Vienna

Now the only other city I visited for the first time this summer was Vienna. I basically already knew that I’d really like Vienna since it’s THE city for music history. So many famous composers and musicians have lived in Vienna, it was quite a treat to see the sites in person.

Number one best place in the city might be the enormous food market, Naschmarkt. It’s enormous, and serves everything from Viennese food to Asian food. The slight difference in culture was really evident here, as I couldn’t hear many people speaking English. Nearby is St. Stephen’s Cathedral, a beautiful piece of Gothic architecture. The inside is gorgeous as well, it’s a quick visit but well worth it. Also nearby is the Vienna State Opera House. You need to be part of a tour to look around inside, but the guided tours are in a number of different languages and take you through several break rooms, the audience, orchestra pit, and the stage while discussing the history of the opera. Plenty of art is dedicated to the different composers, particularly Mahler since he was a very important director of the Vienna Opera. I didn’t know this before, but the Opera House was heavily bombed during WWII so a number of rooms have had to be reconstructed. Besides July and August there are operas being performed every day, and standing room tickets are only a couple of euros. I’ll have to come back and see that!

Unfortunately the only museum that I had time to visit was the Belvedere. The Belvedere used to be a wealthy art collector’s house, now it shows Austrian paintings, particularly by Klimt, Schiele, and Kokoschka. Klimt’s “The Kiss” is there and is probably it’s most famous painting. I quite enjoyed the Belvedere, possibly because I wasn’t as familiar with Viennese paintings beforehand, and was surprised that there were a couple of Rodin sculptures as well! Having said that, the collection is rather small and they seem to constantly be loaning paintings out, so check before you grab tickets!

My stay in Vienna ended by seeing a performance by the Vienna Mozart Orchestra. This is an orchestra that tries to recreate what music was in Mozart’s time by dressing in period costumes and showing a selection of pieces from different symphonies or operas instead of a full work. We purchased standing room tickets, which is about all that I would pay for it. The orchestra was fine, but nothing special. I’m sure that we could find much better in Vienna if we had planned it out a little better haha!

Vienna was a beautiful city with so much art and culture within it. I really wish that I could have spent more time there, but the taste I had was so much fun that I’m certain I’ll eventually come back for more.

This Is Beautiful: Urinetown the Musical

I went to go see a community theater production of "Urninetown" last weekend and absolutely loved it! I've been meaning to see this musical for literally years and I'm so glad I finally managed it.

The premise of the musical is that you have to pay to use the toilet and as a result all of the people are poor and unhappy. The idealistic young hero falls in love with the daughter of the man running the toilet company and starts an uprising! Chaos ensues. So the plot isn't anything much, but the best part is by far the sense of humor. It is a very self-aware or meta show, with plenty of jokes about how this is a musical and the characters giving exposition at certain points and things like that. So many of the songs are parodies of specific song styles as well, it's hilarious!

Probably the best aspect is that this show can easily be applied to any political scene you want. The production I saw had jokes thrown in about ICE and immigration and things like that, but by nature this is a show about water which is ALWAYS going to be relevant, certainly more so in the coming years.

Very good musical, would for sure recommend. Go see even if you aren't into most musicals, the self-deprecating humor would probably appeal to those who dislike singing and dancing haha!

Berlin

I did some travelling over the summer in Europe, mainly to places that I’ve already been to, but it was my first time in Berlin! I initially added it to the list because I have a friend who currently lives and goes to school there, but I am very glad that I went since I ended up loving the city much more than I thought I would. Unlike Munich, Berlin has a very modern feel, you can practically taste the energy in the air.

One of the first places I went was to the Brandenburg Gate. It’s very impressive, I would just caution any tourists as this is where the scammers and such seem to hang out. Just on the other side is the Tiergarten, a huge park in the middle of Berlin. It has more memorials and such within it, but makes for a very lovely stroll within the city itself. Also nearby is the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. I think this is certainly worth the visit, it is very well designed and gets at the horror of the genocide very well in my opinion. First of all, it’s huge, takes up about a city block. The memorial itself consists of gray blocks of stone slowly rising from the ground as the floor drops down and forms these hills. The effect as you are walking through is incredible in how it isolates you from the others around you, and causes you to descend into the ground.

Another area of note is Museum Island. This island in the middle of the Sbree river has multiple museums on it, as well as the Berliner Dom. All of them are kinda expensive, so I only went into the Pergamon which focuses on ancient art. Unfortunately the museum is undergoing renovations currently, so only part of it is open to the public. The section that is currently visible primarily focuses on Islamic art which was all very cool. There’s the famous Babylon Gate that was brought over in pieces and reassembled in Berlin, as well as the Aleppo Room. The Altar Room is currently closed, but to make up for that, there’s Das Panorama down the street. The Altar Room houses the Pergamon Altar from Ancient Greece, and is the museum’s namesake. Since it’s closed, the museum now has a panorama of Pergamon, including the altar, on view along with selected statues. The panorama is huge and an incredible work of art. In particular, I quite liked how the lighting and music changed to reflect different times of day.

My favorite aspect of the city though is all of the street art. Primarily there is the East Side Gallery, where the remains of the Berlin Wall have been graffiti’d on to turn them into art. Nearby is the Wall Museum, a small museum, but it gives some social and political context for the wall and its eventual fall. I doubt that I’d return to the museum, you have to pay to get it, but it was useful. The East Side Gallery extends for quite the distance, but there is plenty of street art everywhere around the city. There’s Graffiti Corner and numerous buildings covered in art. All of the art around is partially why the energy feels so different and current, the other reason is all of the smashed beer bottles around from the vibrant night life. But I didn’t participate in that so I can’t comment on it haha!

To sum up: Berlin is both a historical and a contemporary city that has plenty going on. I liked it much more than I thought I would, it has a very inviting atmosphere that is hard to replicate. I would love to go back and see more of it sometime!

This Is Beautiful: Taking a Break

Yeah it's been a tough week. Not a fan. Couldn't really think of anything to include here for a while, but then just decided to write about how this weekend is going to be chill, and that's just what I need right now. Life is stressful, it gets hard, and it's important to take breaks and to know to take breaks.

I'm going to sleep and rest my tired body and take my time with the work that I have set for myself this weekend. And it'll be nice and relaxed. I've needed this.

“Swann’s Way” by Marcel Proust (translation by Lydia Davis)

I’m not a huge classics reader, this is actually the first time that I’ve read Proust. I wasn’t super impressed. There are passages that are gorgeous, but it is also so long and drawn out and that just doesn’t hold my attention.

It is semi-autobiographical, which makes me think that Proust is just a mama’s boy. He constantly talks about his mother and how he wants her affection and attention and of all the things that bored me in this book that has got to be number one. Primarily because nothing else really happens, he mostly just talks about society and who’s hot and who’s not and I don’t care for that either.

The one redeeming section is the middle story titled “Swann in Love” that describes Swann’s relationship with Odette years earlier. This one actually held my attention, primarily because there’s a plot and a story at place here. There’s also a number of characters which are much more entertaining and fleshed out. This is where the flowery, embellished language really shines as he describes how their relationship comes together and eventually falls apart. It’s a wonderful discussion also of how real people cannot live up to the romantic fantasies that we have.

Having said that, there are also like 50 pages on how Swann is a jealous lover and suspects her of sleeping with everyone. But it is implied that she has had sexual relationships with women! So there’s that representation, although to be honest I’m not sure if I love it since it’s also discussing how she sleeps around… I’m still mulling it over, but then again it didn’t super hold my attention so I’m not qualified to make a judgement on that.

So yeah, boring book, had some insightful points though. Give it a read but just don’t get bogged down in it.

This Is Beautiful: Steven Universe the Movie

Alright so the Steven Universe movie came out on Sept. 2nd. I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about this, but I love it enough that it for sure qualifies as something beautiful.

WARNING SPOILERS AHEAD

Ok so the basic plot of the movie is that Steven is a teen now and returning to his life on Earth. But then a mysterious gem shows up, sticks a poisonous injector into the Earth, and slashes the Crystal Gems with something that returns them to their original selves, with no memory of the past few years. Steven also slashes the new gem with this. Steven realizes that he has to re-enact the Crystal Gems' memories to bring them back. Pearl remembers the new gem as Spinel, Pink Diamond's old playmate. Spinel tells Steven that she did this because she was abandoned by Pink Diamond once Pink left for Earth. Steven befriends her, and the other diamonds end up taking Spinel back to Homeworld with them since she needs a home and they want something to remind them of Pink.

Here's the good things: seeing Steven go through his relationship with the Crystal Gems is hella cute. Also Pearl pops out and starts serving Greg which is hilarious. And the music is top-notch. I also just think that it's really nice that you can go into this movie knowing nothing about the series and get a run-down of all that's happened. So would highly recommend.

All of the things I think are iffy have to do with the ending. Spinel's change of heart just seems... unrealistic to me. Steven didn't really do anything to earn it and it's a pretty hard about face. I expected Steven to use his power of love or something to help her start recovering from her last disastrous friendship, but he didn't seem to do anything to trigger it. Yes it's a kids show and it can't get that complicated, but this doesn't seem deserved for him. And then the diamonds just kinda swoop in like a sort of deus ex machina... That seemed very forced as well. Having to navigate keeping Spinel on Earth would have been more complicated, but more rewarding.

I would still highly recommend because it's wonderful and beautiful and touching and hilarious. But the ending just left me flat. Apparently we are getting more episodes soon, so maybe that will resolve my issues? I have no idea though.

“I wrote this for you” by Iain S. Thomas

So ages ago I wrote a This Is Beautiful post on the blog I wrote this for you which helped me a lot in the depths of my depression. After that I ended up buying his book of the same title to peruse while travelling this summer. It’s a wonderful little book, it contains both poems from his website and brand new ones.

The poems are divided into four sections: Sun, Moon, Stars, and Rain. They correspond to falling in love, being in love, breaking up, and healing afterwards. So it is primarily love poems, even though Thomas writes plenty about his depression as well. I really liked having these thematic divides since it brings you through the poems with more structure.

If you haven’t read anything by Thomas, I really can’t recommend it enough. It’s an experience completely unlike reading anything else that I’ve come across. All of the poems are designed to feel personal and uplifting and relatable. The book is a wonderful extension of that and it’s lovely.

This Is Beautiful: Orientation

Finally started orientation for grad school, and man it sure is good to be in structured activities. I was getting bored and lonely. I know that orientations can be boring and just an information dump, but I feel really good about this week and super prepared. I'm just eager to get this show on the road, I think it's going to be awesome and I just want to get there.

Oh and it's been good for meeting other people in my program, it's nice that I've finally started to talk to people again. Can't wait for what the next week holds!