A group shot of me, April, my parents, my aunt and uncle and one of their dogs, Fina. Benny, the other dog, was off hunting lizards and wouldn't sit still for the photo-op.
Benny
Fina
Me and the lovely April
Sunday, July 17, 2005
Vacation Update Interlude...Family Pictures
I'll continue with the regularily scheduled vacation update (only a relatively short Germany post left now) in the near future, but for now I wanted to post a couple of cute family photos from my trip to La Palma. Enjoy.
A group shot of me, April, my parents, my aunt and uncle and one of their dogs, Fina. Benny, the other dog, was off hunting lizards and wouldn't sit still for the photo-op.
Benny
Fina
Me and the lovely April
A group shot of me, April, my parents, my aunt and uncle and one of their dogs, Fina. Benny, the other dog, was off hunting lizards and wouldn't sit still for the photo-op.
Benny
Fina
Me and the lovely April
Friday, July 15, 2005
Of Volcanoes, Salt, Mountains and Mojo
Since I don’t have the energy for yet another bout of effusive prose (and you may not have the stamina, for which I do not blame you in the least), part 2 of my post-vacation log will be more photo diary than journal.
june 8-11 ~imagining how jules verne felt on the precipice~
The day after our exhausting La Palma arrival, April and I duly set off for the beach, where we sat and sat and sat for the better part of a day. Heavenly, but not really of much interest. The day after (the 9th), however, my aunt and uncle took us for a little drive to the southern tip of the island where we visited the Teneguia volcano, one of many volcanoes scattered across the island. Teneguia is the most recently active of the islands’ native fiery fissures, having last erupted in 1971. It’s both beautiful and a bit intimidating and we, ever the explorers (or so we’d like to believe), bravely tromped across its craggy surface searching for openings, from which you can still feel the hot, moist air rising from its molten core far below.
In the image below you can see the slopes of the volcano and the hardened lava on which some industrious soul has fostered a successful vineyard!
And here’s me trying to look stalwart and adventurous while unfortunately my aunt looks like a mini version of herself. Funny, that camera angle…
On our return home from the volcano, we also drove by the Teneguia salt mines (unfortunately, on the ride home, April also became queasy—a recurring incident on La Palma’s twisty-turny road system…the things we go through to experience beauty). Although these heaps of salt may seem nothing more than mild, unintentional allusions to Sodom and Gomorrah, I found them oddly fascinating and strangely beautiful. And, of course, ever the fledging foodies, we took a bag of Teneguia sea salt home with us. This will come in handy should we ever try to make what quickly be came my favorite local dish. Papas arraguadas are small potatoes boiled in and encrusted with sea salt and tradionally served with another local favorite, mojo, a red or green (depending on the ingredients) coarse puree of cilantro, peppers and garlic. This is truly the food of the gods. Well, Pele at least.
The salt mines:
Banana plantations, another local crop, also cover the island, leaving much of the land—from a birds-eye view—covered in an eerily leafy and textured green.
On the way home from Teneguia, we also stopped by an incredible plaza (called “La Glorieta” and located in the town of Las Manchas). The entire plaza was covered in mosaics—the ground, the surrounding walls, the benches—and teeming with artfully arranged plantlife.
After a day like this, all we really could do was eat—lots and lots of mojo and papas—and collapse into bed. What happy exhaustion!
june 12-14 ~water, water, everywhere~
My parents joined us on the island on the 10th, and their arrival involved some more driving tours of the island—which involved, unfortunately, more battles with car sickness—and more revelry (i.e. Spanish champagne and general gluttony). On the 12th, my father, aunt and uncle, April and I embarked on a mini-expedition to hike along an incredible cliff-face. Getting there was hard enough—the last 12km of our journey took almost an hour (in a car!) as we slowly wound our way over an unpaved and very rocky road up the hike’s starting point. The hike itself came complete with a death-defying drop on one side and a series of thirteen tunnels along its route, which had to be navigated with flashlight and cautious steps. My favorite tunnel, the thirthteenth, was completely waterlogged due to excessive winter rains; we had to navigate the passage over only a foot of exposed rock floor (the rest was under a foor or so of streaming water) and large, continuous trickles of water from overhead. (My mother, smart lady, stayed home and did crossword puzzles by the pool. I really can’t blame her.) It was one of the most terrific hikes I’ve ever been on though we frequently hit our heads on the sharp tunnel ceilings and both of our flashlights went out going through the third tunnel (so that, for the next three hours, we had to navigate by touch and the meager sparkles of light from families’ beams). The views were spectacular, the tunnels fantastically fun and the drops breathtaking. Here’s a sampling:
One of the earlier tunnels, made so bright only because of my camera’s flash:
And the views:
Despite all the gorgeous vistas, my favorite moment (and also one of my favorite photographs from the trip) of the hike was the moment I discovered the rock rose. So much smaller than her towering surroundings and yet magnificent all the same, she grows where nothing so beautiful and lush would seem to be capable of taking root:
The hike was surely the climax of our time in La Palma—all of which was fantastic—and a few days later we said our adieus and traveled on to Germany, land of the terrific French fries, never-ending cathedral construction sites, and much, much more.
june 8-11 ~imagining how jules verne felt on the precipice~
The day after our exhausting La Palma arrival, April and I duly set off for the beach, where we sat and sat and sat for the better part of a day. Heavenly, but not really of much interest. The day after (the 9th), however, my aunt and uncle took us for a little drive to the southern tip of the island where we visited the Teneguia volcano, one of many volcanoes scattered across the island. Teneguia is the most recently active of the islands’ native fiery fissures, having last erupted in 1971. It’s both beautiful and a bit intimidating and we, ever the explorers (or so we’d like to believe), bravely tromped across its craggy surface searching for openings, from which you can still feel the hot, moist air rising from its molten core far below.
In the image below you can see the slopes of the volcano and the hardened lava on which some industrious soul has fostered a successful vineyard!
And here’s me trying to look stalwart and adventurous while unfortunately my aunt looks like a mini version of herself. Funny, that camera angle…
On our return home from the volcano, we also drove by the Teneguia salt mines (unfortunately, on the ride home, April also became queasy—a recurring incident on La Palma’s twisty-turny road system…the things we go through to experience beauty). Although these heaps of salt may seem nothing more than mild, unintentional allusions to Sodom and Gomorrah, I found them oddly fascinating and strangely beautiful. And, of course, ever the fledging foodies, we took a bag of Teneguia sea salt home with us. This will come in handy should we ever try to make what quickly be came my favorite local dish. Papas arraguadas are small potatoes boiled in and encrusted with sea salt and tradionally served with another local favorite, mojo, a red or green (depending on the ingredients) coarse puree of cilantro, peppers and garlic. This is truly the food of the gods. Well, Pele at least.
The salt mines:
Banana plantations, another local crop, also cover the island, leaving much of the land—from a birds-eye view—covered in an eerily leafy and textured green.
On the way home from Teneguia, we also stopped by an incredible plaza (called “La Glorieta” and located in the town of Las Manchas). The entire plaza was covered in mosaics—the ground, the surrounding walls, the benches—and teeming with artfully arranged plantlife.
After a day like this, all we really could do was eat—lots and lots of mojo and papas—and collapse into bed. What happy exhaustion!
june 12-14 ~water, water, everywhere~
My parents joined us on the island on the 10th, and their arrival involved some more driving tours of the island—which involved, unfortunately, more battles with car sickness—and more revelry (i.e. Spanish champagne and general gluttony). On the 12th, my father, aunt and uncle, April and I embarked on a mini-expedition to hike along an incredible cliff-face. Getting there was hard enough—the last 12km of our journey took almost an hour (in a car!) as we slowly wound our way over an unpaved and very rocky road up the hike’s starting point. The hike itself came complete with a death-defying drop on one side and a series of thirteen tunnels along its route, which had to be navigated with flashlight and cautious steps. My favorite tunnel, the thirthteenth, was completely waterlogged due to excessive winter rains; we had to navigate the passage over only a foot of exposed rock floor (the rest was under a foor or so of streaming water) and large, continuous trickles of water from overhead. (My mother, smart lady, stayed home and did crossword puzzles by the pool. I really can’t blame her.) It was one of the most terrific hikes I’ve ever been on though we frequently hit our heads on the sharp tunnel ceilings and both of our flashlights went out going through the third tunnel (so that, for the next three hours, we had to navigate by touch and the meager sparkles of light from families’ beams). The views were spectacular, the tunnels fantastically fun and the drops breathtaking. Here’s a sampling:
One of the earlier tunnels, made so bright only because of my camera’s flash:
And the views:
Despite all the gorgeous vistas, my favorite moment (and also one of my favorite photographs from the trip) of the hike was the moment I discovered the rock rose. So much smaller than her towering surroundings and yet magnificent all the same, she grows where nothing so beautiful and lush would seem to be capable of taking root:
The hike was surely the climax of our time in La Palma—all of which was fantastic—and a few days later we said our adieus and traveled on to Germany, land of the terrific French fries, never-ending cathedral construction sites, and much, much more.
Wednesday, July 06, 2005
Learning Spanish would have been a start...
Finally, Part 1 of my summer 2005 travel chronicles. I know you all have been sitting on the edge of your seats. ;)
june 6-7 ~ flying is for the birds
Already, from looking at my father’s meticulously planned travel itinerary, I knew it was going to be a harrowing beginning to what I hoped would be a wonderful vacation. Three flights in all over the course of a 24-hour period, a 6 hour layover in Newark...April and I were determined to make the best of it, and I had already jokingly agreed to take her to dinner at some horrid airport restaurant-bar during our holdover in Newark. Unfortunately, as is often the case, in exchange for our eventual safe flights and lovely vacation, the Travel Gods extorted a toll. In our case, it was a 6 ½ hour delay—due to storms somewhere in the “friendly skies” between Western New York and Newark—made all the worse because we weren’t any closer to our intended destination. In fact, we were sitting, stuck, in an airport not five miles from our house where are pets were probably already starting to suspect that we weren’t coming back for a while. We were practically tearing our hair out by the time we made it to Newark and ran pell-mell through the airport (terrifying how a six-hour layover can turn into an almost-missed connection at the whim of the weather) just in time for our flight to Madrid. And once we settled down on the last leg of our journey, from Madrid to Santa Cruz de La Palma (the capital of the island of La Palma, one of the Canary Islands, an archipelago owned by Spain but located off the northwest coast of Morocco) we had almost forgotten our annoyance. Regrettably, just as our anxiety level was simmering down to a low rumble, it dawned on us that we were flying to a Spanish-speaking island and hadn’t bothered to learn any Spanish.
I have an (lame) excuse for this glaring cultural snafu: my aunt and uncle (on my father’s side) live on La Palma and as they are German, it had never occurred to me that I might have to anything more linguistically difficult than translate German to English and back again for April. In my mind, La Palma was an island inhabited only by Germans (or, perhaps, just my aunt and uncle) and any other language skills wouldn’t be necessary. Okay. Really, we just forgot. I blame travel anxiety.
So, all other boring travel details aside, we did, finally, arrive in La Palma. And yes, the sun was shining and the air was dry and warm and refreshing all at once and, Madonna wasn’t lying, “la isla bonita” (yep, that’s what they call it) has a lovely tropical island breeze. I’ve been to La Palma before, years ago, but I had forgotten the intense beauty of the stark volcanic landscape—black lava rocks covered in hardy grasses, cacti, incredible tropical flowers, and skittering lizards—and the never-ending blue of the sky (or, alternately, the studied concentration of the clouds cascading over the Caldera—the main volcanic crater of in the center of the island, surrounded by high, mountainous ridges which run down the central length of the land).
My aunt and uncle picked us up from the airport, exhausted but happy, and we all drove back to their gorgeous house in El Paso (on the western coast of the island). The photo below is an image of their incredibly lush yard—the climate is so temperate on the island that plants just grow all year round. You may also be able to see one of their gorgeous Spanish hunting dogs (Podenkos) in the background—they got both dogs from an organization that specializes in rescuing these often mistreated hunters.
From the moment we arrived my aunt began plying us with fantastic Spanish champagne (also, bourbon in our coffee) and she didn’t stop offering (but we stopped accepting) until the day we left. She even left a big bottle of champagne (which we drank, of course) in the apartment where we were staying in Puerto Naos. Usually used by my uncle’s mother when she comes to stay in the winter, the apartment is literally two blocks from the beach (my aunt and uncle live slightly further inland) and April and I spent our first day after our arrival lounging on the beach and eating pizza (We embarrassed ourselves completely, by the way, when we couldn’t even manage to say “the bill, please” in Spanish. We gestured wildly until the waiter took pity on us.).
This picture, of me and April floating on our backs in the ocean, was taken by my father when my parents arrives a few days later, but it conveys our feeling of relief and relaxation on that first day just the same.
In part two, we’ll hike along cliffs, wade through watery tunnels, eat lots and lots of good food and bid farewell to sunny La Palma on our way to Berlin. Stay tuned.
Don’t worry, the subsequent parts of my travel log will be much shorter with far more pictures; this is just the verbose intro.
june 6-7 ~ flying is for the birds
Already, from looking at my father’s meticulously planned travel itinerary, I knew it was going to be a harrowing beginning to what I hoped would be a wonderful vacation. Three flights in all over the course of a 24-hour period, a 6 hour layover in Newark...April and I were determined to make the best of it, and I had already jokingly agreed to take her to dinner at some horrid airport restaurant-bar during our holdover in Newark. Unfortunately, as is often the case, in exchange for our eventual safe flights and lovely vacation, the Travel Gods extorted a toll. In our case, it was a 6 ½ hour delay—due to storms somewhere in the “friendly skies” between Western New York and Newark—made all the worse because we weren’t any closer to our intended destination. In fact, we were sitting, stuck, in an airport not five miles from our house where are pets were probably already starting to suspect that we weren’t coming back for a while. We were practically tearing our hair out by the time we made it to Newark and ran pell-mell through the airport (terrifying how a six-hour layover can turn into an almost-missed connection at the whim of the weather) just in time for our flight to Madrid. And once we settled down on the last leg of our journey, from Madrid to Santa Cruz de La Palma (the capital of the island of La Palma, one of the Canary Islands, an archipelago owned by Spain but located off the northwest coast of Morocco) we had almost forgotten our annoyance. Regrettably, just as our anxiety level was simmering down to a low rumble, it dawned on us that we were flying to a Spanish-speaking island and hadn’t bothered to learn any Spanish.
I have an (lame) excuse for this glaring cultural snafu: my aunt and uncle (on my father’s side) live on La Palma and as they are German, it had never occurred to me that I might have to anything more linguistically difficult than translate German to English and back again for April. In my mind, La Palma was an island inhabited only by Germans (or, perhaps, just my aunt and uncle) and any other language skills wouldn’t be necessary. Okay. Really, we just forgot. I blame travel anxiety.
So, all other boring travel details aside, we did, finally, arrive in La Palma. And yes, the sun was shining and the air was dry and warm and refreshing all at once and, Madonna wasn’t lying, “la isla bonita” (yep, that’s what they call it) has a lovely tropical island breeze. I’ve been to La Palma before, years ago, but I had forgotten the intense beauty of the stark volcanic landscape—black lava rocks covered in hardy grasses, cacti, incredible tropical flowers, and skittering lizards—and the never-ending blue of the sky (or, alternately, the studied concentration of the clouds cascading over the Caldera—the main volcanic crater of in the center of the island, surrounded by high, mountainous ridges which run down the central length of the land).
My aunt and uncle picked us up from the airport, exhausted but happy, and we all drove back to their gorgeous house in El Paso (on the western coast of the island). The photo below is an image of their incredibly lush yard—the climate is so temperate on the island that plants just grow all year round. You may also be able to see one of their gorgeous Spanish hunting dogs (Podenkos) in the background—they got both dogs from an organization that specializes in rescuing these often mistreated hunters.
From the moment we arrived my aunt began plying us with fantastic Spanish champagne (also, bourbon in our coffee) and she didn’t stop offering (but we stopped accepting) until the day we left. She even left a big bottle of champagne (which we drank, of course) in the apartment where we were staying in Puerto Naos. Usually used by my uncle’s mother when she comes to stay in the winter, the apartment is literally two blocks from the beach (my aunt and uncle live slightly further inland) and April and I spent our first day after our arrival lounging on the beach and eating pizza (We embarrassed ourselves completely, by the way, when we couldn’t even manage to say “the bill, please” in Spanish. We gestured wildly until the waiter took pity on us.).
This picture, of me and April floating on our backs in the ocean, was taken by my father when my parents arrives a few days later, but it conveys our feeling of relief and relaxation on that first day just the same.
In part two, we’ll hike along cliffs, wade through watery tunnels, eat lots and lots of good food and bid farewell to sunny La Palma on our way to Berlin. Stay tuned.
Don’t worry, the subsequent parts of my travel log will be much shorter with far more pictures; this is just the verbose intro.
Saturday, July 02, 2005
Mad Hot
Mad hot pimping for one of the best documentaries I've seen (hell, one of best movies I've seen, period) in quite a long time:
Mad Hot Ballroom features three NYC public schools taking part in a 10-week ballroom dancing program for fifth graders (about 60 NYC schools participate in the this program, which started 10 years ago with just two schools). I went to see the movie because I love ballroom dancing, and I expected to be entertained and perhaps even amused by the kids and their teachers as they trained to compete in the culminating city-wide competition. What I didn't expect was to be blown away by the wit, intelligence, and enthusiasm of the kids and their incredible dedication to what basically amounts to a required phys. ed./arts course. It would already have been a good film because the kids were great and the concept was interesting, but it was a great film because it was exceptionally put-together, providing an insight into the children's lives without seeming overbearing (as the classes are very multi-cultural and many of the kids, particularily from one of the schools, are from working-class families). No voice-over, no (visible) interviewers, just teriffic dance footage (boy, these kids can dance--and, mind you, some of them had never even heard of ballroom dancing before) and shots of the kids and teachers at school and at home learning and talking about dancing and their lives.
It's so obvious how important the dance program is for many of the kids that the film could probably serve as a very persuasive tool for folks lobbying for the continuation of arts programming. Hell, I even wanted to teach public school in New York City after watching the film and that's no small feat!
http://www.paramountclassics.com/madhot/
Mad Hot Ballroom features three NYC public schools taking part in a 10-week ballroom dancing program for fifth graders (about 60 NYC schools participate in the this program, which started 10 years ago with just two schools). I went to see the movie because I love ballroom dancing, and I expected to be entertained and perhaps even amused by the kids and their teachers as they trained to compete in the culminating city-wide competition. What I didn't expect was to be blown away by the wit, intelligence, and enthusiasm of the kids and their incredible dedication to what basically amounts to a required phys. ed./arts course. It would already have been a good film because the kids were great and the concept was interesting, but it was a great film because it was exceptionally put-together, providing an insight into the children's lives without seeming overbearing (as the classes are very multi-cultural and many of the kids, particularily from one of the schools, are from working-class families). No voice-over, no (visible) interviewers, just teriffic dance footage (boy, these kids can dance--and, mind you, some of them had never even heard of ballroom dancing before) and shots of the kids and teachers at school and at home learning and talking about dancing and their lives.
It's so obvious how important the dance program is for many of the kids that the film could probably serve as a very persuasive tool for folks lobbying for the continuation of arts programming. Hell, I even wanted to teach public school in New York City after watching the film and that's no small feat!
http://www.paramountclassics.com/madhot/
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