Tabula Rasa

In for the Kill

2011-11-10T07:02:00.000-08:00

One of the most anticipated moments of the Nicaragua journey would concern the Big Feast marking the end of the coordinated efforts at Playa Gigante, before the Rotary/Rotaract group would disperse; either back to the States or elsewhere in the country.

Mind you the anticipation was not for the evening feast that would bring forth a hundred rugrats from every nearby village.

All the baited expectancy was for the slaughter of the pig that would be roasted for the Feast.

For the locals, as well as for most rural subsistence cultures, this is a fairly routine, albeit infrequent, event. Diets do not often include proteins like pigs or cows; rice and beans are the staples here, sometimes accompanied by chicken or freshly-caught fish. For us, the prissy American suburbanites, the sole hazard of obtaining meat is encountering depressed temperatures at the supermarket refrigerated section.

The Killing Crew and Victim: David, Greg, Mario and Charlotte

I have heard for months how Mario and Greg were to slay the little oinker, that it would be Greg himself who would plunge the final knife blow directly into that little porcine heart. But in the past few days, David had also expressed wanting to participate in the offing. Thereupon a plan of sorts was hatched: David would stun the beast by clubbing it on the head; Mario would help hold the animal down and Greg would deliver the final stab. Theoretically, it would all work so swiftly, humanely. Theoretically.

The morning of, I arrived at our hosts’ home to find the Rotaractors sorting clothing, sports equipment, toiletries and school supplies for door-to-door distribution that morning to the people of Playa Gigante. This would be accompanied by Rotaractors’ assistance in water treatment in the form of spiking domestic water wells and tanks with a purifying powder.

Unfortunately, the medical team did not arrive at the appointed 8:00 a.m. Nor at 9:00 a.m. Nor 10:00. The ensuing idle time invariably refocused on the impending slaughter. Plans of attack were offered up; roles were checked and rechecked; the group was divided into participants and spectators who would watch the swelling scene from a safe distance. High Noon would commence the ritual (which we have come to learn in Nicaraguan time actually is around 1:00, but more likely 3:00).

Charlotte (that is Dale Jaedtke’s nom de porc) arrived about 11:00 a.m., protesting noisily. With Charlotte tied to a tree, Mario spent time charming and relaxing the pig, as Mario is apt to do. David prepared his role by repeatedly hitting a tree stump with a mallet. Over and over again. Much to the amusement of us spectators. Then more waiting.

The arrival of the local slaughter crew signaled: Time to Kill.

The rapidity of what next occurred stood in sharp contrast to the lounge languid morning. Dale and I scrambled closer to the surf to video and photograph respectively. David, in his green Rotaract shirt, stood briefly and muttered a prayer, while next to him Greg fashioned a bandanna into a quasi-warrior’s headband (the overall incongruous effect, however, was more that of a stubble-faced sushi chef). The tropical sun glinted off his butcher knife. David walked down to the pig, quietly ensconced by the large shade tree that roofed our beach patio. Alongside and facing surfward in the same direction as the pig, David again took practice swings, striking air some two feet above the head of the cowering Charlotte. Then he dropped his shoulder and delivered the blow, square to the broad forehead. Charlotte recoiled back on all fours and launched a guttural scream that broke the sedate surf-serenaded scene; a wrenching pig howl of fear and surprise; a veritable ‘WTF!” of Pig Latin pissoffedness. The pig reacted swiftly, trotting south a few feet, still tethered. Mario grabbed the mallet from David and delivered another glancing strike, again sending Charlotte running until restrained by the limit of her ever-tightening noose. David, having collected himself ,again took the mallet and delivered the effective blow: down she went to her right flank, her body convulsing in rolling spasms not unlike bacon jumping and sizzling in a hot pan.

This was Greg’s cue. He positioned himself astride the quivering Charlotte, towering as the Rhodian Colossus over his harbor. He positioned his knife flat to the plane of the ribs and deftly inserted at the site where he and Mario determined to be best: the heart. A squeal. Knife retracted and reinserted. One final, demur porcine protest, a spurt of blood, another plunge of the knife, this time alongside Mario’s dagger, and Charlotte lay still.

A poignant moment as pig became pork.

David delivers the first blow.

Mario delivers the second blow.

Greg stabs the first time.

Mario stabs with his dagger..

Greg, triumphant.

Dinner!

Los Niños de Playa Gigante

2011-11-09T06:47:00.000-08:00

Ventura Rotaract adopted the Humberto Amador School in Playa Gigante. Besides giving out supplies and fixing up the school, we got to interact with the kids. Children are truly the same everywhere, even in poor remote communities.

Backpacks, Dentistry and Dignity

2011-11-08T05:22:00.000-08:00

The first full day in Playa Gigante would have to happen on very little sleep because of the travel mishaps the night before. The van had dropped Mario, Krystal and myself off at our lodge sometime after 2 a.m., but apparently hit another large and more problematic water hazard about a quarter mile further up the road. The remaining group, made up mainly of Rotaractors had to struggle to free the van, requiring a lot of mud, a flat tire and unloading of the ton of luggage on top. When finished the crew went to bed only after 5 a.m.

On the Road

So just a few hours later we were piling into vehicles to head out to the Escuela Humberto Amador about a kilometer inland, a school that serves the rural area north of Playa Gigante. The building is a simple rectangle of one classroom and two smaller auxiliary spaces; a barebones reinforced concrete framework infilled with brick, jalousie windows, and metal grates and roofed with corrugated sheet metal over lightweight metal trusses. Dangling cables from the roof belie a former lighting system, but the building stands powerless today. Two outbuildings stand nearby; one, a neglected two stall outhouse with broken doors; the other a non-functioning covered well structure.

The major project of the Rotaractors was to help fix up the school; repair more than a dozen broken desks, bring the well and bathrooms to a decent state. We would return at another day to make the big repairs. This visit was mainly to interact with the kids. They also brought backpacks with school supplies and other goods to outfit the kids and teachers, took Polaroids of the kids to create an art project and helped the children to plant a new vegetable garden.

After the school, we packed fifteen of us into a Toyota Land Cruiser for a 15 kilometer hot, bumpy and dusty ride, most of us crammed in the cabin, but Eric and Dale hanging for dear life out the back. It was simultaneously comedic and painful.

We arrived in Tola where we Rotarians delivered a portable dental unit to the medical clinic there, which was our group’s big effort, spearheaded by Mario, who is our International Service Chair. This clinic serves a vast rural area, including Playa Gigante. Those needing medical attention must make the arduous overland trip here. It is our hope that the portable dental unit would allow the medical staff to deliver services out in the field, thereby improving access. The estimate is that close to 1200 people may be served annually this way.

Mario and Dale demonstrated the unit to the chief dentist there and the staff was effusive in their thanks. Hopefully this is an early step in a long term relationship with this community that can lead this area ultimately in a self-sustaining effort to improve their health and well being. A hand up rather than a hand out, it seems.

I am a Rotarian because of efforts like this, where we get the opportunity to do something as a collective to help others prosper in their lives as we have in ours. It is always wonderful to see the younger members of the group passionately involve themselves in the work.We have had some wonderful discussions already, among Rotarians and Rotaractors, about what exactly does it mean to do ‘good.’ How do we know if what we are doing for the Nicaraguans is good for them? How do we know if we are misapplying what we think is good for them, rather than resources that may prove more beneficial? We are a very different culture for certain. To some extent, Rotary does rely on local knowledge to help us plan the nature of our aid. How can I make this more about them than about assuaging my middle class guilt?

I have to believe that I can distill some basic notions that allow my life to have the dignity to which we are universally entitled. Access to education, access to clean water and safe food, available basic health care. Because when we have dignity, we will work for what we want, we will aspire, we will fight.

This is not political or religious or cultural. It’s human. I want to look at one of these kids in the face here in Playa Gigante and show, in some way, that I respect him, that I respect his dignity. Sure, we are bringing him backpacks and books, a portable dental station, but I hope that can be the lasting effect of my brief time here.

Mr. Toad's Wild Ride

2011-11-05T06:30:00.000-07:00

I made it to the airport in Managua with Rotarians, Rotaractors and friends. The excitement is palpable as we wade through a relatively easy customs. And out into the warm, humid Nicaraguan evening.

The van/bus stood tall in the airport parking lot, made even taller with the 800 lbs. of donated goods stuffed into duffels lashed to the top rack. The van size was ideal to hold the entire crew inside, so I was looking forward to getting to know the rest of the group a little better. The fifteen of us settled in for a three hour overland journey to our coastal destination of Playa Gigante. We were told to expect roads of decreasing quality as we forged south from the sprawl of Managua towards the Pacific near the Costa Rican border.

It is somewhat unimpressive to travel in a new place in the dead of night. Nicaragua, after all, is prized for its natural beauty. The darkness here is thick and enveloping. Streetlights are not a priority in a poor country, as is any general illumination. Lit by a half moon, flashes of the countryside are revealed through broken clouds and spots of rain. Faint silhouettes of volcanoes are the only distant objects.

On the outskirts of Masaya, Dave Russian, our host, had set up a late dinner at a typical eatery, serving up platters of barbecued meats and vegetables. “What is this?” and “Have you tried these?” gave way to “Oh that’s good!” and “Damn I’m full” washed down by the national beer, Toña. Lots and lots of Toña.

First Dinner in Nicaragua

Back on the bus, true to expectation, the road began to degrade and narrow. The van hurtled down the road when possible making good time, the pronounced darkness broken by flashes of naked, cold, white halogen bulbs that seemed to illuminate only a few feet in any direction. But then a few doglegs in the town of Tola sent us down a dark dirt road for the last 18 km. stretch of the journey, “Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride,” someone insisted.

Prior to this, the mood in the bus was as to be expected after a big, well-lubricated meal. An arbitrary soundtrack of ‘80s synth-pop, Lionel Ritchie ballads and a karaoke-butchered Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger” buoyed the mood of the bus as did the continued presence of our newly-befriended acquaintance, Toña. Some succumbed to the weariness of a long day’s journey, while others continued boisterous conversations about travelling, food, our schedule; all tinged with anticipation. Well after midnight, as the bus began negotiating the dirt road, the mood began to sober a bit as we watched the driver begin to deftly ford washouts and ephemeral streams caused by a heavy rain some four days prior. Some were simple rivulets, some were more flowing, but the driver, in every case, would pause the van, assess and tack the bus accordingly, followed by our cheers for the driver’s bravado in the face of Mother Nature. Until we reached Il Lago Grande.

The next half hour is a comedy that will only someday be truly appreciated. Lit only by the van high beams, Dave, Greg and the driver waded into the lake to plot a path through the muddy water to the continuation of the road some thirty feet to the right. Eric and Zach stood lakeside to advise, while Mario, Dale, David, Rachel and I hung outside the van. A bit of frustration crept in, no doubt propelled by being only about a mile from the end of our journey. Greg, standing in the middle of the lake, insisted we could make the crossing. The driver fretted about the low position of his alternator that would die in the deep water. Some suggested Dave head down to his house and pick up the four-wheeler and transport the group and all our goods down the road piece by piece. Dale wanted to highjack the damn bus and drive it across, come hell or high water. Literally.

The final solution? Lighten the load! All the menfolk off the bus! Off with shoes and socks. We waded through the muddy water and rocky lakebed as the van gunned, hesitated and charged across successfully, the sound of the front bumper hitting a submerged rock giving the only concern. The cheers were more halfhearted this time. The triumph of fording Il Lago Grande, mixed with the fatigue of a long days travel and discomfort of muddy feet did me in. Within twenty minutes we were at our forest hacienda and I collapsed into the bed, lullabied by the insistence of the crickets and cicadas and the drone of the air conditioner.

I don’t recall dreaming last night. I was so tired. But I can’t imagine any dream more ridiculous than last night’s Wild Ride.

Morning in Playa Gigante

All is Quiet, on New Years Day

2011-01-01T21:34:00.000-08:00

New Years Day in Provence. Clear but cold. I started out with a light breakfast , carved out of the supplies I had bought the night before from the supermarché near the train station (I had noticed locals stocking up on provisions, presumably because most stores would be closed on New Years Day), baguette, cheese, clementines and hotel room Nescafe (yuk).

Out the hotel by 0830, I hit a discernable wall of a sort of pastoral silence, save for the birds and occasional swell of wind, no typical urban cacophony. No distant hum of tire on asphalt, no footsteps or low chatter. The revelry noise of fireworks , shouts of ‘Bonne Anneé’ and the drunkard with a lost knob of volume control had given way to this meditative silence.

My hideous little troll car

I headed to the rental car parked in the structure about 10 minutes away. Past the roman amphitheater, the roman theater, a clutch of shuttered restaurants and though a children’s playground: not a soul encountered. I was beginning to feel a bit self-conscious.

On the road, there were a few other cars and my Omega Man feelings subsided, but the wide open highway as I headed northwest into the countryside was a joy.

Panorama from the Rive droite, up river

My quarry this a.m., my Holy Grail #1 of this trip: the Pont du Gard.

I arrived on the site about 0930. The only car in the large parking lot. Obviously the visitor center and museum would be closed. But access to the site itself? Fortunately no.

It is another quarter mile from the museum to the river along a tree-lined path, around a low hill. I passed a couple going in the opposite direction, walking their dogs, the only other people I would encounter for a while. The Pont eventually emerges through the trees and you are incrementally given view of it. By myself at the site I felt particularly dwarfed by the immensity of both the size and history of it. I had a vague notion that I had personally discovered the structure and felt that there was no overwhelming gap in time as you might think two millennia would feel.

Eventually more visitors would arrive to break the solitude. The next few hours are spent scampering among the rocks below the bridge, on the high valley walls on either side seeking the best vantage points, and on the Pont itself, marveling at the construction, the finesse and the continuous underlying monologue, “How the hell did they do this?”

The Pont du Gard is, simply, a civil engineering exercise: a growing city needs a reliable water supply. In the 1st century CE, the city was Nemauses (modern Nîmes) and a reliable water source was found at a spring to the NW of the Pont, 12 miles as the crow flies from Nemauses. However, because of terrain, the distance the water would travel would become 32 miles. The water source was only 56 feet above its arrival point, so the grade over the whole system only averaged 1:3000! A series of tunnels and bridges were built, but the Pont du Gard traversed the biggest barrier.

The center span is 80 feet.

The Pont is an engineering marvel, regardless of the date of its construction. It is the singular revelation of the engineer’s art: overcoming severe constraints, pushing technology, eschewing the complex in favor of the (apparently) elegantly simple, leaving the perception of aesthetics to the functionalism of the materials and structural concept. Boasting superlatives from the ancient world, such as the largest arch span (80 feet), seem to be trivial nuggets. The immensity and longevity of the Pont seem apt description enough.

Henry James once remarked the sentiment of my initial encounter of this beautiful structure, “The hugeness, the solidity, the unexpectedness, the monumental rectitude of the whole thing leave you nothing to say – at the time – and make you stand gazing. You simply feel that it is noble and perfect, that it has the quality of greatness... When the vague twilight began to gather, the lonely valley seemed to fill itself with the shadow of the Roman name, as if the mighty empire were still as erect as the supports of the aqueduct; and it was open to a solitary tourist, sitting there sentimental, to believe that no people has ever been, or will ever be, as great as that, measured, as we measure the greatness of an individual, by the push they gave to what they undertook. The Pont du Gard is one of the three or four deepest impressions they have left; it speaks of them in a manner with which they might have been satisfied.”

En Gard(e)!

Over the hills and through the Luberon

2010-12-30T17:42:00.000-08:00

The first full day with the rental car (an ugly little Renault 'Modus', which must be Latin for 'hideous little bridge troll'). Relearning how to drive a stick, negotiating narrow one way streets and the ever-challenging roundabouts in the space of ten minutes was a little scary at first, but soon settled to a minor panic. I actually enjoy driving in Europe.

I drove northeast into Les Alpilles, a small range of limestone peaks and into the area called Luberon east of Avignon with its gentle hills and valleys alternating vineyards and olive trees. Picturesque, a rather redundant term around here, villages and chateaux abound.

Les Baux de Provence

Panorama from the Saracen Tower

First Le Baux, a fortress hilltown built on an immense limestone crag; an impenetrable chateau during the middlw ages, now a stark ruin.

St. Remy de Provence

The small town of St. Remy is charming and a good stop for lunch. This was the birthplace of Nostradamus (but of course, you knew that) and the sanitorium where van Gogh stayed after his ear-capitation, and where he painted Starry Night (the village in the scene is San Remy).

Roussillon

The final stop was the hilltop town of Roussillon. It is most famous for the earth on which it rests, some 17 shades of ochre, between a rusty red and an obscenely bright yellow. The buildings reflect this riot of color down to the mortar used. East of the village is a huge mine where you can walk through what feels like an amped-up bowl of sherbet.

Arles

2010-12-30T08:24:00.000-08:00

Sketching from the Amphitheater, looking into Arles with the River Rhone in background

My base in Provence is the relatively small town of Arles on the banks of the Rhone River, where it languidly splits into its branches, creating a broad delta of marshes before emptying into the Mediterranean. The city has a population of 50,000 and is surrounded by a verdant plain of agriculture, as it has been for thousands of years. I find the city has a quiet, gritty quality, relaxed in its vast history of ancient importance, content as an irascible old man that has seen better days.

Arelate became a Roman settlement in the 2nd century BCE but was always secondary to the port of Massalia (modern day Marseilles) to the south. This changed when Arles backed Julius Caesar against Pompey in the civil war and was rewarded with a transfer of power from Massalia and the establishment of the Colonia Iulia Paterna Arelatensium Sextanorum (Ancestral Julian colony of Arles of the soldiers of the Sixth Army). This set up Arles as the regions’ most important city for centuries. This is particularly poignant for me: the hotel where I lived as a student in Rome was built on the ruins of the Theater of Pompey where Julius Caesar was murdered by senators.

The city declined after the fall of the western empire, but did enjoy a resurgent importance through the Middle Ages as a stop on the pilgrimage route to Santiago in Compostela. Van Gogh would later find a great deal of inspiration here when Arles had faded into a quaint town in the 1800s. Here is where he cut off his ear.

My favorite meal was here, Le Criquet

Tourists come here during the day to take in the Roman ruins, but are mostly gone by sunset. There is a lack of tacky souvenir shops. The city is still occupied by locals with few hotels, so an evening stroll is mainly among real townfolk, doing their townfolksy things: the boulangeries and patisseries are busy selling breads and sweets to Arletans hurrying home for dinner; bars and cafés are filled with the mainly young having a pastis or some other drink to cut the chill of the evening. Off the main streets are the small passageways and lanes of homes that front right on the road. Low chatter, the laughs of children, televisions and the sounds of the kitchen as dinner is prepared reverberate off the ancient hard walls and you feel intrusive, so you don’t linger out of politeness.

As in interloper in this scene, I can enjoy the verité of local life.

Nice, Enough

2010-12-29T10:27:00.000-08:00

Along the Promenade des Anglais

Most times, to arrive at a place, you have to transit through other places. These may be fascinating destinations in themselves, but you have to keep your eye on the prize. My trip to the Lower Rhone valley, centered on Arles and Avignon has been a 3 day journey, the bulk of it the flight/transit/flight waltz of LA to Amsterdam to Nice. Nice is the big city in Provence with the big airport. My flight arrived late in the afternoon, so I opted to stay a night in Nice and make the onward journey to Arles by train today.

An evening and short morning in Nice is certainly not enough time for a comprehensive exploration of this important southern French city. To ward off jetlag, I needed to stay awake until about 11 pm. So I set out to take some dinner. I walked the main drag through town, the Boulevard Jean Medecin, a wide street with all the big department and chain stores, still festooned with Noel décor. The streets were full of locals sharply bundled against the chilly night. The boulevard ends at the grand Place Massena, sporting a high-tech patina of electronic Christmas decorations blinking at a rate that would induce seizures if gazed upon too long. On the other side of the Place is the old city, with a tighter, ungridded street layout. Bars and restaurants make this a much lively district and I enjoyed a slow reconnoiter, sans map, to take in the atmosphere. Ended at a small, unpretentious restaurant. Soupe au pistou. Entrecote with both an aioli and a gorgonzola sauce. Grilled eggplant. Frites. Delicious Provencal fare. Then back to the hotel to pass out.

Nice, particularly the Old City, has its charms, but I am certainly glad I did not spend more time there. An early morning walk along the Promenade des Anglais, the famous seaside walk along the Mediterranean was enough to get a sense of the pleasure aspect of the Riviera, even in the dead of winter, but there is so much more to see both west and north of here.

As I write this, I am on the TGV heading west along the coast towards Marseilles, then north to Arles. There are some interesting stops on the way that stir the imagination; Antibes, Cannes, but those are for another time; for now they are just part of the transit process.

Puebla Blanca I

2010-01-05T00:25:00.000-08:00

The road inland from the Atlantic coast takes you up into hills and mountains that can be harrowing at times. The payoff is being able to visit ancient towns clinging to the mountains and the very heart of Andalucian culture. There are too many pueblas blancas to visit so we are stopping only at a few. First up; Arcos de la Frontera. First a Moorish stronghold and the a Christianized town, the city sits atop a rock outcrop- a perfect defensible location. Narrow streets and white-washed walls are the hallmark of these towns.

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Seville Images

2010-01-04T21:15:00.000-08:00

Art in front of the Municipal Hall.

A Toreador (Bullfighter Shop) near the Bull Ring.

A tight street in the Barrio Santa Cruz.

In the Barrio Santa Cruz, also known as the Barrio Gotico.

All the street trees in Seville are orange trees.

Quiet corner of the Jewish ghetto.

W ine and water in the Jewish ghetto.

Alcázares Reales de Sevilla

2010-01-03T22:59:00.000-08:00

A true gem in Seville is tucked discretely behind time-worn ramparts of the citadel known as an alcazar, the Spanish version of an arab term meaning citadel or castle. Within the complex is the palace built by Pedro I in the 14th century which features the most spectacular Mujedar decoration. Absolutely stunning and a precursor to the wonders of the Alhambra, which I will visit in a few days.
The balance of the buildings' simple forms and volumes and the shimmering effusion of surface treatments is a masterpiece of design: restraint and abandon in balance.

When Modernism wasn't a four-letter word

2010-01-03T22:40:00.000-08:00

On a non-descript dirt plain below the majestic neo-classical Museum of Catalan Art on Montjuic, Spanish architects have recreated a seminal Modernist work originally built here 80 years ago. It is the Barcelona Pavilion, designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe as the German Pavilion for the 1929 International Exposition. Structurally expressive, free from ornament and blurring the lines between outside and in, the building in its brief, one year life manifested the tenets of Modernism to the rest of the world.

Mies' ubiquitous Barcelona Chair.

Tapas Tapas Tapas

2010-01-03T00:19:00.000-08:00

You cannot avoid tapas. I have now learned you really shouldn’t. I thought that these were simple hors d’ouevres, maybe chips, olives, a small salad etc. But here in Spain they can be miniature, manageable portions of fine entre dishes, Legend says that ‘tapas‘ refers to a ‘lid’; innkeepers feared that travellers would have too much to drink and would fall off their horses, so they put a lid over the last drinks of the patron with some food to help them sober up a bit.

Here in Andalucia, where tapas were born, it is actually difficult to find a traditional restaurant in old Seville because of all the tapas bars. In Barcelona, where tapas isn’t indigenous, it was nonetheless difficult o throw a rock in any direction and not hit a tapas place. Bars almost always have tapas and Spaniards make an evening of bar-hopping, having one drink and a tapas, before moving to another place not far away. It is an extremely social way of eating.

My personal take on a good tapas: tons of flavor on first taste, rich in texture since there are so few bites and it must complement a good cerveza or glass of a tannic Rioja. My tapas highlights so far:

Foie gras with onion marmalade and crostini (melt-in-the-mouth, hands-down my fave)

Roast lamb with an orange glaze

Shrimp in garlic oil

Ham and cheese croquettes

Fried camembert with raspberry sauce

Asparagus in a Romesco sauce

Thin-sliced cured Jabugo ham (pigs fed acorns only)

Fried potatoes in a creamy aioli

Catalan gazpacho (pureed form of the usual cold soup)

Almond soup

Tomato bread

Here is where Dave and I ate in Barcelona that was fantastic:

My View of La Sagrada Familia

2010-01-01T00:26:00.000-08:00

A goal for me in finally visiting Barcelona was, of course, to see the work of Gaudi. The crowning glory of Gaudi’s oeuvre is the great Temple of La Sagrada Familia in the Eixample district north of the old City of Barcelona. I paid two visits to the site, easily reached by Metro from the hotel in the old center. The first visit was late morning on New Year’s Eve day and the crowds were thick and the line to get in far around thSo e corner. Tour buses jostled Tetris-like to disgorge hordes of tourists. This kept me at bay and I retreated to the park on the south flank of the great pile to sketch the facade. An enquiry at the information booth informed me that the building would be open on New Year’s Day and, of course, we should arrive early.

So at 8:30 a.m. Dave and I, showed up to a respectably diminished line but on a day so clear, but so blustery, that no one was allowed up into the towers. We paid and hastened inside the church.

The Temple of La Sagrada Familia is very much a construction site. Today, as it is a holiday, there is no work going on, but the piles of material, the ubiquitous scaffolding, the general absence of surface decoration and the use of placeholder elements like plain glass for stained, bear testament to the transitory sense of what we are seeing today. Almost 140 years into construction, this is not unlike the grand works of cathedral building of seven centuries before. Even the same issues have plagued the completion of this grand monument. The question of funding, the availability of craftsmen, the technical hurdles, the death of the original designer, have all been detriment to the progress. Two world wars and an especially debilitating Civil War also contributed. They are aiming to finish the Temple in 20 years. We shall see.

The basic parti is straightforward enough, a Latin Cross with nave, transepts, apse and side aisles. But the moment the plan is expressed upwards, it is like a florid burst of hyper-realized organic elements, seemingly duty-bound in adherence to natural laws of physics and mathematics while seemingly victimizing architectonic forms to bizarre whims of the architect’s fancy and, more cryptically, a foreboding sense of a Catalonian force-majeure.

Gaudi plays with us. He employs obvious pure Gothic motifs, such as fenestration patterns, but then contorts fundamental Gothic tectonics by directing the roof and upperstory forces to be borne on buttressing disengaged from the exterior walls (as to be expected), but then massively redirecting these forces back to the central aisle columns in the angled planes of a chunky choir loft some 50 meters up. Thus he frees the lower story of solid wall to bathe within with light and does so sans the eyesore of flying buttressing without.

He unapologetically works the columns throughout as literal trees, replete with upward width dimunition, stylized knotholes, tessellated compound branching and forces-balancing angular thrusts. Everything soars, everything rises: the eye is sent aloft.

The roof/ ceiling is an overhead miasma of ellipsoidal ocular forms intended to magnify the strong Mediterranean light from above; to combine with the light form the walls and galleries. It is all about light in the end. The only material that can even approximate the nature of God.

The entirety of what is built and what will be still sits with me. It seems I was able to briefly share in a singular vision of Gaudi’s belief in God, the essence of his spirituality and mysticism given form. This was the penance of the last decades of his life, his expiations in service to his beliefs. What I saw impressed me as an architect on those pragmatic qualities that frame the crux of my craft. But it also soared the essence of my spiritual being.

I will return in twenty years to hopefully see the church in its final flowering.

Barcelona Images

2009-12-31T00:07:00.000-08:00

Dave looking in at a pastry shop.
Evening on La Ramblas, the main drag through old Barcelona.
Kiosk.
Typical street in the Born/St. Pere district.
The market near our hotel in the St. Pere district.
Waiting in the strong wind for our tour guide at Sagrada Familia.
Waiting for the metro back to the hotel.

My Reef Experience: Skin-tight Blue Lycra and Little Blue Fishies

2009-09-11T08:09:00.000-07:00

The whole reason to come all this way up to Cairns is singular: the Great Barrier Reef. The city is essentially featureless and serves as a central crossroads for tourists and adventure-seekers passing through to remarkably more interesting destinations. But the reef, after having seen a bit of it first hand, is phenomenally beautiful.

I booked an all-day trip on a fast boat called the Silverswift to go out on the reef and attempt snorkeling. Leaving at 8:30, about forty of us arrived on Flynn Reef, about 50 km out to sea, very close to the edge of the continental shelf. The boat maneuvered to three different locations on the reef, anchored and lowered stairs into the water off the back. Scuba divers went into the water, followed by us snorkelers.

After some equipment issues with my mask (involving swallowing sea water), I got used to breathing through my mouth and started swimming around the extensive reefs. I have to say this was one of the best things I have ever done. I spent about a total of 3 hours in the water. The sea was warm and the sunlight lit up the environment like a torch. I swam over large, shallow fields of coral, deep crevices and gentle mounds of underwater sand dunes. The reef teemed with sea life- so many colorful fishes of varying sizes, from large red bass to big schools of little minnows. The blue-colored fish fascinated me most- they shimmered in the sunlight darting around in synchronization especially as I reached out to touch them.

This is an experience I want to do again and soon.

A few words about Lycra:

1. It is recommended to protect snorkelers from the hot tropical sun as they flop around the water’s surface.

2. It is useful in protecting from the dreaded stings of jellyfish.

3. It is an amazingly stretchable material.

4. I look terrible in a bright blue full-body Lycra.

I have a photo to prove it but it will never see the light of day.

2009-09-10T20:05:00.000-07:00

Traveled today from Sydney, New South Wales to Cairns in Queensland. Just the next state over. Close, right? Not quite.

I forgot just how vast this country is , about the size of the contiguous 48 United States. So the flight was three and a half hours, about 1200 miles, straight slightly west of due north. About the same as Seattle to halfway down Baja.

The distance is an issue of differing climates. From cool, temperate Mediterranean climate of Sydney to the tropical climate of North Queensland. Eucalyptus and Ficus bush country versus mangrove swamp and true primeval rain forests.

A wet, warm slap greets you as you step off the flight. This is a very different Australia.

Fond of Fauna

2009-09-06T18:38:00.000-07:00

I almost never visit zoos or aquariums when traveling, or even back at home for that matter. My bias when traveling leans towards the cultural, historical and, of course, architectural. Captivity is something I usually find distasteful, as well.

This trip, and you can call me a hypocrite, I decided to visit the Sydney Aquarium and the Taronga Zoo to see the curious menagerie that is the fauna of Australia. Since childhood, you are taught how isolationism gave rise to unique animals. And how can you not be curious with some of the names of these creature?

There are Dugongs, Long-nosed Bandicoots, Bettongs, Kookaburras, Bilbies, Potoroos, Platypuses, Cassowarries, Yabbies, Dingoes, Kangaroos, Emus, Echidnas, Galahs, Goannas, Koalas, Kowaris Wombats, Quokkas, Spotted Tailed Quolls, Tasmanian Devils, Wallaroos and scary Salt Water Crocodiles.

The Taronga Zoo in particular was impressive. Most get there by taking the ferry from Central Sydney and then riding a cable car to the main entrance. It sits on a slope on the North Shore of Sydney Harbor so there are impressive views back towards the city center. Sprawling, very lush and teeming with large enclosures for the animals, this was a pleasant visit.

Closing observations:
Salt water crocs are dinosaurs in all their scariness.
Zoo animals sleep a lot.
And wombats and koalas are just so damn cute.

A Day at the Opera

2009-09-06T17:52:00.000-07:00

I set out Saturday morning for a leisurely walk around Darling Harbor just a few blocks to the north and west of my apartment. With temps in the low seventies and a strong Spring sunshine it felt refreshing after last night’s passing front.

Back in the room, I changed into slacks and collared shirt and headed for a quick lunch one block away to a sushi place that had one of those cool conveyor belts that parades tasty bites of sushi just inches from your face. They need to invent something that soys and wasabies the roll and drops it in your mouth.

Jumped on the Metro Rail for two stops to Circular Quay. This is the heart of the city where Sydneysiders and tourists converge and either hang about the area or move out of the center by ferry, train or bus. It’s Saturday and the area is buzzing. Sidewalk cafes and shops are filled with people just kicking back.

I walked leisurely the quarter mile along the harbor side promenade towards Bennelong Point and the Opera House. Many languages are heard; various levels of dress are seen. Heading north on the promenade, the Harbor Bridge looms large to the left, heavy dark girders flanked by massive, stalwart concrete pylons. To the right the white, gossamer curves of the Opera House.
I needn’t comment on the iconic qualities of the building form, nor the inimitable siting in this beautiful harbor. Close up, some of the detailing is clunky and the building lacks finesse. The Opera House delivers in its big confident gestures: the great flight of steps to the upper plinth, the confident vault The raw, saw-edged concrete is visible throughout the interior. The walls, windows, stairs and other program elements are subservient to the structure which defines any sense of ornament with the stepping of the ridged rib structure. The over-riding impression I had was of an undecorated Mayan architecture in the act of overturning and fragmentation. Utzon’s design comes from the same school as Eero Saarinen, that Scandinavian modern expressionism through idealized organic structuralism, which I think was far ahead of its time and still has repercussions in today’s architecture.

Though the entire complex is called the Sydney Opera House, the larger of the sails actually contains an orchestral Concert Hall (that night the wonderful soprano Kiri te Kanawa is performing). The opera hall interior is small, but intimate. The principal direction is upwards. The concrete ribs of the giant shells all sweep towards the apex of the roof. The seating area coats the bottom half of the space while the rest is just free space. I feel like I am inside a spacious Victorian bustle.

I had booked tickets to the Opera months ago. I chose a matinee so that I could be in the building during the day. Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado was playing, which I had never seen. The alternative was a performance of Aida. So did I want a light comic opera featuring characters named Nanki-poo and Yum-yum or ponder a story of verboten love by a mixed-race couple who at the end are entombed together? Sells itself. I am on vacation after all.

The performance itself was well sung and played to the hilt for laughs. Some of the dialogue was given a current twist,particularly the Lord Executioner’s ’List”, although some of the Aussie political and pop culture references were lost on me, this was well-received to the audience. I was surprised by the number of children in the audience, but perhaps this was because of the comic tone of this particular opera, rather than the high brow cultural leanings of Sydneysiders.

Leaving the Opera House, I found a shady spot on the promenade to take in the passing parade with a strong coffee and enjoy it for a bit longer.

Sydney: Icon 1

2009-09-05T20:02:00.000-07:00

A Cloudy Morning.

The great phalanx of steps leading to the main podium.

The shifting light changes the surface.

On the interior, the structure always seems to apparent.

View of the Opera Hall Lobby before the performance. The view overlooks Sydney Harbor and the Harbor Bridge.

Familiar in the Far Antipodes

2009-09-04T14:49:00.000-07:00

So here I am in Sydney. Not quite as exotic a destination as the last couple of trips. In fact, my first impressions have been based on a surprising sense of familiarity.

I landed at 0630 on a Thursday, which seemed to be a very busy arrivals time in Sydney. Overnight flights are apparently very popular. Large planes flying many different flags had disgorged their passengers seemingly simultaneously into the International terminal. My Delta 777, a Lufthansa 747, an enormous Emirates A380, a United 747. In the Immigration line, we were tired hundreds, single-filed, murmurring in hushed foreign tongues as we shuffled past the agents. The immigration line is the great equalizer of our day; economy, business and first class passengers must endure the same line. Even the flight crews were stacked up in their own queue.

By 0800 I was on the train heading into Sydney’s Central Business District, coincident with the morning rush. Among the business suits and rumpled tourist clothes, I glimpsed a familiar sight that overwhelmed me with a bittersweet nostalgia for my distant youth: the school uniform.

I flashed on my school years at in Hong Kong; Kennedy Road Junior School, Quarry Bay Junior School and King George V, where I spent my middle/high school years. The very British tradition of uniforms is alien to American culture (save for the military and Catholic School tradition) and, for me, it was a seemingly small but striking emblem of my uprooting from California to a very different culture in Asia. The transition was not easy for me and I treated it somewhat akin to exile, until I was able to integrate into this system.

Drab, dark-colored blazers sporting curiously ancient heraldic pocket School patches; somber dark grey or blue trousers often hemmed embarrassingly high, an impossibly maintainable line on a growing boy, and the ubiquitous white collared shirts, long-sleeved, but inevitably rolled up.. The tie, often the only opportunity for color in the ensemble, is the signifier of the students’ personality. The good (or fearful) student sports the Full Windsor cinched tightly to the buttoned collar with correct lengths. Non-conforming, rebellious or ‘cool’ students express themselves predictably with less correct variations.

What did I do with my tie? The correct, suck up, don’t-rock-the-boat way, of course.

I followed the masses of suits and blazers off the train at the Town Hall station, emerging from below on George Street, the main thoroughfare in the CBD. I watched the students disperse towards their schools whilst I thought back some 30 years ago of my similarly daily amble down Argyle Street towards KGV.

But enough nostalgia. I’m tired and grungy. Where’s my hotel?

Cobble, Cobble

2009-04-10T07:15:00.000-07:00

I became aware of them as a first experience on arriving at the Namesti Republiky (Republic Square) in Prague. Not through the sense of sight, which is probably the most heightened sense when arriving at a new place; nor through the tactile senses as my feet hit the ground from the airport shuttle van- their unevenness requires subtle adjustments of the leg muscles to stay upright.

No, it was the sound, that jarring aural battery of plastic on stone as soon as the driver pulled my suitcase (Lil’ Red, short for Little Red Sarcophagus) out of the van and down to the pavement. As I wheeled Lil’ Red away with deliberate speed to cross the square, clattering applause rose up from the pavement. Embarrassed that all eyes were turned to me (which of course they were not), I paused. I looked downwards to see the conbblestones. Thousands of them in all directions. Pragmatically, I wanted to see how I could move along with making a minimal amount of racket. Instead I just paused to admire the lowly cobble. The patterns and sizes on the route ahead were as varied as the facades that lined the square.

As I moved along I listened to the music of wheels on stone. The smaller, tight fitting cobbles, seemingly more like mosaics, produced a short staccato rat-a-tat at a key high enough to affect my fillings. Long, linear cobbles with their meniscus edges mouthed deep guttural moans capped with a resonating ‘thok’ The typical fan array of square cobbles produced crescendos and decrescendos of clatter depending on the angle of attack. Given time and considerable amount of ridicule from bystanders, I think I could have found enough varied textural soundscapes to bang out a Smetana or Dvorak right their in that square!

But I wanted to get to the hotel.

Prague and the Jews

2009-04-10T07:02:00.000-07:00

The Old New Synagogue (14th Century)

The expectation that the intersection of Prague and the Jews would end badly is not disappointed as you learn more about a rich culture that once flourished just outside of the Old Town Square for centuries. What remains as monuments to thousands who are no longer here are a handful of ancient synagogues, museums treasuring fragments of a wealthy community and an extraordinary cemetery.
At one time, Jews considered Prague as a safe haven in Europe. Although they were relegated as elsewhere to a specific walled enclave within the main city, they enjoyed protection under a succession of Bohemian kings. Mostly the Jews benefited from Christian usury laws and quickly took up financing nobles and merchants. They prospered and created a ‘Ghetto’ of great prosperity.
When the Austrians came in, they really began feeling persecutions and were even more restricted. They were force to learn German and take German surnames. Eventually the ghetto was dismantled and the Jews spread out to the general populace. The area began a slow decay.
As Czech nationalism rose, the Jews began to be resented along with the German speakers. As in other places, the Jews could not feel as they belonged anywhere. Czechoslovak independence in the 1910s saw some easing, but it all came to an end in 1939, when the Nazis invaded. Czech Jews, some 140,000 of them were shipped north to the fortress at Terezin, and half were eventually sent to the camps at Auschwitz and Treblinka. Only 17,000 made it through and only some 3,000 Jews remain in this area.
One of the synagogues has been converted to a Holocaust memorial. The space is empty except for the walls which are covered with the names and dates of birth and dates they were last accounted for. An upstairs gallery contained children’s drawings that were produced at the Terezin concentration camp. It was a little too much to take in.

The Jewish Cemetery

Show me some Krumlov

2009-04-10T06:42:00.000-07:00

Dobry Den from Cesky Krumlov!

We have driven south of Prague through the rolling, verdant Czech landscape. Row crops are just being set out as the danger of frost has only recently passed. Dots of villages with the ubiquitous voluptuous, baroque church steeples pepper the countryside.

Occasionally we have passed ugly little industrial towns, some stark reminders of the Soviet era, and larger towns such as Ceske Budjevoce (where the original Budweiser brewery is located) and Benesov. The highway system is not as developed as in Western Europe, so we are forced to drive right through these towns and deal with traffic and mostly reckless Czech drivers.
South of Ceske Budjevoce, the terrain becomes more undulating. We are in spitting distance of the Austrian border when the turn-off for Cesky Krumlov comes into view.

Almost surrealistically cute, this Southern Bohemian enclave could be easily construed as a contrived Disney-ish fantasy replete with a looming castle, creaking water mills and tight narrow streets where the houses seem to overhang, their pointy rooftop tips just ever-so-slightly touching. But it is not contrived- it is a functioning millennium-old town that has avoided scarring wars and has benefited from benevolent rule from high in the castle.

The town consists of two parts: the Latran district which includes the rambling, lofty castle and a bit of town sandwiched between the castle and the river, and the main town which fits snugly in a 300 degree arc in the river. The town is mostly a car-free zone with parking provided in comfortably distant remote lots. Most visitors to C.Krumlov are day trippers from Prague, when the tourists leave around 5:00 the town is wonderfully quiet and slow.

Sebastian, Sabrina and I are staying overnight to enjoy an evening and a morning of this more ambling pace of town life. We walked around most of the village in a couple of hours, even at an unhurried pace; take in the views and have a beer (Pilsner Urquell, of course) at an outdoor café along the main drag in Latran.

We find a Pension in a fifteenth century building with original wood floors, antique furnishings and scary hand-colored photos of long dead (presumably) Slavic people. It is all quite amusing as it fits with the character of the town.

Right below our room is a small restaurant, expectedly rustic with heavy timber tables and chairs with equally rustic Czech food, heavy and plentiful to help combat the local Egger stein beers and shots of Bereshekova we consume.

From the Sublime to the Ridiculous

2009-04-07T07:20:00.000-07:00

Today I decided it was time to visit a few museums.

The Mucha Museum
Alphonse Mucha was an artist, draftsman and illustrator who achieved his greatest world renown in the 1890s and 1900s as a leader in the Art Nouveau style. His commercial work was mainly posters showing beautiful young women intertwined with nature and graphic flourishes. His later work focused on paintings dedicated to the glory and history of the Czech and, more broadly, the Slavic people. He was a champion of Czech independence from the Austro-Hungarian empire and, following that reality, was the artist chosen to design the first Czechoslovak currency and stamps.

The small museum was excellent in showing his drafting and graphic abilities with which I share a modicum of kindred spirit. His mastery of the human form and all its nuances was breathtaking. His later, nationalistic allegorical work was a little heavy in ‘message’ to my taste, bordering on melodrama, but his use of intense colors was wondrous. One of his last works was a large stained glass window in St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague Castle. It tells the story of St. Cyril (he gave the Slavs their alphabet) and St. Methodius, who both brought Christianity to Eastern Europe. Mucha’s amazing use of colors here is at full reckoning with north light punching up the impact. He used blues and greens to represent the past and the yellows and oranges to portend the future.

Mucha died soon after the Nazi invasion of Czechaslovakia. He had fallen ill during a Gestapo interrogation and never recovered. He probably died brokenhearted after seeing his beloved nation overtaken yet again.

The Museum of Communism
This is a privately run museum (irony #1), set up, in the city’s main downtown shopping district (irony #2), sharing a building with a casino and a McDonalds (#3 and 4). It was surprisingly informative, going beyond the predictable discarded busts of Lenin, Marx and other communist heroes.. It explained the history and circumstance of the rise and inevitable victory of Soviet-backed Czech communism before WW2 and immediately after.

Striking exhibits included a classroom for the indoctrination of children; a typical shop that only sold two different products and a chilling recreation of a secret police interrogation office. The last exhibit room had a TV playing the events of the Velvet Revolution of 1989 when the madness finally came to an end. Very sobering and a fitting tribute to the resilience of the Czech people.

Redrum

2009-04-06T23:48:00.000-07:00

Seven a.m. on the dot. Alone, I am the first one at breakfast. The buffet is set out and I can hear distant clanging in the kitchen where the breakfast attendant must be preparing. The dining room is located in the basement, but it is a high volume space with tall, luminous panels to give the impression of bright windows. The décor has a faded opulence of the 1920s and I am inclined to believe it is authentic. Art nouveau brass fixtures and railings, a grand staircase sweeping down in a gentle, confident curve, heroic wall frescoes. Piped-in music plays vintage twenties tunes in Czech or German, replete with that tinny mono sound that imagines capturing some lost reflected radio wave. Al Jolson comes to mind- he always comes to mind because that’s about the extent of my musical knowledge of that era.

Alone with the room, sounds and buttered toast, I am flashing on a scene from The Shining, where Jack Nicholson is talking to the ghostly bartender in the Overlook Hotel.

Creepy. I am so out of here.

On the Instance of a Presidential Visit with Nuclear Overtures Intersecting with my Little Trip to Middle Europe

2009-04-05T23:17:00.000-07:00

It’s not often the sitting President comes to your town. I am taking some liberties as this week I am a resident of Prague, CZ and Obama's only public address during his first European trip is here in Prague.

Thousands were converging towards the summit of Castle Hill on the west side of the Vltava River that bisects Old Town Prague. I set out at about 7:30 from the hotel, not really understanding how I would reach the location of the speech, the great forecourt to the huge Prague Castle. Heavy security had shut off a lot of the access points to the rambling castle complex on the hill so I wasn’t sure what to do, so I went with the flow. Luckily I had jumped on Tram No. 22 (nicknamed the Pickpocket Express, because of all the tourists that take it) which was the only public transport allowed in the Security area. People were streaming up toward the castle like insects up an anthill. It took an hour to be screened through security. We stood shoulder to shoulder crammed in the narrow lanes outside the castle- but there was more joviality than anger: there was a sense of revelry and anticipation. Finally the space opened up to the long, broad square where I joined about 25,000 new friends in waiting for the President to show up.

Of course there were lot of Americans there, maybe other tourists, expatriates, but mostly college students with many wearing campaign shirts and hats from last November. I was most aware of the presence of Czech youth and young adults. They really charged the crowd with their energy and excitement. They flashed peace signs and cheered loudest.

View towards the castle and the stage.

I was a few hundred meters distant from the podium, but the authorities had placed big screens around the square with a rather potent sound system. We were in a rock concert venue. No calming classical music was pumped into the crowd as one might expect from this country with its rich culture; no it was Beyonce, Shania Twain, Billie Holiday and Jay-Z! Given the rich Renaissance palace buildings and the looming spires of St. Vitus cathedral, it touched on the surreal.

When the President and First Lady showed up (about 20 minutes late on stage), they were given a rock star welcome. Small US and Czech flags fluttered in all directions. Cheers flooded the square and necks craned to catch a glimpse. Children were hoisted on shoulders and people scrambled up lightposts, statues, trash bins to grab a view. Amid my constriction within these ranks of people nattering away in some foreign tongue (my prejuidice), I thought, "Hey that's my president!" I was puzzled by my sense of pride and patriotism, particularly since I am not outwardly patriotic.

I think Obama’s words connected with the Czech people. He struck a populist note with his mention of the Prague Spring of 1968, when the Czechoslovak people tried to reform their communist nation before being put down by the Soviets and the Velvet Revolution of 1989, when the people finally overthrew the Communists without firing a single shot. He noted that 25 years ago the notion of an American President being asked to deliver a public speech behind the Iron Curtain was unthinkable. And this is where he connected to his theme of Change. The end of the Cold War has changed the role of nuclear armaments in the world. He then outlined proposed global nuclear weapon reduction and verification. I think he chose Prague to trot out his proposal, because these are people tired of being the historical doormat of Europe, from medieval wars of religion to Nazi occupation to the front line of the old Warsaw Pact. Peace sounds pretty good.

As we began flowing down Castle Hill, the good mood continued. We blended with the other tourists in the Mala Strana on the banks of the river in search of lunch, or in my case, a beer in a small pub off the main drag.

Na zdravi! A toast to Nuclear Disarmament and a pretty cool experience with the president.

Protestors on the Charles Bridge after the speech. They don't want an American defense radar system placed in the Czech Republic.

Culture on the Cheap

2009-04-04T23:53:00.000-07:00

I feel like I am inside an inverted wedding cake. Gilded white icing drips from the ceiling. Crimson velvet enrobes the seats and gilt mirrors and red damask cover the walls. Chandeliers like frozen explosions of gold and crystal hover below puzzling allegories of operatic themes realized in darkened pigments.. The State Opera house is not as splendid as what I remember of the Vienna Stadtoper or Paris’ Opera Garnier- it is definitely not a large venue. But man it is cheap. Front row, first balcony for thirty bucks! Plus supertitles in Czech and English, so I could actually understand what was happening!

Mozart’s The Magic Flute done in period dress with modern minimalist sets seemed a bit incongruous. The protagonist tenor was a bit weak, the Queen had nice little vocal runs; overall a good production. My jet lag kicked in late in the performance; I was bobbing and weaving and I was lucky my head didn’t end up resting comfy-like in my neighbor’s lap. A quick beer at a pub near the hotel and then to bed, with the Birdcatcher’s song from the opera with that maddening little flute trill in it.

Prague Images

2009-04-04T10:34:00.000-07:00

Early morning, Church of Our Lady before Tyn.

The Tyn Church as seen from the Old Town Hall tower.

Sitting in Old Town Square.

Marquee near Old Town Square.

Jan Hus monument, Old Town Square.

On the Charles Bridge, looking towards Old Town.

On the Charles Bridge.

My first beer in Prague.

Mt. Lassen

2008-07-28T17:39:00.000-07:00

I knew that Mom and Dad are not keen beach people, so when everyone headed to the beach, I wanted to take them on a drive up to Mt. Lassen National Park, about an hour away from Lake Almanor.

Highway 89 climbs and weaves through Lassen Park shifting long vistas and teetering your car on precipitous edges that test your wits. I was worried about Dad’s vertigo and I know Mom doesn’t care for those little windy roads. Fortunately the changing scenery serves a beautiful distraction. The caldera is like a child’s diorama of volcanic landscapes; violently-sculpted rock outcrops, hardscrabble debris fields, cold, empty glacial lakes, otherworldly sulphur springs and belching fumaroles and erosion-scarred greyed ash mounds. But also there are sheltered leas and valleys that, over the years, have provided growing grounds for hearty pines and high mountain flora used to these harsh conditions. These are the landscapes that frame the extreme qualities of nature, from catastrophic violence to quiet, verdant stillness.

As we walk a short ways down a dirt path, Dad pauses every so often to take a breath and remark, looking out at a particular arc of the scenery, “That would be a nice painting.” That comment made be pause because I often, mostly subconsciously, do the same thing as Dad; frame the world in the light of artistic possibilities. In fact, I’m a photographer for just that reason.

I realize that I can expand that idea to look at the world in the same way- of life as a series of vignettes that offer a possible story or point of view or the makings of art or whatever. I just don’t pause enough to see it.

Eventually, we came back down out of the cool mountain air back to the house at the lake. I enjoyed that for what it simply was: a couple of hours on the mountain as a small, frameable vignette of nature, of art and of time with Mom and Dad.

A Convergence of Stray Thoughts

2008-01-08T09:15:00.000-08:00

>>>
Seems I’ve taken up smoking again. Not, mind you, by lighting up a cig, but because a lot of the locals and the European travelers are puffing away in the cafes and restaurants. Add to that the hundreds of redolent scooters that belch unrestricted amounts of exhaust. In the old days you had to deal with all the kif (cannabis) smoke. At least there would be a fringe benefit. I just get the emphysema.

>>>
Speaking of scooters- surely these are the denizens of the earth. Many of the streets in the Marrakech medina are only six to eight feet wide, but still the scooters go. Annoyances.

>>>
Very important reminder in former French colonies: the ‘C’ on the knob = chaud = hot, not cold. Ouch.

>>>
OK, OK there was a lunch where one more spoonful of couscous would have made me scream, so I had a fairly authentic oven-fired pizza with mushrooms. Delicious. I used some harissa to spice it up and not feel totally unmoroccan.

>>>
They sell lots of bootleg American film DVDs on the street. I’d get some but I think they are dubbed and use the European standard. Mostly action stuff (I’m glad we export soooo much violence) but some kid’s stuff too. Even saw a copy of the Simpson’s movie. How on earth does that translate…?

>>>
Nescafé, ceci n’est pas café! Yuk.

>>>
Downside of being in the old City: no bars. And only some of the restaurants serve alcohol. The better hotel restaurants have good wine lists and serve harder stuff in their lounges. The local beer is called Casablanca and is a good Belgian-type lager. I also have most often seen Heineken, Carlsberg and Corona on the menus. Corona?!?

>>>
Morocco is a participant in the “War on Terror.” Did not know that. I suggest they flood several thousand carpet sellers into Iraq if they want to disrupt the insurgency and annoy the populace into subjection.

>>>
I detest the idea of colonialism- I believe it has fostered many of this continent’s problems. However a couple of benefits of having been under the yoke of the French Tricouleur: the laid back café society is alive and well here and the breads and pastries are on par with la Belle Cuisine.

>>>
I’m used to haggling, but EVERYTHING is negotiable here. It can become tiring. Plus haggling in French seems counter-productive. The lilting language of the conversation sounds like seduction but the content is akin to prostitution.

>>>
I was told firmly by a policeman not to take photos near the royal residence in Marrakech even though I just had my camera slung around my neck. Apparently Google Earth is blocked here so Moroccans can’t get images of the King Mohammed VI’s many residences.

>>>
A rough estimate of the language the touts use to attract me to their wares: Francais, 40%; English, 30%; Espagnol 20%; Nippon, 5%; undecipherable (could be Arabic), 5%.

>>>
I want some pork, damn it. Just a slice of maple-smoked bacon would be great. And an egg.

>>>
The percussive trance music played by black Africans in the Jamaa el Fna is amazingly hypnotic and the pieces go on forever. I believe it is called gnaoua and I have to get some.

>>>
Most used French: “Non, merci.” “Je ne cherche rien.” “Combien?” and “Trop cher.” Mostly dealing with the touts.

>>>
One day I want to harass a Moroccan carpet-seller on vacation in America. I want to be sitting outside the office and pounce on him yelling in his ear for half a block. “We have best architecture in Ventura, my friend! Discount for first customer of the day! You come sit down have tea. No charge.”

No, I don't want a frigging rug.

Hide and Souq

2008-01-07T22:12:00.000-08:00

One of my highlights of my trips to Istanbul was going to the labyrinthine madness that is the Grand Bazaar. In Marrakech they are called the souqs (markets) and they also sprawl seemingly endlessly in all directions. Maps are pointless, as is asking directions. You might think you are backtracking, but in fact you are heading in a new direction. When you do find a particular store called out in the guidebook, or a fountain you seek deep in the souqs, or one of the monuments on the north side of the Medina, you feel pretty damn triumphant, like you weathered some form of ritual hazing. The problem, of course, is getting back.

The souqs are vaguely divided into different goods. There is the Carpet souq and the Leather souq. There are souqs for fabrics, babouches (pointy leather slippers), pottery, antiques, metalworking, leather, eggs, olives, dates and on and on. Many of the streets are covered by lattices in various states of disintegration to ward off the summer heat but still allow ventilation. The effect is a dappled light effect on a riot of colors and textures that overwhelms and delights. Within the souqs there are no safe harbors from the visual riot or the constant molestation of the shopkeeps and touts. The only possible places are the many small mosques, but those are off-limits to non-Muslims.
So be forewarned: enter the souqs prepared to be dazzled; expect to get lost quickly and not be bothered by it; and let the vocal harassment slide right off so as not to ruin an amazing experience.

Marrakech Images

2008-01-07T11:48:00.000-08:00

The Courtyard of the Medressa of Ben Youssef

Ablutions Fountain

Dates and fresh-squeezed OJ in the Jamaa el Fna

Dates seller in the Souq

Fishmonger

Garden Court in the Palais Bahia

Corridor

Children on their Way to School

In the Dyer's Workshop

All Aboard the Marrakech Express

2008-01-06T11:43:00.000-08:00

The seven hour train journey arched from Fes in the foothills of the Middle Atlas range to touch the Atlantic at Rabat (the capital of Morocco) and Casablanca then a straight southerly run to Marrakech. As we rushed further from the ocean, the landscape quickly changed from the verdant coastal plains to scrubland to a more hardscrabble, treeless, semi-arid setting. Mud brick wall-surrounded ksours (family compounds) and kasbahs (small villages), barely distinguishable from the native earth save for their vague geometries, stake claim near the few dry riverbeds. We pass many shepherds dressed in their wool djellabas, seeking fresh grass perhaps revived by the recent rains, as Berbers have for centuries.

A 300 dirham ($35.00) ticket had secured me a place in First Class by the window on a serviceable train system, comparable to an emerging Balkan state. My fellow passengers in the train compartment changed over the course of the trip- no one else was making the full journey. A student embarked with me in Fes and I offered him a pastry from a package that the hotel had hastily prepared for me (as I had left earlier than the appointed breakfast time). He was a student returning to Casablanca after the New Year to continue his matriculation in chemistry. My terrible French really did nothing to further the conversation beyond pleasantries. ( I could throw out comments from my primary school lesson books like “The book is on the table.” Or “The hat of my aunt is blue.” How about “The weathers are bad, is it not?” But neither of those were actually true.)

The two gentlemen who made the Casablanca to Marrakech run with me kept to themselves, reading newspapers or staring drowsily out the windows. As the trip occurred during midday and afternoon prayers, one of the men from his long djellaba twice produced and clutched prayer beads and bobbed his head slightly as he whispered his praises to God. The vigilant Muslim takes the time to pray as required no matter the circumstance, even in a train compartment. He caught my eye once as I stared like a curious six-year-old, somewhat entranced with his display of piety. “Salaam,” I said instinctively, “Peace,” and smiled. He smiled back. “Allahu akbar,” I thought, “God is great, buddy.” And we continued south.

For all my life the name of this place has evoked exoticism, mysticism, intrigue. I have a romantic notion of places like Goa, Timbouctou, Petra, Samarkand that I feel drawn to. Istanbul was one such place I can strike from the list and now I am finally in Marrakech. Many of my generation relate to the place that became a scene for the Beat and Hippy crowd in the Sixties and Seventies. I see it as the confluence of Mediterranean, African and Arabic cultures only slightly removed from a brazenly raw, archaic past that is so counters my idea of culture and civilization.

After breaching a low range of hills we descended into a wide bowl of a valley with Marrakech sprawled out dead center. The snow-capped High Atlas cupped half the sky to the south in tones of blue and aquamarine. It was a justifiably wondrous entry to one of my own Fabled Cities.

Of Mint Tea and Sweet Pigeon Pie

2008-01-05T07:22:00.000-08:00

So when’s the last time you had some high-caliber Moroccan fare? Yeah same here. Actually, truthfully, for me it was about 10 years ago at Dar Maghreb in Hollywood (owned and operated by Pierre, a cantankerous old French architecture student of mine). Well it just doesn’t come up very often: ”Hey we haven’t had a tajine in a while…” But of course here everyday is Moroccan food! And I am making a good effort at sampling the fare.

But first, there is a reason that mint tea is called “Whisky Maroccaine” here. I was served it at the hotel check-in, every time I sat in the lobby, when they tried to sell me rug, after every lunch and dinner and even from the little cart on the train. The tea is invariably accompanied by little anisette cookies. So, if you like your Doublemint gum in hot liquid form accompanied by sticks of black licorice, Morocco’s got that going on.

It turns out that my riad in Fes is a specialist in traditional Fassi (of Fez) dining, which, in turn, is supposedly the best in the country. So I took three meals there and was not disappointed. I feared a lack of variety, but was delighted by the nuance and subtle flavor profiles. Each meal was two-and-a-half hours, so I was definitely allowed to savor the tastes.

‘Moroccan Salad’ usually begins a meal. This is not a lettuce salad- it’s more of an ‘Antipasto Maroccano’- cooked and marinated veggies. Typically, the produce I saw in the market stalls that morning were plated before me that evening. Each night I was served three or four. There was cauliflower roasted with harissa and olive oil, carrots cooked in orange flower water, cinnamon and honey (it tasted like perfume), braised fennel with mint and saffron, a garlicky eggplant mayonnaise (like a Lebanese baba ganouj, but lighter) over steamed artichokes, zucchini prepared in a fiery ratatouille style, fava beans in oil with preserved lemon and mint. The salads are always served with a little flattened dense dinner roll, kind of like a communion wafer on steroids (and without the guilt).

However, the cuisine really centers around meats, particularly barbecued in a kebab style or baked in a clay pot called a tajine. Chicken, lamb and beef are used, the lamb being my favorite (sorry Kara, those cute little buggers are tasty slow roasted). What changes up the flavors of the tajines are the herbs, spices and other flavorings they use. There’s preserved lemon which imparts a heady citron fragrance, dried fruits like dates, apricots and grapes that yield sweet bursts like a chutney, a liberal use of cinnamon, ground and whole almonds, a wide variety of olives, some incredibly salty and, of course, North Africa’s favorite red pepper condiment, harissa, potent and fiery.

My favorite by far was the lamb tajine with caramelized onion, preserved lemon and roasted almonds. After sopping up the last bits of sauce with my communion host I told my waiter Omar (I developed a strong food relationship with this guy) that if Americans knew shit like that existed in Morocco we would invade them next. Actually I didn’t, but I really, really wanted to.

The real Fassi specialty, however, is b’stilla. It sounds improbable as an even remotely edible dish but here it is: ground pigeon, eggs, ground almonds, nutmeg and cinnamon wrapped in a pastry that’s halfway between a sheet of phyllo and puff pastry. Dust liberally with powdered sugar and punctuate it with a lovely zigzag pattern of more cinnamon and, voilà, you have a stuffed chunk of Charlie Brown’s torso.

Once you’re beyond the idea of eating pigeon or, what I consider, winged rodents, it is actually quite good and that pigeon is one of the few weird meats that actually doesn’t taste like chicken- more like a mild beef, actually. I asked Omar if they farm pigeons. He said that they do, but also they can be hunted. I noted that there didn’t seem to be a lot of pigeons in public squares like in Europe. He smiled and said, “Monsieur, I think in Fes we have solved that problem.”

I decided not to pursue my thought about not having seen many dogs around either.

Retreat!

2008-01-04T13:15:00.000-08:00

The sometimes overwhelming dissonance of the of the Medina streets belies the great expanses of urban fabric, the living spaces, served by the spiderweb of paths. The contrast could not be greater. Step through any of the non-descript portals replete with intricately carved heavy wood doors and you leave madness for sanity, tension for a more lithe ease, profane for sacred. The Moroccan house is an inverse of the American: we appoint our homes to be an outward expression of our vanity, our status, our wealth; I am sure such pretense is shared by Moroccans, but their homes display this inwardly, out of the public eye, save for the fine wood doors. The typical medina home is a courtyard house, often comprising many open spaces: some covered, some garden spaces, some with water features. The roof is often a terrace space for particularly warm summer evenings.

Apparently not too many years ago, a westerner staying in Fes meant hotelling it in the nearby Ville Nouvelle, built by the French in the early twentieth century when Morocco was a Protectorate (read: subjugated colony) of France. But a few years ago, enterprising foreigners and Moroccans themselves began buying old houses in the old city and converting them to riads or small pensions. So now if you want to really experience these medinas you must stay in a riad.

I definitely did well to choose the Riad Fes as my base in the medina. The leap from the street bustle to the courtyard of the hotel could not be more welcome. I feel safely cloistered in a calm environment. Because there are no cars in the medina, there are no bus or truck vibrations or horns. The thick pisé walls muffle the outside voices, save for the calls to prayer throughout the day. You are left with the trickle of courtyard fountains, the birds in the garden, the murmur of foreign voices of my fellow travelers. The hotel is finely decorated in a grand Fassi style, with great expanses of intricate zellij (mosaic) tile, geometrically patterned plaster and carved woods. Typically low banquettes of seats with silk pillows invite lounging and I spent more than my fair share. In the evenings a grey-bearded gentleman plays the oud and occasionally sings some no-doubt romantic Fassi songs.

To top it off, there are no TVs or radios in the rooms. If I really wanted that kind of noise and stimulating entertainment, I simply need to walk back outside those doors and into the street.

My room

The Hotel Lobby

Courtyard

Fes 1, Curtis 0

2008-01-03T21:30:00.000-08:00

I was standing there utterly confounded, again. The shopowners were staring blindly and blithely by as I 360’d with a pained and plaintive face despite my best efforts to look like I knew where the hell I was in this unbelievable warren of passageways and ‘streets’. Looking up and out was pointless: there are no striking monuments or discernable physical markers. My map was useless as there are no street names. There are no wide boulevards cutting swaths through the ancient urban fabric like Paris. There are no ordering axes that tie the nodes of the city together a la Rome. There is no comfortable grid of streets that please the rational mind like New York. There is only a pathway anarchy that defies comprehension. I admit defeat. Fes wins. In all my years of self-assured travel (I can read a map, after all) I have never been so completely lost, so many times. I was warned at the hotel, in the guide books, but nothing can prepare you for these acres upon acres of impenetrable dense confusion.

It started after I arrived at the Gare de Fes in the Ville Nouvelle de Fes. At the station I scrambled for a cab- the idea of a taxi queue is alien here- clipped some Islamic mumued babooshkas and fell into the taxi for the Medina (Old City) of Fes where my hotel, the Riad Fes, is located. Well, no cars in the Medina, not when the average street is about 6 feet wide, so I had to lug my suitcase, which I affectionately have named Little Red Sarcaphogus, into the heart of the Old City. This was difficult enough, but just yards through one of the old gates I was lost. I went a bit further in and I was even more lost. Minutes later I was so turned around I began to doubt many aspects of my reality.

I finally had to break down and ask one of the annoying touts who were constantly cajoling me to lead me to the hotel. Abdullah led the way and I was there in minutes. I begrudgingly gave him 10 dirhams (about a buck and a quarter) and NO I don’t need a guide.

So after a shower at the hotel, I rushed headlong into the Medina for my obligatory scouting of a new city. And lost again. Almost instantly.

So just stop, breathe take it in.

This place assaults the senses completely- spices- fresh and dried in conical heaps, newly cured leather, sweet and savory street cart fare, perfume vendors featuring local verbena and bergamot, rank donkeys used as goods vehicles in these narrow streets and, of course, their droppings; children reciting verses in the little Qu’ranic schools, hawkers yelling out their wares, the chatter of teens being teens, the bustle of tour guides as they herd their charges, the hum of artisans as they work their tools, the burst of incongruous arab pop as cell phones discharge and not so often the arching call to prayer of the mosques’ muezzins.

So I accept defeat graciously, but choose to look at defeat as a means to see something new and rich, so unlike anything I have experienced before. A fair exchange- a momentary loss of my sense of direction for the heightened stimulation of all my other ones.

Funky Old Medina

2008-01-03T14:32:00.001-08:00

Images of Fes- and not one tassled red hat among them (click to enlarge)... The donkey is called the taxi of the Medina.

This is a fondook, where passing traders stored their goods and rested.

Typical scene in the Medina

Peering into the Mosque of Moulay Idriss II, the venerated 9th century founder of Fes.

The tanneries are in the heart of the old city and smell like hell.

These men are scraping the hair off the hides.

This is the door to the 'Black African' mosque, serving mainly Senegalese and Mauritainians.

The view from my hotel terrace.

Casablanca is Pretty Ghetto

2008-01-02T08:00:00.000-08:00

Am I being too harsh? Still I'm glad I booked one night here. This is my cynical prejudiced view of Morocco without the magic and beauty. I'm on the 10:15 to Fes!

Here are some images of Casa:

First Impressions

2008-01-01T22:04:00.000-08:00

The key I believe is not to have any after such a long journey. Twenty-three hours from my door in Ventura to my room at the Hotel Ibis Moussafir in Casablanca. That was about thirty hours of waky-waky time. I slept from about the Great Lakes to about south of Iceland, according to the little screen in the seat in front of me. I don't know why I keep that on the screen; it seems to show how painfully long the trip is and projects how much more sleep I am going to miss. Still I prefer that as entertainment to the Michael Bay crap on one of the movie channels.

Sitting in a numb stupor in the hotel restaurant, I am eating a simple tajine of lamb and egg, mopping it up with a surprisingly crisp baguette. Want to stay up at least until 11 to fight off jet-lag. Contemplating some interesting bits from the last day:

The British Airways 747 is only about half economy class. The rest is First and Business with all these bed-like seats. Very cool and how much?
Even with renovations, London Heathrow still sucks. Too crowded and they really push the shopping on you. It's a damn mall with an airport incidentally attached.
The baggage claim area in Casablanca was huge and apparently appropriately so- there were pile of bags and luggage neatly stacked everywhere. As I waited for my bags, I looked closer in and realized that alot of the bags had just blankets in them. But who owned these hundreds of bags? Not in Kansas any more...
The train from the airport to Downtown Casablanca was pretty third-worldy ( I guess I should refrain from such perjoratives) but it was kind of dirty and jittery and I was being tired and bitchy...
Cell phones are just as ubiquitous here except that they play bad arabic pop songs instead of bad anerican ones.
I am now able to offer up a theory about the piles of luggage at the airport. The Hajj, the great annual pilgrimage to Mecca ended about a week ago. Millions attend ( a good Muslim is required to go as it is one of the Five Pillars of Islam) and sleep in tent cities. So that is probably why all the blankets. But I still can't figure out why their owners aren't there.

Guess I'll sleep on it. Tomorrow, it's on to Fes.

Immagini 3

2007-05-23T14:54:00.000-07:00

These images are from Bastagna in Umbria.

(Yes, that means in Italian what you think it means in English)

The following images are from Bologna.

Not Bitter, Sweet

2007-05-22T19:48:00.000-07:00

When I arrived in Modena, I immediately went to the tourist office and arranged a tour for the four of us at an acetaia, vinegar factory, south of Modena, in the heart of balsamic vinegar country, to see how the stuff is made.

The day was very hot, almost oppressive. It was nice to wend our way through the countryside. Well, we ended up doing a lot of wending as I got lost and drove in circles until we finally found the little town of San Vito. I did get a lot of practice using roundabouts. We seemed to be driving through a village residential area when we found the sign for the factory, Caselli.

It turns out the ‘factory’ was the size of a modest house behind a family homestead. We were met at the gate by a very amiable gentleman, Simone, who was able to speak English well enough to explain everything. He, his parents and wife operate the business that his grandfather founded in the 1920s. The first thing you are hit with as you approach the door to the factory is the sweet smell of the vinegar that pervades everything. It is a rich, deep complex smell that matches the very complex way it is manufactured. It actually is less about complication as it is about time. Simone makes two kinds of product that can receive the tightly controlled designation of Aceto Balsamico di Modena: 12 year old and 25 year old. They both start with Trebbiano grapes grown by Simone’s family that are crushed and the resulting juice, or must, is boiled for 24 hours until about half the water is evaporated. The liquid is then stored in a barrel for a year, then transferred to another smaller, barrel; after another year to another, etc. This goes on for 12 or 25 years.

The barrels are made of nine different woods which impart different complex characteristics to the vinegar. The barrels themselves are reuseable, and they actually have great importance in the history of vinegar production. A ‘line’ of barrels traditionally would be built on the birth of a daughter to be used as a dowry and it is of much pride for families such as Simones to have several active lines.

Simone produces about 2500 small bottles of the vinegar, all carefully monitored by the government for quality. The small production guarantees that the stuff is expensive. But the mass produced stuff does not hold up to the traditional vinegar.

The tour ended with tasting the varieties and Simone explained what you should look for in the taste. I have a newfound appreciation for balsamic vinegar- the truly fine authentic stuff is sweeter and more delicious that the best chocolate by far- this defines the whole idea of slow food.

And I bought a few bottles of the 25 year old stuff to prove it to the folks back home.

A Party in my Mouth

2007-05-21T14:29:00.000-07:00

Lunch in Montefalco, Umbria

This trip has been very much about eating and drinking. Traveling with Suz, a chef and two other gourmands who really appreciate food, has made Italian cuisine an underlying theme.

We are in the middle of a four day swing through the province of Emilia-Romagna, the food soul of Italy that encompasses the vast floodplain of the lower reaches of the Po River. It has been my job to coordinate the driving and get us to the best places to try local foods.

Wine tasting in Assisi, Umbria

Places like Bologna, Forli, Rimini, Modena, and Parma are historically important cities dating back to Roman times and in some cases earlier. On the map, they form a straight line along the foothills of the Appenines, having formed as trading post along the venerable Via Emilia, the original Roman road laid out traversed by Caesar himself. But these cities also lie in the vast area of farms that feature grains, vineyards and orchards that feed the country. Here also lies the best food that Italy offers. Not as many tourists, particularly Americans, hit this area, opting for Rome, Florence, Venice and the Amalfi Coast. It’s a shame, because one’s idea of Italian food changes radically.

Bologna is called ‘Il Grasso’ by the Italians: ‘the Fat,’ because of the culinary tradition of the best cuisine. The first night we ate at an old traditional restaurant that first opened its doors in the 1920s, Ristorante al Papagallo, to see what this food was about. We were not disappointed.

Dinner at Il Papagallo

My starter salad of arugula, pear and gorgonzola was light and flavorful, dressed with only the finest olive oil; the gorgonzola was creamy and strongly flavored and the pear slices were so thin, they were transparent, but added just the right amount of sweetness. For the primo piatto (the first course in an Italian meal, which almost always is a pasta dish) I had the taglietelle alla Bolognese, the classic pasta dish with the slow-cooked meat sauce; this ragu is unlike any meat sauce I have had in America- no pasta drowning in a sea of sweet tomato red sauce, just light and meaty.

For the secondo piatto, main course, I had carpaccio (raw beef, thinly sliced and marinated) with greens and thin slices of Parmesano-Reggiano. Again, simple but excellent: each flavor was strong and individual. The parmesan had a fine, almost crystalline grain with a heightened nutty flavor- this was top of the line cheese.

The critical element you find in great Italian cooking is the excellence of the individual ingredients. Put together the best you can find and the combination can only be amazing. This has been true for almost all places we have eaten (as long as you remember to avoid the obvious tourist places, and get a sense of where locals eat; also guide books are invaluable). The cheeses, salamis, fruits we have eaten have seemed to have a hightened flavor to what I am used to back home.

A visit to the market in the city center of Modena showed the variety of great local products. It is a bustling place where stalls sell everything you need for a meal- all of high quality and a range of choices. I counted ten types of mozzarella, six kinds of local cherries, eight kinds of tomatoes, etc. They sell prepared foods like roasted vegetables and meats and pastas, which we bought for a picnic along with fresh apricots and cherries.

Scenes from the Central Market in Modena

Lunch in the Gardens of the Duke of Parma

Immagini 2

2007-05-20T00:09:00.001-07:00

Sunday today, don't feel like writing much, so here are some pix.

Looking toward Piazza della Commune, Assisi's central square

In the Piazza della Commune

Upper Assisi

Waiting at the Basilica, Assisi

Residential Street, Upper Assisi

Doves of Peace sculptures, Assisi

Duomo, Orvieto

Pienza

Piazza San Francesco, Perugia

La Passageiatta (the evening stroll), Perugia: Cruising Italian Style

Fuori Le Mure (Outside the Walls)

2007-05-18T01:31:00.000-07:00

Today, we drove west from Assisi out of Umbria and into Tuscany for visits to Montepulciano, Pienza and Montalcino. A welcome change, we decided to leave the cities and focus on the country.

A front had moved through in the early morning with violent wind and driving rain, waking us with clattering shutters (their shutters really work here) and laundry that had to be taken off the clothes lines. But the next morning was fresh and renewed with a blue sky and puffy clouds. Excellent day for a country itinerary.

The region of Southern Tuscany called the Val d'Orcia, is the picturesque Tuscany that we think of when we think of, well, Tuscany. Rolling hills dotted with farmhouses. Tall cypresses, olive trees and acres of vineyards. Hill towns. Great vistas.

Two great wines come from this region: Vino Nobile di Montepulciano and Brunello di Montalcino. We stopped in Montalcino for wine tasting in a 14th century fortress. But the star of the day was la campagna, the countryside. A perfect day all around.

Impossible Towns in Impossible Places

2007-05-17T01:13:00.000-07:00

Civita di Bagno Regio

Simple houses, churches, palaces cling with a barnacle’s grip to bare rock. The colors are all the same shade- they pull materials from centuries-old quarries that have served the Italians, Romans, as far back as the Etruscans.

Civita di Bagno Regio is almost laughable in its ridiculous predicament. Built on a disintegrating sandstone mesa, the town loses its outer rings over the course of centuries like an umber-shaded onion. Of course it will eventually meld into the valley below, but for the visitor today, it gives a great unvarnished glimpse of medieval hilltown character. A narrow arête of a ridge once connected the town to the adjacent bluff where you leave your car. But this too had melted away. A footbridge had been installed and the climb to the lofty old town is difficult, but well worth it.

Inside the Main Gate

The views are spectacular, of course. We as 21st century travelers appreciate them, but our context in appreciating these hill towns are far from those who first set up these aeries in the distant past. Central Italy has always been awash with invaders, marauding barbarians, warring factional states. So it was a defensive reaction to gather up on top and hunker down when Hannibal, Charles V or the Florentines came down your way and not just to have beautiful views into the countryside. It was prudent and economical to build densely on rock outcrops to minimize the amount of defensive walls and not to create picturesque urban scenery.

Stoop

***

Orvieto is a far different feel from Civita. It is actually a more ancient city that was important 2,500 years ago for the Etruscans. It sits on a thousand foot high volcanic plug with sheer cliffs all around. But it is still a lively, bustling community with it's main attraction being a striking Gothic façade unlike anything in Northern Europe.

The Cathedral of Orvieto

Gothic ecclesiastic architecture never really gained favor in Italy; the most true example being the Cathedral in Milan. The 14th century Orvieto façade is an Italian version of that dour, somber Northern European style. The façade shimmers with polychromic marbles, gold and bright colored mosaics all set in a stark white marble framework. It is overdone, overdecorated, overstimulating: Italian gothic?... bring on the Renaissance.

Driving in Italy

2007-05-16T01:07:00.000-07:00

Our Ford.

The next phase of the trip has begun. We are heading back about 2 hours south towards Rome to Fiumicino Airport to pick up the fourth and final member of our group, Linda Roos. On the way back we will stop at a couple places of interest: Civita di Bagno Regia, which is a crumbling medieval hilltown and birthplace of Saint Bonaventure and Orvieto, an ancient city dating back to the ninth century BCE.

We had picked up a Ford minivan in Rome. I had rented a car here back in 1989 and I noticed that not much has changed except for the increased traffic volume. Italy is still a nation of wannabe Andrettis and this is really evident in the cities where jostling for a better position is a manhood-challenging sport. The lines in the street are routinely ignored and the huge volumes directed down narrow passages are not unlike great pachinko games with clattering cars and tires thok-thok-thokking on cobbled roadways. Add to this large city buses that weave sinuously between curb and middle of the street and can stop suddenly with no regard to anything. Add to this huge tourist buses that lumber along like whales on steroids. Add to this the swarms of Vespas that fearlessly ply the narrow spaces between the bigger vehicles. Add to this fearless pedestrians distracted with cellphones or clueless tourists with their heads craned upwards at a nearby monument and you have a maddening, cacophonic, dangerous game of chicken that is not for the faint of heart.

A favorite sight: when the occasional red light crops up (Italians do obey traffic signals) you can watch the Vespas sheepishly creep out from behind the stopped cars and buses as they slowly form a motley row jostling position and toeing the line. When the light changes, there is a high-pitched roar and the insect swarm drives on.

Fortunately, by design, we will be avoiding large cities over the next week as we make forays to the hilltowns of Tuscany and Umbria and then head north to Italy’s breadbasket, Emilia-Romagna and the culinary centers of Bologna, Modena and Parma. The only difficulty we anticipate is deciphering the maddening Italian methodology of signposting, a cruel joke inflicted on even the most seasoned motorist.

Think Fast!

Iconic

2007-05-16T00:00:00.000-07:00

The Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi

The architecture of the Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi is Gothic austere, of no real significance except for the unusual design of an upper and lower church stacked one atop the other. The phenomenal beauty of this church is in the decoration. It is a who’s who of late gothic artists including Cimabue, Giotto, Lorenzetti and Martinii. The rich frescoes cover almost all surfaces- it borders on suffocating in the lower church, which already is vertically challenged. Francis was revered even in his own lifetime: he was canonized only 2 years after his death and a couple of centuries of work on his basilica began.

When I visited, during the 7:30 a.m. mass, I sat waiting for it to end to continue my tour. I contemplated the myriad of images of Saint Martin of Tours. And the crowded allegorical images of the vaults over the altar. I remember the times as a child when I was bored in Church, Immaculate Conception Church back in Monrovia to be exact, and I would stare at the stained glass images of the apostles or the Madonna panel over the altar with the strange-sounding ‘Ave Maria Gratia Plena’. Icons, rendered in great detail in stone chips, colored glass and painted scenes may have been created to reach an illiterate and unimaginative rabble, but I find them comforting in the depictions of the proximity of humanity and divinity. If I had attended a Protestant church when I was little, I probably would have been doodling in the hymnals as a way to keep my aesthetic sense on.

By the way photography isn't allowed inside the Basilica.

2007-05-15T06:19:00.000-07:00

Early morning in any place is a calm, contemplative time. A city without the bustle of its daily life is like taking a closer look at a finely crafted container free from the distractions of its actual utility. So I often wake up early to explore a place. Rome is one of those cities that simply calms a bit but does not stop. Assisi does seem to reset itself every morning.

Assisi is a large medieval town that clings fortuitously to the west flank of a great bulging arc of a mountain, Monte Subiaso. It is hemmed in by a tight ring of serviceable walls that act today more to contain the burgeoning rosy white stone walls of the City than in keeping warring city states out.

I left the apartment at 5:45 this morning to watch the sun rise and begin to paint the towers and domes with light. Had I thought of Assisi's geography sooner, I might have enjoyed more sleep: being on the west side of a mountain, the light would not hit the City for a couple of hours. Determined, I decided to climb to the pinnicle of the town, the lofty citadel called the Rocca Maggiore, to greet the sun where it would hit Assisi first. I was not disappointed. The beauty of the early morning dim light against a lightening sky was exactly what I was seeking. All alone on the ruins of the castle, with only the birds to be heard (is this where St. Francis started to preach to our winged friends?), I spent an hour watching the Sun come up and over the mountain. It washed the great valley below Assisi first, and I watched the light race up toward the town below like a rapid high tide. Finally the light hit the town and ultimately the great, austere Gothic facade of the Basilica of Saint Francis. Roosters everwhere were crowing as the light filled the hills and valleys of the surrounding countryside.

I have explored many places in the early morning, but Assisi was the most spiritual. St. Francis may have set up the feeling for this place, but for the visitor to Assisi to truly sense it, they must find this time for solitude and contemplation. It can be exhilirating.

The view of the Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi from the Rocca Maggiore.

The view of the Basilica from the Piazza Inferiore.

A Franciscan on the way to the Basilica.

The flags of a contrada in the Upper City.

Immagini 1

2007-05-13T22:12:00.000-07:00

The Bellybutton of the World

2007-05-12T22:22:00.000-07:00

At Michelangelo's Campidoglio with the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius

The first full day here in Rome was walking for miles through the historic center. Suz is great to do this with, because she doesn’t mind the walking and is fascinated by the history. And I am surprised how much I remember from my school days here. The dates and the names of Emperors, Gods and Popes have become fuzzy but the anecdotes and especially the ‘cause and effect’ stories from history are still remembered. Thank you Professors Gabe and Ken. Apparently I was listening in class.

In grade school, I had never enjoyed History as a class subject- I never found the need of rote learning of dates and names, who really cared? But history class in Rome consisted of walking the streets of this ancient City and learning the meaning in the stones and bricks. The Roman Forum may seem a puzzling collection of debris that requires a lot thought to reimagine. But add the names of Gaius Marius, Julius Caesar, Augustus Caesar, Saint Peter and the depth of what you see is profound. Here, in about a square mile, is the nexus of Western thought- the notions of democracy, the Republic, law and Judeo-Christian values have passed through this point. The foundations of the way I think, the way I reason, has had this venerable City in which to gestate and flourish.

There is a cylindrical pile of brick and marble in the Forum; it could easily be lost in the numerous other configurations of brick and marble. It sits near the great rostrum, where the finest orators of Rome would deliver their great speeches. This cylinder is the Umbilicus Mundus, the ‘bellybutton of the World.’ It was from this point that all distances from Rome were taken to the far reaches of the Empire- Britain, Spain, Egypt, Romania, Turkey, Iran. ‘All Roads Lead to Rome?’ Well here is where they led. I think it also measures our connection across time to this place. Twenty-five hundred years of history is not easy to grasp, but touching it, standing in it connects you to your culture like no other way. So it’s no surprise that I love and remember Rome like a fascinating dear old wise relative with quite the story to tell.

The Forgettable Part

2007-05-12T08:00:00.000-07:00

4 hours- leave Ventura, beautiful drive along PCH, check in at LAX, board Swissair
11 hours- fly to Zurich
3 hours- wait in Zurich, flight delayed
1 hour- Fly to Rome
2 hour- passport control, collect bags, take train into Rome, Stazione Termini
15 mins- cab to hotel

The flight was OK; no sleep as usual. A brand new A340 with a cool on-demand video system- watched 3 movies; a numbing romantic comedy (although not bad enough to lull me to sleep) and two rather violent dramas.

***

We checked in and rested a bit. Entertained ourselves watching an Italian variety show on TV- had no clue what was happening, but funny nonetheless.We decided to eat at a nearby place La Insalata Ricca- good, basic stuff. I had a pizza and salad, Suz had a selection of bruschette (note to self: the porcini and truffle oil one was the best; have to make that). The key was the beer and wine I had: getting back to the hotel I was gone in minutes.

Unspent Lives

2007-05-07T20:56:00.000-07:00

I consciously pause at my framed old maps of the Italian peninsula on the wall of the living room. They are so fixed in my periphery as I walk by them many times a day I no longer really see them; there they hang- just decor. But now I stop, anticipating my trip. I found them 15 years ago in a dusty used book store 'Calico Cat,' in Downtown Ventura across from the office. They are hand colored pages from a long defunct French atlas. I am sure there were other fascinating atlas pages filled with nations long lost in the vault of time: what of Abyssinia, Wallachia, Baluchistan and Pomerania? History and geography have wrestled for millenia in this epileptic dance of absorption and division. Lines of borders would advance and rebound violently like a plucked string. Map colors would seem to splatter, mix and overwhelm in pained movement absent of choreography. Placenames would be ground through the seive of the conquering language. All save one would find this confounding: the nebbish atlas maker appears to have enjoyed great job security.

When I chose the framing, I had selected voluptuous gilded wood befitting the thick-with-history 150 year old maps. These golden frames verge on the gaudy, but little else in the room is nearly as ornate. They also echo the curvaceous lines of the boot of Italy- the high-heeled boot, enticing with a hint of danger.

I especially like the map of the Italy during the height of the Roman Empire, second century A.D . I like to speak the Latin place names and by that sound transform the name from that long dead language through two millennia of the italian vulgar: Mediolanum to Milano, Bononia to Bologna, Neapolis to Napoli, Florentia to Firenze. Language, like all else, evolves; it seems strange that even the very names of our homes, our 'tribes', our culture can change given time.

I leaf through a small, hardcover book comprising small reproductions of the drawings of Antonio Sant'Elia. I first encountered his work 25 years ago when we studied the italian Futurist movement, a group dedicated to the forsaking of the degenerate historical past in favor of a machined future embracing technology. He is best known as the author of the 'Futurist Manifesto', but what caught me were his robust, confident drawings. He saw a bold, uncompromising future with strong, assured forms, heroic scales and self-aggrandizing monumentality. His vision was an unyielding expectation of the future of architecture based on man as a technological, evolving being and not as a romantic, frolicking twit.

But he never lived to realize his visions nor see how prophetic he was. He died fighting in the Great War at the age of 28.

I am reminded of the work of one of my favorite artists, Franz Marc. Vivid colors and a structuralist approach to describing the natural world. Killed in 1916, the same year as Sant'Elia. At age 36.

So removed from them, I cannot grieve their loss, but I wonder, of course, what great work was never created, what unique vision was so untimely snuffed out, what might millions have shared in such genius potential.

So, with what little we have of the likes of Sant'Elia and Marc; we can only enjoy their stunted ouevres and wonder, "What if...".

And in the same thought we can lament that epileptic dance of absorption and division, that violence of our natures that moves lines, changes colors and butchers placenames.

And damn the atlas makers.

Silver Memories

2007-05-05T21:24:00.000-07:00

With less than a week to go, I am acutely aware of all the cose italiane lying around the house and office. Guidebooks, slightly yellowed from sitting on shelves, have jostled into piles on my coffee table, my bedside table and within easy grasping reach at the office. New ones, fresh from tossed Amazon boxes are there too, as are badly refolded Michelin maps. I am creating the mental context for easing back into Italy. Twenty-five years ago, Italy was home for a year and, though I know I cannot recapture that same sense of ease over just a few days, nonetheless I want to create a sense of familiarity both in places in distant past visited and, strangely, those places I have yet been.

I dragged out a few 25 year old pictures from my junior year. Strange how vividly I can still remember those moments: how wonderful that time was. Sharing the experience of discovery in such a rich culture with my 40 classmates has never neen matched in my lifetime.

The 1983 Papal Easter mass in the great piazza in the Vatican.

The pilgrimage to the seven basilica churches of Rome by scooter.

Dressed to kill; getting ready to visit James Stirling at the American Academy in Rome.

This was the last week in Rome, going around town saying ciao to all the sights.

Travel Bug is Restless

2007-05-02T17:44:00.000-07:00

Late afternoon Istanbul, September 2005

The final stage of my next journey is underway and its T-8 days until departure for Italy.

My suitcase is sitting in my living room- all the pockets cleaned out and the main flap unzipped wide open to receive the necessities that will sustain me through the Third World hell that is Central Italy. Do they have toothpaste? Toilet paper? For godsakes do they do laundry? Should I bring 16 changes of clothing? My memory is that the Italians dress nicely, particularly in the cities, but I don't do leather particularly well, so I pack American traveler chic: beater tennis shoes, mismatched white crew socks, cargo shorts with 30 assorted pockets, a tee shirt with an American flag and a von Dutch baseball cap. Oh yeah, and an obnoxious attitude.

Apparently, packing for me is an outward manifestation of my inner tumultuous dialogue.

Seattle Images

2007-02-10T18:36:00.000-08:00

Images from my trip to Seattle for the Board Leadership Conference for the Boys and Girls Club of Ventura. Between sessions of the conference I took advantage of staying in Downtown Seattle by roaming the area and playing tourist.

It can get cold here in February, but the sky, when there, can be breathtakingly expansive.