pre-modern to post
As I write this, such thick snowy flakes tumble down from the sky that the air itself is white. It has been snowing for days, at times the snowdrops are so tiny and fragile that they become rain once they hit the ground. Sheets of wind-driven snow and puffy blankets of fluffy flakes have fallen since, Monday night.
The snow adds an interesting element to the daily markets, though I'm sure the vendors have many different, choice words to describe the impact of snow on their jobs. Snow covers the arranged fruits and vegetables, filling in the crevices of the tangerine pyramids, doing unspeakable things to the fragile pearl onions. My naive Californian self wondered whether they would all be there, as I reluctantly walked through wind and snow to my tutor's. But the locals would have laughed at me, like northerners laugh at southerners who try to drive in an inch of snow: of course they show up, rain or snow.
The snow has brought us indoors with Axel, who comments, each time we pass the park: I don't want to go to the park! It's too snowy, he concludes. And we agree, that none of us really wants to stand in the empty park; no one else seems to bring their toddlers in the falling snow, not just the thin-skinned Californians. So we head to the history museum (four floors, from cave peoples, through Turkish wars, to the 18th century), quickly navigating Axel's tantrum that it's not the train museum. All of the grandmotherly docents try to engage Axel who invariably presses his face into my neck or knees, taking quick peeks around me, but refusing to play cou-cou with them. In the 15th century room, amid cast-iron tower bells standing next to the radiator (where someone's handkerchief-wrapped lunch warmed), a toddler-height canon, and a traveler's tea-service in a tiny wooden box, one docent asked about the English words for "cou-cou." But even her "peek-a-boo" didn't get a smile out of Axel. By the time we got to the 16th century and ancient books, Axel was done; no interest in the fascinating 15th century Evangelical books in Old Church Slavonic, the language primers, or the professor's lecture notes, in a precisely beautiful script.
A bit later at a Turkish-themed restaurant (across from the university and filled, night and day with students leaning around beers and hookahs), Mychal and I cracked up when we dis-assembled Axel's hamburger to get at the meat patty for him. Nestled inside the top bun, which had been carved out like a San Francisco sourdough soup bowl, was a tangle of pre-catsupped fries. (Below, the burger lay on a bed of corn-and-cabbage cole slaw.) Axel didn't see the humor, but at least he ate the fries (which he ate for the first time here, and which have become our default restaurant meal for him) and denuded burger.
The snow adds an interesting element to the daily markets, though I'm sure the vendors have many different, choice words to describe the impact of snow on their jobs. Snow covers the arranged fruits and vegetables, filling in the crevices of the tangerine pyramids, doing unspeakable things to the fragile pearl onions. My naive Californian self wondered whether they would all be there, as I reluctantly walked through wind and snow to my tutor's. But the locals would have laughed at me, like northerners laugh at southerners who try to drive in an inch of snow: of course they show up, rain or snow.
The snow has brought us indoors with Axel, who comments, each time we pass the park: I don't want to go to the park! It's too snowy, he concludes. And we agree, that none of us really wants to stand in the empty park; no one else seems to bring their toddlers in the falling snow, not just the thin-skinned Californians. So we head to the history museum (four floors, from cave peoples, through Turkish wars, to the 18th century), quickly navigating Axel's tantrum that it's not the train museum. All of the grandmotherly docents try to engage Axel who invariably presses his face into my neck or knees, taking quick peeks around me, but refusing to play cou-cou with them. In the 15th century room, amid cast-iron tower bells standing next to the radiator (where someone's handkerchief-wrapped lunch warmed), a toddler-height canon, and a traveler's tea-service in a tiny wooden box, one docent asked about the English words for "cou-cou." But even her "peek-a-boo" didn't get a smile out of Axel. By the time we got to the 16th century and ancient books, Axel was done; no interest in the fascinating 15th century Evangelical books in Old Church Slavonic, the language primers, or the professor's lecture notes, in a precisely beautiful script.
A bit later at a Turkish-themed restaurant (across from the university and filled, night and day with students leaning around beers and hookahs), Mychal and I cracked up when we dis-assembled Axel's hamburger to get at the meat patty for him. Nestled inside the top bun, which had been carved out like a San Francisco sourdough soup bowl, was a tangle of pre-catsupped fries. (Below, the burger lay on a bed of corn-and-cabbage cole slaw.) Axel didn't see the humor, but at least he ate the fries (which he ate for the first time here, and which have become our default restaurant meal for him) and denuded burger.
posted by aelis at 10:42 PM
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