Stressful, some reads.

Squee, one of my uni professors (Art History) came to the Palace today. I found this positively unnerving, because I think he's a bit great. Funny how I didn't recognise him at first, though I thought he looked awfully familiar, but the penny really only dropped when I heard his voice. He was there with his entire family, who are apparently all extremely intellectual and educated, as well as rich: a typical dynasty from the Austrian Bildungsbürgertum. Hah, I was slightly relieved that I was not the one who had to do the tour with them, because it would've felt really ridiculous to try and impress them with my clearly inferior knowledge of Baroque furniture and Tencalla frescoes. Sigh.

Tomorrow, I have to get up really early. I will make up my mind for whom I will vote while I shower and shave my legs (no way I can put this off, this time) and then I will go and vote and then I will go to work, do my 5 odd tours and take a bus or train to Vienna and enjoy my first bit of leisure in what seems like weeks (somehow I cannot count Paris as leisure, it was much too exhausting) ...

There is really not much of an emptiness or post-modern sadness to complain about at the moment.

In literary news, I'm reading Kate Chopin's Awakening (and other Stories)



(what an obscenely tiny picture)

It's really a nice read, very well written, though maybe a bit banal in regard to the plot. But it's one of those books that are typical of the end of the 19th century, where you can perceive an on-the-brink-of-Modernism opening of the mind to certain new themes, and the questioning of old values, while in style, they still more or less stick to the Victorian conventions (though Victorian is not really correct in this case, because it's an American novel) ... but it reminds me of Virginia Woolf's earliest novels (which, by the way, I'll definitely have to re-read soon) and that is a good thing.

I still owe the blog the latter 2 thirds of my Paris account, but this will be done, as I mentioned, with the help of the photos - and they have to wait till tomorrow at least.