perjantai 18. syyskuuta 2015

Budapest, Vienna and Prague

Budapest buildings like blocks of wet clay left exposed to the sun for too long: breaking apart. No salt in the cupboards of our Airbnb (it is only when you have no salt at all that you realise you will need it for basically everything). Szimpla kert with its disarray of rooms, lights, 80s computer screens and furniture I would have happily carried away with me were it allowed. 

Vienna, stepping back into summer all of a sudden after two days of rain and fog in Budapest. I slip on a vintage dress, bare shins. No sachertorte because I am an idiot. Klimt and I in the same room, eye to eye. I spend so much time staring at the paintings yet I can't get enough. Sucking in the blue hues underneath Judith's murderess skin, pink and silver cheeks, the slack in the ladies' thin wrists, swimming, floating, dreaming. 

Prague. Tourists drive me mad, souvenir shops selling Bohemian crystal (whatever that is) and fridge magnets and wooden toys made in China. I could be anywhere in the world. I sit on a wet bench at the Old Town square and feel nothing but hostility. Then we go see a gut-wrenching matinee and suddenly I feel again. Art Nouveau gems send me daydreaming. Lavish ball gowns with lace and beading of such detail I can't imagine how long it must have taken to finish one. I try to picture what kind of women in what kinds of smoky, dimly lit ballrooms might have worn them, sweating into the precious fabric and walking around the room to display their dresses from all possible angles. Alphonse Mucha and Obecni Dum.