Vacation time & "Dining with the Tsars" exhibition

YES, YES, YES - Vacation!
I was so excited about finally getting a break from a constant, 7-days-a-week work that I almost couldn't sleep my last two nights on the ship. Not that this time there was anything particularly heavy or difficult, at this point I can do this work in my sleep, but its a routine that gets me and 6 months is truly enough - after that, a person needs a break. Otherwise you get really unhappy and frustrated while new passengers expect you to be pleasant.

Since I have disembarked in Rotterdam, it was somehow easier to make decision and visit Amsterdam immediately - took the train and I was in a city where I once lived in less than an hour. Sunny Saturday, lots of people, everything like it always was. And than I realised that I was too tired to actually enjoy all of this so I slept my first day of vacation, just to wake up on Sunday fresh and happy. The very first thing I did - besides meeting old friends and having dinner with them - was to check out what's going on in local Hermitage, this time it was exhibition "Dining with Tsars", about porcelain dinner service sets used in royal court of St.Petersburg.

To be honest, I was just a slightly disappointed because everything was about eight sets of porcelain services - this was exhibited in the "central hall" and yes, there were spectacular, grand and awesome but the rest of "exhibition" was nothing, really - just a walk trough empty rooms where walls were covered with wallpapers & explanations how people used to dress and eat. So you walk trough these empty rooms, look at the message and there is nothing else in there! I took some pictures from porcelain sets, there was absolutely nothing else in there.

Torre de Hércules

Yes, dear reader I am out of Norway finally - usually I love sailing trough Baltic & Scandinavian countries but this time it went on forever and everybody around here had enough of fjords. After a while they all started to look the same. So I took a deep breath, clenched my teeth, went trough another disembarkation/embarkation process (previous passengers out, new passengers in) and bravely faced another sea, that appropriately changed color immediately as we left North. This is also the end of the tunnel for me as I am counting days until my vacation, however I do have some interesting places along the way and some of them I see for the very first time.

A Coruña is town on Atlantic coast of Spain - most of our passengers decided to visit famous Santiago del Compostela, which used to be center of medieval pilgrimage route but since I know it & been there already, this time I had something else in mind: to walk across the town and see the oldest lighthouse in the world. First - I slept. Because we had four incredibly difficult and busy days behind us, with constant standing and really serious working so I needed some well deserved rest. Than just as I walked out, I got involved in bus accident where one of our passengers was injured so I recognized her, helped with translation (ambulance, police, bus driver, insurance), run back to the ship to get some help and to make sure lady will not be left out in Spain if the ship sails away and than finally I could continue to see the darn lighthouse.

Which turned out to be pretty impressive: Tower of Hercules was built in ancient Roman times (1st century AD?) probably on order of emperor Trajan and it stands on top of a cliff overlooking coast towards north. Originally it was somewhat lower but renovation in 1788 added the gothic top - its quite amazing that Roman structure is still in use, there is original inscription bearing the name of architect who designed it (Caio Sevio Lupo from Coimbra, which today is Portugal) and rooms still show the typical features of Roman construction. You can't help but to gape in awe towards the tower, its really magnificent. Down bellow, before the paved road that leads to it, there is a sculpture of a mythical Celtic king Breogán who founded a city Brigantia - this is where Celts originally ruled before some of their princely descendants moved towards Ireland and  the story goes that distant island of Ireland was spotted from this point, inspiring sailors to discover the new world there. Who knew? I would never connect Spain and Ireland but maybe this is why we have so many dark-haired & blue-eyed Irishmen today, Celts turned out to be mixture of locals and Spanish adventurers.

"Island at the centre of the world" by Russel Shorto

At the moment I am reading something that caught my eye for years already (I clearly remember the moment when I first saw the book, in Copenhagen's bookshop some time ago) and finally the book came my way (yes, I have decided to leave both Stephen King and Father Brown aside for now). It is quite fascinating and brilliant look into another time, almost forgotten chapter in history, the very first beginning of New York and its original inhabitants: Dutchmen who were here first, representing interest of Dutch West India Company. They were later completely obscured in history, because Englishmen conquered their lands and so we know almost nothing about these people and their lives, the history of New York was therefore written from English-speaking point of view and focused on later stories. It is Russel Shorto now (with a help of Dr. Charles Gehrling who had studied ancient documents for decades) who does almost archeological work and unearths the names and stories about Manhattan's very first inhabitants.

What comes out of these pages is a exciting story set in brutal times, a true time-machine and a glimpse in distant era, when adventurers of all sorts crossed Atlantic in search for a new start: there are literary hundreds of interesting characters here, all well documented and thanks to research we now know names of everybody who lived in "New Amsterdam's" 342 houses! From Henry Hudson who bravely sailed trough unknown waters just to end his life being marooned in a small boat by his mutinous crew, to Peter Menuit who bought the island of Manhattan from Native Indians for few trinkets, to slutty barmaid Griet Reyniers and her pirate husband, from fascinating figure of lawman Adrian van der Donck who fell in love in this strange new country, to old Claes Swits whose murder started war with Native Indians, to women like Anne Hutchinson, Lady Deborah Moody (whom Puritans declared "dangerous woman") and Thomas Beech's wife Nanne who "notwithstanding her husband's presence fumbled at the front of the breeches of most of all of those who were present" - these are just some of people forgotten by history but Russo brings them back to life in a fascinating saga that actually makes history truly page-turning read. Right now I came to the point where Dutch company decided to replace Director Willem Kleft with another man of authority and famous one-legged Peter Stuyvesant arrives on a stage. It is truly a magnificent book and I am reading it with greatest interest, in fact I enjoy it so much that I got myself another title from the same author already. Not to mention that I do my Internet encyclopedia research all the way trough!

p.s.

Just finished this morning - must say that writer Russel Shorto did an excellent job, he is very passionate & inspired. After all, the story could have been dry and mildewed like those centuries old documents from archives, but he brings characters back to life with excitement, fire and compassion. Towards the end even our perspective on Stuyvesant changes slightly and we see him more as a human being fighting bravely with the windmills. I read all of this with greatest interest. 

Paul McCartney Solo Discography

I have been thinking about checking Paul McCartney's solo discography for some time already - and time has finally arrived.
Yes, I know some of his big hits from 1970s and 1980s but not much beyond that - all I know is that thanks to his 1960s work he is considered a rock aristocracy and largely lives on former fame. Than again, this is the guy who wrote half of Beatles repertoire so I guess he deserves all the accolades he can get. And its good to see that composer of timeless work can live into old age, wealthy and successful, instead being forgotten and desolate. There is a certain Peter Pan quality about McCartney - the more I listen his music, the more I am aware of it - the guy is cheerful, charming and very likable. I have no preconception about his media image, so this are truly reflections of what I hear in his music.

McCartney (1970)
Critics had a field day with this, but I find it fascinating - in fact, I have been listened it for days and like it very much. The main "fault" everybody pointed at was rugged structure of the album and the fact that McCartney played around with some half-finished ideas. Naturally he did not come up with another "Hey Jude" or "Let it be" so it seems that people were almost offended that he stepped back from any big statements and just played the music for the joy of it. Or perhaps do-it-yourself approach is already a statement enough. If you listen with open ears and without prejudice, this is great fun - he plays all the instruments and whoops with pleasure while drumming on instrumental "Momma Miss America", gets sentimental or simply serves infectious melodies, recycles some of his older work and in general combines odds & ends into extremely playful and listenable album. Sure, lyrics are not the strongest point here, seems that this was intentional - kind of distance from Beatles work, I guess - I love the melody of "Junk" and can't get it out of my head. Critics or not, album was nr.1 in US and nr.2 in UK. I also really appreciate that none of this was geared towards radio play (in other words, nothing was calculated for promo gimmick, novelties or quick hit) so it turns out into one of these rare experiences when music actually grows into a listener with each further playing. Time has been good to this one.

Ram (1971)
Again the big gap between what artist wants to do and what critics think he should do - upon its release, this album was so universally dismissed as lightweight and plain lousy, that listening today from a certain time distance I have nothing but contempt for these critics. (And this goes specially for Jon Landau who I kind of took seriously until now). Forget the critics - they expected earth-shaking, conceptual albums spread over LP box full of life-affirming truths and probably another "Sgt.Pepper's" and instead got Peter Pan goofing around with irresistibly happy, smiling songs about simple life, love, fun and joy. Because I love sunny songs that make me dance and clown around the room, because I think world needs uplifting music more than anything else, because from this perspective I don't care for assumed messages to Ex-Beatles but simply enjoy something sunny and because in McCartney's music I find infectious laughter & happiness, I go against the tide and rate this 4, 5 stars. I am old enough now to find life affirming message in lyrics like "C'mon little lady, let's eat at home" or the song about smelly feet. Feel-good music.

Wild Life (1971)
With all my good-will towards McCartney, I must admit this was ahem, not such a good idea - in fact, I am almost 100% sure that any other musician coming up with this music would be rejected by recording companies. Its only his mythical status that allowed him to actually release collection of such uninteresting songs and why on Earth he simply didn't wait until he got something better, I can't tell. Apparently this was kind of warming-up for future band, but he could just rehearse and play with guys in studio instead actually recording it and showing it to the world. There is absolutely not even one stand-out track, except perhaps cheerful little Mungo Jerry-inspired jingle "Bip bop" that kinds of lingers around but even this is completely lightweight, almost like children TV show theme. The rest is truly uninspired - nothing horrible but nothing memorable either - insisting on Linda's involvement, McCartney heroically fights the windmills and makes us wonder what was he thinking? The album went gold in USA and Canada, which just shows that celebrity status sometimes matters more than product itself. Singles tracks rage from mildly interesting ("Give Ireland Back To The Irish") to awful ("Mary Had A Little Lamb") - B side "Little Woman Love" actually shows more energy and spunk than anything on the album itself. "Mama's Little Girl" is a lilting little melody again lost in a shuffle and wasted as B side.

45 years

This year I turned 45 but not for the moment I have stopped to think about it.
I was too excited about my recent visit to Skara Brae & other journeys to get worried or depressed about age - in fact, I actually felt good about being 45 because finally there is a certain frame of mind where I don't follow the herd but do things that matter to me (read, write, listen music, visit museums, watch old & obscure movies) so 45 is just a number, as long as health keeps going on and body is still in some sort of shape. I used to fret and worry about weight, looks and such but now its truly just a matter of acceptance - luckily the mother nature has given me youthful face so nobody even guess my true age + in a way it makes me even a little bit proud. I am 45 and still decent looking, have curious and open mind, perhaps there is just a slight shift in consciousness about what really matters to me and what is just temporary - for one thing, material things are just material and it is the moments I treasure most of all. Experiences, laughter, joy and togetherness with people I like to be with. I have also recently walked across the port in Rotterdam to deliver a ship-cap to a blind man (the promise I made when he was a passenger) and it also made me feel good, that I take this things seriously. This matter. Age is just a number.