Summarizing Summer

Well, whooa. Time really flies. So many things have happened within past six months or so. I didn't really manage to blog about them, but maybe now it's finally time for some summarizing. I'm sitting in a truck in Aesch waiting for it to move. Destination London. The load is not quite ready yet, so I have some time to kill here :-).

I've really been on the move lately. I connected with this Swiss choreographer, Alexandra Bachzetsis and therefore I've toured quite a lot recently. Interesting places and few first ones.

dOKUMENTA 13
I did a design for Alexandra's new project in May and the first touring destination with that was dOKUMENTA 13 in Kassel in the beginning of June. A huge event that lasts something like three or four months and fills the whole town with variety of art. We performed with "Etude" on the opening of the expo.

The main things that I remember about dOKUMENTA and Kassel is not art related in any way. The first thing tht comes to mind is the fact that it was cold like in freezer there. The second week of June and I had to buy a pullover from C&A in order to not to freeze myself to death! Brrrhh...

Another thing that is strongly in my memories about Kassel is this brilliant Asian restaurant just next to the Brüderkirche. Went there few times and got always very delicious food. Yummies!

I did some exploration on the art turf too. Met finally M.A. Numminen, famous Finnish musician, in person and fell in love with some South-East Asian kinetic paintings. But to be honest, I mostly felt a little bit disappointed about the selection. dOKUMENTA is supposed to be very prestiguos, but lot of stuff was just plain boring in my opinion.

Finland
I was all in all five weeks in Finland this summer. I was hoping to catch a phenomenal heatwave like the summer 2011 (when I was NOT in Finland), but rats ass, didn't happen. It was basically raining most of the time.

My friend Regine, from Basel, came visit me for a week. I got play the official tourist guide for her first time in Fin. Some real basic stuff like picking berries in the forest, cruise on a lake, smoke sauna etc. All first time ever experiences for her :-).

There was also a wedding of my longest time friend Leila. I was maid of honor and we put together really cool bachelorette party for her. Took her to this spa and entertainment center in Vantaa. Some nice and relaxing treatments, glow bowling for action, tasty Mexican dinner and finally some serious karaoke in the night club. She seemed to enjoy it and I suppose so did the rest of us too.

This year I also managed again to go see the national championships of fireworks. Me and few friends huddled on a cliff in Meilahti on a crisp September evening. This something like a tradition to me and I always try to go see this competition if only I am in the country. There is usually 4-5 teams and they all have composed a choreography of the effects to a four-minute piece of music.

Moscow
I was twice in Moscow within two months. I've neer been anywhere in Russia before.

Moscow really blew me away. It was quite amazing to see for real all those places which one knows from the school history books and documentaries. Moscow was huge and spacious, 4-lane avenues leading into the heart of the city. The red Kreml streching over for hundreds of meters. The statues of Yuri Gagarin, Lenin and Marx. Everything is big there; the cars, jewels, botox and hairdos. Only the famous Red Square seemed insignificant towards all the expectations I had.

Moscow seems definitely socially to be all about status symbols and machoism. The penis extensions are present everywhere. Bigger and shinier cars, Rolexes, diamonds. The city also has everything. You name it, they for sure got it. The only question is if you can afford it. All the western labels and branches are there, only the price is approximately three times higher.

It all also seems to be important to an average higher class Russian. It's crucial to be able to show one's wealth and means. More over so than anywhere in western Europe. Everybody is better groomed in public than we in the west are. In the night-club all the ladies are wearing a dress with (insanely) high heels and 90 percent of them also have a proper hairdo with curls and works. It seems to be expected of you by the society, but it also seems to be something that the girls wanna carry on. They do seem more feminine and sublime. Which is not completely wrong. Sometimes it's good to remember that you actually are a female and dress up, ditching the rugged jeans to the bedroom floor when going clubbing.

All this is of course my personal assumption and you may have a different opinion. No offense meant to anybody. And I'm not saying that I wouldn't like Russia or the people there. Only that this first experiences really had an impact on me and that it was very different from what I was expecting.

And anyhow, the chow over there is brilliant!! Let alone, Beluga vodka :-).

Now the truck is finally moving and it's getting really wobbly. So catch you guys later.

Gone trucking. To be continued....