28 August 2015

the best way to find something new is to get lost

The wonderful thing about following someone else's blog about their trip, for example, https://reallynotlost.wordpress.com/ from Vicky Brown and her husband, is that you get to see some of the same things you've seen from different eyes, things you've always wanted to see but haven't, and things you can't imagine why they whizzed right on by. In a reallynotlost post from a day or two ago, they whizzed right by Basel on their way from Strasbourg to Luzern. How could they not stop to see the Beyeler Foundation or Vitra Design Museum? To say nothing of the many museums in Basel? Or look at the Mario Botta buildings? But then I've never been to Strasbourg to say nothing of Karlsruhe. Oh, you say they wanted to see the mountains.

When Vicky and Andy were in Brussels, they were loving the mix of buildings just like I do.
Their hotel was even not too far from where my rented apartment was, near the Central Station and Palace of Justice. I could tromp for many more days on the streets of Brussels than in the Swiss mountains. Each to his own (of course) and it might be different if my daily setting was totally urban.

The subject line for this post is the text from a bumper sticker from Scouting New York which is stuff found by Nick Carr, a location scout in New York City who shares his findings with us even if we're not looking for an event place or movie/TV setting.

You may not know where I've been lately since I haven't blogged for a while. I guess the March road trip and May Cuba trip posts wore me out but I have gone back and read them again and am filled with memories in spite of the NY Times essay on how video and cameras spoiled the family vacation and on whether you remember better by taking a picture. One cited study was on folks in an art museum: one group was supposed to go look at some works; the other group was supposed to take a picture of some works. The lookers had way better memories of their works. Not surprising to any of us who have watched museum visitors read the whole label, take a picture of the art, and move on to the next object. The internet does, by the way, know where I was not so long ago. I keep getting adverts for the Maine Coast Heritage Trust. The advert popped up on the NY Times and Scouting NY websites when I was checking for URLs. Does it know I posted those pictures from my late July trip?

One evening in Maine, we drove to Haystack to hear Maira Kalman speak. I was selected to be driver since it would be after dark even though I am less familiar with the roads. I studied the map but I got totally turned around (and turned around again) and would have gotten totally lost but I probably would have found something wet rather than new. The roads twist and turn because of hills and seacoast.