I’ve been thinking a lot about time lately, how quickly it seems to have been passing these last few weeks, and consequently how very little time is left between me and a very important deadline in February.
Yes, it’s the dissertation thing again. I’ve managed to write quite a bit, but always with the feeling that I should be doing more. On the other hand, I have started to move away from the feeling that I need to hit a certain page number before I can turn in this chapter draft (mostly because I feel like since I haven’t really been consistently communicating with my advisor since the summer, I should have a good chunk of something to show for it. Is 25 pages enough for that?). Teaching hasn’t really put in as much of a dent on my work as much as getting around my own frustrations has. It’s still so much easier for me to write a post for this blog—arguably a far more personal form of writing—than it is to hack out this chapter draft. Maybe because I’m not exactly gushing over the topic of focus in it. Here’s hoping when I get to writing on my own theoretical ideas, the words will come out faster.
Time also figured pretty prominently in the show I saw on November 7th, Nachlass, pièces sans personnes at the MC93, though I hesitate over whether or not it is even theatrical at all, rather than firmly anchored in performance art. The idea of this is that visitors are gathered into one of the venues smaller exhibition spaces which has been fitted out with a series of 8 rooms, each one dedicated to one (or in one case 2) individuals. For the most part, said individuals are all dead (and I leave the caveat in there because there were a couple who never explicitly mentioned that the existence of their presence in this exhibition space meant that they were no longer alive). Rather than let visitors enter and exit the rooms as they wished, a timer above each doorway indicated the time remaining for the current occupants to finish their visit, before the door would open, the previous visitors would file out, and new ones filed in. There was no particular order to follow. Other than one of the rooms that absolutely needed six people in it, if possible, thus causing the staff curating the event to herd people in its direction, so that everyone could experience the room as it was meant to be, visitors were free to wander as they wished. As I had set myself a deadline at which I had to leave in order to be able to make it to the high school in time for the start of theatre club (I attended on a Wednesday afternoon), I just made my decision based on which door had the shortest wait time listed over it after getting out of the previous room. I only ended up waiting longer than a minute (wait time could vary between 30 seconds and just over 5 minutes) a couple times, and at those moments, I would sit on one of the crates lining the walls next to the doors, looking up at the ceiling where a world map was projected, little pings of light marking another death somewhere in the world.
Yeah, not exactly the most sunshiny of performances.
What the pieces really rest on, though, is absence. Not total absence, at least not quite. Once the door begins to close on each of the rooms—decorated in a certain, incredibly meticulous way so as to reflect an aspect of the life of the deceased—, a recording would play in which the deceased would introduce themselves, and then address their audience directly as they began to talk about not just their lives, but their musings on death as well. Sometimes, we were invited to poke around a bit, other times to help ourselves to water or, in the case of one of the subjects who happened to be Turkish, loukoumia. But there’s an uneasy feeling that creeps inside you when you realize that not only does the person to whom that voice that is talking to you now originally belong is dead, they are aware of the fact that their existence would continue on for a while in this manner, in this ‘present-but-not-quite’ manner. It’s almost like a proto A.I., a thing that tries to sustain existence beyond the human.
But it can’t ever really reach a human presence because of this chasm that exists between us and it in terms of precisely this idea of interaction. It can influence us, make us perform certain actions by tapping into a desire to know more or to cultural notions of hospitality, but we cannot do the same with it. The recording still plays even when no one is in the room. Our physical presence is required for the story to become that, otherwise it’s just a series of vibrations in a contained space.
Maybe this “play with no actors” is more about drawing attention to the material presence of our—as in the audience’s—physical existence than it is about musings on death. Who knows?
Thankfully, though, my past two weekends have been decidedly more upbeat.
First up was a quick trip to Grenoble to visit a friend of mine who I met while we were both living at CitéU. She and I had been talking for a while about me coming down to visit, and thankfully our dates finally coordinated to make it happen.
And other than a bit of rain during the start of our little day trip to Lyon on the Saturday of my visit, the weather was basically perfect.
I opted to take the Ouibus down instead of a train, mostly due to the fact that the bus was significantly cheaper. Clocking in at 8.5hrs though—including mandatory stops—it was significantly longer as well, but thankfully the WiFi actually worked pretty decently, the seats were comfortable, and I had no one in the seat next to me (yay stretching out my legs).
I arrived late on a Friday night, and as Grenoble is a pretty small city, we opted to dedicate Saturday to exploring Lyon, another city I had not been to. Ticking off two new cities in one trip? I’d say that’s pretty good.
As usual, the visit mostly consisted of walking, with an incredibly filling lunch thrown in for good measure. I’m a bit suspicious that the slight cold I came home with originated at some point on this walk, what with the combination of light rain in the morning, and general windiness in the afternoon (though, thank goodness for sun). We had originally planned on visiting a museum, but as walking is free and the city rather large, we opted to stay outside and let our feet guide us. And good thing too because it was peak fall outside, and I was absolutely here for it.
Speaking of lunch, this meal marked the first of two weekends full of meals that were delicious, but otherwise all but void of any kind of veg. Don’t get me wrong; I like a good sausage or stew as much as anyone. But, not going to lie, I am very much looking forward to chomping down on a whole head of broccoli once I get back to Paris [side note: I’m writing this while sitting on a rather turbulent flight back to Paris from Budapest].
Lunch in Lyon was at a restaurant in the older part of the city, where they offered a set lunch menu for around 15eur. I started off with a rather sizable bowl of French onion soup (because something was needed to counteract the morning chill).
Then I moved on to a main course of boudin noir (blood sausage) with roast potato and apple. Now, I love a good boudin noir—it’s probably up there among my favorite sausages—, but to be quite frank, I do think there’s a limit as to how much of a good thing you can have, particularly when it comes to portion size.
Honestly, I could have done fine with just one of the sausages, about half the potatoes and the apple, especially considering the large soup I had just finished eating. Food waste is such a problem, that it’s almost unnerving to see this quantity of food served for one person as part of a multi-course menu in a country where getting a to-go bag isn’t really part of the culture. Hell, even if I had just had the dish on its own, I probably still would have only been able to down half of what was on the plate. Anyway, all that aside, the dish was pretty good (though, last little nit to pick, a salad or something green would have been nice).
For dessert I decided to keep it local with a slice of pink praline tart.
I’ve seen many pralined items on offer in bakeries in Paris, but I never knew that this thing originated in Lyon. Lyon, however, would like to make sure you never forget its history with all things “praliné-d”, as the amount of pink emanating from bakeries is enough to last a lifetime.
As to the tart, it was actually quite good. The filling is essentially a kind of almond paste, which I’m quite fond of, and it wasn’t as overly sweet as the bright pink would suggest.
Given how full we were, even after walking off the meal with a trek around pretty much all of Lyon, we had no intention of eating anything for the rest of the day. Well, we did end up grabbing some veggie tartines at a bar back in Grenoble that evening, but that was more to have something to nibble on than to fill a pressing need for sustenance.
And in spite of all the walking we had done, we opted to go out dancing in Grenoble when we got back. Well, attempted to go dancing would be more accurate. After we bar-hopped a bit, we finally reached the pub where the dancing was, only to find it absolutely packed-in-like-sardines full of people. So, less dancing, more bobbing around in a 2m radius. The cheesy French music the DJ kept playing did keep things incredibly entertaining though.
The next morning, the sun was out in all its glory, meaning a short hike was in order. Grenoble sits in a basin surrounded by the alps, so the views from high up on the Bastille fortress were pretty remarkable (a highlight: getting a glimpse of Mont Blanc in the distance).
Lunch was sausage again (though this time a local one called a diot), and this time there was a hint of veg too!
And then it was back on a bus for me for another longish ride back to Paris.
The week was mostly quiet, save for some parent-teacher conference meetings (oh it is odd being on the other side of these things…). More accurately, the week was pretty much a countdown to Thursday night, when I was scheduled to head off again for another weekend adventure, this time to Budapest.
A couple months ago when I was thinking about what I would like to do for my birthday—which was this past Friday, November 16—, I started to toy with the idea of taking a solo weekend somewhere. This was partly inspired by the fact that I didn’t really feel like doing a deep clean of my apartment (or amassing any more chip bags…), but also by where my mental state was at the time, which in brief, was not exactly in the best place. In the name of practicing self-care, I decided, almost on a whim, to book a solo weekend to Budapest, a city I had always wanted to visit. Flight prices were reasonable, and quite frankly, I didn’t want to bother waiting for anyone else to confirm whether or not they were available to take the plunge and go.
And so I went on my first solo trip.
I have travelled alone to places before, but never to a place I had never been, and never remaining solo for this long. To be honest, I felt a bit nervous that I’d start to feel isolated, but it turns out a weekend was just enough time to get back in touch with myself without wishing for other people’s company.
Besides, I was really only venturing solo for one of the days I was there.
Originally, I was due to arrive at around 23h on Thursday night, but due to some flight delays, did not get in until 02h30 on Friday. This means I turned 29 in the sky, while grading papers. Being a teacher is incredibly exciting.
Arriving so late also meant I didn’t get as much sleep as I would have liked in order to be nice and refreshed for the food tour I booked as a birthday gift to myself, but eating things shook me out of any residual tiredness rather quickly. My group consisted of me, an older British couple, and our guide, a middle-aged Hungarian named George who peppered his talk with comments about how, as we all know, none of this meat and cheese and potatoes and bread (and lard…so much lard) is particularly good for the health, but how wonderful that fresh veg is so widely available to us now. I guess these are things that of course come up amongst the middle-age crowd (I suppose this counts as relating to one another), but I did find it hilarious that we were all in a general consensus about the importance of eating a balanced diet, and then our lunch happened.
Here’s what we ate (and drank) :
The older woman of the couple on the tour with me even offered to take my photo when we were sat down for cake, so now I’ve got at least a bit of proof that I did, indeed, have a birthday cake of sorts on my birthday.
Our tour concluded with a bit of wine tasting, where I discovered a dessert wine that I actually quite liked.
After the tour concluded, we all headed our separate ways, with me deciding to cross the Danube over to the Buda side of Budapest and taking a little hike up to the castle. Given how early the sun sets out there (like 16h…moving eastward definitely makes a difference), most of my time up there was spent attempting to take good nighttime photos on my phone, and honestly, I think I did pretty ok!
Then it was off to a quick trip to the Christmas market for some hot wine and some browsing before heading back to the hostel for dinner.
Yes, one of the perks of staying here was the free communal “dinners” in the evening. That word is in quotes for a reason that will become clear in a bit.
But, Friday night at least was lentil stew night, and even though I was still pretty full from earlier in the day, I’m glad I at least got some sustenance in me before heading out that evening to celebrate turning 29 in a way that did not involve grading papers on an airplane.
Along with two other people from the hostel (who were totally down to go out on our own rather than to the hostel-organized boat party that cost like 20eur (yeah…no), my night was spent at Szimpla, probably the most well-known of Budapest’s ruin bars. This place is like no other bar I have ever been to, mostly due to how absolutely massive it is. Like, I don’t even think we made it into all the different rooms. I will say that I had a pretty legit IPA while there, with a very…special name.
The next day—my last full day—I woke up at 10h, and started my morning at Massolit, a café I am convinced was made for me (I mean books + cozy plush chairs + good coffee = happy Effie. The poppyseed strudel helped too).
Afterwards, I made my way over to the Terror House, a museum dedicated to exhibits documenting the fascist and communist regimes in Hungary. As most of the material was in Hungarian, I opted to rent an audio guide for my visit, which—though it was a bit long-winded at times—did give an incredibly thorough overview of everything on display and the history behind it. This was the only museum I visited (and given that it was free for teachers, my recently-acquired Pass éducation was actually put into good use), and for those who are planning a trip to Budapest, I would definitely recommend making some time for it. Note though, that many of the images and videos shown—as well as the interviews with past political prisoners—are rather graphic in nature, so this museum may not be for every traveler.
By the time I was finished in the museum, it was getting on 14h, and I was starting to get a bit hungry. Thankfully, a bistro I had pinned on my Mapstr—Két Szerecsen—was only a ten-minute walk away. I ordered the chicken paprikash and a glass of red wine (though I can’t remember the region of Hungary it is from, just that the waiter recommended it), and settled in to a very cozy and filling meal before setting out on another long walk.
I started my post-lunch hike with a visit to Heroes’ Square, on the northeastern side of the city.
Before making my way back down to the river to see the Hungarian Parliament by night (and by “night” I mean 17h30).
I then decided to head back to the Christmas market for a last bit of hot wine drinking and shopping (yay new pair of earrings for me), and also to grab a chimney cake as a sort of last-night treat.
It was actually a good thing I did the latter because even though it was absolutely massive, and I couldn’t manage to eat it all, it did keep me full throughout the night, especially since dinner at the hostel was a bit more…special…this evening.
Yep, little pizza toasts. Which essentially became an odd sort of pan con tomate once they ran out of cheese.
Why was there no actual food this time around, you ask? Good question. Basically it was because the crew spent the budget almost entirely on making this:
Yeah.
With that though, I decided to call it a night early in order to be able to get at least a little sleep before heading back out today. This is going to be my last traveling weekend for a while, and honestly, I’m not too mad about it. I want to be able to be settled at home again for a good while now.
Especially since I’ve still got that thesis chapter draft to finish.
I really should be in contact more with my advisors…
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