryside in the summer. It's hard to even think what to write about Auschwitz - in one of the cell blocks the walls were covered by photographs taken of the prisoners upon arrival. (That is, the prisoners who weren't immediately taken to the gas chambers, which was the fate of the vast majority.) In some of these photographs there was still a kind of fighting hope in the eyes of the prisoners, though mostly just a blank look - the determination not to give anything away. There were even a few photographs of women smiling, as though they hadn't forgotten that that was somehow their function - to smile, to hold onto hope in the face of everything. I watched a film made up of images taken on the day of liberation - watched as the liberated children - under 700 of them - came out in pairs. Mostly in pairs because so many of the survivors were twins, kept alive for medical experiments. Being out in the field at Auschwitz-Birkenau especially it hit home how difficult it would be to work there - whether kept on starvation rations or not. Yesterday the sun was oppressive - just as in winter the extreme cold would equally be a barrier. Like so many other people who have been, I feel that it was important that I did go - but still can't quite fathom it.

I'm still reading Kapuscinski - over the past few days I've read The Soccer War and The Emperor. I'm going to start another one this evening, lie down by the river and read.

I arrived in Krakow yesterday after taking the night bus from Prague, and after a lovely day walking around and visiting the largest English language bookshop in Poland yesterday (am now close to finished the Kapuscinski classic "The Soccer War") today I', visitind Wawel castle - have already visited the Royal Apartments, and in another hour or so we're going for the tour of the Royal Private rooms. "We" is another Kate (from Wodonga) and Jenny, from Brighton, England, beginning study at Cambridge in October. In between our allotted visits around the castle we had lunch in the local bagel place. If you're beginning to think my blog sounds like a bagel tour of Europe you may be correct.

Krakow is gorgeous. I was chatting with Susan in Firenze, wondering where I'd go when I left Italy, and mentioned Warsaw - it was her suggestion that I go to Krakow instead, and I'm glad I took her up on it. Tomorrow we're planning a trip to Auschwitz, and the day after a journey to the salt mines, which were among the very first sites listed by UNESCO as World Heritage sites (in the same batch as the Taj Mahal). The pope spent his share of time in Krakow before being given the funny hat - he was a bishop here. (Wait, doesn't that entail another funny hat?) Best of all the history of the places founding: it was founded by Prince Krak, after her outwitted the local dragon. I wandered through the dragon's den this morning too - a lovely cave. I imagine the dragon would have been quite at home there.

I'm still trying to think ahead to what will come after Krakow - I've definitely decided to go to Denmark, but am also thinking of taking a bus up through the Baltic states - I don't need a visa to visit them, and ferries from Tallinn to Helsinki, and then to Copenhagen are cheap. Feel a bit like I'm making a sudden dash everywhere, which, after several months of travelling slowly, is a welcome surprise.

I went out in Prague last Thursday night with Anna and others for Anna's birthday. Petra, the girl who cut my hair, came ut with us yesterday and took us to a couple of bars. After a while I worked up the courage and she got me an absinthe. A "small" absinthe. I'd hate to see what they call a large absinthe! I didn't bother with the whole process of caramelising sugar in a spoon and dropping it in - just drank it straight. Well, three sips. Three was enough. Anyway, I've since been told that the Czech absinthe isn't the really serious stuff - the only place you can still buy absinthe with the wormwood extract is in Estonia. It's strange the way I'm chasing after this stuff, when I don't even like to drink! Oh well...


Krakow

I'm sitting in the "Bohemian Bagel" in Prague tapping away, after a day visiting the house Kafka was born in, the Jewish quarter of Prague, the Polish consulate and getting a free haircut in the most prestigious salon in Prague. I'm not sure what it is about my hair that attracts the free cuts I've been getting the last few years, but I'm not going to complain.

I'm in love with Prague - have been spending days wandering around the streets, and I've got another three days of wandering to do before I head on to Poland, and Krakow. Have been hopping on and off trams around the city, which assuages my occasional homesickness. The girl who cut my hair today started to teach me some Czech phrases (only the very simple ones... and I've forgotten some of them already, because they're so foreign to me, I haven't quite grasped them yet) and she'll probably teach me some more tonight, because I'm meeting her for coffee too. Oh, and she cuts hair really well.

Oh, and I found my bottle of absinthe yesterday.

I got in on Saturday night, and had only been in a few minutes when the girls in my room suggested we all go out somewhere for dinner. Found a Czech restaurant near the centre, and got to drink some of the Czech beer-that-is-cheaper than Coke. Great beer, but the downside of all the British boys coming over for their weekend long stag parties. Lots of interesting contrasts. The Communist Museum next to the Casino is the one that springs to mind immediately. Very beautiful, old Eastern buildings, but also a Parisian feel to parts of the city (says she who hasn't been to Paris) because the star of art-nouveau design, Mucha, who designed all the famous theatre posters for Sarah Bernhart in Paris, is from the Czech Republic, and there are buildings in Prague that have very much embraced the art nouveau style. I went to the Mucha Gallery here, which was gorgeous. Though of course it led to yet another thing to be fascinated by. The list of things I need to read more about when I get home grows ever longer.

Am still going with Vasari's lives of the artists, and stuffing myself with a bagel and bottomless cup of coffee at the Bohemian Bagel each day. Oh, and their chocolate cake is also very good. That is, have been reading Vasari over bagels morning and evening, as the Bagelry has become my office for the week so to speak!

Went out to dinner last night with Charlotte, a girl staying in my room at the hostel who is from England (the Lakes district) and studying in Belfast, and who may or may not be offended by the fact that I told her she reminds me of the Cookie Monster. I have since explained further that this is a good thing. She made what might be considered by most the grave error of drinking two absinthes, straight, the night I first arrived! I haven't actually tried the stuff, and am not at all convinced that I will, but have been enjoying the sight of all those bottles of stuff that looks like Listerine in shop windows.

After Krakow I've decided I'm going to try to get to Denmark to see the Tolland man in Aarhus, track down a copy of Seamus Heaney's Tollund Man poem and stand in front of him and read the words "Someday I will go to Jutland / to see him peat brown head..."

Praha.

It's my last night in Berlin, and I'm just hanging around, having packed up most of my stuff and listened to the Virgin Suicides soundtrack this afternoon. Will have dinner soon. Have been reading Vasari's Lives of the Artists, and am about to start another Henry James too - The Ambassadors. I think this will be the eighth for this trip. I was having trouble getting to sleep last night, and was thinking about the next extended piece of prose I want to write, in a year or two - thinking about how it is impossible to write the same way after reading Henry James. Not that I feel like I will try to emulate him - simply that his novels are a lesson, both in psychological development of a narrative, and in just what a sentence can do.

Today I wandered around - visited the Brandenburg Tor, the Reichstag, Potsdamer Platz. Was hoping to visit the "Neue" National Gallery (there are three or four of them, starting with what one of the guides I was given described as "noseless naked guys" in the ancient collections) but when I got there I found out the permanent collection wasn't on show (the permanent collection includes among other things some abstract expressionist works of Newman that I particularly wanted to see) because the whole gallery had been taken over by an Armani exhibition. You can imagine my outrage, abstract expressionist ousted for fashion. Though I'd discovered a little fashion for myself earlier today. But we won't say anything more about that incident.

Oh what's the use of holding back -

MARK IS IN THE FINAL OF WIMBLEDON! Maybe Australia will learn to love him a little better now. I would just like to say I've liked him for years and years. Probably because I haven't followed the Davis Cup and always hated the adulation Pat Rafter receives. I mean, he's dating an underwear model. (I'll try to forget about newspaper reports a few years ago of a possible "flirtation" between Mark and Ms Kournikova. Anyway, I'll be in Prague this on Sunday, so I will have to try to find somewhere to watch the final there. I'm almost glad I haven't seen the last few matches. I just know I would have embarrassed myself squealing.

Just think, when all this is over, this will stop being Kate's tennis blog, and maybe I'll have some more insightful things to say about finding out I love Henry James.

I went to visit the Pergamon museum yesterday, which was quite amazing. I particularly loved the Islamic collection, and the eagle headed figures of the Babylonions. It was just a day of wandering along in a state of awe. Spent a long time lingering along Unter der Linden. My only disappointment with Berlin is that I didn't make it to see much contemporary art... I'm always running out of time.

Berlin

Not much time, not much time, always the problem. I'm in Berlin, staying in a lovely hostel in the East side, very close to the longest remaining section of the wall. I had a bit of a nightmare day getting here on Saturday, train, plane, two buses and a taxi, but I made it, and the hostel, which has a restaurant and bar attached to it, made me a free "welcome drink" and a gorgeous salad with bulgar wheat and goat's cheese, so I've been settling in and celebrating Mark Philipoussis's victory at Wimbledon yesterday.

To give the extremely rushed version of events I went to a market selling lots of old school Berlin stuff and bought a funny little red velvet purse and an old spoon on Sunday, went to the Czech consulate yesterday to try to organise a visa to find, at midday, that they close every morning at 11 and don't reopen till the following day. Went to the Australian embassy to organise a statutory declaration stating that my signature has, miraculously, changed somewhat in the last 10 to 15 years. Went to the tiny Berlin Guggenheim museum, a very interesting solo exhibit, but, horror of horrors, I've forgotten the artists name. In the bookshop I succumbed to a red inflatable teddy bear. Need I say more? Bought my bus ticket for Prague, so will be spending this Saturday on a bus again. Last night I hit the halfway mark of Dostoyevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov", which I endlessly mispronounce.

Today I had more success at the Czech consulate and need to go back on Friday to collect it. Also ventured to the Egyptian museum and saw the famous bust of Nefertiti, and the all but demolished bust of Akhenaten - a fascinating thing to see. Got caught in the rain twice, and ate Kaffee und Kuchen at Zoo station. Am in heaven with all the sour cherry everything here! Am going to continue having a quiet night with Dostoyevsky. I have become very interested in reading more about the ethics he developed - am surprised by how much I'm enjoying the spirituality of his works. Gorgeous.

Oh, and after a promising start, Arnaud lost in the second round. If I'd found out about it sooner than three or four days after it happened, there probably would have been tears.

Berlin.

Have had so many days of running around, I was hoping to come back for a relaxing last few days in Firenze - but of course it wasn't to be. I fly out from Pisa Saturday morning for Germany, and so I've been packing up my room - a task I DON'T want to leave to the last minute, because there's an awful lot of stuff to pack up and a fair bit to send home. I went to the Post Office after class today and was successful in sending one item, but they rejected the packaging job I'd done on the second item. I'd read in Lonely Planet that Poste Italia could be a little picky! Anyway, they sent me away with this second box to try again! Just had a milkshake to give me strength to go on with it all this afternoon.

Wimbledon. Lleyton Hewitt lost? In the first round? I'm having a little trouble getting tennis news, as the Italian media is not terribly interested in the sport. Any and all updates would be greatly appreciated. Anyone paying close attention, please feel free to send messages regarding the progress of ARNAUD CLEMENT. If he lost in the first round too, and I just don't know it yet, I'll cry.

I went to Roma last weekend. Unfortunately, because I had to spend my time there organising my visa for Vietnam, and because the Vietnamese embassy was a long way from everything else (or it seemed that way in the heat) I didn't get to see as much as I would have liked. I should be honest and say that another contributing factor to my not being the most active tourist was the fact that the new Harry Potter was released on Saturday. I went to the Vatican on Saturday morning - found it astounding, but couldn't spend too much time in the Sistine Chapel because the crowds were so oppressive, but fell in love with the map rooms and the Egyptian collections - and after I left the Vaticano and San Pietro I went to Roma's Feltrinelli International and bought H. Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I spent two hours sitting in front of the Trevi Fountain reading. Then I spent some time in front of the Forum and the Colosseum reading. Then on Sunday morning I caught a train to Napoli, and two more hours flew by while I was reading. I took a break from Harry to climb Mt. Vesuvius and visit Herculaneum (I can't quite imagine how large Mt Vesuvius must have been before: it still dominates the skyline so much. Hard to picture it twice as large, or larger...). Finished the new Harry at Stazione Napoli Centrale waiting for the train back to Roma. Had to read my introduction to Fascism on the train home instead. At least I threw a coin in the Trevi Fountain, so I know I'll come back to Roma and see all the things I missed.

I know I'm not allowed to say anything about Harry Potter, but please feel free to email me if you've finished it too. I'm dying to talk about it! I've been developing theories for the last two books!

Yesterday was a public holiday in Firenze, the holiday for San Giovanni, the most important saint in Firenze. Last night at 9:30 we gathered along the Arno and watched a wonderful fireworks display. Made me want to learn more about the history of fireworks. I think designing fireworks would be a wonderful job.

I finished reading Peggy Guggenheim's autobiography too, as well as Harry Potter, and am now immersed in Greek Lyric poetry. I fell in love with Stesichorus, and am just beginning the work of Simonides. I have a feeling I'm going to grow addicted to classics over the next few months as well. Peggy stopped writing so much about her lovelife after she moved to Venezia, and wrote much more about art - very interesting, but of course very subjective. I've read a bit about her initial reaction to Pollock (she was unimpressed) and how it took the advice of art critics to support his work. In hindsight of course she always recognised he was a genius - though it doesn't quite explain why she gave away 18 paintings by Pollock that came to be worth so much. I'm interested in reading a bit more about some of her other main artists, to see if, from the other side, she was always as instrumental as she says... But maybe I'm just jealous that she owned a beautiful Brancusi Bird in Space.

The days are much too hot here. 40 degrees isn't unusual, and there's no sea breeze for relief. I'll be glad to head north where there'll be at least a little respite from the heat.

Only three more days in Firenze, and I won't have seen everything - though it will give me more reason to return...

Firenze