Art Supplies

Yesterday I went to Central Sq and met up with Sara. We went to Weirdo Records and bought 6 cd's for a grand total of $6.50. And then I dragged her to do my art supply shopping. We had tea at her place.

 

I accidentally bought 84inch canvas instead of 48inch, so I have to exchange that. I still need: containers for mineral spirits and paint (tin-cans and such), palette paper, 2-inch masking tape, size 11 xacto knife with blades, 4 sheets of 140lb cold-press watercolor paper 22*30inch. 

 

After meeting up with Max M. and making very dense bread, I went to "Mediterranean Grill" in Newton with Nastya. I had a good time convincing people who are steeped in worry and adulthood to dance to live Thursday-night music.
Friday morning  Max and I had a brunch picnic:  I made blini and he brought honeydew melon and coffee, we sat in the shade until the ants found us.

Tuesday consisted of a walk around the Copley area with Karen, talking about our brothers and outlooks on life. I switched cities and met up with Eloosha at Harvard Sq. We sipped our teas at Tealux, me reading his copy of Invisible Cities, him continuing his Hopscotch project.
We then met with Kostya and a his friend that was visiting from Moscow, and then back to Eloosha's place, where Ben joined us to watch Melancholia.

I'm finally waiting for college to start again, I feel a bit dumb not studying. 

movies before Berlin:
A Serious Man with Max T and Yulka
A Single Man with Yulka and Valya, after which we went to IHOP and slept at Valya's
Promethues with Max M

fuzzy white caterpillars

The first day we pitched tents and raised tarps as it started to rain. I listened to the rain come down, lashing against the blue plastic so that it was hard to hear people raising their voices to speak.

The last night there were eighteen people sleeping in a ten-person-tent, like sprats. We smelled like smoke from the campfire, staying up until five with our voices and an acoustic guitar. Russian bard songs rose from everyone’s lips, and songs written after the 70’s only from the lips of those who don’t consider themselves adults. The port and boxed wine went quickly at night. By day we listened to lectures on ageing, social & neural networking, and the history of China. The younger kids rehearsed their plays: the Odyssey, Winnie-the-Poo, and Ciao by Marc-Gilbert Sauvajon. Thousands of photographs throughout the week resulted in a mystical stop motion video.

Before arriving we had gone to watch a theater production of “A Month in the Country” and in the middle of the week we went to Mass MoCa to see the exhibits there. For the first time I felt like the adults where taking us more seriously in conversation, and I spoke more to the younger generation as well.

Eloosha was jetlagged from Paris and I woke up early, so we did yoga in the grass and swam in the lake. I spoke about writing to Valya and Sasha, and about change, Liza recounted her drama for the year, and Kirill some of his. Esther surprised us by appearing on her birthday, a gift. We played zoo and drank tea and ate oatmeal. I only looked at the stars one night, and not for long; I only saw two shooting stars. The campground was full of fuzzy white caterpillars and bright orange salamanders. 

Not Purple

The other night I had a dream and what I remember from it was the empty stone whales. They were life-size, and sometimes they would fill up with water and bacteria and drown, but the new ones and the ones with tops that were closed well floated, even though they were stone, because they where filled with air inside. It was a giant park. I was looking at it from above and there was a really clear river flowing through, but it wasn't horizontal, it went up, like solid bricks of water, somewhat like an aquarium without glass. There was beautiful coral and seaweed growing in the river, and a boardwalk throughout the park. I also remember some friends taking funny photos in a bathroom; making faces at the camera and standing in ridiculous poses, but I only remember Louisa being there, though I know there were more. She was wearing a costume, it was black and red. Also I'm pretty sure CIA agents were somehow involved, or maybe the mafia.


Also Inka helped me dye my hair. Osya and I went to sleep over at their house and that night we went to the pharmacy to get dye. The only purple dye they had was "Spalt".
1) Bleach for an hour (not all my hair, there was only enough in the bottle to cover about a third)
2) Dye it in "Lusty Lavender" for an hour (there wasn't enough bleach to cover all my hair)
3) Wash it out and watch most of the dye come out (it didn't stick)
4) Sleep
5) Decide if I want to keep the pink, copper and natural hair (it was still nice, but I was set on purple)
6) Bleach/Dye with Llongueras "Violin" which Inka had brought from Spain for an hour (even though it said 35 min)
7) Wash it out.

It still isn't purple. 









































Today nothing exciting happened; had my weight and height measured, blood taken and answered a bunch of questions. Physical. Haven't had one since before college. I also met with Eames at Copley yesterday and we got froyo at the Red Mango and walked around Newbury Street (that's when the photo is from.)

Tonight is the third (and last) night of filming with Sara and a few of her friends. We have been shooting at the Newton Library from library closing time to when the lights go out (9-12) about four kids who are meeting up during the summer after being at college for a year. They grew up in a really Christian town and there is a whole thing set up around strawberry cigarillos (thin cigar; no filter and you aren't supposed to inhale.) as a rather pathetic attempt to be cool.  I play the girl girl who brings the cigarillos and is trying to convince everyone that "we are the same people we used to be...just cooler"

Figment Project Boston 2012

Last Sunday I went to Boston with my family and Inka&co to see the exhibits of the Figment Project. It had been postponed once due to rain, and the weather was still overcast but it was really fun and walking around Boston was fantastic. I remembered that I really do like this city a lot. Figment Project consisted of moving sculptures, modern and belly dancing, numerous interactive art pieces, including balloons with velcro witch worked as building blocks for structures, and a giant blue ball with magnets, and two white moose to draw on. There was a giant board to play battleship and a woman walking around in an elaborate tulip costume. There was a one-man-band and an exhibit from the industrial museum. This was all the the greenway,which has cool fountains and goes on for a few blocks.

We ate at a Saus (Belgian food near Quincy Market, though it seems heavily influenced by the Middle East with peanut sauce and pita. The waffles are great) and then walked by the pier. And the ate again, at a café in the North End, where a celebration of St. Joseph’s Feast  was going on. There were booths selling food and trinkets lining the street and people swarming. Old Italian ladies were gossiping and tourists were running about.  

Berlin to Boston

Just dropped Yosef off at the orthodontist, need to start thinking of actual things to do other than sleep. I wrote part of the following in the airport, part of it yesterday in my bed.

Epilogue 

It is 5:09 am. I woke up at 2am, and by woke up I mean finally stopped tossing and turning in the heat of a bed that is two and half meters off the ground. It wasn't miserable, I actually rested, but it wasn't sleep. I finish off what was left of my kefir and left. I went to Oranienburger Tor but it was locked, and a few minutes later it a city worked came and unlocked it but I had realized that the next metro didn't come until 4:17. I went down anyway and stayed until I woke up a bit more, staring at the mice calmly lapping up from little pools of spilt water, and then decided to take the bus (which, when I looked at the instructions I had written out, I realized that that was what I had intended to do anyway, but it took me half an hour to get around to it.) Bus N6, where I got off with a girl that quickly realized we should cross the street to get to the next bus, Bus 128, on which a really drunk guy fell off the seat and was left with a bleeding head, and I arrived at Tegel at 4:40, and clearly it didn't take too long to check my bags and get through security. I lied to them about having cosmetics: I have a small tube of toothpaste somewhere in there, but they didn't find it, and I didn't have a plastic baggie. Life of crime over here. The reason I had it was because of a fantasy of staying in Berlin; it involved an overbooked plane and the possibility of me not getting my checked bag back (it weighs 19.7kg) but that dream was shredded by the reality that my first flight isn't actually delta; it's KLM, which is small and not overbooked at all.

It's getting light out. I have my boarding pass which covers both my flights but I will need to get a bus ticket in NYC to get to Boston. The flight is boarding. 5:31.

~~~~

 The first plane I talked to a guy from Norway; Berlin, EU, Norway, Catch 22. He was a med student and we got off the plane together but our terminals were in different places. We never introduced ourselves. In the Amsterdam airport I kept nodding off. I walked around briefly and sat down again, and some woman from Iran started talking to me; she started telling me about how her daughter is a professor in Toronto and how she has a baby so she goes with her to all these cities for conferences to watch the kid. On the second plane I sat next to this guy from Long Island, who was coming from teaching English through Peace Corps in Rwanda. He was really drained; he was going to a wedding but his Peace Corps ends in November so he has to go back. At some point I realized I couldn’t talk anymore and plummeted quickly into sleep for a couple hours. We talked some more after I woke up, switching to lighter topics than his Rwanda experience. We never introduced ourselves either, but his name was Patrick, as I gathered from some narration. I got off the plane and got myself a bus ticket to Port Authority. While waiting for the bus, I met a man named Peter from Dodoma, Tanzania, a veterinarian who was going to a conference, his specialization being poultry disease control. I got to Port Authority and started looking for another bus, but first I bought my first piece of food on USA soil; and incredibly sweet cinnamon bun that I could only eat half of at first, my hands covered in sugary goop. The first bus I found was 36$ so I kept looking until I found one for $20 that left in an hour, and the bus driver told me it was fine that I didn’t have a ticket yet, even though Megabus to Boston typically involves buying the ticket ahead of time. So I found some shade and tried not to be overwhelmed: it was culture shock coming to NYC, the skyscrapers stacked on top of each other, the noise, the dirty streets lined with liter. I came back and waited on standby with a guy who is part of World Teach, doing Management of the Asian sector. Waiting was dramatic: they didn’t let some girl on because she had a bike, and it apparently says on the site “no bikes” but it had never been a problem for her before. She let out a whelp of desperation “what am I supposed to do!?” her face matching in tone to her pink helmet. Some other guy had a ton of bags and you have to pay $20 extra for every bag over one. On the bus I asked the guys in front of me if they knew when the bus reached Boston: around 8:50. I fell asleep for an hour and when I woke up one of the guys started talking to me: Ryan who goes to Boston College, studying Comp Sci and Finance. He switched to sit next to me. At some point he said something about me being intelligent and I made a face 'fuck no' and said "no"; it was so blatant. We did end up at South Station at 8:50, and when I exited the station I was relieved; Boston is a lot less overwhelming than NYC. Some lady asked me if all the taxi's in Boston are more-or-less the same, but I've never had a reason to take one. Then Папа picked me up and I was home.

Incomplete Farewells

Yesterday I woke up and had to pick out ants out of the honey again. I played tennis with my dad and then visited Yulka at her still-under-construction house. This morning the first time I woke up it was 5 am and I heard hooting. In Berlin, this would have been pigeons (I think, or at least that was everyone’s best guess,) but here it was the distinctive pattern of the barn owl. 

Part 3

On the 24^th I woke up intending to the last two museums I hadn’t been to on the Museum Island; Neues Museum and Altes Nationalgalerie (as opposed to the Neues Nationalgalerie and Altes Museum, which I had already been to.) The latter was closed for construction but I enjoyed the broad spectrum of Egyptian work at the Neues Museum; it was a lot more diverse than what I had seen before. Later I met up with people at the mensa, and Marcel got me a good-bye coffee, and it was the first coffee I had had in two months. Hannah, Bengi, Ruben, Ruben’s brother, and Laura, went for a walk, and I got gelato at Hackesher Markt, and we sat on the grass of the park nearby. 

 

The next day I woke up at 6:30 and didn’t fall back asleep. It was my last day in Berlin and I was worried about the flight and saying goodbye. I went to the Altes Nationalgalerie and then can back and said goodbye to Katrin (she gave me a piece of quiche she made.) I bumped into Anna who also lives at The Convent but we didn’t say bye because she assumed she would see me later in the day, but we never did.

After that I met up with people (Hannah, Lynn, Ruben, Ruben’s brother) and we went to the aquarium by Zoologischer Garten in hopes of escaping the heat (it didn’t work.) Then I went back to Tierpark to pick up my sleeping bag and rushed off to dinner at The Convent with people from the first flat (minus Tilman, he was off on holiday) but Christian and Sasha and Andreas and Charlotte (who doesn’t live there but still) and it was nice though it still felt incomplete in the end, even after the food and hugs. I guess goodbyes never feel complete.