Vienna's Museum of Art History

DP called the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna "an enjoyable museum experience." It truly was! We bought our tickets, stowed our coats and bag away in a locker (not because it was required of us but because we wanted to lighten our load) and spent the next two hours merrily making our way through the Hapsburg's impressive art collection. We were particularly happy to find a number of Diego Velasquez paintings tucked away in a corner. As always, we enjoyed watching other people enjoying the art.

What our travel gear says about us

The elderly man with the large black backpack struggled his way onto the Budapest metro car; he used a cane to walk and was unable to move quickly. Although there were seats available he chose, instead, to stand at the door of the car. I caught a glimpse of his backpack. It said, "Designed For Those Who Like Adventurous Life."

No Change Today!

This sign was posted on the door of a currency exchange place at Budapest's Keleti train station. Although I knew they meant they were unable to change money, I couldn't help but smile at the sentiment.

Some days, it's better not to change!

Women of Budapest

We spotted both of these beautiful women on Castle Hill on the Buda side of the Danube River in Budapest, Hungary. The woman in the photo above was cleaning her home for Christmas and opened her windows as we were admiring a statue nestled into a nook in her building. The statue in the photo below can be found in the Matthius Church.

For more Christmas-week images, please visit Photo Friday hosted by Deb Dubrow at Delicious Baby.

One Day in Budapest

DP chose his favourites from the scores of photographs I took yesterday, Christmas Eve. When you put a group of photos together, they often tell a story and these six shots narrate the story of our day. In chronological order, they are:
1. The Great Market Hall, just a ten minute walk from our hotel
2. Selection of Russian Nesting Dolls at the Great Market Hall
3. View of bridge across the Danube (and ashtray) from the Great Market Hall
4. Two women carry a Christmas tree down Vaci Utca, the pedestrian shopping street
5. Matthius Church on Castle Hill on the Buda side of the Danube
6. Walking home from a concert on Christmas Eve

How did you spend Christmas Eve?

Christmas in Budapest

It's Christmas Eve and DP and I are in Budapest, Hungary. This afternoon, while walking to the metro station (Budapest has the steepest metro escalators I have ever seen), I confessed to DP that I had not felt Christmassy at all this year, not even for one moment. We were headed for Castle Hill on the Buda side of the Danube and it seems that the universe heard my sad lament. It delivered, in succession, a gift from a stranger, a quiet hour in the lovely Matthius Church and a few fluttering flakes of snow.

A few nights ago, I tried to remember where we had been for Christmas and New Year's Eve for the last five years. The list brings back so many extraordinary memories.

2008
Christmas: Budapest, Hungary
New Year's Eve: Krakow, Poland

2007
Christmas : Rome, Italy
New Year's Eve: Florence, Italy

2006
Christmas: Florence and Siena, Italy
New Year's Eve: Barcelona, Spain

2005
Christmas and New Year's Eve: Paris, France

2004
Christmas: San Miguel de Allende, Mexico
New Year's Eve: Monterrey, Mexico

There's not much under our tree this year (in fact, there's not even a tree) but we feel blessed to visit more of the world this Christmas. From Budapest, we are going to Vienna, Austria and then on to Krakow and Warsaw, Poland.

Wherever you are this Christmas, I hope there are people and experiences for which you feel grateful.

Christmastime in the City

We don't go home at Christmas. While most of the other foreign teachers at our school were scrambling for the exit at 1:00 p.m. on Friday, suitcases in tow, DP and I made our way back to our offices where we spent Friday afternoon quietly finishing up our work for the semester.

It's not that I don't want to be with my family. I am, in fact, wild about them and about Christmas! But the reality of a 1200 (Canadian) dollar plane ticket and the rush-rush-rush of the North American Christmas season makes staying in Europe far more appealing.

Today was the first day of our Christmas break. I must confess that I don't feel at all Christmassy yet. After a decadent pajama morning, I headed out into the hectic Saturday afternoon to run some errands. Five to be precise. When I emerged from the metro in Plaza Catalunya, the heart of the city was pounding with tourists and Christmas shoppers. I made my way to the third floor of FNAC to the far corner of the book section where the English book collection is located and found, much to my delight, a book called The Last Watch for DP (it is the only thing for he has asked in months) and a copy of Toni Morrison's A Mercy for our trip to Central Europe. I also found a copy of Eckart Tole's A New Earth and decided to find out, for myself, exactly what all the fuss is about. After waiting in the check-out line for 25 minutes, I was told that the machines that accept their gift cards were not functioning (and that they had no idea when they would be working) so I put my gift card back in my purse, paid for all three of my books and then headed back out to the plaza. People have a lot of pre-conceived notions about what it means to live in a first world or developing nation... and I'm here to say that ALL nation states are great at some things and lousy at others. Spain is lousy at gift cards and not so terrific at using lovely manners with strangers. I have identified these as areas of growth for my current home country.

Portal del Angel, a pedestrian street and my route to the Barri Gotic, was packed with buskers and clowns and shoppers and tourists. Posh clothing boutiques for the young and insanely hip pumped techno music onto the street so that the people traveling along this vast river of humanity were assaulted by a surreal mix of bam bam bam-christmas carol-bam bam bam-christmas carol. There were a number of Mossos (police) vans parked in the middle of the street and serious-looking police officers kept a watchful eye on... I'm actually not quite sure what. At the end of Potrtal del Angel, the human mass was dumped out on the bottom steps of the Gothic Cathedral at the annual outdoor Christmas Fair, the Fira de Santa Llúcia de Barcelona. Since 1786, this has been the place that los Barceloneses (people of Barcelona) come to buy pieces for their nativity scene (known as navideñas), their trees, and their mistletoe. I had, of course, chosen the busiest shopping day of the year to visit the Christmas Fair so the market was crazy-packed. I actually felt relieved that DP had stayed at the apartment; he is an endlessly kind sort who endures Christmas for my sake. So there we were, packed in like sardines, and as usual, people were totally fixated on their own errands or family members or partner. A fascinating/challenging part about Catalan culture is that no one ever says, "Sorry" or "Excuse me" or "I'd like to get by, please" so you have all of these people pushing and jostling each other about. I had to stop a couple of times, breathe deeply and repeat my mantra, "It's not personal. It's not personal." (It's really not personal. It is, however, deeply annoying.)

First, I set out to buy two traditional Catalan caganers (translates roughly to "little shitter"). You can read more about these fertile little additions to my nativity scene here. They also make these caganers in the image of famous people and the man who served me said that the most popular caganer this year is Obama. Last year, when my mom visited, I gave her our Caga Tio (translates to "shit log") so I needed to replace him as well. Learn more about Caga Tio here.

I rode the gigantic people-wave down to Plaza Jaume where a political demonstration was in full swing, the pounding of the drums echoing against the 500 year-old stone walls. I joined the line to see the city's nativity scene, which was far more traditional than last year's, and then slowly made my way to my favourite purse store, walking along a medieval street lit up with tiny white Christmas lights. With the help of a lovely woman from the shop, I tried on a number of beautiful leather knapsacks but, in the end, decided to defer my decision until tomorrow. Barcelona shops are normally closed on Sundays but even in Spain, Christmas is a powerful incentive for shops to open on the Sunday before Christmas day.

On Monday we leave for Budapest. I'm hoping for snow.

What are you hoping for?

Piazza Fragments, Siena

This girl was walking out of the picture but I caught just the tiniest bit of her.

Sometimes it feels as though all the best light falls on Italy. I have written about the powers of Italian light before.

On this December afternoon the sun drizzled down on the piazza in Siena like filaments of spun gold. I don't remember noticing how beautiful the light was when I was a kid because I was probably too busy being in the light. Feeling the sun on my face. As an adult, the challenge is the balance... to notice the beauty and to continue to BE in the light.

For more Friday Photos, visit today's delightfuly expanding photo album at Delicious Baby.

The sun always shines on Siena

We first visited Siena in Tuscany on Christmas Day, 2006. DP and I took the train from Florence and I fell in love with the piazza in spite of my slight crankiness about being unprepared for the cold... and my slight blueness about being so far away from my family on Christmas. Take a look at this amazing piazza...


Two weekends ago, DP and I returned to Siena, the gorgeous, with three students from our school. We rented a tiny car that we managed to dent before we even got out of Florence (that's another story for another blog post) but the centre of this ancient city was as glorious and golden as I remembered. As the kids ran up the tower, DP and I threw ourselves down on the sun-warmed terra cotta. We ate pizza topped with buffalo mozzarella and tomatoes and watched closely as Italian families savoured their beautiful Sunday afternoon.



What places do you love most?

Signs of the Holidays

Sometimes things go wrong. Your computer dies when you are as flat-broke as you have been since university. Stored deep within that broken computer are all the photos you have taken in the last three years. Oaxaca, Paris, Lisbon, Dublin, Florence, Venice, Rome. Home Sweet Barcelona-Home. Sigh. Thankfully, all the files are backed up thanks to DPs swift tech-guy intervention. Finally, and somewhat unbelievably, we are both sick again.

Sometimes the universe sends you a sign. In this case, it has stopped just shy of dropping a grand piano on us. Although, school (including the precious college applications of the seniors with whom I work) will not be finished for another week, it is most definitely time for us to slow down. To take a break from the maddening rush. To shift gears and sleep late and drink hot chocolate and coffee just because. To write in my journal and read the novels piling up on my night stand. To let ourselves slip gently into the holiday season and rejoice.

Slow Blogs will return in January of 2009 (does that not seem impossible?) with a closer look at some of the blogs you are reading and writing. In the meantime, I welcome you slow bloggers to write about the slow blogs you are loving. Be sure to include the URL.

Frank Sinatra is singing in the background. He says, "Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas."

Florentine Market Roses and College Apps

This morning I want to write about Florence and about feasting on buffalo cheese and cherry tomatoes at a picnic table on the way to Siena and about driving through Tuscan hills burned orange by the late-afternoon sun. I want to write about panna cotta and our whirlwind trip to the market and these perfectly perfect roses.

But I can't.

Right now, it's all about this. The bottom photo. Part of my job as a high school counselor is to teach high school seniors how to apply to university... and to help guide them through that process. I am in love with my work and that's a very good thing because, for the next two weeks, I will be proofreading drafts of college essays and assembling applications all day long... and dreaming about mile-high-piles of transcripts at night.

It's all worth it, though. Every moment I spend on writing letters of recommendation and completing college applications is an investment in someone's future.

You may want to check out another worthy cause, Passports with Purpose, a fundraiser that's been launched by a group of bloggers here.

Nominate your favourite slow blog

We're in Florence for the long weekend which means that we are moving more slowly, eating more slowly and enjoying this view of the Arno during magic hour.

This week, I am asking readers to nominate your favourite slow blogs. Go ahead... I know you want to! There are no rules whatsoever and you can even nominate yourself. I'll just ask that you nominate a blog that is slow by design. (See the Slow Blog Manifesto if you are in doubt.)

Tell us what you love about the blog you are nominating! What makes you want to visit again and again? Be specific! And don't forget to include the name and URL of the blog.

And, if you find yourself dreaming of Florence, here's a little something for you!

To Florence with the Travel Club Kids

DP and I run a little travel club for high school students at our school. We've been to the Cinque Terre and Dublin and, this morning, we leave for Florence.

We'll have a photography lesson with DP, eat at our favourite trattorias, go on a market tour and tasting with Judy, la Divina Cucina, wander through the Uffizi and drive through the Tuscan countryside in a rental car. (Thanks to DP for making this wish possible!)

We promise that there will be photos! Have a lovely weekend wherever you are spending it!

For more Friday Photos, visit the yummy photography goodness at Delicious Baby.

Musee Marc Chagall in Nice

Sometimes the people looking at the art are as interesting as the art itself.