L'HELICE TERRESTRE

A Saint Georges des sept voies, il existe une oeuvre monumentale réalisée par Jacques WARMINSKI. De 1990 à 1994, il a creusé et sculpté dans le tuffeau des tunnels, reliés par de petits chemins labyrinthiques. Et il a construit une hélice terrestre extérieure avec des sculptures de béton en gradin. C'est aussi à certains endroits une oeuvre acoustique où les sons se répercutent étonnamment. C'est vraiment intéressant à visiter. Quand vous reviendrez en France, c'est une découverte que je vous conseille de faire.

GRATEFUL DEAD TOUR

Rich's grandmother Maria Soto Reynoso, holding his Uncle Paul in her lap. His dad, Ben is also in this picture and his grandfather, JoseLuis. No one knows who the man with the cane is.
His grandmother didn't like this photo so she scratched out her face.

We have the kids for the weekend while Sharon and Vitaly are in Los Angeles for the Nike Human Race. As soon as I dropped them off at the airport I went back to the house to pick up the kids to take them to our house. Rich had some old photographs of his grandparents. We decided we would take the kids to the cemetery to find the graves.
We drove to Holy Cross Cemetery first since that is in Menlo Park and relatively close. We found the grave of Rich's grandma Julia, and her son Salvador (Uncle Sal).
Then we drove to Palo Alto's Alta Mesa Cemetery to find the graves of Ben and Anita, Rich's parents; Ben junior, Rich's older brother; and Vidal Diaz, Rich's grandfather on his mother's side.
We had to answer many questions about death and dying. At Holy Cross we came across a funeral of a Samoan. All his relatives were at the graveside in traditional dress. They were smiling and laughing and seemed to be quite happy. Ulysses wanted to know why they were not sad. I explained that different cultures view death in different ways. Some people are sad because they have lost a family member but other people are happy that their relative has joined the spirits of the ancestors and will always be close.

DENIAL PARTY

It really is the end of the Summer and the beginning of a new year. The staff of Downtown High came to visit for a barbeque and pool party at our house in Menlo Park.
Yvonne Ball came with daughter, Laurie but husband Lee is still laid up with his hip replacement. Catherine Salvin, Eunice Nuval and AnneMarie Grace came after their workshop at Stanford. Tim, AMG's first husband, drove down in the Prius. Richard Maggi put in an appearance but as usual he had to manage Gwen. Kyle Beckham was all handsome and unreconstructed new-left/black activist - the suburbs could soften his wild Irish ways. Peggy came for a brief moment but had to fly back to San Francisco to take care of business. JagDeep came with a friend but left before I could get a picture.

MORE PHOTOS

BAPTEME EN MONTGOLFIERE

Hier, j'ai fait mon baptême en montgolfière avec ma grand-mère et mon oncle. C'était formidable! . Nous nous sommes donnés rendez-vous au château de Brissac-Quincé au sud d'Angers. Tout le week-end s'y tient un meeting européen de vol en ballon. C'est une rencontre de préparation avant le championnat d'Europe de 2009. Les organisateurs avaient donc prévu de nous faire décoller avec les autres montgolfières. Nous avons attendu un bulletin météo favorable pour commencer à gonfler la toile. Tous les autres ballons ont décollé avant nous et nous avons assisté à un formidable ballet au-dessus du château de Brissac. Enfin, nous avons grimpé dans la nacelle avec 5 autres personnes et une pilote très expérimentée. Le vol a duré une heure au-dessus des champs et de la campagne sud-angevine. J'ai été frappée par le silence malgré le bruit des brûleurs. Nous avons débusqué quelques lièvres et les vaches et chevaux couraient, effrayés par cette apparition bizarre.
Nous avons fini par atterrir avec douceur dans un champ. Tout le monde a aidé à ranger la montgolfière sur le camion, puis nous avons reçu notre diplôme de baptême en montgolfière accompagné d'un verre de pétillant. Cela restera un très bon souvenir et je vous conseille de le faire!

BACK HOME IN MENLO PARK

We arrived back home yesterday. Sharon and Vladimir were waiting to pick us up. We had a little delay getting through passport check. I had to go to the Homeland Security backroom for secondary screening. Apart from that everything was fine except that we lost one fish.

RAINY DAY IN DUBLIN

The Ha'penny Bridge in Dublin.
Lots of umbrellas because there is lots of rain!

My sister Mary drove over to see us before we leave tomorrow.
We had a great chat with her about her family and our family. She brought some books for Rich to read to develop his spiritual side.

After Mary got called back home we started to make the move to go into town for last minute shopping. It was dark and overcast but at that point it wasn't raining. It had rained all night, a steady lashing against the Velux.

We rooted around trying to find something for Helen. Both she and Timmy have been very generous in putting up with us for the past week. We went to several of the big stores trying to find something that we thought Helen would like. In the end, after much discussion, we concluded that Helen likes to host people in her formal dining room so we got her some things that will she can enjoy as a hostess.

After our shopping we split up. Rich wanted to see the "Impressionists at home" show at the National Gallery. I wanted to see the W.B. Yeats exhibit at the National Library. We agreed to meet back at the Alliance Française for coffee, since that was halfway between the two museums.
I started walking towards the National Library but saw a sign for another exhibit in an annexe building. The exhibit, "Strangers to Citizens", was about the Irish in Europe between 1600 and 1800. As I came out of the exhibit I met Rich coming from the main library building. His exhibit had come to the end of its run and the other part of the museum is closed on Mondays.
I continued on to the Yeats show. I had seen it last year when I came through Dublin but it was really nice to experience the readings of Yeats' poetry by various people. My favorite was Ulick O'Connor who seemed to be reading from memory. I didn't like Sinead O'Connor's contributions. Yeats himself read "The Lake Isle of Innisfree".
After that I went to meet Rich. We walked over to TempleBar to find an internet cafe to print our boarding passes for the flight home. When we finished it was pouring rain. We ran to the bus stop and took shelter while we waited. Our last day in Dublin was not a complete washout but it certainly was a wet one.

CAMP SCOUT AU SUD-OUEST DE CHARTRES

Voilà, enfin de retour à Saumur. Je viens de passer 15 jours à accompagner un camp scout (avec des jeunes de 11 à 14 ans) et ce n'était pas de tout repos. Nous avons fait beaucoup de vélo (65 km aller-retour pour nous rendre à Chartres) avec parfois des vents contraires impitoyables.

Les premiers jours, les jeunes ont construit leur coin de vie avec la tente, une table, une table à feu pour faire la cuisine et un vaisselier pour la vaisselle. Ils ont appris à faire des noeuds, à scier, à cuisiner sur le feu de bois, à nettoyer les casseroles, à ranger leurs affaires. Ce n'est pas toujours évident car certains n'en ont pas l'habitude chez eux.












Nous nous sommes donc promenés à Chartres, puis les jeunes sont partis seuls pendant deux jours avec un itinéraire à suivre sur une carte, de l'argent à gérer pour la nourriture et une trousse de soins. C'est une vraie expérience d'autonomie et de responsabilisation pour les jeunes et toujours un moment fort du camp.












Le soir, chaque équipe prépare une veillée pour exercer ses talents d'animateur.










La deuxième semaine, nous allons à la piscine puis nous partons en exploration de groupe. Nous visitons un moulin à vent et dormons tous ensemble dans une étable.
Le jour suivant, nous reprenons le vélo pour nous rendre au canoë-kayak. Puis nous rentrons au camp, bien fatigués.

Nous terminons le camp avec un concours de cuisine entre les jeunes et quelques grands jeux dans la forêt.
C'était un bon camp mais je dois vieillir car 15 jours, c'était quand même long.
Et maintenant, encore 15 jours de vacances, puis l'école recommencera pour une nouvelle année.

AN IDEAL HUSBAND

The façade of the Abbey Theatre, Dublin.

It is still raining and lots more rain is expected. When it rains the best thing to do in Dublin is go to the theater. Oscar Wilde's "An Ideal Husband" has been playing at the Abbey for the past week so we decided to go see it with Gemma, a theater professional.
The remodeled interior is very nice. We had seats up in the Gods but we had a good unobstructed view of the stage. My only complaint about the stadium seating is that there is very little room for a good leg stretch.
The play itself was well presented but totally lacked the sparkle of Wilde's dialogue. The actors didn't seem to be aware that it was supposed to be a comedy. The delivery was lacklustre, at best.
On the way home we experienced another kind of theater on the Luas. A typical Dubliner was on his cell phone as if he was in his living room. We heard more about his life than anyone on the Luas wanted to hear. And it was delivered in best Dublin gutterspeak.


Niece Gemma with Ideal Husband, Rich

COUNTY WEXFORD DAY TRIP

The center of Enniscorthy Town.
The statue commemorates the revolution of 1798.

Helen had Friday off. Timmy said he would drive us all down to their favorite places in County Wexford. We hit the road - straight down south from Dublin, through County Wicklow to our first stop in Enniscorthy.
We had lunch at a nice local restaurant before doing a bit of a walk about the town.
We walked about 2km to the National 1798 Centre a museum that tells the story of the 1798 Revolution in the county and its context in European history. The museum was fascinating - a really good exploration of a crucial period in Irish history. I kept wondering why we don't have a museum dedicated to the struggle for freedom during the War of Independence.


Self-portrait with Wexford street.

We continued on to Wexford Town. It was late in the afternoon but there was still a bustle on the streets. Wexford is one of the few Irish towns that have closed off their centers to cars. It was great to be able to walk around without dodging cars.


Henry II sailed out of Wexford in 1172.
This is "our" Henry who is buried at Fontevrault.


We went for a drink at the Commodore Barry Pub.
It was a quiet place with Helen being the only woman there.
Barry founded the American navy.

We finished our day at a great restaurant, the Potato Market. We ordered from their prix fixe menu (a rarity in Ireland) and had some of the best mussels I've ever eaten. The owner told us that the mussels came from a farm less than 3km away!. We also had salmon, duck, chicken, and monkfish between us, along with lashings of delicious vegetables.


The fishing fleet that brought us our dinner.

KNOWTH

We planned to go to Drogheda then work our way back through Kells, Tara and Newgrange but as it happened we found ourselves on the N11 (thanks, useless satnav) so we went first to Tara.
There was a bit of a buzz there, lots of people streaming off tour buses. There was
no evidence of the anti-motorway people. We walked around the site soaking in all the spirits. Then we went for lunch at the teashop.
We got back in the car to take the Boyne Valley Drive to Newgrange. Part of the drive is on little back roads. At two places along the way we had to push the car through deep water from the recent flooding. Finally we got to Newgrange.
It is no longer possible to simply drive up to the monument and take a look around as I have done in the distant past. Now there is an interpretive center with a full-scale reproduction of the the interior of the passage grave. Tours of the actual monument are limited. All the remaining tours of the day were already sold out. The greeter offered us a tour of the nearby monument at Knowth. We decided to take it even though we would have to wait nearly an hour in the visitor center.


Crawling through a souterrain.

Finally, our bus was ready. The whole area is part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site so access to the monuments is very limited. The bus took us to Knowth where a guide was waiting for us. She gave us a 30 minute guided tour of the site and then we were on our own for another 15 minutes before we had to get back on the bus to return to Newgrange.


Orthostat (Carved stone in archeology-speak)

We spent a little more time at the interpretive center, trying to make sense of everything we had seen at Knowth. The carved kerbstones were the most impressive. The designs were very intricate. Some clearly represented the sun and the stars but beyond that it was very hard to descern a meaning. Like all art the meaning for the creator can be very different from the meaning for the viewer.

We got back in the car to make our way to Drogheda.

CONEHEAD

The only good thing about cold wet Summer weather is that your ice-cream doesn't melt!

GLEN2LOUGH

German war cemetary in Glencree.

Yesterday was such a washout in Kilkenny. It rained the whole time we were there. We didn't even bother to visit the castle. The Kilkenny Arts Festival was in full swing so the town was pretty crowded. This was not my best visit to Kilkenny.


Church at the Peace Center in Glencree.

This morning we took a look out the window to see what the weather was going to be like: rain, rain, and more rain. It was hard to get motivated but finally we decided to take a ride through the Wicklow Mountains for a visit to Glendalough. We had the satnav to guide us but we still got lost. Finally we found Enniskerry. We stopped there for coffee and scones at a little teashop we have visited before called "Poppies". When we were finished we took a stroll about town. We met a couple from Toronto who were looking in the window of a real estate office. They took us for locals (lots of Mexicans in this part of Ireland, apparently) and began to ask us questions about the property they saw for sale in the window. They were amazed that there was a market for €2 million houses in Ireland. Everybody things that Ireland is chronically poor.


Saint Kevin's Church in Glendalough.

After Enniskerry we went to visit the German war dead in the cemetery in Glencree. I love visiting this place but I've never really understood why it is here. I climbed up to the big cross and walked down the other side to the stream. I walked back along the stream to the road. Rich was already gone over to the Peace Center so I followed him over there. The interpretive panels have been moved out of the original building to an outbuilding where a cafe has been built. I was very disappointed that the main building is no longer accessible to the general public. I did spend a little time reviewing the history of war and revolution and reform school that these buildings represent.


The mountains were ablaze with purple heather.

After Glencree (and several showers of rain) we drove over the mountains and through the Sally Gap to Glendalough. Last time I was here it was over run with people but today the weather kept most people away. We set out along the Green Road to that runs along the lake, intending to go as far as St. Kevin's Bed. But a heavy downpour made us think twice. We took shelter under the trees during the worst of it then decided that we had better head back. The rain eased off enough for us to wander through the main monastic settlement as we made our way back to the car.

VIEW FROM OUR HOTEL

View out the window of Aimee's bedroom looking south towards the Dublin Mountains.


Presto in the garden.