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Another cold, gray, rainy day - I slept as much as I wanted and then ate a brunch of this and that from yesterday's market. I reviled my hotel and indeed all the hotels I've stayed at so far for not providing at least a kettle. I understand they don't have coffeemakers in all the rooms here like we have at home, but no means to even make a cup of tea is just uncivilized.
I went outside. I realized my new scarf and my umbrella are matchy. I took a picture. It's blurry of my face because I thought someone was coming around the corner catching me doing Myspace-style self-portraiture and: embarrassing.
It would be the only picture I was able to take all day, because the Belvedere doesn't permit cameras. At all. Anywhere. Except in the garden. That immediately put me in a bad mood, and I'm still feeling pretty cranky because the pieces that I saw which made the most powerful impact on me aren't available digitally anywhere, at least not that I found (Shana will possibly prove me a liar on this and I'd be glad of it, she seems to find the most impossible things) - studies for paintings in the Mayor's House of the City of Prague that reprent Czech virtues using Czech historical figures in allegoretical settings. They were wonderful. I can tell you they were Justice, Maternal Wisdom, Strength of Purpose, Prepared for Battle, Creative Spirit, The Chosen, Constancy, and Independence. They were amazing. They inspired me with ideas for stories. I would really like some way of referring back to those images, but without my camera...
I was really unhappy. Really, really, really unhappy. I've never been forbidden to take any pictures at all in a museum - usually as long as you're not flashing, you're fine. I guess France and America are more liberal on that policy? The only exceptions I can think of are a few modern art exhibits I went to because the works were still under the artist's copyright. Perhaps it's the same thing with the Mucha, but in the WHOLE museum? Ugh. It turns out that banning photography in museums is becoming the norm. That's a real pity. A digital image can never take the place of the real object. It's not a bootleg! Refusing to allow people to take not-for-profit pictures of things they have seen, are seeing, it just feels wrong to me. I feel kind of bereft.
I did find a few online images of a few things that I saw, mostly thanks to the fabulous Museum Syndicate site:
Cycles Perfecta reminds me SO MUCH of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
galligaskin . It's practically a portrait.
Some day I am going to make a headdress like this one and wear it ALL THE TIME:
Byzantine Head, the Brunette
My mother had a tin with this on it and I loved looking at all the details. It was a treat to see it in person, in its original color and texture.
Zodiac
For the rest... Hopefully some day I'll see them again. In a book or something. I'm sad. I'll look harder for them later.
It being Sunday and everything in the world closed, I decided to finally check out the down at the heels pizzaria next door to my hotel. It's about what I expected, but it had its charms. For one, the older Italian owner gave me an absolutely GIANT pour of red Lambrusco. It was crazy. It was like two fingers over the half litre mark in the wine glass. I was feeling absolutely no pain by the time I finished it while I was waiting for my pizza (in one of my mental-health-break recursions to the familiar, I ordered the same kind of pizza I always order at home - pineapple and ham). Whle I was sitting there another elderly Italian gent came in - I was deeply, deeply charmed by the fact that he was wearing very fine tailoring of a certain vintage, I think the late 70s? And his umbrella was perfectly matched to his jacket, in an identical red and blue houndstooth. I was so in love. The jacket was paired with a light blue shirt, a red paisley tie, and a striped waistcoat. I seriously love the Viennese men's clothing. They're adorable dandies - the clothes have so much panache and wit! Because I had been openly gawping at him of course I had to recover so I said "Gruss gott!" and he said "Guten abend!" and the owner said "Buona sera!" and gave him a glass of white Lambrusco, and the dapper gent raised his glass to me and said "Chin chin!" and I said "Cheers!" and we toasted each other and drank. Man, there are times when I really wish I spoke German. This was one of them. This is like the second time I have missed out on getting to talk to an awesome dapper older gentleman. I probably could have had a go in Italian, but settled for giving him my best smile instead of giving him agita by butchering his mothertongue in his ears right before dinner.
I do love a glass of Lambrusco. Really any kind of sparkling wine, especially red sparkling wine - which is cold, refreshing, relaxing, slightly sweet but mostly crisp - makes an excellent attitude adjuster at the end of a long, walky, rocky day. (It had a few bad moments - seeing the streetcar doors slam in the face of a 90+ year old woman who was trying to give on nearly gave me a heart attack and made me want to cry at the same time, it was awful - the museum was frankly kind of dreadful, the sort of place where the docents treat everyone like stinky vagrant vagabonds who are going to filch the good silver if you take your eyes off them for a second, and they stare with nasty suspicion and are just generally overbearing - nothing ruins a pleasant art buzz like having your gaze intercepted by someone who is sneering contemptuously at you, ugh - the museum cafe was run by a woman who was in such a foul mood that she was being horrible to everyone, I walked in and picked up a Herald Tribune and a sweet older English couple told me to run for my life!
But all the restaurants in the area were closed, so I had to sit down. She was rude, but I'd been expecting worse after talking to the Brits, so I wasn't put off too terribly by it. The goulash soup was just brilliant, easily some of the best beef soup I've ever had. The cubed beef had been marinated to perfection in just the right ratio of red wine and vinegar and was tender and flavorful, and the potatos were perfectly cooked, and the cubed red and green peppers still crisp, and the broth just of the right thickness and savor. It was heavenly. The coffee was divine. But it was not a good situation in that cafe. She was the only server, and the place was absolutely jammed with Sunday daytrippers, and if you were nice to her it just made her angry, which is probably the mistake the Brits made. The first time she hissed at me when I smiled at her I decided "cool polite" was better than "warm friendly" and after that we got on fine. I left her a good tip anyway, on the grounds that if I'd been in her place I imagine I'd have made contact with my inner berserker several hours earlier, probably breaking every demitasse in the joint while gibbering incoherently about swarms of locusts and crumbs of torte and how the day of reckoning etc. etc. etc.. She was still valiantly fighting the fight, if not graciously.
Yikes - it's bedtime for Frances! Tschussle!
I went outside. I realized my new scarf and my umbrella are matchy. I took a picture. It's blurry of my face because I thought someone was coming around the corner catching me doing Myspace-style self-portraiture and: embarrassing.
It would be the only picture I was able to take all day, because the Belvedere doesn't permit cameras. At all. Anywhere. Except in the garden. That immediately put me in a bad mood, and I'm still feeling pretty cranky because the pieces that I saw which made the most powerful impact on me aren't available digitally anywhere, at least not that I found (Shana will possibly prove me a liar on this and I'd be glad of it, she seems to find the most impossible things) - studies for paintings in the Mayor's House of the City of Prague that reprent Czech virtues using Czech historical figures in allegoretical settings. They were wonderful. I can tell you they were Justice, Maternal Wisdom, Strength of Purpose, Prepared for Battle, Creative Spirit, The Chosen, Constancy, and Independence. They were amazing. They inspired me with ideas for stories. I would really like some way of referring back to those images, but without my camera...
I was really unhappy. Really, really, really unhappy. I've never been forbidden to take any pictures at all in a museum - usually as long as you're not flashing, you're fine. I guess France and America are more liberal on that policy? The only exceptions I can think of are a few modern art exhibits I went to because the works were still under the artist's copyright. Perhaps it's the same thing with the Mucha, but in the WHOLE museum? Ugh. It turns out that banning photography in museums is becoming the norm. That's a real pity. A digital image can never take the place of the real object. It's not a bootleg! Refusing to allow people to take not-for-profit pictures of things they have seen, are seeing, it just feels wrong to me. I feel kind of bereft.
I did find a few online images of a few things that I saw, mostly thanks to the fabulous Museum Syndicate site:
Cycles Perfecta reminds me SO MUCH of
galligaskin . It's practically a portrait. Some day I am going to make a headdress like this one and wear it ALL THE TIME:
Byzantine Head, the Brunette
My mother had a tin with this on it and I loved looking at all the details. It was a treat to see it in person, in its original color and texture.
Zodiac
For the rest... Hopefully some day I'll see them again. In a book or something. I'm sad. I'll look harder for them later.
It being Sunday and everything in the world closed, I decided to finally check out the down at the heels pizzaria next door to my hotel. It's about what I expected, but it had its charms. For one, the older Italian owner gave me an absolutely GIANT pour of red Lambrusco. It was crazy. It was like two fingers over the half litre mark in the wine glass. I was feeling absolutely no pain by the time I finished it while I was waiting for my pizza (in one of my mental-health-break recursions to the familiar, I ordered the same kind of pizza I always order at home - pineapple and ham). Whle I was sitting there another elderly Italian gent came in - I was deeply, deeply charmed by the fact that he was wearing very fine tailoring of a certain vintage, I think the late 70s? And his umbrella was perfectly matched to his jacket, in an identical red and blue houndstooth. I was so in love. The jacket was paired with a light blue shirt, a red paisley tie, and a striped waistcoat. I seriously love the Viennese men's clothing. They're adorable dandies - the clothes have so much panache and wit! Because I had been openly gawping at him of course I had to recover so I said "Gruss gott!" and he said "Guten abend!" and the owner said "Buona sera!" and gave him a glass of white Lambrusco, and the dapper gent raised his glass to me and said "Chin chin!" and I said "Cheers!" and we toasted each other and drank. Man, there are times when I really wish I spoke German. This was one of them. This is like the second time I have missed out on getting to talk to an awesome dapper older gentleman. I probably could have had a go in Italian, but settled for giving him my best smile instead of giving him agita by butchering his mothertongue in his ears right before dinner.
I do love a glass of Lambrusco. Really any kind of sparkling wine, especially red sparkling wine - which is cold, refreshing, relaxing, slightly sweet but mostly crisp - makes an excellent attitude adjuster at the end of a long, walky, rocky day. (It had a few bad moments - seeing the streetcar doors slam in the face of a 90+ year old woman who was trying to give on nearly gave me a heart attack and made me want to cry at the same time, it was awful - the museum was frankly kind of dreadful, the sort of place where the docents treat everyone like stinky vagrant vagabonds who are going to filch the good silver if you take your eyes off them for a second, and they stare with nasty suspicion and are just generally overbearing - nothing ruins a pleasant art buzz like having your gaze intercepted by someone who is sneering contemptuously at you, ugh - the museum cafe was run by a woman who was in such a foul mood that she was being horrible to everyone, I walked in and picked up a Herald Tribune and a sweet older English couple told me to run for my life!
But all the restaurants in the area were closed, so I had to sit down. She was rude, but I'd been expecting worse after talking to the Brits, so I wasn't put off too terribly by it. The goulash soup was just brilliant, easily some of the best beef soup I've ever had. The cubed beef had been marinated to perfection in just the right ratio of red wine and vinegar and was tender and flavorful, and the potatos were perfectly cooked, and the cubed red and green peppers still crisp, and the broth just of the right thickness and savor. It was heavenly. The coffee was divine. But it was not a good situation in that cafe. She was the only server, and the place was absolutely jammed with Sunday daytrippers, and if you were nice to her it just made her angry, which is probably the mistake the Brits made. The first time she hissed at me when I smiled at her I decided "cool polite" was better than "warm friendly" and after that we got on fine. I left her a good tip anyway, on the grounds that if I'd been in her place I imagine I'd have made contact with my inner berserker several hours earlier, probably breaking every demitasse in the joint while gibbering incoherently about swarms of locusts and crumbs of torte and how the day of reckoning etc. etc. etc.. She was still valiantly fighting the fight, if not graciously.
Yikes - it's bedtime for Frances! Tschussle!