Wandering Light

The contemporary art gallery, that occasionally uses my high school to showcase its collection, has a rather expressive name. We have visited its exhibitions for years. Initially I was only aware of some random paintings. Later on I realized that I have favourite artists. One of the best painters among those at the Vándorfény ("wandering light") Gallery is definitely Zsolt Fekete. I like his realistic depictions, as well, but what I absolutely fell in love with, are his golden, fairy-talish places.

In the leaflet I saw some of his wilder paintings, with rich, jungle-like vegetation. Unfortunately, those had been sold by the time we arrived.

Besides him, there is an artist working with enamel, Kornélia Fehér, whose images always catch my attention. One of her favourite themes is dancing. Yesterday, when I was walking among the pictures and suddenly heard some tango music, I had to temper my enthusiasm to only dance in my mind.

Heartbeats

Now I can officially state that I have seen a film from Montreal. It was interesting but it's not going to be my favourite.

Roberto had studied arts and one day he asked me if I would like to watch a movie. "Of course" I replied, "show me something local". He has told me about the high quality of Quebec film making before. "Do you like art movies?" he asked. He didn't want to bore me. "Let's try" I said. "If it's too boring, we can still choose another one". He picked one that needed subtitling because I didn't understand a word from the first scene (people talking to the camera about their relationship, no context). It was in Quebec French... The whole work was totally local, we've been to several places where it was shot. This cafe, for example (somewhere at the Mile End, that happens to be Roberto's favourite part of the city):

The director and main actor is gay so there was a twist in the love triangle. (This topic is not unusual for Montreal, in the city centre there is a so called "gay village", a pedestrian street in the summer. The local government realized that those people have significant purchasing power.) As far as I know, the 24-year-old Xavier Dolan has won several prizes and is among the most successful Canadian filmmakers. I didn't really fancy the film. Just to make sure, I watched it again today. I thought I missed something that would make the whole story more clear but no. I really don't understand the motivations of the character called Nicolas. "Tres quebecois" Roberto said, "they don't talk about their emotions". (I didn't notice that. For me it's perfectly normal to be cautious at the beginning of a relationship. However, they could be very reserved compared to Colombians... ) What I truly enjoyed, were the soundtrack and the beautiful images.

30 in Vienna

People tend to consider round anniversaries more significant. I thought of my 30th birthday as a milestone in my life. The birthday present from Balázs was spending two days in Vienna. I love this city. A few years ago I spent a month here to learn German. I visited many places but there were some that I missed out and others where I wanted to return to. As the trip was a surprise, he only told me that morning what our destination would be. I had no time to prepare so it was a spontaneous city tour. We slept in an elegant hotel called The Hotel. It could really be a benchmark:

It was close enough to the city center, we could walk along the Mariahilferstrasse, there was no need for any vehicle. Our first stop was the Stephansdom because I didn't remember being inside it before. Maybe I've just forgotten, it's not that attractive... Anyway, I checked whether my language school is still there and I was happy to see that it is, even its sign could be the same.

After that we bought tickets for the evening concert at the Hofburg, then headed for the Museumsquartier (MQ) where we took our time to attend the exhibition about urban gardening. I'm deeply interested in this topic. I wanted to move from Budapest because I was missing nature and I'm always glad to hear about initiatives that promote green in big cities. In Vienna there is a small district called Spittelberg. For me, it was love at first site. Only a few streets behind the MQ, small town feeling near the emperor's palace. That is where we had dinner.

Luckily there was no dress code for the concert so we didn't have to go back to the hotel to change our clothes. We just walked back to the Hofburg.

Since it was my birthday, the Wiener Hofburg Orchester played in a larger, richer decorated room with red carpet to make the experience more memorable. :) 

  

They played classical music but not severely. There were some jokes, just like at the traditional New Year's Concert. Opera arias were sung by foreign soloists. They all had the same casual and friendly attitude. It would be difficult, of course, to take the Papageno and Papagena duet too seriously.

The next day was extremely hot, none of us wanted to stay outdoors. We went to the Natural History Museum. Being a bird-maniac, I decided to spend most of the time in the rooms where we could see everything from hummingbird to ostrich. As a future interpreter, I tried to memorize some of the species in German but I didn't want to work on my holiday so I haven't prepared a glossary yet. :)