there has been a lot of travelling
apart from prague, I've also been in paris. I adore paris. I adore the spidery alleyways, the curlicues and wrought iron, the langour, the slatted windows, the leathery antique bookstores. I adore the lilt of the language, the tumble of cobblestones, the way fresh baguettes smell in morning sunshine. other cities in the world blare, clamour, insist, shout, parade. paris intimates. coming back into london from paris was like plunging into tar - especially since the eurostar (spitefully!!1!1!) cuts through the roughest parts of london en route to waterloo. even the south bank, which I generally love, seemed all wizened, a sterile diorama propped up against cardboard skies.
I do think the importance of environmental aesthetics to our happiness and wellbeing is deeply neglected - something alain de botton has addressed recently - and perhaps it's no coincidence that oscar wilde (aesthete to the point of debilitation) chose to live out the rest of his life in paris; perhaps it's no wonder the british are generally much less animated than the french; perhaps it wasn't hyperbole after all, when dostoyevsky looked deeply into society and said simply: "beauty will save the world".
luckily cambridge is still charming enough, even in winter, to tide me over until monday, when I'll be flying back to malaysia for the rest of the year. this means that new year's will be spent with family, and my christmas will definitely not be white (although from the looks of things, neither will anyone else's).