Just watched Spain beat Germany in the Euro 2008 soccer on TV. The match was played in Vienna, Austria. I had tentatively planned to be there in the audience. Normally, I am in Britain when major soccer tournaments are taking place: I was in Britain in 1998, 2002 and 2006 when the World Cup was being played (not in Britain mind you). But Vienna was one of my favorite cities during my eleven country European tour in summer 2007. In addition to the United Kingdom and Austria, I visited the Netherlands, France, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Slovenia, Poland, Hungary and Denmark. Sometimes it takes a trip like that to clear your mind and re-orient yourself, to figure out whether you want to continue living –and why- and perhaps how to plot your path forward.
I discovered my second wind in visits to the Tate of London where I saw Jackson Pollack’s work for the first time; I developed a new thirst for knowledge on my visits to Musée d'Orsay in Paris where I saw the works of the Impressionists. That visit fitted in well with the Teaching Company course I had completed: From Monet to Van Gogh: A History of Impressionism. I completed the circle by visiting The Vincent Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.
I also liked Budapest: it was among the cheapest of all the European cities and it was beautiful at nights. But it was hot: close to 40 degrees Celsius.
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