Catch Up
Posted on August 8, 2015 in Culture Images
So as you can see, everything more or less fell apart here. At any rate, here are a bunch of nice pictures from France without narration, because that would push the whole thing back even further.
Albi Addendum
Posted on July 8, 2015 in Culture Life
So to start, here are some things I forgot to add from Albi. First, and most importantly, here I am flipping off Paul Gaugin’s works and, by extension, the “artist” himself.
Here’s a shot across the river there.
Here is a cool glass structure placed inexplicably atop an otherwise normal building.
On Friday we went award-winning winery Domaine Merchien. I took a picture of their wall of awards, but it came out fuzzy. Instead, here is the winery’s namesake leaning against my mother because it was 100 degrees out and, as you can see, he’s not really made for warm weather.
As part of our visit to the winery, the proprieters booked us into L’Auberge du Mas d’Aspech. We got lost and showed up 45 minutes late, but it didn’t seem to be a big deal. The food was wonderful. I’d say the highlight was this quiche which, as you know, is one of those things at which the French leave the rest of the world far behind.
Here I am feeling a bit smug after a wonderful meal.
Albi Seeing You
Posted on July 4, 2015 in Uncategorized
So traveling around Quercy has been pretty nice. We’ve been revisiting some of our old faves.
This is a tiny church in a hillside town whose name I always forget.
By way of contrast, here is the incredibly huge cathedral at Albi.
Here I am, inevitably, feeling lucky.
Here is Jesus looking a bit furtive.
Here’s Joseph looking like he had a few too many last night.
Living The Dream in Quercy
Posted on June 29, 2015 in Images Life
So somebody has written a book that appears to address all of my interests. I hope it is translated into English soon.
I have arrived in Quercy. The travel day was made a bit more difficult by one of our party being delayed out of SF, which
created a rather dramatic knock-on effect that resulted in my hanging around the Toulouse area for about 9 hours. Nevertheless,
things are now totally wonderful.
While they aren’t quite as dramatic as the ones in Amsterdam, Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val does have canals.
In addition to the canals, Saint Antonin is along L’Aveyron, which you can watch wander along at this truly amazing riverside
bar.
Here is an aquatic cairn to memorialize people who have been pecked to death by ducks.
Also, the bar’s deck has this charming water feature.
We visited a charming abbey, and saw an interesting example of this medieval insulation technique.
The abbey’s interior courtyard was about as idyllic as the law allows.
This is the vault under which the monks made waffles.
These swans hissed at me, but made no move to attck. I guess swans have gotten the memo about my being a martial artist.
The famous “House of Wolves” in Caylus.
You probably haven’t heard of this portal.
Cool map of regional churches.
And When It Doesn’t The Sun Makes You Feel Worse Anyway
Posted on June 24, 2015 in Images Life
Before we begin: Today in things that sound like movie plots.
It has rained, at least briefly, every day that I’ve been here. It has made for some dramatic skies.
There’s still an hour of daylight to go, but it does seem as if today will break the streak.
Cool vestibule tiles.
Not as cool as a grill-boat, but nothing to sneeze at.
In general, the Dutch speak perfect English, this has not prevented them from getting in on the lucrative t-shirts-with-dumb-English-text-on-them market. On the other hand, I suppose that’s true of Americans as well.
No lie, I saw a guy wearing that exact shirt a block later.
Educating the Youth
Posted on June 21, 2015 in Images Reality As Such
Yesterday I went to ArtZuid with a couple of friends and a cool baby. Because it was a longish walk, we had to take a coffee break in the middle.
Here we are being a bit incredulous.
Here we are looking a bit more enthused.
Building with cool clock.
Building with cool windows.
This collection of lawn gnomes and plastic vermin speaks to man’s inhumanity to man.
Piet Kramer building. Here is a shot of its internal garden.
Here I am introducing the baby to piggyback rides.
Here he is trying to pull out my eyeball.
Finally, Some Pictures
Posted on June 20, 2015 in Images Life
Here’s the tree and sky behind the apartment.
So apparently the neighborhood in which I’m staying is the Williamsburg ca. 1999 of Amsterdam. Consequently, on Thursday I started my day at a place called The Breakfast Club. Afterward, I kind of made a loop up to Centraal Station, and then back around to the apartment.
Important life goals: a boat that you go to for grilling.
While not as salient to my life as a boat with a grill on it, I found this pretty wonderful.
Brutalism is best.
Meter box (I think.)
Houses with loading hoooks.
I’m still sleeping pretty poorly, and I woke up feeling pretty groggy on Friday. I decided it would be comforting to have some staples, which did end up feeling pretty reassuring. Now I can just sort of lounge around all day if I’m so inclined and won’t have to go out for a kebab at 11 or something horrible like that.
On Friday evening I went here, which is apparently the ground zero of the area’s gentrification process. Being Friday evening, it was completely packed. For a while the only available table was on the top of a garbage can. Afterwards, we went to the trendy bar associated with this restaurant, which was pretty good, although substantially understaffed. Ladies in Amsterdam seem more into animal prints than ladies in other cities.
Currently my most pressing problem is that I forgot to pack any nail clippers. Signing off to wipe the blood from writing this post off my keyboard.
Made It
Posted on June 17, 2015 in Life Reality As Such
I set out on Bloomsday.
Despite feeling pleased with myself in the last entry, I didn’t do such a great job of leaving things in good order. Certainly acceptable, I think, but not exactly tidy. I guess I can still get away with calling it progress. Also, packing was pretty smooth and despite waiting a disconcertingly long time for The Max , I made the airport in good time. I ate at the Country Cat there, which was genuinely nice.
I got the very, very, very last seat on the plane. I was trying to figure out how to go about feeling good about staying another day, and dreading going though the checking and security-theater process for more waiting. Luckily, someone on the standby list didn’t show, and my name was called. It felt good. Already had a little adventure by the time we were taxiing.
I was sort of hoping there would be a power outlet so I could play TIS-100, which I’ve been enjoying a good deal. Sadly, something about the Unity payer burns super-hot, even though the graphics are basically non-existent. It runs through the battery in less than two hours. This meant I had to just zone out and watch things. In particular, I watched Jupiter Ascending, which was indeed terrible, although fine for whiling away a plane ride.
Schipol was, by some distance, the best immigration experience I have ever had. I didn’t wait in line for even a single second at passport control. Things sort of fell apart on transit, though, as the ATM in the airport only dispensed 50s, and the station at which I changed for the tram was remote enough that I had to walk around for a bit to find a shop that would let me pay for just a coffee with one of them. If Europeans are so reticent about breaking bills, why the fuck do they print them at all?
The apartment is fantastic. It has a hippie feel, which is not, as you know, my aesthetic, but the quality of it is very alluring, and it’s very comfortable and airy. Going to be very happy to do some languishing here, and I imagine it’ll be a nice space in which to get through my Euro-workdays.
A Shirt and a Few Noserags
Posted on June 14, 2015 in Life
So travel seems to be about the only sufficient inducement to get me to put anything in here. Luckily, I am headed to Amsterdam on Tuesday, where I will continue to work for a bit while ensconced in a seemingly charming apartment that’s more or less right outside the heart of things. Obviously, being 6 hours ahead of the home office is a bit more awkward than being 3 hours behind it, but my plan is to wake up, do some museums or other sightseeing, and then work into the night, which sort of suits me anyways.
For reasons that I think are coupled tightly with the fact that I’m an excellent traveler, I am terrible at preparing to travel. I’ve gotten through a shocking amount of cleaning today, but there’s still a lot to do, and I haven’t done anything that even resembles packing. I’ve been in a bit of a funk lately, so it has been surprising to me that I’ve been able to plow through as much of the cleaning as I have. When I went out to DC, I definitely left things in a pretty sorry state. Progress, I guess.
Hello Darkness My New Friend
Posted on October 4, 2014 in Life Reality As Such
So I turned 38 on Monday. That’s pretty grim, of course, but the fact is I’m in pretty good shape these days. I could have better habits, but I’m lean and do a remarkably good job of breathing, under the circumstances. What I have noticed is that my night-vision has started to suffer substantially of late. Because I live in a city, I don’t really notice this at night. Instead, I notice it when I enter a building or get on a bus with my sunglasses on. Stuff that I’ve gotten used to being really obvious has started to be difficult to ascertain under this very specific circumstance.