Friday, March 2, 2012

A Hot Day Out


It's been hot lately, really hot, but it didn't stop me from going out yesterday.  I wanted to see the Matisse Exhibit at the GoMA and so, I packed up my new bag and took off into the city by bus and did just that!
However, as I approached the large building, I found masses of school kids; absolute groups of them.  And I began to count them to see how many I was going to be amongst; and lost count at 16!  From primary schools to high schools, they were all here looking and talking about and sketching some of his works.  All of these kids were getting a better education than I did when I went to school.  I don't remember going to an art gallery to be taught about art at their age as a school excursion.  But I do remember being taken out to a farm near Ipswich and being shown all the different types of erosion there was around... yay, fun!  It wasn't as enjoyable as an air-conditioned, large building full of art and history like this place.  And to add onto the buses full of uniformed children, I found the place bursting at the seams with the public!  Matisse turned out to be more popular than I thought; and this was just for his drawings!  Seeing there was no photography allowed, I took out my notebook and started taking notes about his life, who influenced him, who he worked with and how he lived.  If you'd like to know more, I'm going to do a full write-up on A Natural Background on what it was like at that the gallery.  After I did a 2 - 5 minute sketch of a statue there, I bought some bookmarks and left the large place - which felt as though it had become markedly smaller.  It was real struggle to get outside!  So many people were trying to leave while even more were trying to get inside... and I felt suffocated until I was outside.
Once out in the sun and the heat, I smsed Will, a friend who I had chatted to that morning about catching up.  He didn't reply, so I said that I'd meet him at the lizard soon.  Once there, I found he wasn't.  So, I called him and he had fallen asleep... oops... and told me to meet him somewhere else.  I spotted the bookstore he took me to a few weeks back and told him there. I must have looked at every single book in there twice before I decided to take off and get myself a coffee at 'Rapture' - a little bohemian place off Boundary Street.  I was sitting there for about 10 minutes with a cool book - 'A New Earth' by Eckhart Tolle - when Will showed up.  I was drinking the best ice coffee I have ever tasted when he sat down; and he looked tired.  But we chatted about the exhibition and I showed him the bookmarks I had bought there and told him how many people there were.
Before long, I had finished my drink and we were off next door to the crystal shop.  When we opened the door, I found this place was full of crystals of all sizes and at all price ranges.  I loved this place.  We got chatting to the owner and then looked at the crystals and stones; amazed at some of them and wishing we could afford them.  About an hour later, we left and walked to Grill'd - around the corner - for something to eat.  We both ordered hot chips and chatted about all kinds of things; from what was in the paper that day (which was nothing of interest to us) to traveling to how we got our scars to music, we talked and laughed and ate the piping hot chips.  Before long, it was time to walk to the bus stop at the old Museum and Art Gallery.  On the way there, we chatted - which made this walk all the more shorter - and we didn't really want to part, but had to.  We had different buses to catch which took us to different places.  So, while he caught one that took him to the Gabba, I caught the 555 that would take me to Garden City and beyond.  
I got to Garden City and went to grab a bottle of water - my second one for the day - and by the time I came back, my bus had arrived.  However, the school kids were right up there waiting to be let on first.  The bus driver had other plans.  He stood at the door - after the people on the bus had gotten off - said that adults were to board first before students.  And so, all us adults got to get on board the bus and found a seat first while most of the students were forced to stand up.  Now, that's the advantage of not being a school student these days; you get to have a seat on the buses.  
I got home at around 4:30pm and I was absolutely stuffed!  I didn't know what I wanted to eat, so made myself a basic pasta dish without tomatoes (didn't want to have the acid bugging me all night) and ended up turning off the television at 9:30pm and getting to bed by 10:30pm or so.  However, my Hotmail account crashed (as it has for hundreds of others over the last 24 hours) and so I thought to leave it alone for a while and see if it can be fixed by them over in the US... if not, I'll keep bugging them on Facebook.  Until my next post, take care, keep warm and safe and remember I'm always here. 

1 comment:

  1. I haven't even checked on my email account to see if I can log on there or not.

    ReplyDelete