theotherlex

I thought that this was posted on Tuesday, please pretend that it was.

Hello people! I am still here. Not too cold. Although the outside walls in the kitchen here (where the TV is and the internet sometimes is) are freezing. I have to get up periodically and stand against the heater, or make another cup of tea.

Birmingham is pretty cool. They have a museum and art gallery that has a good collection. I haven't checked out the modern art museum, yet. I have spent sometime in the library, which has a pretty good reference collection - but you can't borrow the books from there, so I'll have to take my crochet in with me next time.

I am looking at jobs on various job sites. The guardian job site is pretty cool. There are three positions at the Tate in Liverpool that I could go for - art handler, accounts, membership. There are also three recruiting agencies here, too, and the bar we went to after the Panto is looking for people. I need to get my National Insurance Number before I can hand the application for that. Hopefully I get my temporary one tomorrow. Then I will also be able to get a bank account.

I watched most of President Obama's Inauguration today. It was very cool. I didn't get to see all of the songs because the TV kept turning itself, as is its want. I did like the poem, and I liked that the British journalist asked the African-American women whether they thought America was closer to realising Martin Luther King Jr's dream, rather than whether they thought the dream had been realised. I remember reading in a newspaper in New York a Black woman who had always told her daughters that they could do anything, be anything they wanted, but that she had never believed it until Obama was elected.

The Panto, which I saw on Thursday was a complete hoot. There were many references to Doctor Who, a ventriloquist, two magic tricks, ice skating, songs, bubbles, fireworks. Awesome. The people I went with had seen it the night before and said that it was much more risque in the evening performance. Also longer, but that was likely because, as a matinee before a performance of RENT (rather than even a repeat performance of the same show), they had a much stricter curtain down time. It finished bang on 2.5 hours. I had a great view from the circle, and the women I was sitting next to knew what the audience lines were and the cues for them. There was no pantomime horse. There was a pantomime elephant.

I will endeavour to write more regularly. I have reports of a very quite Christmas, two lovely train trips, and when the weather gets me down I will tell you more about South Beach in Miami.

EastEnders is on now. I got quite involved while at Margaret's.

Okay, so there are a lot of museum and quite a bit of art in New York. Given that I haven't written about very much of it yet, I thought that I would do that.

Brooklyn Museum of Art:
The guide book I had said that this would be a main attraction in a city that didn't already have the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was so worth going (it's also cheaper than the met). I expected to stay about three hours and stayed five and a half. I only left because they kicked me out.

( BlackList )

( American Art )

( Gilbert and George )

I have to go now, so, later for the next instalment.

New York was great, fabulous. The Brooklyn Museum of Art, MoMA, PS1 Contemporary Art Space, The Museum of Natural History, The Whitney Museum, The Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, The Museum of American Folk Art, the Statue of Liberty, Times Square, Grand Central Station, Central Park, Brooklyn Bridge, Manhattan Bridge, Union Square, Phantom of the Opera, The Garden of Earthly Delights, The Klezmer Nutcracker.

I am very glad to be in the UK. Everything seems easier here than in New York. Also, it is not as cold.

I'm at a hostel in Pimlico, between Victoria station and the Themes. It's a nice spot. There's a supermarket and a bookshop at Victoria Station. The bookshop has the book of the series Stephen Fry did about the US. Apparently he's been in New York in the last week. If I'd know he was there, I would have tried to track him down, so it's probably best I didn't.

I am now looking for work. There's an opportunity here at the hostel, but I'm not sure I could live here. There are better looking things in Birmingham, so I'll think about it today and make a decision before my internet time runs out.

I'm still a bit tired from not sleeping much Tuesday night because I was on a plane, and the time difference, too, I suppose. I'll be going out for a walk this afternoon to see what's nearby. The TATE Britain looks close enough to walk to. Also, I have to contact all the people I know in the UK! And upload my photos!

Uploading photos will require some work because my camera wasn't connecting to iPhoto properly, so all the photos are in folders on my external hard drive and I can't preview them properly at the moment. Still, it is easier than trawling job search websites, with the other thing I have to do.

First: lunch.

I am in London.

My flight was faster than scheduled from New York to Frankfurt. Then I went through two lots of security and one passport check to get into the gate for the flight to London. That was delayed three hours til the weather cleared over Heathrow (so, I suppose we were lucky not to have to wait a couple of months).

The internet at the hostel is expensive. You have to pay for the wireless. So I'm going to hunt down a free wireless hotspot. Or at least one where I also get a coffee or hot chocolate along with my internet. I also have to eat dinner.

It's not as cold in London as it was in New York. And this hostel is much more properly hostel-like. New York is fabulous, but I am very glad to be somewhere different with different people again.

Hopefully another update soon.

I am very tired and have been sucked into reading very interesting and think-y posts about feminism by their awesomeness and the fact that I have had nothing think-y to read in a while. So this is a quick post to say that I have seen a lot of art over the last two days and art is awesome!

I also saw a dance performance called (and based upon the Hieronymus Bosch painting) The Garden of Earthly Delights. That, plus the interview with dancer Bill T Jones as part of an instillation at the Brooklyn Museum or Art, makes me want to track down some dance classes when I get settled wherever I settle.

Three more sleeps! I have to go to bed now so I can get up tomorrow to go to the theatre.

I got snowed on yesterday.
And last night and today the water in the gutters was frozen. They've started putting salt on it.

( Stuff about the last week )

Only one week since the last post. That's better than the previous gap. I leave here on Monday of next week. My flight is at 9.45pm local time, or 1.45pm Tuesday for Australia. I'll leave the hostel at about 5.30 to make sure that I'm at the airport in time. I arrive in London on Tuesday afternoon London time. Eee! I've got so much still to see in New York before I leave.

Belated Happy Thanksgiving!

I think I originally planned to write a post on Thanksgiving after dinner, but dinner came out of the kitchen at 10pm, and after that I was too tired and full to write anything.

I got up at about 4:45 on Thursday morning to go to Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. We got a good spot - Jana and I and a woman who is staying at the hostel here. But the parade was late to start, so by the time we got to see anything we were freezing. It was pretty cool to see though. There were giant balloons of Snoopy and a smurf, and floats of pilgrims riding a giant turkey. Also marching bands and police and callisthenics dancers. Jana and I had breakfast after we retreated from the crowds. Yay for pancakes.

( Today )

( Yesterday )

I don't remember any specifics of other days. I have to write my journal. For that I need a pen! Either my pen is out of ink or dropping it damaged it. I need a new infill. I went to Bloomingdales, because I bought the last one from Myer and kind of thought, you know, department store. But they don't sell the insides of pens at Bloomingdales. I will have to find a proper stationery store tomorrow.

I was originally booked to leave New York on Wednesday, but I have delayed my flight until December 15. This will give me a chance to do all the other neighbourhood walks in the book, and spend a couple of days in the Met. I will also be going to a performance of Messiah at the First Presbyterian Church on Fifth Avenue on Sunday, and the turning on of the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree lights on Wednesday evening.

I wrote this a couple days ago, but it didn't post. Hmm.

So, following my previous post, I went to the little gallery store place. Awesome stuff! I went with Jean, the other Australian at the hostel. Then we went to the Century 21 in Brooklyn, which has similar but not identical range of stuff from the Century 21 on Manhattan (where we went a couple of days before). I bought a new bag because my old bag has, sadly, died. The new one is very sturdy and has pretty colours.

We wanted to go to MoMA, but we weren't allowed in with the luggage that Jean had bought. We did, though, have dinner at a Vietnamese place recommended in our guide book. Yay for Asian food, really. And Vietnamese rice noodle soup in particular.

I'm actually eating soup at the moment. It's spinach and lentil soup with pumpkin in it. Very yummy. And hot, which is very important now. It is unnaturally cold. Well, not for here. Just I am so not used to it being so cold. I have a new coat and nice gloves, so it's bearable. They're talking about it snowing tomorrow and Friday.

Jean left on Monday night, so I went with her to the airport to be familiar with the airport and to help her carry all her luggage which is bigger and heavier than she is. This was JFK, where you need a boarding pass and a security check to get into the airport itself. There's no having a meal with international travellers here. There may be at other terminals, but I'm not sure. Christophe, who's from Long Island, but far enough away to stay at hostels in Brooklyn or Manhattan, caught up with me after and we went to a bar where a friend of his bartends. Cool place, in Tribeca. It's brilliant to have people so familiar with New York to recommend places.

The hostel is kind of odd. It has a very share-house/boarding-house kind of vibe. There are a few people who are staying long term, paying by the month and working or studying. There are also some odd things, like the kitchen is just a nook of the living room. It has everything, because two people in there is very squishy. Also, the microwave doesn't work and we're having trouble with the water at the moment. The cold water in the kitchen doesn't work (which is just as well, because I think that was what was causing the leak under the sink), and the hot and cold water in the kitchen-level bathroom are switched around. So to get a drink of water, you have go to the hot tape in the bathroom. Still, it's a nice place to hang out and most of the people there are very friendly. I've still got two weeks left, which seems and awfully long time, given how quickly things have been happening here. But also really not long enough. I'm already looking at hostels and work in the UK.

There's so much I haven't written about between Miami and New York. Or anything about Eastern Canada. If it actually snows, I'll definitely being that rather than braving the outside world. I don't want to put it all in one post, because it'll be very much an overload. :-)

It's raining today, which it's been threatening to do for a couple of days. So far the weather here has been cold, and sometimes nastily windy, but clear. New York is awesome. I got lost for about three hours on the subway and buses on Saturday on the way to a meet up for people trying to write a novel this month (I am ostensibly signed up, but so far behind the schedule as to be laughable, but it's still an opportunity to meet people). But it was pretty cool just going around on the Subway, it works pretty well.

I got myself a monthly card when I arrived, and that's working out well, especially now that I know how to get in through the turnstiles at the local station. That was the probably on Saturday - I scanned my ticket, but then didn't go through the gate properly. That meant that I couldn't get into the station, because I'd already scanned the ticket once. So I caught the bus, because it was raining then. I ended up in Williamsburg, which is an Orthodox Jewish area. All the shops were closed and people in the streets were wearing raincoats and rain coverings for their hats. It was pretty cool. So was the meet up. It was at a place called the Tea Lounge, which has a couple of shops. I got to have soup for dinner and then carrot cake and Earl Grey Blue tea, which is Earl Grey with Lavender and very yummy.

I wandered around Manhattan on Sunday. It's big. Well, the island itself isn't particularly big, but there are a lot of people and all the buildings are really tall. There area also distinct neighbourhoods, which make it seems bigger. There are a lot of Starbuckses, but not as many as there are in Washington. Or, at least in New York there are many other cafes and food places, whereas Washington had Starbuckses all alone in a sea of office buildings. There is a Starbucks in the Macy's department store. Macy's also has wooden escalators - wooden side panels and wooden treads.

I also went to see the film Changeling. Still mourning the absence of Choc Tops from US cinemas. But it is an awesome fill. Moving and confronting.

I spent the last three days in New York with another Australian woman who's staying here. We went to Liberty Island yesterday and walked around the bottom of the Statue of Liberty. Very cool. We also went into the ticket area for the Empire State Building, but didn't go up. You can't see the building from inside the building, after all. The Empire State Building is not nearly as pretty as the Chrysler Building. We also found a great deli place for lunch. They have hot and cold salad bars and you pick whatever want and pay by weight. We also found a juice bar, which is a nice, familiar thing.

The day before - Tuesday - we walked around the World Trade Centre site, where they're doing a lot of work. And around Wall street. We also went to Century 21 and bought clothes. I have a very nice black coat and a pair of green gloves. This means I can retire my green leather jacket, which is coming apart in places and isn't particularly warm. Then we caught the subway back up town and walked a bit through Central Park and then had cake. Boston Cheesecake is the best thing ever.

There is still so much of New York to see. And Brooklyn as well. I've been watching the Brooklyn news this morning and there was an article on a gallery store for craft works by local artists. So I will be checking that out tomorrow. As well as the Museum of Modern Art, which is free on Friday evenings.

It looks like the rain has set in for the day. I'm going to another meet up for novel-ers this evening, so I will procrastinate then and make another post.

I am on the train from Kissimee to Charleston.
I was going to travel overnight from Kissimee, but that includes a seven hour stop over in Savannah at 1am. So, no to that.

Kissimee is, by the way, where one stays when one wants to visit DisneyWorld, which is a little south of Orlando. Although I wasn't actually in Kissimee proper, I was just on highway 192 between Kissimee and DisneyWorld. The local bus goes to DisneyWorld for $1.75.

DisneyWorld is a strange, strange place. I spent most of yesterday afternoon at Downtown Disney, which is as much a theme park as any other part of the complex. You can only get there by car or by a bus from one of the DisneyWorld hotels (which you can get to via the monorail from the Ticketing and Transportation Center, which is where the local bus takes you). There are cafes and restaurants and clothing stores and a Virgin Megastore (where they have the 10th Anniversary release of Sports Night, but not on sale). There's also a waterfront and a paddle steamer with a restaurant on it.

I spent most of the afternoon just wandering. But I did go into DisneyQuest. It costs an extra $40 and wasn't really worth it in itself. But I am glad I went just to know what it was like. I discovered that I really like those Rock Band like arcade/video games where you get to "play the drums" or the guitar or something. Also, I played a few rounds of a car racing game that was pretty cool. And, the big thing there - I got to design a roller coaster and then go on it. They have these virtual reality pods that spin you upside down and everything.

I had dinner at Planet Hollywood, which was almost like a real place. I sat at the bar and had a glass on wine and a sandwich that came on ciabatta (so, not sweet) with pesto. Mmm. And I watched the New York Giants come back to beat Pittsburgh in the final quarter. I don't understand American Rules Football any better than I did, but I think I can follow it a bit better now. I did get a brief lesson from a Canadian when I was on the tour out of Halifax.

The day before was my day at the Magic Kingdom, which is what people think of when they think of DisneyWorld - with "Cinderella's Castle", which is definitely based on Neuschwanstein, and Pirates of the Caribbean ride, and "It's a Small World After All." I recognised that last one from the parody at Itchy and Scratchy world in The Simpsons. They have an Australian section, with one Aboriginal person holding a boomerang and a kangaroo and three platypuses holding either eggs or cricket balls and looking evil.

It's kind of a mad place. You spend most of the day waiting in line. Although they do have "fast track" tickets. You get one per ride per day and they allow you to go in the fast line about two hours after you claim them. You can have one at time. So you still have to wait around, but just not in lines. I worked them out after lunch and all was cool. I got to go on the Railway and Splashdown twice. Splashdown was Brer Rabbit themed, so you went through the briar patch and past Brer Fox and Brer Frog and Brer Roadrunner's houses. As well as dropping 50 feet into water and getting wet. The water is disgusting. I could barely clean my teeth in it. The Railroad is old west mining country, and I was reading Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire - A Season in the Wilderness while waiting in line for it. That's mostly about Arches National Park and the canyon lands.

The Monsters Inc Monster laughfloor was pretty cool. The idea is that the Monsterworld, instead of sending monsters to collect kids' screams, has invited a whole lot of humans into the Monsterworld to collect screams that way. It was pretty cool. And so was the "Carousel of Progress", which is pretty twee, but has fantastic animatronics. These are the robots that will take over the park and kill all the humans. Aided by the Presidents. That was my first stop, after the shops along Main Street USA - the Hall of Presidents. It's an interesting history, acknowledging the racism that still exists in US society and basically stepping from the War of Independence to the Civil War to today. Then they go through all the Presidents, in order, spotlighting them. They nod their heads in acknowledge and look at each other as they are called. As current President, George W Bush gets to say something at the end. That annoyed me. Then we got Lincoln, and that made up for it.

My favourite ride was the Space Tower, which is an indoor roller coaster mostly in the dark. Well, not quite in the dark. It's a bit like the Mad Mouses - all twisted around itself. Everything is black except for the corners in the frame, and it's only lit by ultra violet light. So it's just flashes of which rushing past you. Awesome. I only got to go on that one once, because it was a long wait and I didn't have time to wait again before I had to catch the bus back to the hostel. The park closed at 11pm, but the last bus from the Transport Centre was at 9.53pm. I was tempted to go back to do that again and see Tom Sawyer's Island and go on the Paddle Steamer, but it's $80 just to get into the park and I wanted to see Downtown Disney.

It is a weird, weird place. I'm not going on my own again. I will take any nine year old who wants to join me. (After age ten, ticket prices go up.) It is really quite fabulous. Two days is a good time to spend at Magic Kingdom, although the food would get to you. It got to me just in a day. It's pretty well managed most of the time, getting people in and getting them their food. I suppose they're well used to it. It was quite crowded. I think it was school holidays in places as well as a weekend. But it definitely has to be seen to believed and properly - I wanted to put something kind of sarcastic or disparaging here, but I can't think of what I wanted to say. It is a giant theme park, and it does it really well.

I am in Miami. Well, Miami Beach.

I am watching Little Miss Sunshine and researching Disneyworld while I wait for my luggage to be delivered.
The plane out of Boston was late leaving. I was fourth last onto the connecting flight out of Newark, and my bags did not make it. So I got to make my way from there to here without having to worry about my backpack. I stopped where I had to change buses and had piece of carrot cake and an awesome smoothie (raspberry, orange, mango and banana) at a cute cafe place.

The weather here is gorgeous. I don't need my new lovely scarf. I don't even need my jumper, although it's getting a little bit nippy now it's ten thirty. I need to eat dinner. I am full up on carrot cake! Yum.

I went to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. On the free night I ended up in the Impressionist gallery. I am so sick of Impressionist art. This may because I saw so much of all of it at the Impressionism exhibition. But I know it and it's pretty. Actually, Monet really is fabulous. But it doesn't make me think different things any more. The Winslow Homer exhibition was great. I'd seen a few of his at Chicago. He's like Turner, but for the US. Maybe. Landscape watercolours, late 1800s.

They also had an exhibition of Rachel Whiteread's work. She made a plaster cast of a whole house in the early ninties. This one was most plaster casts of boxes in cabinets, and plaster casts of doors, inside out. There was also Village, a room of gutted dolls' houses with lights in them. Very, very cool.

Food now, and then trying to find a more comfortable position on this couch.

I am in Boston, and preparing to leave to hostel to catch a plane to Miami.
It is ten degrees warmer in Miami than it is here, and it's already ten degrees warmer here than it was in Halifax when I left. Yay.

Halifax was awesome. The remote and coastal bits of eastern Canada were awesome.

I love Boston. Yay for big cities. And it is so proud of its history (as really it should be). Harvard has a fabulous art collection. I also bought myself a new scarf (I lost the other one in Montreal) from the Museum of Fine Arts. It is very pretty.

I watched not quite ten minutes of the Obama/McCain debate. That's all I could stand of McCain.

There will be a proper update when I have time and more internet access. I've already packed my computer away, so I'm using the seven minutes of hostel computer internet I had left after printing my flight confirmation.

I love Schenectady.

The supervisor at the custom's stop outside Buffalo (at 2.05am) said that it was suspicious that I could pronounce it so well. :-) I think I must have seen a TV show or a film where someone is from or goes to Schenectady, because I think I've always wanted to visit. I know that I was very pleased to be able to come here. And it is a real town. It has a main street with a park in the middle and buses and shops. Some of them are closed and for lease, but there are also building and renewal projects. And a really nice Italian restaurant where I had dinner. White bean soup, because I haven't had white beans in ages and they remind me of home, and a stuffed mushroom, which was sharper, had stronger spices than I was expecting but was also very yummy.
I'm still a little under the weather, and very tired from the overnight bus, so I wasn't in the mood for dessert. :-(. But I did have a very nice liqueur coffee. Mmm.

I left Toronto on the 11.15 bus. I was going to leave at 9.30, but that would have got in at the same time, it would have just meant longer in Buffalo. So I played rummy with a guy at the hostel in Toronto and ate some grapes and then walked myself to the station. Both my backpack and my crumpler bag are very comfortable to carry on my back. Unfortunately, I can't carry both like that, and I have to get a new system, because the crumpler bag shoulder strap puts odd strain on my neck. Still, it's only down hill for about ten minutes to get to the train station tomorrow. Yay, train! That will take me to Montreal.

I'm watching the CNN channel at the moment. It seems to be about Joe Biden won last night's VP debate but not quite as well as he should have. Also there are ads for medicine, religion, bibles and credit. Very different ads from the ads in Australia. It's strange to be watching TV again. I also watched "Burn After Reading" at the cinema. It's a cinema that shows classic films at 11am on a Saturday. It was showing "Breakfast at Tiffany's" today. But I was wandering back to my hotel to have a nap.

I got to have blueberry pancakes for breakfast from a cafe that could have been on High Street in Westgarth.

It has been a good day. Although I am sick because on Thursday I walked up the Cineforum in Toronto to watch a film about Jane Jacobs and got rained on. Grr. Still, I think that walking in the sun today and sleeping will help. I will try to find cold and flu tablets in Montreal tomorrow, because I never take them, and they really might help. The Jane Jacobs film was great. I don't her stuff at all, but she was arguing that discrimination of any kind is bad for the economy, which is brilliant. Also, the guy who runs the Cineforum, Reg Hartt described Jane Jacobs as getting out into the city and seeing not what she had been trained to see, but what was actually there.

I had no idea who Reg Hartt was, but the Cineforum is in his front room, and he was a person friend of Jane Jacobs, so I was happy to just listen to his lecture. Also, I didn't have to be anywhere else. But one the other people in the audience was a student and obviously took offense at the anti-school tilt on the lecture. He asked if Reg Hartt could just start the film and got soundly told off, so he left. I was surprised by the anger in Reg Hartt's response, but moreso by the guy leaving. If someone is giving you a lecture in his loungeroom which you have paid to see and he has the film you want to watch, you just take it all on board and chuck out the bits that you don't like later.

I also went up to the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, which was very cool. Also, to get there I had to go through a part of Toronto that I had not been before, except on the way to the travel agent. Turning left at Queen street instead of right towards Downtown. This is the Art and Design district and has designer clothes shops and retro music stores and a brilliant Sci-Fi bookshop (with all of Elizabeth Bear

matociquala Promethean books). I didn't buy those, but I did buy a book called "Full Frontal Feminism" which was excellent.

So I like Toronto as well. Probably more than Schenectady, because I haven't found a big bookshop here, and they built over their canal.

I will do my best to write up going to Niagara tomorrow. It deserves a post all of its own, despite not being one of the natural wonders of the world. Now for bed.

I am in Toronto! I quite like it. I haven't seen much, yet. I arrived yesterday and walked from the Greyhound station to the hostel and then back into a more busy part to get some late lunch. I went out later to get dinner from the local grocery store, which is very close. I went there again at lunchtime-ish today to get food. I had breakfast at a cafe on the way. The coffee was bad, but the blueberry bran muffin was good. I so much prefer Canadian money, because it's coloured.

I leave tomorrow morning for the Moose Tour that will take me through most of Eastern Canada. I've given up the plan of making my way through New England on my own. There's another tour I can do right up the east coast. It's called the Island Hopper and will take me to wilderness that I really wouldn't be able to get to on my own. Then I'll spend about a week in Boston before flying to Miami and working my way back up the coast. I've book all the extra accommodation and transport for that, now I just need confirmation from the tour itself.

I left Milwaukee on Sunday night. We got to the bus station more than an hour early, which was just as well because there wasn't room on the 9.05 bus to Chicago (to catch the connection to Detroit), but they could put me on the 8.10. Even then there were two people in the aisle. I feel good to be on the road, and I had a good time last night in the basement here eating dinner and watching Canada's Next Top Model and Prison Break with a few drunk Scots and several Australians.

So, yes, it's Tuesday night now. I'm going out for a walk in a bit before coming back and making sure that everything is packed properly to leave on the bus tomorrow. I have grapes and scorched almonds (with too much chocolate). I have a week in Toronto after the tour. That will be at a different hostel. This one, the HI hostel, is good. The common areas are good, but the rooms aren't great, and they've painted the main stairs, so we have to the use the emergency stairs to the basement common areas and kitchen.

Current Music: Dr Horrible's Sing-along Blog: Everyone's a Hero

…is about two and a half hours on a bus. Although, between finding an architecture tour and working out the trains and waiting at the ticket booth at the Greyhound station, I ended up two hours early for the bus because I was fifteen minutes late for the one before. I'm staying with my friend M here (I will ask her how she would like to be referred to in my real life internet journal when she gets home from class, to avoid confusion with other Ms.), and M's daughter (whose almost seven), and M's housemate. I have a room all to myself, and there's a lounge room and pets and it is very pleasant to hang out in the kitchen with my laptop and a cup of tea. There are also chocolate cupcakes in the fridge for later.

Chicago is an awesome city. I loved it. It's easy to get around because it's a very strict grid. The hostel was in a great place. It was an easy couple of minutes walk to the Art Institute. ( Lots about art, further comments on previous post and extra stuff )

That's enough for the moment, I think. More about architecture next time, and then about the Museum of Science and Industry where they have Apollo 8 just sitting there! (Okay, in a giant plastic box.)

Milwaukee is very relaxed. Being here, and the two weeks in Chicago, have made me feel very settled, so I don't have the same sort of questing for things to do or same urge to post about it. It's just everydayness to me now (which is so cool!), but it's why I couldn't maintain this journal when I got back from travelling last time. I have booked accommodation in Canada, and I should get to book my tour tomorrow, and then it's the last weekend of Summer and the Labor Day Holiday, so there's a big family-group gathering thing here.

Last day in Chicago! I'm going up Sears tower today and checking out the Picasso statue on Daley Plaza. My bus is at 3.30 to take me to Milwaukee.

I caught the Museum of Contemporary Art yesterday. They had a big exhibition of Jeff Koons stuff, which was awesome. And they were also showing a collection of Alexander Calder's objects (sculptures, but he didn't like the term). Even more awesome! I love Calder's stuff. He did the mobile that's in the Guggenheim in Venice - that's the first time I saw his stuff. Also William Kentridge whose a South African artist who does drawing and animation. I saw his stuff at the NGV a couple of years ago and loved it. It was very cool recognising artists.

Then I went back to the Art Institute and saw the American art from the 1700s to the 1950s, including American Gothic. It was pretty cool recognising artists. Mary Cassatt, who was in the Impressionists exhibition at NGV was American, which I don't think I knew. Art movements were different in America than in Europe or England, and even more so, the design movements were different. They don't talk about "Arts and Crafts" in the design museum in Munich, but they don't talk about Art Deco, or (very much) Art Nouveau in America. I took a lot of photos this time, I'm getting better about doing that.

Between the CMCA and the Art Institute I had lunch and got rained on and sat the Fourth Presbyterian Church, which is a Gothic revival building finished in 1914. It is pretty awesome. And very different looking from all the buildings around it.

That was yesterday. I have to go now to fit in all the things I want to do today before I have to get to the bus station. But Milwaukee is going to very relaxed, so I will have time to properly write up the brilliance that is Chicago.

Current Mood: chipper

I have had wine and all is good!

I was going to cook myself dinner tonight, but the mushrooms and beans that I bought last Sunday (as is, eight days ago) had gotten moldy and icky. I had assumed that I would be bothered to cook between then and now, but alas that was not the case. As I had transfered this weeks money yesterday, I was well placed to go out to dinner! I found a very pleasant, and reasonably priced Italian bistro-y place and had baked pasta and a mixed green salad and a glass of Pinot Grigio (better than Chardonay, cheaper than Sav Blanc (which seems rare in the US)) and then tiramisu.

The specialty of the particular restaurant I was at seemed to be serves that could be shared. They had a special menu for single serves, but it did not include dessert. I ordered dessert anyway, because I had room for one normal serve of tiramisu, and mmm tiramisu. I got a tiramisu made in a bowl and big enough for six people, easy. It could probably have done eight quite comfortably. I got to take it away with me. I have to keep remembering that they do that in America - package up your unfinished food for you take away with you. It's excellent. I went out for lunch last Wednesday and got to each the rest of my salad for dinner. I gave some of the tiramisu to David, who I met at the icecream social here last Tuesday (how quickly things get out of order!), and there's more than I'm sure I'm going to be able to eat before Friday when I leave.

So: Harry Potter convention ( Short run down of panels I remember without consulting my notes (not actually in order) )

On Monday afternoon, after everything was done and I had made my escape from the dozens of people dressed a specific HP characters, or looking vaguely like Harry Potter, I walked to the other side of the river and watched The Dark Knight, which I thought was very good.

That puts me just a week behind, now, but all of it Chicago proper. I'm going back the Art Institute tomorrow, because it's free on Tuesdays. I intend to spend as much time there as possible, so I will have to get up at a proper time. Not 11.30 like this morning. The Art Institute is open from 10.30, so I really only have to get up by 9. Excellent. It closes as five, so I will go the supermarket afterwards and see if I can't replace my vegetables with ones that I am prepared to eat.

I am in New Orleans and have washed my clothes and bought groceries and wandered through the Riverwalk Mall and the French Quarter. I arrived yesterday after a flight from Las Vegas with a transfer in Houston. I slept deeply, completely zonked out on both flights. I never want to eat a sandwich again. New Orleans will get written up properly later, for now I give you a brief run down of the camping/hiking tour. I'll just make it clear that the actual travelling was by van. Hiking is the American term for bushwalking, and we stopped at places to do that.

The short version of the following is: Most awesome thing ever.

( Twelve Days from San Francisco to Las Vegas )

I got back to the hotel in Vegas about 4am, and repacked all my stuff to travel by plane to New Orleans, which was yesterday. I can't believe it was only yesterday (well, it's after midnight now, so two days ago, but less than 48 hours). I got in to New Orleans late because there were technical difficulties with the our pilot's plane into Houston and he was late onto the plane. I had dinner in the French Quarter with two women from my dorm room, and today I walked down to the Mississippi and the Riverside Walk Mall. I tried to eat a serving of bignets (fried French doughnuts) but really would rather have hiked somewhere.

Sleep now. Art galleries and architecture tomorrow, and working out how to get from here to Chicago as the train is booked out.

ETA: Here are some photos of the Grand Canyon (including one of me). More will be added later.
ETA: Photo link now actually goes to photos.

I am onto my second cup of tea and have eaten the cherries I bought at the greengrocers in Chinatown and the tiramisu I bought at the supermarket. I am almost completely packed and ready to go on my camping trip. I'm getting nervous about that. I think I'll be leaving the hostel about 6.45 to walk to the hotel where the pick up is. I would catch a cab, but I'd have to ring for it, wait for it and pay the diver. Whereas it's pretty much straight down hill to walk and takes only ten minutes more.

I caught a bus out to the Presidio this afternoon. That's where the Golden Gate Bridge starts. It's an amazing park type space now. It was a Spanish fort, then a Mexican one, then an American one, and then a military base, and now a national park and housing estate. But it's huge. It has residential areas and poor residential areas and what looks like a high school with knocked out windows and a Park Police Mobile Unit van outside. It was hard to get to the actual Golden Gate Bridge starting point, but there was a shuttle around Presidio and then a local bus route that goes past the tourist bit. By then I was hungry and tired and the batteries on my camera had died, so I perfectly happy staying on the bus and going out through the suburbs. I will return to San Francisco and see the Golden Gate bridge and Presidio properly then. You really need a bike and a packed lunch.

This will probably be my last post until 4 August, when I'm in New Orleans. I did want to email everyone who had written a comment (except Sam, because I can reply to those and he gets an email notification). But there isn't time now, and I don't have everyone's email address! But I will say thanks very much for all the comments, it is really great to hear from people and know what's happening in Melbourne. I will post more photos, too, once I get the camping photos off the camera (which will, of course, be after I have taken them!)

Well, about half a day now, as it's noon. I'm waiting for my washing to dry so I can start packing for the camping tour that start tomorrow. The German roommates have been replaced with Korean roommates. There was cheese and wine tasting in the lounge last night, which I attended for a bit, before retreating to my room to unpack everything and sort it into needed for camping tour and not needed for camping trip. Then I went back downstairs for the nightclub party thing. The other woman in my room, whose from Canada was there with two Louises. I got to drink the end of her raspberry cider, because it was too sweet fro her. It was rather strange, but okay. So I got in about 12.30 and slept til ten. Then I put on my washing and went across the street to the "Paris Cafe" for breakfast. Very pleasant. The scheduled top is 15°C today.

Yesterday I went to the Museum and Modern Art which was fabulous. They have a fantastic collection of post-Impressionism stuff. Fauves, and Picasso and Miro and Alexander Calder (who does the mobiles). And Jean Arp, who I learnt about in Ink Brush Painting Classes. There was also an exhibition of Lee Miller's photographs, which are amazing. And another series of modern photography, most of which I really liked. So, I think that i have overcome my aversion to photography as an art form. There was also a guest curated exhibition of contemporary Chinese art, art since 1989. Some fabulous stuff. I really like the contemporary Asian art, in a way that I was really not interested in the Asian artefacts at the gallery in San Diego. I think I would have been open to those in a museum rather than as art.

I did want to see the Museum of the African Diaspora, but it's closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. I did check out the forecourt of the Contemporary Jewish Museum, which is right next door to an old St Patrick's Cathedral. There was an intersection we got to in the Mission with a Lutheran Church, a Catholic Church and a Synagogue on three of the corners. I really like San Francisco.

I walked to Fisherman's Wharf after lunch yesterday. It's the tourist trap, and neither Mirium nor our tour guide wanted to go there. It's kind of a weird place because theres a section of wharf that's just lovely timber waterside and seats and seagulls and boats. And then you get to the actual tourist bit and it's like a theme park of tacky souvenir shops and fast food booths. Brilliant stuff. I walked past that on to the main street bit which has seafood restaurants of various swish-ness and cheap things shops. Also, a mission to seamen, working fishing boats and segway tours.

The walk from Union square to Fisherman's wharf is pretty steep uphill and then even steeper down hill. The map I had didn't know that there was a way directly walking up Montgomery street, because cars can't do it. But when you reach the end of Montgomery, there's a two flights of stairs and then on the next street. At the end of that street there's more steps down to the water. I passed an architectural bookstore. Well, I went in, and immediately found $100 of books that I wanted to buy. One of the geometry of Islamic art and one of the design of sacred places. They also had a 13 feet photograph of the north side of the Grand Canal in Venice. It was not the price that stopped me as much as the weight limit on the camping tour. Oh, they were great books. And the shop was just stacked with stuff.

I caught the cable card back from Fisherman's Wharf, because it was the whole length the cable car runs and it was the most direct form of transport. Also, very fun with the steep hill and then flat where the roads cross. Okay, so it's time to get my washing from the laundry and then head out for lunch and whatever else I decide to do. I still haven't properly seen the Golden Gate bridge, so that's on the list. If not this time, then next time.

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theotherlex

July 2010

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