From PAUL- Sorry about not posting anything in a very long time. I just arrived back from Athens and am currently driving up to Newcastle. but I will start and the start, which is always the best place to start.

KINGSTON-ON-THAMES, ENGLAND

I arrived in Kingston some two weeks ago to put up the show in the Rose Theater. The Rose is a brand new theater that follows the design lines of the Old Globe or the original Rose before it. It is the kind of the theater that Shakespeare worked in. It is circular with three tiers of seating and in front of the lowest tier is an actual peanut gallery. The peanut gallery is the lowest level with no seating, but in this modern version people are expected to bring pillows form home.

Anyway I arrived in England before everyone else to start the load-in and try to get things ready. The crew was nice and efficient and all went in well. The house has a main compliment of about 20 VL1000 Profiles and about 12 VL1000 floods. (moving lights with a full range of motion, color, and beam control) So instead of doing the traditional rig I did everything with the movers, which meant reprogramming the show from scratch. It went fast though and I got a chance to use the brand New Eos Consule form ETC. As a side note I programed on the beta version of this board at LDI years ago and thought it was a piece of crap, but apparently they have worked out the bugs. I still don’t like the way the shutters have to be programed and think A LOT of time was wasted making accurate shutter cuts. The Theater is right on the Thames and there are boats all over it. It is a very nice little suburb of London. The river is very pretty on this part of the river and there were tons of swans and other water fowl swimming about with their ugly ducklings. I would save what I didn’t eat from my lunch and feed them causing quite a riot. I am a sentimental kind of guy and mainly gave the old birds or the parents the food. The rough and tumble yearling’s only got a few pieces if I could help it.

There is a great pub right next to the theater that I went to almost every night. While I was there the Finals game between Manchester United and Arsenal for the European premier league was played. If you don’t know anything about football (soccer) then you might be missing the import of this. Man U and Arsenal are bitter rivals and this was the first time that two British teams had made it to the final. The pub was split about evenly with the fans. I would say the decibel level in the place was a constant 90dbl, with frequent peaks of 120dbl. (a table saw is about 90 dbl.) It was a raucous. I mean crazy. It was tied 1-1 at the end of the last half and then they went into over time. Over time finished and no one had scored. So they went to the inevitable shoot out. after much back and forth and a second set of five shooters came up finally Man U won with. I have a feeling that if you where outside anywhere in the world that night you heard the distant rumble of have of Britain cheering and the other half groaning. I was intranced watching this cultural event. Cars on the street were honking and drunken people wandering around singing Man U’s fight song. A couple of days later I met Steve’s sister who lives right down the road, Sue and I got on well and we talked about family histories and the Hewitt’s in general. Lucy, Sue’s daughter, couldn’t make it.

I also had a chance to go to Hampton Court Palace and walk around the gardens and castle. Very pretty. I found the best part was the kitchens. They would cook a massive amount of food twice every day. how they did it was a wonder to behold. I took the replica paddle boat to and from the palace which was fun. There are little islands in the middle of the Thames where there are these great houses. I can only speculate that they must be multi million pound houses. Every one had a private dock with some kind of boat tied up by. It is a 30 minute ride up the river to downtown London , or you could float down with the current to Dover. When I got back I had some Tapas at a Spanish restaurant and drank sangria.

ATHENS, GREECE

The show came down on a Saturday and I flew out before strike while everyone got Sunday off. Sunday I started loading in in Athens. It was hard, frustrating and made me feel sorry for the state of Greek theater in general. The regular workers where fine though. I got everything up eventually and learned some hard lessons about working with Greeks in general. I really do understand why Americans have made it so far with their work ethic, can do attitude, and pleasantness. I don’t mean to say we are the best though, in fact we are slipping fast and the Chinese will be the true super power in another 25 years, and with George Bush policies currently in place perhaps 10 years.(as a side note -in theory I will be going to Beijing next year with this show.) I don’t want to harp on the Athenians though, every thing worked out in the end just as I told them it would. I mean really, now I know why they call it a “Greek” tragedy. They LOVED the show. The show is way over the top emotionally and they really appreciated it.

The Theater above is not the theater we worked in, it is set up for an opera. The theater we worked in was very very very old and is very very scary. Totally unsafe. The rigging would make Perry cry, the lighting rig would make Terry giggle, and the stage would make Staldi smoke about ten cigarettes in a row wondering where he had gone wrong in life. I did all three.

The hotel, however, was a 5 star affair which had a restaurant on the 10th floor. From the restaurant’s terrace, while sipping retsina, you can command a view of all of Athens, including the Parthenon which sits on a tall outcropping of rock a mere 1/4 mile away. It was truly impressive to watch the sun set from up there. I really enjoyed it. I also enjoyed the terrace top restaurants through out the city that Dorothy, Damon, and I made a point to going out to each night. They where all great and no meal was bad. The Acropolis (which I guess means high city?) was also fun to explore.

On the last day there we had a day off, which I decided to spend on a one day island cruise. It left from Athens and went to three different islands. The first island stop was at Poros. I climbed right up to the top of the ruins that I could see from the boat and explored. I found some graffitti from 1893. From up there I found a beach down the road. It was beautiful and I swam for about an hour. There are fish everywhere and the color of the Med, i mean really, you can’t capture it on film or paint. I got back onto the boat right on time despite not having a watch. So we get to the second island and I take a walk along the piers. The boats fascinate me and I take every opportunity to study them. Of course not a single wooden boat, but yachts of the medium rich.

I found a nice cafe and decide to have an espresso and creme caramel. It is not flan, but it tastes good on a hot day. I watch the boats sail or motor by contently. Then a big boat starts passing me and I think, “wow, that looks exactly like my boat.” well, it was. Talk about sinking feelings, and visions of being stuck on a Greek island and missing my flight, being fired out of hand, etc, etc. I ran down the street and found that the water ferries travel between all the islands so I bought a ticket for one and went to catch up with my boat. These passenger ferries are really cool. The have hydrofoils under them and they go really fast. It feels like you are in a really low flying airplane. I made it to the next port and vowed that I would get a watch. (still haven’t) I walked around the island some and then got on my boat for the return trip to Athens. It was a lovely ending to my stay in Athens.

NEWCASTLE, ENGLAND

And today I am traveling up to Newcastle, which is situated close to the border with Scotland. Saturday I finish that I have the “race to the start of the Race.” I am traveling from Newcastle to southern Texas via four flights to make it to the start of the Texas 200 with Bill in his new boat. I am so excited and can’t wait. I mean truly excited. I just hope with all my might nothing goes wrong with any of my flights. If I make it I will have been traveling for over 20 hours and get in at around 1130 to the boat. The race starts the next morning. I can’t wait. I will write again later in the week.

Yours Paul

PS I just got into my apartment in Newcastle. It is the best damn place i have stayed in since I was in Peru with Cybele, but that is another story. It has a full kitchen which is modern and a great entertainment area. It is a two bedroom affair with the second bedroom a flight of spiral stairs. It is a master bedroom with its own bathroom and two sky lights. I am very impressed.

Hampton Court Palace, home of Henry the 8th

I love the yellow flowers!

the olympic stadium in athens

Ruins on the roadside

the Greek promotion for the show