clinging to the wreckage

  The first morning in my old home, Madrid, I woke up early and, forgetting that I had breakfast included with the hotel, went for a walk to find breakfast. I found a scruffy little café somewhere close to Mercado San Idelfonso and went in for orange juice, coffee, and pan de chocolate (not something I would usually eat for breakfast but, when in Europe…). It reminded me of the times just before I left Madrid and my girlfriend at the time would often wake up in my apartment and disappear for a while only to reappear with coffee and brown paper bags filled with delicious pastries from some unknown local bakery or café. I walked on in search of a few required items such as soap, ear buds, and some nail clippers, which I eventually found in a little pharmacy in which the lady helping me had to climb up some ladders to pick the clippers off a top shelf. After spending some time back at my hotel, I took a long walk and eventually sauntered into a bar called El Diario (The Diary). It was...

  Room 8 at Hotel Brunnenhof was home for four days in the Kinzig Valley, a scenic river valley that runs through Hanau, Germany. I was there from the 9 th   of August through to the 13 th   for a wedding and several meetings with old friends from Germany and England. It was a fantastic time. Then, on the 13 th , I took a train from Steinem to Frankfurt and then a second train to Paris where I now sit in bed, at 06:16 (having been awake since 4am), in room 216 at the Hotel & Spa Royal Madeleine. The room is tiny but beautiful and I sit here sipping a coffee contemplating life and loves long lost… loves which now lay silent, in death, and will not resurrect even though there are those that I long for. This is my first visit to Paris and my initial impression is that it is similar in architecture and flow to Madrid, where I lived for three years. I am sure there are many French and Spanish individuals who would take my head off for such a comparison, but it is merely mi...