12/26/2016. From Yangon to Mandalay
December 26, 2016. Mandalay
Greetings (Mingalaba)
So last night we had our last dinner in Yangon (except that we will be back for one night – January 1 — while in transit to Tokyo) at the Rangoon Tea House — a clearly upscale café serving Indian foods and frequented by foreigners (who seem to live in Myanmar). Food was good. Left at about 11 pm and headed to hotel to pack.
Then a small panic attack. As we approached the hotel, it dawned on me that every time we looked at all of our paper work for this trip — I never saw any flight from Yangon to Mandalay. In the taxi, we both searched emails and couldn’t find anything other than a few requests to different airlines questioning whether or not they serviced the two cities. Then I had a vague recollection of getting an email from one airline saying it had folded, and from another that didn’t post their schedule until close to the date of travel… and I think we just dropped the ball after that — too much going on: Thanksgiving, work projects, end of semester, office move, FTA Open House… and who knows what else. Anyway, from what we could tell, we didn’t have any reservation… Just a notation of the time of the flight in each of our calendars, but no confirmation number. So we moved fast.. I went online and captured the last two seats (and that they were – in the total back of the plane.. last row) and purchased them. Turns out Golden Myanmar Airlines (!!) has three prices for each flight – but no indication of what the differences are between the three fares, and the cost differential is $10. .So we opted for the middle price. Not sure what that gave us, since it clearly wasn’t for a stellar seat.
Anyway, good thing we did that. We asked the hotel to phone the airlines (at the same time I was purchasing the tickets) and the Airline Offices were closed and would not open again until after we would need to be at the airport. Given that we didn’t see any empty seats on the plane, I’m pretty certain we didn’t wind up double booking.
So, this morning off we went to the Yangon Airport – a fairly new and large airport located about 45 minutes from downtown Yangon. Taxi driver was friendly, but not very familiar with the airport since he tried to drop us off at the International Terminal (they have two terminals). The 45-minute taxi ride cost about $6. Our plane was an hour late, but there was very little in the way of information sharing. Ticketing is interesting. They write the information by hand on the boarding pass.
We made it to Mandalay and then dealt with a far more chaotic taxi situation than the rather orderly system in Yangon. Lots of drivers trying to get our attention; young guys trying to entice us into hiring them to give tours; others vying to carry our bags to waiting taxis. We “picked” the first taxi in the row, ignoring the requests for us to take mini-vans and shared vehicles, etc. It’s about an hour drive to downtown and where hotels are located. This taxi cost about $9.
Made it to the hotel – Hotel at the Red Canal – another funny choice. Realized about 10 days ago that we never booked a hotel for Mandalay – looked at many, but never decided. So again, mad scramble and checking where there was space. Anyway, the HRC (as they refer to it in the literature) was waiting for us when we pulled up. They had fancy signs welcoming guests arriving today. Our sign said “Professor Fern Tiger and Party”… When we were scrambling to find a hotel… I signed the email “Professor” knowing full well that Asia has very high regard for “titles” and figured we might have a better chance of getting a room. I neglected to give Mike a title (and maybe he didn’t even get a name). Anyway, when we went downstairs later, they had hastily created a new sign that included Mike with title! And now they put his name ahead of mine. Well at least I wasn’t “and Party.”
By then it was about 4 pm and we were pretty hungry, so we stopped at the hotel restaurant and had a pretty nice late Indian lunch. Settled in to HRC and will soon take a stroll and get dinner (I think eating is all we did today). The hotel is quite charming. Another small, boutique style hotel – with nice gardens and lots of teak… They go a little overboard so when we got to the room, the bathtub was filled with hot water and hundreds of rose petals. We found a letter in the room indicating that our room rate (we’re probably overpaying because we were so desperate) includes two massages. Given our ride yesterday for about a total of two hours in the tuk tuk where we were pretty much airborne 50% of the time, I think the idea of a massage sounds great. Maybe tomorrow.
First impressions of Mandalay – a city of about 1.5 million people – seems like a lot of newer buildings and a lot of construction; scores and scores of pagodas and stupas between the airport and the city. We are supposed to be here for four nights, but we might shorten by a day and add a day to Bagan, enabling us to take the boat from here to Bagan (10 hours on the fast boat) rather than get a car (probably with a driver, since driving is pretty dicey – did it in Thailand and navigating the horses, goats, cows, trucks, motorcycles, buses, and the other cars was an exhausting and white knuckle situation). Anyway, we shall see… and you shall hear.
Before closing this note, a few observations in general and some miscellaneous images…
- I’m tall in Myanmar; Burmese people, in general, are pretty short.
- They like to exchange cash rather than use your credit card, but they are very very discriminating with regard to what money they take. Mike got pretty hyped after his cash was deemed “inappropriate” and “not possible to convert to local currency” (which by the way has no value on the open market). They don’t take any bills that are folded (and have a crease) or have any wrinkles or any marks. They rejected $80 of his $120 at the airport, at the hotel, and at the second check cashing place. They found a folded corner, a small red mark, wrinkles, and the like. They only like crisp, clean, new dollars. Yet they give you very old, wrinkled money in exchange. So we need to use ATMs which are also pretty picky with regard to your bank.
- Literacy rate is 83%
- Life expectancy is 57 years old (so I’m elderly here?)
- 89% of the population is Buddhist
- Exchange rates are based on the denomination of the bills you exchange, with $100 bills yielding higher rate than five $20 bills; the money is called Kyat (pronounced “chat”)
- The Burmese chew betel nut leaves.. they fill the leaves with the nut and spices and a pinch of tobacco.. fold this mixture in the leaf.. put it in the mouth, chew.. and then spit it out. In many areas you see a lot of red liquid on the sidewalk. That’s the remains of the spitting of the betel nut and leaves. Pretty gross. First I thought someone was spitting blood and nearly rushed to help them…
All my best…
Will report on Mandalay tomorrow.
Fern
12/25/2016. Christmas in Yangon
Happy Happy 25 December 2016 Yangon
Last night we decided it would be good to take a little jaunt into some small villages outside of the center of Yangon. We read that there was a town called Twanty that was approached either by a 10 minute ferry and then a 45 kilometer drive or by a two-hour ferry. We thought the latter might be relaxing, so we set off to find that ferry. Asked at the hotel, but they said that the office for the ferry was closed and they couldn’t find a schedule. We looked online; they looked online. But we were determined. So we headed to the friendly upscale Strand Hotel… figuring that they wouldn’t realize we weren’t hotel guests (since we are White and sort of fit the guest profile) and the concierge would “know all!” The concierge was amazingly friendly and helpful and made a lot of calls and finally told us which jetty we needed to be at to catch the longer ferry. Took a taxi to that jetty, and then the taxi driver asked around and said that the people (there was a very very makeshift market down by the jetty) said that the ferry wasn’t going today – because it was Christmas and a national holiday (who’d have thought? In a Buddhist country?). So we had two choices: we could take a very very small boat (which the taxi driver said was very “unsafe”) or we could go back to the jetty near the Strand and take the 10 minute ferry and then do the 45 KM drive. We opted for the latter. And then the fun began.
There were huge crowds in the “waiting area;” someone immediately tapped us on the shoulder and sort of gently pushed us toward another end of the room… we learned that we needed to buy “foreigner tickets” which cost about $1, but I guess that’s a higher price than what others pay (again, good idea). With our round trip tickets in hand, we joined the throngs trying to board the “ferry.” I think about half of the people on the ferry are people who are trying selling things like bananas, water, various foods, trinkets, quail eggs, etc. Anyway we boarded and then found that on the upper deck there is a little VIP zone (first class!) for the foreigners who paid more for their tickets. We got plastic chairs; the others got benches – for the 10 minute ride across the river. Once we got off the boat, we had a lot of choices as to transportation to get from Dala (where the boat docked) and Twanty — car taxi, shared mini-bus, pick-up truck with benches in the back, passenger on a motorcycle, bus, or tuk tuk (which we used extensively in other parts of Asia). We opted for the tuk tuk (which I had actually commented on the other day that we were surprised we hadn’t seen any in Yangon). Well, we didn’t exactly ever sit in a tuk tuk for 45 minutes (in each direction). The tuk tuk is a motorcycle that has a little “cab” in the back with seats. It’s noisy, bumpy, … Anyway we negotiated a price… the guy would take us to Twanty, make three stops – Pagoda, Snake Pagoda, Pottery workplace. He’d wait for us at each place and then drive us back to Dala to catch the ferry back.
And off we go…. The 45 minute ride to the first stop was like getting a very very tough massage, but in all the wrong places. The noise was as you would imagine. Myanmar’s road infrastructure is poor at best.. so the ride matched that.. But it was fun.. We shared the road with goats, cows, cars, trucks, buses, motorcycles, pedestrians, vans, occasional horse, and more. Our driver worked hard at various points to pass cars and at one time successfully passed a Honda Fit. Along the way, there was a toll “booth” (sans booth).. I guess that covers the road repairs that might be made way in the future! He was funny, because every so often (especially when we were close to Dala) he donned a helmet (which I suppose he’s supposed to wear legally). Then we realized that there was a cop close by.
We stopped at the first pagoda (not really first as we passed literally dozens of them… but the first we were actually stopping at). And it was charming… although it might have been some kind of cemetery. Again, lots of families sitting around, enjoying the day while others prayed.
From there we headed to the “snake pagoda” – which sits in a river and is accessed by a big walking bridge. Yes, there are real snakes crawling around the Buddha statue in the center.. and sort of slithering all around. Not sure I totally realized that was going to be the scene.. but alas, here we were.
Oh… definitely had to remove the shoes again before even crossing the bridge to the snake pagoda.
Got back on tuk tuk and headed to a remote little village of thatched huts, no more than about 2-300 sq. feet each… some were housing and some were where the residents did pottery… large scale pots of various shapes. They use an interesting two-person foot system to spin the potter’s wheel. The potter sits on the floor; the wheel is between his legs on the floor; a second person stands and kicks the wheel. Anyway, it works.
We then sat and watched a group of kids play and run around in this tiny village… and surveyed the scene —- someone brushing his teeth in a bowl of water that came from ???… people building small houses.
Then on to the temple… which was sort of outside.. with rows and rows of statues.
And then we did the return trip to the ferry… another 45 minutes of vibration, noise, and fun. Following this and the ferry ride – crowded, more gawking to try to get people (not really us – they focused on locals) to buy all sorts of goods…. We decided we deserved cocktails at the Strand Hotel. After that we made a brief pit stop into a “supermarket” to get some toothpaste, a razor, and sun screen… The supermarket which would fit into one aisle of an American supermarket sold everything including men’s shirts!
Now we are back at the hotel… and off to our last dinner in Yangon. I think we are going to the Rangoon Tea House… but we shall see. We leave tomorrow morning and head to Mandalay.
More from there.
Merry Merry and Happy Happy.
Fern
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The Night Market in Yangon. December 23 2016
Night Market in Yangon…. the night before the night before Christmas not that it matters much in Myanmar). The pictures say it all!
June 28 2018. Montreal in All its Glory. Day 2
Quelle journée (What a day !). Thursday, June 28 (really Friday June 29 – as it is after midnight here)
Started out a bit later than planned (about 9:45); I was up pretty late trying to soak in the realities of the US Supreme Court situation.
We decided to head to one of the famous Montreal bagel places for breakfast, so hopped into a taxi to take us north to the Jewish neighborhood around St. Viateur Street where there is a well-known bagel place. While I don’t think there was ever a real Jewish ghetto in Montreal, the area along Boulevard St. –Laurent between McGill University and Mile End has a long history as a Jewish neighborhood and despite gentrification (which is very obvious) the area maintains a Jewish flavor, with a clear presence of Hasidim and orthodox Jews — along with hipsters!
We messed up a bit in that the address we had researched was actually for the bagel-making bakery, not the bagel café (which was a trek away)… so we wound up buying bagels (hot out of the oven) and then finding a coffee shop where we ate our bagels in a very hip coffee place. Best of both worlds. Montreal bagels are famous and very different from NY style bagels. New York-style bagels are soft, chewy and doughy. Montreal-style bagels are smaller, denser, sweeter, and sort of “crusty.” Both are boiled before baked, but supposedly the water that is used in each city makes the bagels taste different. (I know a bit about this since my mother’s second husband owned a kosher delicatessen in Brooklyn and he always said that no matter how hard California would try it could never make a really good bagel because of the water (???)
Apparently Montreal bagels are boiled in water that has honey added. But then the Montreal bagels are baked in a wood-burning oven which makes them crispy. OK.. I confess.. I’m a NYer but I really really like Montreal bagels.
Anyway, enough about bagels.. We then began our day-long trek to see the famous murals of Montreal (hundreds of them scattered throughout several different districts in the city). There are maps identifying where some of the famous ones are and then you just stumble on others. Some are really just good graffiti and others are very planned-out statements. They are large and seem to fill up every blank wall in these areas of the city. We headed south on Saint Laurent Street and then just meandered about town, savoring in every turn of the street, with each new mural siting.
We walked about 4.5 miles in our mural hike (and also stopped into a few great little boutiques) and then decided it was time for a late lunch – at Schwartz’s Deli – a 90-year old institution started by a Jewish immigrant from Romania. It’s not a kosher restaurant, but it’s “kosher style” and clearly frequented by every ethnic group in the city. At our shared table there was a young couple that ordered a small plate of the meat and the waiter was surprised until they explained that they really already had lunch but they were taking a walk and passed by and couldn’t control themselves to not stop in and have some of the famous brisket! Schwartz’s signature dish is a smoked meat sandwich served on rye bread with yellow mustard. It’s served as fatty, medium, or lean. Naturally, we accompanied our shared sandwich (couldn’t imagine having the whole thing alone) with half-sour pickles, cole slaw, and peppers on the side – and cream soda. The walls are covered with photos of famous people eating at Schwartz’s.
We also stopped at Kem Coba – a Vietnamese ice cream place. “Kem CoBa” means third auntie’s ice cream in Vietnamese. Flavors include La Latina: mango & dulce de leche – La Florida: orange & coconut – La New-Yorkaise: strawberry & cheesecake. I had one scoop of almond and Carol had honey orange flower. Yummy…
Then we were back on our mural hike… and made a purposeful detour to see the Leonard Cohen mural – 9 stories high.
After nearly 6 miles, we were getting a bit tired.. and it started to rain. So we hopped into a taxi to the hotel. By now it was close to 6 pm. We agreed to meet at the rooftop bar at our hotel at 7, but as we went back to our rooms, we saw an air show (with synchronated planes) right outside our windows. Maybe it was tied to “Canada Days” which is this weekend.
We had our drinks on the rooftop which turns out to have really good 360-degree views. And then we headed to dinner at Hvor in the Griffintown neighborhood which is north and west of where we are staying. The name is Danish but the food is not. It’s a very contemporary, sleek space. We shared steak tartare which came with mustard greens and smoked egg yolk and horseradish. For the main courses we had trout filet which sat in a very light buttermilk sauce, with smoked eel; and lamb sirloin made with watermelon molasses, smoked apple butter and a feta garnish… Naturally we couldn’t really end the meal without dessert so we had the hazelnut clafoutis.
The restaurant prides itself on the fact that it grows all the vegetables and spices and even the honey for all of the dishes.. on their rooftop.. They asked if we’d like to see it and so we went up.. Unbelievable what they are growing in a small space on raised beds! Even kiwis! Left quite satisfied.. and decided to take taxi to hotel. It was now about 11:00 pm…But about 5 minutes into the taxi ride we spotted some of the silent movies being projected onto walls throughout one neighborhood so we jumped out of the taxi to view some of the films – all of which had some kind of tie-in to Montreal and Montreal history.. Like finding the murals it was great to just keep stumbling on these films that were projected about 6 stories high.. Eventually we found our way back to the hotel.
Tomorrow is our last full day in Montreal. It’s supposed to be about 90 degrees. If that’s true – we will head to museums (my least favorite places) but they will be air-conditioned and might be interesting. In any case they will be cool. Tomorrow night we have tickets for the Ry Cooder performance at the Montreal Jazz Festival – opening night. We understand there will be all sorts of activities going on around that area so it should be fun.
That’s it for me – past bedtime!
Bonsoir…. Fern
Americans in Kampala Uganda. 12/21/2018
Posted on Saturday 22 December: Greetings from Kampala, Uganda –
We headed out fairly early – by taxi – for Nakasero Market located in the center of Kampala. It’s huge and mostly about food. It’s divided into two sections – an open area where sellers are located under literally hundreds and hundreds of well-worn umbrellas to protect themselves and their produce from the sun (and rain). The other part of the market (which stretches for several blocks) is focused on hardware, clothing, and miscellaneous items. We strolled for about 90 minutes amid the vendors and customers. We were literally the only tourists there. It’s a body-to-body experience, squeezing through tiny aisles along with shoppers, workers carrying trays on their heads, workers carrying huge sacks of flour or rice or whatever.
We walked the thin line of wanting to see everything and to photograph and not wanting to get in the way of the people who really needed to be there to work and to shop. Most people were friendly; some didn’t want their photos taken. Some tried to speak Italian to us, thinking we were from Italy. (So now we’ve been recognized as Italian, Icelandic, French, and Russian; never once as Americans). Several people (when I stopped to chat and photograph) were surprised we were from the US; those few who had heard ort California responded “Schwartzenegger!” and one thought he was the President of California. Apparently his movies are well watched here in Uganda. I talked to one father sitting off to a side with his 6-year old son, whose name was “Michael Jordan!” And one man wanted us to hire him to be our “house guard;” every house of any significance, and all public and private buildings in Uganda have their own guard or guards (in fact when you pull up to any restaurant a guard inspects the car before you can bring the car close to the restaurant). When we said we didn’t have a guard, the guy was very shocked and then said “You must be poor.”
During our walk through the market, Mike tasted some sauteed grasshoppers. I begged off; I’ve eaten fried ones in Mexico which were actually good, but I just wasn’t up for it that early in the day.
Hooked up with the taxi and headed to Owino Market – which began in 1971 with 320 vendors and today there are 50,000 vendors!!! Trust me, that number is real. The market started as a food market and over time diversified into all sorts of other items including a giant shoe area, clothing, scrap metal, cooked food, chicken and meat and fish. Owino makes Nakasero seem like a little corner grocery.
Owino, is the biggest open market in Uganda and probably in all of East Africa – covering about 17 acres. Despite this vast area, it is totally overcrowded. I’d say that about three quarters of the vendors are female.
It’s totally impossible to describe and also impossible to photograph Owino Market. You can barely stand in one spot for more than a few seconds since the crowds are moving along and you sort of need to move along with them. It’s also not just a visual experience; it affects all senses. We’ve been to markets all over the world – in Southeast Asia, South and Central America, India, and more – but this one is not only the largest but also the most complex market I’ve experienced. Not sure how one finds their way around or out. The taxi driver sort of followed us around and also bought himself two shirts while we were busy photographing. He said it was impossible to find one’s way around.
After about 90 minutes we headed to the street and into the taxi. And then the fun began. We decided we would go to the Uganda Museum which was only about 5 kilometers from the market. But the streets were gridlocked. We literally sat in the car for about 15 minutes without moving at all; eventually we moved at a snail’s pace – It took us more than 70 minutes to go the 5 kilometers. If it wasn’t so complicated to navigate the route, we would have walked.
On the long drive and as we passed through many different neighborhoods whose residential wealth or poverty appeared somewhat obvious we discussed with the driver what kind of people lived in each area. The taxi driver offered that Kampala has five economic classes. He then gave examples of who was in each of the classes. Frankly, the conversation started because I asked what kind of people shopped at Owino Market versus Nakasero Market.
By the time we got to the rather dusty and poorly organized museum, we were exhausted and headed to a little café next door to the museum for fresh fruit smoothies. And we made a short pitstop in a little shop where all the goods were made by women affiliated with various NGOs.
Then we headed to the hotel where we were to meet up with Martin again. Naturally we were a bit late given the traffic, but he, too, needed to face traffic so all was good.
We headed up and down more of the hills and neighborhoods that comprise Kampala. A few facts I haven’t mentioned.
- The climate is much more comfortable than I had imagined given that this is summer time, and we are basically at the equator. The elevation at about 4000 feet helps and the continuous breezes from Lake Victoria save the place.
- The roads up and down all these hills are in incredibly poor condition: no lights, deep ditches on either side of the one lane in each direction roads; no striping; potholes that can be as deep as 6 or 8 inches everywhere; bikes, motorbikes, cars, trucks all vying for their space on the road.
- Radio stations seem to have a large number of public service “stories” that are sandwiched between every two songs. Some are like little telenovelas but with only sound. One was a new mom talking with her husband while the baby cried. The dad says that the mom should do something about the crying baby and the mom says she is washing her hands because she just changed the diaper. The dad says “But the baby is crying” and the mom says “Better for the baby and the rest of the family not to get sick because she was starting to cook and without washing her hands would be worse than letting the baby cry for a while. The mom says something about .. the baby won’t die from crying but could die if the mom didn’t wash her hands before touching food. Obviously, they didn’t get into the fact that the dad could deal with the crying baby…. Step by step.. And there are posters and campaigns everywhere regarding AIDS. Uganda has the highest infection rate in the world, I believe.
- Some great photos I didn’t get included in these posts include women in full burkas on motorcycles (as passengers); in fact I don’t think I’ve seen women driving motorcycles at all.
- Men in the market ask Mike if I am his wife or sister. Then they often ask how many wives Mike has.
- Healthcare in Uganda is almost non-existent.. but more on that in another letter.
With Martin driving (and an unexpected guest for our drive and dinner – Elliott, a young cousin of Martin (Elliot’s aunt is apparently one of Martin’s father’s several wives) — we headed for a view of Lake Victoria and also dinner. Along the way we had more time to discuss his years in the US (about 12) and his sense of racism in America. He was quite astute about the problems and the history of racism in the states. Eventually (thousands of potholes later), we arrived at Cassia Lodge where we had spectacular views of Lake Victoria and a wonderful sunset with a nearly perfect full moon. After a nice dinner, we bid Martin farewell and headed back to Humura.
Take care –
Fern
6/3/2019. More Old Friends and More Helsinki
Moi Moi –
So, I hear #45 is on this side of the ocean, trying to be presidential. The Finns find this simultaneously hysterical and scary.
Set out this morning with a first stop at Fazer, the more than 100 year old bakery (with many locations) that probably exemplifies all the wonderful pastries and breads of Finland. I had my favorite breakfast pastry – from Northern Karelia region — oval-shaped and filled with some kind of rice and potato and topped with egg butter which is made from hard boiled eggs mashed with butter. The Finns have lots of pastries that are for special holidays and their holidays are often for poets (like Runeberg) or musicians or writers. The arts are an integral part of the culture. So, for example, on Runeberg’s birthday there is a special and quite wonderful raspberry and rum tart dessert that is popular – supposedly this was Runeberg’s favorite dessert as a child and it is prepared the way his mother made it. Not many we heroes here – but lots of heroes in the cultural world.
From there I strolled to the kauppatori (the marketplace located at the harbor); it’s changed a lot since we lived here. At that time, we relied on the market for our daily food purchases (since we didn’t have a freezer and only had a teeny refrigerator). Now there are a lot of stalls selling souvenirs and I suppose most Finns are shopping in the many wonderful supermarkets they now have – or in the more local markets instead of this main market. When we lived here, there were dozens of little fishing boats lined up at the shore selling fish right from the boats; now that harbor gets a lot of cruise ships where passengers get off the boat for the day and “see” Finland. So it’s a different place. Still lovely and fun to walk. There’s also a great indoor market there.
I strolled down the Esplanade to reach the market area, passing the gallery where I had an exhibit of my work while living here (Galeria Artek). The gallery is no longer and is now some kind of upscale shop selling Finnish goods.
I met up with Mike at the Design Museum which had 2 fantastic shows: a history of Finnish design through products (called Utopia Now) and an upstairs show with works by COMPANY. For more than a decade, Aamu Song and Johan Olin have travelled around the world, looking for traditional crafts to understand the techniques and manufacturing skills of these products. The duo has visited workshops and master craftspeople in many countries including Japan, Russia, and Mexico. They’ve collected all sorts of craft art pieces, clothing, accessories and furniture some of which they created together with masters of these crafts. Their goal is to bring attention to the endangered role of crafts and the skills needed to sustain them, as well as the unsustainability of today’s consumer culture. They are trying to show alternatives to this kind of consumerism.
Prior to going to the Design Museum, we stopped for a light lunch at Juuri which is about a block away on Korkeavankatu. Shared three “sapas” (what the Finns call their tapas): herring with crispy fried rye and marinated fennel; a lamb croquette with yogurt and mint; and a cucumber side dish that had some kind of creamy cheese. After the Design Museum we strolled back to the hotel on a lot of small streets, returning to streets we hadn’t seen during previous visits over the years. And we walked within the “design center” neighborhood (of which the street on which we lived is a part!)
Reached the hotel just in the nick of time to meet Tatu, the son of some old friends when we were here in Helsinki, Anne and Tapani (who I mentioned in a previous note). Together we went to visit Tapani, who was diagnosed with Alzheimers about 7 years ago. We were all running late, so we hopped into a taxi to get to the Verahamaki neighborhood which is about 20 miles from Helsinki. Tapani was clearly waiting for us, sitting on the outside deck of his first floor “apartment,” in the assisted living facility that he’s been in since his wife (Anne) passed away a few years ago.
He’s gained weight, and he’s clearly forgetful, but he’s got incredible spirit and has maintained his same rye sense of humor that he had years ago – noting that he had completed all the important research in Finnish demographics so there is nothing left for anyone else to research (and therefore it’s ok that he’s not doing his work any more)… and then said that probably when he came to the university as a young faculty member some older faculty member who was retiring said the same thing! He showed us around and noted that we should order anything we want at the café/bar that is inside the facility. “Everything is free,” he stated. “I never have to pay.” Later he suggested we all get ice cream at the café and again reminded us that one cannot pay there – “It’s all free!”
He most definitely remembered both of us, which was nice and he knew that we were friends for a long time. We reminded him that we had visited the family when he was a Fulbright professor at the University of Wisconsin. He seemed to recall something about it, but said it was hard to remember but he had happy memories with us. It was good to see him in good and happy spirits, but obviously sad knowing what a brilliant sociologist he had been. He mentioned that he still plays chess, so Mike took him up on it and that had a very intense game that ended in a draw. Mike said he was very alert for the game, but when it went on for a long time he began to get tired. We walked him back to his room, where he noted that he gets a delivery of three beers each night. True to form, the beers were sitting at his table. Once a Finn, always a Finn. He noted that he wouldn’t be driving so it was OK to have the beers!
Then Tatu, Mike, and I took the bus back to downtown and had dinner at Gaijin, an Asian-inspired Finnish restaurant. I’d been here twice before and it was as good as all prior times. For the foodies, I think we had 6 tiny starters: salmon tartar on a black squid cracker, with a tobiko dressing, baby shrimps, and marinated trout roe; an edamame and avocado taco, with dried tomatoes, and wasabi mayonnaise; three pieces of fantastic dim sum… followed by two main courses: a steak tartare with a miso dressing and pickled mushrooms; and baby back ribs with a great marinade. I think we had something else (beyond drinks and wine), but can’t remember. It was great to reconnect with Tatu, whom we hadn’t seen in about 20 years. He lives in Los Angeles having emigrated to the US about 30 years ago. He’s turned into an interesting adult with good politics, a healthy critique of the US, and lots of fun. He has been coming to visit his family in Helsinki annually, since he got his green card and was able to travel (no easy task).
Dinner ended at about midnight, and we strolled to the hotel. Tatu headed to the Metro to get to the apartment he is using for the month. Amazing! By the way, the weather has been fantastic (in the 60s and sunny).
Tomorrow we face our last day in Helsinki and then head out on a very very early morning flight on Wednesday morning – transferring planes in London (complicated because we will be changing terminals and won’t be able to check bags straight through —- yes, here we are actually checking bags. A new thing for us. We usually try to do just carry-on, but this time it’s not going to work)
I’ll try to write the final chapter tomorrow if I have time… Another hectic day, including dinner on Sirpilasaari Island (you take a five-minute boat), with Antti and Heidi.
All the best –
Fern
July 31, 2012. From Cairanne (Violes) to Berlin
En Route to Berlin
Guten Tag
OK… left hotel at 5:30 am and drove to Nice (3+ hours) to catch a plane to Berlin via Brussels. The drive was fine, except that we were both pretty exhausted.. and it took every bit of alert energy to just make sure we were on the right road every step of the way… The GPS has been a lifesaver, along with checking the route over and again .. and our location.. on the iPhone app.
Made it to Nice Airport (whizzing by all the homes of the rich and famous in Cannes and Antibes)… and then flew to Brussels and changed planes to get to Berlin. Arrived in Berlin (a city we have not seen since the wall fell… we had been here oh so many years ago, having driven through the old East Germany from Sasnitz (took a boat from the southernmost tip of Sweden to the northernmost tip of Germany/East and drove to Berlin)… So it’s going to be interesting to spend a few days here.
Anyway, we just arrived at the Grand Hotel in Berlin.. a last minute choice.. and quite a change from the bordello in Violes. But had we done a bit more homework, probably would have stayed in a different area.. but this is fine and very very comfortable.
We’re off to dinner in about two hours.
I’ll try to write tomorrow ..
Auf Wiedersehen
Fern
Ps — See –Didn’t I say this was going to be a very calm trip and more on the boring side than our usual travels??
Cairanne. .July 29, 2012.. and Gordes
Bon Soir
Sitting on the porch at Richard and Elizabeth’s house (it’s about midnight here); the air is cool — which is nice given how unbearably hot it is during the day; and we’ve just finished dinner.
A pretty uneventful day– after our rather messy evening last night. Had brunch at the house (leftovers from dinner) with Mike’s brother, sister-in-law, two nieces, one boyfriend… lingered much longer than expected. The young crowd was headed to a wedding in Purtis (not to far from Aix en Provence), We agreed to drive one niece, while Elizabeth drove the others; no one’s car big enough to hold everyone. It was a 2-hour drive.
Oh, forgot to mention that this morning when we saw the Madame of the B&B (bordello-style place), we tried (in my elementary French to explain our problem of access from last night and we learned that while the gate “appears” to be locked, it’s actually just shut and that the chain that “appears” to be locked doesn’t have a lock on it.. so you just push these large gates open and that’s that! So much for us climbing onto ledges and being saved by the little flashlight.
Once we dropped Julia off in Purtris, we headed to Gordes — a wonderful old town built into the mountain about 1.5 hours away. We’d been there many years ago, and I had returned this past February, in the bitter cold. Seeing it today was a bit of a disappointment. The town has really become a tourist destination, overpriced everything.. Fortunately, when I was here with Carol in February we didn’t notice it was a tourist town because it was dead of winter and no tourist… just us.
But the basic infrastructure remains, .. and if you can find some way to get out of the way of the hordes of tourists (an impossibility) who are everywhere… it’s still an incredible town… To be quite honest, it’s almost better to just drive up the mountain and see the town as you approach.. which is a spectacular sight, as the town rises in the mountains as you approach. Unfortunately, as you get close in, it’s just packed with overpriced cafes and shops, and people. Anyway, we strolled a bit, had a $30 simple salad (just some tomato slices and buffalo mozzarella… and a large bottle of sparkling water ($10).
I must say — having been to Gordes this past February with snow on the ground and freezing cold weather and having half the town just shuttered… I’d opt for February over July! Still I’m glad I went again, and I’ll always like Gordes even though I doubt I’d return for many years to come.
Then we drove back to Violes, where I could get some work done… and then back to Richard and Elizabeth’s for dinner… and there you have it. No calamities, nothing unexpected.
July 30, 2012. Around Provence
Started out with breakfast at the B&B and then headed out by ourselves for Uzes (Richard and Elizabeth had stuff to do at home) — a totally charming town (which has also been found by tourists — mostly French and Brits), but — because it is a real town with people who work and live normal lives there (as opposed to Gordes, which from what I can tell has become a town driven by one industry – tourism) and because it is larger than Gordes, has maintained the charm and working aspect. Its markets are for real residents and you can easily drift into wonderful neighborhoods.
Uzes has a long history. It is the site of an aqueduct from the first century BC which supplied the city of Nimes with water. And the Pont du Gard remains the most famous stretch of that aqueduct (if you haven’t seen Pont du Gard — it’s worth a trip. By the way, Uzes was home to a significant (?) Jewish population in the 5th Century and the local Bishop welcomed the Jews, until the King admonished him and then all Jews fled, except those who agreed to be baptized. After the death of the king (or maybe the bishop), Jews returned and even if baptized returned to Judaism.
Well, I need to confess that Uzes is also a great little shopping town with some wonderful, small boutiques.. which I remembered from earlier trips.
From Uzes — at the last minute — we decided to drive up to Roussillon, a town we had never visited before and which is known for its red dirt (similar to Sedona and Molokai) and all the buildings are made of the red clay, making for a rather homogeneous setting. It’s quite beautiful — but like Gordes, without any industry or business center, is really just a town to attract tourists… Stayed a while, strolled up the hill for a view and down to the edges… had great ice cream, and then drove back to Violes to pack, and then head to Richard and Elizabeth’s for some homemade squid pasta in black ink.
They are really into cooking, and their house is extremely relaxing — so it’s been nice to eat at home (sort of reverse of the norm for us. Dinner was also delayed a bit as I was on Skype and then had to get documents sent to me from the office…
We pledged to leave by 11, so that we would have a good night’s sleep as we had to start out with a wake-up alarm the next morning (today) at 4 a.m. Well it didn’t quite work out, and we got back to the B&B around 1 am; finished final packing around 1:45 am… and that damn iPhone alarm went off as planned at 4 a.m. The “Madame” was up when we arrived and very nervous about us paying our bill, since we were leaving so early the next morning. Not sure what the problem was as they had our credit card. Finally realized that she couldn’t find our reservation which had all the information. I said she was a bit flitzy! Anyway, after a while I decided to head to the room and let her figure it out, especially since our communication in French/English is really stressful for both of us.
So this morning at 5:30 as we lugged the bags down the two flights (not using the wheels because we would have woken everyone up — assuming anyone else was staying there, which we never found out.)… there she was. She found the reservation and just needed the credit card — although try as she would she couldn’t get her little credit card machine to connect through the Internet… she was literally outside trying to connect. Finally something went through. And off we went.
Berlin:: August 2, 2012
Eineinhalb bis zweieinhalb Tage: August 2, 2012
Guten Abend —
We started out today at about 10 am (I was up until close to 3 a.m. with work)… at Café Einstein (which we learned is totally different from the Starbucks look-alike called Kaffe Einstein). Einstein Kaffe is just a coffee shop but Café Einstein is a full blown restaurant. There are two of the cafes, but many many of the coffee shops and they are totally separate. Can’t imagine how they were able to get the use of the name (Don’t think that could happen in the US — lawyers would be all over this!). Anyway we could get a full breakfast at the Café Einstein.
Got off to a not-so-good start as when we sat at an outside table at the café… literally at that moment.. a bird decided to do its thing on Mike’s shirt.. kerplop! If you weren’t Mike, it was pretty funny. And we were totally attacked by a single bee, who just couldn’t find anyone else to bother. Anyway, after this breakfast, we walked to the Reichstag with the intention of climbing to the top of the dome for what we assumed would be a spectacular view. It was really really hot today as we walked along Unter den Linden to reach the Reichstag… only to find out that you need a reservation to get to the dome and they were totally booked. So we then walked through the park to our next stop which would be the Bauhaus Museum (a building designed by Walter Gropius in 1964 and built soon after his death in 1976. .. The walk took us all along Embassy Row.. which includes dozens of new buildings developed I suppose when the capitol was moved from Bonn to Berlin.
I’ll call these buildings “architecture plop” as they appear to be just “plopped” along the street — no context to one another or to the street… Designed from afar, I assume, and then “plopped” down wherever. Total waste of (supposed) talent.. and I’m assuming money. Not my kind of building design at all, although I assume that the point of such “monuments” is just that.. to strike some “pose.” So, we trotted along in the unbearable heat (about 90 degrees) and humidity… to finally reach the Bauhaus Museum.. which was a true delight in many ways. Certainly, it, too, could be accused of being “plopped” but it was situated in a park-like setting making the “plop” factor minimum.. It is actually quite beautiful in its proportions and its stark white materials.
The Bauhaus was founded with the idea of creating a ‘total’ work of art in which all arts, including architecture would eventually be brought together, although architecture was not a program in the earliest years.
The permanent exhibit was like a trip down memory lane, in many ways, given that I was trained in a very very strong post-Bauhaus program at Pratt. Indeed some of the examples of the work of the “preliminary studio” was exactly what I had to do.. including creating three dimensional structures that portrayed “equilibrium in three dimensions” and intricate paper folding (the history of the FTA card – revealed!) The exhibit was quite good and very digestible, but they omitted a lot of the political history that embroiled the Bauhaus in the 30s, which they referred to as “conflicts” — carefully eliminating the reference to the fact that Mies Van der Roe never condemned the Nazis and in fact designed one of his landmark projects — the German Pavilion for Barcelona — under their regime. Instead the Museum kept referring to the fact that different founders of the Bauhaus “kept leaving”… The Museum also had a wonderful exhibit of paintings and studies and completed fabric work by Benita Koch Otte.
From there we had planned to trek about 5 kilometers more (we had already gone about 5 km) to the Jewish Museum, but opted for a taxi instead (a very good decision!). The Jewish Museum opened about 11 years ago and was designed by Daniel Libeskind and includes an old baroque building.. and a new glass courtyard installed in 2007. While the building itself can easily be distracting as its own “sculpture” and is not always totally conducive to exhibits — calling too much attention to itself — I actually didn’t mind it (except in a few cases.. but am sure that the curators and exhibit designers were really challenged by some of the shapes of the spaces), the permanent exhibit (except in a few hokey places) is really phenomenal, with tons of interactive, hands on portions and an extremely graphic and visual approach to such a complex subject as tracing the history of Jews over 3700 years… It was also truly a challenge to create a logical exhibition that could be understood by people of so many language, ages (children through seniors), cultures, etc. and wanting everyone to stay through the entire process of being informed. Overall — a great job. The temporary exhibit was a documentary photo exhibit of the 270,000 Russian Jews who immigrated to German (Berlin specifically) after they could leave the Soviet Union… their travails as they attempted to assimilate, learn German, understand what it means to be Jewish — and to make choices about their future.
OK.. from there we were headed to the Free University mostly to see the Philological Library… We opted for a taxi because it was about 20 km away, and the UBahn (rail) was not as close as we hoped.. and the heat was gaining. The University is located in a truly lovely part of Berlin… wonderful houses, tree-lined streets. We entered the University which is an interesting “matrix” intended, I believe, to set an infrastructure into which other buildings will fit. But as with all matrices, there is probably a desire to burst out of the grid… so in 2004 Norman Foster was commissioned to design a library that would combine 10 pre-existing libraries and assorted conference rooms. The result is a really stunning solution, which unfortunately we were not allowed to photograph! Except for the very few sneaky shots I was able to do… But it was great to see and if you want to see photos go to http://www.fu-berlin.de/sites/philbib/architektur/galerie1/index.html.
So, from the Free University, we trekked to the U-Bahn to make our way back to the centrum… the mitte… which was about 17 km away. We got to the station as the train was approaching and hopped on; no air conditioning (a big disappointment) but the service was good and efficient. We made three changes and made it back to the hotel in about 30 minutes. Somehow we never paid for the trip. When we entered the train there weren’t any fare booths, so we expected to be stopped as we exited (a la BART or the NYC subway).. but that never happened and we just got off the train, never seeing any pay booths or toll collectors. Thank you Berlin for a very nice free ride.
After about a 30 minute respite, we headed out again for dinner. We decided to head to a new hip area called NeuKolln which Mike’s niece, Julia (who had studied in Berlin for a year) recommended as an interesting and artsy area. She suggested a bar/restaurant where you lie on beds as you eat (and said to make a reservation and be sure to say you want the bed!). Instead we opted for a restaurant we read about called Sauvage — a “bio and paleo” eaterie! (bascially locavore). Anyway, it’s a bit of a distance from the Mitte and sparsely decorated. Food was really good; limited menu. No vegetable oil, no grains, no sugar. So boy do we feel healthy! We had a flounder dish and a vegetarian dish. Both were really good. And at the end, they gave us some complimentary schnapps!
OK.. the end to a very busy and tiring day. It’s now after midnight and we’re packing. We head to Czech Republic by train tomorrow (Berlin to Prague by train; drive to Brno where we will meet up with old friends. We had been planning to visit our very good friend Lallin who spent a year in Finland the same time we lived there. We’ve met the entire family many times during several trips back to Czehoslovakia and later Czech Republic. Lallin had a heart transplant in 2002 and we visited soon after. He had been doing very well, but recently things began to slip — one of the reasons we decided to visit this summer. Well, about two weeks before we left the US we were notified that he didn’t make it — 10 successful years, but eventually his body became immune to the anti rejection drugs and his liver gave out. We contemplated canceling this part of the trip to return early, but his family reached out and we decided it was important to celebrate Lallin’s life with them. Lallin was the head planner for the Bratislava Region. He and his family have a colorful history, with Lallin himself falling in and out of favor as the leadership of Czechoslovakia changed. He was demoted to a draftsman in 1970 and then after the Velvet Revolution was made head planner. He had written a report in the 60s about the environmental impact of Chernobyl which also got him into trouble. His parents, too, went through complicated times in the 60s and 70s.
So, we are off to Czech Republic in the morning…
Aufweidesein Berlin… Dobrý den, Česká republika
Fern
