how i've missed headlands

Thursday 21st.

The Zvolensky smotanovy yoghurts are especially good because the yoghurt part is not sweetened at all. It is left up to the flavoured goo in the bottom – in this case blueberry – to give the sugar, so each mouthful can be as sweet, or not, as you like.

This somewhat cheers up the view of the green breeze blocks which keep out the noise of the road behind them, if not of that in front of them. It is cold enough to regret the extra fifteen minutre wait aused by caution with connecting buses, but nothing can really get me down, as this evning I’ll be in spain with Joe, Sam and Jess (if not Ilona).

[A portion of the original text is missing, suffice to say that I successfully boarded a bus eventually.]

With Schengen, Slovak radio has deep penetration into Austrian territory. As they say, different political jurisdiction, same shocking set of English-language trash-hits. You can’t express historical opinions, but you can play Wet Wet Wet after the Everly Brothers after You Are Not Alone. Maybe live performances are subject to harsher restrictions.

You cross the border almost immediately, after Einsteinova, and shortly arrive in Hainburg. I have never set foot in this town, but one day I hope to, if only to give it the chance to redeem itself – at the moment, I think of it only as the place where paranoid western Europeans go to obtain consumer goods and healthcare deemed too risky in Bratislava.

It’s quite a pretty place, larger than the other villages on the road between Europe’s closest capitals, but not looking dissimilar. And it still has a one-car-at-a-time section in the city wall, where everyone has to wait. More adverts, too.

The Austrian side of the border between these two coastless countries is home to a large field of wind turbines, which is the single best thing about travelling from Vienna. I wrote a postcard to Sarah once about their majestic salute to sustainability, their timelessness and wisdom. I love them, simply put (and I want one on my house), which is more than can be said for the Stalinists behind British failure to have them.

And into Barcelona. “Tranquilamente, no te preoccupies. Si bloqueas, otra vez.” !And! a reissued boarding pass for my legs. Finom, Super, Fantastico.

If the bus got to Nerja around 2245, and I was still in the taxi, a fifteen minute ride, at 0015 and later… a destroying experience, but the food made the pain vanish like so much mist. see tomorrow's post.


And just now, we made our own icing sugar!!!!!