Tuesday, March 06, 2007
Eger: The Basilica...I didn't take alot more pictures because it was too cold and the stupid camera decided it wasn't going to work
Eger: The ceiling painting inside the Basilica
This is backdated; another (clearer) photo of us on the way to Eger
This is the Wheatfield of Crows by Van Gogh
On weather: Getting better all the time; both today and Sunday were sunny (I can walk around in sunglasses=)), and you can feel its getting warmer. It's very windy though, so regardless of how much effort I put into dressing tidily each morning I inevitably reach school looking like a
siao cha bo (I don't know if I got the Hanyu Pinyin correct). Still, I wish the daylight hours were longer- here its dark as hell at 5.30pm=/ (I'm sorry SG weather apparently isn't much better for you guys).
Since today's only the beginning of the week, and nothing extra fun has happened (basically just everyday mundane stuff: Language lessons at which half the class was missing, lunch at the Che Cafe-yummy!- and a short but unfruitful trip to Westend in search of train tickets), I'm going to list out whatever I have planned for the week ahead. Hopefully I will get to do half of it.
Like I said before, spring's coming, and in Budapest they celebrate it with a huge Spring Festival, in which over a period of time many many performances are held all over the city. I don't know if I mentioned this (I've never reread whatever I've wrote), but I went to see the Van Gogh exhibition at the National Art Museum on the Friday before the Eger trip. You know, the guy who painted the Sunflowers/cut off his ear and had it sent to a girlfriend. I think there's a photo here somewhere of the exterior of the museum- for obvious reasons no cameras were allowed inside. The only complaint we had was that it was really crowded that day, but on the whole we had fun. Not being an artist myself I have to admit I can't tell fine art from common everyday portraits, and probably didn't appreciate his works to their fullest extent, nevertheless I enjoyed it, especially his later works (tending towards Impressionism; my favourites are the Irises and the Wheatfield with Crows). See, this is the kind of thing we somehow never get to do back in Singapore... So I can't wait to finally attend some operas and ballets and musicals and whatnot. Which brings me back to the subject of the Spring Festival- am going to sit down with the girls tomorrow and pick out performances we want to see. I have a few in mind, like the Richard Strauss Evening Orchestra (he composed the Blue Danube, and
everytime I cross the Danube on Petofi Bridge on my way to school I hear it in my head), or something by Bach, Franz/Ferenc Liszt or Bela Bartok (the last two are Hungarian). And there are performances as well, like Gone with the Wind, some Anthony Chekhov play, The Marriage of Figaro and an Yves Saint Laurent exhibition(!) I heard you can get really cheap tickets at the school bookshop, so I hope the ones I want to see at least aren't sold out yet. So...#1) Book tickets for upcoming performances, and maybe catch something in the meanwhile too.
#2)Plan weekend trip to Vienna
Being on exchange here, in Central Europe, means many many trips. Everyone wants to go everywhere- that is, if they haven't already been. Weekends are ideal because we don't have classes on Fridays, and then, even if we can't get to Monday classes on time no one cares (the professors here are very understanding). So this weekend we are all going to Vienna- though I hope I wouldn't have to do much of the planning. The thing is, I found out that there are lots of train stations you could stop off at within Wien (this is what they call Vienna here) itself, and I have no idea which one we want. The last thing I want is to blindly pick a station and have us all end up at some ulu pok outskirts-of-the-capital place. ...Actually, the last thing I want is to spend the weekend doing nothing, so tomorrow I have to get someone to book the tickets with me. Probably Chantal, because she can speak Hungarian.
#3)Go to the zoo
Yes yes, I know this sounds nonsensical and kiddy-ish but see, there's this cloned baby rhino that's just born in the zoo and I have to see it. My culture class professor says its an ugly wrinkly little lump, but I'll bet it's grown cuter since the last time she saw it. I want photos of it, anyhow, though I suppose one baby rhino is like the next, cloned or not. Maybe it will grow a second horn as a result of something going wrong during the cloning...or sprout tentacles or whatever. Something to make it more interesting, that screams "I AM A (MUTANT?) CLONE!", and that you could maybe put on t-shirts with some smart-ass saying. Not that I'm wishing that on the baby rhino, of course (if I were that desperate for interesting photos I can use photoshop).
#4)Cook
I. Cannot. Cook. Thus far I have survived by eating out with friends (fortunately for me and unfortunately for them they have a crappy common kitchen back at their hostel) and eating food I don't have to cook. There are alot of things you can eat raw-though my mom always says its dangerous and predicts my premature demise because (according to her) I am too lazy to cook- but I know better, and its painful to confess but I would probably die eating food that I cook rather than food that I haven't. The one time I tried (I think that was in Secondary One) I got food poisoning ('nuff said). But maybe it's time to try again, because I am sick of raw food and cooking looks like it might be fun (at least the way they do it on cooking shows). Though I do hate washing up=/ (*One redeeming thing about my cooking- I can make decent apple crumble)
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
Eger: The Basilica...I didn't take alot more pictures because it was too cold and the stupid camera decided it wasn't going to work
Eger: The ceiling painting inside the Basilica
This is backdated; another (clearer) photo of us on the way to Eger
This is the Wheatfield of Crows by Van Gogh
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