Travel with me to ITALY - FASHION, FOOD AND MOUNTAINS

in #travel5 years ago (edited)

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Today you get a loosely written "diary" about my trip to Tuscany. I recently discovered and deepened my interest in fashion from the beginning of the 20s to the 60s. So don't be surprised that I mix it with my holiday in Italy. But Italy and fashion are close together, aren't they?

source - By Clinton Pettee The cover picture evokes associations of colonial times and ladies and gentlemen with hats, walking sticks as well as tropical helmets and explorers entering new territories. I like the romanticizing aspect, the adventurous images that touch part of my childhood when I first saw a Tarzan film in black and white. I am aware that all this is an artificially melancholic cinematic world, but I like to indulge in it.

It is interesting to come back and then meet friends and family who ask you "what it was like". I noticed: I have little to tell.

My vacation was unspectacular from the experience factor point of view. I noticed a slight disappointment about the lack of adventure aspect of my trip. Not that I personally think I have experienced too little. No, it's more about entertaining my fellow world and being able to tell something interesting or even exciting. A story, an episode of interest. After all, I love stories and feed mostly on them.

There is a tendency to only want to experience the pleasant. But the truth is that the unpleasant is far more exciting. Whenever we are somewhere else, outside our usual existence, we pay more attention to what is unusual. You also become aware of the unpleasant things. And when I choose the exaggeration in my thoughts and imagine that the journey would have cost me no effort nor endeavour, a journey bedded on feathers, exposed to all amenities: Then why travel at all?

We took the car train from Düsseldorf to Verona in Italy.

It would have been more convenient to board the train in Hamburg, but it was already fully booked. And, it's a disturbance worth mentioning, like I said.

view from out of the riding train

So my sweetheart and I drove the three-hour trip to Düsseldorf. I've only been to the airport in this city so far and my goodness, Düsseldorf is ugly!
I have rarely seen a less interesting city. Of course I saw only a small part of it and my judgement is completely irrelevant. Nevertheless, I found this ugly part of the neighbourhood somehow exciting and it served as a wonderful topic of conversation. The contrast to the beautiful Tuscany could not have been greater. The area behind the main station housed a kind of attempt to create a park for children. The only thing that could be seen, however, was a large burnt, undulating lawn with some playground equipment that was not visited under the burning sun. Behind them tall buildings without any esprit. I felt a tingling rejection of such an uncharming environment.

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ugly site - but maybe you like it?

Then the loading onto the car train.

I would not have thought that car trains still run at all and Deutsche Bahn has also sold this business division to a private provider. On the contrary, this way of travelling is very popular and from here to Italy you have to book a year in advance. We could be glad to still get tickets. It can't be because of the price, because train travel including a car is very expensive.

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the finally loaded car train

Our train attendant also told us that most of the customers are regulars. We probably won't be, but I can understand that people think nostalgically of the Orient Express. Unfortunately the train ambience is missing and no dining car and also no other feeling of Agatha Christis spirit was granted to us. Since I've just fallen into vintage madness, I missed it of course and I wouldn't have had anything against a little chic and a cosy place at a dining table with white linen.

source - By WLDiffusion - Own work
Instead we made do with an instant coffee and the same plastic breakfast packs the next morning. In the evening a tasty meal from the potato salad ration we had brought with us. My romantic idea of having dinner in the dining car and being rocked to sleep by the rattling of the train also did not correspond to reality. For reasons I could not understand I hardly closed an eye although the couches were quite comfortable and superior to a one thousand four hundred kilometres long car journey.

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someones Old Timer who also loves the roaring 20s

But let me rewind and stick to present tense.

I go ahead and make myself comfortable in the compartment, because I leave boarding the car to the man. It's an ancient train, probably from the 60s or 70s, I remember it from my childhood. I am surprised and delighted, because it brings back memories of past journeys. The train is as hot as an oven and the compartments smell of 50 years of use. I hear a British couple passing by and the woman saying to her husband: "Oh, look, aren't the wagons quite old-fashioned?"

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our little cabin for the next hours to come

The two hadn't booked their own couchette compartment so they have to share it with two other people. I really feel sorry for the lady and am almost ready to ask her into our compartment and give it to them, because in fact I couldn't think of anything worse than spending the night with strangers in a tight couchette compartment. I don't do it and I don't express the thought either. Instead I get into conversation with the couple.
I love Englishmen! I like their accent and their way of expressing themselves. They notice my interest in them. And I even get a borrowed book because I completely forgot to pack one. It is a collection of poems. How fitting, I grin inside.

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typical narrowness in a train

Our train attendant is a hands-on fellow and gives us some comfort, even preference. I don't know what we deserve that with. I think he has chosen me for the journey as a kind of interesting female figure and my man and I often have this happiness, I think it is because we are not people who complain immediately.

self portrait - above me some pillows

During the night we unfold our beds and look out of the moving train at the changing landscape. The river Rhine is our companion over a long distance and compared to the barren north of Germany it is a feast for the eyes. Vineyards and beautiful nature touch our view.

Arrived in Verona, we drive the next morning further by the country. We are amazed by insanely long stretches and tunnels, high bridges. Unbelievable to build these tunnels through the mountains, what an effort and what a technology!

We reach our destination in the early afternoon and are warmly welcomed by our Italian host family.

The house we have rented is situated high in the mountains and we have a wide view of the landscape below us. The price was the serpentines. It is very hot.

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our temporary home and garden - couple of houses in Dimezzano which belongs to Lucolena, a very small village up in the hills

On the table we find a bottle of wine, a can of sweets and fresh homemade pieces of pizza with vegetables to eat cold. Gratitude flows through us. Our hosts know how to do it. The house is old, very old. As they tell us later, from the Middle Ages, and very dark. The ground floor, where the kitchen is located, has a huge fireplace, exudes gothic coolness and I immediately see that I will avoid this room.

I find rooms without light depressing. But my man likes it. Upstairs we have two bedrooms and the bathroom. In the niche, separated by a curtain and right next to the stairs an emergency children's room, a tiny alcove with a bunk bed. It remains unused. There are only two of us. The second door at the top leads to the veranda and from there Lorenzo, the son of the house, shows us the rest of the property. We climb higher up, where a big table and a huge parasol invite us. Next to it there are more niches under the trees, seats and deckchairs. The view is getting better and better.

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entrance into the second story from our terrace

We soon see the rich insect life as we are surrounded by garden and forest, mountains and even more forest. Pigeon tails attract our attention just like the small lizards everywhere. I think the lizards are very sweet. The pigeon tails are a curious mixture of hummingbird and insect, similar to a bee. They are numerous here and can be observed at close range. At night I get lots of visitors from mosquitoes and nothing protects against them. I get stung everywhere during the two weeks and get big red itchy bumps on my skin, which I scratch on. I soothe with the juice of ginger and disinfect as best I can.

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here I sip my morning espresso

We manage to explore the places around us. I say "manage" because driving up and down the hills is no fun. I get car sick ever so often and whenever we return to our temporary home I swear never to leave again! The next day, though, I am ready for a new ride to somewhere else.

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views and memories from Castelfranco di Sopra / La Capraia Agriturismo destination high up - twenty years ago I stayed here

Our destination is not far from Florence and Siena, it almost lies in the middle. We belong to the countryside of Chianti and the nearest town is Greve. Through Figline we catch the train to Florence. Actually our first attempt to get there fails. We are getting told that a fire at the main station in Florence causes delays all day. We decide not to make the trip and instead head towards Arezzo. Big mistake. I get car sick.

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In the courtyard of a church. My face shows some exhaustion.

In Arezzo we dare to leave the car in the sun as we cannot find a shaded parking spot. I fear climbing back in. Of course, it's noon time and nobody who is in his mind walks around in the heat. The market place is abandoned and we feel like walking through ghost town.

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Nobody around but us. We take a snack in the only opened bar with air condition - right under the arcades!

Two days later we make it to Siena. But as the temperatures climb up a new record - 38 degrees! - we carry ourselves heavily through the narrow streets, inspect the market place and the ancient buildings in a tired manner and decide shortly after only, maybe two hours, to leave.

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Siena market place

I arrive sick and exhausted at home and lay down. And we had not fed ourselves! Right before we are about to cook dinner - with the little left overs we possess - Mama Laura knocks at our door and hands over two dishes! One big plate of home made pasta and a bowl full of Couscous! We can't believe how lucky we are! We thank her thousand times. Next day at Greve - distance is bearable - we decide to buy her a pot with begonia flowers as a gesture of gratitude.

It's already Saturday and the weekly market opens for locals and visitors. We stroll through the stands - early still - and enjoy the offers.

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I am on the hunt for garments and hope for finding a nice piece of fabric to sew a skirt or blouse. I find instead a tailors scissors for a very good deal. Had I told you to take my sewing machine with me? I did. But sadly the kitchen is so unpleasant to stay in that I do not once unpack my machine as I truly dislike the dark room downstairs and have no other table to sew on. Neither do I sketch anything, my sketchbook buried under some stuff in the sleeping room. So much for plans.

But of course I find an obsession as always. I watch numerous vintage hair style tutorials on youtube - one must do something recovering from sickness. Yes, Internet even far away in the mountains. In Greve I ask for a shop which sells foam rollers.

I succeed and buy three packs different sizes, all together 36 pieces but I still am not sure if that is enough for the mass of my hair. I have lots of hair and they are not easy to style. I smile sourly at the females presenting the techniques to form their hair into Vintage fashion as they have it much easier compared to me. But I am eager to try and complete a style.

After all, we are in Italy, the land of fashion and beautiful women. During our stay I see a lot of females dressed in elegant, even unusual clothing, in particular the more matured ones who have found their style and do not care whether it's suitable or not to wear high heals and tight skirts. I like this attitude cause the women radiate some pride and even arrogance but for some reason I must smile at them.

Through WhatsApp Lorenzo informs us that his parents want to invite us to dinner. A friend from Canada is visiting and we are asked to meet him and some friends. We seem to be special guests to them and realize during our stay that it's probably unusual to book for a total of two weeks, like we did. Though this is a very fine and generous gesture I wish that we would have split our stay, spending the second week in a valley. But then nothing of that kind would have happened.

Happily we agree on being there at eight in the evening. Before, we make a trip to Vinci, the birth town of Leonardo da Vinci. I remember my first visit twenty years ago. It was a quiet and lovely place.

But everything changed in between and we get lost. Finally a police car comes our way and we ask for directions. The carabinieri tell us "no problemo!" and wave us to follow them. Mistake. They drive like it's about to win a race and some very steep serpentines later we arrive at the museum where you can admire da Vinci's artworks. I am barley able to think, so sick I am. In the museum, I recover a little bit and of course, cannot resist to place my face next to the Mona Lisa. LOL. My man seemed to be sucked into the paintings.

he calls this picture "animal porn" - look at the little babies who come out of their shells :)

view from a high spot of Vinci, birth town of Leonardo da Vinci

In Florence we plan our route outside the tourist streams.

Except for the Ponte Vecchio and the Cathedral. There are long queues around the whole building waiting for admission. We save that. I myself have already visited the Duomo and no desire for it.

just a tiny peace of the huge Duomo

Instead, we eat in a small restaurant around the corner and then walk my route: I have researched five vintage shops that are all nearby and there I am drawn. My man patiently waits outside or sits quietly in a corner and watches things. No problem at all, because we get to know the local corners and city life just as well.

Unfortunately, there are no photos, I only make a small video, which I do because I am impressed by the aesthetic feeling: chocolate cascades running down. I glimpse it running by a shop and can't resist to take the impression. What a luxury, what a representation of wealth and reconciliation of human appetites. I cannot show it and don't know if I will take up the effort to convert it into youtube. Probably not. Stick with your imagination:)

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We lick delicious Italian ice cream and most Thrift shops have lunch break. I enter a store that looks interesting and as it turns out it is run by a seamstress. I buy a reduced light coat. A unique specimen. I am happy about this opportunity and a light chat with the shop owner. She tells me that she came to Florence from Sicily and has been running her shop there ever since. Says we better come out of season. Her name carries my country.

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Tuscany lives from its history and architecture. At some point I realize I'm getting a little tired of seeing so many old towns and the past is beginning to bore me.

The eye gets used to beauty surprisingly fast and so we talk about the Florence train station on the way back. At first sight an extremely ugly box building. But also with an interesting background from an architectural point of view.

source: By Freepenguin - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5232723

we are crossing the river over a bridge next to Ponte Vecchio

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I think Florence should not always give its visitors what they expect. Little surprising, little new is to be seen. But maybe you have to get out of the old town, who knows. But I suspect that the Florentines and other tourist attractions have specialised in preserving the past. But I wouldn't have been bothered by some disturbers who shake up the overall picture a bit. That counts for the rest of Tuscany.

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Even the menus offer somehow the same things in different variations, I am probably spoiled by Germany, which has a rich multicultural cuisine and many different culinary nations can be found here. We are just an immigrant country. The rest of Tuscany is so wooded and mountainous that there is not much new to build. You can be grateful for that. But I am somehow not used to the fact that there is so little possibility to avoid the usual routes. One is somehow stuck there, is my occasional impression. As I come from the north of my country and although space is really scarce here, but not for the eye, my attitude towards life is that of more freedom, as the landscape is not limited by elevations. It is flat and could be considered boring. But you can go somewhere else for that, can't you:)

In fact, I find the flat country, now that I'm here again, much more attractive than before. As always, you have to move away to appreciate from that distance what you take for granted. Driving a car, for example, is really much easier here. I now know why I liked the west of the USA so much. There are so incredibly wide and endless stretches that just go straight ahead and are only interrupted by a few bumps.

There would be more to tell, like how we got into a party after dinner in Greve, where we danced with the celebrants in the market place and a Life Saxophone player of extraordinary beauty pleased our eyes and ears. Or I could describe the characters of the dinner guests and tell a little more about the host family. But I think it reaches as far as here and the pictures are quite vivid.

See you soon, dear ones!

At the end just some more photographs in lose order:

below: funnily built house in Florence

Second Hand shop "Melrose" in Florence near the main station

below: random shop which, of course, I had to photograph

building in Verona, our very last station before heading back home

left: Confectionery in Verona

right: back home - pencil skirt - maybe from the 50s (?) and blouse in matching color stripes which I bought decades ago and never found a combination to wear with!

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Thank you. I thought I wouldn't get to visit Italy again, and now I have. I went briefly with a friend in '68 and again with my mother in '72. We didn't see Tuscany, but loved everything we did see.
You capture the mood, the sense of travel well. The meandering style of your narrative is very suited to a relaxing summer vacation. It's not all consuming sites, but rather soaking up experience.
I love the pictures you include of yourself.
BTW...I remember Dusseldorf. Just there for an afternoon in 2000. But I recall vaguely a magnificent harbor, and great bustle of activity. I very much enjoyed my travels in Germany...except for Ulm. The city was beautiful but the people seemed to be in a bad mood :)).
Welcome back. If you have more pictures, share them. Vicarious travel is almost as much fun as actual travel
Regards,
AG

It's my pleasure having caused you to enjoy this little Italy excursion. Wasn't sure if the spirit was coming through. Good, that you restored Düsseldorf's reputation a little bit :)) I was making fun out of it again on our journey back.

My brother lived in Ulm for about a year and I visited once. Can hardly remember anything but the house he was renting back in the middle of the 90s. LOL! "people in bad mood"! Thanks for the laughter! You truly have a connection to Germany and us Germans.

Yeah, I dared to show myself more than I was doing throughout my stay here. Privacy is a keyword but ... you know, I think the Internet already "got me" anyways. :)

This vacation was mostly exciting because of the train traveling part. I did that almost 30 years ago.

Where have you been in Italy? How nice, you were there with your mother.

I have loads of pictures but don't know what else to do with them ... maybe just posting more?

Love, your friend Erika

Do post more. I would love to see them and I think others would, also. You always have interesting commentary with your photos.

Travel by train...I love to do that in Europe, not so much in the US. I'm not sure why. Maybe the trains aren't so nice, or maybe because on European trains I get to listen to chatter in unfamiliar languages and observe customs that are new to me. The train becomes an important part of the cultural experience.

In '68 I traveled with my sister's friend, who had free time. I was a student at NYU. We had very little money, so went on a true shoestring budget for the summer. It was a strange trip. We spent most of our time in Cadiz, Spain and visited Rome only briefly on our way home. The second trip, in '72, was quite different. I let my mother call the shots. In Italy, she wanted to see the Vatican and Venice, and so that's what we did. Trains everywhere, of course. I think that trip turned into a very unusual experience and may be worth a blog. I will save the remarkable parts (yes, remarkable, even historic) for the blog 😎 Thanks for the inspiration to write it!!

I'm looking forward to another travel blog from you, with more pictures.

I hope you are refreshed from your journey and ready for the more mundane challenges of everyday life.
Love,
Your NY friend,
AG

Oh, yeah, do that. I am glad that you are thinking of writing about your journey with your mother. That interests me very much, all the more with the history behind it. When you made your journeys, I wasn't even in the world or two years old :) Unimaginable!

I picked out some more photos, but I don't know what to write about them yet. Let's see.

Warm greetings and kisses!

Actually, I would have upvoted your great article, but it's already too old so that I decided to reward one of your comments instead. :)

Oh, that got me by surprise! Thank you very much!! Glad, that you liked it. :-D

Wow! Food, beautiful scenery, a train journey & fashion! The photos are incredible. It's too bad your sketchbook didn't leave the room. Oh well, next trip/time!

Even though I knew of the high temperatures you guys endured it still smarted reading about it! My God!

I loved the train story with the English couple. I find English people quite amusing :)

Well Erika, thank you for taking us on this journey with you!

Much love from Portugal :*

My pleasure! I am happy that you commented here and found it interesting to read. Yeah, the English :) Actually I never have been in Great Britain, can you imagine? My man asked me where I would like to go and I told him: England. Maybe one day we will make it.

Have you ever made it to the Island?

Greetings to Portugal, my dear Abi!

I lived in London from 2005 to mid 2008 (studies). Then we returned in 2009 for sad reasons: a funeral :(. Last time we were there was in 2013 for nearly a month (that was a wonderful holiday!). We were planning to go next month, but we changed our minds :) We already had our holiday this year exploring Portugal with the family. I am still recovering from that! 😅

I would like to hear some of your experiences in London. Is it really so big and stressful there? I can't imagine to stay in such a huge city. The bigger they are the less one can escape or enter it. Whenever we leave Hamburg, it takes a while before it's losing it's grip on us and when we try to enter it, it refuses to let us in. Laughter! Sorry, I am silly.

Well, that is the rumor about London. And I can see why it can be so (so big and stressful) for a lot of people. But that was not the case for me. Big definitely not :) Especially when you come from a big capital Brazilian city. Stressful, well ... all the hustle and bustle on the tube, and some of the streets, the traffic, the multicultural environment ... I just embraced as part of the experience. And again, not that far off from any big capital city. With the exception of the cold :D

Lucky you :D Maybe my heritage comes through once in a while. I literally grew up in the wilderness and sometimes cities scare me. Masses of people make me uneasy. But I am not complaining. There are so much benefits to be in a metropolis, and I know one cannot have it all. "Embracing it as part of an experience" is the way to go, I totally agree :)

well well well, ... nothing and nuts and suddenly people start posting all over the place, i thought you ware gone (->@rudyardcatling btw if you remember) - and yesternight my autovoter picks up a post you made one month ago somehow (which is basically not possible unless the nodes send the wrong date in the post, which means the whole blockchain would be corruptible, which means , well ... the unspeakable ...) but lets blame that on the ghost in the machine or Drill, since here you are again.

You seem to be doing pretty well for yourself there, dearie :) travelling all across the globe, eating juicy sweets and seeing the sights :)

quite some difference from your extensive moralethics haha, but AFK-life , when available and affordable usually beats living in a borg cube ... glad to see you are ok.

Makes me long for Venice ... havent seen the rest of Italy yet though, but now a little through your eyes, thanks

But of course I remember, my best! I think I would have recognized your comment even if you hadn't revealed yourself. I thought I saw your bots at my last article? But it can also deceive me.

HaHa! Yes, I once enjoyed the good life to the full! Even if I sound like a spoiled woman, who has everything else, this is certainly not to be attributed to the last years but to a quite long life, in which I have experienced, seen and consumed many things. Often I was able to enjoy other people's wealth. My moral ethics, LOL, that can seem a little dense at times, but I hope not? If so, then I thank you for making me aware of it, I hope never to sound like sour morals. On the contrary, I find that pure luxury is very dull in the long run, but can be enjoyed at times and very rarely like a very good sip. That makes it all the more beautiful. I love luxury so that we don't misunderstand each other, but you shouldn't have it all the time, that ruins it for the occasions. So my gratitude also goes to the hardship and suffering, to the meagre and exhausting times that reveal the contrast so beautifully to me. Without the nausea and the heat and the mosquitoes everything would only have been half as exciting.

I don't know Venice and I've never been there. Tell me a little about it, will you? What did you do and experience there?
Quite certainly quite different than in a Borg cube :)

Greetings and: I love Shaun!

who doesn't love Shaun :p ... i'll keep the tales of venice for later because my RC is recharging slow and i need it for the daily post. I'm glad to see you're still around here and you still don't speak in "two polite words", lol
You don't sound like sour morals, you sound like conviction and like yourself, which is something a lot of people could just dream of i think as quite some would go for "what would someone else want to read and vote on " :p

Bots is a big word, if someone has five accounts and uses a third-party autovoter its autovoter, i use my gamezone-accounts and the remnants in some autovoter i wrote and run myself and it picks from accounts, not specific posts, mostly people, i hope who on average provide a piece of themselves and not just a quick link or actifict as default (not that i have any problem with that, a social network needs bulk and numbers to have any kind of global profile - something else some other people here don't seem to grasp yet but that's not my debate ... ) so its not really bots but i have more things running, if you call an automated thing that returns invalid amounts of steem or sbd a bot then i has one heh. The gamezones are just voting b/c otherwise its wasted sp but when it goes live (by 2050 or 2100) most of it would go to people playing who make "creative contributions" writing or drawing or sounding off or whatever about it(at least that's the intention in the long run) and it's used to provide "zone funds" to play with (as the @goldmanmorgan account is used to get "playcoin" to play with but its me, myself and i and all that programming, graphics, sound and what not takes time .. So :glad to hear from you, see you around , Erika ...
(i got a whole set of pictures from venice left although i only was there for four days, way not enough, but you know .. money ...) i'll see if i can dig some up later
(if i remember, i'm still a force of chaos) ... i guess that concluded the replies for today its REALLY charging slow omg

take caer !!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh, I said the word "bots" quite recklessly, I meant the Auto-Voter, I also set one up myself, but it was so long ago that I don't even know how to get to the site to make updates, because I forgot the name. LOL. So the ones I put on the list stay there forever, even if they don't blog anymore.

Assume that I blog something every now and then, because I love writing and can't live without it. I used to write for my hard drive or in a diary. I wonder if everything here on the Internet will still be there when my son grows up. Will he follow my tracks when I'm gone? I would find it interesting to track my parents on the world wide web and see where they left their tracks. And yet parents always remain a secret for their children.

But I'm not as active as I used to be - especially in commenting and finding new bloggers. At the moment I'm interested in more tangible things. So I have a stiff neck and tired limbs from all the sewing. Never thought that it could be so exhausting and now I can imagine why it is called "tailor's seat" and what a tailor used to be known for. You have to have infinite patience and the ability to sit and find the right way to sit and work. Otherwise you'll reap pain everywhere.

I haven't understood much of what you said about play zone and stuff. LOL.

From what I find is that youtube get's you more creative or similar platforms, where one has to edit and attach sound or voice overs - but still I am not complaining. Blogging has it's charm.

You too, take care.

it's all just media ... and i didn't take that wrong or anything, i actually have a small script here running on a small pc in the bedroom. All remnants from days where small pc's were an option for the lol of it i guess.
It's a way of expressing oneself , whatever the medium, some do paint and some do words and others sounds created but the most interesting stuff tends to be overall what comes directly from people's heads, even if nothing in the world after 150.000 years of modern humans and maybe a milliion (? not an archeologist) or more of predecessors, is still original as such but all a remix as we are
the product of environment and past experience. Some people pick from what they get, and some have it picked for them. Even with the best of intentions it's sometimes very hard not to be judgmental , subconsciously but well ... at the end of the day "the internet" is a frontface, and people already have at least five faces on the daily imo ... alone / outside in the mass / with close friends-relatives/ with acquaintance-distant family and well should i say "at work" ? heh or at whatever goes for that volunteering or whatever and the internet might be the sixth one

i personally get the feeling i need to take some distance because i find it taking up too much of my daily and there's more to life than steemit lol, on the other hand ...
is there? ;-)

Yes, it is! How wonderful that you say it so clearly, I like it when someone freely admits to having several faces. Indeed, indeed. I also wear an appropriate role and mask, depending on the situation and person and opportunity. It's a big theater we're playing and we better admit it instead of spreading artificial indignation about the attitudes and behaviour of people we run into or exchange via the Internet. I mix my time between relationship at work, in private and on the net.

And indeed, I am entirely in your opinion that there is more than Steemit. Just this morning I made a cut on wrapping paper for future sewing projects and I'm dressed and made up like the ladies from the 1940s who put on their clothes. I enjoy wasting my time seeing something new, learning something new or reviving something old, if you will. My knowledge of mathematics and my three-dimensional thinking are weak, I try to work against it with sewing and origami. Recently, I made a kimono and I climb in every evening and morning with pleasure to feel good and smell the fabric that I had put together for months with a few incense sticks. What a delight. There was a frugal and serious time in my life and certainly will be again. At the moment I enjoy the rich and superfluous very much.

In about an hour my sweetheart and I will visit a friend in the hospital. He is quite sick and I hope we can cheer him up a little.

See you around, alleycat!

time spent on experience is never wasted , @erh.germany , even if it's not always 'profitable' , i think that's exactly what the universe is doing , figuring out itself by trying all things it can come up with within the laws it's been provided (which are a bit more absolute than anything on paper so far it seems). Law of the vacuum, supply and demand, infinite expansion in limited space means smaller components lol ... (there i go again)

Maybe people who don't admit to it shouldn't be trusted until you get to see of those faces for yourself, as Watzlawick said "one can not not communicate" , those faces show, but not on the internet because there you have only the one = the screen with the smileys , althoug in some cases, or with impulsive people (like someone who's name we shan't mention here heh) it might show but on the other hand you have no way of knowing if it's something they WANT you to see, something they're trying to make you see, or something they're actually showing without knowing as you miss the most important part of communication : body language ... not everyone can read it as the word has been overtaking for several thousand years but it's still unmistakeably there. I'm sure it's one of the majors for FBI-grads and other obscure government sss... people :p ...

And well, who's gonna give you 10k facebook likes if your day looks like this :

IMG_20190818_152801.jpg

but unless you have the clout to make someone happy and able to eat doing that for you, it more than often should or in reality it will look like some pictures i won't be diggin up lol .(this one is today haha)
I was hoping to level up by tackling both chapter 1 ) the dishes from the weekend and chapter 2) the mopping of the floor but for some reason i didn't see the +1 level icon pop above my head ...

maybe next time and i'll need more xp here :)

although i'm pretty sure i know chapter 1 and 2 by heart. Love to see some of your creations then, i'm a sucker for vintage as i am for many things, really

Hope your friend pulls through there and maybe gets to level up some more too :D

see you around indeed , when time and kaos, happenstance, coincidence, brainpain and clarity permits (and yea, maybe life ... that thing ...)

safe to say those were days with a bit more leeway ... i think 2017 or 16 , i get unstuck in time and things might have been last year or ten years ago or sometimes yesterday it can be hard to discern

https://steemit.com/stuff/@rudyardcatling/by-popular-demand

@erh.germany

:) Can't happen to me, that I mix time. LOL. My man calls me the memory sheep.
I went over and looked at the photographs and enjoyed being with you for a while.

it can be just one big bowl of soup sometimes stirring around, well i'm happy you enjoyed them :) same goes for me, its always nice to dream away for a minute like that

That was very refreshing, thanks ! :)

Also, cheers.

Hey!! My pleasure. I miss you here on the platform. So many people left whom I got to know over time. ....

Oh, and apologies! I wasn't on discord for a long time and saw your message a few days ago. Was to reply but now that you are here, I do it now!

The warmest greetings to Poland and: Mam nadzieję, że miałeś miłe lato!

;-D

Don't worry, I might not be on a platform, but I'm still where it counts :)

I would love to answer in German, sadly I don't remember much more than Danke schön! Well...

:-D You are always good for a surprise!

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