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September 30, 2007
The Last Voyage of the Moksha
LOCATION: Cap Gris Nez, France
SEE WHERE WE ARE!
Longitude: N:51deg.14'53.
Latitude: E: 002deg.55'45.
Kms from Istanbul: 3,328
This is written on the slipway at Cap Gris Nez, 17 miles west of Calais on the French side of La Manche, or The Channel (as the English know it). The desired weather window presented itself on yesterday morning's forecast for crossing today. So we broke camp from Ostend and I rode the 145 kms down the coast to Calais yesterday afternoon in time to catch the ebb tide this morning, at 12 noon. This should hopefully assist with the crossing over to the white cliffs of Dover and around the corner to St. Margaret's slipway (west of Dover).
Moksha has been transported down here on a trailer, driven by Chris Tipper. No word still from the French authorities, so there's still the chance of being arrested. But after 13 years and all that has gone down with this expedition; from being run over by a car in Colorado, to being chased by a croc in Australia, to nearly succumbing to septicemia mid Pacific, the last thing that will stop me from reaching English soil now, and completing the circumnavigation, is a bunch of French bureaucracy. If they try and stop me I am resolved to keep on pedaling, even if they threaten to shoot me (which they won't I don't think - this isn't Indonesia or the Sudan!).
Chris Tipper will be with me, Moksha's builder and an Pacific leg veteran. It will be good to begin this Last Voyage of the Moksha with him.
My 'ocean ring' is now on my finger again. I wear this ring for all the ocean crossings so I am essentially 'married' to the sea for the duration of each voyage, prompting me to better read the fickle mood swings of the water and all her contrariness, and enable better decision-making. It has brought me good luck thus far. I hope it will today also. Fingers crossed the next update will be written from English soil later today!
jason
** MOKSHA SHIPPING ANTWERP to OOSTENDE **
Huge thanks to those of you who have pledged towards the shipping of Moksha to Ostend from Antwerp. The response has been so successful we have $350 surplus which we will put towards the hire of the crane to pull Moksha out of the Thames on the morning of the 6th (475 pounds sterling).
You can make pledges here. Or email contact@expedition360.com
Sincerest thanks to the following for your pledges -
The Rollers - $200
Karl Sweeney - $100
Susan Schendowich - $50
Patrick Buckler - $50
Neil Reypert - $100
Gretchin Lair - $50
Tim Murfitt - $50
Samantha Carter - $50
Merlin & Carrie Lewis - $200
Jane Koca & John Caldwell - $100
Anonymous - $250
> Total to raise: $850
> Total raised to date: $1200
> Total still to raise: $0
> Surplus towards crane hire: $350
> Crane hire: $998.50
> Still to raise: 650
Posted at 8:25 AM
September 29, 2007
Final preparations for the Channel
LOCATION: Oostende, Belgium
SEE WHERE WE ARE!
Longitude: N:51deg.14'53.
Latitude: E: 002deg.55'45.
Kms from Istanbul: 3,183
Belgium Moksha is having final preparations hurriedly done on a borrowed dock, we’re desperately running round town to every conceivable shop where we’re told they don’t have something in a foreign language and then nodding sagely as a man semaphores elaborate directions to some other shop to buy screws or sealant or something vital for the ocean. A weather window is looming for the crossing....No hang on... these are my notes from October 1994.It’s Europe 1994 and 2007 with Jason Lewis and the Expedition - nothing much has changed. OK, so we’re sleeping inside more often, we spend half our time messing around with laptops (which barely existed back then) and we’re actually paying for the occasional thing rather than having to beg and borrow every step of the way.
Eilbhe , who we met in France in 94, is painting new figure head on the pedal boat and Chris, who was one of the boat builders, is replacing the windows so they can actually see where they're going on the imminent Channel crossing.
Jason is barely sleeping, is surrounded by charts, electronics and dealing with the authorities in both France and England. He has finally stopped just shaving like an explorer. The generosity of friends old and new continue to propel this expedition westward, almost done - see you all in Greenwich.
Kenny
Expedition cameraman and photographer
** MOKSHA SHIPPING ANTWERP to OOSTENDE **
Huge thanks to those of you who have pledged towards the shipping of Moksha to Ostend from Antwerp. The response has been so successful we have $350 surplus which we will put towards the hire of the crane to pull Moksha out of the Thames on the morning of the 6th (425 pounds sterling + VAT).
You can make pledges here. Or email contact@expedition360.com
Sincerest thanks to the following for your pledges -
The Rollers - $200
Karl Sweeney - $100
Susan Schendowich - $50
Patrick Buckler - $50
Neil Reypert - $100
Gretchin Lair - $50
Tim Murfitt - $50
Samantha Carter - $50
Merlin & Carrie Lewis - $200
Jane Koca & John Caldwell - $100
Anonymous - $250
> Total to raise: $850
> Total raised to date: $1200
> Total still to raise: $0
> Surplus towards crane hire: $350
> Crane hire: $998.50
> Still to raise: 650
Posted at 9:54 AM
September 26, 2007
Entering the Whirlwind
LOCATION: Oostende, Belgium
SEE WHERE WE ARE!
Longitude: N:51deg.14'53.
Latitude: E: 002deg.55'45.
Kms from Istanbul: 3,183
We're into the final stages now and I feel like I'm being sucked into the centre of a cyclone with the volume of activity that has suddenly been generated by media interviews, chartwork & navigational planning, dealing with the officialdom needed to cross The Channel, and the most important part of all - getting the boat ready. Traditionally it gets very hectic before any sea leg, but this time there are other compounding factors such as judging the appropriate weather window to cross and having a very fixed date for the arrival on the 6th. Normally it's a bad idea to let external factors influence a decision on when to depart on a crossing, but this time it's a little different. I really need the weather to cooperate to allow the circumnavigation be completed on schedule.
Europe overland completion
Great assistance with Moksha preparations have been forthcoming from Nathalie and son Andreas with sanding down the boat hull prior to painting - Andreas especially (his mum just posed for the photo!). Two layers of undercoat are now on, and if it doesn't rain today I can slap on a layer of finishing paint before Eilbhe arrives from Ireland tomorrow to paint on Moksha's new figurehead. A team of helpers are working around the clock in Mumbai, India to finish work on the 1,800 names that will hopefully be sent by courier by the end of the week to be stuck on the hull before the arrival. This I think will be very tight. We may even have to pull the boat out of the water again once over on the UK side to complete this task.
Andreas Theys
Kenny and Chris arrive tomorrow evening with a rented van and trailer. While Chris is replacing some of the polycarbonate windows to allow the pedaler to see out properly one of us will have to scream up to Antwerp and back in the van to pick up the boat's trolley that we'll use to push her up from the Thames to the Royal Observatory on the 6th. All things being equal the channel crossing will happen this Sunday or Monday, depending on the wind direction.
Oh, and did I mention that the French authorities will arrest us if we leave from French territorial waters? Just one more compounding factor into the mix. But my luck has run this far over the last 13-years, and I've been keeping one my nine lives in reserve for this last crossing, so I'm sure a solution will be found....(?!?)
Thanks to those BTW who have kindly contributed towards the cost of getting Moksha from Antwerp to Oostende here (see below).
jason
** MOKSHA SHIPPING ANTWERP to OOSTENDE **
The crane hire and transporting Moksha from Antwerp to Oostende ended up costing a whopping $850 USD! Once again I have seriously underestimated European prices, with the result that a rather large dent has been put in the remaining budget for the expedition completion. I know many of you have already contributed generously to getting Moksha back from Djbouti, but if there are any of you that missed out on the funding drive the first time around, a contribution towards this cost would be greatly appreciated.
You can make pledges here. Or email contact@expedition360.com
Sincerest thanks to the following for your pledges -
Gretchin Lair - $50
Tim Murfitt - $50
Samantha Carter - $50
Merlin & Carrie Lewis - $200
> Total to raise: $850
> Total raised to date: $350
> Total still to raise: $500
Final bike odo reading from Istanbul to Oostende
Posted at 6:55 AM
September 23, 2007
Moksha at The Channel
LOCATION: Bredene, Belgium
SEE WHERE WE ARE!
Longitude: N:51deg.14'53.
Latitude: E: 002deg.57'45.
Kms from Istanbul: 3,174
Moksha has been relocated from Antwerp to Oostende ready for the prep work to be started for The Channel crossing. The weather is good until tomorrow evening (Sunday) but rain is forecast Monday through Wednesday, so tomorrow the repaint and other tasks begin in earnest.
Lifting her out of the driveway around overhead phone lines required a specialised crane
She's been sitting in the driveway of a house belonging to Robin and Kathleen who have kindly provided free storage since she was shipped from Djibouti. I'm always a little apprehensive the first time I see her after she's been handled by other people, in case of damage during transit. But she looks in pretty good nick - in about the same shape as when we left her in Djibouti almost 6-months ago: getting a little frayed and dog-eared around the edges but otherwise structurally sound. The only part of her that will be repainted is the hull where almost 2,000 names of expedition supporters will be replaced sometime the middle of next week - IF the printers from Mumbai deliver them on time!
Sleeping compartment filled with gear, also a large African spider that I caught a glimpse of briefly!
Things are definitely beginning to pick up momentum now we're into the final two weeks before completion. Today I rode the last 100kms from Nathalie's basecamp in Denderleeuw to her brother Gille's apartment in Bredene, just 4kms from Oostende (which I'll complete tomorrow morning). This will mark the completion of the 3,178km overland section through Europe by bicycle, and the staging point for the final crossing of The Channel, currently planned for next weekend.
Weather is everything for this final wet bit, especially now we're getting into typical autumn weather patterns with low pressure systems sweeping westwards across from the Atlantic every week or so. The ideal time to cross to the Kent coast will be when the tide is coming up to neaps (not as strong as springs), the wind is as light as possible (certainly no more than force 4-5) and from the southwest.
The likely scenario for the next week is that we'll work on Moksha here in Oostende at the Royal North Sea Yacht Club (who are kindly providing complimentary space on the quayside for the prep work) for the next 5-6 days. The Daily Mail (UK) come in on Tuesday for a preliminary interview and photo shoot for a 2-page spread next weekend. Chris Tipper (Moksha's builder) and Kenny Brown (film maker) arrive mid week for helping with replacing some of the polycarbonate windows on the boat and documenting the final event respectively. Eilbhe Donovan arrives Thursday to add a beautiful new figurehead design to Moksha's bow for the completion. And other expedition team members from previous legs start filtering in from next weekend onwards to assist with last minute preparations and to have one last pedal in Moksha before she's hauled out of the water for retirement post completion.
Moksha on the quayside in Oostende
Depending on the all important weather window Moksha will be relocated again towards the end of next week either to Dunkirk, Calais or even Boulogne. The stronger the wind from the west or southwest for the crossing, the further west she needs to be launched to compensate for the effect of windage. The last thing I need is to miss the English coast and end up in Denmark!
Meanwhile the UK support team, headed up by Lee Reynolds, a professional event organizer with Southampton University, is ramping things up the other side of the Channel. The myriad of small details these guys are currently dealing with, from securing keys to gates in Greenwich Park to liaising with The Duke of Gloucester's security team, is truly amazing. I am truly blessed to have all these people on board pulling out the stops at this critical time.
And a special thanks also goes out to the Lauwerier family for being such gracious hosts here in Belgium.
jason
** MOKSHA SHIPPING ANTWERP to OOSTENDE **
The crane hire and transporting Moksha from Antwerp to Oostende ended up costing a whopping $850 USD! Once again I have seriously underestimated European prices, with the result that a rather large dent has been put in the remaining budget for the expedition completion. I know many of you have already contributed generously to getting Moksha back from Djbouti, but if there are any of you that missed out on the funding drive the first time around, a contribution towards this cost would be greatly appreciated.
You can make pledges here. Or email contact@expedition360.com
Posted at 7:54 AM
September 20, 2007
Basecamp Chez Nathalie - Belgium
LOCATION: Denderleeuw, Belgium
SEE WHERE WE ARE!
Longitude: N:50deg.53'54.
Latitude: E: 004deg.03'31.
Kms from Istanbul: 3,078
I haven't known Jason, nor the expedition, for that long, only about six months, yet I have been most fortunate to attend two arrivals of him. The first one at sea in Djibouti with the boiling hot sun beating down on me, the second one at the front door of my house here in Belgium at 7pm last Tuesday, freezing my a** off.
I live in a small provincial town called Denderleeuw, west of Brussels, not really famous for anything I'm afraid, and certainly not for expeditions passing through! We are at about 100 km from Oostende, 'de koningin der badsteden' (queen of seaside resorts), at our Belgian coast which will be the real end of the expedition's land stage through Europe that Jason will bike to on Saturday.
These past 48 hours my place has turned into the expedition360 hub. Wire cables all over the place, phones ringing, sms beeps, etc. A very nice buzzing atmosphere in which lots of work is done, yet with zero stress levels.
I have been helping out Jason with the logistics for Moksha and her trolley since a few months, finding a good place for it here in Belgium, arranging the transport to that place, making lots of calls, getting frustrated and even angry sometimes at the incompetence and illogicality of some people and instances, and at the outrageous EU standard rates.
Today Jason had a 'bad Flemish day' so I helped him arrange for the transport of the boat from Antwerp to Ostend tomorrow, not a simple deal again trying to get a payable and fast solution – we needed to find both a crane and a suitable trailer and synchronize both rentals - but for some reason it felt like a piece of cake this time. Jason's presence really has a calming effect on me. I'm amazed at how comfortable and at ease he deals with all the emails, calls, requests, and impossible situations. A multi-task and time management master who actually gets a lot of work done in one day. I have worked in places where some people didn't get through half of this amount of work over a week!
Through all the work and activity going on I haven't really had time, except at this very moment of writing, to ponder about how spectacular and wonderful this whole circumnavigation really has been. I now kind of start to realize that the expedition has not only been Jason's life, it also has a very unromantic aspect: it's a damn fulltime (non paid) job that requires total immunity to stress and disappointment.
And then for me it is quite hard to grasp the meaning of this end because I feel like it only just begun last March...
I recommend everyone to have an adventurer over at their house once in a lifetime, it is an interesting, uplifting and definitely fun experience.
Looking forward to meeting all the other adventurers and supporters in Greenwich. In the meantime Jason and I will already raise a few glasses full of delicious Belgian beer to the end of his incredible journey that is coming soon!
Cheers - Nathalie
CIRCUMNAVIGATION COMPLETION DETAILS
Date & Time: Saturday 6th October, 2007 at 11.30 am.
Location: The Royal Observatory, (Flamsteed House), Greenwich Park, London, SE10 9NF. t: +44 (0)20 8858 4422
All are invited. Look forward to seeing you there!
Expedition 360 support team
Posted at 10:32 PM
September 16, 2007
Europe Rules
LOCATION: Gerolstein, Germany
SEE WHERE WE ARE!
Longitude: N:50deg.12'58.
Latitude: E: 006deg.39'38.
Kms from Istanbul: 2,783
The weather, thank goodness, has improved the last few days, just enough to dry out my socks (note plural - I now have 2 x pairs after treating myself for my birthday) in time for them to get another soaking tomorrow and Tuesday. It's been lovely while it's lasted though.
The ride through the industrial region of Germany south of Frankfurt has been somewhat of a drag: the area is carved up by a mishmash of highways that cyclists are forbidden to ride on, forcing one to take a more convoluted route on side roads and bike paths to actually get anywhere. I hate to say it but the Germans do fit the stereotypical mould of being sticklers for rules. When I choose not to use the bike paths, riding on the side road itself for better use of time (riding on the bike paths is merely a suggested alternative), the drivers get hysterical, yelling and jabbing their fingers for me to get off the road, even if they're traveling in the opposite direction! Such a different attitude to other countries where people mind their own business. But in Europe it's certainly different. Even if there isn't a rule for something, someone will make it their business to you inform you that you're doing it wrong, whatever 'it' may be. I shouldn't imagine England will be much different. I can't wait. I do so love rules.
The Rhine
With just a few hundred kilometres to go before reaching the Channel my thoughts are inevitably turning towards the completion of the circumnavigation and in particular trying to get my head around what these past 15 years actually mean. It's actually quite hard to do, as unlike regular expeditions that leave a home-base to go off and climb a mountain or cross some frozen wasteland before returning back again, this expedition has become my life. My home has been the road for so long now that I have become disconnected from any one physical place or culture. I am English by origin, and I am returning back to England where I started from with Steve all those years ago, yet I cannot really say that I feel like I am returning 'home'. Home is now a nebulous concept connected more to people than physical places. Hence looking forward immensely to seeing my family, and to rediscovering what it is like to be part of a 'community' again, where ever that ends up being. The nature of this expedition is such that one makes friends for a few weeks, or months at a time, before having to say farewell. Goodbyes, always goodbyes - so exhausting after a while. Perhaps it's inevitable now that I've just turned 40, but I think I'm ready to trade in my traveling boots for a set of regular shoes that normal people wear in normal life...
...well, for a while at least. In trying to get to grips with the completion of the circumnavigation last night I looked back through some of the old video clips and journal entries from years gone by. Even the postings from a year ago in Tibet, China and India seem like an age ago and already I can feel that mystical pull to the ocean and far away places out east; desolate places that are the antithesis of standardized, homogenized, supersized Europe. What is it about these places, these wildernesses that draw the human spirit away from the safety net of modern society to embark on quests that can only ever involve a degree of physical suffering and discomfort? Why, in the words of Robert Louis Stevenson, is there a tendency for humans to '....to come down off the feather bed of civilization, and the find the globe granite underfoot and strewn with cutting flints...'?
The answers are of course vastly complex and personal to the traveler or seeker in question. Some can be shared and appreciated by others who are affected by the same 'pull', but for the most part are difficult to articulate to those who lack the predisposition to wander in the first place. Like the big 'Why?' question that people always ask; 'Why did you start and why did you continue for all those years?' - there is no simple answer. Least not for someone who asks such a question in the first place, expecting a neatly clipped, one-line answer. For those of us who 'do these kinds of things' there is never the need to ask.
Then again I do have a lot to process when I get back in order to know which direction to go next. I have lots of ideas as to what do after the finish, but I need to step out of the picture for a while and just let the dust settle, to try and separate myself from the monster that has been created. At the end of the day the expedition is just an idea and I'm looking forward to being free from the insatiable demands of this man-made animal. But part of me wonders if this will even be possible.
In the meantime the expedition is not yet complete and the Channel crossing still looms: perhaps only a few days in the grand scheme of things but still potentially treacherous enough to cause a major upset if taken it too lightly. So until the Meridian Line is firmly crossed on October 6th (weather permitting), extra care must be taken in the final stages when the tendency is to get overly confident of success.
jason
Posted at 1:22 PM
September 7, 2007
Weather Most Foul
LOCATION: Strengberg, Austria
SEE WHERE WE ARE!
Longitude: N:48deg.08'31.
Latitude: E: 014deg.39'12.
Kms from Istanbul: 1,980
Tonight finds me in the small Austrian town of Strengberg, just short of Linz. Merlin, you left at just the right time you jammy swine. Yesterday on leaving Vienna the temperature dropped to single digits and it's been raining ever since. To the south it's even snowing above 1000 metres. I haven't experienced such miserably cold conditions since coming off Lalung Pass in Tibet nearly a year ago to the day. The difference on this occasion however is that aside from a 'waterproof' K2-Summit jacket (a Chinese knock-off that unsurprisingly leaks like a sieve) I have no cold weather gear with me at all. If I had more time I could just hole up in a cheap penzion somewhere and wait the weather out but there's no cushion in the itinerary anymore, so I need to keep going. Expectation of a cruisey last ride through Europe has subsequently been rather turned on its head. Quite fitting that man-induced climate change, if this is indeed what has prompted the unprecedented turn in the weather, should make an appearance in the final furlong of this zero-emissions project and give it one last boot in the backside.
Vienna
The route west has taken me through undulating farmland strictly divided into neat, rectangular sections cultivated with crops such as corn and pumpkins, bordering onto fallow ground, in turn bordering onto newly planted winter crops. The entire landscape is framed by interlinking wooded areas and networks of hedgerows, no doubt one of the requirements from the EU to allow corridors for the free movement of wildlife. Huge electricity-generating windmills appear everywhere: high profile reminders of how progressive this region of the world is in terms of setting and attaining targets for sustainable fuel resources.
I tried biking on the much acclaimed cycle path that runs for several hundred kilometers along the Danube all the way to Passau and beyond but the self-indulgent twists and turns to accommodate for the meandering whims of the river became irritating. After 20 kms I tried to make it back to the larger 'B' road that shadows the main highway (that cyclists are prohibited from riding on) and ended up getting horribly lost in a maze of backwater tracks and lanes that all seemed to lead off into nowhere. After 6 hours of riding in the rain I had accomplished only 80 kms of which 60 where in the right direction. I began to reminisce of the roads in Asia, Africa and the Middle East which, although filled with terrifying drivers, are relatively few in number and thus pretty much guaranteed to get you where you want to go. In Europe there is almost too much choice, and the road planning authorities treat you like an idiot, so you're not even allowed to make a choice between the fast or slow road in the first place.
Today when passing a good sized bike shop in the town of Amstetten I thought all my cold weather problems where solved. I'd been having to stop at petrol stations every 15 kms throughout the morning to thaw my fingers out enough to change gears, and the waterproof Goretex clothing displayed in the window looked too good to be true. The price tags soon put me back on my heals though. Just a pair of waterproof trousers, gloves and shoes would set me back $600! I reckoned I could spend a third of that on whiskey for the remainder of the trip and still keep warm enough to pedal. Overhearing my mutterings about outrageous European prices the store manager starting rummaging around in a box of discounted items. After a short while he produced a pair of women's trousers half-off (stop sniggering at the back) at a mere 40 euros (still outrageous) and a pair of what looked like gloves either made for Kermit the Frog or someone with only three fingers. "They're not very popular any more" he told me, "I can sell them half price also". It didn't seem likely that a frog would need waterproof gloves, and I suppressed the urge to ask where the once thriving population of three-fingered cyclists living in the town of Amstetten had suddenly disappeared to. I just paid the man in soggy euros and went on my way: a little dryer and happier as a result, even if the trousers do only reach halfway down my legs and two fingers on each hand are squished together in a space designed for only one.
Jason
Posted at 1:09 PM
September 2, 2007
Budapest, Hungary - farewell to Merlin
LOCATION: Budapest, Hungary
SEE WHERE WE ARE!
Longitude: N:47deg.30'33.
Latitude: E: 019deg.00'36.
Kms from Istanbul: 1,483
Two weeks on from Edirne in Turkey, we have reached Budapest. Jason tells me that we have covered just over 1,000 km on our bikes to get here. Tomorrow, I take a boat up the Danube to Vienna before flying back to UK. Notwithstanding some truly scary traffic and death defying unlit Serbian tunnels, both my bike and I are in one piece. One pair of cycle shorts have bitten the dust and I had to replace my bike saddle in Bulgaria to preserve my nether regions. I shall miss shared camping with Jason but not when he had to crawl into my one man tent in the middle of the night when it rained (twice)!
Travel, especially at the speed of a bike, has two aspects: the gradual changes in people, landscape and culture and the odd, sometimes bizarre and, usually, unexpected moments or encounters.
From Belgrade, we headed North. We left the hills behind us and, with it, some of the southern Slav culture with its Balkan salad mix of the appealing, the exotic and the mildly frustrating. We were now on the Great Plain which shadows the Danube and spreads out to its east and as far north as the gates of Vienna. This area of northern Serbia is known as Vojvodina. It's made up of endless maize fields stretching to the pancake flat horizon. We passed by the first Baroque onion church domes.
At Novi Sad, we passed through a Hapsburg gateway. The people looked different. There are apparently a large number of ethnic Hungarians in this area. Signs of "Western" ways, infrastructure and consumerism began to creep in. This process accelerated once we were over the border into Hungary, where we came across our first Tesco store. The amount of litter by the road diminished and we no longer saw dead dogs, just the occasional cat road kill. The temperature dropped by about 20 degrees.
Once into Hungary, we took a break at the town of Szeged which is laid out in immaculate fashion with some beautiful municipal buildings, many in the Art Nouveau style of the early 20th Century. Szeged too has the most amazing ice cream parlour.
So, what of the quirky points? There was the most extraordinary coincidence of coming across my old Serbian teacher from 20 years ago, Sava, in Knez Mihailova, the main street in Belgrade. There was the snatched conversation with a guy from Belgrade who pointed out the tower block that he lived in: when I suggested that he would know what to do if he wanted to commit suicide, he said that he would never want to jump from his flat since he might want to change his mind half way to the ground. We agreed that this would be a Balkan view and that an English person would never think that way.
Somewhere on the plain north of Belgrade, there was a brief rise for a bridge: on one side there was a dead hare, on the other a dead hamster. Having seen virtually no bicycles since I joined Jason, at Srbroban there were bikes everywhere. A Serb on a bike, heh! Today, we came across some long distance cyclists, including a young Chinese Malay and a man cycling on his back. If I had to pick one special moment or experience it would be my visit to the New Synagogue in Szeged. The entrance hall walls were covered with 3,000 names of Jewish people from Szeged who had died in the Holocaust. Inside, there was the most fabulous painted and ornate interior, the beauty of which was made all the more poignant by those names.
And, on a slightly different note, this business about attractive Slav females that Jason commented on in the last entry - I have to dissociate myself from any such impressions and I do not believe there is any genetic link in Lewis Erratic Optics Syndrome which Jason seems to suffer from.
Merlin Lewis
(Ed. note: absolute rubbish Merlin)
Posted at 10:21 AM