After multiple duckling sightings today, it is clear that Spring is over and I'm both warmer overnight and closer to death. In the latest Above and Beyond mix he also shouted out that an amazing summer was coming to an end... This seems like a good moment for finalising my latest seasonal playlist and reminiscing about it. I was in Italy like twelve weeks ago. It feels like it was another lifetime. How does that make me feel about my trip to Europe in 2016? That was someone else's existential crisis in someone else's lifetime.

Hopefully writing about some of the music I listened to a lot over the last twelve weeks will help with keeping every moment of my life compressed like a pancake inside my own mind (except the embarrassing parts obviously).

The title of this mix is Estate Winter 23, a name I chose because "Estate" is the Italian word for "summer", and "Winter" is the Australian word for "suck shit we don't believe in double glazing or insulating houses".

Here's to you, Winter 2023. Whether it was hearing a reggae remix of Metallica on a warm morning in Parco Sempione, or listening to the original version on shitty headphones on my ride home from Wayville on a sunless day in August, such a specific stretch of months has never made me feel so free and helpless at the same time.

Johnny Jane, your voice carried over the streets of Paris the night before I flew home. Gorje and Manchester Orchestra, you were lullabies for afternoon naps. Spoon, the soundtrack to trains across France. Milky Chance, summer vibes regardless of the weather. Various trance and progressive house tunes, you are like the Vaseline over the camera lens to make work feel more beautiful. The rest of you, well, I just know I listened multiple times during the mundane walks around my neighbourhood, or while shivering through rehab in the gym, or while frolicking in the glorious parallel universe that is the tourist destinations of Europe - or just remembering that.

Bradismlocks was taking a walk through a winter and came upon a house in a wet, cold part of the space-time continuum. This was very tiring. In the house there were three months. Bradismlocks tried June, which was amazing - it was warm, and there was a lot of adventure and delicious foods and not much joint pain. "This month is too awesome," said Bradismlocks. Next month was July. July was cold, dark, filled with work and not much adventure. "This month is too not-awesome," said Bradismlocks.

Bradismlocks tried the third month - August. The bed was not just right. The porridge was not just right. The chairs were not just right. Bradismlocks realised with horror that June was actually just right and that it was not possible to go back. At least now August was over, along with this journal entry...

I soaked up a lot of sun today as the brutal summer that I will probably be journaling about sadly in a few months set off a flaming canary into the blue sky.

The quality and precision of weather forecasting available for free online in 2023 is excellent. With my work calendar how it was, and the neighbourhood flowers how they are, I knew as early as yesterday morning that I'd be walking past a blooming jasmine vine in the late afternoon when the temperature would be around 20 degrees and the wind about 20km/h. Despite the total lack of surprise, it was still pleasant when it did happen.

I added better image zoom and optimisation to Bradism today, after June 2023 cracked 100mb page load. Other than that, nights are essentially as above.

It was my intention to ease the transition from Switzerland to France by visiting the Alsace reason, which has historically been both French and German depending on where in time you are.

That said, the moment our train crossed the border into France the multi-lingual station and journey updates ceased and everything was purely French. It's okay. The audio system on the train was hard enough to hear the words clearly anyway.

Colmar is not a big place and it didn't take long to drag the suitcase from the station to the start of the cobbled streets of the old town. And this old town was old. We first decided to visit here because it looked like a Disney cartoon. (There are a number of towns in the Alsace region that claim to be "the inspiration" for Beauty and the Beast and this is one of them.)

Most of the buildings in the historic centre, and "little Venice" (a nickname given by someone who obviously hadn't been in normal sized Venice a week earlier) date from the middle ages and renaissance. And they're originals, as unlike a lot of the rest of Europe they weren't bombed or shelled during the 20th century. It was a very pretty place, something that was easier to appreciate after depositing our luggage in the Airbnb.
When picking a place to stay here I'd decided to book an upstairs room above a restaurant in pretty much the heart of the old town area thinking it would be easy to take some photos early or late in the day, potentially out of the window.

Our accommodation was the two open shutters on the first floor of the back building. I did not work out how to close the shutters when the sun finally set.

This was maybe not the best idea. At the time of booking I didn't appreciate just how happening European cities are basically every day of the week in summer. Rome, Naples, Amalfi, Florence, Venice and Lucerne all had a party vibe late into the evening every night of the week. Even knowing this, I wouldn't have predicted that a town as small as Colmar (population 70k according to Google) would be absolutely pumping on a random Wednesday evening. The streets were packed, and roads were closed so that musicians could set up stages or DJ booths all around the picturesque streets. The restaurants were full. Additional bars set up on trestle tables were pulling beers for five euro a cup on the streets. I figured this must be life when it snows in winter and your summer days don't literally cook you. And also when the law doesn't ban you from drinking a beer on the street.

For the majority who are smarter than me and realise that today is the Winter Solstice (in Adelaide) and therefore the Summer Solstice (in France) you would know that this means it was Fête de la Musique today. An annual, French celebration of amateur music in public places.

Arsonic playing for a huge crowd in front of the 550 year old Koïfhus.

DJ and dancing in front of one of the churches.

Because we won't have a kitchen or even a fridge for the week in Paris, our first stop in Colmar was the supermarket (which wasn't centuries old) so we could take advantage of the full kitchen in the apartment. Here we learned some other harsh truths about France. They do not sell many high-protein yogurts and puddings here. Most of the display fridges were dedicated to cheeses. This is not a whimsy, sadly. Even the regular yogurt selection was quite limited. We were able to find some ravioli and tomato sauce and - after eating only one serving in Italy over the course of two weeks - the first meal I ate in France was pasta.

After dinner we walked around listening to bands and admiring architecture. A few thunderclouds passed overhead, along with a random sprinklings of rain and an occasional flash of lightning. The sun did seem to be setting quite late which was pretty typical for the trip so far, and we had travelled ~150 kilometres north-west that afternoon, but I hadn't twigged it was the solstice yet.

10 P.M.

Vanessa went to try and sleep after being absolutely smashed by pollen that morning. I continued to listen to the bands until the sun eventually did disappear, not before colourful lights were beamed upon the big church across the square from the apartment. I went to bed around 10:30pm, the music stopped around 11pm and the giant church lantern dimmed its lights at midnight. It was extremely warm, and extremely humid. They did not have air conditioning in the fifteenth century.

All of this on top of a walk through the forest to Lucerne that morning, and breakfast (including high protein milk drink) by the lake before lunch and non-Aldi Swiss beer at the Rathaus Brauerei, and the aforementioned train ride. It was definitely a very long day...

I do have doubts about some Italian customs. For example, eating a late dinner and restaurants not even opening until 7pm, and yet there being a long line of hungry diners waiting outside at 6:59.

It was very warm in Milan today. An unpleasant, humid 30° that was only slightly better endured by noting that the max temperature back in Adelaide was 14°.

We didn't schedule much for our full day here, having already had our fill of giant cathedrals, sculptures and baby Jesus over the last two weeks. Lake Como was an appealing location just a 30 minute train ride away, so the plan was to head there early, hike, do a lap of the bottom half of the lake on a boat, then go back to Milan for dinner.

Unfortunately our only day for Como was a Saturday, and one big lesson for European holidays in June is to keep Saturdays pretty cruisy because they are by far the most hectic days based on my experience in Rome, Amalfi and Como. Let's see how Paris goes... Como was quiet when we arrived at 7A.M., but after the hike the beautiful lake side was packed with people and every fast and slow ferry for the day was sold out.

I at least found a wee castle in the forest.

We took the train back to Milan early and had a nap. This was likely the best possible use of time as the heat was grande by that point. Later in the evening we did walk through downtown Milan to the massive cathedral, as well as Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II which was a mall but it also had cathedral vibes.

One last giant cathedral for the road.

Clothes are very fashionable in Milan shops and very expensive. Yet another Italian custom I'm not convinced everyone is onboard for. Due to all the forest walks and the cobbled streets I've been wearing hiking boots and hiking socks nearly every day, and my shorts haven't seen a washing machine in this hemisphere of the Earth.

After a burger for dinner (at 7:30) I went to the rooftop terrace of the hotel to drink a Milano-Torino and watch the sun set in Italy for a final time. No one on the terrace with me was eating.

Some photos from recently, cropped at 5x4.

The history of Japan after World war two, as described here in John W Dower's Embracing Defeat, reads as a microcosm of human behaviour. War. Money. Fucking while starving. Propaganda photos. Steering committees and subcommittees. Using peoples' culture against them (plans to preserve and repurpose emperor). Cultural appropriating (both ways). Inventing "Joe Nip" and enjoying traditional duck hunting in the same breath. Ego. Hypocrisy. Drafting new constitutions in the restroom. Communism and black markets. Short memories. Ideals of peace sacrificed less than a decade later for more war. No clear line on when the past ended and the future began. No clear narrative or direction, just millions of humans doing what they think is best.

Emperor Hirohito, the same monarch who had led Japan into the war, penned a poem to commemorate the last day of post-defeat Occupation in 1952.

The winds soften, winter recedes
Long awaited
Spring has come
With its double-blossomed cherries

I found this irony particularly palpable. The allegory of a changing season underlying an even more appropriate metaphor for the cyclical nature of life itself, stretching both ways into perpetuity. And the tendency for humans to talk about the weather, also into perpetuity.