Back

Ok, back from the break, finally. Bloody tiring week, though it was pretty interesting, all things considered.

I actually thought about some things I want to ramble about, and it was a fairly long list, so I'm going to list it, and work through it.

1) The break, obviously

2) My dream house

3) My writing style

4) People entering my world

Dammit, there was quite a lot more, but I seem to have forgotten. Ah well, I'll start with the break.

Whether people know it or not, I hopped off to Romania on this week long break. Absolutely gorgeous country. Not the pin-you-against-the-wall kind of beauty, but a more quiet sort. It's old, crusty, unpleasant, aggressive. That sort of beauty. Imagine what the landscape of, say, Beowulf might have been like, ideally. It was simply all mountains, rocky crags, forbidding forests. I loved it, but I don't want to live there. Some places are pleasant. This was not.

I've seen some places that are supposed to be beautiful, and some of them really are. Guilin was a Chinese painting come to life. Many Chinese paintings, in fact. Everywhere you look, there is a sight that is fully worthy of immortality. That is truly the definition of a beautiful landscape. There were mountains, rocks with interesting shapes, well-placed rivers, forests that looked like they were landscaped. Take every Chinese landscape painting you have ever seen, at least the pretty ones, and you will find something of the like in Guilin. Thoroughly pleasant experience.

It must be said though, that I got tremendously tired of the scenery after a while. On a cruise down the river, it was quite breathtaking to stand on the deck and admire the sights that presented themselves as you drift along. It does get a little tiring to keep having your breath taken away. Hard to get enough oxygen. So I ended up hanging out belowdecks playing cards.

Versailles was absolutely fantastic to look at. The gardens, at least. Exactly what I would imagine a gigantic landscaped garden would look like. I think that is more or less what I would do with a huge garden and felt like making it gorgeous. Vast manicured lawns, glittering canal, carefully maintained shrubs, dramatic statues coming out of the fountains. It was a fantasy fulfilled, just as Guilin was. Guilin was the ideal upon which the beauty of China was created. The gardens of Versailles were the realisation of the Western concept of beauty.

The Romanian countryside was a totally different archetype of beauty. It was the more savage Europe of old legend. Sure, there were cultivated fields, and houses all along the way. But the fields looked raw and unpolished, not the immaculate patchwork quilt of rural France. The houses were small and crude. I cannot imagine that the inhabitants of the little huts lead lives anything like the bucolic ideal invoked by the sight of the English countryside. The roads were mud tracks, carved out of the brush. Carts drawn by thin, weary horses ambled along, often trailed by dogs following their masters. The forests were thick, foreboding, not allowing the light to penetrate. There is sign of life within, but most likely whatever you see is a bear or wolf, the largest populations of which in Europe live among the trees of Romania. Looking into the forests, I did not feel that civilisation had any place in there.

I would never get tired of looking at the Romanian countryside. At the same time, I am not drawn to it, am not comfortable with it. Yes, comfort is the key issue here. I could turn my back on the sights of Guilin because I was comfortable with them. I felt familiar with the landscape, having had them embedded in my cultural consciousness. So when I felt that I had come to grips with it, had a clear handle on what the landscape was about, I could then accept it and live with it, including turning away from admiring it. I never quite felt that I knew the Romanian landscape well enough to leave it at my back. Even in the train leaving it, I sat in the dining car, surrounded by smoke, watching the mountains slide by until the rising dusk stole it from the windows.

So I would not want to live in the Romanian countryside, for it does not give me ease. Still, there is a savage sort of beauty to it. Not harsh, just not overly civilised, as Western Europe inevitably is. If Shanghai is a young woman, flaunting her newly blossomed wares, and Paris is a grand old dame, graceful in age and secure in privilege, then Romania is like a middle-aged man, who has worked the farms all his life, worn with the labour, dirt in every pore and line, but secure in the knowledge of his place in the world, in society, in heaven.

Alright, more on the subject later. Right now, I'm starving, so I'm off to find dinner. Coming soon, various interesting occurrences on the trip.