The dream.

I had a weird dream last night. Those of you who specialize in dream interpretation feel free to enlighten me. I was at work, at the mail table, unwrapping a book that had just come in. (BTW, I usually work with serials as opposed to books.) I have no idea what the book was about but it looked interesting. Some guy whom I don't know, not one of our staff, was walking by and saw that I was taking a look at the book. Next thing I know I am at this person's office and see that he is holding my sister hostage, she is sitting in a chair, I see handcuffs, and he wants the book in exchange for my sister. That's where it ends. Needless to say I would have given him the book.

This dream may be related to the story my sister told us about her recent visit to an aesthetics shop that I recommended where she had a manicure and pedicure. She was quite happy with the outcome of her visit but told us that while there she came close to being electrocuted.

She was sitting back in her chair reading, with her feet soaking and the aesthetician out of the room. She gradually came to realize that her feet were getting quite uncomfortable, the temperature of the water seemed to be getting hotter and hotter. She called out to the young woman who had set her up in the room and then left her alone. It took a little while to get her attention but finally she came in, took in the scene and exclaimed "Oh, my God!" Water was still running into the basin and also cascading onto the floor on which there was a tangle of electrical cords that were plugged into various outlets. Also on the floor were my sister's sandals which were already getting wet. My sister asked the young woman to rescue her shoes from the flood, but she was so intent on cleaning up the water that she just said "Oh they will be fine" but my sister insisted, they were a relatively expensive pair of sandals.

The aesthetician thought that the flood was caused by my sister, that she had somehow knocked the tap loose but my sister doesn't think so, she said it would have taken a conscious effort and some foot maneuvering to turn the tap on. My sister laughed off the whole episode but I was horrified, especially since I had recommended that she go there. Thankfully, it all turned out all right but perhaps this is why I had a dream with my sister sitting in a chair, in danger. But the part about the book as the ransom?

Lessons learned and remembering my first week: Slovakia

Lessons learned.

#1 Pack light.

#2 Only bring essentials.

#3 Pack food on travel days.

#4 Bring two plug adapters for charging electronics. (They are small and light hence not a contradiction to #1)

Apart from tomorrow's journey home, this is the last day of my month-long trip to Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Toronto and Nashville. Before this trip, I had not been back to Europe for 20 years and I had not travelled for a month at a stretch.

I found out that I have recovered sufficiently from a severe injury to be able to manage a trip such as this one and that I am capable of travelling on my own but I do think that it would have been more fun to travel with a companion: spouse, sister or a friend. I don't know when I will have the opportunity to go to Europe again, but when I do, I plan to rent an apartment, to have the freedom to shop and to cook, to feed myself more healthfully than staying in hotels allows.

The first few days in Bratislava were emotional. I liked staying in the old town but at the same time I regretted not being closer to my sister's place which is out in the suburbs, especially since she had just had surgery. My hotel was near the statue for which my mother, in her youth, was the model; walking past it several times every day made me feel closer to her. My cousins took me to visit her final resting place in a beautiful cemetery in Bratislava, where she is surrounded by her family in a peaceful park-like setting, with trees shading her family's plot and the birds chirping all around. I am glad that I was there and can see in my mind where she is.

In Bratislava, I also had the pleasure of meeting a young man and his mother to whom I am related on my father's side. The young man I met is my father's cousin's son. Does that make him my second cousin? My father's cousin passed away about 11 years ago. My own father died in 1985, I never saw him again after we left Czechoslovakia in 1968. My second cousin and his mother were wonderful to me, on my first day in Bratislava they tok me to Malacky, where my grandfather's family used to live, they showed me around the 300 year-old house and garden that they still own there and use as a summer get away, they took me to the cemetery to visit the tomb of my great grandfather and his family, they showed me several of the buildings that great grandfather had built, including the synagogue from 1886 which is now a cultural centre. A part of the house that my grandfather had grown up in still stands though it is now a shop, it was closed so I could not go in but even so I felt a connection to the place. They also took me to a lovely working farm where a number of rescued animals are now happily living and where they also make and sell traditional sheep's cheeses and also make and sell freshly baked bread. We had a wonderful lunch there of traditional Slovak food.

I also had a wonderful time with my nephew and his wife and sons. They fed me home cooked meals, took me to the ruins of Devin castle, we visited family in Svätý Jur and went wine tasting there, and we all watched hockey together, a game which Slovakia won. My nephew and his wife took me to see their garden plot, not far from their apartment, in a beautiful country setting. The plots are rented from the railway and people cultivate vegetables, fruit trees, flowers, build small or larger abodes on them and generally use them to get away from the city. It is a beautiful spot and Benny, the chihuahua, took the opportunity to run away, at least for a time.

While in Bratislava, I also enjoyed a visit to and tour of the University Library where I met and spoke with several librarian colleagues. We had a great lunch at a local pub and we watched the start of another hockey game, the outcome of which I don't remember or perhaps don't want to remember.

Double vision.

I am hoping that not many people at the conference have noticed but I have been compensating for the loss of my bifocals by wearing both my reading and my distance glasses at the same time. I perch the distance glasses on top of my reading glasses and I am actually able to see quite well and it's not even all that uncomfortable. For the first time at a conference, I am taking notes at the session on my laptop, hence the need for both sets of glasses.

Thursday, June 7, 2012

Yesterday, I attended the second part of the RDA workshop. Again, there was good content but I also found it a little depressing because it is clear that I have a lot of work ahead of me.

After the workshop, a friend and I took a cab to downtown Nashville to find some lunch and to experience the atmosphere. The 2012 CMA Music festival is on right now meaning that there are about 65,000 people attending a variety of events around town.

We found a place to have lunch that was not too too noisy, then went for a mingle with the throngs of people in the street. It was very warm, I was overdressed and before long my head was spinning and I started to feel unwell. All around us there were crowds of people, bands playing, music blaring from the restaurants, with people weaving in and out of shops and restaurants and various entertainment venues. We decided to stop for an ice cream after which we meandered back and hailed a cab to the hotel. It is difficult to describe the noise, the crowds of people and the clash of loud music coming at us from different directions. Add to that the intense heat and escape back to the air conditioned hotel seemed like the only answer. We did stop at a place that was selling boots "buy one pair and get two free". My friend tried some on but they didn't fit so we left.

We decided to go for a dip in the outdoor pool after we got back. That was refreshing, the water fairly cold but we spent a little while splashing around in the late afternoon sun. After that we had a rest before dinner and the opening session of the conference. Today we had our first full day of the conference program and this evening we are off to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum for dinner and a tour.

The pre-conference.

This afternoon, I attended part 1 of a pre-conference session entitled "RDA and Serials: Theoretical and Practical Applications." From the RDA website: "RDA (or) Resource Description and Access is the new standard for resource description and access designed for the digital world. Built on the foundations established by AACR2, RDA provides a comprehensive set of guidelines and instructions on resource description and access covering all types of content and media."

The session was excellent, given by an expert in the field, attended by an audience eager to learn. It is clear to me that I have a lot of homework to do to really learn the material and become comfortable with it. For the most part though I was able to follow the speaker, understand the material, do the exercises, and enjoy the ambiguities and the overall complexity. I made note of a few "quotes" from our speaker. I say "quotes" in quotes because I might not have caught the words exactly as spoken.

"We all know that we are getting many more things to catalog and fewer people to do it with. We need to work smarter, more efficiently and still be able to exchange data."

"We have never done a good job of displaying serials data in the OPAC but is it worth trying to fix it (the soon to be obsolete system) now?"

"You know you don't just jump in. You need to make some (serials pre-cataloging) decisions."

"We'll have a lot of hybrid (AACR2 and RDA) records for a long time."

"There are so many more ways that the publishers can mess us up when material is in electronic format."

"Thomas Jefferson cut things out of the bible and then rearranged them. I would like to do the same with RDA."

"We'll talk about the creator (not that creator!) again."

As we came to the end of the session, I realized that I am woefully behind on my study of RDA and especially on section 19, the creator part. So, tonight, I had a look at section 19, after struggling to log in, after many months of inactivity, and I realized that I'd better just start at RDA Section 0: introduction.

First day in Nashville and the day before.

I am here in Nashville. It looks like a pleasant day out there, not too hot and not too muggy, not so far, anyway. Not that I have spent much time outdoors yet, I've been busy changing rooms.

I had about half a day yesterday in Toronto so I decided to go back and see Picasso one more time. After breakfast, I walked back to the AGO and got there about 10 minutes before opening but as the doors to the building were already open, I went inside and waited at the members' desk to get a free ticket. A few minutes before 10, one of the staff came to the desk and served the person ahead of me and then it was my turn. I could tell the fellow was in a good mood so when I gave him my membership card, I told him that I became a member on Sunday and that this was my third time coming to see Picasso before I leave town that afternoon. I had to show photo id along with the membership card so I handed him my passport. He took it, looked at it, looked at me and said "Lovely." I said "But it is just a horrible passport picture." He laughed and said something like "You transcend the medium!" I laughed and said "Can I quote you on that?" and he laughed and said "Yes, and you have it on good authority because I work at the Art Gallery!" I told him that he had made my day and went off in a good mood to the coat check to unload the two jackets I had with me, one of which was a jacket for indoors and, the other, a light rain jacket.

At the coat check, I showed the lady working there that I was a member, since members don't have to pay the one dollar fee, and I handed her my two coats. I said they could probably go on the same hanger. She looked at me dubiously, looked at the two jackets, put them on the same hanger, thought about it some more and then said I had to pay a dollar for the second coat. I was surprised and thought it was funny that my membership only covered one free item. It seemed a bit petty but I gave her the money. The woman had a kind of a sour look on her face throughout this whole encounter and I felt like I'd just been given an antidote to the wonderful feeling I'd experienced a few minutes earlier. I gathered up my possessions and turned to walk away in the direction of the exhibit. Next thing I know, the attendant is running after me and asking me if both of those items were mine. Surprised, I turned around and said yes, they were both mine. She explained that she thought that the woman who had been standing near me at the coat check was with me and that the second coat was hers, the implication being that we didn't want to pay the dollar to have my friend's coat checked separately. She realized her mistake when the other woman and I walked away from the desk in opposite directions which is why she ran after me, explained, apologized and gave me my dollar back.

The exhibit was worth it even for the third time. I seemed to get more out of it each time I went. The first time I felt overwhelmed, the second time I paid more attention to the second half of the exhibit and the third time I was able to absorb more of the whole experience and was starting to see some influences on Picasso's work that I had not clued into the first two times, mainly that his later work was influenced by Mattise, the only artist that Picasso considered to be his equal. With each room, I found it difficult to leave to go on to the next one, I wanted to spend more time looking, I wanted to spend more time with the art.

Now back to the trip to Nashville. I got in yesterday around 7 in the evening. The hotel provides a shuttle which I managed to catch almost immediately. The shuttle driver was pleasant, asked me where I was from because I had said "please" to something he had said to me. He wanted to know where such polite people lived. He was kidding around of course. In the shuttle there were also a couple of other people, one of them an airline employee who started talking about the differences between experienced and inexperienced travellers. The inexperienced travel with up to three carry ons, I was clutching three, as well as a big checked bag, mine was in the back, heaved in there by the nice driver.

I checked into the hotel and got a nice room, but after staying in it overnight I realized that the freeway traffic noise was more than I wanted to listen to for a week so this morning I asked for a different room, one that faced the courtyard. The very pleasant and helpful woman at the desk gave me another room but when I walked in the quality of the air didn't appeal to me and it would have been difficult to let fresh air in as there was no window just a door to the courtyard. I was reluctant to ask for another room so I thought I would tough it out but when I came back from breakfast I decided that I had to at least ask. I did and now I have a room on the second floor that I am happy with.

A mini Kafka-esque experience.

I woke up at 4 am, tried to go back to sleep but nothing doing. Then I remembered that I need to check in for my flight to Nashville. So I get my computer out and find the Air Canada website and put in all the information using my reservation number. I get a message saying they can't process my request. So I get a little worried-am I still booked on the flight to Nashville? I double check everything and try again using my Aeroplan number. OK, now the system found me. I am relieved.

Somewhere in the beginning, the system told me not to worry if I don't have a printer, I can print my boarding pass at a self check-in kiosk at the airport or I can send it to my mobile device. So I proceed with check in. Soon, I find out that I am not allowed any checked baggage. Or wait, I am allowed if I pay, so I go ahead and pay my $22.50 Can.

Next, I have to verify my personal details, then provide the details of the hotel in Nashville. At each step, I have to get out of bed to get my hands on either the credit card, or my passport and now my hotel reservation. Just as I am about to finish inputting all the information about the hotel, the system interrupts me to ask if I need more time. I say yes and discover that all of the detail about the hotel I have just input has disappeared and I have to re-enter it.

At one point, I am also given the option of changing my seat so I say yes because I would like an aisle seat. I click on 'change seat' and find out that all the other seats are taken. OK, I'll keep the window seat assigned to me but I realize from the minuscule number of seats showing on the plane schematic that we will be flying on a very tiny plane. From past experience I know there is not much room for hand luggage on these planes, both the overhead compartments and the spaces under the seats tend to be quite small. Now I am worried again "Do I have too much hand luggage? Will it be too bulky for the cabin? Will I have to check a second bag? Will they make me leave it on the tarmac?"

When I finally get to the end of the check in process, I fully expect that instead of printing it, I will be able to send my boarding pass to my phone. But, no, the only option available is to print.

Toronto/Picasso.

This morning, my path to breakfast was intersected by masses of humanity, with each person focused on getting to work. In the afternoon, I had to dodge the same Niagara Falls of humanity going in the opposite direction now even more intent on getting home after a long day at the office.

It has been overcast and gloomy here in Toronto in the last few days, both outside and inside, and literally and metaphorically. My hotel room does not get much light at any time of day which is strikingly different from the room I had in Prague. Also I can't open a window here which I could do in Prague. So it is interesting how one's perspective changes, even though this room has more amenities, in a couple of respects it is not as good as the hostel-like room I had in Prague. The Prague room was flooded with light already at 5 am whereas here there is barely any light at that time of day.

The city is reeling from the shooting on Saturday, the day I arrived, in the Eaton's Centre. One person died and a couple of people including a young boy are in critical condition. Several other people were also injured.

And on Friday, Union station flooded with water and sewage following a heavy rainfall, shutting down subway service for a period of time in parts of the system.

I went to see the Picasso exhibit yesterday, not once but twice. I saw most of it in the morning but didn't get through it all before I had to go and meet a friend for lunch. After lunch, I decided to go back to the gallery to see the rest of the collection. There are about 150 pieces, including a number of sculptures. I have not seen many of Picasso's pieces before and I had no idea of the wide range of his work or how it evolved over the years in reaction to the women in his life or the changes in both his and world circumstances. His pieces from just before and during WW2 have a darkness and a kind of insanity about them that reflect the terrible circumstances of that time. According to the information provided at the exhibit, Picasso had been interrogated a number of times by the Germans but ultimately they left him and his work alone.

Today, the AGO was closed so after breakfast I went in search of a post office, I wanted to ship some things home instead of lugging them to Nashville tomorrow. I ended up mailing 8.6 kgs of mostly books and a few other things, which has thankfully lightened my suitcase for the next leg of the journey, the NASIG conference in Nashville. I hope to have one final look at Picasso tomorrow morning, before I leave in the afternoon.

Travel day.

My head is rebelling against the treatment I subjected it to yesterday and I am paying for it with a migraine that has been with me for about 24 hours now. Yesterday, I had an early start, up before 5 am, to get to the airport. No proper breakfast, just a couple of crackers with peanut butter and protein powder mixed into mineral water. Not as bad as it sounds and it gets all foamy, like beer. It reminds me of the "Beer bad" episode of BTVS in which the one lesson that neanderthal Buffy learns about beer is that it is "Foamy!"

The Lufthansa flight to Munich was short and pleasant. The German countryside looked pretty and orderly, reminding me of the two years we spent in Göttingen in the late 70's, early 80's. Though the flight was smooth, we all got a little jolt when the flight attendant told us we were about to land in Copenhagen. As we were about to leave the aircraft, we were instructed that those of us with connecting flights to the US should proceed to our gates immediately as the process of getting through security will be particularly lengthy. As I was leaving, the flight attendant asked me if I had another long flight ahead of me. I said yes (I wonder what expression I had on my face) and I asked whether the lengthy security process also applied to flights to Canada; she didn't know but seemed to think so. I had a fairly short connection in Munich so after I got off the plane, I rushed through the airport seeing but not stopping to buy some of the tempting tasty-looking sandwiches and salads available there. As it turned out, all I actually had to do is get through passport control and then find my gate, there was no other prolonged security procedure. After a long treck from passport control, except for some chocolate and nuts and water for sale at the duty-free shop, there was no food of any kind available at the gates. To add insult to injury, the flight was delayed so I would have had time to pick up food to feed my hungry brain and I could have also got something for later to have in the plane.

Anyway, we did get a small lunch on the plane and then after about another six hours, a small snack.

Apart from the hunger-induced headache, the flight from Munich was pretty good. I had been assigned a seat between a young woman and her grandmother, one seat in from the aisle. The strangeness of this arrangement was explained to my by the young woman (whom I initially took to be a child because she was so petite) with the words "I tend to get on her nerves." My expression must have let on that I really wanted to switch with her so I could have the aisle seat because she immediately offered it to me and I gladly accepted.

The plane was quite cold so I was glad that I had a shawl I could wrap myself in. Ever since I cut my hair really short and let the grey grow out, two things happen: my head gets cold and some people at first glance mistake me for a man. I experienced both on the flight; there was cold air blowing on my head and one of the flight attendants was about to call me sir when she realized her mistake. The flight was fairly smooth, which I like, I didn't get any sleep, which was too bad, but overall, it was fine.

After a bit of difficulty, I found the hotel shuttle bus and made it downtown to the hotel here. It is no five star establishment like the one I treated myself to in Bratislava but it has more aaahhh-menities (that's for you Zuzka) then the hostel-like Hotel City Centre in Prague. I can make tea here and I can access the internet from my bed.

I did finally have a decent meal for supper yesterday, poached cod with yummy vegetables and roasted potatoes and now it is time to get up, get cleaned up and dressed so that I can go and forage for some breakfast which will hopefully get rid of this headache.

I hope to blog more about my experiences in Prague and also post some pictures, but at the moment, my camera and my computer refuse to communicate with each other and I have to figure out why.