Skate Rally!

I changed my mind - skating stuff needs to be in here too - a different distillation can go in my other blog. This is pretty much directly from my notebook, written Saturday morning (wasn't feeling up to re-interpreting it again, and typing fast is soothing)

SO much to write about and remember - skating is such a different pace, such a different engagement of the senses. This mob skate was very different even then solitary skating - it was very like a concert in the shared experience paired with the extreme isolation and introversion - maybe like a mosh pit, overly aware of everyone else while lost doing your own thing.
Much milling about before the rally, awkward and comfortable groups forming, many more individually standing on the edges, more easily accepted here then in other group situations. The group had a ton of energy - and motion- due to the wheels on every pair of feet. For most I'm sure it was unconscious, but standing on skates in not necessarily a still process. The moment of take off was magical, only one verbal shout and being called to motion by other moving backs - a compression of the pack, then space opened up in front of you and off! and immediate stop seven pumps after freedom, but that taste was enough for giddy excitement. I quickly lost all track of where I was, consumed instead with wind and feet and trajectories and speed adjustment and the glories of smooth movement, muscles, and acceleration.

200 people - what a strange pack. Constantly being passed by and passing people. I started out in the rear, but after the first few straightaways - definitely after the first hill - I found myself comfortably in the rear of the first cadre of riders. Always at stops people would wiggle their way through (quite skillfully, given the skates), and always they would be passed again. I much prefer to not be pushy at the stop and overtake people like that on the move. Strange repetition, then, of backs and sides - really only a few stand out as memorable, maybe the supply was neverending. I was nearly always the first girl (may that NOT be my epitaph...) There were probably less the 10 females that I saw total, still was nice to be first in some regard. The eventual feeling was that of being surrounded by friends, playfully jousting on who goes ahead or swerves - I'd win on the uphill, I'd let others win downhill and on cobblestones, and stopped.
Skating really is a terribly introspective thing to do, and it was enhanced by the social context. Competition, ambition, gender, work ethic, grace, endurance, past and present mini-victories; all these concepts, always present in action, are enhanced and play themselves out for reflection. Not too humbling - I'm proud of my work ethic, I don't let competition spur me to nastiness - grace I do need to work on - endurance I have down pat. I wonder at my uptightness on hills, especially since I ski, I wish I could fling myself down heedless, but it takes some mental effort to let that happen. Something to work on I guess. And - I hate having an innate advantage. I was cursing my abec 7s for making the skating too easy....

Perfect Parisian Day - Friday 03 Mar 06

It will be hard to go back to the States and have a full schedule again - just being a student and living in Paris sets a wonderfully relaxed pace, nicely broken up by these travelling weeks and weekends. Today was simply lovely.

Woke up with the brightness of morning, 8:30 or so. feels kind of early here, although it's been ages since I would let myself wake up that late at home. Our apartment feels like its all windows, it's very nice. could always adjust the blinds, but it's so nice to wake up naturally. Spent a good amount of time thinking in bed about various things, some of it even about homework; was amused with my idea for an installation of objects instead of little flippy models as an assignment. The basis of 'objecthood' and implications of the words were some of the thinking as well - shrug.

Tony woke up later wtih a craving for crepes, so off on a crepe expedition we went. We had eaten in a little creperie one of our first days here in a vaguely remembered location, although after quite a bit of wandering (expedition title was warrented) we hadn't found it, the charmingly french country hole-in-the wall we did find was quite satisfactory. Proprietor's friend came in an complained in French; it's amazing how wonderfully local even whining can be in another language. Nutella crepes are unbeatable.... might have to try nutella lefsa sometime though, i bet the result would be similarly spectacular, if not as ethnically pure. beth, the fusion chef, ha.... the world might just thank me for this one though.


Setting up real-sized objects in a space for the installation in studio was amazingly fun. Nothing too fancy, just junk thrown together, but with a definate symbolic content, and neat to think of them existing in relation to each other, and to get to move to put together an assignment. I had to keep walking from the supply closet to the tables, the repetition of calm movement towards the production of an idea enigmatic to everyone was very pleasing. i was in a strange giddy mood actually.... i have been lately, it's a good thing i would like to hold onto.

Got an unexpectedly HUGE charge on my bank account for calling with a credit card from Bern (more Bern hatred ha). I should have known better, still upset me a good deal. Class was over at that point, only Tony and I left, so I felt ok making something to dissapate the stress. Hehe went a little overboard, 2' square pastel rendition of that Venice sketch I just posted. Turned out pretty unexpectedly well, happy, since all I was going for was the soothingness of putting color on paper, but the project kind of took over. Exactly what I needed. Any takers for an amaturish Venice canal scene? No fixative here, I really don't know what I'll do with it.

Somewhat startled to find it 7 pm, Tony and I took off for the free Louvre Friday night. We finished it! We've seen everything there. The whole Louvre. Only took 4 trips... and actually there's a gallery of Islamic art we just breezed past without looking... justification for going again. Neat to realize though. My opinion of sculpture has changed quite a bit while here, and I think that would be my main reason for going back. Nice to have a museum with both paintings and a substantial sculpture garden - plus it's the LOUVRE whoa. It was a refreshing change from the Vatican museum as well - better curated, the sculptures were intentionally paced, not crowded together like a antiquities thrift store.

Ran into Tom and Guillermo unexpectedly, declined movie invitation in favor of the mass skate I'd promised myself I'd do (and brought my skates with for...) I actually almost chickened out, scary to think about 15000 people skating. REALLY glad I went though. I wrote a million pages about the skate, I'll post it in my new exciting other blog. In brief though: there was actually 'only' 200 other skaters, mostly male, gathered and started in front of the Tour Montparnasse for a 3-hour skate through southern Paris, a huge figure eight from one side to the other. A million highlights and sensations, it was a blast. A lot less social then you might imagine - it can be alienating to be just one in a crowd. But still - an amazing time. Missed the last Metro train home, so add another hour for navigation home onto the skate time, frustrating - but skating in Paris is lovely at night, I'll have to go more often. Shower and crash when I got home.... very very satisfying day.

This is quite wordy for such a mundane day.... but still... it was wonderful....

edit: holy crap i'm sorry if you've read all this! laughed out loud, got strange stares, when i popped up the page to see how long it was... i hid most of it though.... muhahaha

superlative day fin

running in and out of the chapel several times, down through the village to admire it from different vantages - and the surroundings, laying in the snow on our backs to get the best shot of it... soaking our legs tromping to a ruined chapel, the predecessor of that of our admiration, sunset on the mountaintop. eventually we tired of playing, collected our packs from the chapel, paused for chilly mountain water coming out of the public fountain, wiped our faces and set our faces down. quite the winding path down, distracted by the last bit of pink vanishing off a mountain peak and the ascendancy of the brilliant moon. church bells pealing with echoes, 'what switzerland sounds like' finished up in delighted frustration running headlong down the last bit to the just-missed train.

beer is served large in switzerland as we passed the time to the next, and no food to be found: we sketched in the wood-paneled cafe to the amusement of the locals, trains to one place and then another and a late lost arrival in luzern. priceless, superlative day.

another sacred space by Zumthor

people in small towns are genuinely proud of monuments - when we stepped off the train looking lost a family piled into a large van kindly flagged us down and offered us a ride up the hill to the chapel. eager to get to it before the sunset we accepted and were dropped off just far enough down get a full approach around a blind curve, through half the village (four houses) and up to be alone with the simple organic chapel. it's beautiful - not pretentious, a skeleton removed from the walls holding up a leaf-braced roof, a crafted raised floorplate with a miniscule lip separated from the walls as well - sunset light falling in slits on the walls from the clerestory windows. balanced on a point, poised above the mountains.... it fits in with the village somehow, despite it's completely different language, and deserves its overlook into several valleys.

Playground!

inside the baths: wonderful playground, architecturally and experientially. the walls invited you to touch them as the light poured down and in and through the complex, baffled or direct. sound of water pervasive, and low laughs and murmurs. windows onto blinding white mountainsides appreciated by winter sunbathers, steaming underwater entrance to outdoor pool, playing in views and substance of mountains and sunlight. cold pools and snow baths added bite to the experience, hot tubs, meditation rooms, a rough musical grotto and scented flower petal baths soothed it away. steam rooms from mild to intense, invisible bench nooks fading to black away from the one artificial light.

mmmm. excellent time.

timed the bus wrong getting out, leaving us with an hour and a half until the next ride down the mountain. after debate over the craziness of walking along a narrow mountain road we happily took off. rock-flavored snow and icicles, random turnings off the road, ice climbers, mountains veiling and opening up the road ahead... a sheep barn at the arbitrary bus stop, laying head-down a sloping road and looking at the sky, watching shadows stretch across a lonely field up the hill... bus ride down and food (best yogurt around) on the next train to the chapel - sticking our heads out the window into the blowing snow.

Sat 11 Feb 2006 - Zumthor baths

skipping back a week or two...

hmm.... unforgivably i accidentally deleted all my pictures of this weekend - yes, i screamed. so these are a kind donation from tony. the day was certainly wonderful enough that i think several of my mental snapshots will survive for a long time: i hope so anyway. in the meantime i messed with the pictures some to make them a little closer to mine.

Launching our two-week expedition with an excursion to tiny unknown places in switzerland, a chaotic night train from Paris allowed us to wake up saturday morning and become immediately plastered to the windows as the alps shot up around us. train transfer was a delightfully hectic glance at the schedule and sprint around the railyard to hop aboard the running train.

stalled in the small village we sampled swiss pastery (heavier then french, but the apple filling was perfect) and purchased notable swiss-designed bus tickets. transport time all day was spent taking in the scenery - on the bus ride up to vals brown and white terraced valleys were watched over by pure-white mountains beyond, into ever-steeper and more wooded terrain. Vals stop in a small basin, a spot of drab walk up stairs of a generic-bad seventies hotel into the gaudy blue entrance to the baths. using our hour until opening, we snuck around on the snow-covered hill surrounding the cut-stone satin-smooth bath house, then down into the village under avalanche fences and crows, and back for opening.

Oh i'm doing stuff presently too?

So, night train back to wonderful home! so fun to think of Paris as home, and be giddy at the familiarity even in the bleak and rain upon return.... relaxing in my (still crappy) apartment very appreciated, went on a walk yesterday morning in the snow in the tuilleries, aw - i have even less concern for distance after this walking-intensive week or two.... making my own food is nice, having a stove that trips the breaker now is not, landlady's still a little flaky, missing meetings for rent drop-off etc, silly studio assignments that won't help the project that's starting to feel a little pressing.... but it's still home and it's good....

I got to read a book straight through this morning, "Dark Age Ahead" by Jane Jacobs.... solid social commentary, a little off-topic at times, but it all seemed to be worth reading.... it's not too long, i recommend it, wee.... i like being a student here too.... enough time to have time to do things. I don't think i'll travel much this weekend - maybe out to Chartre to use up my rail pass hehe (my night train didn't get punched so it was free minus the booking fee), and Friday night I'll join 15 000 other skaters taking over the Paris streets for 3 hours, and possibly sunday too.... guess i'll post on switzerland, it was quite a lot more boring then Rome though..... not the baths though! wee..... i'll get a picture in here too, how boring is this. i forgot a sketch i did in venice....

Venice wrap-up

My train left at 8 and I was still across the city from the station at sunset, so I decided to give myself the rest of the time to wander back - I hadn't used the map all day and I didn't want to start. I ended up needing the whole time.... still letting myself be distracted, but I was in quite a hurry at the end - made it in plenty of time though, and the train station was pretty frustratingly inefficient, probably the worst part of the day... shrug.

It was very interesting being in a city by myself, and wierd to realize that it hadn't happened much yet. A little undecided on if I prefer it - there are some things that are nice, but good company is definately more fun, mediocre company probably not... I definately have a faster pace then most people walking around, not unappreciatively hurrying, just getting someplace at the same time (means i run into things with my head in the clouds, acceptable compromise) and i have a pretty high tolerance for ignoring things like hunger and fatigue in the interest of seeing or experiencing the things i'd like too.... shrug whatever.... it's a whole week until i travel again HA :). 

Aerial Views Are Very Awesome

I climbed the belltower for sunset - fantastic views of this island and new construction outside of the tourist city in the golden light and pink sky....

There was a bitterly cold breeze that high up, but I stuck around appreciating the ocean views and antswarm crown in the plazza below until they shoed us out with the sun's setting.

Sunset at San Marco

What a fun scene - parading masked peacock-ladies and gents, families and tourists in the very large plaza in front of San Marco, turning the corner en masse to the seafront.

I'd visited this cathedral earlier, fantastically covered completely in murals inside, intricately geometric on the ground, gilded scenes on the 5 domes inside, more colors of marble then i've seen anywhere on the pillars in front - what a cake... fun, older then those in Rome....

Venice Self-documentary

hmm.... feeling a little more self-documentary need traveling by myself apparently, was also just a cool opportunity for a shot.... these are the tourist-boats, and some of the mossy steps at the base of the big church across the water.....

it was incredibly windy in Venice.... the water everpresent seemed to stay as a reminder of the air as another liquid - a powerful one as you approached the sea. the movement enacted by the water and the swaying boats throughout the city was completely unlike that of normal transport (of which there was none in the city that i saw, a very calming effect in itself).

Carnevale

This was high Carnevale season, so there were lots of people dressed up, some in just the masks being hawked at competitive prices in seemingly every other store and street booth, others in full-out renaissance garb, or phantom of the opera, or harry potter. the traditional costumes and masks were suprisingly beautiful in the upper price ranges... i'd always kind of dismissed them as wierd. It would have been cool to see Mardi Gras in New Orleans for comparison, this seemed fairly tourist-oriented too, I didn't see too many younger children celebrating like in Tivoli, and there were far to many men with two or three obscenely long cameras dangling around their bellies.... festive it was though, and not a bad atmosphere...

Mermaid Dwellings

There was a huge amount of strangeness in seeing these buildings emerge from essentially open seas, with doorsteps opening up directly onto their bit of water, buisness deliveries being made by barge, and steps covered in moss. The gondolas were omnipresent, and unfortunately rather plastic and fake... still looked fun, not as fun to go by yourself though, so I didn't. Too much to see walking. 

Venice! Mon 27 Feb 2006

Wow - it'll be pretty hard to capture Venice in words, was quite a distinctive experience.... had a fun train ride there from Rome in the morning, got trapped in a car with a pack of roudy soccer fan teenagers, even the conductor wouldn't come through, the boy next to me was not a part of the group though, we ended up talking for a few hours.... stereotyped Roman physically, broken nose curly hair, quiet and nice and european... should try to talk to more people from here instead of stereotyping. Fun to meet a nice Roman though, the males in the city had seemed to be slightly intentional in their stares.

Walk out of the train station right onto the large canal, a long time of flaneurie through the 5-foot wide streets inturupted by canals with civil little bridges, most not as big as this one... beautiful sunshine, slightly decaying plaster buildings in a hopefully authentic not resin-coated way. the 'tourist way' was packed and i tried in large part to avoid it... 

The pain of saying goodbye to Rome....

moving on to other parts of the forum, a half-hearted sketch of these capitols, an appreciation for the ancient triumphal arcs, then appreciation for Italian fashion... seemed a bit more exciting the the Paris scene, actually shopping didn't compel us to buy much though, or possibly the memory of all the pasta purchased. kind of cool to promonade with the locals, although after two weeks of travel I didn't feel quite worthy of the gesture... fun just to walk and try on beautiful clothes though. One last cup of gelato, then we hit the Spanish steps again after tiring of the scene, much more lively with people crowding, sat and listened to some lovely boys with guitars, although hearing acdc mauled in a bad accent wasn't too necessary.... home again for a solid sleep and venice for me in the morning.... Rome was wonderful.....