York, Manchester, July 26

This morning we got up and did a massive packathon, which was not as easy as at the beginning, when we didn't have to schlep quite as much. Marthe had a facial at Neil's Yard, then bought a beautiful outfit at Noa Noa, a Danish Company. I, on the other hand, went to the Oxfam Bookstore and bought a biography of Ingrid Bergman, which I plan to read on the plane. At noon we met for lunch at a lovely tea shop run by a lady who had on the menu a very nice hummus (though not as good as the hummus we had in Israel and Jordan), as well as two kinds of olives and some braised cherry tomatoes, with an interesting flax seed bread served with it. Afterwards we took a lovely walk along the river Ouse before catching a taxi for the York train station, where we took a Transpennine Express all the way to Manchester Piccadilly, one station before the airport, then transferred to another train which had as its one and only stop the airport. During both train rides we had to stand the entire time, as there were so many people who were going our way! It got pretty close with all that humanity packed onto a train. Upon alighting at the airport, we followed the signs for Terminal 2 / Radisson Hotel, and are now ensconced in a room overlooking the airfield, Terminal 2, and the planes at their gates. We have shared two appetizers of seared scallops and chicken on a bed of lettuce, and are currently listening to an American Youth Orchestra playing the famous Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto with Joshua Bell at a BBC Prom concert at the Royal Albert Hall. Next will be the Shostakovich Tenth Symphony, under Valery Ghiergiev. And with that concert all the incredible memories of this marvelous trip surface once again. It may have been the best yet, and I shall surely never forget it. My thanks for the incredible memories this trip has engendered. And as I raise my sparkling water glass tonight, I toast not only this one, but all the trips I have been privileged to have made since 1999. They have changed me, without a doubt, and have fashioned me into the world citizen I am today! Tomorrow I leave for Heathrow, and then for Dallas, but the memories of this trip remain with me as long as I shall live. In Wordsworth's amazing words, "...though nothing can bring back the hour of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower, we will grieve not, but find strength in what remains behind." Those memories can never fade! And so good night!