the eternal internal dialogues
I had planned to write this on the plane, but my flight’s been delayed by an hour. Don’t you find that morning flights are the most upsetting in terms of delays? It just feels as though you could’ve spent that extra time in bed.
The reality of the situation is that I’m far too mentally exhausted to write anything useful. Next week, I’m heading to Georgia, though, so expect lots of exciting updates next month!
This entry is going to be a little rushed. I had planned to dedicate my entire post to the recent Tet Riga Marathon, in which I ran 21km, and populate it with photos of me running, but here we hit the first snag.
There aren’t any photographs of me running. In fact, there’s not really any photos of me preparing to run either, and none whatsoever of me after the fact. What went wrong?
Well, a combination of factors. First of all, the day was unexpectedly hot. As in, nearly 27 degrees hot. Also, I’d once again overestimated my abilities, walked 18km the day before, and stocked up on gels to make up for my exhaustion.
This, unsurprisingly, was a mistake. It was a double-edged sword of a mistake, actually, because I don’t think I would’ve survived the marathon without the gels, but they upset my stomach in the process.
You live and learn, as they say. I never typically eat breakfast before a run, but I don’t think I’ll ever be doing that again. Gels are pretty useless unless they have some fuel to latch on to.
The point is, I was in no condition for post-race photographs. I was nearly passed out on the sidewalk behind Doma baznica until my grandparents found me and brought me back to life with water and apricots.
There were actually a lot of exciting things happening at the marathon – from the first haredi woman to win a major competition to a man who ran the entire marathon with a pineapple on his head – but I missed out on most of it. In summary, my advice is to expect the unexpected, don’t overdo it, and never skip breakfast!
As I’m sure you’ve noticed, I’ve struggled with defining this blog. Though initially devised as a playground for SEO experimentation, I’ve found it difficult to commit to any theme or subject. Still, the process has been enjoyable and I don’t see myself deserting the blogosphere anytime soon.
I recently stumbled across a Soviet film I hadn’t watched yet – unsurprising, really, as I’m not much of a film enthusiast – and decided to give it a go. The film in question was Вам и не снилось (Could One Imagine?) and it was exactly what I needed.
This got me thinking – isn’t it interesting how we come across certain facts, certain films, certain songs, certain books, certain works of art? I’d never heard of this film before, nor do I even particularly like watching films, and yet I found it so enjoyable.
A similar thing happened to me last week, when a friend showed me a song by experimental Russian band Shortparis. I haven’t been able to stop listening since. Nor, for that matter, has my colleague, to whom I passed on my discovery.
The point is, perhaps it’s worth keeping an archive of these findings, because you never know who’s out there seeking exactly what you’ve just discovered.
I’m still not entirely sure whether I’m doing something clever, foolish, or a combination of the two, but I’ve decided to start another blog, where I’ll be recording my little discoveries. Swordfoosh will remain a diary of sorts – or, as my friend (who would like to be known as Kevin and insists on nurturing a “cult of Kevin” on my blog) calls it, a “lifestyle blog”.
Don’t worry, though, there’s plenty of exciting content to come: I can tell you about the Michelle Gurevich concert I attended yesterday, I can discuss my upcoming half-marathon on Sunday, I can share plans for my trip to Georgia in June, and (in case that doesn’t sound particularly tempting) much, much more.
There are two types of people in this world: those who love the sea and those who prefer the mountains. By all accounts I should be in the first category, but a brief spell of living amidst the Great Smoky Mountains has placed me firmly in the latter camp.
As an adult, the realisation that no longer will anyone bundle me into a Jeep before sunrise on a Saturday morning for a weekend getaway has forced me to seek out hiking adventures of my own. Last year, that meant waking up at the crack of dawn for a trip to the Lake District, while this year’s choice was Snowdonia National Park.
Now, as has become customary in my small group of friends, we leave the planning to Viktor. The itinerary is therefore always a pleasant surprise.
We left on Friday evening, catching the evening train to Bangor, where we spent the night before heading to Bethesda in the early morning to begin our trek. From there, we scaled a few mountains in Carneddau on our way to Capel Curig. Or, well, I’m assuming we did, because that’s what it says in Viktor’s itinerary.
Actually, we may have deviated slightly, because we ended up walking a bit longer than initially planned. Also, we took the chance to apply our bouldering skills to climb, literally, some snowcapped rocky peaks.
On the next day, I definitely remember deviating from the plan, because we didn’t want to go back into the same mountains that we had been traversing through previously, but we needed to get to Pen-y-Pass. After consulting with two experts at the mountaineering shops near our hostel, who gave conflicting advice, we decided to go off-grid. Which was wet, and muddy, but much more exciting.
What came to be known as the “ultimate culmination day” began with an easy meander to the base camp of Pen-y-Gwryd, after which we tackled the Pyg track, scrambling through Crib Goch all the way to Mount Snowdon. It’s interesting that I didn’t experience any fear on Crib Goch, despite the precipices visible below on both sides. Then again, we were lucky with the weather – the wettest spot in the United Kingdom was favourably dry for us.
After (briefly!) entertaining the idea of a train ride down from Mount Snowdon, we headed down the Snowdon Ranger Path, stopping to enjoy the idyllic May weather by lounging in the lush green grass of the hillside.
The next day, our final stretch was a casual stroll over to Llanberis, which finished with lunch at Pete’s Eats and some handstands by the river.
I couldn’t have asked for a better introduction to Wales. The weather, the people (including one man who actually followed us up a mountain to ensure we were going the right way – that sounds a bit creepier than intended, he was going up with his family and took a slight detour to point us in the right direction), the mountains.
As Vladimir Vysotsky sings (what, you thought you wouldn’t get a reference to the bard and his multiple mountain-themed songs?), “the only thing better than mountains is mountains on which you haven’t yet been”. So, with that in mind, I’ve got the Italian Alps in July to look forward to. I’m sure Viktor’s itinerary won’t disappoint.
This week is rather reminiscent of my post on indecision, given how much has happened and how much is yet to happen and how much I want to talk about everything all at once (as per usual). As I mentioned in last week’s post, there were birthdays, and theatre, and half-marathons to come.
The order is slightly misleading, however. First came theatre, then came a birthday party, then came a (incomplete) half marathon, followed by the Van Gogh and Britain exhibition at Tate Britain, after which was a series of meetings with friends and also one awards evening. It’s exhausting just typing it out, not to mention living it.
The theatre in question was Royal Stratford East, where I attended a showing of Noughts and Crosses. The play was based on the eponymous young adult novel by Malorie Blackman, which I had read as an eleven or twelve year old. It would appear that the audience was still of that same age group, because whenever sex was even tentatively hinted at, they dissolved into fits of giggles. Though enjoyable, this was definitely not the “next play to blow my mind” that I’m still ardently searching for.
After the play came the birthday, but I showed up too late to even order a drink. Still, I suppose that thirty minutes of socialising is better than zero minutes of socialising – and it allowed me to wake up early the next morning and head over to Stratford for my intended half-marathon. The use of the word intended is intended indeed, as the intended 21 kilometres were not run. At least, not by me.
This experience proved a rather harsh lesson in overestimating my abilities. I’d been at the gym every day the week prior, running short distances at high speeds. Apparently that can have a negative effect – who would’ve guessed? Add in poor weather conditions (rain, 25mph winds) plus a difficult track (laps around Lee Valley VeloPark, which has a whole bunch of hills), and you can imagine the difficulties for someone with sore, tense muscles. In any case, I ended up running only 10.2 miles, so three miles short of a half-marathon. Is it a shame? Yes. Do I regret it? Not in the slightest. My next attempt will be on May 19th, where I fully intend to set a personal best.
So, what’s next on my list? Right, Van Gogh and Britain. My flatmate is a Tate Member, so I was lucky enough to enjoy the exhibition for free and semi-privately, i.e. without hordes of visitors blocking the view. As a gallery dedicated to British art, Tate Britain tried incredibly hard to link Van Gogh to London, even though it turns out he worked here for an art dealer before he even began exploring his own artistic abilities. This could possibly explain the incredibly bizarre introduction to the exhibition: a collection of antique books “similar to the ones that Van Gogh was likely to have owned while he lived in London”.
Luckily, the exhibition got better after that. It positioned Van Gogh in context, as an artist influenced by his environment and his contemporaries. We got to see the engravings he collected, some of the Naturalist, Romanticist, and Pre-Raphaelite works that he took inspiration from, the symbolism he replicated or, in his own words, “translated”. And, interestingly, it didn’t end there. The exhibition also showed how Van Gogh influenced the next generation of British artists, from Vanessa Bell to Francis Bacon.
Just as an aside, I discovered something previously unknown to me: Van Gogh’s Six Sunflowers was destroyed in the bombing of Hiroshima (at least, that’s what Tate Britain claimed – other sources say Osaka or Ashiya). I looked this up, and it turns out that the painting was sold to a Japanese art collector in 1920, but perished on August 6, 1945.
The final thing I wanted to talk about was Book of the Month, which I suppose I missed for April. The two books I read this month were The People in the Trees by Hanya Yanagihara and, erm, Богиня в бегах by Женя Галкина. What? Who says I always have to read high-quality literature? I finished the first book on my flight over to St Petersburg, so I had to find something else to read on my way back. There weren’t any classics that I hadn’t already read at the airport bookshop, so I was forced to choose something unknown. It wasn’t so bad, actually.
The People in the Trees is a league apart, of course. The author of A Little Life creates such realistic universes that it’s surprisingly hard to believe that all these completely unbelievable events didn’t actually take place. Everything is meticulously researched. Admittedly, I predicted the ending from the very beginning (I blame Lolita), but it took absolutely nothing away from my enjoyment of the book. But anyway, on to the next, which is probably going to be Satanic Verses, finally.
Swordfoosh 