Today was a day of exhausting travelling, I love my skis. And all the skiing gear, but when you can only hobble/shuffle 30 feet at a time before dropping your bags in a hugh sigh of relief, blowing and rubbing on your numb fingers - well, it creates extra challenges.
FOR EXAMPLE.
After getting a lift from Joe and Tim FROM la grave TO Briancon, I then catch a bus
from Briancon to Oulx Italy.
From Oulx I catch a train to Milan.
I get off the train in Milan, track 2. I have 25 minutes to make my connection. No problem. I find the closet departure tv screen (does anyone else miss the 'flipping letters/numbers'? it just seemed more atmospheric than a flatscreen) - find my train, but no track is listed. I wait. I wait. Down to 15 mins, am about to hazard a spanish-french-english guess at Italian for 'where is the track for my train' "Donde ou es la TRACK por la trenne de mia?' when it appears. In 10 minutes, it informs me, my train is leaving from Track 15.
FIFTEEN
Anyone miss the part where I'm on track 2? Who makes these decisions? If its some sort of alogirthm it officially sucks! With an stangled yelp I'm off, half carrying, half dragging my bags, ALL THE WAY DOWN TRACK TWO, ALL THE WAY ACROSS TRACKS - 3, 4, 5 inch by me. I rally for 6,7, 8 (at least airports have trolleys!) and actually pass someone. 9,10,11 - the crowds are building - I don't have breath to speak even if I spoke italian - but my urgent, lurching, stuttering, heaving, hunchback-esque, ski bag swinging gait conveys something desperate and potentially dangerous (those bags have momentum!) , and people clear out of my way.
tracks 12.13.14
15!
I'm at the train, I make it to the first carriage where stands a very young, and very bored looking conductor. I wave my ticket at him, pointing at the train. He nods. I haul my bags in one at a time. There is no where to put them. They end up in the opposite non-boarding door well. He nods ok. Even though clearly - if that door opens - my bags are falling onto the track. I wave my ticket at him - "Are we sure?"
He looks at my ticket and NOW shakes his head. I'm on the right train, but the wrong carriage. My carriage is at the opposite end of the train. I look at him. I look at my bags. I makes the universal gesture for 'but can i leave my bags here or will some overzealous security guard come and blow them up?'
A brief look of alarm flits across his face, but he nods that I can leave them. I leap off the train, sprint for the end, manage to get to my carriage just as the whistle blows (I do love that they still blow the whistle). Spend the entire train ride wondering just how upset I'll be if infact my bags were no longer there when we reached Florence. Answer: If they were insured NOT UPSET AT ALL!
(Dear XXLs -- I'm just kidding - I could never quit you).
The bags were still there, which meant that I then had to pay 13 euros for a taxi to drive them 4 blocks to the hostel.
ART!
Tomorrow is the Uffizi (Go big or go home, as my cousin likes to say)
- a little research:
50-plus rooms and 1555 masterpieces
Uffizi means "offices"
It was built to house the Medici family's art collection. (A family, who among other notable money-focused achievements, are responsible for double entry booking for credits/debits)
When the last of the Medici died she bequeathed it to the city of Florence on the condition that 'none of the works ever leave florence" So I wonder if that means the works never travels? Like its a cool artistic curse or something?
For those of you who are not Room with a View empassionatas - there is murder! fainting! and a dashing rescue set in the Uffizi square (I predict none of the three will happen to me)
The art gallery has a who's who of renaissance artists - including - Michelangelo, Raphael, and da Vinci. I think tomorrow I am going to concentrate on them. I am honestly not a huge fan of the earlier byzantine era art (think flat, stylized, and halos) they alway feel so static and then weighed down with all the religious iconography. Just looking at them feels suffocating. [Plus - who wants to think of the Catholic Church when trying to admire great works of art? Its prescence in the art seems more tainting than sanctifying and I can't think about the catholic church for long before getting all angry at their hypocritical corruption, cover-ups of legal and moral crimes, and frankly dehumanizing view of women - grrrrrrrrr]
BUT my point - When you consider how much work came from church comissions, how much it drove the focus of art during the renaissance - it always makes me wonder what the artists would have created if they could have broken away from the influences of their bread and butter. Makes me appreciate gaudi's naturalism even more.
Portraits are definitely my thing. BUT i love seeing nature in a portrait. In the renaissance pieces the subjects - even when not holy or mythical - are almost godly in their perfection - the marble flawless- the skill divine. My favourite portraits, on the otherhand, are completely flawed. Of asynchronous faces and levels of wrinkles and ink, paint blotches and brush strokes gone awry (purposefully or not). The natural beauty of that. Life is a bunch of mistakes and second-guessed decisions and wrong turns. That's what portraits of people should show - and in those cracks there is space for the viewer.
Ok so two things I'm focusing on. Raphael and portraits. I think both Raphael and Rembrandt have self-portraits in the Uffizi - so I'm going to hunt them out.
On a somewhat related note. I've been enjoying this person's ballet photography.
It really seems to show the tensions? the contorsions? the unnaturalness? the effort? behind the flawless performance.
Off to watch La Dolce Vita for some more italian inspiration! (Yes I know - Rome, but still)
