# Travel Snaps

In December 2000 I flew from Melbourne to San Francisco, where I saw my
father . He’s a mathematician: algebra, geometry, calculus–he does all
that. It was good to see my father, but San Francisco is not a city that
excites me terribly, and I didn’t spend much time there.

From San Francisco I went to New York . (Everyone knows what New York
looks like.) I took these two photos– and –near the Rockefeller Center.
I stood in the middle of a crowd, marvelled at the beautifully-lit flag,
and waited for the wind to flap it just so. It’s difficult, I
discovered, to perform this act for more than a few minutes at a time
without feeling very foolish.

London. I didn’t take many pictures in London. Or do very much in
London, but that’s okay–I’ll go back soon. (I’m carrying around a £1
coin in my wallet to spend when I go back.) These columns hold up the
British Museum; this was taken in Trafalgar Square. Pigeons don’t fly
there now–the new mayor of London has had them banished…

I spent Christmas in London. I do recommend the hostel I stayed at–the
Astor Museum Inn, just opposite the British Museum.

On December 28th I took a train to Paris. I suppose I sort of wasted
Paris by not going there with a lover. Great charms were in the offing:
my first-time visit has dulled them.

Notre-Dame is quite wonderful. The gargoyles , surprisingly, were added
in the 19th Century.

On New Year’s Eve I took a train to Madrid . Madrid is not worth very
many pictures; Barcelona is, but when I was choosing pictures to scan, I
skipped over Barcelona for some reason–sorry.

From Barcelona I went to Bilbao, mostly to see Frank Gehry’s gleaming
Guggenheim . There’s some good (or at least interesting) art inside too.

This is Centraal Station, Amsterdam . One of the few photos I took
there.

When I was seven I spent ten months in Cambridge. I went to school in
Coton, which is just outside Cambridge. This is my school, looking down
from the top end of the soccer field. My scanning software guessed that
the image was a black and white photo–England is a sullen, gloomy,
place, but I still like it.

I took a lot of photos in Prague . There’s some story about this dog
–it’s called Red Riding Hood and lives on wolf street, or it’s called
“wolf” and lives on Red Riding Hood street–something like that, I can’t
remember exactly. Prague has a pretty good river , a concrete slide , a
groovy Russian-designed subway system , and another Frank Gehry building
.

Next, Edinburgh. Now Edinburgh is painfully pretty city . Also, the
castle has very clean toilets . (I’m planning to move to Edinburgh.)

I took a bus from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur; the bus stopped for a while
here . This is my aunt , and this is my cousin .

And that’s it for my trip.

All the photos I scanned can be found [here](/travel2.001k/).