medousa’s Friends and Family

36 hours in Zürich: Museum für Gestaltung

nobody@vox.com(Yasmina) — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 01:18:38 +0100

Every other Swiss person I'd interacted with, always referred to the Museum für Gestaltung as "museum of applied art" when asking whether I'd visited it. It's an interesting expression, hinting at the Swiss design philosophy; I know people who define design as applied art and vice versa, people would argue against it.

The exhibit at Museum für Gestaltung was called "Wouldn't it be nice... 10 utopias in art and design" featuring works from Tony Dunne and Fiona Raby, Marti Guixe, Jurgen Bey, Ryan Gander, Martino Gamper and others.

Taken from the exhibit description of Dunne and Raby:

In cooperation with Michael Anastassiades under the title "Design for Fragile Personalities in Anxious Times" they have been developing projects since 2003 which give rational expression to our anxieties and are intended to help us find a way to deal with them.

Hideaway furniture

For people who are afraid of being abducted. Each opens in a surprising way without disturbing any object displayed on its surface. They are camouflaged against the floor. Once inside, the occupant feels in control, proud and comfortable. Their pose is the opposite of the foetal position.

Parallel cards by Ryan Gander

A card game that appears like a traditional pack of cards. On closer inspection, however, it can be seen that the playing cards have no reverse side but two picture sides. Additionally the pack contains a card addressed to Gander's P.O. box. You are invited to devise new games and send Gander the rules. The artist is collecting the suggestions and is planning to publish a handbook.

Do scratch light by Marti Guixe

Produced for Droog Design. You have to scratch off the black (enamel?) surface of the lamp to let the light shine through.

Martino Gamper reuses and repurposes old furniture to create new forms.

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36 hours in Zürich: Altstadt-Niederdorf-Neumarkt

nobody@vox.com(Yasmina) — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 16:32:03 +0200

I'd hoped to be able to visit the Spielzug Museum on Englischviertelstrasse to see their collection of 18th- to 20th century toys but unfortunately they are only open on the first Sunday of the month (from 11.00-16.00). I ended up walking around the area, to the Altstadt-Niederdorf-Neumarkt district. It was an overcast day, and colder than Milan, but walking uphill and occasionally cozying up with a cup of coffee in small cafes kept me warm throughout the day.

This area has small cobblestone walkways, lovely small independent shops that are great for window-shopping. From the sidewalk, I watched a bookbinder do her trade, binding the manuscript into thick hardcover books. I kept looking at fonts on shop signs and streets, happily noticing that Zürich is covered in Helvetica, which, together with Univers, Rotis and Caslon, is my favourite font.

There was really a lot to see whilst walking through the pedestrian streets... The overhang of the roof had decorative elements painted on them...

A particular architectural style I noticed were oriel windows: bay windows attached to buildings (like tumors, I thought). They originated as a form of a porch. It's neat... a space like that with lots of natural light would be so perfect for food photography.

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36 hours in Zürich: Tiefenbrunnen

nobody@vox.com(Yasmina) — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 23:21:25 +0100

I took a 15-minute tram-ride from Zürich Hauptbahnhof to Bahnhof Tiefenbrunnen in the south of Zürich, on the eastern side of the lake. It was a gorgeous sunny day so I walked along the shore, and found the Tiefenbrunnen bathing-and-beach facilities. It was almost completely deserted and a lot of things were locked up because the facility is still closed during this season. Still, I'm glad they've opened the grounds so people can enjoy a walk or relax in the sunshine, which is what I did.

I liked that the women's section was using yellow as a highlight colour. Silly me, I didn't go to the men's side to take photographs. I think yellow is my new colour for 2008.

I took this photo 74-76-78 for myself, Monica and Laszlo. The story was that in summer 2002, Laszlo, Monica and I drove to Halle, near Dresden, Germany, from Eindhoven, the Netherlands for Karen's graduation. On the way back, we stopped by a gas station where we found those greeting cards with compilation CD of songs from a particular year. So we each bought one for the year we were born and listened to the music on the drive home.

Wow, I'm going to be 30 this year. It's crazy thinking about how our lives have completely changed since 2002 - once upon a time we all were living in the Netherlands, drinking, cycling, swimming together and now we've moved to Chicago, Milan, London and Barcelona.

I spent some time in the sun, walked around the empty structures and took photos. There was something really calming about the place. It reminds me of the bathing and beach facilities that my parents would take us to when we were living in Genevé, not far from Zürich.

Maybe the reason I really love swimming in a natural body of water is because I used to swim in lakes and rivers so much as a kid. Switzerland is a really great place for kids and to grow up in.

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revive

nobody@vox.com(Yasmina) — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 23:49:13 +0100

Wow, how dead is this blog? I've been terrible... There is just so much going on and there's so much to write about but the words don't come out.

In the 6 months since my last entry, the husband and I have (jointly and separately):

visited Kathya and David in Wiesbaden (twice!)
eaten at Taco Bell's (wow yeah, a Taco Bell's in Europe!)
binged on American junk food
done a workshop on Public Toilets in Amsterdam
travelled to India to attend the wedding of our good friends
had a lovely reunion with old friends (once upon a time we all lived in the Netherlands) during our week in India
had a 3-hour detox-relaxation-reinvigoration Ayurvedic treatment every day for a week
wave-dived into the Arabian sea
found a lovely beach to stroll along on
eaten ridiculously good South Indian food (a sustainable way of eating: on banana leaf and with our hands)
fallen in totally love with the crazy, chaotic, bursting-with-life and positively colourful experience that was India
travelled to Indonesia to fulfill our obligations as daughter and son-in-law :-D
visited one of the oldest and largest Buddhist temple complex in the world
stuffed our faces full of yummy Indonesian comfort food
spent quality time with the people we love over the holidays
got close to nature and loving it in the family mountainhouse
drunk fresh mango juice every day that I practically turned yellow!
spent New Years Eve in tropical Singapore (a bit tame partying, actually)
ate ridiculously good Taiwanese dumplings
gone to the Turin chocolate festival
moved into a lovely new apartment in a typically Italian "ringheria" apartment block
promised ourselves to purchase consciously and cook and eat healthy organic foods

I don't know why I have more and more problems expressing myself in writing, especially with things and events that have happened to me. I have no problems talking about current events in the news or my thoughts on work-related topics, but when it comes to the every day personal life things, I guess I just internalise.

Anyway... I will post more here for sure. If you need to know my up-to-the-minute updates, I have a Twitter enabled blog too.

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knitwit

nobody@vox.com(Yasmina) — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 17:52:20 +0200

Knitwit

Yeah so I spend a lot of time commuting between Milan and Turin for work, around 3-4 hours a day. I thought that if I learned to knit, I could make a scarf for everyone I know.

I found a great video podcast on knitting, and taught myself. Now I am addicted.

I'm now on my eighth scarf, I've given three away, the ones at home have been reserved for friends, and this week Sara invited us to come round to her place to have a knitting-and-homemade-hummus aperitivo. The idea was to hang out and catch up after the summer holidays, and teach each other some knitting. But all we did was eat (omg, Sara makes heavenly hummus) and talk. It's all good.

P.S. Now if I can just learn Italian from podcasts the way I learned knitting, I could just make out the instructions of my paperwork. *sigh*

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QotD: I'm A Completist

nobody@vox.com(Yasmina) — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 15:52:48 +0200

Do you own all the albums of any particular musical artist or group? Who?
Submitted by dutterman.

Oh, many... Off the top of my head: Pixies. Morcheeba. Air (the French one). Groove Armada. Kruder & Dorfmeister. Kid Loco. Kid Koala. Money Mark. Nouvelle Vague.

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Sign of Life from Milano

nobody@vox.com(Yasmina) — Sat, 12 May 2007 16:45:01 +0200

I'm still here. :)

It's just a time of life where I am properly balancing the things I have/need to do, versus the things I want to do. Less blogging, more time with errands, work, domestic stuff, and of course spending time with my handsome and talented husband. This week I felt that I spent way more time with colleagues, work and commuting; I traveled 1000 miles/1600 kilometres on the trains this week!

No weekend getaways for us this month, but I hope our Italian living permits come out on time so we can go to Hungary next month! Here's some pictures from our long Labour Day weekend in Riomaggiore.

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Pasqua 2007: Firenze

nobody@vox.com(Yasmina) — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 23:30:57 +0200

This Easter weekend, Robert and I ran away to Firenze. Unfortunately, Robert was feeling poorly and by Friday evening, when we arrived at the Alberghino, he'd developed a fever.

After spending a delirious Friday night in bed, Robert felt somewhat better on Saturday morning to go on a relaxed walkabout. It was perhaps a blessing in disguise, because it we ended up taking things easy and discovered the quieter, untouristy parts of Firenze.

Landscape stitch

Firenze
I think Firenze should be renamed to "Little America" or "Little Britain" during Easter weekend. Il centro storico was full of domestic and foreign tourists. On Easter Sunday, you can clearly differentiate the Italians from the tourists: the Italians were dressed impeccably in their immaculate Sunday best. The tourists were all either L.L Bean catalogue variety or MTV Springbreak special; unfortunately, not all dependent on age.

It's a lovely city, but it's way too touristy. Just as I hated London during the summer tourist season, and why I prefer Rotterdam over Amsterdam, I didn't like Firenze for precisely this reason. Milano can get quite touristy but I've never had shopkeepers in Milano greet me in English. Hummm, maybe I'm developing this Milano-vs-other-Italian-cities complex, hahaha, Milano forever kind-of-thing...

We gave the main sights a miss and headed to Giardino Boboli. First tip of the day: queues to Palazzo Pitti and the main entrance of Giardino Boboli can get extremely long. If you go up Corso San Giorgio to where Giardino Boboli and Bardini neighbour one another, there is another entrance with a biglietteria and hardly anyone queues there.

Robert and I lay on the grassy hill overlooking Palazzo Pitti and Firenze. It was wonderful and we fell asleep in the sun like lazy house cats. The park started to fill up around lunchtime, so we left and went to Giardino Bardini, which was smaller and quieter and had an equally stunning view of Firenze.

Sunday morning, we went to the Duomo to see the Scoppio del Carro, an Easter ritual of blowing up an elaborate wagon decorated just for this purpose. Loud bangs, lots of smoke and sparks of fireworks ensues. It was all fun and good to watch, as the crowd gets really enthusiastic. This is followed by a procession around the city center.

After a heavy Sunday lunch, Robert and I hiked up to Villa Strozzi. We found the lovely gardens and again spent some time lazing in the sun. There were families on their Sunday afternoon walks and I noticed people were a lot friendlier and interactive; there were eye contact and cheerful greetings of "Buona Pasqua" and "Buona sera".

We then walked through the hills and olive groves in the dying Sunday sun, with breathtaking views. It was such a lovely Sunday stroll that I felt better about not renting bikes and cycling through the countryside as I had originally planned.

The food
We received a lot of recommendations from friends (thank you Tango, thank you James). We did find all of those places in town, but in the end we didn't eat there. We'll save those places for our next (more) museum-oriented visit, in the fall.

Too bad Robert was still sick so he could hardly taste and smell any of the food he ate! That's torture of the worst kind (for me).

We ate wonderful Tuscan dishes: faraona all'uva con crema di patate (guinea fowl stewed in grapes on creamy potatoes), polenta con al ragu di cinghiale (polenta with ragu of wildboar), ravioli di zucca con amaretti (pumpkin ravioli with amaretti), sformato caldo di patate con ragù di carni bianche o pomodoro (a molded potato flan with a tomato and meat ragu), bistecca alla fiorentina (yay for extra-rare beef!)... Everything was SO good, I was very happy...

Back in Milano
We're still glowing from the weekend we just had... April will be a busy month with Salone del Mobile Milano and plenty of our designer friends flying in and crashing at our place... I love having friends visit...

I'm looking for our next little holiday at the end of April: we're going to Riomaggiore in Cinque Terre for 4 days! Yippeeee....

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QotD: Thanks But No Thanks

nobody@vox.com(Yasmina) — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 01:10:21 +0100

How do you handle phone calls from telemarketers?

"Non parlo l'italiano" or "Parli inglese?" seems to work pretty well. Once or twice, the persistent ones will get an English-speaking colleague to translate but they give up when I start asking questions.

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vox spam part 2

nobody@vox.com(Yasmina) — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 18:42:56 +0100

Picture 4

Eeek! They're back! On one of my past QotD posts. Go away, spammers be gone!

P.S. Yes, I am reporting this.

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