#on the plus side van gogh's still got several years left to live

[pieofdeath]

i just made myself sad by realizing that the main fic of ROTD takes place in 1877, nine years before my favorite painting ever would be finished :(

[soitendslikethis1606]

Travel journal 2017

I wrote this once on my phone just before we lost our passports and the panic attacked and I forgot to save it so here am I writing this again. I am in the airport, about to fly back to Singapore. We have ended our first long trip together. We have never stopped moving for the past 3 weeks. We walked everyday for at least 6-7 km, taking any walk that google map suggests as below 30mins. In the last unexpected days in Paris, it went up to a lot of 1hour walks because we were just fed up with the crowded and fifthy metros, as well as the nerve cracking mentility we had every time we get on it, worrying that some pickpocketing might happen again- although we had had almost nothing left to be stolen. The walking is partially because we don't drive but also because we see so much more when we walk. Plus, I just enjoyed walking with Anh, we never ran out of things to talk about. One day we walked up to 20km, hiking up to a waterfall in a small town on the other side of the lake from Annecy. Next day, we cycled another 20km around that lake. The craziest hike was from Odda to Trolltunga, up to 1100m attitude, 11km up, 12km down on the next day. 1km extra because I hurt my knee and couldn't take the stiff slope down. We came ill prepared. Not enough warm clothes and water proof materials for our backpacks. It was raining on and off all day on the day we went up. Everything was wet as soon as we reached the iconic 'touge'. Anh fell down several times, some were funny to watch, some just made my heart literally skip a beat. I saw snow for the first time but it's just too cold for me to be excited about it. Cold, slippery, exhausted. We camped overnight on the top. It's scary... but the view was just so breaktaking that we almost forgot how scary it was to hike under the rain in clothes that are suitable for just a lovely sunny day. The most surreal moment was when the fog gradually went away and the sun shone on the rocky side of the mountain. It's lit up, shimmering.. I told Anh it made me almost believe in God. Next day we went down it was the most beautiful sunny day I've ever had. Never before have I so yearn for the sun. I took a fall on the way down, hurt my butt and bruise my arm badly. I think the bruise is just making me look tougher, or making people look at Anh subspiously, thinking there is some kind of domestic abuse going on between us. We talked to Howard- an ex military man and Maika- a professional trainer for outdoor activities and outdoor living - they are two guides leading us up and down the mountain. They are just super human to us. When asked what the highest mountain she has ever climbed, Maika said it's not the highest one that is the toughest, it's the longest one. Hers was a 15day hike continuously, carrying her own clothes and food supplies for the whole journey (for this tour, they carried food, tents and sleeping bags up for us, we only carried our clothes and essentials yet at the 4th or 5th kilometer, and already it felt like rock on my back). People in Norway also speak fluently several languages. Even the girl serves at our hostel restaurant speak fluently 5 languages and is learning another 2. When she spoke to Lucille- a French friend we made staying in the same hostel room in Odda, Lucille said she has perfect french. How amazing is that? We came to realise how physically weak we are compared to people from else where in the world and there are so much more, so many things for us to learn in this life. It motivates me to learn Chinese now as I'm back.. I'm just not sure how long the motivation would last until I need another trip for motivation :P Being on top of Trollunga is one of the proudest things I've ever done and I'm sure Anh feels the same. Definitely best moment of this year and most of all I've got to share it with Anh. ----- I had a mix feeling toward Paris. I'm not going to defense Paris from Anh anymore about how filthy, messy and choastic it is and how rude people are in Paris. Sorry French friends, there always are nice people and rude people anywhere I know that for a fact, but we tried our best talking to people as much as we want to get to know the place and its people. We just didn't get much friendly response, not to mention the increasing crimes in the city. The police just gets used to thef and pickpocketing reports. One policewoman even talked to us as if putting my wallet inside my backpack and had it stolen is entirely and obviously my fault. However, Paris is still charming to me in a way, put aside all those bad experiences. We didn't have anyone else apart from each other to talk to when we were there- maybe that's one of the reason why Paris is less exciting. But we found our way to entertain ourselves. I went to a jazz club and danced it off with Anh for the first time. Believe it or not, 6 years together and I've never been to a club with Anh before. Yet suddenly with jazz, the modern, trendy dance moves became irrelevant. They played in the basement built with bricks walls, low ceiling and not every spacious. The lead saxophone stopped at the end of each song to introduce the name of the next sone with a short description. I like the way he did that- reminds me of the scene in La la land where Seb told Mia that people don't understand jazz because they never really listen to it. Jazz always just music in the background in restaurants or some gatherings. So the way the lead saxophone introduced each song made me feel like each song is beautiful and they mean it everytime they play it, that people actually care, that they were there for the music itself- not something jazzy in the background. We danced to two or three songs, crazy moves. We were the worst dancers.. but who cares haha. The rest of the time we watched people dance. Night fell and we walked a little bit to North Dame, sat in front for a while then went home. It was Anh's birthday that night. It was a successful birthday: we had good Pho, listened to live jazz and walked the city of Paris with endless talking. I was deeply thankful to whoever has the power to arrange for people to meet each other because I met Anh and we stay together, and tomorrow wouldn't be boring even though I had no idea what we were going to do the next day. I knew with Anh we would have fun.. Paris is all about art- that's what people say. Of course we had our own art experience too. We went by the Lourve and saw people ridiculously queued up for, I guess, a kilometer long under the sun just to come in and see the tiny Mona Lisa. I wonder how many of them actually understand those artworks in there. We came back here later after we lost our passports and stuck in Paris. The queue was better and Anh asked if I wanted to come inside for once, since we were already there. But I looked it up online and their paintings are from the renaissaince period- which I'm not very much interested in.. so we didn't come in. Instead, Musee de Orsay just made my dream come true. Monet. Van Gogh. Manet. Renoid. Camille. Gauguin. Bonnard. Even Picasso before he drew abstract and cubism. All of them in one place. I remember finding their paintings when I was a kid looking through dad's magazine cutouts; when I was in school daydreaming on tumblr during school lessons; when I was in my darkest days. And they were just real in front of my eyes. I could see the strokes that they made, how big the paintings are (poor Van Gogh he got the smallest paintings which made my heart sank), how different it is to look closely and look from distance. I could smell the oil paint in the rooms which I think just another trick the museum does to stimulate experience; yet it really got me. I discovered new artists I never heard of before but I love their paintings in there. Anh hadn't really been into art.. but he accompanied me to these place anyway. I love it when he said he loved Monet's the Water lily bond and the House of Parliment London; love that he cared about what I like. Nexy day we went to the Centre Pompiduo. This was where it channelled Anh's inner 9gag boy. We debated for a good hour on whether modern art is really art or just people's way of bullshiting their socalled arts. It was a good talk yet I still couldn't turn him around- at least we shared. We were just hanging around in the campus and watching this performance artist sweeping yellow paddy rice. His exagerating movements made it feel like he was dancing. The way I saw it is that he was making those stroke on the black floor using his random movements and create quiet interesting texture on the floor. After awhile there was another girl came in to continue doing that for him. Anh just hated it, he said they are pretendious and exagerating shit to make it look artistic but it has no meaning. We had another good talk over that until we were hungry and left. That's the only reason he could convince me out of some place I got hooked to. I regreted not coming into the exhibitions. Maybe some good, thought-provoking, meaningful masterpieces in there could convince Anh for me without saying a word. ----- Castellane is soooo lovely. Perfect weather. Sunny but not so burning. We were staying at a BnB not far from the town centre with Leo and Petra. They are the loveliest couple I've ever met hands down. We had long chats with them every morning during our breakfast about so many things- like me and Petra trying to convince Anh to believe in real modern art. One morning Petra rushed to our room calling our names, asking if we want to see a troop of thousand sheeps, donkeys and mountain goats on their journey up to the mountain. We ran to the road, stood by, waiting for them. There were literally thousand of them! 1060 to be exact. They each had a bell on their necks and the whole troop make an oschetra when they walk. It's just amazing.. I've never seen so many sheeps before, nor the way farmers do their work. Petra let us know that they travel up to the higher alpes in the summer for greener grass when it gets too hot and grass on flat land turns brown. We tried to talk to some of the farmers and felt so heartwarming that although their english is really limited, as much as our french, they tried to tell us about their journey. (See Parisians.. they are just farmers and they speak english to us). Up until we met there, they have walked 12km in 10 days. We walked with them for a while then left for out water trekking trip. The water trekking trip almost scared the shit out of us. Gorge de Verdon is so beautiful, so so beautiful, even better seeing from below, just above the water. The water was so fast and strong, it's scary at the same time. We were floating, letting our bodies go with the water flow. There are times I thought my head would hit a big rock. The route also includes some jumping off a high rock onto the water. And I think I would never forget the feeling I had in the moment after I just throw myself in the air and before my body touches water. It's indescriptable. Next morning we felt like seeing the animals again so we went for a hike up, tracing after their poops- yes they poop a lot along the way. But then we lost track, couldn't find them and end up at the lake. I made Anh do some kayaking. While stopping for our lunch, still on the boat, a spider appeared and Anh freaked out- no suprise for me. After we managed to turn away from the burst, the spider out of sight, he said he really wanted to jump down into the water. Apparently he couldn't. He was halfway finishing his bread with pate filling, couldn't risk wasting the food. Yep, that's my boyfriend. Not until were we in Castellane that we had a full course real french dinner. The first dinner was delicious! Just like the restaurant's name: Ô Delicion.. we were the first to be there. The French usually have late dinner, around 8 I guess. We usually get hungry around 6 and always need to wait until 7 when the shops are open. I had terrine for appetiter, Anh had artichoke soup. The soup was really nice and I kept thinking about how beautifully shaped the artichoke is before it's cooked- just a random thought. My main course was devine, tenderly cooked port chop with a kind of mushroom that I had never had before. It went with 2 sides: fish egg and some kind of baked egg with vegetable. Anh was jealous of my main dish because he only had average fish with the same sides for himself. The French are really great at cooking. Even the Vietnamese food is better in French than in anywhere else we've been to. I told Anh to stop comparing them to the British because it's such an insult- do the British really cook anything good? ---- Almost 2 weeks since I'm back. Finally got my sound sleep back last night. I've always been exhausted. So many things to catch up and so many plans to be done. Tonight Ellen didn't take the train home with me, chi G didn't join me for dinner. I have the evening for myself. I feel sad about not having Anh beside me. I remember feeling we were so strong and we could be anything when we were together. Now we are apart- he couldn't fix my computer and I couldn't attend his graduation. Maybe I just miss anh. I think of the good time we had when we were on the trip. Reading the news about Dear Vincent movie remind me of Annecy- a lovely town down south France. I regret we had time but didn't try to ask around if the movie was being screened there because I knew its premier screen had just ended a week before we arrived. Now I need to wait until they screen it in Singapore which would take forever... not many people interested in such movie I suppose. When we were in Annecy it were the sunniest days of the trip. We fell right in love with the airbnb we stayed in as soon as we arrived. Cecile- our host showed us around with phone in her hand, a translate apps open ready. The house is isolated from the touristy madness outside in the market. There is a lovely garden leading to an openning where you can go down to the river running across the town. We spent afternoons sitting there, seeing people above the bridge, waiting for the ducks and swans to swim by and feed them. Anh totally loved that activity, best with an ice cream in hand (ice cream is for him not the ducks).