I have a private, perhaps subconscious way, with which I learn things quickly - I use my intuition to map out a tree. Take a word or a phrase, assign it to a discipline, and assume it has the trunk and branches arising from classical understanding of that discipline. If I can't, if my knowledge of that discipline is lacking, then I take the next most analogous discipline I have knowledge of, and I assume the unknown discipline has the trunk and branches of that analogous discipline. Then I test out the tree (whether from my actual knowledge and applied to that word or phrase, or from an analogous tree) by asking questions. I ask questions which I expect, based on the tree, to have predictable answers. The more that the true answers match my predictions, the more safely I can assume to know that thing; the less, the more that I have to throw away the assumed analogy, or to learn a new tree entirely.
As Brian Skinner, associate professor of physics and blog author of Gravity and Levity, writes, it is "one of the most important strategies in physics: solving by analogy." (see link). Thus, "[t]his is the best form of cheating that I know: you show that the hard problem someone is asking you is identical to a hard problem that someone else has already solved, and you look up the answer. You come away looking clever without having to do much difficult work at all." For the great Feynman once wrote, "Nature uses only the longest threads to weave her patterns, so each small piece of her fabric reveals the organization of the entire tapestry."
The great thing about this method, this intuition-rubric, is that if it works, it works really effing well.
The problem with this approach is at least threefold:
1. Conceit - I stop listening to an explanation faster than I should - partly because I am thinking of the tree (this takes time), and partly because I am relying on the borrowed tree to plug in the meat of the explanations. It is also perhaps because the explanation is delivered by a non-expert, or in an uninteresting manner. This is remedied by making sure to learn from credible, clear sources.
2. Mistake - I pick the wrong analogy, or worse, I pick the wrong questions to ask. Or perhaps I misinterpret the answers, and draw incorrect conclusions from those premises. All this is very difficult to remedy, and takes time to learn from. Also, carried away with my own genius, I tend to assume the gaps between the actual tree of knowledge and the presumed tree are smaller than they are, and paper over cracks. But analogies must fail sometimes, and the more tenuous the analogy, the less useful the tree (and I may not realise the error until too late).
3. Ignorance - It takes time and learning to develop intuition - to amass knowledge of disciplines, to build trees of knowledge, and to learn how analogies should work.
The interesting thing out of all this, is that errors and mistakes can be wonderful, wonderful things. Novelty comes from having a solid core of knowledge, but with imagination in application, derivation and expansion. So often we have this beaten out of us! And the most important things in all of learning are curiosity and creativity. Even if a guess is wrong, it is interesting to consider the conceptual steps that led to that guess; even if intuition is wrong, it can reveal that the world is stranger than we think it is. Not being afraid to be guided by one's own intuition, and being proven right or wrong, is surely the most intellectually satisfying thing.
Thursday, September 19, 2019
Friday, August 16, 2019
CCXXXVIII - Paris, Vendredi, 1 August 2019
All photos can be accessed at: link
Ah, August has come, and the last day of my adventure has arrived. Searching my thoughts, I find no sadness; all things are as they should be, serendipitously. I'm - so happy. Naturally, the arduous parts, I wish had gone a little better, but I can think of only two moments where I'd felt a little discouraged, and they were not long in being remedied either. Every minute of every day was enjoyable, and the days have been kind to me. And how beautiful the feet of those who are sent - most of the people I've met have been decent and hospitable, even warm.
Today was probably the most relaxed day I've had while out here, and it's a nice way to end. Capping it with the Musee d'Orsay was probably the best planning decision I've made, however fortuitously. It's a beautiful, simple museum in itself - five floors, two of them mostly structural, and the whole simply laid out in a large rectangle, but not so plainly as to be like an exposition floor. This museum's travelling exhibit was to be start of my love for art, when it came to Singapore. My first moment of awe was in seeing Cabanel's The Birth of Venus - a lovely nude woman lain on the waves; and I was also struck by the painterly sensitivity of Hans Thoma's Siesta, of the delicious sunlight falling over the trees and on the meadow. Well, crazily enough, that first exhibit also had Vincent Van Gogh's Starry Night over the Rhone, to my mind the first great piece of art I'd seen. The play of the various lamplights over the slipping waves, the dark, deep blue of swirling night, and the soft blooms of starlight glimmering over the darkness. The one kept in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, The Starry Night, would be famous for its brazen curls of yellow moonlight and evening cloud over the dark, sleepened landscape.
The famed impressionists! The past couple weeks of Rome, Firenze and the Louvre had mostly early 15th and 16th century classical and renaissance paintings, which you know, is awe-inspiring but not terribly soul-inspiring for a twentieth century man such as myself; although I certainly had my moments, especially with Andrea Del Sarto's Christ as the Man of Sorrows. But the religious iconography and all that, I mean, it takes so much effort to be steeped in that culture, to appreciate it as more than just "old stuff" - I wince as I say that. Well, even for me, that old stuff is hard. And in comparison, the Orsay had all the great painters I know and love, you know? Every work here deserves at least fifteen minutes' contemplation, not that I could have physically done that. I simply had to breeze by at some points, stopping here and there, and correct myself by returning to certain rooms.
The crazy thing is that most of these artists were rejected out of hand - they were simply deemed too sloppy by the old standards, too spontaneous in light and colour, too sentimental, too vulgar (as in vulgus, or common). Why would you paint simple farmers and watery landscapes and, for goodness sake, nude commoners when the whole idea of high art is to draw vast and visionary pictures, to give tribute to God and his great works, and the high Greek and Roman ideals and allegories? Well, all that sort of wishy-washy art was brought into a sort of underground movement, defended by Degas and Renoir, among others, and allowed to flourish by Napolean III in a newly established, aptly-named Salon des Refusés. Certain criticisms included: "Wallpaper in its embryonic state is more finished than that [Monet] seascape." Women as well were invited to join, including one Berthe Morisot, later the sister-in-law and close friend of Edouard Manet. Manet is, I think, my favourite painter - he paints so plainly and so expressively, so caringly. A whole room was given to Manet, and a short term gallery of six rooms to Morisot. Cezanne had one, Pisarro, Monet, etc. Well, I had a ball of a time. All these wonderful painters, and so much of them! Oh, my dear and esteemed painters.
Okay, so I managed to finish up around five thirty. Well, I went home and had pasta and sausages, and went out for a jaunt to buy some souvenirs. I realised that there was a nicer supermarket, a carrefour near my place, where I could have been getting much better supermarket fare, ah the deuce. Well, I walked into a department store type place which had a whole level just for food and snacks. It was wonderful - La Grande Epicerie. So I got some mini paninis with olives, gingerbread with caramel and pistachio flavoured madeleines to bring back. Supper was mostly the same, with wine. Ah, the gentle peasant life.
Well, what a simply lovely way to end. The weather was nicer too, for a summer. On the whole, I think the schedule might have been taxing for anyone else, and being alone, I wouldn't have had to worry about soldiering on. Soldiering on was just right for me, actually, I don't like not having anything to do, and having to improvise too much would have been more tiring than following a regimented sort of plan. Well, perhaps I will look forward to travelling with companions in the future. But perhaps not in the heat of summer! Ciao, Italia! and au revoir, Paris.
----
I spent (in EUR):
8 - food
15 - Musee d'Orsay
26 - two calendars of Van Gogh's work
26 - paninis, gingerbread and madeleines
52 - apartment in Duroc
329 - flight on Etihad Airways from Paris to Singapore, stopping over in Abu Dhabi
Ah, August has come, and the last day of my adventure has arrived. Searching my thoughts, I find no sadness; all things are as they should be, serendipitously. I'm - so happy. Naturally, the arduous parts, I wish had gone a little better, but I can think of only two moments where I'd felt a little discouraged, and they were not long in being remedied either. Every minute of every day was enjoyable, and the days have been kind to me. And how beautiful the feet of those who are sent - most of the people I've met have been decent and hospitable, even warm.
Today was probably the most relaxed day I've had while out here, and it's a nice way to end. Capping it with the Musee d'Orsay was probably the best planning decision I've made, however fortuitously. It's a beautiful, simple museum in itself - five floors, two of them mostly structural, and the whole simply laid out in a large rectangle, but not so plainly as to be like an exposition floor. This museum's travelling exhibit was to be start of my love for art, when it came to Singapore. My first moment of awe was in seeing Cabanel's The Birth of Venus - a lovely nude woman lain on the waves; and I was also struck by the painterly sensitivity of Hans Thoma's Siesta, of the delicious sunlight falling over the trees and on the meadow. Well, crazily enough, that first exhibit also had Vincent Van Gogh's Starry Night over the Rhone, to my mind the first great piece of art I'd seen. The play of the various lamplights over the slipping waves, the dark, deep blue of swirling night, and the soft blooms of starlight glimmering over the darkness. The one kept in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, The Starry Night, would be famous for its brazen curls of yellow moonlight and evening cloud over the dark, sleepened landscape.
The famed impressionists! The past couple weeks of Rome, Firenze and the Louvre had mostly early 15th and 16th century classical and renaissance paintings, which you know, is awe-inspiring but not terribly soul-inspiring for a twentieth century man such as myself; although I certainly had my moments, especially with Andrea Del Sarto's Christ as the Man of Sorrows. But the religious iconography and all that, I mean, it takes so much effort to be steeped in that culture, to appreciate it as more than just "old stuff" - I wince as I say that. Well, even for me, that old stuff is hard. And in comparison, the Orsay had all the great painters I know and love, you know? Every work here deserves at least fifteen minutes' contemplation, not that I could have physically done that. I simply had to breeze by at some points, stopping here and there, and correct myself by returning to certain rooms.
The crazy thing is that most of these artists were rejected out of hand - they were simply deemed too sloppy by the old standards, too spontaneous in light and colour, too sentimental, too vulgar (as in vulgus, or common). Why would you paint simple farmers and watery landscapes and, for goodness sake, nude commoners when the whole idea of high art is to draw vast and visionary pictures, to give tribute to God and his great works, and the high Greek and Roman ideals and allegories? Well, all that sort of wishy-washy art was brought into a sort of underground movement, defended by Degas and Renoir, among others, and allowed to flourish by Napolean III in a newly established, aptly-named Salon des Refusés. Certain criticisms included: "Wallpaper in its embryonic state is more finished than that [Monet] seascape." Women as well were invited to join, including one Berthe Morisot, later the sister-in-law and close friend of Edouard Manet. Manet is, I think, my favourite painter - he paints so plainly and so expressively, so caringly. A whole room was given to Manet, and a short term gallery of six rooms to Morisot. Cezanne had one, Pisarro, Monet, etc. Well, I had a ball of a time. All these wonderful painters, and so much of them! Oh, my dear and esteemed painters.
Okay, so I managed to finish up around five thirty. Well, I went home and had pasta and sausages, and went out for a jaunt to buy some souvenirs. I realised that there was a nicer supermarket, a carrefour near my place, where I could have been getting much better supermarket fare, ah the deuce. Well, I walked into a department store type place which had a whole level just for food and snacks. It was wonderful - La Grande Epicerie. So I got some mini paninis with olives, gingerbread with caramel and pistachio flavoured madeleines to bring back. Supper was mostly the same, with wine. Ah, the gentle peasant life.
Well, what a simply lovely way to end. The weather was nicer too, for a summer. On the whole, I think the schedule might have been taxing for anyone else, and being alone, I wouldn't have had to worry about soldiering on. Soldiering on was just right for me, actually, I don't like not having anything to do, and having to improvise too much would have been more tiring than following a regimented sort of plan. Well, perhaps I will look forward to travelling with companions in the future. But perhaps not in the heat of summer! Ciao, Italia! and au revoir, Paris.
----
I spent (in EUR):
8 - food
15 - Musee d'Orsay
26 - two calendars of Van Gogh's work
26 - paninis, gingerbread and madeleines
52 - apartment in Duroc
329 - flight on Etihad Airways from Paris to Singapore, stopping over in Abu Dhabi
CCXXXVII - Paris, Mercedi, 31 July 2019
Man, what a day. Well, since I wasn't going to the Louvre at the original time of nine am, I decided to head out to the Picasso museum. You know, that dude is a little weird, a little bizarro, and I say that with true esteem. His quotes profess that he sees things in terms of their essential forms, lines, shapes and volumes, he tries to picture the essential egg - the term he uses to describe the inner essence - of each character, and then flesh out into the true portrait by adding the superficial lines and textures; but pausing at the artistic moment, thus furnishing his work. The world and all that is in it are shapes, intersecting lines and angles, abstract curves and surfaces, interconnected facets; and yet somehow it comes together on the canvas, the whole dysfunctionality captivates. It's not immediately a work that lends itself to visual appreciation, it's not beautiful, but it shines with a different sensitivity, its own beauty in spite of asymmetry and unnaturalness. It has its own special sensuality, sense of self-awareness and purposeful identity. It's so hard to explain - it's almost a deeper, elemental metaphysic which still charms the viewer enough, invites him/her to relax his own norms of appreciation. It's also not ridiculously post-modern, which to me is often more anti-art for its own sake. But perhaps that is harsh. In any case, it was almost a sort of relief to leave Picasso behind, and return to the more recognisable types of art in the Louvre.
Well, as I was walking through the Louvre today, it kinda occurred to me, hey, that's my third Cezanne today. That was pretty funny: what a preposterous attitude. Yeah, I should have been trying harder with Cezanne. His is a sort, if I may be so bold, his is a sort of splotchy melded textures in the way he depicts surfaces. It looks a little like every surface has a sort of patchy liquid sheen, swathes of strokes blending into each other to depict the play of light over rough surfaces, rocks, roads, trees, walls and buildings all have their own magical coat of interweaved colours. Well, the way he does shadows and the edges is magnificent. Up close, it doesn't seem to work, like why would anyone put a dash of purple there next to the brown, blue next to beige, green next to white, but you know, you take a few steps back, find a sweet spot at medium range before the whole picture, just before it becomes an icon, and the image simply forms, with all its painterly charm intact - perfect. It's magic, simply magic.
Breakfast was pasta with curry sauce. I put in too much salt. That was lame. Anyway, it was ok. After the Picasso, I went out for lunch at the famous Paul Bert Bistrot. It had a set going for twenty two euro, which was okay. I think it was good for value, not like the one I had in Firenze, but still it was worth the cost. Starter was zucchini with sour salad, main was mashed potatoes with fish and crispy bread, and the dessert was raspberry sorbet with a delightful honey crispy biscuit. I could have had steak for the main, but I didn't feel particularly like having steak. And the mashed potatoes were very tasty and sufficiently filling. I packed a little of the bistrot's bread with me for a snack in the Louvre. That really helped later on, actually. I even bought another chicken baguette for tea.
The Louvre is a really big place, well, that almost goes without saying. It's actually slightly confusing in its layout. I want to say it seems to have three nicely separated wings, each with different portions dedicated to different segments of art history, but it wasn't easy knowing where one floor started and another ended. Well, it had the same sort of decorated ceilings that the Chateau de Vesailles did, having itself been a royal palace at one point, but unfortunately I didn't pay too much attention to the ceilings. Anyway, yeah, I really liked the ancient art on display, the Egyptian artifacts, the ancient Middle East, Babylonians and Persians, the ancient Greeks stuff. That was actually all very exciting. Hieroglyphic writing, cuneiform script, it really blows me away, stuff that freaking ancient that was once part and parcel of everyday life. A little edict from a king to his courtiers, a little religious diatribe from a priest to his servants. Naturally, the museums had translations of those languages, mostly in french - and isn't it amazing that there exist people in this world that can read this stuff, understand the whole syntax of the pictures and the grammar of the scripts? Well, these things are so old that most of the stuff is reconstructed around the original fragments. Some have survived for four thousand years. I can't even say that figure without feeling awe, four thousand years of bloody, awful, irreplaceable human history.
The Mona Lisa was okay. I thought the copy of Da Vinci's Leda and the Swan was better, and his John the Baptist was a lot more expressive, the whole intriguing smile and secretive gesture. And the whole Louvre being that big, gee, it was just walking past the masters like Delacroix, Ingres, Raphael, Cezanne, Sisley, Rubens, Titian, David, like it was nothing, you know. And the Louvre is my fifteenth museum on this trip, counting cathedrals and palaces. I've been true all this time to my word - I love museums. I've been stuffed with art, but I'm not in peril of losing the thrill of seeing art. Well, my favourite today was David's portrait of Madame Verninac, who as it turns out, is the elder sister of Delacroix. It's just a perfect painting, it's simply flawless, so warm, so delicate, so sensitive, so beautifully painted in the light and shadow of her curves, the folds of her garments. It's so whole, so perfect.
Well, tomorrow is going to be a little more perfect. The final boss, the Musee d'Orsay. In some ways, the starting place; my first love for art began with the exhibition they had at the National Museum. Goodnight.
----
I spent (in EUR):
15 - Picasso museum
22 - Paul Bert Bistrot lunch
6 - train
4 - supporting a classical ensemble in the metro
6 - baguette
20 - Louvre
52 - apartment in Duroc
Well, as I was walking through the Louvre today, it kinda occurred to me, hey, that's my third Cezanne today. That was pretty funny: what a preposterous attitude. Yeah, I should have been trying harder with Cezanne. His is a sort, if I may be so bold, his is a sort of splotchy melded textures in the way he depicts surfaces. It looks a little like every surface has a sort of patchy liquid sheen, swathes of strokes blending into each other to depict the play of light over rough surfaces, rocks, roads, trees, walls and buildings all have their own magical coat of interweaved colours. Well, the way he does shadows and the edges is magnificent. Up close, it doesn't seem to work, like why would anyone put a dash of purple there next to the brown, blue next to beige, green next to white, but you know, you take a few steps back, find a sweet spot at medium range before the whole picture, just before it becomes an icon, and the image simply forms, with all its painterly charm intact - perfect. It's magic, simply magic.
Breakfast was pasta with curry sauce. I put in too much salt. That was lame. Anyway, it was ok. After the Picasso, I went out for lunch at the famous Paul Bert Bistrot. It had a set going for twenty two euro, which was okay. I think it was good for value, not like the one I had in Firenze, but still it was worth the cost. Starter was zucchini with sour salad, main was mashed potatoes with fish and crispy bread, and the dessert was raspberry sorbet with a delightful honey crispy biscuit. I could have had steak for the main, but I didn't feel particularly like having steak. And the mashed potatoes were very tasty and sufficiently filling. I packed a little of the bistrot's bread with me for a snack in the Louvre. That really helped later on, actually. I even bought another chicken baguette for tea.
The Louvre is a really big place, well, that almost goes without saying. It's actually slightly confusing in its layout. I want to say it seems to have three nicely separated wings, each with different portions dedicated to different segments of art history, but it wasn't easy knowing where one floor started and another ended. Well, it had the same sort of decorated ceilings that the Chateau de Vesailles did, having itself been a royal palace at one point, but unfortunately I didn't pay too much attention to the ceilings. Anyway, yeah, I really liked the ancient art on display, the Egyptian artifacts, the ancient Middle East, Babylonians and Persians, the ancient Greeks stuff. That was actually all very exciting. Hieroglyphic writing, cuneiform script, it really blows me away, stuff that freaking ancient that was once part and parcel of everyday life. A little edict from a king to his courtiers, a little religious diatribe from a priest to his servants. Naturally, the museums had translations of those languages, mostly in french - and isn't it amazing that there exist people in this world that can read this stuff, understand the whole syntax of the pictures and the grammar of the scripts? Well, these things are so old that most of the stuff is reconstructed around the original fragments. Some have survived for four thousand years. I can't even say that figure without feeling awe, four thousand years of bloody, awful, irreplaceable human history.
The Mona Lisa was okay. I thought the copy of Da Vinci's Leda and the Swan was better, and his John the Baptist was a lot more expressive, the whole intriguing smile and secretive gesture. And the whole Louvre being that big, gee, it was just walking past the masters like Delacroix, Ingres, Raphael, Cezanne, Sisley, Rubens, Titian, David, like it was nothing, you know. And the Louvre is my fifteenth museum on this trip, counting cathedrals and palaces. I've been true all this time to my word - I love museums. I've been stuffed with art, but I'm not in peril of losing the thrill of seeing art. Well, my favourite today was David's portrait of Madame Verninac, who as it turns out, is the elder sister of Delacroix. It's just a perfect painting, it's simply flawless, so warm, so delicate, so sensitive, so beautifully painted in the light and shadow of her curves, the folds of her garments. It's so whole, so perfect.
Well, tomorrow is going to be a little more perfect. The final boss, the Musee d'Orsay. In some ways, the starting place; my first love for art began with the exhibition they had at the National Museum. Goodnight.
----
I spent (in EUR):
15 - Picasso museum
22 - Paul Bert Bistrot lunch
6 - train
4 - supporting a classical ensemble in the metro
6 - baguette
20 - Louvre
52 - apartment in Duroc
Wednesday, August 14, 2019
CCXXXVI - Paris, Mardi, 30 July 2019
I've been doing the home-cooked pasta thing again. It's a slightly more advanced cuisine of the two stuffed pastas, ravioli and tortellini, and I'm mixing up the sauce, alternating with quattro formaggi and curry. It worked! it's pretty good. It's a simple to prepare, hearty meal. Pesto looks ugly, but it tastes good and fresh.
We didn't cycle out of Paris all the way to Versailles, which is what I initially thought we were going to do. Instead, we took an express train somewhere into the neighbourhood of Versailles, and picked up our bicycles from a little underground garage. Well, even with the shorter cycle to the Chateau, we would end up doing enough of the bicycle for the day. So at first we had breakfast at a nearby market, where the bakery had the most delicious Feuillette Jambon Fromage, which I think loosely means pastry with pork and cheese. I would bet a reasonable amount of money that it had lard plastered on the crust - that crust was so wonderfully browned and tasty. After getting lunch - I bought stewed eggplant with minced beef and a quiche - we headed out to the nearby gardens to the Chateau, as well as the grounds and apartments which lodged the royal mistress.
For the group's picnic lunch, we sat at a shaded spot along a huge canal, a cross shaped monstrosity of a canal. It was as far as the eye could see from the Chateau grounds and out over the canal, it was breathtaking. With lunch, some of us took a little nap, others chilled around and chatted. Unfortuntately, we couldn't get wine into the Chateau grounds. I went around the canal on the bicycle, and it took me twenty minutes, so it had to be two kilometres long by one wide. That was a lot of water for a canal. Our guides for the day said that it took half of France's total GDP to turn out that Chateau and its grounds, which is of course, completely insane. But that was France in the glory days under Louis XIV. Apparently, it needed more water than the city of Paris. Well, on the whole it didn't really commend itself to me, it was just too grandiose, too ostentatious, and to my mind, fairly unimaginative. Maybe I'm ignorant of its architects and artists, but to my amateur eye they don't seem to be of the calibre of the Florentines. Well, the citizens of Paris didn't take too fondly to all its trappings and comforts either, as they stormed it while Louis XV hid in it in 1789.
The tour was okay enough on the whole. I went back to the apartment for pasta with pesto, and decided to head out for a nice easy run before going to another jazz club. I hadn't run in two weeks! The evening was pretty inviting, a little cool and breezy. Well, I ended up running past some fields somewhere towards the river Seine, and some guys were playing touch rugby. They were short a man, so I asked to join and they were cool with it. So yeah, I had a lovely time playing. They were real rugby players as well. It was a beautiful rosy pink sunset evening, with the golden dome of the Musée de l'Armée behind us, and some of the heritage buildings around us, there was a good breeze, and the game was hard and friendly. It's beautiful, like the Padang, but more European.
I bought some moussaka at the store - eggplant, cheese, beef, tomato, etc. - potato and ham salad, and yoghurt with passionfruit, to heat up with the microwave in the apartment. Box wine as well, to round off supper. Well, that didn't have much soul in it, but it was okay. I got a big box of wine for six euro, and I'm going to try and drink enough to put a small dent in it. It was cheap, and from being in Australia, I know box wine is generally decent even if it seems really cheap.
Okay, gonna head to the Picasso museum and the Louvre tomorrow. The guides earlier today said that it was going to be crazy busy at the Louvre, and since it was open till nine forty-five pm, it was no point heading there early at nine am. Fair enough.
Well, I'm beat. I've really enjoyed all the apartments I've stayed in so far, so I'm definitely well in favour of the airbnb thing; since hotels would have been twice as expensive. It's nice to think of it now, but I've been rather fortunate on this trip so far. Well, goodnight, folks.
----
I spent (in EUR):
135 - Chateau de Versailles tour
11 - pastry, quiche, aubergine
8 - store groceries
52 - apartment in Duroc
We didn't cycle out of Paris all the way to Versailles, which is what I initially thought we were going to do. Instead, we took an express train somewhere into the neighbourhood of Versailles, and picked up our bicycles from a little underground garage. Well, even with the shorter cycle to the Chateau, we would end up doing enough of the bicycle for the day. So at first we had breakfast at a nearby market, where the bakery had the most delicious Feuillette Jambon Fromage, which I think loosely means pastry with pork and cheese. I would bet a reasonable amount of money that it had lard plastered on the crust - that crust was so wonderfully browned and tasty. After getting lunch - I bought stewed eggplant with minced beef and a quiche - we headed out to the nearby gardens to the Chateau, as well as the grounds and apartments which lodged the royal mistress.
For the group's picnic lunch, we sat at a shaded spot along a huge canal, a cross shaped monstrosity of a canal. It was as far as the eye could see from the Chateau grounds and out over the canal, it was breathtaking. With lunch, some of us took a little nap, others chilled around and chatted. Unfortuntately, we couldn't get wine into the Chateau grounds. I went around the canal on the bicycle, and it took me twenty minutes, so it had to be two kilometres long by one wide. That was a lot of water for a canal. Our guides for the day said that it took half of France's total GDP to turn out that Chateau and its grounds, which is of course, completely insane. But that was France in the glory days under Louis XIV. Apparently, it needed more water than the city of Paris. Well, on the whole it didn't really commend itself to me, it was just too grandiose, too ostentatious, and to my mind, fairly unimaginative. Maybe I'm ignorant of its architects and artists, but to my amateur eye they don't seem to be of the calibre of the Florentines. Well, the citizens of Paris didn't take too fondly to all its trappings and comforts either, as they stormed it while Louis XV hid in it in 1789.
The tour was okay enough on the whole. I went back to the apartment for pasta with pesto, and decided to head out for a nice easy run before going to another jazz club. I hadn't run in two weeks! The evening was pretty inviting, a little cool and breezy. Well, I ended up running past some fields somewhere towards the river Seine, and some guys were playing touch rugby. They were short a man, so I asked to join and they were cool with it. So yeah, I had a lovely time playing. They were real rugby players as well. It was a beautiful rosy pink sunset evening, with the golden dome of the Musée de l'Armée behind us, and some of the heritage buildings around us, there was a good breeze, and the game was hard and friendly. It's beautiful, like the Padang, but more European.
I bought some moussaka at the store - eggplant, cheese, beef, tomato, etc. - potato and ham salad, and yoghurt with passionfruit, to heat up with the microwave in the apartment. Box wine as well, to round off supper. Well, that didn't have much soul in it, but it was okay. I got a big box of wine for six euro, and I'm going to try and drink enough to put a small dent in it. It was cheap, and from being in Australia, I know box wine is generally decent even if it seems really cheap.
Okay, gonna head to the Picasso museum and the Louvre tomorrow. The guides earlier today said that it was going to be crazy busy at the Louvre, and since it was open till nine forty-five pm, it was no point heading there early at nine am. Fair enough.
Well, I'm beat. I've really enjoyed all the apartments I've stayed in so far, so I'm definitely well in favour of the airbnb thing; since hotels would have been twice as expensive. It's nice to think of it now, but I've been rather fortunate on this trip so far. Well, goodnight, folks.
----
I spent (in EUR):
135 - Chateau de Versailles tour
11 - pastry, quiche, aubergine
8 - store groceries
52 - apartment in Duroc
CCXXXV - Paris, Lundi, 29 July 2019
Paris! It's such a relief to see a nice, clean city after Firenze. Looking back, Firenze felt really hemmed in, oddly laid out, tangled, and strangely claustrophobic. I mean, the old city has its charms, but maybe in the heat and the deluge of art to see, I missed the forest for the trees. Well, anyway, I'm glad to see Paris. Out here in the little neighbourhood of Duroc, the streets are nicely laid out, wide, the trees are friendly, it's not too hot, everything looks a little, well, cleaner, people sit out in restaurants and bars imbibing wine and having a brioche - it's all so inviting. I would later learn that I had dodged the Paris heat wave while I was in Italy. Well, it is what it is. And Paris has its charms, but you know, cities grow slowly on me.
I took a walk today after pasta at home - pasta was three kinds of store-bought ravioli and tortellini with pesto sauce. It was a beautiful day, the sun set at eight forty-five. It's still a little crazy to me, but since it wasn't too hot, it was pretty lovely. The apartment is an old two roomer on the seventh floor - it used to be servants' quarters. It was nice; I could see the Eiffel Tower and the Musée de l'Armée from the apartment. Since the day was so long, I went out. Walked past Notre Dame, and boy, it sure looks like it's missing something. All along the banks of the river Seine, people were sitting out, chilling, chatting, having drinks and food, totally relaxing. It was that kind of day. Well, I think the women of Rome are still more beautiful.
So along the river there were little restaurants, and at one of them, you could sit at a kerbside to listen to a little jazz bandstand. Well, they weren't so good, and the restaurant goers didn't really pay all that much attention to them. Still, it was nice sitting there in the shade, while cyclists, skaters and joggers breezed past, and children ran helter-skelter along the little road. Boy, it got a little warm again. Well, after that ended, I made it to a nice jazz bar, Sunset Sunrise, named perhaps after that crazy little jewish song. Well, the band they had tonight was fabulous. I would later learn from reading the program that a lot of bands came through Sunset, and most of the time, you'd have to pay like thirty euro to get in. I'm not sure if it came with a drink. Well, anyway tonight was free! and the music was great. Trumpet, guitar, double bass, piano, and a bunch of artists came by to get their jam on. Sitting where I was, I could see them come in and watch the band, and you know, they didn't all look too much like they could play, but boy, they could all play. It was really nice, I liked it a lot. I ordered a double Nikka from the barrel, and it was at least a triple. I drank and drank and drank for two hours and when I looked at my glass, it felt like I'd barely put a dent in it. Way too big for a double. In my mind, bartenders admire double orders, no rocks. And they should. Jazz and whiskey - it sounds like a cliche, but it was a beautiful night. I wished, as I often, often do, that there was a real jazz bar in Singapore, like good old Jazz at South Bridge, that moved and didn't survive. Well, I had to leave at midnight, as I was sloshed, and those guys looked like they wanted to keep the jam going.
Tomorrow is the cycle out to the Château de Versailles. Bonsoir!
----
I spent (in EUR):
128 - Air France from Firenze to Paris
3 - breakfast
27 - metro tickets
21.5 - supermarket groceries
26 - double Nikka
52 - apartment in Duroc
I took a walk today after pasta at home - pasta was three kinds of store-bought ravioli and tortellini with pesto sauce. It was a beautiful day, the sun set at eight forty-five. It's still a little crazy to me, but since it wasn't too hot, it was pretty lovely. The apartment is an old two roomer on the seventh floor - it used to be servants' quarters. It was nice; I could see the Eiffel Tower and the Musée de l'Armée from the apartment. Since the day was so long, I went out. Walked past Notre Dame, and boy, it sure looks like it's missing something. All along the banks of the river Seine, people were sitting out, chilling, chatting, having drinks and food, totally relaxing. It was that kind of day. Well, I think the women of Rome are still more beautiful.
So along the river there were little restaurants, and at one of them, you could sit at a kerbside to listen to a little jazz bandstand. Well, they weren't so good, and the restaurant goers didn't really pay all that much attention to them. Still, it was nice sitting there in the shade, while cyclists, skaters and joggers breezed past, and children ran helter-skelter along the little road. Boy, it got a little warm again. Well, after that ended, I made it to a nice jazz bar, Sunset Sunrise, named perhaps after that crazy little jewish song. Well, the band they had tonight was fabulous. I would later learn from reading the program that a lot of bands came through Sunset, and most of the time, you'd have to pay like thirty euro to get in. I'm not sure if it came with a drink. Well, anyway tonight was free! and the music was great. Trumpet, guitar, double bass, piano, and a bunch of artists came by to get their jam on. Sitting where I was, I could see them come in and watch the band, and you know, they didn't all look too much like they could play, but boy, they could all play. It was really nice, I liked it a lot. I ordered a double Nikka from the barrel, and it was at least a triple. I drank and drank and drank for two hours and when I looked at my glass, it felt like I'd barely put a dent in it. Way too big for a double. In my mind, bartenders admire double orders, no rocks. And they should. Jazz and whiskey - it sounds like a cliche, but it was a beautiful night. I wished, as I often, often do, that there was a real jazz bar in Singapore, like good old Jazz at South Bridge, that moved and didn't survive. Well, I had to leave at midnight, as I was sloshed, and those guys looked like they wanted to keep the jam going.
Tomorrow is the cycle out to the Château de Versailles. Bonsoir!
----
I spent (in EUR):
128 - Air France from Firenze to Paris
3 - breakfast
27 - metro tickets
21.5 - supermarket groceries
26 - double Nikka
52 - apartment in Duroc
Tuesday, August 13, 2019
CCXXXIV - Firenze, Domenica, 28 July 2019
The big camera I borrowed stopped working yesterday. It made me very annoyed. Three museums to see today, the Louvre and the Musee d'Orsay next week. I don't know what to say. I tried to search YouTube for ways to fix it, but naturally, it was beyond me. So I am now in a bad mood.
Well, allora. Luckily, the phone camera isn't terrible, although it is slow to focus. So I will have to get on with it and appreciate the stuff a bit more in person - which is probably the whole point anyway. I suppose I can just buy a book of the art if I wanted something to remember. Well, it is what it is. Still annoyed, though.
I had a moment midway through the second museum today, the Uffizi, where I honestly started getting a bit short of breath, a bit woozy. That museum is enormous, and the memory of it now is daunting. Of course, over this trip I've had to will myself to keep going a little, but right then I had a moment where I thought I was going to give up, at least after this one was over. Yeah, three museums today almost had me beat. Physically, and I don't really want to complain, my upper and lower back hurts, my neck is tired, most parts of my legs are a little achey from all the standing. Mentally, I'm just about stuffed to the gills with the art. Well, I had to keep going. They say that your brain naturally reverts to long, slow delta waves, even if you close your eyes for a minute - that's the sort of resting brain wave pattern that dominates in sleep, and which helps to reset the neurons and mental apparatus. Yeah, I managed to sit down and close my eyes for a while, and you know what, it helped. So I managed to gird myself a little and make it through the Uffizi, which is a really big museum. I probably didn't enjoy it as much as all the other museums, and I don't really have fond memories of it, which is a shame, but on the whole I still managed to see all of it. So that's ok, for me.
Well, I decided a did need a real break, so it was time for a good lunch. It turned out really well, actually. I ordered quattro formaggi spaghetti, but they mistook the order and pesto spaghetti came out. Well, it turned out well, because I noticed that they had a bistecca steak for twenty euro, and promptly changed my order. It was great. I got salad, cold meats, bread, and a five hundred gram t-bone steak - for the record, that was a big steak. Decided against a glass of wine, cos' I honestly didn't want to get too rosy before the last visit to the Palazzo Vecchio.
I liked the Vecchio; the lunch probably helped. There was a lot of the whole epic art murals, grand architecture and heroic sculptures. Not for the last time, I thought to myself, it's amazing how the old artists can be that good in different artistic fields. Like you think of Michelangelo, his painting, architectural works, and sculptures, and it just astounds, you know, like how much talent can one man have? Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Titian, Caravaggio, not to mention the countless other great Florentine and Venetian artists, and that's just the popular Italian guys. It's crazy how just good they were in Europe, the French, the Dutch, the Flemish, and so on. To see something in the flesh, to stand before the actual paintings and admire them, albeit inevitably restored here and there, it's so beautiful! So moving and emotional, so much depth and technique and artistic sensitivity. All the descriptions and analyses are unimportant; standing there and taking it in, reading the colours and strokes, the paintwork, the characters, the themes, messages and portrayed emotions, that's so much more enjoyable, so invigorating.
The Palazzo also had a tower, and that was lovely. It had a sheltered gallery area which offered all-round views of Firenze. As the sun was slowly hanging in the mid evening sky, and the wind puffed gently, I sat down on the stone benches and had a little nap. Boy, it was beautiful. It would have been spectacular if I've had waited until the sun actually set, as there were clouds girding the day, but that would have been an hour of hanging around, as the sun sets at like eight thirty. Anyway, I took my time there in the tower, which I'd probably love to visit again, honestly, then went down for some gelato and a view of the sunset from the bridges over the river Arno.
After that, back to the apartment. It's a really neat apartment actually, very classy and intelligent - there's a ton of books; it has Ai Weiwei and Honoré de Balzac, for heavens' sakes. I enjoyed the apartment, aside from knocking my head on a low beam. Well, I hope I'll get over the camera soon. Flying off to Paris tomorrow. Ciao, Italia. Arrivederci.
----
I spent (in EUR):
7 - breakfast
23 - Galleria dell'Accademia
21 - Galleria degli Uffizi
21 - steak lunch
18 - Palazzo Vecchio
4 - gelato
53 - apartment in Firenze
Well, allora. Luckily, the phone camera isn't terrible, although it is slow to focus. So I will have to get on with it and appreciate the stuff a bit more in person - which is probably the whole point anyway. I suppose I can just buy a book of the art if I wanted something to remember. Well, it is what it is. Still annoyed, though.
I had a moment midway through the second museum today, the Uffizi, where I honestly started getting a bit short of breath, a bit woozy. That museum is enormous, and the memory of it now is daunting. Of course, over this trip I've had to will myself to keep going a little, but right then I had a moment where I thought I was going to give up, at least after this one was over. Yeah, three museums today almost had me beat. Physically, and I don't really want to complain, my upper and lower back hurts, my neck is tired, most parts of my legs are a little achey from all the standing. Mentally, I'm just about stuffed to the gills with the art. Well, I had to keep going. They say that your brain naturally reverts to long, slow delta waves, even if you close your eyes for a minute - that's the sort of resting brain wave pattern that dominates in sleep, and which helps to reset the neurons and mental apparatus. Yeah, I managed to sit down and close my eyes for a while, and you know what, it helped. So I managed to gird myself a little and make it through the Uffizi, which is a really big museum. I probably didn't enjoy it as much as all the other museums, and I don't really have fond memories of it, which is a shame, but on the whole I still managed to see all of it. So that's ok, for me.
Well, I decided a did need a real break, so it was time for a good lunch. It turned out really well, actually. I ordered quattro formaggi spaghetti, but they mistook the order and pesto spaghetti came out. Well, it turned out well, because I noticed that they had a bistecca steak for twenty euro, and promptly changed my order. It was great. I got salad, cold meats, bread, and a five hundred gram t-bone steak - for the record, that was a big steak. Decided against a glass of wine, cos' I honestly didn't want to get too rosy before the last visit to the Palazzo Vecchio.
I liked the Vecchio; the lunch probably helped. There was a lot of the whole epic art murals, grand architecture and heroic sculptures. Not for the last time, I thought to myself, it's amazing how the old artists can be that good in different artistic fields. Like you think of Michelangelo, his painting, architectural works, and sculptures, and it just astounds, you know, like how much talent can one man have? Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Titian, Caravaggio, not to mention the countless other great Florentine and Venetian artists, and that's just the popular Italian guys. It's crazy how just good they were in Europe, the French, the Dutch, the Flemish, and so on. To see something in the flesh, to stand before the actual paintings and admire them, albeit inevitably restored here and there, it's so beautiful! So moving and emotional, so much depth and technique and artistic sensitivity. All the descriptions and analyses are unimportant; standing there and taking it in, reading the colours and strokes, the paintwork, the characters, the themes, messages and portrayed emotions, that's so much more enjoyable, so invigorating.
The Palazzo also had a tower, and that was lovely. It had a sheltered gallery area which offered all-round views of Firenze. As the sun was slowly hanging in the mid evening sky, and the wind puffed gently, I sat down on the stone benches and had a little nap. Boy, it was beautiful. It would have been spectacular if I've had waited until the sun actually set, as there were clouds girding the day, but that would have been an hour of hanging around, as the sun sets at like eight thirty. Anyway, I took my time there in the tower, which I'd probably love to visit again, honestly, then went down for some gelato and a view of the sunset from the bridges over the river Arno.
After that, back to the apartment. It's a really neat apartment actually, very classy and intelligent - there's a ton of books; it has Ai Weiwei and Honoré de Balzac, for heavens' sakes. I enjoyed the apartment, aside from knocking my head on a low beam. Well, I hope I'll get over the camera soon. Flying off to Paris tomorrow. Ciao, Italia. Arrivederci.
----
I spent (in EUR):
7 - breakfast
23 - Galleria dell'Accademia
21 - Galleria degli Uffizi
21 - steak lunch
18 - Palazzo Vecchio
4 - gelato
53 - apartment in Firenze
Monday, August 12, 2019
CCXXXIII - Firenze, Sabato, 27 July 2019
A beautiful week has passed out here. Well, it's no point being nostalgic; it's important to live in the present. So far, everything has gone just about as well as hoped for, and every day has been special. It has been wonderful. Yes, I have had to toil a little bit, but nothing that was truly worth complaining about. The trains, the moving between places, the roads, the daunting museums, it sometimes feels arduous, and I'm quite glad with my general positivity. Of course, I've also been fortunate on this trip; one thing in particular stands out - when intending to reverse, I accidentally stalled the car out just in time before my excess acceleration would have made me hit a parked van behind me. The manual car! I probably shouldn't have taken it, in hindsight. And on the whole, I've probably packed too many museums into this trip - which is fine doing solo, but not with companions. I've enjoyed the museums a whole lot though, and I've tried to place chill-out things to do in between.
Driving is fun; but it's tough to do so in Firenze. There are so many one way streets, packed-in buildings, and an odd circular laneway that runs around the city, with lots of tunnels and turnoffs so it is pretty hard to get a gauge of where to go and where to turn. Especially, driving right handed. The GPS I got on the car was also outdated, naturally, so it sometimes asked me to take one way streets the wrong way. I didn't much like the whole crowded feel I got in Firenze. I did get to meet a Norwegian family while queueing outside the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore, a couple travelling with their boy. They said they see the auroras all the time from their place, and there's good hiking out where they stay. That's crazy. So I might plan a visit sometime; I've kept their contact.
Driving out to a farmhouse vineyard in Greve in Chianti was so much fun, I really enjoyed the whole experience being out there in the country. The winemakers were really nice, and they explained the winemaking that the grandfather started, and the olive gathering and pressing, and the vegetable garden. It rained a little bit while we were out there, but I still saw a bit of the earth, the cultivated hills, the whole rustic charm. Driving up and down the hills on winding paths was very fun. We had a little dinner as well, pasta, cold meats, and their wine, which unfortunately I couldn't bring with me. I would probably really enjoy being out there at harvest time, between August and October.
Well, I have to get to the Galleria dell'Accademia at eight fifteen am tomorrow. I don't remember why. To bed, then!
----
I spent (in EUR):
36 - car rental
7 - breakfast
17 - parking in Firenze
18 - Il Grande Museo del Duomo
3 - risotto for lunch
14 - tolls
23 - Greve in Chianti winemaker visit
30 - petrol
53 - apartment in Firenze
Driving is fun; but it's tough to do so in Firenze. There are so many one way streets, packed-in buildings, and an odd circular laneway that runs around the city, with lots of tunnels and turnoffs so it is pretty hard to get a gauge of where to go and where to turn. Especially, driving right handed. The GPS I got on the car was also outdated, naturally, so it sometimes asked me to take one way streets the wrong way. I didn't much like the whole crowded feel I got in Firenze. I did get to meet a Norwegian family while queueing outside the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore, a couple travelling with their boy. They said they see the auroras all the time from their place, and there's good hiking out where they stay. That's crazy. So I might plan a visit sometime; I've kept their contact.
Driving out to a farmhouse vineyard in Greve in Chianti was so much fun, I really enjoyed the whole experience being out there in the country. The winemakers were really nice, and they explained the winemaking that the grandfather started, and the olive gathering and pressing, and the vegetable garden. It rained a little bit while we were out there, but I still saw a bit of the earth, the cultivated hills, the whole rustic charm. Driving up and down the hills on winding paths was very fun. We had a little dinner as well, pasta, cold meats, and their wine, which unfortunately I couldn't bring with me. I would probably really enjoy being out there at harvest time, between August and October.
Well, I have to get to the Galleria dell'Accademia at eight fifteen am tomorrow. I don't remember why. To bed, then!
----
I spent (in EUR):
36 - car rental
7 - breakfast
17 - parking in Firenze
18 - Il Grande Museo del Duomo
3 - risotto for lunch
14 - tolls
23 - Greve in Chianti winemaker visit
30 - petrol
53 - apartment in Firenze
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