a day in the life of my stomach

In the past fortnight, I've had the pleasure of reading at the Stockholm International School in Sweden and at the Copenhagen International Poetry Festival in Denmark. Both events were well-attended and lots of fun!

But I don't want to write about that just now.

I want to talk about food!

Here's what I ate today, with A$ prices in brackets to give you some idea of the high-life we're leading!

It started with breakfast at our B&B in Tallinn, Estonia. Muesli with kefir (kind of like yoghurt) and black bread with cheese. Orange juice.

We then drove south heading towards Latvia, but had some spare Estonian money we thought we'd shed. At Parnu, we found a brilliant cafe that served delicious apple cake ($2 a slice) washed down with perfect cappuccinos ($2.50). We walked around in the rain for awhile, wondering how to get rid of the rest of the spare change. We ended up in another cafe where I had a slice of black bread with red caviar ($1), another slice with sardines ($1) and yet another slice with sardines chopped up with... something tasty? ($1). We gave up trying to get rid of the money and changed it at the bank for Latvian Lats.

We drove into Latvia and dumped our bags at the B&B in Riga, then caught a wonderful tram into the Old Town where we had dinner. A bowl of Borscht Soup with black bread ($3.60) followed by beef goulash ($8), washed down with a glass of white wine ($3.60).

On the way home we bought some bananas (50 cents) in a pathetic attempt to kid ourselves we're eating healthy. Who cares. Everything we ate today was delicious!

Tomorrow, it's the potato pancakes we spied on the way out of the dinner restaurant.

Copenhagen International Poetry Festival

Next week, I'm visiting a school in Stockholm to read poetry to the students (all fifty-one nationalities). After that, it's back to the lovely house surrounded by lakes in the Swedish countryside for two days of bicycling and then down to the Copenhagen International Poetry Festival, which includes events such as handing out poems to commuters (shouldn't there be a law against that??) and readings beside the grave of Hans Christian Anderson. I'm scheduled to read at a few sessions - remembering childhood (tick); love (tick), and one on football (double-plus tick) - both Australia and Denmark have made the World Cup. In fact, we play each other in June in a warm-up match. Should be lots to talk about. Oh yeah, I'm also one of those poets handing out his work on a Copenhagen street corner. After twenty-five years and twenty books, it's come to this...

Spring in Sweden

Every time I pass a freshwater lake in Australia, I have the urge to jump in and swim across to the other side. Something to do with a childhood spent near too many creeks, rivers and beaches, I suppose.

It's spring in Sweden. Today is a beautiful sunny day and we stopped beside this lake not far from where we are staying. If I dived in here, I would crack my skull on the ice and die of hypothermia. So I compensated and spent a few childish minutes tossing boulders into the lake. They barely cracked the ice. We have canoes at our Bed & Breakfast. Can you canoe on ice? Maybe I'll stick to the bicycle and cycle around it instead, pondering how far an Australian childhood is from a Swedish one.

solar power in Sweden

Yes, this is a very boring photo. It's the local high school in Bastad, Sweden. Although Sweden is very cold most of the year, often bleak and snowbound, the school has a full bank of solar panels on the roof. Dotted all over the surrounding countryside are power-generating windmills - they even have them plonked in the water on the strait between Denmark and Sweden. It's like this all over Europe. Solar power. Wind power.

Now, what country do I know that has lots of sunshine? And a fair amount of wind?

That's right, my own.

Let's dig up another few tonnes of coal, shall we?

the life of a long-distance poet

I've always travelled for poetry, doing schools and festivals over the past twenty-two years in fourteen countries as diverse as New Zealand, Vietnam, Croatia and Spain. So, I know just a little about hotel rooms, eating out and driving on the wrong side of the road. Let me make a few sweeping generalizations.

In Australia, I pay a (relative) fortune for average hotel rooms where the air-conditioner makes as much noise as the overweight salesman snoring in the next room. In small towns, I dine at the local bowls club or the corner pub and eat too much meat drowned in too much sauce with too many chips and never enough salad. In cities, I seek out the restaurants I know from previous tours and treat them with the respect and patronage they deserve.

Driving? I fume in the fast lane at the person in front doing exactly 100 kmh which he (yes, it's aways a he) imagines give him the right to hold up as much traffic as he wants.

In Europe, in small towns, I stay in the Chambre d'Hote, or zimmers, or B&B's which offer a comfortable (soundproof!) room, often in a farmhouse three centuries old. The hosts provide a substantial breakfast included in the price which is always below A$100 per double. Sometimes, they also provide a three-course meal (with wine!) for around $30. If not, they recommend a restaurant in the village. It's always cheap and cheerful and the food is local and well-cooked.

In cities from Paris to Prague, I stay in one-star hotels (yes, one-star). The rooms are clean, sound-proof, warm and have character. They cost less than $120 a double and frequently include breakfast.

I drive in the far-right (slow) lane of three-lane highways at 130kmh. If I want to overtake, I can in the fast lane, but I know that no matter how fast I drive, I should only ever use this lane for passing. If I hang out there doing 150kmh, I will be tailgated by an Audi or BMW wanting to do 180 kmh. This is as it should be.

I'm writing this in a lovely room overlooking a green meadow of cows in the north of The Netherlands. We're paying A$72 (including "breakfast with milk straight from the cows outside", our hosts told us). She recommended a restaurant in a very small town a few kilometres away. It was full and surprisingly up-market. The menu was translated by the affable waiter and the food was absolutely delicious, prepared largely from local produce and very substantial.

Tomorrow, we're driving to Germany, in the slow lane, at a gentle 130 kmh.

Easter in Burgundy (Which one's the donkey?)

We're spending the Easter weekend in the chambre of an old tower attached to a beautiful stone house with a dog called Custard (who is the star of a children's picture book written by the owner). In a (nominally) Catholic country, you'd expect everything to be closed on Easter Friday.

Non.

The children are still at school, the boulangaries are open, the Council workmen are diligently weeding the village park and the donkey is pleading for apples. The man in the silly beanie is walking home from a hilltop village that has its very own ancient lavoir fed by a spring where the town washerwomen scrubbed the clothes in a different century. From their vantage point, they would have looked across the pastures to the surrounding villages. It's pleasing to report that the hand-scrubbing has gone, but all the villages still exist with bakers and schools and small restaurants and tabacs and churches and postal vans (the French love snailmail) and town halls where the notices are posted for all to read and the music events program for the district runs to an impressive twelve pages and if I had a stray few dollars I may be tempted to buy that medieval chateau on the distant hill, but I don't... so I'll go and eat a raspberry tart and find another apple for that appealing fellow with the big ears.