Puenta del Esta, Uruguay

I thought Greg was making a mistake, taking his rain jacket on his add-on trip when we were in Puenta del Esta.  We had enjoyed a 3 hour day trip on a coach – seen the Atlantic and the Rivera de la Plata on the side of the peninsula, driven to the Ralli Museum, gawked at the upscale neighbourhoods of the city, heard explanations about the poor neighbourhoods we had driven through and then gone over the iconic bridge of Puenta del Esta – its shape is like the curves of a woman’s body.  Imagine a group of 40 retiree’s being asked if they want to do the bridge again, this second time at high speed.  All had to agree which put a lot of pressure on the timid and those with pace makers. There was so much happiness among the old as the driver began to pick up speed. I suspected he would come to a full stop, but no – he hit the highway at full speed, the bus load of oldies screaming as though some could remember a time when they did this at the fair on holidays.

Greg walked around the island without us.  He was right to take his jacket.  The thunder clouds rolled in and poured rain.  The tender boat loaded up for the last trip back to the boat.  As Greg tells the story, the crew took in the last of the poles, the huge canisters of water and cool towels that they greet us with on the shore when we are returning to the boat. But as the fully loaded tender took off, a crew member slipped into the water, the boat moving up against him and crushing his leg against a tire.  The captain rushed to the back.  They took the crew member on top of the tender to look at the wound at which time he fainted.  So off the tender came all 160 passengers and the equipment and the tender went high speed to the hospital, the passengers waiting for the next boat.

That day, our tour guide had apologized for talking so much – she said that people only remember 10% of what they hear on tours.  That will be difficult to prove by Greg, Wyona and me.  We talked for a long while about the depth of the information we learned about Uruguay’s economy, politics, and government.  Did you know that there are 3.2 million people in Uruguay and 12 million cows.  Fewer sheep.  Only 3 per person.  Wyona and I were ready to buy leather, but it is exported for car seats and beautiful leather coats sold elsewhere.  “You are more likely to buy Uruguayan leather in another country than in ours,” she told us.

The Ralli Museum had many pieces by Salvador Dali.  Janet and Wyona spent a day in London looking at a Dali exhibit and Wyona could still  remember what to look for in a Dali painting.  I spent a day in Catalonia doing the same thing at the Dali Museum.  Now was a chance to see some of his travelling work.  Wyona took on my job –keeping the group (of two) moving.  I was in a linger longer space.  She knew that the bus was pulling out of the museum parking lot in 40 minutes and we had a lot of pieces to see.

A day to always remember.  Even though I have already forgotten to tell you about the Pablo Atchugarry work we saw.

Five Days in One

A grand day.

1. We saw a military band and procession on horseback.

Just beautiful.

"I think this is a usual military show -- the band are on horses.  Something one might see in London," said Greg. 

... drummers for the social protest ...

2. Following the horses we found ourselves in the middle of well organized protest about the political regime in Argentina.

Thousands of marchers.

We took pictures.

We tried to get people to tell us what was going on.

Our Spanish is non-existent.

Their English is the same.

 One man did a gesture for us.

He touched his tongue and then hit the bottom of his foot as though it were sizzling.

... looking at the bus schedule ...
no buses come because protestors are on the road

3. We caught a bus – our first local bus with our new cards.

We put $10 each on our cards.

I think the rides cost us $1 a piece.

We have a lot of rides to take yet.

... the blue group walks by ...

4. We got off at the MNBA Museum.

We couldn’t find it.

Greg walked right around a beautiful Greek looking building with fantastic pillars.

 He could find no entry.

We gave up and crossed the street and tried to get in another entry.

... the yellows come next ...

No luck.

But the people ahead of us trying to do the same thing were shooed around to the other side of the building.

Yes.

We entered on that street.

A marvellous building full of treasures: Manet, Monet, Rodin, Goya, Rembrandt and the early 20th Century Painters.

We had a 2 pm tour in English.

 Greg hates tours but loved this one.

 Free admission to the building.

Not even a donation box anywhere.

... now the greens ...

5. We left to go home but passed by an artisan market that was not to be missed.

 I will always regret not buying the beautiful large leather bag I saw at the start of the market.

Wyona says this.

Catherine Jarvis says this.

I know it myself.

"How lucky are we to see this," Greg says.

If you find something you love, just buy it right then, for you may never find it again.

And you will remember forever that you left it behind if you don't buy it.

Ah well.

Some other shopper will buy it but knowing that, doesn’t make me much happier.

I wanted that bag to go with my other 10 bags I don't use.

6. We ate – we needed food by now, but we also needed to sit down.

The serve was s-l-o-w but we didn’t care. We needed to rest.

... a protestor asks Wyona to take his picture ...

7. We went to see Evita’s gravestone.

Just as we were to enter the gates, they closed them.

Six pm on a Saturday.

Too late for us.

8. We took another bus ride home. We don’t know where to touch our loaded transit cards. 

... a soft drink at a 25 hour store ...

I was hitting it everywhere on the unit from which you can buy the cash tickets.

Other passengers on the bus are very helpful.

They can see us doing it all wrong and one will get out of their seat and pantomime the right move, for which I am very grateful.

... drinks spilled ...
filet for Wyona, empenadas for Greg and Arta

9. We get off the bus and walk through the Place de Mayo to our favorite gelato shop.

Wyona noticed that the price has gone up on the half litre of gelato.

She tells the owner that we want the old price -- $60, not $70.

He thinks we want to upgrade to a larger container.

No.

We have shopped all over Buenos Aires for the lowest price, and now, tonight, the price has gone up here. 

... Wyona focuses for another shot for the protestor ...

Still, we are happy, have had a day never to forget and know that we are moving out of our spacious digs to a small room on a ship where we will be stepping all over each other for 28 days.

I hope we are still friends on March 30.

Arta

After the Fact... London with Arta

After the better part of a week spent in London hounding the streets for a home to rent for the year, I was left with one free day to spend with Arta. The three of us headed off to Leicester Square, to the half-price booth to get theatre tickets for the last night. The plan was to head in different directions: Arta wanted to see "Love Never Dies" again, and Wyona wanted to spend her last night with "Dreamboats and Petticoats".

Ten minutes before hitting the Tube station, we'd had a long talk about how to meet up with each other if we got separated... the easy answer is of course just to look back for Rebecca's hair. :-) In a moment of irony, the two women went through ahead of me, and my Oyster card ("bus pass") denied me entry (I had run out of money and hadn't noticed).... the line up to re-nourish my depleted Oyster card was long, and the women were gone...Arta, though, in typical Arta way, had decided for fun to see how easy it was to find me, and had noticed I was gone. They came back, spoke to me through the barricade, and we sent Wyona ahead to wait in the ticket line up while I lined up for the Oyster card. Nice start to the day... way to practice finding each other after getting lost.

Just proving that different paths do not always run at the same speed, Arta and I somehow still managed to arrive at the Leicester Square before Wyona.

Go figure. 

So... tickets purchased, we split up for the day: Wyona to visit her favourite scarf sellers (What?! More scarves?!), and Arta and I to visit the National Gallery.

One of the recent 'installations' at the national gallery is the "Eco Art" outside. VERY westcoast!

They have planted grasses and small mossy growing things all over one of the walls of the building.

Not sure how visible it is in the shot, but the effect from some ways back is a bit like a Georges Seurat painting... it just looks like a lovely watercolour painting. Pretty groovy!

Arta and I have not spent much time in museums TOGETHER (as adults, that is... i certainly spent time following in her path of educational exploration as a child...you know, "fossil rock walks in downtown Calgary", "identify bat guano in fish creek park", etc).

But it was a revelation to see that she is just as bad as me in her desire to consume til your belly/brain explodes.

In between our own wanderings, we took in the 10:30 and 2:30 guided tours, each of which offered a more close exploration of 5 or maybe 6 paintings.

Christ Healing the Blind Man by Buoninsegna

We started out looking at some panels from an alter piece done by Duccio di Buoninsegna (c. 1255-1260 – c. 1318-1319), the most influential Italian artist of his time.

The first one we saw has Christ healing the blind man. 

It is fun to look at the conventions for telling story through image: here, you see the blind man both before and after being healed. 

The panel that goes beside this one has Christ appearing to the apostles.... when they are set along side each other, you can see that the "healed" blind man is looking up at the body of Christ in the panel along side. 

Fun.

We also learned that this was painted on wood, which was then covered with linen, and then covered with plaster to make a smooth surface to paint on. The paint was egg tempera, which would give you vibrant colours, albeit without tons of nuance: the paint would dry very fast, so you only had a short time where it could be pliably worked). 

Annunciation of Mary

In the afternoon session, we returned to Duccio, to look at another painting of the Annunciation (Mary getting informed by the angel that she was going to have a baby....). 

We listened to a nice discussion about the number of people who would have participated in making the painting.

Different artists in the studio would have done the people, and the buildings (would would have had painters specializing in buildings)

Then we moved up a hundred years, to spend time with the Spanish Bartolomé 

St. Michael Triumphs Over the Devil

Bermejo's 1468 painting "St Michael triumphs over the devil". This one is in oil, which explains the greater nuance and emotion captured in the paint. We also learned more about just how much gold leaf there was on the original. First there was a 'cartoon' of the painting... like a paper version laid over top of the prepared canvas. then someone would poke holes through it onto the prepared canvas below, so that the outline of the painting was transferred there. Then the gold specialist would be next, and would cover certain part of the painting with a red glue, over which was laid tiny pieces of gold flake. The gold would then be further pressed it into the wood with some kind of embossing tool, so that the painting would be even more luminescent when seen in the candlelight of the darkened church. Only after all the gold pieces were laid down would the artist come into to paint the figures and images in the scene. When you look at it now, there is not so much gold, and the background looks reddish... that is just the red glue stuff (which had some special name i have forgotten) showing through. If you click on this link, so will get the picture on the national gallery's website, and can zoom in to get a closeup of the monster! The feminist in me was so happy that the guide did eventually take us to a painting by a woman artist! Here were looked at a painting by Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun (1755 - 1842). This is a self-portrait of her, but she is also showing off her skills as a painter by making hers a version of a similar painting by Rubens, on the right of the gallery and which you can see beside her in this post. What she was doing here was making a 'calling card'.

Self Portrait of Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun

She is showing herself AS an artist, showing off all the skills she has, letting male viewers know that she can make their wives look this good but that they needn't worry about leaving their wife alone with her. I also like how she is holding her hand out, encouraging them to give her a commission! There was more, but I am getting tired. :-) which was just what happened to us too! So.... in between the two guided tours, we went for a "Talk and Draw" session. Here, they set up 40 chairs in front of one painting.

Artist: John Constable

In this case, the painting was John Constable's "Cenotaph to the Memory of Sir Joshua Reynolds. Someone talks to you about the painting for 20 minutes, then they give you two drawing tasks, to practice some of the techniques that were used in the drawing. They hand out these nice big easels for you lap, boxes of pastels, pencils, conté, etc. So we had two tasks. First to draw a single tree from the painting by building up layers of colour (ie. start with black, go over with red, with brown, yellow, etc). Second task was to show perspective in the same way (ie. capture the darkening woods in the distance). I will confess, we both had to come to terms with some of our limits! hahaha. And yet, it was totally fun, so sit, listen, draw, and laugh. At the end, they had people set their drawings at the front to compare what people had produced. We also then had to head to the bathroom to wash the evidence of our crimes from our fingers (stained by the pastels). I felt very much like Lady MacBeth! We did bring our drawings home and showed them to Wyona at the end of the night. I will not be more specific re which of the drawings below belongs to Arta and which belongs to me... but I think Wyona was arguing that one of the paintings looks less like 'the woods', and more like a Judy Chicago plate! You can see that neither of those two women was taking my artist production very seriously.

Artists.

They are never appreciated while still alive...

Don’t Forget Your Glasses, My Dear

Connor, David and I slipped down to the British Museum for the tour called “Ancient Greece” at 11:30 am. Cancelled. We had come all of the way from Canada and it was cancelled. But we had backups: 11:45 am – Ancient Iraq and 12:45 pm, -- South Asia. I saw David Pilling coming as close as he could to buying something in a gift shop, a copy of the first ancient game, a cross between Snakes and Ladders and Parcheesi. “Why not,” he said, “I am a gamer.” Before he got his wallet out he also remembered he carries student loan debt. But that was still close.

On our way home, I saw the Salvation Army Band at Oxford Square, a 29 piece brass band, uniformed just as though they had stepped out of the musical, Guys and Dolls. But they were for real. After running back from my bus stop, the boys going ahead, I stepped back against an iron wrought fence, one protecting me from the traffic on Oxford Street and I stood beside a uniformed Salvation Army man who was also on the side watching. Tourists would stop and have their pictures taken with the band playing in the background. I listened to the tune of hymns I do not know, and to Bible stories I do know: the wise man built his house upon a rock; in times of trouble which we all have, God will be there to support us. A lovely mix of both. A huge rubbish cart rolled in front of my view and stopped there, the man pulling the cart doing some street sweeping and then leisurely taking the plastic bagged garbage out of a cast iron bin and throwing it on the back of his cart. 

The big belly laugh I heard must have come out of my mouth for the navy blue uniformed Christian soldier standing beside me said, `We have been coming here at this same time for years and years, and he stops every Sunday in the same place to collect his garbage.

Soon the call was issued to all – follow us to our chapel on Oxford Street for more free music and stories, and off the band marched. My march was in a different direction, back to New Cavendish Street.

David, Connor and I had spent the morning thinking about religion in a different way. The tour of South Asia, which I thought was going to be about China, was not that at all. At least I knew enough not to correct the woman when she said that we would be looking at South Asia as in India, Pakistan, Cambodia, Lagos, Viet Name.

What was hardest on all three of us, and best for me, at least, is that the museum volunteer leading the tour explained to us that she would be using the images to help us understand the mindset of being a Hindu or a Buddhist or one of the ancient oriental offshoots, all of which lead back, in some way, to Hinduism. And this Buddha is one we saw, though they have given him a different set of feet for the originals have long gone missing.

The South East Asia tour began with 3 of us – the Pillings, me and one other about the age of the Pillings. By time the tour ended there might have been 30 of us on the tour. This has been the way on all of the tours. At every stop, people who are there on their own, looking at statues or paintings join up with us, for it is hard not to be interest in the questions that are being asked and answered. 

My favourite line from the tour guide came half way through the tour from the volunteer who looked everyone in the eye and said, those of us who are Hindus know that we are coming back to live agan when we die.` I looked around and half of the group were nodding their heads in agreement with her.

I was reminded about how religion permeates our lives again at noon today. Someone thrust a card in my hand which read, Mr. Madrib, from birth a gifted African spiritual healer and advisor. And the promised continued, No matter how difficult your problem is, there is a solution to it. Problem (sic) concerning black magic, love, voodoo, sexual impotency, business transactions, exams, court court & immigration cases. I can help you reunite with your loved ones, split unwanted relationships & gambling. For all our problems, Mr. Madiba is the answer, no disappointments. Quick results Guaranteed.

Now it will be hard to know which route to go – come back for another chance at life, or work it all out with our African friend, Mr. Madiba and have no need for a second chance on earth.

A took the introductory tour of the Victoria and Albert Museum today, and hung out in the silver museum and the wrought iron display. I took the 74 bus home for I had a paper in my purse that promised I would see Brompton Oratory, Harrods, the Marble Arch, pass the exclusive addresses of Park Lane and drive by No 99, Gloucester Place, Elizabeth Browning`s first London Home.

I should have had a perfect day, and I was close to having that perfect day – it would have been better if I I had been one of the people who had a key to get into the apartment. I was reminded of Adam Wood`s first adventure here where he couldn`t access the flat, either. I got through the first door by slipping in when someone else came out, and I got up to the fifth floor, but when I rang the door bell, no answer. 

I knew I was tired. I had been falling asleep on the bus. I sat on the carpet steps and relaxed into a deep sleep when no one answered the door bell. Charise and Alicia woke me up when they got out of the elevator one-half hour later, and we all walked through the apartment door. That is when I discovered Wyona was home, asleep in her bed, too tired to hear the buzzer from downstairs or the chimes from the button on her flat door. 

You will have to decide who which of us needed the sleep more – she who couldn`t lift herself from her bed on the ring of a doorbell, or me who can sleep on a bus or the inner apartment flight of stairs.

Wyona had tickets for Les Mis tonight: 3 tickets, Alicia, Charise and herself. I got a call at 7:10 pm. Wyona had forgot her glasses and she was in the Royal Circle. I dropped the fork into my scrambled eggs and ran for the bus. I got there at 7:29 pm, remembering that I had no key to get back into the apartment. But I had a back-up plan. I was going to ride the double-decker buses all night until I was sure Greg would be home or the Pillings would be back from Dover.

But Wyona was ahead of me. I gave her glasses to the woman at the concession counter and the woman traded me them for a set of keys to the flat. But I have learned a person can change their mind multiple times in one hour. So, on the way home, I decided I would stop in and get me a ticket at Thriller. Four Royal Theatres are in a row on Shaftsbury Avenue: Thriller, Hair, Les Mis and a play called All My Sons. Breathless from my run to get Wyona`s glasses to her on time, I slipped into the queue at another of the theatres, bought a concession ticket and then noticed my ticket was for Hair and not Thriller. Damn, I thought, even though i am trying not to swear. I am not up to being four rows from the front for Hair – that puts me almost on stage and for sure in the area where the performers walk along the arms of the chairs.

Though the money was out of my hands and into her cash box, the tickets had not yet reached my hand. I said to the girl, `Sheesh, I thought I was at Thriller not Hair. Is there a chance I have my money back`` She refunded me my £25. I never did listen to Michael Jackson, and in retrospect, I have to ask myself why I was even thinking about going. On the other hand, there isn`t much left for me to see in London in the way of first-time musicals: Thriller and We Will Rock You. So I will probably slip in there again, given I can make my way through the right theatre door.

At any rate, I did my good deed for Wyona for the day – these musicals aren`t much fun without a good set of glasses.

Arta