Traffic marmalade

Ok, so I'm in Berlin and this blog is now officially misnamed. I've just come from Hamburg, having spent 4 wonderful and busy days there.  

I spent my time in Hamburg with Marina, a friend of my mother and aunty’s from many years ago, when they were all travelling through Europe together, just like I am now. I really enjoyed staying with friends, as opposed to staying in a hostel and being a 'tourist'. Marina made me feel so welcome! I'm incedibly grateful to have met her and spent that time in Hamburg. If she's reading - HI MARINA! Haha. I feel it was a good start to Germany, and it also allowed me to learn a practice a little Deutsch before heading to Berlin on my own. 

 Here's Marina and I in her amazing garden! I think I definitely came to Hamburg/Germany at the right time - spring is in full swing, all the flowers are blooming and the sky is (mostly) clear. 

Marina took me sailing! The weather was a little bad in the morning (overcast, light rain), but then in the afternoon the clouds opened up and we got some good wind. We sailed along the Elbe River for most of the afternoon.

Other things:

I’ve packed too much, I need to throw some stuff out. I don’t want to, because the items I’m thinking of throwing out (my winter coat from London, for example) have sentimental value to me. On the other hand, I really want to throw them out, just to force myself to break this ridiculous hold that these objects have on me. They serve no purpose now and are quite literally weighing me down. Also personal possession related: I'm stressing about the boxes of stuff I've sent home to Australia from London because I forgot an important form and now they may be getting sent back to London. I'm sure it'll work out, but I'm also prepared for the worse case senario: I'll just have to get my landlady to resend my stuff and pay for it all over again myself. I hope the customer service rep at the company I'm shipping with shows a little (more) patience. *crosses fingers*. I just wanna sort it out, so then the rest of this trip can be as stress free as possible.

Money-wise I think I need to set myself a budget. I might make some time for myself either tonight or tomorrow morning to sit down with my diary and my bank accounts and work out how much I will be spending/have spent on accommodation/transport, and the work out from there how much more I can spend on this trip. I’m trying to think back to my trip to New Zealand 3 years ago to remind myself how to be frugal, as I did really well on that trip spending-wise. I find food is my main downfall. If I find something that’s vegan and looks delicious, I buy it regardless of price/hunger because I reason that I may never come across it again, or at least elsewhere on my trip. This generally leaves me eating too much food, and with not enough money in my wallet. 

Here's a question: what's the difference between a tourist and traveller? To me, tourist = bad, traveller = good/genuine. I have a few ideas, and perhaps in thinking about this question while being a tourist/traveller myself, I'll find some specific answers. I'll share them in a later blog post :)

Until next time...

Cathryn :) 

Ps. Just realise the title for this post needs explaining. My first morning in Hamburg, we were all sitting around the dining table having breakfast, and I was explaining to Marina how jam and marmalade are different things in Australia. Someone - I can't remember who, but it was either Marina or her husband - then made the observation that since jam and marmalade are different, you could not use the term 'traffic marmalade' in place of 'traffic jam' and have it mean the same thing.  I thought it was very funny at the time, and it's amusing in that it's the kind of joke that would only come up between people who speak different languages. :)

The only taste I know is bittersweet

Well, here we are. I'm sitting in my room, it's totally messy and I really should be packing... but instead I'm blogging. Tomorrow I leave London for good. I've know this day would come since I first got here, and now it's finally arrived. I wasn't entirely sure what to blog about for today, but I knew I wanted to at least write one - to mark the occasion, so to speak.

I'm a very sentimental person. Over the past two days (and even over the past 2 weeks), I've been counting down, taking note of the things and people I won't see again, the things I won't do again.

I'm sad to be leaving - I feel a sense of loss, of knowing I will no longer be near a place that I like to much, and doing things that I find so exciting. But, on the flip-side (and this is something I have been unwilling to admit to myself for a while) I'm also happy to be beginning my journey home. I'm going home! As much as I loved being here, and fulfilling my dream of living abroad, there was always a sense of distance, and of lonliness. I have some regrets after my time here, and I'd like to list them:

Not making friends. 

This is a big one, and an obvious one. It kind of snuck up on me... I keep hoping friendships would happen, and then when they didn't I clumsily tried to make them happen myself (in hindsight, I see that I was a little too heavyhanded/desperate, but at the time I felt I was being earnest and open). However, I also learnt that long friendships are not necessarily the most important. Irony is sometimes the best teacher. I formed significant, temporary friend/relationships with people who I wasn't expecting to form them with (such as my landlady, my counsellor, etc). I look forward to meeting lots of interesting characters in my travels through Europe, and allowing myself to be open to these fleeting friendships.

Occaisonally being too complacent. 

Sometimes I felt like I spent too much time on the internet, not taking advantage of being in this city. But, I'm aware that I have done quite a lot in the past 4 months, so it's a matter of acknowledging good times along with the lazy times. And it's ok to have both.

I'm a firm believer in learning from ones mistakes, so I know that in time these regrets will be lessons learned (and to be honest they mostly already have). So, having a few regrets is small change to what this whole experience has been to me in the long run. I say, with only the faintest shadow of a doubt*, that this has been the best 4 months of my life (and in my head I'm expecting to say 'best 6 months of my life' once I'm home). I say this, not because it's been a flawless few months, but quite the opposite: it's been a coalescence of painful, difficult times and positive new experiences. I've learnt and relearnt some difficult lessons, moved to another country (and thus, acheived a life-long dream), experienced loss in some of the deepest ways and all the while been reminded of the beautiful adventure that life is. Here are a few high lights of my time here in London (big and small):

Snow!

 

So, snow was a first for me. I can still remember how quiet it was that morning. I've since learned that that silence is because Londoners don't know how to open their front doors when it's snows.

Counselling.

I don't have a photo to illustrate my counselling sessions, because... y'know... taking a photo of my counsellor and I never really seemed appropriate, haha. I started counselling sessions here in Febuary, mainly because it seemed like a now or never kind of thing. I could go to counselling when I get back to Australia in 6 months... or I could start tackling my issues now. I chose the latter, and it has been immensely beneficial.

Travelling (with Ella, sometimes)

I'll always be really grateful that Ella was in Europe around the same time as me. This photo was taken in early January, as I was about to board my bus back to London from Amsterdam. I was starting my exchange in London, and she'd just finished hers in Amsterdam. I remember feeling like it was really poignant, with both of us starting our different adventures. Since then we've travelled together a lot, so my 'highlight' here is twofold: having a friend/good coincidences, and being able to travel to lots of cool places with relative ease. I love how central London is!

Museums and art galleries

 The Natural History Museum was probably one of my favourite museums. I also tried to go to a new gallery or event every week. London is such a busy city - I could go to an event every night of the week and still be missing out. When I get back to Perth I plan on going to many more exhibition openings and private views, because they're something I really enjoy here. I never went to a lot in Perth before I left because they're almost always in a Friday night and I usually worked Friday nights. So when I get back, depending on how/where I'm employed, I'll make sure I have Friday nights off.

Next time I post I will probably be in Germany. I really want to update as much as possibly during my travels, because I like keep this as a log of my activities. However, backpacking can be a fickle business, so I'm acknowledging now that any plans I have for regular blogging may fall through.

Much love to those reading,

Cathryn.

*I say 'faintest shadow of a doubt' because it feels like a big call to make. Also, if I say it's the best 6 months of my life, then the rest is all downhill from here, right? Let's say: best 4 months of my life so far, in progress :)

Assessments and such

Last week I finished my course here in London. It culminated in a small set up of my work, to be marked by two tutors while I was absent. My work was then to be left up for the private view (meaning, everyone gathers in the studios-turned-exhibition-space, drinks free alcohol and waffles about the uselessness of everything), along with all the other exchange students and second years. Here’s a picture of my set up:

Um... yeah.

Anyone who knows what Curtin assessments are like is probably scratching their heads. Basically, back in Perth, we set up ALL the work we’ve made for the semester, and then have a review, where we discuss our work with 2 tutors and the rest of our class (usually). It was much different here. First of all, there were ‘space restrictions’. We were asked to only hang one significant piece, along with an artist statement, and all our supporting research (visual diary, failed works, etc) to be neatly piled below. As you can see from the photo above, the space restrictions didn’t really end up being much of an issue, but I complied anyway because I’d already decided which piece I wanted to hang, and it was small anyway. I’m also not sure how we receive feedback for our work... I’m going to email my tutor in a week or two if I haven’t heard anything. At Curtin it’s pretty straight forward – you get a scribe to take notes for you during the review, and you receive the tutors remarks and grades within a few weeks. I’m not sure if it’ll be the same here, especially since I wasn’t present for the actual marking, and have had no critical feedback for the whole semester. Anyway, I’m glad I’ve finished my course here. I’m looking forward to getting back to Curtin and feeling motivated, a little stressed, and most of all, productive. Here I felt stressed, but it was more a case of being stressed with aimlessness that I felt within the course. I don’t feel entirely satisfied with the work I’ve produced here – it’s been good, and it’ll be a great springboard for when I get back to Perth, but ultimately there’s been no blood, sweat, and tears, which generally leads to some sense of satisfaction and accomplishment towards the end of semester. This last week felt like a bit of an anticlimax.

I’m currently in Glasgow, enjoying my last week and a bit in the UK. Glasgow is beautiful, and I’m loving my hostel  - it’s big and old, yet cosy at the same time.

As you can see, it’s probably haunted. But, I’ve checked under beds (no grabby ghosts) and since there’s no elevator, no chance of a blood monsoon... so perhaps there’s nothing to worry about.

I’ve only been here a day, and already I can feel myself getting excited for travelling again. I’ve been all down-in-the-dumps lately because I’m sad about leaving London for good, but being here, seeing new things and doing new things (as opposed to being in a routine and/or procrastinating) has re-energised me a little bit. It’s got me looking forward at what’s to come, as opposed to what I’m leaving behind.

Moodswings and Roundabouts.

This week has been characterised by rain, rain, a feeling of listlessness, and more rain. I've been staying home a lot, in an attempt to get uni work ready in time for assessment, and also because the dreary weather isn't particularly calling my name. Or maybe it is?


"Caaaaathryn.... CAAAAATHRYN, you know you looove walking around in wet socks and having your umbrella being blown inside out.... come outsiiiiiiide...."


No, no I don't love that. Which is frustrating because I really am wanting to go outside and enjoy the last few weeks I have here in London, but the weather kind of puts me in a bad mood and then I get all discouraged and instead find myself sitting in my pyjama's all day and debating how acceptable it would be to crack open of bottle of wine at 11am (conclusion: it's not, so I didn't, don't worry).

I'm definitely starting to notice how my mood has dropped in relation to my 'leaving date' approaching. It's a similar feeling I had in December, before I left to come here. It's a slight sinking feeling in my chest, and sense of disease that soon I'll have to pack up and be on the road again. I love travelling, and I feel torn in that I want to see new things/eventually see friends and family, but I don't like leaving this place behind. I've become accustomed to it.

I think my alcohol consumption is generally a pretty good gauge for how I'm feeling: if I'm feeling the need to have a few glasses of wine with dinner, then it's because I'm also feeling a tad despondent. On the flip side, the more I indulge these urges (and drink), the worse I feel. I wake up the next morning and have myself a total pity party because I got drunk instead of do something productive the night before. However, I like to think I'm self-aware enough to not let it become a regular thing - If I have some wine two nights in a row, I generally give myself the next few days off. I don't like the feeling of drinking too much over an extended period of time.

I tried to break this bad-mood streak earlier in the week when, on realising the weather forecast for that day was 'partly cloudy' (as opposed to 'if you're outfit is not entirely waterproof, then don't go outside'), I showered, put some pants on that were not of the pyjama variety and headed out. I did some simple things, like grab some nice vegan food from Camden Town, and then ventured down to White Cube to check out the current exhibition. It was nice, and reaffirming, to just walk along the streets, and be outside and looking around and taking things in. It's important for me to feel as if I am experiencing as much as I can. On the way home I spontaneously jumped off the tube at Hampstead and went for a stroll in Hampstead Heath, which was beautiful. It was all lush, green, and a little muddy thanks to the rain.

My focus for the next week will be to finish my collage, help out with preparing the studio spaces for assessment, and then get assessed myself. I also need to start cleaning my room, and decide what's coming with me to Europe, and what's being sent home. I've also got a list of things I want to see and revisit in London while I'm still here and it's pretty much exclusively a list of places to eat, and places to see art.

I also need to start seriously finishing off all the food I've got in my pantry. I've been trying to only purchase fresh produce for the past week or two, and using more of the staples that I still have. Nevertheless, I still have loads of quinoa, brown rice, and pasta. I love a good grain, but somehow I just don't think I'm going to be able to finish off what I have in time. I might just have to take what I have left with me, and hope that the Germans aren't too strict about smuggling copious amounts of food in your checked baggage. Maybe I'll get a chance at my 15 minutes of fame on 'Border Patrol - Deutschland'.

This next week will be reasonably busy, and it'll be important to remind myself to value the time I have here, and enjoy the things I get to do. It won't last long.

Also, because I can't stand the thought of a blog post without pictures (and because family member won't have seen this photo yet - sorry for the spam, facebook friends), here's one of me at the Harry Potter Studio Tour I did last week:

: )

Work In Progress Wednesday! (again)

Hi everyone! Welcome to my second, and last, WIPW :)

It's my last post about my uni-related work because assessment is next week and after that I'm heading home (via Scotland and continental Europe), so I won't be working on this project until July, when I start my second semester of uni back in Australia. I think I'll try and keep this blog updated during my travels, but once I'm back in Australia for the foreseeable future, I will 'book-end' the blog with a round-up post of sorts and then it'll fade into obscurity in the frothy backwaters of the Internet. And that's good for me because it means I get hipster points by being able to claim ownership over something that not a lot of people know about. Ha!

Anyway, onwards: since I gave a brief introduction to my art project in my last WIPW post (which you can read here), I feel it pointless to rehash it in full again in this one. Instead, here's a bunch of photos of different things I have made/am currently working on, with a few details

The above project is a a bit of a deviation from my main body of work (as it's not strictly printmaking and I'm using the words differently), but nevertheless very important to my own personal preconceptions about how to use and consider text. I picked up a Russian newspaper by accident a few weeks ago on a night out, and it was one of those 'happy mistakes' that happen so often during the creative process. I can recognise that these are words, but because they're in another language that I've never even attempted to learn, I can't understand them. This detachment of understanding then allows me to consider them from a more aesthetic point of view. As I arrange them in this collage, it becomes more about the slant or boldness of the text, not about it's readability. This lens is something I would like to continue to use within the rest of my project.

Screen print + handwriting + cut and rearranged.

I've started trying to be a bit more controlled in my screen printing. With the first prints I made, I didn't really care about where the print ended up on the page. But, as this project is becoming more and more about the aesthetic, I'm now being a bit more decisive about composition. I think I'm starting to see words as more of a 'means to an end', rather than subject matter.

Above is an experiment in layering and transparency. Printed and handwritten words on fabric. I used 3 different fabrics, each with a different density and type of thread, and this is the one I liked the most. This is also an attempt at injecting humour into my work: see how the printed words are 'hand written' and the hand written word is 'printed'? 

At least we know that if this art business falls through, I'll always have a career in comedy to fall back on. ;)

comparing then & now

I've spent a great deal of time in my bedroom over the past 4 months, so just for fun I've decided to compare what it looked like when I first moved in (16th Janurary) to how it looks now.

Early January:

Mid April (most recent):

Since moving here I've felt the need to reconcile what (or perhaps, where) home is for myself, as I have sort of created two. Perth is my true home because that is where (most of) the people that I love also live. However, this hasn't stopped me creating a new sense of home here in London. I feel a fond familiarity with this place, one that I doubt will leave once I do. When I first moved into my London house, I had these dreams where I was walking around outside, and the streets kept flickering back and forth between English looking streets and Australian looking streets, and I was stumbling around trying to figure out what was wrong with my vision. I woke up from one of these dreams once in the dark, completely disoriented, with no idea where I was - all I knew was that I was in a bed, and I mentally had to retrace my steps over the last few weeks to remember that I was now living in London. It's funny how the mind tries to make things familiar and understandable, even if it's nowhere near the truth. My house sits on a corner and one night, as I was falling asleep in bed I heard a car turn the corner, which reminded me of the sound of my mum pulling into the driveway. I thought to myself: 'oh, mum's home', and for a second I truly believed that she was. I think that home is really closer that I think. The memory of Perth, and the places there are still so fresh to me, I don't feel the distance mentally. Sometimes I feel it physically, like when I look at a map of the world, or I really, really want a hug. But time keeps moving on, and I know I'll be home soon - perhaps staring at the little dot marked 'London' on my globe of the world.

In a month I'll be taking down the postcards and letters from my wall and leaving. I'll be sad to go.

Paris!

This is me trying to keep my 'post once or twice a week' goal.

I just spent a week in Paris with Ella. It was an interesting experience: probably the first time I've been to a country and felt the need to speak their language (and therefore not feel like such a dirty tourist) and also the first time I've travelled somewhere without consulting a Lonely Planet guide first. I normally treat Lonely Planet guides like some treat the Bible. I read it over and over before a trip, making notes of what I want to do/visit, following up on recommendations, etc. This time, with Paris, I didn't have a LP guide. I'd decided to go to Paris, not because I really, really wanted to go, but more so because I figured I'd regret it if I don't, not knowing when I'll be back in this part of the world again.

I am really glad I went. I had a kind of... reserved sense of anticipation about going. Paris is such a hyped-up city: City of Light! City of Love! Go there and fall in love with a Frenchman in a beret while eating a croissant in line for the Eiffel Tower... Paris! Baguette!

I was also a nervous about the language barrier. At first I felt very self-conscious about my lingual-ignorance, but in the end I was able to say a few things in French (such as: 'I do not speak French' and 'Do you speak English?', both handy things to know how to say, haha). I learnt French for a few years in high school, and a lot of it came back to me in the few days I was there, so I'm quite motivated now to re-start learning it as a second language. It's funny how, on a journey where what I want to do is experience new and different places, I also want to fit in.

 

One thing that really struck me about Paris (and it's not that this hasn't struck me before, it just came up again) was how what I knew of/imagined Paris to be like measured up with how it actually is. It's like: you have this idea of a place, and that idea is made up of pictures of landmarks, movies you've seen and stories you've heard... and when you finally get there you realise that all these things are actually very small, specific places/things within this big net of a city. When you travel from one 'thing' to another you see the real bits in between, like the way the roads look, the way the people dress, the homeless people on the street, the different types of trees. So it's like connecting the dots. It's a very subjective thing. I've noticed the same thing with this whole exchange experience as well: I had this vague idea of how it would turn out, and it hasn't turned out like that at all.

I'll finish this brief blog with an obligatory picture of the Eiffel Tower :)