Galleries - too few to mention.

I went to the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection today. If you can't be bothered to read just watch this it's a clip from Educating Rita and while I only liked the film on a couple of levels when it came out, mostly as a comedy, it does manage to capture some of the complexities of the class jump and broadening awareness of the wider world, including artistic appreciation. That is really how it felt being privvy to the paintings that were in the gallery today. I lost count of the Monet's and Degas's, the ocassional Van Gogh's and the Constable's mixed in with the Berlin School works alongside the Caneletto's and the Pissaro's. It's one thing being privvy to the work but it's such a good setting as well. I don't know what this compares to in the UK - it makes the collection in the galleries of the City Council, University of Birmingham and elsewhere around the Midlands seem pale in comparison though it has whetted my appetite for seeing everything in the established galleries of the West Midlands.

There's something in me saying aim to transcend class like nothing else. I can't really state that I think it's what I'm going to be good at but there's something important about this as an issue of the day - it may have been dealt with well on other levels and in other countries better than this has been elsewhere but I guess that I can only state that I feel that this is something that I feel a great connection to.

Tomorrow to Toledo to check out the ancient town. Today was spent largely reflecting on issues that should have remained largely within my youth. It was good to be in such a setting when I was feeling so much like putting some form of ending on the trip to central america. I guess there's a limited amount of 'beauty' within such a setting and that I can only find a means of expressing how I felt - it was really only the opening to what was considered the finest of arts that had remained closed to anyone of working class background that was really that special today. It was open, the staff in the gallery seemed to be pleased that I wanted to come back in the afternoon to see more after having been in the gallery for the bulk of the morning. They may have known that I was going through some form of 'Educating Rita experience' - bollocks to them, I don't care if I was. It felt like some form of opening of interest, not of anything more. I hope it stays with me.