Goggle-Eyed Bee

Had coffees and then caught the bus to the Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes. Saw the beautiful murals - Rivera, Siquieros, Orozco, Camarena, Tamayi, Lozano, Montenegro. They also had a fantastic exhibition on the top floor of photography which covered history, culture, geography of Mexico. Amazing pics of volcanoes, protests, depictions of what Mexico City looked like at its Aztec peak. The building itself was also incredible - art deco fabulousness. We had lunch nearby. I had a stuffed ancho chile - slow cooked pork, peanuts, raisins, amazing sauce. It was so good. Fresh lemonade. Went to the marketplace but it was a bit tacky - all the things looked mass-produced and souvenir-like. Went to the Mexico City library, built in an old tobacco factory. Cool sculpture inspired by tobacco leaves, nice building, aromatic garden, writing room. Met up with Caitlyn and had a beer lime juice drink - I forget what it's called and some tacos... zucchini flower and oaxaca cheese. Yum. Walked ba...

Today we went to the Museo Soumaya - a big private collection housed in a cool building that seemed to take some inspiration from the Guggenheim with the floors all linked by a spiraling ramp around the outside. The top floor was a forest of sculptures and other floors had a variety of paintings and artefacts. My favourite was probably the first floor that had musical contraptions - wax cylinder players, music boxes etc. phone technology - switchboards, phones, books, stereoscopes, historical costumes etc. Had more tacos el pastor at a little street tent with a guava drink. Caught an uber back to our neighbourhood and had some churros. Did crosswords and online puzzles together. 7,002 steps 4.71 km

Got coffees nearby the airbnb. Staying in Roma Norte - nice suburb, lots of restaurants and liveliness. Caught the bus to Buenavista station and walked up Cinco de Mayo, past the Palacio de Bellas Artes, through the park, down the busy street to the Zocalo. Our first stop was to the little museum that houses Diego Rivera's mural "Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in Alameda Park (Sueño de una tarde dominical en la Alameda Central)" Visit some of the markets along the park, including some beautiful bead-work jewellery and about a million little stalls selling pop-vinyls, star wars figures and other action figures, lego, etc. including broken bits, limbs, parts... Saw/heard so many organ-grinders, some with toy monkeys. Went into the Catedral Metropolitana de la Ciudad de Mexico, briefly saw the Aztec ruins next to it but will go back for a proper visit to them later. We couldn't get into the Bellas Artes and thought the Cathedral was inaccessible too because they'd put u...

Got up early again -8 degrees outside. Got an uber to catch my 9am flight. The cajun-sounding french music the driver was playing made me sad for some potential things in Montreal... Had an average croque-monsieur that came with a pickle, and a latte at the airport. That and the packet of chips and bottle of water cost me like $30... Watched Get Out and 2 eps of Ted Lasso on the plane. Got to Mexico City at 2.30 and was welcomed by Chris and Pat. It was nice to have some hugs. Wating forever for the taxi at the aiport. Got some tacos at a local place for dinner. 9,100 steps 6.12 km

Got up at stupid o'clock to catch my 7:00 am flight, Montreal via Frankfurt. Upon arrival at Montreal I still hadn't heard from Miche (still haven't, writing this 3 days later). Sat on hold with flight centre help desk for about 3 hrs. Extremely frustrating day. Called Lufthansa, was told to speak to my travel agent. Flight centre said lufthansa controlled all my tickets so they couldn't change anything. Girl at lufthansa desk at the airport tried to help, no joy. In the end, an Australian operator at flight centre gave me some clear answers - nothing could be changed cause of the round the world ticket restrictions, and if I just didn't show up for the Montreal > LA flight on 30 Nov it would void my flight home. So, I booked a hotel for that night. Ended up the shittiest hotel yet... looked like a uni share-house with hand-made curtains, broken cupboards in the kitchen, light switches that didn't work, duct-tape around the windows, and a pink-tiled bathroom....

Igor and I went out to the big graveyard to visit Beethoven. Turned out they had a whole section dedicated to composers, musicians, conductors etc. including Brahms, Strauss, and a monument to Mozart. There were some spectacular, bizarre, old, crumbling, beautiful graves. We also saw a little family of deer wandering through, crows and an orange squirrel too. We had a giggle at some of the slav/gypsy graves that included photos of jolly people with cigarettes in hand. We also looked through the big church in the middle which had gorgeous mosaics, paintings, and light fittings in art deco gold and a massive blue dome. There were some graves that had stickers asking families to contact the council, and some that looked like they had bullet holes in them. We stopped in at the school of practical arts for coffee and sachertorte, and a look through their shop before heading home. Very cold day. Later, the three of us went to dinner at a bustley little restaurant and escaped just as a little...

Walked to the Opera building - lovely exterior including another statue of Liszt. Caught the subway line outside of the opera out to Vajdahunyad Castle. This subway line is beautiful, the trains are little square things and each platform has corinthian columns, white tiles and wooden features including little ticket booths that still house a subway employee, although I think they don't sell tickets anymore. From wikipedia “Vajdahunyad Castle (Hungarian: Vajdahunyad vára) is a castle in the City Park of Budapest, Hungary. It is a copy of Hunyad Castle, known as Corvin Castle (Romanian: Castelul Corvinilor), in Hunedoara, Romania. It was built in 1896[1] as part of the Millennial Exhibition which celebrated the 1,000 years of Hungary since the Hungarian Conquest of the Carpathian Basin in 895. The castle was designed by Ignác Alpár to feature copies of several landmark buildings from different parts of the Kingdom of Hungary, especially the Hunyad Castle in Transylvania (now in Roman...

 Fantastic day. Budapest is beautiful! Walked through some lovely streets and alleyways (random little corridor of bars) down towards the underground railway museum. grumpy woman told me cash only so i went out to a bank, got cash out, came back, she then rolled her eyes at my 10000 HUF note. Finally got in... it was a bit disappointing tbh, but some interesting artifacts, including some other the old train cars. Caught the tram towards the castle but got off at the Nagy Vasarcsarnok (a massive 19th century, indoor marketplace), cause it was so beautiful. Fresh produce, spices, leather goods, embroidered things, lace... some local but also lots of touristy/souvenir things. So much paprika. Walked over the beautiful iron Szabadsag bridge. Admired the beautiful, crumbling beauty of Gellert place/hotel. Got some lunch at a cafe.. bit of a rip-off. Stew thing was average. Home-made felafels were nice. House-made iced tea very good. Caught the tram to the Buda Castle and went up the fun...

Train to Budapest. Walked to my apartment which is lovely!! Had a cup of tea and a little rest, then headed out to the Liszt museum/memorial. It was a lovely little collection of artefacts, furniture and pianos of different types (including a harmonium and a little one that made its music with hammers hitting glass plates). It was a beautiful tribute to a man who clearly had a love of his country, of teaching, and of sharing music. The building where he lived and taught is still part of the school of music and I could hear people practicing - harpsichord, violin, a beautiful voice... Had a lovely dinner in the Liszt Ferenc street - goulash soup, chicken paprikash, cute waiter. 13,318 steps 8.95 km

Had a rest day in honor of Chenks' Sunday pre-work-week-downtime plus their recovery. Watched the rest of Scavender's Reign - amazing. Watched a few eps of Foundation - also amazing. Had Indian for dinner. General blobbed. It was nice. 1,265 steps 0.85 km

Chenks and I went to Shonbrunn Palace - he showed me round the grounds where, in it's heyday they had built their own Roman ruins and follies including an obelisk which was decorated with 'hierglyphics' that the made up (pre rosetta stone discovery), cause all of that ancient stuff was the height of fashion. My fav part of the gardens were the stunning and massive iron wrought glass houses - the palm house was my fav, the desert house was cool but not as good as the palms.  Stunning afternoon light on the palace... golden as the leaves on the autumn hedged trees. Chenks and I got a marillen krapfen - beautiful doughnut thing withe apricot jams piled into the middle of it, and the obligatory powdered sugar. He then went home and I went in to do the tour of the palace interior. Unfortunately, I had bought the short tour instead of the full one and only got to see a few of the amazing rooms and artefacts.  Went home, had lasagne with Chenks and Igor. Igor made mulled wine. 12 ...

 Spoke to Murray briefly. Glad he liked his birthday present (ice cube stamp things). Chenks and I went and had brunch at the beautiful bakery/cafe that had the massive gingerbread cathedral in its window. I had the shredded pancake thing, with stewed pums and powdered sugar, and a 'melange'. It was so good. We walked past the Sacher hotel - of the sachertorte fame (chocolate cake with marmelade in it). Our main destination today was the Secession building, and it did not disappoint! It is stunning, and the Beethoven fries is beautiful, and they provided headphones and a seat so you could sit there and view it and listen to Ode to Joy. It was magical. We went and got some mulled wine at a christmas market and wandered a bit. Chenks was feeling tired and went home, leaving me to explore the Albertina. I saw weird, massive, photorealistic surreal paintings from Gotfried Helnwein, spray painted walls and hanging fabric by Katharina Grosse, drawings and paintings by Michelangelo an...

Went in to the museum. Lots of Egyptian, Roman and other ancient things including a gorgeous hippo figuring that's 5000 yrs old... Lots of baroque and roccoco over the top things, carvings from ivory, bone etc. Lots of Hapsburgs with massive chins and underbites, huge mutton chops and wigs.  I love the Bruegels, and some other bits, like some caravaggios. Had dinner at home with Chenks and Igor. 9,419 steps 6.33 km

Did a tour at Clementium to see the baroque library which was very very beautiful... books, shelves, parquetry, ladders on wheels, various clocks and globes. They keep it closed up and tempurature/light controlled and open one end for tourists to peer into briefly. Then we walked up a very narrow metal spiral staircase and then some wooden steps to go up the tower. On one level there is a camera obscura with a tiny hole letting in the light at one end and a string where meridian noon is. It was a cloudy day but we could see the sun fade in and out, projected on the wall. Apparently at noon people used to wave flags from the top of the tower to let everyone in the city know what time it was. Further up were various historical weather-measuring instruments. etc. Walked back to collect my bags via Kaffa, with tourists rubbing the little feet. Got to the train station early and had a yummy apricot pastry and iced coffee. Train back... found my way back to Chenks' house. Japanese curry ...

 Walked along the river towards the castle. Went across the bridge in front of the giant metronome. All the manholes have the city logo/crest and the beautiful lamp poles on this bridge did too. Walked through the park bit on the top of the hill over the river. Spectacular views. I also saw a little black squirrel. Made it to the castle and it's a massive collection of builings and courtyards... a few churches, a little lane where goldsmiths and makers of different kinds worked and lived. I went up the tower of st vitas and saw Mucha's stained glass window inside which was very very beautiful. There were a few interesting windows in there in some quite different styles. The castle rooms were stunning and quite elven looking. with thin vaulting. There was a group of rooms that looked like they had the family tree painted all over the ceilings/walls but they were records of lords and landholders or something like that. Out the front in the adjacent courtyard was the Schwartzenber...

 Slept in. Walked towards Dancing House, getting distracted by all the beautiful buildings on the way. Had Vietnamese for lunch - so good. Dragonfruit 'lemonade'. Walked along the river front. Saw Dancing House and its fly. So cool. Walked to the Post office.. omg amazing.  Mucha museum then the Municipal building for another Mucha exhibition. The building itself (I stepped into yesterday but wasn't sure it was open so just snapped the foyer and left), is fucking amazing and I did explore and take a lot of photos. Cool exhibition with some enhanced moving stuff. Had dinner at the cafe right near the hotel. It was so good. Host roasted chile/salt/herb blanced almonds, elderflower 'lemonade', pork potatoes and leeks, poached pear in choc sauce with croissant-type things and pistachios, macchiato. Heavenly. Watched Day and Knight - Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz. Exactly what I felt like. Perfect day, even if it was freezing cold and rainy. Oh, my new rain coat worked very w...

 Got up early for the train. Chenks made me a coffee and came with me on the tram and walk to the train station, recommended a place to buy a sandwich for the journey, and deposited me on the right platform, then headed off to make it back for trials. I was extremely grateful to past me for paying a little extra and booking a first class, silent carriage. It was a very small car... I don't know why fewer people want a silent carriage?? For most of the journey I had it all to myself. It was about 4 hrs and passed pretty pleasantly. I watched the trial via Michael's Twitch stream, ocassionally slide-show-like. Once in Prague, I dawdled my way to the hotel so I wasn't too early for check-in. It's a weird, long room with en entirely tiled floor that smells a bit like old people who used to smoke. It's a great location though, and nice enough. I rested for a while on arrival but dragged myself out late afternoon for a walk. I went up into old town for a walk.. man Prague...

 Shit night's sleep, woke up feeling shit.  Did a covid test... sure enough. Chenks was very sweet and was happy to sit with me and binge watch the rest of Silo. Igor bought us pastries and then pizza. 1,250 steps 0.84 km

 Chenks and I caught the train in and went to Belvedere which is apparently the third best palace in Vienna. We bought tickets for 2 out of the 3 section, including the main collection which had a huge range of art from medieval to contemporary, including Klimt's Kiss  <3 It is absolutely beautiful in person. The gold just shines and so many textures and patterns. It is stunning. There was quite a few of his other works too, including one that was on display temporarily as it was only there for restoration. So I felt luck to be able to see that. We also wandered between the sections through the manicured garden. One of Louise Bourgois' massive spider sculptures was in the garden. It was so cool seeing it up close. Real viseral feeling standing under it. There was a huge exhibition of her artworks. It was amazing. I had no idea how prolific she was, and that she worked across so many different media. There were a lot of 'woman house' things, and stuff that refered to ...

 Got up early and went to the flower/produce market. Beautiful fuits and veggies, cheap flowers. Walked back along the beach front one more time - up the famous Negresco. Said farewell to Klyte and caught the tram to the airport. Plane to Vienna was small but quick - 1hr 15 Easy disembark and my bag was first off the carousel. Chenks was there too meet me with Igor. Drove back to theirs and chatted till it was time to head out to the dinner booking they had prepared. Caught the train which came up next to a massive cathedral. Went to Guttenberg Place where there is a statue of the man himself. Nice restaurant, great window seat. Had beers and goose. sorry goose :(  which is traditional for this time of year, with potato dumplings and kraut with chestnuts that tasted like mulled wine. Walked back to their place via some sad text embedded into the footpath related to kristallnacht. 20,348 steps 13.68 km

 Walked up the hill away from the shoreline to visit the Marc Chagall museum. First museum inaugurated by the artist themselves. A large room with massive paintings of his interpretations of bible stories. Another room that had chairs in front of five paintings which had a rose-colour scheme. Each chair had a little cylinder on the arm with a slot in the top. On the wall there was an explanation/invitation, and a tub of perfume test-strips. So you dipped the strip into the container and sat down to smell the perfume associated with each painting and experience it in a multi-sensory way. Walked back down to old town and had socca, arrocas, and fried zucchini flowers. Amazing. Walked around to the old port and back around the waterfront to get to the start point of the mystery, interactive, tour game thing I bought. Paddled in the Mediterranean. Went into a beautiful little chocolate shop I bought some fruit jellies which were amazingly soft and real-fruit tasting. We did some of the...

 Left Faucon. Drove to Digne via a few little stops. Bought a baguette for the train trip that turned out to be a bus then a train cause they were doing some work on the lines.i bought  2.5 ish hrs down the mountains, following a river and ravine, through tunnels, past little villages and cute little train platforms. Arrived at Nice and walked to hotel which is ok...good location. Walked down to waterfront. Sand on beach a recent phenomenon due to a storm. Nice is beautiful. Walked through old town area, narrow streets, little 'squares'. Bought a pair of local-made earrings. Chose a bar with outdoor seats that seemed fairly lively and had an aperol spritz, then a st germain sprize. Came with a little bowl of olives. Found a good looking place for dinner and walked there through Coeut de Nice. Neon figures sitting on poles, a tram, fancy, decorative buildings and sweeping, open boulevards. Walked a bit further North than most of the trendy places. Our restaurant Tchitchou was s...

 Today we drove to Gap to drop Aurelie off at her boarding school. On the way we went to a bit outdoor/sports store - I almost bought a rust/orange coloured puffer. It was very comfy and warm... We also went past some crazy rock formations with boulders balanced on top of columns of rocky formations. We walked up the tree-lined track, alongside a little brook to get closer. People had piled little pebble towers up everywhere. It was quite magical. We stopped in Embrun, a town that started out as a little medieval village on top of a cliff. It had beautiful views of the valley below and mountains surrounding it, and the lake in the distance. I went into the church there. It had a beautiful stripey ceiling and a massive organ. Little windows and walkways above hinted at hidden corridors. I would love to be able to explore them. The tall bell-tower and front entrance/rose were completely wrapped in scaffolding but it was still stunning. I wandered around the narrow streets taking pict...

 Packed up and left Maljasset. I feel like the altitude really affects my heart. Just sitting around it was in the high 90s... Hubert changed Klyte's tyres to ones that are good for snow. We came back down to Faucon, via the supermarket.  Spent the afternoon cooking for Aurelie's birthday, and watching Bohemian Rapsody. Dinner was a homemade curry chicken pie, plus a little bought chicken and mushroom pie. Then Aurelie's amazing cake which was heart-shaped and three layers - red velvet, chocolate, red velvet - cream-cheese fronting, chocolate decoration, home-made raspberry jam in between the layers. Grenade tea. Watched 'Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent', difficult start with typical 'lets make the protagonist unbearably shit so that we can have a redeeming arc' 1st act but the rest was fun. Cage was good, Pedro Pascal was awesome. 3,456 steps 2.32 km

 Walked up to the old marble quarry. Beautiful crunchy snow underfoot. Klyte loaned me some boots, ski pants and a really nice doona-like jacket. We saw tracks of little animals who clearly ran around near the river overnight or early that morning. Icicles hanging off low branches hanging over the water. We walked up a 'black' snowshoe track so there were some steep bits and we had to carefully cross the little river. Normally it's fine hopping across rocks in the shallower bits (especially with enclosed snow boots) but it's a different story when any exposed surface is covered in ice. We held hands and kicked at the ice/tested footing before proceeding. Uphill was really hard going with the alititude. At the top there were massive blocks of marble sitting like sacrificial altars, black against the snow on the large flat open area in front of the quarry. In the quarry itself were thousands of icicles, handing off all of the exposed stone. The sounds of cracking and occa...

maljasset snow everywhere walked. met dude in hobbit house made potato and leek soup drank wine, ate chocolate and played trivisl pursuit, in french ruins old church 10,973 steps 7.38 km

 Bit of a nothing day cause it was so rainy. We went to the town museum which had some art and artifacts on display around the history of the valley. Some prehistoric and celtic but mostly the Mexican connection and the travels of one of the main Mexican villa guys who traveled and collected extensively. Chinese, Japanese, Sth Asian, African things, loads of stuffed animals and fish on top of all the Mexican stuff. I bought a couple of postcards. We were considering going bowling but didn't in the end. Went to the post office. Exciting stuff. Klyte, Hubert and I went to a bar for dinner and cocktails. I had a couple of 'Flower Power's - vodka, pureed raspberries and strawberries, st germaine, lime juice and violet liqueur. They were yummy. We shared some sweet potato chips, a beouf bourguignon thing with balls of very finely shredded beef which were fried maybe, on mashed sweet potato, mushrooms, and baby baked carrots and gravy, fried prawns on guac with chopped capsicum a...

Drove to Italy today. Windy road, holes in the hills/cliffs etc. Some from Marmottes hibernating, others bunkers or hiding places from various wars and resistance etc. Stopped in a little walled city thing which had a massive moat and a long gallery of rooms/wall that had been used for machine guns etc. Stopped at Venadio thermal spring where there was a massive hotel that is abandonned. Looks like someone may be starting to redevelop it. Shame cause it would be amazing. We parked and walked down beside the river and found a few little water holes and spouts/leaks out of the wall where the hot spring water was coming out. There was a family there enjoying the hot water. It all smelled like sulfur, but not too badly and the water was crystal clear and perfect temperature. At '3 Dragons' in Borgo San Dalmazzo we shared a pizza with nduja and red onion and cheese, then Klyte had the spaghetti with vongoles and I had gnocchi with four cheese sauce. I was beautiful. Chocolate flan a...

 We left earlyish and drove up to a point above Jausiers and left the car. We walked for 4.5 hrs, mostly flat, but some uphill, rocky tracks. We walked to Lac de Signe. For about half or more, we were above the snow line and by the time we got to the lake there was snow everywhere. It was beautiful. We sheltered under the rood of a little hut and ate our sandwiches, almonds, cranberries, and a banana.  Had chicken curry for dinner. Watched The Conjuring, Dark Harvest, and some of Gemini Man. 28,034 steps 18.87 km