A broken tulip

I went to Europe

(to visit dear people)

and

saw many things.

Here’s a few of them (randomly).

I saw a man carrying a large canvas and a lady eating Chipotle in the Philadelphia airport.

I saw Russian musicians in downtown Stuttgart; my friend and I bought pretzels in a plaza there.

I saw October in Neubrandenburg.

I saw the entire process of setting up a Mongolian yurt (and helped).

I saw a beautiful wedding.

I saw friends who are my family (but we don’t share ethnicity or nationality).

In Berlin, my friends and I ate doner at dusk. Outside the window I saw a man pause to pick up a smoking bit of cigarette from the lip of a garbage can.

I saw chocolate in Germany. (My Mom has always taught me to eat whatever I find in abundance locally. Usually this means caterpillars or squash. But in Germany, I found …schokolade.)

I saw lovers in London passionately kissing under a red traffic light (were they afraid of it turning to green?).

I saw a store in London just for umbrellas and down the street an antique store that has sold antique books since antique times.

I saw tea shops.

I saw Richmond Park, sunlight, and a choice between two paths.

I saw Trafalgar Square. There I found a Canadian juggling knives, and a chalk artist who drew the face of a lonely girl.

In a wide office window of downtown London, I saw a big man. He was bald and wearing a gray business suit. In one hand, he held a small yellow chick and his eyes were closed.

I saw an old door, a brick wall, and red leaves that don’t know about boundaries.

I saw the river Thames as the sun went down on it, and sat there to watch the people scurrying by it.

I saw a man who could make an old piano sing to us sitting in a dark cathedral. I saw some of the most reliable ancient New Testaments; I saw Egyptian mummies and Ethiopian paintings and the Rosetta Stone; I tasted higgidy pies and bargained for a hand-drawn magnet from the story of Le Petit Prince.

On the underbelly of downtown London, I found colour.

I heard bells chime the hours and watched the pastoral landscape of Belgium slip past my train windows. I saw the postmen in Germany ride on large yellow bikes, and found that some milk in England still comes in glass bottles.

Many things. Bizarre, colourful, odd (to me), delicious.

(I saw – and heard – and tasted – but.

it’s what my heart saw that still remains on my mind and in my memory.)