Tag Archives: Cafe

Jul24

A walk in the driving rain

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Thursday, 27-June-2024


I was sitting in a cafe, relaxing and trying to decide what my exact plans for the day would be, when the sky opened up above me.

Thankfully I was already indoors, because if I hadn’t been… well, I saw how quickly the people outside got completely soaked through. Granted, I didn’t have anything on me that couldn’t get soaked and be okay, but… that doesn’t mean that it’s pleasant to have to wring out a satchel full of water.

I relaxed and appreciated the rain, as I appreciated my coffee and my pastry. Chocolate Mousse, if I remember correctly – clearly the lunch of champions, and in hindsight an excellent choice to combat the downpour.




After about half an hour, the rain let up and I took my chance. I’d paid the bill a bit ago, and had just been sipping my water and reading, so I was able to take advantage of a quick let up in the storm to fast-walk the few hundred meters back to my apartment. I’d debated and considered, and my goal for the afternoon was the North Face Store, about three kilometers from where I was staying… My duffel bag had torn again (my second bag to give up the ghost), and so I’d decided that overkill was the best option and that I’d be buying one of North Face’s expedition duffels for my third attempt.

What better way to get an expedition duffel bag, than to embark upon a (light) expedition to get to it? I laced up my boots, locked on my rain gear, and headed out into the… dang it the rain had stopped.




That’s fine, of course. I simply took off the jacket and kept walking – soon enough Prague obliged my preparedness and started back up with the rain, and so the jacket went back on, and I continued through the intermittent deluges and breaks of sun.

I passed the Dancing House, a beautiful building by Frank Gehry (in collaboration with Vlado Milunić), saw a rather spellbinding juggler (but didn’t get a photo), and appreciated the city in the rain, and in between the rain. It was lovely, quiet, and a perfectly meditative excursion.



As an interesting side note – I took the opportunity of walking in the rain to photograph another art installation by David Černý, called “Embryo”. It’s a less-popular one of his works, supposedly, and I can understand why… while all of his works that I saw were subtly creepy, this one was actively creepy. An embryo growing in a downspout on a theater, with a faint pulsing heartbeat light inside.

Definitely neat, and definitely added to the plethora of art to be found in Prague… but definitely disconcerting at the same time.




Links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_House
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/david-cernys-embryo

Jul2

The Kumu art museum of Tallinn!

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The Kumu art museum of Tallinn!

Friday, 07-June-2024


After escaping the Kadriorg gardens, I finished my quest to find the Kumu art museum… and was immediately struck with just how beautiful of a building it was.

It’s so neat, seeing the architecture of various museums. Whether they’re an older building, purpose-built or refurbished decades (or centuries, sometimes) before, or if they’re a newly constructed modern building… it’s always so cool to see the setting that a gallery is in.



It’s almost part of the curation of the art itself, right? Whether you’re presenting is as a modern building or a historic construction? I’m sure art historians and curators have written papers and discussed this exact thought in far more detail than a non-academic like me could… but I’ll still appreciate it and enjoy the thought experiment that comes with it.

For the Kumu Museum, it reminded me a lot of the Guggenheim – Not that it particularly looked like it, but the feel of the building. It was a modern building, with big glass windows and sweeping curves, with the inside built around a curved central hallway that was open to all three levels of the building.

One of my favorite parts was actually at the entrance to the exhibits, though – a timeline, giving context to the collections inside. I took quite a bit of time to sit and read, acclimatizing myself to when the art was from and what sort of events would be influencing the artists… I can’t remember having seen an overview like this before, and it was really appreciated!



The art itself was, as one would expect, beautiful.

There were amazing landscapes, not quite as stunning as those in Norway but still beautiful, and some hauntingly beautiful portraits alongside. There was a huge gallery room of portraits that was mainly just creepy (though I adored the inclusion of one random bird-headed dude), along with a lot of mythological paintings of Kalevipoeg (the hero of the Estonian national epic)… another thing I really enjoyed seeing.

There was also a whole selection of Soviet-inspired work which was really enlightening to see, and gave me a bit more insight into what life must have been like on this side of the Cold War.



After perusing, I was about to head out… when I realized that it was absolutely pouring rain outside.

I… hadn’t brought a rain jacket.


So I hung out. I stepped into the museum cafe, had a cup of coffee alongside a sandwich… and drooled over the chocolates on display. Then bought some of the chocolates that had been on display, and ate them. They were delicious.

Apr4

Neat cups at my local café

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March, 2024

The simple good is critical, in my mind. Small things that make the world a slightly better place; a little brighter, a little happier, a bit more whimsical.

Things like hipster animals on latte mugs.

Specifically at my local café, a few blocks down from my apartment here in Wilsonville. I’m sure I’ll find something similar in Dublin, and in all the cities that I travel through between here and there… but for now, these cute hipster animals are definitely making the mornings I stop in that much happier.