Shaking my head with resignation masquerading as wisdom
Estonia has a long and turbulent history. There’s a hackneyed phrase for you but pretty accurate here. Bouncing between empires and occupations it hasn’t been until the fall of the Iron Curtain that they could rise up as a nation. It also means that a city like Tallinn has not been scarred by modernism too badly…until recently. New building is evident all over but the old city is still untouched. I had a ferry ride there and spend a brief day exploring this impressive place.
“There is a kind of flame in Crete – let us call it “soul” – something more powerful than either life or death. There is pride, obstinacy, valor, and together with these something else inexpressible and imponderable, something which makes you rejoice that you are human being, and at the same time tremble.”
― N. Kazantzakis, Report to Greco
I didn’t know what to except from our visit to Crete. The idea to travel there wasn’t mine and I knew very little about this large Island in the Mediterranean. However, it turned out to exceed my hopes. It was hot, but the nights were cool on the water, so lack of AC wasn’t a big problem. We just needed to keep the sunscreen flowing under that big, hot orb. Here in Sweden I miss a café culture and the ability to eat excellent food at a reasonable cost so finding the Crete had a few tavernas in every town that didn’t charge a fortune was nice. The food, even at the modest restaurants, was great. Ancient history always attracts me, so I was glad to be constantly exposed to it. Crete is not a impoverish part of Greece, but you do see an odd mix of clean modern buildings next to much older ones in poor states of repair. But that’s the kind of juxtaposition I love to see, especially in such stunning landscapes. Through it all the Cretans were uniformly friendly far beyond normal hospitality. The downside was terrifying mountain road drives with the reward of magnificent vistas. We survived it all as these pictures prove.
A friend visiting in the summer provided the excuse to see some of the area around Stockholm. I hate to admit it but even though I’m a short drive or train ride away I have not explored that city as much as I should. Drottningholm Palace just outside Stockholm is where the Swedish royals actually live but you can still tour a portion of the historic building. While there’s certainly vast wealth on display you can see that Sweden’s Royal Family wasn’t the wealthiest in Europe by all the faux detailing and decoration. I captured a little bit of it in pictures.
It’s like 2015 never even happened on this blog. Well, it did even if I don’t remember much of it. Here’s some photographic proof. Don’t forget to click to the next image page below to see more of them.
It’s hard to believe that I moved to Sverige in January of this year. I’ve now worked my way through a few seasons here and am staring down winter. While I’ve been lax in updating this blog I’ve not been remiss in taking photographs. Here’s a variety of them from this year.
I’ve accumulated some more photos from disparate sources. Niagara-on-the-Lake in Ontario, Canada has its share of hyphens. Despite that it is a rather large tourist attraction hosting some of the best vineyards in the Great White North. Besides the trodden grapes the area has a great deal of history including action during the war of 1812 (when it was the capital of Upper Canada) and before. If you want to see Niagara Falls do yourself a favor and take a day trip there while making this quaint town your home base.
Closer to home (mine, at least) is the Yankee Air museum. It’s a non-profit organization that restores and flies vintage WWII aircraft. When you take into consideration the vast, and I mean vast, quantity of military aircraft made under the stars and stripes for the great war (part deux) it is mind boggling how few survive. It’s a good thing that some groups preserve this heritage.
So, here are some pictures captured at the above.
I was thankful to spend Thanksgiving in Florida. That’s because while it was getting chill here in Virginia the weather was perfect there. The Sunshine State is a strange place full of natural loveliness and so many new urban areas that it often seems like there are only two times: now and the future.
We landed on the West coast and spend time in Naples. After that we drove across the narrow peninsula and arrived on the other coast in Stuart. It was fun to visit both the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic in back to back days. We saw a sunset over a beach and the next day a sunrise. You can’t really beat that.
On this trip I visited two wonderful gardens. The Naples Botanical Gardens were pristine with tropical plants from many areas of the world. After being in gloomy fall weather to see the visual pop of colorful flowers was fantastic.
On the other coast was the Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens. Finding this in Florida feels a bit strange but there is a compelling story about why an elderly Japanese-American man donated the land for this endeavor. You can find it on their web site.
As usual I took way too many pictures and it took forever to sort them out. I’ve included a few from the trip here and I hope you enjoy them.
I’ve never visited the capital of the state I live in at all. After over 10 years here you’d think that would have happened but so far I’ve skirted it instead going to the coastal, mountain, and northern (mega-urbanized) regions of Virginia in the past. Last weekend I was thrilled to travel to Richmond for a couple days to visit a friend and eat far too much. The city was wonderful with so much history, beauty and activity. I managed to go picture crazy too and here are a few of them.
My father has had a few years of ill health (and all the baggage being a wee bit of a hypochondriac can add to that) so when some medical tweaks suddenly made him regain some vigor I was impressed. Since my father is at his craziest when in high spirits his purchase of a Porsche was only modestly shocking. Certainly at his age he should do whatever makes him happy and I’m all for indiscriminate spending on fun things, after all look what I collect! These events were a sign that it was time to get my father out and about doing something fun and far away after such a long period of him protesting he couldn’t.
Even though the weekend after Thanksgiving was very close the free from work Friday made the time ideal for this road trip and I went about quickly (OK, I procrastinated) making plans for it. Soon I found myself flying into Buffalo, NY and taking the wheel to move on down the road for 7 hours into the heart of Manhattan. It wasn’t all bliss, though. The expensive SUV didn’t have an iPod aux jack even though the cheapest Kia comes with such gratis. A few hours of driving and I was looking (and looking and looking) for a decent book on CD at Cracker Barrel to fill time on the boring concrete ribbon of the interstate. Learning to use the complex interface for the rather misguided navigation system also tried my patience. It worked like the partially decommissioned HAL did in near the end of 2001 a space odyssey and I was surprised it didn’t start singing “Daisy” somewhere in New Jersey.
Miraculously we made it to our Midtown hotel only to find our room was not ready yet. Actually, It wasn’t ready for two hours which normally would have perturbed me if it wasn’t for the fact that I got comped free stuff every time I went to the desk to ask “ready yet?” In the end through judicious choice of a different receptionist every time I went up to put forth my inquiry I had accumulated 10 free breakfasts and 4 slips for drinks at the bar. That was 4 more breakfasts than we needed for our 3 day stay but they started being distributed en masse towards the end of my pilgrimage to bug them.
The goals for the weekend fell into two general categories: Things with my father and things without my father. The latter was intended to help me keep my sanity over this period. The former included eating and the opera which was the point for coming to the city and we certainly had a good deal of both.
The Opera was Il Trittico by Giacomo Puccini and I was astounded by the stage presentation and voices presented by the Metropolitan Opera. It was long but that was justified by the final of the three single act operas called Gianni Schicchi. This was a very funny comic opera that won the heart of this most ambivalent opera listener. My father loved it all and even made a friend in an old woman who I found him discussing Czechoslovakia with when I returned from intermission. Below are some images of the event for you to take a gander at. The sets and stagecraft utilized for this were incredible and even utilized some tricks of perception to make the stage seem deeper than in actuality. Yes, I did put a tie on for the event which I felt was appropriate even if I’m not sure I didn’t look a bit like a tourist.
My father is a fine person but he has weird outbursts of angry old man at times. I’m pretty good at putting my hand over his mouth when this happens but my biggest challenge was to keep him from getting into trouble. In the end I am happy to say only 4 times did I cringe in either embarrassment or shock. At the opera he grumped at someone who got in front of him in the elevator which is par for the course. After the performance when cabs were scarce he wanted me to take proactive physical action to obtain a cab before others who had seniority. I will say here that he has some trouble walking and didn’t like standing around but I have two strikes against me in cab warfare: I’m polite and I’m rather small. Lastly, there was his outburst at a hostess at a German restaurant we ate at and how his inexplicable insertion of his hand in another person’s waiting food. I’m not even going to give details about that little incident.
Around all the other activities I did get to eat (and eat). One of my favorite restaurants is Les Halles whose executive chef once was Antony Bourdain. I go there for the boudin noir which in English has the less romantic name of blood sausage. Certainly not something you’ll find at the local IHOP but totally tasty if you can get beyond the ingredient in its name. Some giant German sausages at the Heidelberg, a prickly pear margarita at Dos Caminos, and some great Belgian beer at the BXL Café got worked into the trip as well. However, the only pictures of my general wanderings are of the environs of Rockefeller center. It was lovely as usual and the big tree was…well…big.
So, that takes care of the boring part of this all. Now I can talk about one of my favorite topics: pens and friends. I made a beeline Saturday morning for Art Brown International Pen Store which is a great place if you are of the pen, stationary, and ink mindset. An enjoyable time for me is wandering and ogling the contents of such a place, as you can imagine. I was picking up a few presents and some other items when I came across bottles of the now discontinued Montblanc Racing Green ink. I bought a bottle since it was low priced and now seemingly rare. I’m only mentioning this since I think I’m going to give it away on this blog in the near future.
Sunday saw me off on my own to visit MOMA. I wanted to see the Tim Burton art exhibit being shown but found after getting my tickets that you were assigned to a time slot when they would let you see it. Of course that time was 3 or so hours later than the when I arrived so I never got to view it. Still, all was not lost as I got to see a really fabulous exhibit on the Bauhaus school in prewar Germany.
After my fill of Deutsch modernism I had a terrific lunch with Dominique James, a pen friend. He is one of the original members of the Fountain Pen Network-Philippines group which I’ve blogged about before. Since I’m a distant acquaintance of a couple FPN-P members I’ve known that he lived in NYC and thought I’d see if he might want to meet up. I’m always stunned that someone would be nice enough to spend their valuable time with me but he agreed. The lunch was very enjoyable with much talk about pens interspersed with some interesting information on the Philippines and cooking. I stayed longer than anticipated so I was off in a rush to my next appointment.
Two people willing to see me in one day doesn’t come along too often so I hustled uptown to the Columbia University area. There another wonderful person who I knew from online interaction, but never met in person, waited. I, of course, was quite late to meet her and which got me off on the “now you look like a dimwit” foot. Mia was far nicer than I had a right to expect and my tardiness was overlooked. I got a highly enjoyable tour of the local neighborhood and a few places of sustenance. Food makes me docile and easily led so it was a good thing that I had great crepes for a pre-dinner snack followed by some wonderful croissants from a local French bakery. After the tour and picture taking I had an experience which reminded me of being on a childhood play date with a friend. We spread out pens, pads, and inks and spend time trying it all out. It ended way too soon as I had to go to dinner with my father who had spent a great deal of time watching football that day (yes, that’s my father). I left taking with me the two best tamales I ever had.
While on that neighborhood walking tour I did get to see a fascinating Church and fountain. The Cathedral of St. John the Divine is very imposing and creepily gothic. In the gardens next to it is both the oddest and most interesting fountains I’ve ever seen. The Peace Fountain has a depiction of the battle of good and evil which contains (among other things) a giant crab, the sun, and an Angel. Not sure how to fathom what kind of aquatic/solar/heavenly battle is going on but it’s dramatic. Even more surprising was the albino peacock that wandered behind a fence on the grounds. That was the last thing I expected to see in New York City.
I think both my father and myself had a great trip to that little, sparsely populated island city. I’m hoping to get back again at least to check out more stationary stores and maybe catch another opera to try and stay awake during.
