Quite possibly the most beautiful time of year. At least in the Tidal Basin of Washington DC. I was lucky enough to be there at peak time for the cherry blossoms. This and other pink and white photos available on my Flickr site.
Just returned from a weeklong trip to the be with the family for Christmas. Traveling is such a gas. I can’t complain since my flights were all on time and went smoothly. But on the return I was really annoyed to learn that, according to the desk attendant, all bags must now be opened by the TSA and handsearched. Is this for real? Normally I do lock my bags, after making sure that nothing suspicious is loaded in them, and have never had a problem. Now I can’t lock my bags at all. Neither can anyone else. So what happens when all those expensive Christmas gifts start disappearing from those unlocked bags on the trip home? Who’s responsible? sheesh.
So here’s where I’ve ended up: New Yawk, New Yawk. Truly one of the world’s great cities. You will recognized this immediately as the Chrysler Building, which to me is one of the world’s greatest buildings. I love the audacity of it - how dare they build something that looks like that? This is the view looking south at sunset.
If you ever go down to Texas, you can have a movin’ meal on this old paddle-wheel. Or if you’re a confirmed landlubber, you can eat in the restaurant instead. Good food either way.
For a long time no one knew it was there. But then the archeologists uncovered a treasure - the Madaba Mosaic Map. If you can’t see the real thing, this site will give you a virtual tour of the ancient world as they saw it.
H and I spent most of the last week in Frankfurt. I had a conference and he stopped over for a day on his way to Basel. On the free day, besides sleeping late for the first time in ages, we spent part of the afternoon at the Stadel Museum. Nice art collections, although we were disappointed that the Vermeers were on loan for an exhibition. I rediscovered August Macke. Such beautiful composition and color.
Another objective of the museum-hop: Had just read Iain Pears’ “Dream of Scipio” and so I ran straight to the 14th century stuff in order to immerse myself in what Pisano’s innovations must have been like, based on the historical works of the era.
Other than that, we stuffed ourselves with good old-fashioned German beer and wursts and schnitzels and sauerkraut in the best tourist style. Gained a few kilos I think. But it was worth it, since we never eat that way at home.