An Indolent Abroad

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Assyrians hated lions. I love some of these reliefs, though.

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Altesmuseum

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Man throws ball in own goal.

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Preparing for Prague.

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The truly relaxing Hungarian baths.

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Bookish Kalmar, a man who likes books, and from the looks of it, beer. I like this man. Clearly an ancestor.

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Van Gogh Museum

I don’t think I’m a particularly great critic of art, although I’m certainly a better critic than that jerk Daniel. Developing “sophisticated” taste, if there is such a thing, takes time, patience, and constant contact with the tasted. Beer, wine, poetry...I would say these are three areas my tastes are a little less generic, but even then they constantly develop and change. 

Given my taste in art, it should come as no surprise that I really enjoy van Gogh. This is not a criticism of him, to be clear, but more that my tastes frequently move toward the more conventional in areas where I lack expertise. While certainly radical at the time, it is impossible to imagine contemporary painting without him. 

Paula and I see van Gogh’s wherever we can, and last time we were in Europe it was tracing his footsteps in Arles (really worth your time) and studying him in the d’Orsay. This year we were very excited for the Van Gogh Musem in Amsterdam, assuming his Dutch roots would lead to many treasures.

Well, the museum experience was not as we expected. First, it was a small museum--and a small museum focused on a very famous painter means there were great crowds. It was hard to get a look at the masterpieces the museum with the constant flux of visitors pushing you onward and past his next great work. 

Where we could, we learned a great deal about van Gogh, and particularly interesting were his works where he copied Japanese prints, adding his own Japanese script along the side. Yet without being able to settle, we had to move our way quickly upstairs. Since we had gotten there when it opened, the third floor, with his later works, was  relatively slow paced. Yet the other issue the museum has is that van Gogh’s greatest works, by and large, are elsewhere. And while there are beautiful works here, it lacks the scope you’d hope for from a museum--one which, say, the Picasso Museum in Barcelona gets even without some biggies.

It was well worth the visit, but we left a little exhausted of tourists already and a little disappointed in the experience as a whole.

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The land of my people, where S and Z live in constant harmony, as nature intended.

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On Photos of Pictures

Vermeer’s “Milkmaid” needs to be seen in person. His handling of the water pouring, the details of the bread, everything about it speaks of genius. Two years ago, I would have snapped a picture of it after examining it a bit and been on my way. This year I’ve decided against taking actual pictures of paintings, since there are much better ones available online--as this one is. Only paintings I might forget the name of have I taken pictures of.

Lots of people don’t agree with that philosophy, and that’s okay. There really isn’t a correct way to travel. BUT some tourists did cause me some frustrations caused around this particular Vermeer. There was a crowd around this relatively small painting, one akin to another famously small, famously crowded work, Leonardo’s “Mona Lisa.” This crowd meant that unless you were particularly tall, you could not see it without being in the front row. Yet Paula and witnessed a few tourist parents physically push their child in front of the great work, and the child quickly turned (so as to not be rude), nary an eyebeam touching the Vermeer. The child smiled, sometimes with a peace sign, and the parent snapped an image and the child away almost in one motion.

What is the point of seeing a painting? Is it to say that you saw it? Is that all art is, a checklist of works by supposedly great artists?

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A Thought on Planes

Sitting on a runway preparing for takeoff, the other planes never seem to be going very fast to my less-than-discerning eye. Instead, like toys pushed gently by a child—but definitely not Daniel because I hate that kid and he certainly does not know how to play with toys effectively. The planes pace peacefully before surprisingly leaving the ground, more like Poochy returning to his home planet than the actual miracle of physicals that they are.

Mostly, though, this was for Poochy.

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So, this is a big deal in Brussels for some reason...

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Viva la France!

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On the Icelandic Landscape(s)

The landscape of Iceland is strange.

Near Keflavik, it is as if some wide lake of rock lay still, and then a rain fell briefly, rippling the surface and sending the rock into undulations crashing, one into the other, as far as the eye can see, and at the most chaotic moment the lake hardened. Only the artillery strewn landscape of Verdun bears a resemblance in Europe, and I can just as well believe that in some distant age Asgardians fought the ice giants here.

Further in, the land begins to look more like what I’ve seen in, say, Maui, with steep cliffs rising abruptly interrupting the sentence of peaceful towns. Yet the greens here grow short, and even in mid-July it was chilly, banishing thoughts of palm-trees.

Near the central lake, roads split two hills: on the left a lush green and on the right a dead brown hill spotted like leprosy with glaciers. The hills too looked like something out of Doctor Seuss: streets rolling off into some distance, winding sometimes into view and sometimes behind another lightly tufted hill.

Driving, it was hard to get pictures, so all I can share is this bad picture from a window of a WOW Jet.

Imagination is better sometimes.

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How sweet...if only they went beyond Google Translate so that the French was authentic.

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On WOW! Air

We’ve taken discount airlines before, but nothing quite compares with the awfulness of our flight to Europe this year. Wow! Air offers great rates, to be sure, but we were caught at Logan for a few hours due to a late plane. When we finally marched our way down the gate, we were not greeted by a plane, but by a bus which drove us to the plane, where we sat for another hour while a Portuguese child named Daniel cried the whole night, conveniently right as we started to doze off. Losing 3 hours on our trip created two problems: we had to  cut a few things from the itinerary, and it got us to Iceland at a time when the roads were more packed, making the drive more frustrating.

I’d be willing to write it off if this happened just once, but the next morning we woke up early only to find there was another 1hr 40 minute day into Amsterdam…and one that really turned into 2+ hours. This too forced cuts, though the absence of Daniel did make our flight a little better.

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This is one way to have waffles. The sauce has a savory-spicy chorizo base that pairs well with the slight sweetness of the waffles.

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They say Westvleteren XII is the best beer in the world. Let's see what I have to say about that.