to the North

I spend a lot of time on trains. I also spend a lot of time in Kings Cross, and in a way Kings Cross feels more like home than almost everywhere else in London. As soon as I get on a train, as soon as that train pulls out of the station and I'm on my way to "the North", I relax. Even on that overcrowded train last Friday: the air condition wasn't working, people were sitting in the corridor, it was kinda terrible. But hey, the one thing I've learned since living here is that you got to make the most out of being in a confined space for more than an hour. Time to read an entire newspaper. Time to catch up on all those magazine articles. Time to read a book without being interrupted. Time to complete several levels on duolingo (I'm currently learning French and waiting for them to drop Norwegian.)

It's nice to have friends in other places. It's nice to have friends. It's nice to hang out in Edinburgh for four days and do all of these things and more: drink cardamom hot chocolate on 3 out of 4 days; go to the cinema at two in the afternoon; listen to your best friend perform at his choir's concert; walk everywhere; finally buy Sufjan Stevens' last album; talk and talk and talk. It's nice to explore no-longer-abandoned buildings. It's nice.

the good kind of transit

We had taken several trains around Italy, but in the weeks leading up to the trip I had been looking forward to this particular train journey the most - indeed it was the only ticket I had bought in advance, before I had even booked a flight to Italy: the train from Venice to Carinthia in Southern Austria, where I was planning to meet my brothers for a couple of days by the lakes and mountains. There are few things that are lovelier than sitting on a quiet train - with a compartment to oneself! - and watching the mountains come closer and closer. Slowly, the landscape changed, from flat land to stark stony mountains, until it eventually turned into hills and mountains covered in deep forests. We drove through tunnel after tunnel, and every time I looked up, the landscape was more familiar. Everything was sweet and delightful: the small piece of peach cake that I had bought that morning in Bologna from a friendly baker, now crumbling; the guitar solo in the song I was listening to, ‚Impossible Germany‘ by Wilco; the books I was reading: ‚The Baron in the Trees‘ by Italo Calvino, which I had started reading on the train to Ravenna, and which I now finished on the train to Austria, having thoroughly enjoyed every single page; and ‚My Salinger Year‘ by Joanna Rakoff, which I had bought in Bologna. This was the perfect book to read on a trip that would include my attendance at a conference where I would represent my institution, a task that seemed daunting and made me feel both very young and very much in control. A book about a young woman trying to figure out what work, and life, is all about? Yes please. (It also felt like a Nora Ephron film turned into an autobiography, which is a definite plus.)

a summer evening

It was hot in Paris. We stayed in a tiny flat near the Sorbonne. I wandered around by myself a little, but there's something about Paris that is so similar to Vienna that I'm incapable of doing any sightseeing, or really, anything productive. One evening I ended up in a little side street for half an hour. I just sat on some steps and listened to the swallows. Swallows remind me of summer; I remember lying in bed on long, warm summer days in Vienna, listening to the swish swish of the curtains, the swallows crying out to each other, the distant street sounds. It was nice. I always feel like continental European cities are made for walking around, looking at things, being at home in the streets. It's one of the things I miss most.

Snapshots from Copenhagen

Back from Paris and Copenhagen and my feelings about this development are accurately summed up by this image. I do love continental Europe. Copenhagen was a dream. We stayed in an amazing flat (thanks, airnbnb!) where we assembled a number of simple pasta dishes and salads, watched cheesy films, and both read the Iliad. In the evenings we walked past the lakes to the nearest supermarket and watched the runners race past us. During the day we walked everywhere else and drank approximately 700 juices and smoothies and (in Peter's case) ginger shots that would make your eyes water. The bookshops were pretty spectacular.
Conclusio: Copenhagen is as fantastic as everyone says it is, but it also felt strangely familiar. All those apartment buildings, all those bikes, the well-designed supermarkets, the tasty bread and water. As I sat on a packed bus back to my flat in London - on a bus because the tube wasn't running to my stop and I had to take a 45 minute detour - it already felt like a dream. Exit plan: continental Europe.

reading and holidaying

Pictures of a perfect June weekend in Vienna, packed with sun, football, Edmund de Waal's perfect installation in the Theseus temple, and so many loved ones.

Since my return to London I have been reading like I used to read as a teenager, reading to distract myself: The Paris Review (interviews with Alan Hollinghurst and Jeffrey Eugenides; short stories by Clarice Lispector; poetry); Eleanor Catton (The Rehearsal and The Luminaries); Asko Sahlberg's The Brothers ; Lukas Bärfuss' Koala; The Iliad; The Rime of the Modern Mariner by Nick Hayes.

I have started to read differently. Of the books listed above, Catton was the first New Zealand author (other than Katherine Mansfield, whom I always think of as British) I'd read; Sahlberg possibly the first Finnish author; Bärfuss the first Swiss author in years and years (and what a fantastic book it is - here's hoping it'll be translated into English); and The Rime of the Modern Mariner is only my second graphic novel, and, like the first, was given to me as a gift.

All new to me because in my heart of hearts I'm always secretly looking for the next Middlemarch. There are few things that I like more than a truly absorbing 600-page Victorian novel - no surprise then that I loved, loved, loved The Luminaries! I've been stuck in my ways for a long, long time. I've absorbed much of the English-language canon; I've read more in English than I have in German. Ironically, my job has made me much more aware of how difficult it is for German-language authors to get translated into English; how closed off and conservative the book market can be; how much we're missing out on. I am now determined to change my own reading patterns, to improve my foreign language skills, to seek out literature in translation.

And to seek out literature in languages that I can actually read (sort of), but never really practice. On this note: I'm off to Paris and Copenhagen for my first non-Austrian, non-UK holiday in over a year. Send any tips and recommendations my way (book-related or café-related or something else entirely). I'm mostly looking forward to tall apartment buildings, cafés that specialise in porridge, and long walks.

old friends, new friends, best friends

On Friday I missed my train to Edinburgh. I had never missed a train before, so I felt quite glum. But all glumness evaporated as soon as I stepped off the train in Waverley. I drank cardamom hot chocolate every day. My best friend, my brother and I talked about - nothing in particular. My brother fell asleep on the sofa while Emma cut Kevin's hair. I received some excellent hugs and declared my love for Edinburgh repeatedly. These weekends away are everything to me.

sculpture

Frazzled nerves, wishing I was back here again. The Musei Capitolini are a dream. It was so peaceful when I was there, just me and dozens of German-speaking students on a schooltrip with their Latin class. I listened to the teachers' lectures and felt at home. 

when we went to Rome

A month ago I took the night train to Rome. What I liked best: climbing over a fence to enjoy a perfect view of St. Peter's, excellent ice cream flavours (rice! rosemary! sage! basil!), speaking Italian, ancient sculpture, aimless walks, you know the deal. It was good. 

I started reading Memoirs of Hadrian after observing (and laughing at) other tourists who took pictures with a giant statue of Antinous.* I wouldn't say that I like historical novels per se - in fact, I hardly ever read any - but I love fake autobiographies, especially fake autobiographies by Roman emperors. They just have so much potential to make the reader relate to the past. Years ago I read Julian by Gore Vidal, and that was the first time I actually realised that maybe one doesn't have to be an academic, a historian, to make the past come to live. That writers might actually be better at that.

*Note: in Roman museums Antinous is described as 'Hadrian's favourite', whereas in the British Museum in London he is 'the great love of his (Hadrian's) life'.

Rome

Bye endless winter! I'm off to Rome tomorrow to 1) hang out with my friend Meriel, 2) see everything, 3) not wear tights. 

I went to Rome with my father when I was sixteen, maybe seventeen, years old. Back then I was a moody teenager who mostly wanted to read Harry Potter (yes! I regret nothing). My dad is a classicist which made him the perfect travel companion. I expect this trip to be slightly different - it sort of feels like a girly spring break, only with churches and ruins instead of bikinis and guns. Just my kind of thing, then.

breakfast

We ate breakfast at various small cafés every day when we were in Hamburg. Is there anything better than the combination of eating muesli, having a good conversation and drinking a cup of tea? I think not. Breakfast time is my favourite time of day.

Arriving in Hamburg

 

I went to Hamburg by train. I like going to sleep and waking up in a new town, but this time we were 90 minutes late and I was tired, just wanted to be there already. I wandered to the hotel and into our room, a room that looked like a time capsule from the 50s, with English magazines and Physics papers stacked neatly on a little table. I was too tired to do much exploring, so I just walked over to Tide, a café not far from the hotel, a café that sold driftwood and cake and Franzbrötchen. A good place to read a book and have breakfast. I liked that place a lot, liked that part of town. But what I liked best was leaving the café on that first day, walking to the railway station, waiting for a bit and then returning to the hotel, not alone anymore.

structure

Out the back door and under the big ash was a picnic table. At the end of summer, 1966, I lay down on it for nearly two weeks, staring up into branches and leaves, fighting fear and panic, because I had no idea where of how to begin a piece of writing for The New Yorker. I went inside for lunch, surely, and at night, of course, but otherwise remained flat on my back on the table.

John McPhee, Structure

I really liked this piece in the New Yorker, do read it if you can. Structure is my main preoccupation when it comes to writing and I enjoyed McPhee's extremely methodical (almost mechanical) approach and his rejection of chronology (always the first question I asked myself when I wrote an essay about the past - how do I get rid of time?).