Krakow, 8/22-24/2012

Courtyard in Wawel castle

Wawel castle

Isaac synagogue

Isaac synagogue

Jewish quarter

Globtrotter

center square

Antiquities museum

SF 7/13/2012

.  Scurried home last Thurs & packed.  Had spent Mon night scanning pics of A as a baby & child for A to send Alex and also supplied links to old annuals, which amused Alex (she thinks A has changed v. little).

On my way out of the house the next morning, realized the back door to the LR had been unlocked for the last month (ulp!).  Flight out was fine, but 5.5 hrs is a long time to sit in an airplane seat (flew Vergin America on Louise’s rec).  Hadn’t appreciated what a schlep it is out to here, and of course A does it every time he comes home.  The airplane has a system where you request paid an unpaid refreshment through the screen in front of your seat – svce quite prompt.

Retrieved my bag & called A (who works near the airport), thinking all the time about the cashier at our local Chinese, who asks about A, remembers him eating w/ his football buds, and who said, they don’t come home from SF.  Thinking about him settling out there.

views from A's office

A picked me up in Bertha (his 2000 Subaru – he says she’s a lesbian).  Showed me his office (complete w/ a couple of colleague’s dogs), introduced me to his future boss (his boss is going back to school for a Masters in Public Policy), who was sweet & praised A’s work & said that her Mom had come to visit & taken pics (so of course I had to take pics of the view of the ocean out the window).  He recently moved to a (shared) office from an intyerior cube.  After showing me around & printing out directions from Millbrae to my hotel, he took me to lunch at a nearby sushi place, where we ate 6 huge sushi rolls between us (he & Alex had overslept that morning, and he’d eaten v. little breakfast).   

He said it’s premature to conclude he’ll settle in SF; right now, the main issues on his mind are finding a dentist & getting Bertha’s oil changed (it’s been 15k miles).  Then he needs to figure out his career.

He asked was I still going to services – I had to admit it was much less frequently than before, partly because of the number of Saturday’s I’ve worked (but I could work on Sunday instead of Sat – it’s all priorities, isn’t it).

Anyway, we demolished 6 large rolls of sushi (I feeling guilty because it was my 3^rd meal of the day – he laughed and said I was like a hobbit (who eat 6 meals a day – I didn’t know), and he drove me to Millbrae, and I made my way to Powell St (v. touristy, end of one of the cable car lines) and walked up to the Stanford Court – v. nice room looking out over the corner of Powell & Calif (both of which have cable car lines) – little round booth at the corner (I just googled – it’s a signal booth).

A came & got me after work, took me to his house (the LR full of German girls, since Larry, one of the roommates, is being a host through couchsurfing (an organization that matches travelers & couches in hosts’homes) to build up points for a trip to Europe.

Went to a small Italian place near his house, in a lesbian nbhd, the Vega, where we both had vg gnocchi (AND a lot of vg bread and olive oil, AND I had a panzella, AND we split a smallish dessert).  A drove me back to the hotel where I slept like a log.

SF 7/14/2012

7/14 (Sat) got up @ 6, went out walking and did ½ of the Nob Hill/Russian Hill walk in Fodors.  Lovely views of the bay from the tiny park at the top of the Valejo steps.  

Alex & Aaron were to meet me at the Ferry Bldg for breakfast, but were running late (Alex taking care of her family’s dog – she loves dogs—while her father was at Bohemian Grove ) (per A, all these R men peeing on trees), and we met around 10:30 & had fancy breakfast burritos, eaten out back, overlooking the bay.  Waited in line for some Bluebottle Coffee (vg but they didn’t have the decaf beans Louise wanted).  Went inside to the main stall, where they did have the coffee.

Alex took 4 yrs of Mandarin at Pton.

A dropped Alex off to work, and took me to Berkeley, where it was lovely – sunny and 70 degrees.  We ate at an Indian place then went to find the Museum, but it was closed L so we went & walked around the Botanical Gardens (which were lovely).  A asked Alex to make a resv for dinner (which she did), dropped me off, and went to Alex’s to take a nap).

I lay around & read, thought of changing but I’d only brought 4 shirts & 4 prs pants/crops.  Thought of putting on sandals, but I had to walk down Powell, which is VERY steep, so just put on my sneaks & strolled down.  They seated me, no problem, though I was clearly under-dressed.  Alex appeared maybe 10 min later – A had been refused entry because of his shorts & flipflops, and had gone off to buy long pants & a pair of shoes.  Alex & I ordered a bottle of wine (I asked her to pick – she & her parents have gone to a bunch of the vineyards in Calif).  She ordered merlot & we drank & talked.

She’s broken 9 bones over the years – she was a v. active little kid – impaled her leg on the tusk of an elephant statue and had to get stitches.  I asked her abt being a deb – said I wanted a picture.  We talked abt families – her Dad’s family came out at the Gold Rush and were farmers until her grandfather went to Styanford & got a business degree & got to know Mr. Packard (of HP).  One of her F’s brothers is v into genealogy.  Their family came over on the Mayflower & fought in the Revolution.

Ferry bldg farmers' mkt

View from twin peaks

Berkeley botanical gden

View from Livermore mus, Berkeley

view from my hotel window, with signal booth

Conv turned to child-rearing & jobs – she mentioned an article by Anne-Marie Slaughter that I hadn’t read.  (Did read it this morning – made me think of a friends’ comment when we started bemoaning our fates at work – “we complain at a high level”).

Anyway, A showed up around 8 in jeans & shoes & was admitted.  He thawed considerably after the waiter brought a beer.  I felt so guilty – I’d been wearing shorts & sandals, too, and no one gave me grief.  The food was vg – Alex teased A about never asking for help in stores.  They were driving down to Alex’s parents’place in Atherton for the night – I begged them not to be late in the AM (the van for the wine tour was coming @ 8:30), and they said not to worry – Alex had borrowed her Dad’s parking pass for the Union Pacific club, just up the street from the hotel.  A & Alex started joking about relativity (clocks traveling at the speed of light) and how they’d measure the time it took Alex to put on eye makeup.

Walked back to the hotel & was soon asleep

SF 7/15/2012

:  Got up @ 6, did ½ hr (sort of) on the elipticals, had breakfast & was outside a bit after 8 and (bless them) Alex & A arrived 8:15, so I didn’t worry a moment abt their being late.  The van arrived 8:45 (as A had predicted—after all, they start picking up @ 8:30) and off we went to Sonoma (Larson Vineyard and another place I can’t find), and then Domaine Chandon in Napa, where they make champagne.  Can’t say our conv was scintillating.  Lovely, warm, sunny weather.  The van dropped us off a bit after 5 PM, and then we went to a Peruvian tapas place (where we had ceviche & pisco sours, to top off a day of drinking), and I slept like a log.

SF 7/16/2012

A took the morning off to sleep in & work out.  I  did ½ hr on the elipticals, walked around Chinatown, read (vg mystery by Tana French on my nook).  Went for Dim Sum w/ A at Koi Palace, and then to SF MOMA, which had a couple of vg paintings (the Frieda Kahlo of herself & Diego R, with her looking doll-like, and the Flower Seller by DR), but much was hard for me to take in.

I told A that Bertha wanted a bath – she & I had had a woman-to-woman talk.  He said, how would I know – I’d passed her off to Leon after L totaled his car, and hurt her feelings and he understood her far better than me.

Took Claire’s Mom & stepfather & brother & sister out to dinner for Thai – they were v. lively and a lot of fun (Daniel clearly v. fond of A – they were talking Pokeman during much of dinner), and they said nice things abt A, and I said how kind to him they’d been.

Was v. happy by the end of the trip – A seemed happy, and he & Alex were so cute together.

St Pau del Camp, Sta Maria del Pi

Travel-goods catalogs certainly play to anxieties -- there must have been 10 anti-bedbug products in TravelSmith's latest (including liners for your suitcase, in case bugs travel back in your clothes)-- not to mention the sleepsacks in case hotel sheets aren't clean enough, the portable air purifiers, the hand sanitizer wipes, etc. [Didn't buy or use, but of course they did make me more anxious]

Flight to Madrid was luxurious -- US Air's Envoy class has seats that extend horizontally (as opposed to American Airlines' business class, which is maybe at a 5 degree angle, hard to sleep with). Even finding that my reservation wasn't in Iberia's system wasn't that bad -- it felt good to be able to talk Spanish & be understood (and understand what the airlines people were saying). I'm no where near that point in Japanese -- can only produce the most rudimentary, routine utterances.

Steve v. worried that I was an hour late getting into Barcelona (I probably wouldn't have made the earlier flight even if Iberia had been able to find my reservation -- I'd been under the delusion I needed to pick up & recheck my bag in Madrid, which cost me 1/2 hour, and I needed to change terminals and THEN it took something like 1/2 hour to go back through security and treck out to the gate -- Madrid airport's terminal 4 is vast.)


V, v good to see Steve, of course. He was happy to see me, and happier still that we could get into town for EUR 1.86 by train from the airport (2 trips on a 10 trip metro ticket). Hotel v nice (it used to be the Ritz). Breakfasts truly luxurious -- vast choice of fruits, juices, fresh rolls, pastries, smoked salmon, cheeses, and excellent cafe con leche. Hard not to pig out.

MNAC (National Mus of Catalonian Art) - 19th century and Stephen eating

National Museum of Catalonian Art - Romanesque collection

During the 1920's, Barcelona moved frescoes and statues from small churches in the Pyrenees into the museum, to keep them from being stolen. (often the communities got reproductions back). Amazing collection. I especially love the last pic in here, with its Madonna & child encircled by 4 truly gruesome martyrdoms.

Half-marathon fans

There was a half marathon run on Sunday -- runners and fans from all over the world. Here are some fans we encountered on the way to the Museum of Catalan history.

Steve, of course, mesmerized by the Mus of Catalan History, and took a couple of hours to get through the 19th century part. I'd finished with the 19th century, gone through the 20th, experimenting with reading the interpretive materials in Catalan rather than Spanish (it's not that hard to decipher written Catalan. It looks like Spanish with the final o's dropped, the y's turned to i's, and the j's turn to x's). "With" is amb rather than con.

La Sagrada Familia

(I liked the older facade rather than the newer one.)

Long flight home. The book I was reading -- the emperor's children – I found kind of depressing – no character I could wholeheartedly like. Saw Anywhere but Here w a v. young Natalie Portman. Returning to work, dweebly though it is, a great relief.