lairdandjonelle

Hello, Again after a very long time. We are traveling again — YAY! Ireland for 12 days, I for poetry workshop with my friend Judyth Hill, Laird for enjoyment — though not like mine isn’t enjoyable. Our friend, Ramona, is also making the trip. We flew on Labor Day, overnight from Dallas; easy trip and I got to watch Guardians of the Galaxy (very funny); a short Irish film, An Irish Goodbye:

“Northern Ireland film An Irish Goodbye won best live-action short film at Sunday night’s ceremony. The film is a black comedy set on a rural farm in Glenmornan, a small hamlet west of County Tyrone in Northern Ireland. It follows two brothers, Turlough and Lorcan, who are estranged.”

And another one was Australian, Blue Back, made in 2022:

“Follows Abby, a child who befriends a magnificent wild blue groper while diving. When Abby realizes that the fish is under threat, she takes inspiration from her activist Mum, Dora, and takes on poachers to save her friend.” Did you know that grouper are very large and they live to be in their 70s (assuming they aren’t caught and eaten). A lovely, sweet movie.

Not like flying to South Africa, which takes 6-7 movies and a TV show, so that if you fly there and back in one month, you’re sucking hind teat for entertainment on the way back.

All worth watching if you can find them.

We finally got to our hotel after a comedy of errors with the address. We are staying at the Pembroke Town House on Pembroke Road. And we came to the right street but we had wrong number, so couldn’t find it; taxi took us to Pembroke House on Pembroke Street. Those people were very confused because they are not a hotel. They figured it out, called us another taxi and we returned to Pembroke road. I want to point out that practically every building in Dublin has many outside stairs to get to the front door. That meant two trips up lots of those stairs and one trip down, lugging luggage.

First order of business after then lugging luggage to our room, find an old pub and have fish and chips and a Guinness (well, Laird and Ramona; I had Irish gin with tonic) — so off we went, found the place Ramona wanted to go to. They were very happy with their stouts, but we all were disappointed with the fish and chips — Ramona and I left most of ours; Laird soldiered on.

On Wednesday, before meeting the writers, we went around Dublin on the Hop-on Hop-off, had lunch at a nice restaurant (yum, local salmon in a poke bowl for me; Laird with a weird looking open-faced shrimp sandwich), then hopped back on to get us as near as possible to our hotel (which was not really very near) and walked back. After meeting with writers (there are 4 of us), we had wine and cheese with everyone — there is a couple originally from Arizona, who now live in San Miguel de Allende — who are with Laird and Ramona as nonwriters with Kris Rudolph, logistics star and culinary queen — we went to dinner at Brazen Head, Dublin’s oldest pub; someone said it started in the 1100s (could that really be true?!?).

Today, Laird’s group toured to various sites near the Liffey River, incl. Trinity university with a historian. The relationship of Cat O’Conner to the English/Protestant overlords is very similar to the current attitude of the Afrikaners to the Brits in South Africa. The Brits did not get humanitarian awards for their behavior in Ireland (or SA). We heard a lot from Cat about Wolf Tone and the 1798 rebellion and an equal lot about Michael Collins and the 1916 revolt. Collins signed the peace treaty of 1921 that made the republic of Ireland a dominion of the UK — somewhat far less of the self governing and independent nation the native Irish desired. The republic was not declared until 1949 — about the same time that India finally achieved complete independence. Grievance runs very, very deep. I had expected to visit and see the Book of Kells at Trinity and had printed out 24 of the most interesting illuminated pages from the website. However, we admired the buildings and were on our way, never to have seen the Book of Kells. Another tidbit of info. Power(s) is a very Irish surname. There was a ???? Power in the Laird family genealogy who arrived in the American colony within 50 years of the Mayflower. If this arrival was from Ireland, not directly from England, that could be the Irish connection. There is an Irish emigration museum, but one of our group visited and was disappointed. We decided that there might be better sources to one day explicate and inform this speculation. In any event, Cat confirmed my speculation that there were a bunch of Scottish Presbyterians who were recruited by Cromwell and allowed to immigrate to Ireland to help control (and oppress) the native Catholic (pejoratively — “”papist) population. Ramona and I also visited the National Museum of Ireland: Archeology Museum and were equally impressed as was Jonelle (below).

Lots of immigrants in service roles — we had a Ukrainian taxi driver and most of the staff at the hotel are not native Irish.

Back to Jonelle: We writers did a literary walking tour — our guide, Jack, was amazing. The tour included places and writings of Oscar Wilde, James Joyce and WB Yeats (he called him Willie; I’m going to too) — and we ducked into the archaeological museum to see the bog bodies, kings who had failed to bring good weather for good harvest so were tortured (their nipples were cut off — it’s kinda a long story) and killed and thrown into the bogs. Apparently, bogs are a good medium for mummification. We all regrouped for delicious lunch at Davy Byrne’s, AKA Joyce’s pub. I came home and Laird and Ramona went to the archaeological museum to see the bog bodies and more.

Tomorrow we leave for county Kildare to tour Drimnagh castle, visit St. Brigid’s cathedral and spend the night at Kilronan castle. Dinner will be at Douglas Hyde restaurant, the 2022 2nd place winner in Ireland’s gold medal awards for fine hotel dining. Yum.

I’m reading the Hired Man by Aminatta Forna (good book, I recommend it; set in Croatia) — here is a joke from it (I’m paraphrasing): a woman goes to a fortune teller, who tells her that she will be a widow within the year, her husband meeting a violent death. The woman is shaken. She gasps, clutches her heart and asks “Will I be acquitted?” Easy enough to find funny books (this one is not), but not too many tell jokes. It made me laugh.

If you got an email from wordpress that we posted, let us know, please. Thanks for reading

We happily interrupted our picture posting for dinner with friends and now we have returned — yes, folks, it’s that dreaded obligation: looking at people’s vacation pictures!

So now for MORE PICTURES of Floriade — one of these days, we’ll remember how to do this on original posts, real time (well, closer than now).

This may take more than one post; we don’t know. It’s hard to be old in the Technological Age! (Are you impressed that we at least got this far???)

So we’re back, have downloaded the hundreds (thousands?) of pictures we took of the Floriade, so here is a smattering — be prepared: we will find you and make you look at all the others! First up, greenhouse pictures; another post(s) will show other parts of the 60 hectares of delicious delight in all things green! These are not in any order; don’t know why. Also not as many as we selected; maybe there is a wordpress limit?

We flew from Amsterdam yesterday on KLM — when you are flying overseas, think of them, it is so nice flying with them, the flight attendants are so very nice — why, they even appear to like us customers! — and it’s like international travel used to be, where they feed you like every two hours. This was a different plane than the one I took from Amsterdam the last time I was there, after the Rhine cruise I took with Noekie — that time, don’t know what kind of plane it was but economy plus looked like our domestic business class — that was a cushy trip! But, while not as plush, it still was a lovely flight and we got in earlier than we would have on Icelandair. Not that it counted for anything because we got a late start, didn’t make up the time apparently and when we got to JFK, there was no gate for us — we had to ride around the airport for about a half hour until one was available.

Oh, but we got to the TWA Hotel, got to our room, rested a bit then went to dinner. Chris had encouraged a cocktail, so I had my usual. I had perhaps the worst G&T in my memory (well, no, I just remembered that Spanish gin and the Japanese gin we had at our gin tasting party — gin made from sake: so very wrong!) — it was called Dorothy Parker gin and I don’t know whether it was the gin or the tonic they used (need to ask what that is), but it tasted like drinking the watered out dregs of an old, perhaps from the 50s, perfume bottle, maybe from the suitcase of a TWA stewardess who was hoping to get lucky, meet a rich man and live in a mansion, be able to afford better perfume, but, alas, that never happened and she worked until the mandatory retirement age for stewardesses. Whatever happened to her, I wonder — I heard that she had inherited her girlhood house when her mother died, but no one knew if she sold it and bought a pre-war apartment in NYC or went back home and played canasta every week with the girls. Maybe she got a job at the TWA Hotel, Paris cafe hostess or front desk, she did have talents after all if you don’t count her taste in perfume. Oh, god, do you think she got married after all and when her son decided to start a gin distillery. . . .

Definitely not the gin for me! Nor do I get the name Dorothy Parker coupled with excessively floral gin or anything else in that vein. Unless they make an acerbic cologne????

The power just came back on — I was writing this when the (very loud!) fire alarm sounded and a voice said there had been an alarm and they were looking into it. So, about 2 1/2 hours later, it is back on and I am rewriting. In the meantime, we went down and got salads at the food hall and, ohsobad, desserts (bad in re calories, but tasty as …..). We missed Sia’s graduation ceremony because there was no internet — very sorry about that! Did anyone video it or is it saved on utube? Two schools down, Sia, one more to go before the big U starts — do you have any idea what you want to major in? In public school, I think you have to declare what your college major will be when you’re in 8th grade — it puzzles me that the system expects a kid to know what she/he wants to do with her/his whole life before she/he is even old enough to drive! If I had not been lucky enough to just fall into my career, I’d STILL be pondering that question! (This is somewhat reminiscent of Russia, where you take an entrance exam for each institution and each possible major at 16 or 17 and are pretty much stuck with that choice for the rest of your life. If you want to change majors, you have to go all the way back to the competitive entrance exams and start afresh — no transfer of credits).

We have a couple more hours to while away here, then we go through the tunnel connecting the hotel with the Jet Blue terminal and start preparation for the next-to-the-last leg of journey home. Everyone start practicing, building up your stamina — we have LOTS of repetitive pictures of the Floriade! We are quite charmed with the TWA hotel, which converted the massive, Saarinen designed central airport facility at the then named Idlewild Airport — In 1962, with the advent of the jet powered Boeing 707, the TWA fleet was obsolete. TWA sold to American in 2001? But if you’re in JFK and have the time, go to Terminal 5 (Jet Blue) and follow the signs from the skyTrain to the TWA hotel.

Sandy — hope you got over your cold and will have your knee replacement surgery soon — is it tomorrow? GOOD LUCK! We’ll be sending out love and good vibes to the Universe for you!

Congratulations, Sia!

Today was kinda a loser; we had to go to Shiphol for our covid test and to find out new situation since Icelandair transferred us to KLM — it took almost 2 hours at KLM travel support before our number was called to talk to someone, plus more money to get economy plus with them since that did not transfer from Icelandair. Oh well. And, sadly, we won’t have a stopover in Iceland to run to the duty free shop to buy Wild Gin — bummer, that! But we get into New York a little earlier; we have reservations at the TWA hotel (at this point, what’s does it matter that it is an expensive hotel — convenience is everything!), right next to Jet Blue for tomorrow’s final trip home (well, almost final, we still have to drive from ABQ to Santa Fe probably after midnight). I hope Patrick and Alison, you read this so we won’t freak you out when we get home.

Yesterday’s final day (Day 7) at Floriade didn’t disappoint — we saw a couple of gardens we hadn’t seen, a couple of lovely put-up-in-a-day vacation homes, a very avant garde immersive art thing and a lovely exhibit of what will happen to the Floriade grounds — I want a plot there! There are ground plots and there will also be houses built quayside and floating houses (all 3 bed/2 bath) that will be for rent. Everything has to be built to their green standards, but there are no restrictions on architectural style — that could be interesting. We talked to a couple who already live in the memory care building — they had the coolest side-by-side two-person bike; three wheeler, I think, two sets of handlebars, but only one attached to the front wheels (you know that was Laird, not me, who noticed that, right?). The first two (or second two? — the two above the ground floor) stories are already occupied; the building is five stories. It comes with its own beautiful, walled-in raised-bed garden area, all planted and looking beautiful. If it all comes to fruition, it is going to be an amazing city district. Alexandra, as a city planner, you really need to come see this — you have until Oct, the 6th I think.

One of the gardens we saw was a chakra garden. There were “art” poles that started with red and went in a semi-circle around to purple, I think. Around them were flowers planted in corresponding colors, very cool. Another garden had the vacation homes, one was up on enclosed struts, that held solar batteries and other utility-type stuff (they were locked so we couldn’t see in), basically one triangular shaped room, half of which was raised cushions that serve as bed/couch/lounge, and the other half dining table with a kitchenette and then a small oblong bathroom in back. That one was all made of experimental, or at least alternative, building materials. The other one, much bigger, was a more traditional house that had been future-proofed. Nice size open kitchen/living room, small bathroom, a very small kid’s bedroom (mostly taken up with twin bed with an attached high bunk (sized for a very small child) and whatever was underneath it; then a bedroom that was big enough for bedside tables, queen bed and closets. We had seen a little village of tiny homes earlier in another part of the park, but these were the only ones that were furnished, which made them much more interesting.

I would tell you about the immersive experience — sculptures that were “asparagus men” (don’t know what the artist called them, but they were asparagus with hands and legs, one holding a briefcase) — then three animated films by three different artists, but I’ll be damned if I know what was being conveyed. I get (well, not “get” — I read) that they were artists’ interpretations of relationship between nature and humans in the new world that is coming as a result of climate change (????) — will humans and natures come closer or further away? The questions were asked “How will nature change in the future? Technology is massively changing our planet, and our relationship to nature is hanging in the balance due to climate change. What can we expect? Will nature and technology become more and more alike, perhaps? Will we get to the point where humans have to wonder how wild nature can become? Is there actually still a place for humankind? In the exhibition NaturAlly: Wild futures, 5 artists present challenging future visions for the wilderness that awaits us. They discover new worlds, investigate new life, and merge with the fierce nature that is taking charge once more. . .or is even taking over our planet.” I understand the questions; I just didn’t understand the answers.

So, we will have to do more pondering in the months and years ahead as humans hurl themselves into the end wall of Manifest Destiny — will we still be shouting, “We have dominion, dammit, we have dominion, God gave us dominion over everything!” when we crash into that that wall? Floriade was a bit of a bright bit of hope in the bleak possible future. I just wish we knew that there were American futurists/scientists/thinkers/planners with the kind of spirit and verve and ideas that were displayed here.

I’ll download some of the vacation home pics to Jonelle’s computer and send them along in a separate blog post. Of course, we owe you all a bunch of pictures. I’m finally figuring out how much picture editing I can do on the phone itself before uploading to the computer and then to the blog. Stay tuned.

Alright, everyone within the reading of my fingers, GET PLANE TICKETS, HOTEL RESERVATION AND A PASS FOR THE FLORIADE — you have until October, but you really, really need to come see this! Every day, we find something new that just blows us away — we are so astounded at the thought/design that went into this place! You need to come see it, you need to come support the kind of forward thinking that is involved in this! Today, we discovered the Flevoland (that’s the province that Almere is in) building, discussing their agriculture; apparently it is sort of the breadbasket of Netherlands. They had a virtual reality experience of being in a hot air balloon, flying over the province, showing off its special attributes, fishing, agriculture (like the World Potato Capital — who knew???), cities — it was AMAZING. Neither of us has had any experience with virtual reality and we were gobsmacked. We don’t play any VR games, so it was all new to us. I was surprised at the number of wind machines, not just in the sea, but on land as well. We were so enchanted, before we left, we went back for another go at it.

The whole place was pretty empty of people — don’t know whether it was because it was Sunday, the last day of the holiday or because it was dark skies and very windy and cold, but I felt so bad that there were so few people — you all need to come! We came to have another go at the magnificent meal at The Dutch! — it was just as perfectly fantastic as the other time and I had pretty much the same things as last time, except for the parsley ice cream; didn’t need more of that — definitely not as good as rye bread ice cream!

Well, we have made some progress in that we have gotten the pictures transferred from our phones to the computer. Now we just need to get them to here. But I had too many glasses of wine, so it might not be tonight. Maybe Laird — he’s the technology in this relationship. I’ve included three pics sort of at random. The first one is of the floating trees — planted in buoys salvaged from north sea service. I managed to put labels on the other two.

Well, really, anyone can chime in: tell us how to download phone pics to computer — Laird thought he knew but isn’t having any luck. Iphone to HP.

OK, first thing we did yesterday was to go back to the Innovations building and read everything there that was in English. They had a poster of Endangered Foods: coffee, potatoes, bananas, avocados and fish — that was a sad-making exhibit to say the least. The food exhibit, called Bistro In Vitro — speculative cultured meat dishes that might be on our plates in the future — is one of so many examples at the Floriade of future thinking — in this case, forward thinking on drugs, I’m pretty sure, ’cause wouldn’t you have to be stoned out of your mind to think up celebrity bites???? They were exploring different ways to manufacture food (let’s not call it food, let’s call it “nourishment” (and I definitely mean the quote marks!)) through different processes that don’t involve land and whole plants and animals. One way is the use of stem cells. Someone thought up “knitted meat”, a way to make extensive strings of meat muscle fiber not limited by the size of an animal. They actually cultured a “meat thread” made from long strands of muscle tissue and, on a special knitting machine, crafted a deep red meat thread into a steak — looked like hamburger meat to me, but it was formed to spell out “MEAT” 2″ high and 5″ from one continuous strand at least 50′ long. Another idea is to make cheese in a stainless steel “cow”. See-through sashimi, looking like a transparent lotus blossom, is sashimi grown without blood vessels, nerves or organs — they say “a nearly invisible meat with a pure, delicate flavor. The transparent fugu sashimi has been developed from meltingly tender bluefin tuna, but is even fattier and tastier than the original tuna.” Hmmmmm. The invitro oysters were very weird looking indeed. Also shown were dodonuggets, made through advanced genetic sequencing and tissue engineering from a dried specimen of a dodo in the Oxford university natural history museum — “taste what the first sailors ate when they visited Mauritius in 1598”. Brilliant thinking, all, really, but still creepy as hell. Other ideas: making plane parts out of mycellium; making leather out of mangos, with less processing, energy and waste, and no toxins, than current practice; replacing dyes with seaweeds, on and on. Laird knows more about the building materials in the next building. Incredible advances in innovative building materials…

YAY, our second fantastic memorable meal! A two-star Michelin chef created the 3-course menu with wine pairings. First, a glass of prosecco to welcome us to the table. First course, I had Jeruzalem (Dutch spelling) artichoke with Dutch shrimp and belper knolle (?? the menu showed a flower symbol next to the item) ; Laird had tenderloin tataki with chimichurri on top, turnip, pear puree on the bottom and snowpea shoot garnish. Second course, I had sea bream on top of asparagus and tandoori butter sauce with the cutest sweet potato art, a little oblong of potato with three small piped mashed sweet potato “hats”, with delicate pea shoots; Laird had Dutch (golden) asparagus with pearl barley, egg yolk and ponzu flakes. Third course, I had parsley ice cream (more like sorbet; I like rye bread ice cream better), lime and bay laurel; Laird had cheesecake with white chocolate, strawberry and basil. I think I’m beginning to like white wine again — all three that I had were amazing. Laird liked his, too. What a great way to spend a couple of hours!

Today, we might go into Amsterdam, we’re not really sure. It’s a do-nothing day, so far.

It is as we expected — fantastic! And I cannot believe that I was so lucky as to pick a hotel that is practically next door to the ferry over to the venue — so much more pleasant than a bus trip! I knew the hotel was in the Almere city center, but when we got off the train, I thought that would be the center and I was kicking myself for not booking into the Best Western or whatever US hotel chain was right there (we mostly try to avoid such places, but there it was, 50 feet from the train station) — as we waited for an Uber ride 15 minutes away. But we got to the Leonardo hotel and walked around and THERE WAS THE FLORIADE FERRY (which I hadn’t even read about) — YAY OUR LUCKY DAY!

The Floriade theme is Growing Green Cities. Several of the buildings are permanent and the whole area will become a residential/business/greenspace district of Almere. One that will remain is the greenhouse — 120 THOUSAND square feet that is now displaying flowers, trees, greenery, veggies and fruits — the very best of the Dutch horticultural industry — but what I mostly remember is the fabulous flowers. We will be boring you all with pictures of flowers for months. They have a huge vertical garden, a term that is confusing because it means what we mostly think of as walls of growing pockets on the sides of buildings AND the innovation of growing food from seed to ready-to-eat on vertical frames that move around so plants can get sun/light and nutrients (or maybe just water, not sure — it’s not hydroponics). In front of the greenhouse is a building that is an agriculture-related university and a couple of its sides are covered with our usual understanding of vertical garden — full of FLOWERS! A whole side of a tall building of FLOWERS! The 60 hectares is divided into districts, the Urban District and Hortus Avenue are the centerpieces, then there is Utopia Island, Green Island and the Eco District. The Urban District has most of the 30 international participants’ spaces — China was probably the best garden by far, with lots of gorgeous furniture, fencing, screening and lovely bridge made from bamboo — and, oh, the plantings! Here also are the buildings (probably not permanent ones; built to be temporary and recycled) housing the amazing innovations that particularly the Netherlands have been working on in building materials; making food out of weird things — way weirder than just algae — to feed the masses when climate change destroys much of the world’s farming ability; energy; other climate change coping strategies. What astonished us most about the innovation work is how far the Netherlands (also Germany) are ahead of the US in terms of coming to terms with the future and the need for new ways of imagining life on a heating planet. Maybe there are innovators is US, but we sure don’t hear much about them and they don’t seem to be celebrated much — and what is being shown at this expo really is amazing. We kept wondering what has happened to the US, which used to be the world leader in “future thinking”.

One VERY creepy food example was called celebrity food — made from the stem cells of your favorite celebrities! UGH! We aren’t sure we understood correctly because we were having a hard time understanding the whole exhibit; much of it not in English — but that’s what it seemed to say! If so, it is one innovation I believe I will not be indulging in. I think we have to go back there and look again.

One of the best things about our two days at the Floriade is we haven’t had to stand in any lines and the only thing we’ve waited for is the hop on/hop off “train”, but that’s mainly because it is the slowest transportation in the history of transportation — Laird says it goes about 3-4 miles an hour, but I believe it is much slower. Not that it matters when you’re on it; only when you are waiting for it to show up. We also get a (one-way) ride on the cable cars each day with our tickets, but we never got there yesterday even though we bought a return ticket. We finally made it today.

I am very disappointed that in 60 hectares there are only TWO gift shops, both of which have run out of things I can get in my luggage, so, alas, looking at a gazillion pictures will have to suffice as your souvenirs. (Note: both gift shops have promised to have deliveries Thursday, so J will have at least one more opportunity to get cool stuff. We also found handmade metal coffee cups in the Turkey pavilion and may go back there tomorrow. Not to mention the fact that they have good looking baklava.)

This is now June 15 — we’ve been back two weeks. I’ve finally managed to download and do rough edits for both the Iceland and the Floriade pics. I’ll put in a some of the Iceland pics here. Let me know if you want more.

Our three days in Iceland were too short, particularly after TWO red-eyes and a whole day in JFK — we finally went to the TWAhotel and got a day tripper room for about 4 hours. Expensive, but at least we got to lie down for awhile and take showers. We haven’t been able to talk ourselves into getting an overnight room on the trip back; it will be over $500, a very silly price for a night, but it IS right next to the Jet Blue terminal. This vacation is so expensive, by the end $500 might not have the shock value it does now. But let’s talk about Iceland: All of you, pay attention: start planning NOW — it is fantastic. You will love it. Yes, it’s expensive, but worth it. Just looking at it is happymaking — it’s gorgeous! We didn’t do anything we had planned to do, like doing the circle tour or the Blue Lagoon (Laird didn’t bring his bathing suit), but we walked around in the city center and did the hop-on/hop-off bus, so we went to the Perlan — guess I would describe it as a geology/natural history museum — learn about Iceland’s making, volcanos and earthquakes, flora and fauna, habitation, northern lights, etc. — went to the whale museum, very informative, but kinda a dud. What we did best was find the Old Iceland restaurant, where we had one dinner and one lunch of some of the best food ever! OMG, Louise, Alexandra, Sandy, Pam, all you other gin drinkers, we have to get Wild Gin by Og Natura — it is THE BEST! Really, it is. I had it in a gin and tonic and then had a cocktail of Brennivin, Iceland’s aquavit, mixed with crowberry liqueur, fresh lemon juice and a splash of rhubarb liqueur cocktail, another OMG — and bjork, a birch tree liqueur (who could even imagine drinking a tree could be soooo gooood?!?) And the food! We had two three-course specials: appetizers of cured salmon, pickled cucumber, dill mayo, rye bread crumbles and smoked trout roe and an extra appetizer of scallops done some spectacular way; then, lamb ribeye and slow-cooked shoulder of lamb, baked parsnips, fried potatoes, beetroots, parsnip puree and demiglace (Laird); and filet of cod, herbs and garlic mashed potatoes, carrots, parsnips and champagne sauce (me). Then brownie (not chocolate), which was roasted oats, toffee, roasted nuts, vanilla ice cream and strawberries. Laird had an after-dinner Iceland coffee, which was birkir and coffee with sugar whipped cream. Really, my eyes crossed at the first sip of gin, and Laird joined in on the first bite of salmon and they didn’t undo until we got back to our apartment. The meal cost over 27,000 kroner, which is somewhere over $200 — maybe higher than the Compound, but probably equivalent to Geronimo’s? What makes it all so astounding is the absolute clean taste everything has — for lunch, we had traditional lamb soup, with rye bread and gorgeous butter — our first encounter with how everyday things taste so different there, so clean, with everything coming from unpolluted soil and water. (We’ll try to put pictures up later; there are computer issues, of course.) Next day, we meandered down towards the harbor and stopped at a cafe for brunch of wild mushroom soup and sourdough bread — again with the remarkable butter. We maundered some more to the hop-on/hop-off and went the whole route, so got a nice idea of Reykjavik. The old houses are lovely, but the apartment buildings are butt-ugly. Most houses have a siding on them that seems like a composite material (of what, no idea) and that siding comes in a multitude of colors; also lots of gingerbread, but not painted like San Francisco. The way they cram houses together is reminiscent of Santa Fe eastside, I assume combination of family property division and living on an island. There are about 366,000 people in Iceland, about 1/3 live in Reykjavik proper; 2/3 live in Reykjavik-suburban Reykjavik. Lots of the island is pretty inhospitable to civilization — great for hiking or adventuring, but not so much for town-building. The most recent national park comprises 14% of the total land area of the country.

Our next great food taste was rye bread ice cream, which is, beyond all expectation, quite delicious. We also went back to Old Iceland for lunch on our last day, but neither of us can remember what we had, just that it was wonderful and we felt so smart to have discovered the place. L ordered something modest for entree to have room for Mama’s rhubarb cake.

On Sunday, we had to get up at 4:30 a.m. to get to the airport. I still don’t know if there are any airlines other than Icelandair that flies there because that one has such an overwhelming presence. I can’t remember how long our layover is, but I hope we have time to go to the duty-free shop so I can buy some gin and brennivin to bring home — and maybe something with crowberries. Apparently, every single one of the 29 Icelandair destinations takes off from 7:00 am to 8:00 am. The checkin line was about 200 people long and took about 30 minutes from entry to checkin. Had a flatbread sandwich of egg and bacon. Sounds weird, but was quite good. We can’t even criticize our catch breakfast. Iceland food is magnificent.

Next story, the Floriade, which we did today.

Finally home — after SIXTY-SEVEN HOURS of travel! We left our wonderful flat, which I already miss (except for my own bed), in Dana Bay on Wednesday at 2:30 p.m. SA time and got home on Saturday at about 9:00 a.m. SA time. We spent 30 1/2 hours in the air and the rest in airports. Our only rest period was overnighting at the City Lodge at OR Tambo airport in Joberg, though we got up early to meet friends for breakfast there — and how happy we were to see them! The Doha airport has quiet rooms, but ours was anything but — one man having a very loud cell phone argument (we suppose; it wasn’t in English); the woman next to me chattering away, seemingly to herself; and the man behind us snoring very loudly. Laird got some sleep there, plus he can sleep on planes; however, I seem incapable of sleeping when traveling — though by the time we were in Dallas, waiting for about 9 hours, and on the flight to ABQ, I was poleaxed by fatigue, but only for seconds or minutes at a time. Oh, the good old days when we could fly directly to OR Tambo from DC, Atlanta or NY at an affordable price — actually cheaper than what we paid for this one. It must be because South African air is no longer competing. Bummer!

Galaxy met us at the ABQ Sunport . Timing was perfect. We deplaned, J got a wheelchair and took the two backpacks, so I ran down the escalators to the baggage claim and then went outside. With at most a 15 seconds wait, I saw an Audi  driving by just as the driver saw me. It was Galaxy. I suggested she take another loop, which she did, and by the time she came around, we were on the curb with baggage. Previous blog we mentioned that we’d posted two largish boxes from Mossel Baai, but we still had three bags — mostly pressies and electronics (some clothes). International, you’re allowed 20 Kg, and the baggage tags indicated that the three bags totaled 59 kilos. We were overweight by 14 kilos on the Mango leg from George to Joberg, but fortunately, they didn’t weigh the backpacks. We had a wheelchair at each airport, although in Joberg, we had to walk from the City Lodge to the check in counter. The  woman at the check in counter managed to change our seat assignments to the back of the bus from Joberg to Doha and from Doha to Dallas. I was in a window seat and Jonelle was in the aisle seat in the same row. For both legs, we had the middle seat empty which was an unanticipated boon.

I’m (Jonelle) home a month earlier than planned so I can get cataract surgery — oh, to see again! A low-vision vacation is definitely not the best kind.
But, as always, we love being with our friends and being in South Africa — everyone should put it on their bucket list and then accomplish it!
By the way, we recommend Qatar (NOT pronounced Cutter as some people think, but Ka-tar, as spelled) airline over Emirates — there’s a reason they’ve been voted Best 5 years in a row.

So we’re home till next time, when we’ll tell you all about it again. Safely home, still travellogged, jm & lg

OK, I hope you’re going to have some lovely flower,etc pictures of Namakwaland.   The young man and woman were our guides, Mike and Marne.  The marvelous dog is Sarky, who belongs to them.  Who knew that a Jack Russell could be so well trained????  I think the first picture is one from the shoe factory we went to.

OK, let’s try this again. I hope the first one is of the beaded leopard climbing down a beaded tree — from our favorite artist in Cape Town. What magnificent pieces he had this year! Oddly, I don’t think I bought anything at the waterfront this year — so VERY unlike me! The other place I liked, the teabag place, didn’t have those wonderful little bowls and I wasn’t all that impressed with what they did have. Another disappointment. Next are pictures of Groot Constantia, the oldest wine estate in South Africa. It now belongs to the government, part of the museum system I think and a contractor operates the vineyards and winery. VERY GOOD wine, as you can imagine. The museum, which is the Groot (great) Constantia mansion is heavenly — god, I love Cape Dutch architecture! Also included are a couple of pics from Allee Bleu, what had been our favorite winery. Alas, that is no longer true. We were disappointed not only in the wine (still good, but not the best we’ve ever tasted anymore) and particularly in the lunch — it had been so fantastic before; now it has moved locations and it’s mostly a sandwich menu — uninspired.

Daniel, the kimono is for you — it’s in the winery, along with some other fantastic art.  The street scene of painted houses is the only picture we have of Bokapp, I think.  Sandy, the lighted planter is for you — isn’t it a great idea???

OK, next post will be Namakwaland — that’s the Afrikaans spelling.

Here’s a random selection of pictures from our trip to Cape Town and Namakwaland, and whatever else I find. A couple will be of fantastic bathrooms we found in SA. The first, I think, is the floral display around the sinks at the gas station on our way to CT. The very colorful ones are from the Zeitz museum of contemporary African art.  Every time we want to post pictures, it’s like tabla rasa (or however you spell it).  So let’s see.

Aren’t they BEAUTIFUL?!?  The penquins were on the way, at Rocky Point in (I think) Betty’s Bay.

Well, that didn’t work out like I hoped.  After the bathrooms, therre’s street art, the Zeitz and a sculpture from a storytelling exhibit.

The picture frame frames Table Mt.

OK, we’ve done our part (again) to clean up the beach! The Dana Bay event is at 2:00 p.m. today, but Marita and Laird have to watch the Springboks vs. the All-Blacks (New Zealand), which have won the last TWO rugby world cups. Marita wasn’t sure whether she would be hooting like a mad woman in celebration or downing a six-pack in despair, but we all decided it was better to go do our part this morning. (Update at 14:30 … the Springboks lost 23-13 on the back of some inappropriate kicks by Steph Du Toit and a couple of breakdowns in the defense. There were a couple of injuries to key players, which is not good news for future games.) Plus at 2:00 it’s going to be hot. We did OK, but, really, the Dana Bay beaches aren’t very littered (well, except for cigarette butts) because municipal workers clean them every week. But, I got an old t-shirt, several coke bottles, a big can and some other stuff and Laird even got an old jacket among his stuff, and several broken bottles — not a good feature on a beach..

Yesterday, we went to George because Marita wanted some shwe shwe for serviettes to go with her Nigerian cloth tablecloth and I wanted more Nigerian cloth to make shades for my bathroom.  It took us FIVE tries to find the place:  first was the GPS on the phone (which almost doesn’t count because we decided early on that it was wrong), then directions from someone at the tourist information place, then calling Noekie, then back to the information place and finally, in semi-defeat, we went to Fat Fish for lunch along with clearer directions.  Laird and I were so happy to get some sushi; it was wonderfully, wonderfully fresh.  I had kingklip, a dense white fish that I’m not sure we have as an other-named fish.  It is quite delicious; Laird had a poke bowl, with more tuna and Marita had what she said was the best fish in fish and chips that she has had in a very long time.  Yea for us on the lunch front!  FINALLY, we found Jackson’s, the fabric store. — only Fat Fish folks told us we had to go through a sort of mall “alley” to get to it.  And damn if they weren’t out of the fabric I wanted — bummer.  But Marita got a lovely shwe shwe pattern for serviettes.

Laird is working on pictures, so I’ll post some while he’s with Marita watching rugby.  Words fail me when trying to describe how much I HATE watching sports!  Beach-cleanly yours, jm and lg

Friday, we got on the tour bus at 8:00 a.m. for our new adventure. To see the flowers, it must be sunny and hot — or at least not cold. In Cape Town and all along the route it was quite overcast and cold; we were fearing the worst. But our hosts, Mike and Marne (read with an accent over the e), entertained us with stories about the area and swore that, indeed, we WOULD see flowers before the time was up. Sandy, as you know, I take that black jacket you got me on every trip — it is my salvation from the cold! But I was wishing I’d brought my jeans and a warm scarf for sure. I’ve already forgotten a lot (OK, most) of what they told us, but a few things stand out. Marne is very funny, with a great dry humor. We have now had perhaps the best lamb (Karoo lamb; we’ve already told you about that!  They eat “herbs”, a seemingly generic term, not as we know it) pie in South Africa, as promised.  We started seeing flowers around Clan William, I think.  We stopped for a while at what must be the last shoe factory in the Western Cape. The whole operation is financially marginal, but a bunch of workers are employed. I bought a very nice pair of “Fellies” — which is how your generally pronounce the proper word for shoes which is “Velkskoens.” We continued until pretty late in the day and ended up in Vanrhynsdorp (pronouned von rains dorp). The map is in Marita’s car, so we are a little uncertain as to spelling.

Here’s one of the important things we learned:  As background, there is a cheap store in SA called “Pep store” — ubiquitous.  It’s kinda like a Dollar General in the US.  Anyway, Marne told us that there are three types of living places:  a plekkie, which is a “place”, just a settlement of some houses, maybe a garage.  But it doesn’t have a Pep store.  A dorp is a town and how you know it is a town is that it has a Pep store.  A city, on the other hand, has a Pep store AND a KFC!  If it has one without the other, it’s not a city; if the KFC is outside of town, it’s not a city.  She has written the president of South Africa asking that, along with their zeal of renaming things, that all the places with plek or dorp in their names but don’t meet the definition above be renamed.  So far she has not received an answer to her plea.  Where we stayed is a dorp, per its name, because it has a Pep store, at which Laird bought me a t-shirt for sleeping (I forgot mine in Cape Town), all for R49 — or about $3.00, but no KFC. At one point on Monday, one of the Afrikaner women made a special point of telling us that the PEP/KFC definition was “tongue-in-cheek,” and had no official validity. I assured her we understood. Afrikaners seem to us to love a good story or joke more than most other groups we ever hang out with.

We stayed in a very old hotel owned by Mike’s sister and brother-in-law.  We had DELICIOUS country-style food for dinner each night.  They even made tongue on Sunday night that was good and normally I hate tongue.  Breakfast was pretty much regular breakfast stuff.  For lunches, we had picnics in an interesting place wherever we were that day.  The food was Fantastakie, as they say (but may not spell),  all made by the wonderful kitchen crew at the hotel.

How to describe the flowers????  Words pale before their beauty, their thousands of varieties, their innumerable strumpet ways to attract pollinators!  Laird will work on getting the pics ready to post.  There are over three THOUSAND varieties of flowers, more than half of which occur only there in Namaqualand.  OF COURSE the names were in Afrikaans!  Of course we couldn’t keep them in our minds!  Many times we heard Mike say, “there’s Pig Snot over there”.  So we have decided to just call them all Pig Snot.  Actually, for some reason we did not understand, pig parts feature prominently in Namaqualand flower names.  One flower, that looks like Star of Bethlehem, is called Chittering Cheese (or some version that sounds like chittering — but definitely I heard cheese; what a terribly inelegant name for such a beautiful flower!)

YES!  Those great swaths of orange or yellow or white that you see when you google Namaqualand flowers are real.  We didn’t see them until Sunday, but when we did, we stood in awe and our hearts soared at the sights!  Friday and Saturday, we saw mostly very tiny flowers spread out.  The land is unbelievably inhospitable in the summer — temperatures in excess of 115 F!  And NO rain.  Only winter rains, and if it doesn’t rain enough then, the flowers don’t open come spring.  The annual rainfall is about two and one-half inches of rain a year — or that’s what we think they said.  Yikes!  Makes New Mexico look like the tropics!  Actually, there is a similarity in landscape except even with so little rain there are more bushes, but virtually no trees.  For all of you folks on Facebook, go to Toere Namakwa to see beautiful pictures while you’re waiting for us to post.  If you aren’t on Facebook, you can go without having an account by, I believe, going to http://www.facebook.com/toerenamakwa (not sure if that is one or two words; try both.  Also try namakwatoere (again one or two) if the other doesn’t work.  It’s well worth the effort.

On Saturday, we went to a quiver tree forest — google them, too.  Amazing sight, even though they had already bloomed and were in “shut-down” mode.  They are tree aloes and I SO want one!  Sandy, you will, too, when you see them!  They are named quiver trees because the Khoi-san made arrow quivers from them because without their water, they weigh almost nothing.  Interesting thing about them:  when the summer is intolerably hot and they have used up almost all their water reserves, they amputate their own arms to conserve what little water they still have.  Isn’t that gruesome?  Baboons, the bane of flora and farmers all over South Africa, like to eat quiver trees for their water.  Namaqualand is definitely a dog-eat-dog world!

Look on a map, if you can, for Nieuwoudtville. It’s in the Northern Cape, a little ways north of the Western Cape boundary. We got off the N7 road onto a gravel road and drove for about 45 minutes in a very sere landscape. All of a sudden, we crested a hill and the flowers smacked us in the eyes. As Jonelle wrote earlier, it is almost unbelievable, because it is so like the pictures in ads for Namaqualand tours. The only thing lacking was a gemsbok or a bontebok chewing on the flowers. I guess there really isn’t enough water for a profusion of buck. I asked our driver to tell the story of “why here?” What he said was that the flowers are self-seeding annuals. When this year’s seed has set and dropped, the sheep are then let into the field to graze. The following spring, the farmers lightly plow the field and that encourages the flowers to germinate and grow. If there has been little water, the germination rate is low. But following adequate moisture at the right time, the seeds sprout and they get a carpet of color.

I took a bunch(!) of pics, but the pics are flat and 2-D, whereas the reality is magical and 3-D. I’m hoping to use software to stitch together several individual pics into a panorama. This may give you all a sense of what it was like to tiptoe through the Namaqualand flowers.

Our guides — both Mike and Marné – are near as dammit botanists. And linguists. Imagine knowing scientific names, Afrikaans names and some English names of several thousand flowers.

We’ll bring this to a close. We drove in from Capetown today. We left Capetown at 9:30 and didn’t get to Dana bay until 5:30 pm. Ordinarily, it’s a four-hour drive, but we made several stops and were caught at road construction projects. But still, we don’t really understand how it took us 8 hours to make a four hour trip.

More tomorrow, with pictures.

 

On Tuesday, we went to Grot Constancia, the oldest winery in South Africa. Oh, the museum building is the most beautiful Cape Dutch I’ve seen — even better than what I think that house in Wilderness might look like (and I LOVE that house!) So much yellowwood, which mostly doesn’t exist anymore, or at least not in any quantity, certainly not commercial quantity — though we did buy a small (as it’s very young) yellowwood tree for our friends — though it will take a couple of hundred years for it to get impressive. Anyway, what a lovely, lovely house, built sometime in the 1650s, I think. Part of it, mostly the roof and the furniture burned up in 1925. The whole winery belongs to the government and someone leases the vineyard and wine production facilities. We went on the winemaking tour and then had the wine tasting — VERY good wine! If you ever see it, buy it (though I don’t think it is exported to the US). That building has a beautiful art collection. Our lunch was Cape Malay, an assortment of curries, in another impressively wonderful building. While we waited for our taxi driver to come get us (a very nice man from Congo by the name of Bled — all three of our taxi drivers in Cape Town were from Congo), we thought we would freeze — the day turned bitterly cold and we were dressed more for summer. Yes, yes, we know the CT weather changes rapidly, but we underestimated the time it would take Bled to get to us. While waiting, Marita saw a man with a gun and asked what he was doing. He said he was off to shoot baboons. We were horrified. He came back relatively soon after and I looked at his weapon; it didn’t look like any gun I had ever seen so I asked him about it. It is a paintball gun that they use to scare the baboons away, not kill them. We immediately felt much better! The critters apparently eat the new leaves emerging on the grape vines, which significantly cuts down on the grape crop.
On Wednesday, our holiday club resort provided a lovely morning tea for the guests and we met several very interesting people. One woman, maybe in her late 70s, told me about her father, who was something of a Renaissance man, into astronomy, engineering and several other things. He and she have minor planets named after themselves — how cool is that?!? She grew up in Cape Town and lives in Joburg, which she hates. She was showing an English friend around South Africa. I don’t know, but I bet she’s a terror on the roads!
We moved over to City Lodge next to a big casino preparatory to going off on our Namaqualand flower tour tomorrow — it rained this morning and has been cold and dismal all day, so really hope the sun comes out tomorrow (hey, that should be a song!) Speaking of that, we went to our friend Jannie’s school last night (Wednesday) for a most terrific student and teacher concert. The public school’s name is Gene Louw elementary. Concert was lip synced, but the dancing was AMAZING. Cast of hundreds, great costumes, and incredible choreography that required everyone to be doing the same thing at the same time. Selections from several musicals, including Cats, Chicago, Annie, the Greatest Showman, Grease and Mama Mia among others that I have forgotten. The students were 4th through 7th graders and they were fantastic — always spot-on with the very complicated choreography. Very impressive. Even the teachers were pretty good! We saw the THIRD performance of the day, and after at least one other day, maybe two, and their energy was high the entire time — at least two full hours, no intermission.

Today started cold and rainy, so we hung out at the hotel until 11:30. Our driving goal was to visit the Franschhoek Motor Museum. We were there a couple of years ago and were gobsmacked by the quantity and quality of the vehicles. They keep them in running condition (except for one race car that had to have its entire motor replaced before each race). Alas, we spent most of the day driving the R102 — stop and go and robots (the SA word for traffic signals), then trying to find the Russian Tea Room for lunch and discovering that the restaurant was closed for a private function having something to do with the Cape Town International Airport. After a delightful lunch of pizza (I jest re: the “delightful” part) at Belleville winery that ended at 4:00 pm, we gave up the idea of the Rupert Museum (aka FMM) and kept wandering around the roads near Stellenbosch until we finally hit the N1 highway and managed to make it back in one piece to the hotel. (Sidenote; our server at Belleville was named Hetso, which is Shona for “Unique”.

We’ll be happy to relinquish the driving for the next three days on our tour — driving (or even riding) in Cape Town is one of the scarier things to do in one’s lifetime! Laird astounds me with his driving, along with his uncanny ability to figure out where and how to go. The taxi drivers wear headbands with Kamikaze Japanese pictograph symbols that express their desire to die in a high speed car crash. (Just kidding about the headband — the desire, probably true.)
Fingers crossed for beautiful weather; otherwise, the daisies won’t open, which would be a total bummer! Forecast is for cloudy Friday and Saturday, but sunny on Sunday. We get back Monday at 6:00 pm (or 18:00 in local parlance.)  Here’s hoping the forecast is overly pessimistic!  Hopefully yours, jm & lg

Left Dana Bay Friday morning for Cape Town, with a couple of obligatory stops along the way –particularly the one to get the BEST roosterkoeks, which is a thick bread cooked over charcoal — ohso yummy! You can have them sweet or savory; mine was bacon and egg since it was still morning when we got there. On the radio, two announcers, a man and a woman, were reading the names of the girls and women who have been killed in SA this year. They would say the name and then a sentence about her: [name]. She was eight months pregnant. [name]. She was the tallest girl in her class. [Name} she was six years old. On and on it went, punctuated with poignant music. The day before, or maybe Wednesday or Tuesday, women marched on the parliament building in CT and the police responded with water cannons! The next day there was a picture in the Cape Times that showed a picture of a SEA of people demonstrating — it looked like absolutely every person in CT was there!
We’ve been to the Victioria and Albert waterfront, taken a city tour on the hop-on hop-off bus and had a wonderful lunch at the Winchester Hotel on the beach in Seapoint near where we are staying. Daniel, I had seafood bobootie, which none of us had ever heard of and it was incredibly delicious. Wee ate in a lovely, lovely patio garden. On Sunday, we met our friends, Jannie and Frieda, at the waterfront and had a lovely meal with them. Jannie is a teacher of 6th grade English and we’re going to his school’s concert on Wednesday evening.
Today, we went to the Zeitz museum of contemporary African art — an amazing facility in a renovated/repurposed concrete grain silo (much bigger than you could ever imagine). Zeitz is a German philanthropist who had been the chairman of PUMA and then Kuring; I forget his beginning. I believe he basically paid for the whole thing, but I could be wrong. He has loaned the museum a lot of stuff from his personal collection. There is a yearlong exhibit by William Kentridge that basically seems to take up most of the museum — two floors worth! I don’t know whether he is the most prolific artist in history or it’s his whole body of work. His work is about the colonization of Africa — very powerful, but overwhelming. Lots of mixed media, mostly film and music and the most astounding panoramic presentation that I guess is film, but not like you, or at least me, think of as film. One of his “films” is a “flip book”of a dictionary, with drawings and words laid over. He has the best words, a poet as well as a fine artist. Anyway, you should google him.
Tonight we’re going to make lemon chicken with capers and olives in our Instant Pot we bought. Gotta go find the recipe.
Museumed out, jm and lg