Running on Empty

Last week, on my way to a meeting, I put about $30 worth of gas in my tank. After returning from the meeting, I parked the car and didn't drive it again until last night when, once again, I had a meeting to attend. On my way to the meeting, I looked at the gas gauge and was shocked to see the needle well into the red. My first thought: something is wrong with the gauge. It's reading was incorrect. Second possibility: a leak. When I stopped at the gas station to fill up I realized that the tank was empty and there didn't seem to be any leak. Solution? Someone likely siphoned my gas while I was out of town last weekend. Infuriating! I'm going to Advanced Auto Parts today to see about getting a new gas cap--one with a lock. Argh.

26.2 Miles and $2,800. Can I do it?

Last week, I signed up to participate in the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's Team in Training. In addition to completing the necessary physical training, I must also raise a whole heck of a lot of money: $2,800. I'm a bit intimidated by that rather large fundraising goal, but I'm determined to give it my best shot. For those of you who haven't already received my pleading emails, you can check out my training and fundraising progress here. If you'd like to keep track of my training, you can do so here, a new blog I've created to track my progress. I'lll use it to log my miles and describe the specifics of each run. It won't be particularly interesting to anyone else, but experienced runners say it's wise to keep a running diary. It helps you keep a more accurate record of the miles logged, the surface you run on, your speed, weather conditions, and how your body feels after each run. The theory being that such a detailed record can help you prevent overdoing the training or injuring yourself.

And I promise I'll fnish updating my recent travel adventures in the next few days. There are plenty of exciting photos from London and the Queen Mary 2 that I'm anxious to share with you all.

From Railway Stations to Palaces

On one of our final days in Paris, we also visited one of my favorite sites, the Musée D'Orsay. I'm obviously not the only one who loves this museum; when we arrived, just minutes after it opened for the day, the line already contained hundreds of would-be patrons. Luckily, we were armed with our Museum Cards, which allowed us to use an alternate, line-free entrance. Although I'd visited the museum several times before, I still found myself happily gawking at the paintings, sculptures, and objects. It's a much more manageable size than the Louvre and it includes work from a more condensed timeline. As the museum's website explains, "The Musée d'Orsay is a national museum which opened to the public in December 1986 in order to show, in all its diversity, the artistic creation of the western world from 1848 to 1914." I also bought a book for my niece on the museum called "My Little Orsay." There was a similar book about the Louvre, but I felt like it would be easier for her to connect with images from the D'Orsay, including works like Francois Pompon's "Polar Bear in Stride", and Degas' "Dancer."

As with our trip to the Louvre, Aviva found herself frequently thinking about her art history classes as we wandered through the museum, particularly when we overheard teachers speaking to their students about the importance of Manet's controversial Déjeuner sur l'herbe or Renoir's Bal au Moulin de la Galette. I had to stop and puzzle over Gustave Corbet's L'Origine du monde as I've often wondered why a man who spent so much of his life painting pastoral scenes of stags fighting and the beaches of Normandy suddenly created this risqué work. Like so many of the artists represented at this museum, he was a real trouble maker! I also made Aviva stand for the token D'Orsay shot: standing in front of one of the station clocks with the Louvre in the background.

On our final day in the city, we visited the Château de Versailles, but not before we bundled up and packed a lunch for what proved to be a long and blustery day. Before taking our lengthy metro ride to Versailles, we stopped at a pastry shop near our hotel to order sandwiches for our lunch as a visit to the palace years ago had taught me that it's best to bring food along. The only food you'll find on site is extremely expensive and not terribly appealing.

The palace was georgeous, though we were a bit frustrated by the constant extra fees you must pay too see the entire site. Even though our museum card was supposed to get us into all areas of the museum, they charged us several times to pass through areas that stood between one building and another.

For example, there was an exhibit known as The Grandes Eaux Musicaux taking place in the gardens just outside the palace; however, you couldn't pass through the garden to get to the Petit Trianon, where you'll find Marie Antoinette's hamlet, and the Grand Trianon, both of which were included in our ticket price, without paying the admission fee for the Grandes Eaux spectacle. A scam, I tell you! Oh well. We decided to suck it up and pay the additional fee. While entering the Grandes Eaux cost us another 10 odd Euros each, it really was quite lovely. As you walk throughout the gardens, baroque music played in time to the grand fountains of the palace. And it would have been ridiculous to miss out on the palace gardens and Marie's fascinating "little" playground, where she liked to pretend she was a milkmaid. Below, you will see Aviva's best Marie Antoinette impersonation.

At least they didn't force us to fork over the money for a carriage ride, which cost several hundred Euros.

Shopping and Spelunking

Of course, while in Paris we had to explore some of the fancy department stores, including Galeries Lafayette. While we were not in the position to buy much, we did enjoy taking in the decadent surroundings. I also found these little Noddy figurines for my mother, which I sent to her as a birthday present. Even though I now read them with more than a bit of horror for the depiction of the often evil "Golliwogs," I used to love Enid Blyton's Noddy books. We had the entire set and my mother read them to me and Leigh on a regular basis. I figured she'd be amused by the figurines. Aviva bought herself a Petit Prince keychain; in other words, we each indulged our childhood obsessions with two very different characters.

We also visited the Catacombs, or "les carrières de Paris," a network of subterranean tunnels located in what were originally limestone quarries built during the Roman era. The catacombs contain 6 million bodies, representing more than 30 generations of Parisians. The bodies were moved to the underground tunnels between 1785 and 1859 in order to aleviate overcrowding in the city's cemeteries, which were literally overflowing with rotting corpses.

In order to enter the catacombs, you have to travel down 130 steps on a spiral staircase to the underground vaults that lie about 20 meters below street level. At the entrance to the catacombs is a sign that reads: Arrete. C'est ici L'Empire de la Mort. There's also a sign warning that people with seizures. Claustrophobia, and other "nervous conditions" should not enter the site. Not surprising considering that in passageways that were no more than six to eight feet in width, there were human bones and skulls stacked about four feet high.

Apparently, the 1.7-kilometer stretch the official Catacomb museum offers is only a tiny fraction of the entire network of Paris's subterranean system, which spans more than 300km. Though it's illegal to explore the other portions of the tunnels, secret entrances are scattered throughout the city and groups of people, known as cataphiles, use them for everything from drug dealing to clandestine political and social meetings. There are even special cops, known as cataflics, who patrol the tunnels, fining cataphiles 60 Euros for their illegal antics.

Museums and Monuments

On our way to the Louvre we walked along the Champs de Mars, an area that was originally used for military training but is now a beautiful public green space that fills the blocks in between the Eiffel Tower and the Ecole Militaires. I was hoping we'd be able to have a picnic there at some point, but the weather never permitted such leisurely outdoor activities.

We also inspected a relatively new monument, le Mur de la Paix, that was designed by Clara Halter and installed by Jean-Michel Wilmotte WILMOTTE. Inspired by the Wailing Wall of Jerusalem, visitors can leave their own messages of peace in the specially designed chinks of the Wall.

Once we finished this stroll, we headed to the Opera where we purchased tickets to see the Jeunes Danseurs later in the week. We ate our breakfast, purchased at a supermarket near the Champs de Mars, on the Opera steps. As you can tell from Aviva's bundled, wind-swept look, it was a bit chilly!

Then, we proceeded to the Louvre, where we spent the better part of our second full day in Paris. Even though we had several hours to explore, we only scratched the surface of what the Louvre had to offer. We were both happy to be selective, lingering over sections we found particularly interesting, moving quickly through others in what Aviva called "drive-by viewing," and skipping others altogether. We just didn't have the time or patience for things like the Decorative Arts collection or the Egyptian Treasures.

Call us crazy, but we decided to round out our day by visiting the only major museum that's open in the evening--the Centre Pompidou. We didn't visit any of the special exhibits because they weren't included in our Museum Card and we figured we'd have enough on our hands taking in the regular collection.

They did have this great general admission exhibit called the Movement of Images, which the museum described as a "rereading of 20th century art through the cinema." The exhibit was organized around the basic components of film--frame roll, projection, story and editing--in order to offer "a redefinition of the cinematographic experience widened to include all the visual arts." The exhibit also contained this fascinating installation peice that I think was called "Barbie." (I took a picture of the plate, but it didn't turn out clearly enough to read the title or artist's name). The entire room was bathed in a pink light and contained a huge pink, high-heeled shoe and a bunch of fabric that moved methodically in a created "breeze." There was also ambient music, a very slow-paced, rythmic sound that was incredibly soothing. In fact, sitting in the room was incredibly calming and the whole effect it created was quite beautiful.

Suffice it to say that by the end of the day our eyes were exhausted from looking at art and our feet were sore from walking the city streets. And now I'm tired from trying to recreate that hectic day. I'll have to summarize the rest of the trip in another post as I'm about to headd off to a screening of Thank You For Smoking at the Little Theatre.

Visiting Paris Part Two: A Marathon First Day

Our first day in Paris involved a great deal of walking. In fact, every day in Paris involved a great deal of walking. We figure we spent at least seven hours each day either walking through the city streets or traipsing through museums. We started out first outing by taking the metro to the Champs Elysées area where we first visited the Arc de Triomphe. Here's a few photos of us looking rather windblown as we admire Napoleon's monument to his own war-time achievements.

Next, we walked down the Champs Elysées, through the Place de la Concorde, until we reached the Tuileries Gardens that surround the Louvre. It wasn't until later in the week that we discovered that the Musée Orangerie, adjascent to the Louvre, had just reopened after 6 years of construction that were required to resolve problematic additions made to the structure in the last century. We foolishly failed to take the opportunity to visit the museum. Oh well. Can't do it all. Unlike previous times I've visited this area, the weather didn't permit us to really enjoy the gardens--too cold and windy.

So, after only a few minutes of sitting in lawn chairs to admire the landscape, we moved on to our next task: a self-guided tour of the Opera Garnier, which was constructed by Charles Garnier at the end of the 19th Century. We intended to buy tickets to see a dance performance at the Opera later in the week, but an attendant informed me that the box office wouldn't open unti Monday morning. Until then, we contended ourselves with admiring the building's amazing interior, including its famous Marc Chagall ceiling, which the artist painted in 1964.

Our final stop of the day was the Marais where we wandered about before finally ending up at the Picasso Museum where we took in a Dora Maar exhibit. While I knew that Maar was Picasso's mistress and the model and inspiration for many of his paintings, I'd never had the opportunity to see any of her work. The exhibition showcased Maar's extraordinary photographs, including her photos of Picasso painting Guernica, which critics say have changed the way we understand the production of that particularly famous Picasso painting.

"She documented the work in such a careful way we now have a much better understanding of how his mind worked," says Carol Henry of Art Exhibitions Australia. "Her photos show us exactly in what sequence the line and form and colour were added." Although most of Maar's work seemed to be exhibited as "commentary" on her famous lover's art, her photographs, as evidenced by the two works show below, are beautiful and artisticially significant in their own right.

Bather (1931-36) and Silence (1935-36)

Once again, it seems a a female artist was left in the shadows of her male counterpart, or so it would seem after viewing this particular exhibit. I've since discovered that other recent exhibitions and analysis in the United States and Europe are beginning to shift the focus away from her relationship with Picasso to the merits of Maar's own fascinating and often radical work as a photographer.

Six Days in Paris: Part One

Although the weather was dreary for the entire week of our stay, Aviva and I had a splendid time in Paris, though getting to the city of lights proved to be a challenge. I arrived at Charles De Gaulle Airport after severe thunderstorms in the greater New York City area caused flight delays throughout New York and New Jersey. Because most of the remaining flights were booked solid, the folks at Delta were forced to listen to numerous would-be passengers complain, whine, and even yell and scream about how they simply could not wait until flights resumed the next day. Perhaps because I actually expressed sympathy for the frazzled employees, I was offered a rather sweet alternative--an "upper-class" seat aboard Virgin Atlantic. The kind woman from Delta told me to keep quite but that she promised I'd have "a very pleasant trip across the pond," and boy was she right. I had my own fold-flat bed, complimentary pajamas, all the champagne I could drink, a damn fine meal, complimentary massages, a "snooze kit" that included socks, ear plugs, eye shades, cuff links (???) and miscellaneous toiletries. Here are a few shots of my transforming seat.
Ironically, despite all those comforts, I didn't get a wink of sleep. Instead, I tossed and turned in my little bed thinking how I was "wasting" this one-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I regretted the lack of sleep as I had to sit in the London airport for more than six hours, waiting for my connecting flight to Paris. Ugh. To make a long story short, I arrived in Paris exhausted to find Aviva lurking by the luggage carousel. She'd traveled a short distance from Germany where she'd been visiting her grandmother. Once we'd retrieved my luggage, we negotiated the shuttle bus system and the metro to arrive at our hotel, the Hilton Paris.

We were happy to discover that our hotel room, which we'd booked for a song via Hotwire, was conveniently located to many popular sites and museums, extremely spacious and included two reading chairs and a lovely marble bathroom. It also allowed us to take in the Tour Eiffel every time we exited the building. After getting settled into the room, we went out for a quick tour of the area around the Eiffel Tower.

After admiring the tower from the ground (we'd take the elevator to the top several days later), we stopped for a late-night snack from a street vendor--crepes, of course. I ordered my favorite--creme de marrons--and quickly made Aviva a fan of the sweetened chestnut spread. In fact, she vowed that her next crepe would also be filled with creme de marrons and I don't think she ordered any other kind of crepe for the duration of our stay. After that brief midnight outing, we returned to the hotel, determined to get an early start on our first full day in the city.

Home Again, Home Again . . .

After spending three wonderful weeks traveling, I finally returned home on Monday morning. Although the traveling was wonderful and full of adventures big and small, it was awfully nice to get back to Rochester. I know. That may be hard to believe, but no hotel is an adequate substitute for one's own bed. And I missed my creatures, though I doubt they really minded my absence. Over the next few days, I'll do my best to describe and illustrate the trip that took me to London and Paris, across the Atlantic via the Queen Mary2, and finally to Guadalajara. Stay tuned!