Perspectives

3MBGer Jason returned to work today after a three-week European vacation. His (clean) oatmeal bowl is still soaking in the sink, but I don't think he's noticed it just yet.

He brought in his flash drive with a couple hundred pictures from the trip. Many of them were of magnificent cathedrals and castles in Prague, Warsaw, Krakow; but the things he photographed most plentifully and with the most gusto were meals: from breakfast with a Heineken on a Berlin-Warsaw flight (because it was 2am according to his internal clock), to wurst and kraut and schnitzel and kochen and lots of other things I wasn't able to identify, but which looked pretty yummy nonetheless.

"Oh, look, look at this one," Jason said, showing us several shots of a cream-cheese-and-raspberry-bedecked pastry. "This is the best crepe I ever tasted!"

"I guess it was," I laughed, "you only took four pictures of it!"

"Five," corrected 3MBG newbie Ernest, standing in the cubicle behind me, as Jason clicked on.

"Six," he added.

Now I'm all hungry. I have to say, though. Who would have figured someone who eats that much oatmeal for an epicure?

I don't think it would occur to me, if I were traveling overseas, to take very many photographs of food. This is not to say that it isn't a good idea; it's just something I probably wouldn't do. Jason did have pictures of some other things, too, though; he had a great many cathedrals, many of which he clicked past somewhat impatiently, with little comment. "You saw a lot of cathedrals in Europe," remarked Ernest.

"Yeah," said Jason. "Too many."

In one cathedral in Prague, he took a beautiful photograph of the magnificent pipe organ, and I was reminded of someone else's European pictures: an old boyfriend of mine from college, a professional church organist who had studied in Prague and Vienna. "I think I've seen that one!" I exclaimed. "I used to date a guy who probably played on it. See, you went around taking a bunch of pictures of what you ate. But he only liked to take pictures of his organ!"

The others backed away from me slightly.

If I ever get to go to Europe, won't you be interested to see what catches my eye?