You own a workshop in Zürich

Far, but possible

3.5 Zürichsee

3.4 Proper and Well-Done

And the sign was right. Stepping his foot for the first time in Switzerland, all he wanted was something to fill his stomach. A bratwurst vendor was seen in the middle of the Hbf. The guy selling bratwurst greeted him in three different hellos: Deutsch, French and English. He ordered in Deutsch just to test himself. The price was not that affordable even for a good bratwurst, but it was served with a good multigrain brötchen and senf so he could not complaint for more. People here just did not understand how to things badly, everything was so proper and well-done. If he ever wanted to settle down, here is the place to be.

Having had an original cheese fondue, although not originated from Zürich, nothing could beta the delight of dipping a Swiss bread into a hot cheese at Friburg Fondue Stübli. The after taste was probably the most pleasurable after all the meal he ever had.

Amsterdam Nom Nom

Incubated croquette paradise - FEBO

Dutch breakfast

Stroopwafel 

Pancake

Hagia Sophia

Photos by Aditya Pradana 

Hagia Sophia was once an Orthodox basilica, once a mosque, once a cathedral for the Greeks, and once was a Roman Catholic cathedral. There is a lot of story going on there, merged under one dome - a pendentive dome that is.

Spot the history under the dome

 

Architecturally speaking, it has one of the largest domes in the world, just second after Pantheon in Rome. The special thing about it is that the dome is pendentive, which means it is a circular (or elliptical) dome sitting on a square room. The easiest way to imagine a pendentive is to project the circular surface onto the corners of a square.

It is considered as one of the essence of Byzantine architecture, marking the glory of that era. Imagining the structure was built around the 6th century, it is pretty amazing that some of the artworks are still well-preserved. Here is one gold mosaic, in which if you look closely was built upon approximately one by one centimeter square tiles. Oh the labor of art! And mind you, this is just one wall of the whole Hagia Sophia. Similar to this, there is also St. Mark's Basilica in Venice which was built during the Byzantine era too, so they have some similarities in terms of style and aims. I suppose one of the objectives of it was to flaunt the glory of the empire and that could almost be felt throughout the styling of objects, like  weapons, clothes, cutlery, weapons, and of course jeweleries. The amount of ornamentation pretty much tells the story.

I agree with the notion of recording and documenting ideas. I think, they are virtuous things to do, for you would be able to have your own keepsake of a place and to share it with others. The idea of preserving moments is one thing that really enjoy doing, especially during my travel. Important enough for me to record things through drawings, photos and writings as well as to embrace the presence of what is palpable through my senses. Nevertheless, do not get too carried away recording things, as some things can only be appreciated in situ. There are just things that belong at where they are and not meant to be shelled through lenses or pages of a book.

Hezarfen

Have you ever heard about a story of a man named Hezarfen? He was one of the clever men who lived in the era of Sultan Abdulmecid (1829-1861) of the Ottoman Empire. Flying was his thing, he had a thing about making things fly, and decided one day that he would try to fly himself.

Here is the sight of what he was looking at when he was about to fly:

A view from Galata Tower (Asia is on your right side)

The flight was planned to depart from Galata Tower, the tallest construction there was in old Istanbul, across the Bosphorus, to Üsküdar, a region in the Asian part of Istanbul. The track was in the correlation of 39:1 of distance to height. He put on some wings and jumped off from the top of Galata Tower. He succeeded and then all of a sudden people were praising him. The Sultan heard of him and invited him to the palace. Hezarfen was glad to come and see the Sultan for he thought that he would be granted some sort of gifts. Indeed, the Sultan gave him a bag of gold coins but to his surprise, the Sultan then told him to go away to a distant land, I suppose because he was somehow a threat for the Sultan.

∴ Be clever, but more importantly, be clever enough to place yourself. 

Yeni Camii

In front of The New Mosque

Istanbul, Turkey

Galata Bridge

Various views from Galata Bridge

Where we had our grilled fish sandwich

Turkey felt much like Indonesia. The similarity was how you could sense that it was still very much a developing country from the infrastructure and the way people behaved. There were different parts of Istanbul where you can really feel the discrepancy: there was definitely the gap between the rich and the poor. However, the city was pretty clean - quite unexpected to me - and the transportation was pretty well done. The people could sometimes be very pushy and annoying especially in the touristic areas (very imaginable in Indonesia too). They did not want to do you any harm, they just wanted to make a living. At night and early morning, girls were the rarest scene to be seen on the streets of Istanbul. Although it is a neutral country now, the Muslim root is still palpable, especially in the old part of the city. That was why I got hit and followed by guys there because apparently there were not so many other girls wandering around in the morning just before the sun rises. There were tourist traps in the city, so it was to your intelligence that you could outsmart those unnecessary expenditures. Have dinner somewhere else, not around Sultanahmet, for you could get better food for better price somewhere else.

Copenhagen

One the 4th of January 2012, we arrived in Copenhagen after an overnight bus ride from Prague via Dresden, Berlin, and Hamburg. We hopped on the bus at 18:00 and arrived at 06:30 the next day. How happy we were to find ourselves stranded in Copenhagen, for people are ever the nicest and the happiest in the world. 

 

My highlight in Copenhagen was perhaps going to Louisiana. It was simply the best Contemporary Art museum. That was how I felt. We saw everyone's from Klee to Ai Wei Wei. The collection was just amazing!

"Only through making choices can things be achieved and consequently changed"

- Ai Wei Wei 

 

Oh and also the Royal Library was one of the best joy. I think I have talked about it enough to bore people, but I adored it so much that I would not mind staying there just inside the library.

Since we were there, we had to say hi to the mermaid. Polypocket-size mermaid that was. I did not realize how tiny she is for people were so excited to walk along the way to say hi to her. Therefore I made two copies of her just for exaggeration.

Muzeum Montanelli

Muzeum Montanelli, Prague, Czech Republic.

Atschel

French onion soup

Frankfurter Schnitzel

Schweinshaxe

Photos by Aditya Pradana. And so the journey around Europe started with good food, like an athlete preparing for his competition the next day. Except, we did not burn that much calories. The best German food I have ever had for the whole time I was there. If you are somewhere around Frankfurt, you definitely have to go to this place in Sachsenhauser, named Atschel. Definitely the best.

Zürich Localities

A Distant Place from Home x Whiteboard Journal

Traveling was like a dream to her. She saw things she had never seen before, touching things she would only see on the World Wide Web, meeting people she thought only exist in her mind. All of those above occurred during a half sabbatical year, spent mostly in a small city called Hildesheim with fellow exchange students from across the universe.

“A bunch of interesting creatures,” she thought. Not saying that she was not weird enough to be in the coterie.

Some say exchange students study not, only enjoy the excess fun of their travels. Well, she did a bit of study for she enjoyed playing around with arc torch and band saw. Metal flowed like a stream, saw dust flew like a tornado, silkscreen stood in between paint and the white space.

If culture is better experienced, then she could not think of any better ways to do it than to experience it in person. She traveled with no expectation but came back with a thousand stories to share. Who would have thought that half a year of holiday would be so challenging - indeed very eye-opening. It was half a year of collecting ideas and harvesting experiences. The happiest thing was probably riding her bike along the river, across the woods, into the wild, under the sun.

Dare you to put your life on hold for six months and slowing down your pace? She suggested dropping all your possessions for it means nothing compared to the joy of being young and restless. Take all the fuss away, do the paperwork, get yourself lost from your well-planned track. Mind you, do not get too wasted - or you might if you have worked hard, therefore go and enjoy your prize. Being present was the most important thing, for she would not waste a second of her life in the “land of poets and thinkers."

Brezel, bratwurst, and beer, with love she takes you on a journey to a distant place from home from the perspective of 1450mm from the ground. Not everything you will see is entirely true, for it is you to judge what is relevant and real to the self.

Read the full story

A Distant Place From Home

Having been away from home too long - for wherever home is - it is the time to report back from a half-year study in Germany, a couple of short trips, and a concise one month of Europe travel. Too much has been experienced, too much to be shared. Many of those are still kept in the dark place called film rolls, ready to be developed and hatched to the paradoxical land, the world that is. I don't know why I am so narrative lately, perhaps of the many books I consumed during the free times of getting from A to B.

Anyway. You will get what I mean in a short while.