I always prided myself on my orientation abilities bordering with geniality. I wouldn't get lost nearly anywhere, be it a city or a forest, with the notable exception of Venice, which is understandable, and Stockholm, namely downtown Stockholm, where I actually had problems finding myself for most of my previous stay.. and the first thing I did was that I went somewhere and supposed to be going in the opposite direction.
There's something elusive about Stockholm. Many years ago, I remember having read a detective story that happened there, with all the neighbourhood names like Solna or Nacka sounding like a strange incantation and I remember my surprise on finding out that Södermalm is actually an island. And the street plan just puzzles me somehow.
Florence has a twisted street plan, too. Literally.
Florentia was located as a Roman colony, the colonies had a grid but the main axis followed some local logical line, in this case, the Arno. Only later on, the actual town was located, this time on the grid that followed the north-south and east-west axes. As a result, most of Florentine streets follow a grid but it is not immediately apparent that there are two grids. To add a bit of confusion, the fifth line of city walls formed a polygon, now there go the grandi viali and the neighbourhood streets are parallel or perpendicular to the adjacent viale so going from the center towards the edge, one may feel that they go straight ahead or at least moreless so... to find themselves lost.
I needed to read a treatise on urbanism of Florence and stare in the maps for quite a while but since then, I always knew where I was and where to go. Apparently, I need a book on urbanism of Stockholm.
I ventured out - I wonder whether it's really a social phobia or something or whether I'm lazy but I have problems dragging myself out to wander into unknown. It's not that bad as dominocat describes (I really like that blog), I usually manage somehow, it just feels very very uneasy. At least I manage to make myself comfortable with a place by simply walking it up and down... which doesn't work too well when the blistery thing on my heel is still oozing something.
Damn.
Friday, 9 October 2009
Thursday, 8 October 2009
Greetings from Stockholm
The main quest was to get some shoes.
Size 42, black, sans heels. Since I lived in eternal summer for a while and some of my autumn shoes fell apart, I was left with a random pair slightly narrow for my bear paws. Narrow shoes mean that the feet are pressed backwards and this mechanics explains the holes in my heels. I played brave and didn't change the shoes straight away in the shop. After pointe practice, I'm no stranger to pain in the feet and cramped muscles of whose existence I had no previous knowledge but I persevered half a block. Not that the rest of the walk would be easy but now I'm back at the hostel, with my feet propped on a chair.
I managed to get hold of someone who gave me a few hints regarding my biology course. Like, that I should enter my courses in the System. The System is totally user-enmical. Things that could be done in a click or two are done in fifteen. The layout is messy. I have problems understanding what, say, Structure and Properties of Biopolymers means. Which is fine, I'm supposed to study that one in the future but figuring out how some silly studip list of lectures works took me five hours. Alphabetic order is apparently something totally not en vogue at the faculty of natural sciences, nor is some generally discoverable logic. I made up some sort of schedule, submitted it for approval and now, bite it. I'll do whatever I may stumble upon and find interesting (meantime, I sort of arranged an exchange of hard to find U. S. books for yarn - a good part of the annotations adds a list of recommended books that look like hard to find ones. I guess that the staff wants to brag how good their English is or something). And, be assured that I did my best to avoid anything that smelled of lab and had 'practice', 'exercise' or the worst, 'parasitology' in the course description. I'd rather have some mud au naturel, if I may please.
Size 42, black, sans heels. Since I lived in eternal summer for a while and some of my autumn shoes fell apart, I was left with a random pair slightly narrow for my bear paws. Narrow shoes mean that the feet are pressed backwards and this mechanics explains the holes in my heels. I played brave and didn't change the shoes straight away in the shop. After pointe practice, I'm no stranger to pain in the feet and cramped muscles of whose existence I had no previous knowledge but I persevered half a block. Not that the rest of the walk would be easy but now I'm back at the hostel, with my feet propped on a chair.
I managed to get hold of someone who gave me a few hints regarding my biology course. Like, that I should enter my courses in the System. The System is totally user-enmical. Things that could be done in a click or two are done in fifteen. The layout is messy. I have problems understanding what, say, Structure and Properties of Biopolymers means. Which is fine, I'm supposed to study that one in the future but figuring out how some silly studip list of lectures works took me five hours. Alphabetic order is apparently something totally not en vogue at the faculty of natural sciences, nor is some generally discoverable logic. I made up some sort of schedule, submitted it for approval and now, bite it. I'll do whatever I may stumble upon and find interesting (meantime, I sort of arranged an exchange of hard to find U. S. books for yarn - a good part of the annotations adds a list of recommended books that look like hard to find ones. I guess that the staff wants to brag how good their English is or something). And, be assured that I did my best to avoid anything that smelled of lab and had 'practice', 'exercise' or the worst, 'parasitology' in the course description. I'd rather have some mud au naturel, if I may please.
Wednesday, 7 October 2009
On the road runway
Do you know that icky advert for Taft hairspray? Featuring that kitschy blonde with big mouth and big hair? It goes like Morning, Someplace, sunny, your hair looks plasticky all over; Midday, Anytown, windy, your hair holds and holds its excellent plasticky look; Evening, Podunk, sleet, your hair looks the same fugly all over.
Erm, here's one of them. There was a whole series of adverts on TV, all along the same lines. I hated them all. Karma kicked me in the shins so apparently, I live in one nowadays.
Yesterday morning, Larnaka, sunny, 25 degrees dipped in the sea, getting more sun rash to have a nice memory of holidays. Pissed and over-tanned.
Yesterday evening, Vienna, something like rain. Landed in the airport hotel, in a 200 euros room (comfy bed, admittedly, and I damn needed one. And feather pillows). View of a parking house and if I tried hard, of the Terminal 1 and a railway station. Could be 150 trashbins, admittedly.
Today morning, Vienna, there was some weather but I forgot to notice, pissed.
Today noon, Stockholm, changeable, rather cold, pissed and sleep-deprived. I seem to hate travelling.
Two days of near-panic state. I'm tired by all that travelling and there's always that damn social phobia. I apparently have an issue with the North. I look like a native. So, people expect that I'm Swedish or something like that. Which is why I don't speak Swedish. Speaking silly furriner Italian is fun, as a silly furriner, I'm always doing rather well. Silly furriner Swedish when I look like a Swede? Not fun. I should learn a handful of Finnishisms or something to feel better about it. Or I'll stick to English.
Sunday, 4 October 2009
Dear all,
I'm on holidays.
So far, the most exciting events were:
- getting so much tan that I look like a member of some weird ugly subculture
- being bitten by George, the beach cat, because he didn't like being touched on his belly
- Greek cuisine as a whole
Mail will be answered and stories written as soon as I'm back in civilization that features reliable internet connection. Meantime, have some fun.
So far, the most exciting events were:
- getting so much tan that I look like a member of some weird ugly subculture
- being bitten by George, the beach cat, because he didn't like being touched on his belly
- Greek cuisine as a whole
Mail will be answered and stories written as soon as I'm back in civilization that features reliable internet connection. Meantime, have some fun.
Friday, 25 September 2009
On the road again
I'm leaving Italy again.
The plan is this: My father has some stuff to do in Bassano del Grappa. I take train there, I'll hang around there on Saturday and we'll go back by car together. So far so good.
Yesterday I wanted to do some errands. Like, go to I Tatti, find a book, copy a few pages, go downtown, do a bit of shopping, go to Antella to see an exhibition, pack. Instead, halfway uphill to I Tatti, I wanted to take a pic of the landscape and found out that I don't have my diary with the post-it that says what I want to photocopy (1).
I did the going downtown bit, got an ice cream, dropped to Farmacia SS Annunziata to get me a bottle of Hyle and there I found out that I left my cards at home. Including the library card to I Tatti. We had a good laugh with the pharmacist and I went home, made an omelette, finished the bottle of Chianti and did indeed pack something. Far from everything, though.
Today, I managed to close the bank account, return all the books, went to Antella and back, in time at home to finish packing, in whose midst I found out that I forgot about my article. During packing, I had an obvious Tetris fail and had to dig out half of thecontents of my suitcase to get rid of the offending corner of a storage box; in the next round, my packing skills were brought to a new, exciting level because not only I placed the box elsewhere, but reorganized the things in such a way that I needed a huge skein of angora blend to stuff the remaining space so that the things wouldn't rattle (2). I don't really know how much may my suitcase weigh but I guess that it's well above 30 kilos; since it contains quite some yarn, there are no air bubbles to speak of (3). Anyhow, I just made it for the 1554 train to Santa Maria Novella. Life is what it is, so the train dropped at track 18, the farthest from the main platform; at the end I wasn't saved from dragging a heap of crap around.
On the 8minutes trip to SMN, I stood by the door with my heap of crap when an apparently homeless guy hopped in to have a ride. He was communicative and stinky, so he kept ranting. He asked me whether I'm German, for reasons unknown (the explanation may be that I carried my knitting in a huge canvas bag with Hedergrens på Stureplan printed on it) I said Nope, I'm from Sweden, which sentenced me to having to listen to a long diatribe on relationships between Sweden and Italy and Swedish history and geography and politics while the guy stank all the time.
I had a sandwich, half of a sandwich,to be exact, before my train to Mestre landed. Dragged my crap, found my seat and all the way to Prato, I listened to a fellow traveller across the table; if I listened more carefully, I'd learn several new curses but I didn't care, I had my eternal sweater to work on and a post-it of notes I needed to decipher.
In Prato, we stopped. Foul-mouthed fellow citizen increased the cadence of his cussing along the lines of Whenever I go by train, there are some fucking troubles, we pay our taxes and our tickets to only get fucking delays. At least, they are not on strike, I thought to myself remembering my past travel experiences. After some time, it was announced that the locomotive is broken, thus the unplanned stop. Foul-mouthed fellow traveller added a few expletives towards the state, railways and universe in general and we could continue.
After doing all the math and lots of pondering, I found out that there's some inherent mistake in my sweater and the pattern is not symmetrical to the whole sweater due to some mess in modules. I decided to forgo ripping it all, casting on again (this particular cast on is very difficult) and decided that a little irregularity doesn't matter that much but for the pattern in the armpits that I could live without but... who is ever perfect.
The train was late about 20 minutes. The connecting train to Bassano del Grappa was already gone so I found another one... and yay for train blogging.
As for now, there hasn't been any railway strike but I'm not there yet. Updates later.
-------------------------
(1) External memory does have certain advantages. Disadvantages, too, as apparent.
(2) The other day, I went to O. with a suitcase of Italian food and various stuff and I was going back with next to nothing. We discussed the matter, finding out that suitcases should contain an inflatable pillow that could be inflated if someone lost fifteen pairs of shoes on the way so that the that remained wouldn't be tossed around. Maybe I should get the idea patented.
(3) Yarn is excellent stuffing for air bubbles, obviously. It can be squished just about anywhere.
The plan is this: My father has some stuff to do in Bassano del Grappa. I take train there, I'll hang around there on Saturday and we'll go back by car together. So far so good.
Yesterday I wanted to do some errands. Like, go to I Tatti, find a book, copy a few pages, go downtown, do a bit of shopping, go to Antella to see an exhibition, pack. Instead, halfway uphill to I Tatti, I wanted to take a pic of the landscape and found out that I don't have my diary with the post-it that says what I want to photocopy (1).
I did the going downtown bit, got an ice cream, dropped to Farmacia SS Annunziata to get me a bottle of Hyle and there I found out that I left my cards at home. Including the library card to I Tatti. We had a good laugh with the pharmacist and I went home, made an omelette, finished the bottle of Chianti and did indeed pack something. Far from everything, though.
Today, I managed to close the bank account, return all the books, went to Antella and back, in time at home to finish packing, in whose midst I found out that I forgot about my article. During packing, I had an obvious Tetris fail and had to dig out half of thecontents of my suitcase to get rid of the offending corner of a storage box; in the next round, my packing skills were brought to a new, exciting level because not only I placed the box elsewhere, but reorganized the things in such a way that I needed a huge skein of angora blend to stuff the remaining space so that the things wouldn't rattle (2). I don't really know how much may my suitcase weigh but I guess that it's well above 30 kilos; since it contains quite some yarn, there are no air bubbles to speak of (3). Anyhow, I just made it for the 1554 train to Santa Maria Novella. Life is what it is, so the train dropped at track 18, the farthest from the main platform; at the end I wasn't saved from dragging a heap of crap around.
On the 8minutes trip to SMN, I stood by the door with my heap of crap when an apparently homeless guy hopped in to have a ride. He was communicative and stinky, so he kept ranting. He asked me whether I'm German, for reasons unknown (the explanation may be that I carried my knitting in a huge canvas bag with Hedergrens på Stureplan printed on it) I said Nope, I'm from Sweden, which sentenced me to having to listen to a long diatribe on relationships between Sweden and Italy and Swedish history and geography and politics while the guy stank all the time.
I had a sandwich, half of a sandwich,to be exact, before my train to Mestre landed. Dragged my crap, found my seat and all the way to Prato, I listened to a fellow traveller across the table; if I listened more carefully, I'd learn several new curses but I didn't care, I had my eternal sweater to work on and a post-it of notes I needed to decipher.
In Prato, we stopped. Foul-mouthed fellow citizen increased the cadence of his cussing along the lines of Whenever I go by train, there are some fucking troubles, we pay our taxes and our tickets to only get fucking delays. At least, they are not on strike, I thought to myself remembering my past travel experiences. After some time, it was announced that the locomotive is broken, thus the unplanned stop. Foul-mouthed fellow traveller added a few expletives towards the state, railways and universe in general and we could continue.
After doing all the math and lots of pondering, I found out that there's some inherent mistake in my sweater and the pattern is not symmetrical to the whole sweater due to some mess in modules. I decided to forgo ripping it all, casting on again (this particular cast on is very difficult) and decided that a little irregularity doesn't matter that much but for the pattern in the armpits that I could live without but... who is ever perfect.
The train was late about 20 minutes. The connecting train to Bassano del Grappa was already gone so I found another one... and yay for train blogging.
As for now, there hasn't been any railway strike but I'm not there yet. Updates later.
-------------------------
(1) External memory does have certain advantages. Disadvantages, too, as apparent.
(2) The other day, I went to O. with a suitcase of Italian food and various stuff and I was going back with next to nothing. We discussed the matter, finding out that suitcases should contain an inflatable pillow that could be inflated if someone lost fifteen pairs of shoes on the way so that the that remained wouldn't be tossed around. Maybe I should get the idea patented.
(3) Yarn is excellent stuffing for air bubbles, obviously. It can be squished just about anywhere.
Wednesday, 23 September 2009
Drunk tired and sleepless
I can't sleep again. It sucks big time and since I haven't seen a doctor in quite a while, I've run out of sleeping meds. I'm using some prediluvial antihistamins which, apart from reducing itchiness and swelling(1), make one nicely sleepy and cause silly dreams.(2) Too bad that I'm sleepy but still wake up 48 times per night, not getting perfectly alert and nervous, only sleepy and nervous.
In September, I managed thusly:
Exams done: 1/9
Papers written:0/2
I need a break. The reason why I did next to nothing is rather simple, my brain is apparently already saturated with history et al. and needs to do something else. I should start my biology courses someday soon, after the debacle with Bunch of Idiots, nice people from all directions sent me a handful of Japanese textbooks and wishes of better luck. I have a book to write, and it's not on art. Before, I need to finish a rather extensive paper and it requires going to Stockholm. Did I mention that I don't really like travelling? I like being somewhere, I like going on a day trip but anything that includes too much booking, packing, going where I don't really know it and flying, is somewhat stressful for me.
So... I got a bottle of Chianti to make me feel better. It didn't really work until O. wrote that her kitten bit all the way through to the shopping bag and soy milk carton, leaving a milk puddle in the kitchen and milky pawprints all over and offered me a calico cat skin to hang on my wall if I want one. Only then I cleaned the screen off the wine I spat out and returned to something like a normal mode and mood.
----------------------------
(1) Got them year and a half ago when I had penicilin allergy and the consequent rash that would win the Ugliest rash of 2008 contest if there was one.
(2) Admittedly, hardly anything could beat the Ambien-caused Build a cabin in a nice remote valley to get quiet and peace and when I finished, the whole family came visiting because it was so quite and peaceful. Nor the Ambient-caused Japanese wedding in Technicolor.
In September, I managed thusly:
Exams done: 1/9
Papers written:0/2
I need a break. The reason why I did next to nothing is rather simple, my brain is apparently already saturated with history et al. and needs to do something else. I should start my biology courses someday soon, after the debacle with Bunch of Idiots, nice people from all directions sent me a handful of Japanese textbooks and wishes of better luck. I have a book to write, and it's not on art. Before, I need to finish a rather extensive paper and it requires going to Stockholm. Did I mention that I don't really like travelling? I like being somewhere, I like going on a day trip but anything that includes too much booking, packing, going where I don't really know it and flying, is somewhat stressful for me.
So... I got a bottle of Chianti to make me feel better. It didn't really work until O. wrote that her kitten bit all the way through to the shopping bag and soy milk carton, leaving a milk puddle in the kitchen and milky pawprints all over and offered me a calico cat skin to hang on my wall if I want one. Only then I cleaned the screen off the wine I spat out and returned to something like a normal mode and mood.
----------------------------
(1) Got them year and a half ago when I had penicilin allergy and the consequent rash that would win the Ugliest rash of 2008 contest if there was one.
(2) Admittedly, hardly anything could beat the Ambien-caused Build a cabin in a nice remote valley to get quiet and peace and when I finished, the whole family came visiting because it was so quite and peaceful. Nor the Ambient-caused Japanese wedding in Technicolor.
Tuesday, 22 September 2009
Tauleto, a wine perfume
Sometimes, I open a bottle and there's something I would love to drown in.
This is rather a rare occurence, I could count such fragrances on the fingers of one hand - Basala, Black Cashmere, Une Fleur (not totally sure about this one) and last, Tauleto.
The story has it that Marco Maffei once wandered to the wine cellars of Umberto Cesari, located at Castel San Pietro, sniffed the local red Sangiovese and got Inspiration. The company materials say that it's the first wine-inspired fragrance, the Ex Floribus Vinis claims something along those lines too, but, who cares. In fact, maybe the PR people care, or some enthusiastic nitpickers; I personally prefer the fragrance speaking for itself although admittedly, the surrounding stories may be fun.
Well, I opened the sample vial and all the fruits burst out in an overwhelming way. What surprised me was that there was indeed something winey about the fragrance. Grapes, sweet raisins or maybe some very sweet and aromatic wine. I didn't expect such a direct wine reference, after the Ex floribus vinis experience, I thought that there would be some vague and indetectable connection but this was indeed apparent. Very apparent. The sillage is powerful and the head of the fragrance is stunningly beautiful.
After a while, short while, admittedly, the fragrance gets greener, like crushed unripe grapes or half a glass of wine turning sour the morning after the party....
The disappointment comes half an hour later, though... nothing is left on the skin. I haven't seen such a miserable staying power for quite a while and I find it indeed sad. No, it's not my skin - the fragrance is detectable a bit better on paper but still, it's no big deal.
The company offers various other products, perfumed candles and a line of cosmetics; I haven't tried these but I'd say that these might work better, especially the candle would release the lovable scent for a while.
When I'm back home where my fragrance collection lives, I'll try a bit of alchemy and find out whether there is something that could improve the staying power, usually jasmine anything works pretty well but jasmine itself is too strong - I'll have to think about it. Tauleto perfume is too good to be forgotten and something done to it so that it would last would be indeed a good thing.
You can ask for a sample at the company website, it however works only in some areas, doesn't say which ones. Click Contacts at the sidebar and proceed. (Feel free to comment where it actually works)
Top notes: grape, orange, tangerine
Middle notes: rose, magnolia, violet
Basenotes: liquorice, wood, musk, humus
(Notes for the fragrance taken from the Tauleto website)
This is rather a rare occurence, I could count such fragrances on the fingers of one hand - Basala, Black Cashmere, Une Fleur (not totally sure about this one) and last, Tauleto.
The story has it that Marco Maffei once wandered to the wine cellars of Umberto Cesari, located at Castel San Pietro, sniffed the local red Sangiovese and got Inspiration. The company materials say that it's the first wine-inspired fragrance, the Ex Floribus Vinis claims something along those lines too, but, who cares. In fact, maybe the PR people care, or some enthusiastic nitpickers; I personally prefer the fragrance speaking for itself although admittedly, the surrounding stories may be fun.
Well, I opened the sample vial and all the fruits burst out in an overwhelming way. What surprised me was that there was indeed something winey about the fragrance. Grapes, sweet raisins or maybe some very sweet and aromatic wine. I didn't expect such a direct wine reference, after the Ex floribus vinis experience, I thought that there would be some vague and indetectable connection but this was indeed apparent. Very apparent. The sillage is powerful and the head of the fragrance is stunningly beautiful.
After a while, short while, admittedly, the fragrance gets greener, like crushed unripe grapes or half a glass of wine turning sour the morning after the party....
The disappointment comes half an hour later, though... nothing is left on the skin. I haven't seen such a miserable staying power for quite a while and I find it indeed sad. No, it's not my skin - the fragrance is detectable a bit better on paper but still, it's no big deal.
The company offers various other products, perfumed candles and a line of cosmetics; I haven't tried these but I'd say that these might work better, especially the candle would release the lovable scent for a while.
When I'm back home where my fragrance collection lives, I'll try a bit of alchemy and find out whether there is something that could improve the staying power, usually jasmine anything works pretty well but jasmine itself is too strong - I'll have to think about it. Tauleto perfume is too good to be forgotten and something done to it so that it would last would be indeed a good thing.
You can ask for a sample at the company website, it however works only in some areas, doesn't say which ones. Click Contacts at the sidebar and proceed. (Feel free to comment where it actually works)
Top notes: grape, orange, tangerine
Middle notes: rose, magnolia, violet
Basenotes: liquorice, wood, musk, humus
(Notes for the fragrance taken from the Tauleto website)
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