Fri 20.Jul.2012
Bratislava, Slovakia
Friday morning with YA colorful pre-sunrise forming outside the front
window, looking along Zahradnícka Street.
My daily cycle here usually includes waking up for a pit stop at about the
time the clouds are turning color ahead of the Sun.
No two pre-dawns are quite the same, except cloudless days, which have been
mighty rare for a couple of weeks.
With Friday here, it is worth checking for a new Economist.
In Rhodes it never arrives before Saturday, sometimes Monday. In Paris it is
always on the stands Friday.
In Bratislava Friday is worth trying.
Unlike pigeons, crows are very unwilling to pose for a good picture. They
are always turning or twitching at some odd angle, hiding one crucial
silhouette or another. In half-a-dozen shots I couldn't get this sucker's
head profile.
When my author friend Barb wanted a crow on the cover of her book, she had
an artist paint one!
There is an inconspicuous little barber shop down the street. Goodness knows
I could use a haircut; I had planned on getting one in Vienna yesterday, but
other errands gobbled up the afternoon instead.
I am surprised how intimidated I am at the prospect of barbering through
the language barrier. I have no idea how to say hair, haircut, ears,
etc, and my phrasebook is useless on the subject. None of that
slowed me down in Greece; I have had three haircuts there on two
different islands, without any more vocabulary than here. Somehow it
feels wrong here.
I wonder if some deeply-trained part of my psyche expects a male barber,
and assumes he will know how male hair works, and that a woman, which this
one is, will require explaining?
One of these afternoons I will find out. Maybe she will teach me how to
ask for a haircut.
Who remembers these old Coca Cola glasses? I haven't seen one outside
Slovakia since probably before I was in high school. This one came with a
Coke at the food court at a mall. I wonder now whether perhaps the glasses
might still be common, and whether I never see them because, like any good
diabetic, I never drink Coke?
That approaching trolleybus is about to take me to the bus station, from
which a diesel bus will take me to the mall by the Danube, where I will
park myself with a coffee in a chair more comfy than any in my apartment,
read my magazine, and watch the river and the people both flow past.
It is the newest of the malls. Doesn't the exterior make it look like
Bratislava is a shiny modern Metropolis out of The Jetsons?
Actually, an awful lot of the city is drab Socialist Brutalism,
including my apartment building and most of my street, which is lined with
shade trees mature enough to mitigate the effect. The dull parts of town
would make dull pictures, so I don't take them.
I love taking photos in the late afternoon light.
It illuminates the subjects in a dramatic way,
and it doesn't require being up early in the morning.
Vienna
Wednesday afternoon's visit to Vienna centered around scouting out how to
get into town from the airport and reach the hotel where I will be staying a
night on the journey from California to Rhodes in September.
Those logistics are a pain in the butt, mostly on the Metro.
A visit afterward to the ever-charming Burgpark made up for it.
Mozart watches over the park entrance, and people can't get enough of taking
each others' pictures in front of him.
How did he feel about being portrayed so foppish-looking? Maybe the empress
liked it and that was that.
It is self-indulgence time. This reflecting pond was at its finest in the
afternoon light.
I took a boatload of photos, more of which than necessary are right here,
for no better reason than that I like them all.
Ripple in Still Water
There is plenty of breeze blowing to account for it. No big mystery here,
just the magic of nature and the chaotic complexity of fluid dynamics.
Cause for Wonder
Contents Copyright 2012 Jeff Bulf