Tel Aviv is a beach town, not merely temperate and on the water. It has ample sandy shores immediately adjacent to downtown. Perhaps surprisingly, the beach monuments were among most political ones I noticed during my trip.
Tel Aviv is a young city, barely a hundred years old, but that's long enough. There were monuments to the Aliyah Beteffort from 1934 to 1948 to evacuate Jews from Mediterranean countries in defiance of a British restriction on their then-colony. There was another monument to the Altalena affair, a clash shortly after the British left between the recently formed Israeli Defense Force and a Jewish paramilitary group. The rest of the beach seemed apolitical, so perhaps this was just a coincidence of my hotel placement, but the underlying reality is that shores are often borders.
The other time politics notably intruded from the landscape was a trip to the kibbutz cemetery that took us closer to the West Bank. Like Canada, Israel is a bilingual nation, so there is both Hebrew and Arabic on highway signs. That said, unlike the vehement bilingualism I remember from Quebec, in Tel Aviv I mostly saw Hebrew and English (which seems in keeping with the education system). Guy was generally less political on most matters than I am, although he made clear that he was rather frustrated with the current state of Israeli politics, particularly the current generation of leadership.
However, don't let the politics discussion deter you. Both of my walks on the beach were lovely and the trip south to Jaffa was delightful. Surfers took advantage of the waves and trained on the beach. Small sailboats dotted the horizon. The buildings of Tel Aviv are a varied architectural backdrop from the skyscrapers of downtown to the mosque down by Jaffa. The last part of the walk was through parkland as the beach gave way to a rocky shore.
According to my walk book, the best time to do it would be sunset. That's probably right, but don't let that deter you if the timing doesn't work out. The journey is well worth it during the day, all the more so because it ends in Jaffa: the millennia-old sister to Tel Aviv, historical port to Jerusalem, Turkish-rebuilt hill city, and subject of my next post.
Guy's family were the consummate hosts. We had the chance to look through old photo albums, to swap stories, and to share a local favorite form of take out. Joachim and Priscilla had ended up staying at a different hotel because Kayak charged European users far more than American users in this instance, so we said our goodbyes. They had an early morning flight and I got to stay another day. Shai's family was so kind as to give them a ride and one of Guy's cousins was extremely gracious and offered a separate trip for me. From the family and friends I got advice for the remainder of my trip: see Jaffa, eat at Old Man and the Sea, check out Rothschild Boulevard and a few happening districts in southern Tel Aviv.
The city in the evening in March is quite inviting. Bicyclists and pedestrians travel the promenades depicted above and the weather lures you outside. The long stretched parks themselves are not the only pedestrian-safe places; sidewalks and crossing lights abound. In addition, every few blocks they offer a fancy like the pond above or art like the incomplete bridge to the left or hot drink stands. The latter was particularly notable to me, as I've always found D.C.'s mall in need of a few more tiny-scale park cafes, although food vendor trucks can help.
My jaunt on Rothschild started around the Habima Square (depicted on the right) and went down to Israel's first skyscraper: Midgal Shalom. According to the Wikipedia entry, it's also the only subway station in Israel. It was built under the tower in hopes of future connections that never came. I found out about this because I did find signs indicating a future light rail line which sounds as if it is still a few years away from completion.
I'd noticed one odd phenomenon on the walk that I'll have to ask some Tel Aviv natives about: eggplant graffiti. Various vegetable themes were actually fairly common in the city, but I think eggplants were the most prominent. Some googling found a blog post and flickr group that were similarly confused about the matter. Frankly, Guy could probably have told me more about the light rail than the graffiti. He's called Washington, D.C. his home for some time and probably would only keep up with such a phenomenon in Tel Aviv if it involved depictions of meat.
Guy's funeral was in the early afternoon and after being stuck in the airport for three hours, starting at midnight, my friends and former colleagues sensibly pushed back our meeting time. Thus I had the morning to myself. I chose to retread some of the ground I walked the prior night in order to visit Rabin Square. The city was quite easy to traverse; hills are rare and mild and in March the weather draws tourists. Guy didn't talk about Tel Aviv that much, aside from mention of friends, family, or visits to his children, so I was setting my own agenda at this point. I don't know specifically what he thought of Rabin, but had mentioned before that he thought the current generation of leadership paled in comparison with the prior generation.
The square sits adjacent to the city government building, making it a common site for rallies, including the one where the Prime Minister had been shot. There was nothing going on the Sunday I visited, but even so there was a fair crowd around the memorial itself and the adjacent pond. If I read the wikipedia page correctly, the large monument is a memorial to Holocaust victims but there is a dedicated wall for Yitzhak Rabin specifically.
Afterwards I walked South by Mann Auditorium which had lovely outdoor gardens, including wisteria and cacti. The walk down King George Street was an interesting one, from street art to the regular reminder that Israel was a nation with many conscripts. I ended up at Carmel Market, where I got some terrific lemonade before heading back to the hotel.
Joachim, Priscilla, and I then met up and got lunch to reminisce. Appropriately enough the food proved to be massive; even the 'small' burger Joachim got was like an inch thick. I ordered shakshouka, a tomato egg dish recommended by my guidebook, which was fairly tasty and similarly voluminous. Fortunately, I have any number of places back home to visit for reminders of Guy that provide a reason to have a smaller dinner. So, for D.C. people, two of his favorites were Well Dressed Burrito (tasty hole in the wall) and Mehran (my work's preferred and notably affordable buffet spot).
After my airport misadventures, I took the train to Tel Aviv Center Station. I sat with a rather nice couple without much English and near a gentlemen who was fluent and piped in at the end. They ended up spotting me bus fare for fear that I wouldn't be able to change money in the station. There did end up being an ATM and I was able to make change easily enough, but I shall have to endeavor to return the favor for visiting tourists and work to pick up more than a smattering of Hebrew for my next visit. In a pinch, I think my initial instinct was right and I could have walked it, but it would have been a schlep with my luggage in tow. Tel Aviv doesn't have a subway or trolley system, but it's got a fair amount of bus support and is quite walkable and bikeable. I was also able to extend my international smart card collection, as both the rail service and the multiple bus companies do have a common card.
I arrived Sunday evening and after getting cleaned up and checking in with a few of Guy's friends and family, I tried to spend the evening in a manner he approved of. Namely, finding good local food (I also did some wandering around on foot; he may have preferred that I biked, but the local bikeshare didn't seem to cater to tourists). I was staying at the Mercure hotel, and the concierge recommended a lovely Italian restaurant near Dizengoff Fountain. My favorite part of the meal was an appetizer special with sardines and cheese in an oily herb sauce. From what I've heard, Tel Aviv is far too cosmopolitan to have a particular local cuisine, but there often seemed to be a local stamp on whatever I ate. Perhaps more important, outdoor seating was commonplace, taking full advantage of the local climate. I'd done café-style dining with Guy before, mostly at a Starbucks a few blocks away from the office and most recently at a po-boy joint, although on both occasions I remember being afflicted by ridiculous winds. Still worth it, but not nearly as common or appealing as in this coastal city.
The restaurant was near Dizengoff Fountain, which was in a small elevated square populated by a group of local musicians. The modernist appearance is fairly typical. As a city, Tel Aviv is not much over a century old, as compared to the multi-millennia history of Jaffa to the South. The relative newness of the city reminded me a bit of Hong Kong; perhaps the common British colonial heritage played a factor there. The rest of the night involved a leisurely, roundabout return to the hotel, uneventful aside from the surprise of seeing bats flying around a local park. I wasn't particularly bothered by insects this trip, so I may owe those flying mammals a debt of gratitude on that score.
Ben Gurion Airport has a lovely, compact design: there's a central hub with a multistory fountain, an upper level for incoming flights, a lower level for departures, and a massive pair of ramps that flips incoming and outgoing as you enter/exit. Of course, depending on your demographics and/or stamps in your passport form such places as Egypt or Afghanistan, you'll probably be spending an hour waiting in a small partitioned off section of the customs area. As waiting rooms go, that area is pretty drab if not featureless: there's a television and few vending machines. As you'd probably expect, I was a standout and most of the people in that area likely had some sort of Arabic ancestry.
The security interview process for me was about what you'd expect. It took less than fifteen minutes, albeit with of a total wait of about an hour. The questions were varied but nothing that you wouldn't see on a U.S. security clearance plus a more detailed version of the usual customs question. I answered in my usual information dump style and my questioner seemed professional and made the connection to other people traveling for Guy's funeral. They also ended up not stamping my passport without my even requesting it, which will make my life easier should I travel to a few other countries in the future. A friend of mine wasn't so lucky and ended up wasting three hours, two interviews, and getting oddly insistent questions about Guy's cell phone number.
I hadn't actually discussed Israeli airport security much with Guy. That said, his general philosophy often involved using technology to mitigate the costs of conflict. I've got to imagine that were he designing the system, there would probably be some displays with estimated wait times and the like. He'd have made sure that travelers that get detained for an hour at least get accurate information on which baggage carrousel their luggage could be found at. Admittedly, the amount of time I wasted there was largely my fault; once I saw the length of the lost and found lines (picking the wrong one didn't help) I should have searched the rest of the terminal immediately. Lesson learned.
On the whole, I think the interview process does probably result in a greater marginal increase in security than much of the security theater in the U.S. Also, it makes a lot more sense as a first step than strip searches and the like. However, let's be straight for a minute. The idea that we need more selective security is typically a euphemism for just questioning Muslims in greater detail while leaving the rest of the population alone. I'm an international relations professional; if that gets me extra screening I've got no objection, but I'd feel differently if I had to wait an hour every time I traveled because of my ancestry. So while my interview experience (and not my friend's) might be a reasonable example and TSA security theater needs to be toned down, I wouldn't support moving the U.S. towards the Israeli model. That said, I have heard horror stories for foreign friends coming in through U.S. customs, so I don't consider our system an exemplar.
I had a window seat for only one section of the trip, the journey from Frankfurt, Germany to Tel Aviv. The route traversed the Alps then went through southern central Europe before crossing into the Mediterranean at Greece. Supposedly I some of those pictures actually include Mount Olympus. I'd be able to describe more if I wasn't embarrassingly bad at geography for a international relations major. Next time I travel with a window seat, I think I may try for a small atlas so that I know what passes beneath me. Often on international flight there's a monitor on the seat in front to refer to, but that tends to be flights that are over water and not over land.
The arrival at Tel Aviv surprised me to an extent. I had talked to Guy about Tel Aviv before and Israel in general. However, in part because a lot of his time growing up was in Europe, I wasn't exactly sure what to expect. I knew Tel Aviv was an urbane modern coastal city, but I didn't have a feel for the surrounding countryside. I was surprised how green it was; perhaps that's just a legacy of my visit to Egypt and the typically sparse context of pilgrimage photographs. I shouldn't have been surprised, as the coastal plain of Israel is fertile and humid, hence "land of milk add honey."
Landing in a March snowstorm can always be a bit surprising if you aren't paying attention to the weather or the under plane video. I was in the aisle of the absolute last row, due to my last minute ticket purchase. This meant I actually felt a blast of fresh cold air when the flight attendant opened the back door of the plane a few times to consult with the ground crew.
I've been through Frankfurt airport once before that I remember, on a trip to or from Afghanistan for work. Its standout trait was the distance one had to travel to get from one terminal to another. That was true today as well as I schlepped from terminal Z to C which included a train ride that felt like it covered 20% of the distance at most. It feels like a more modern version of Midway's old layout, only more so. I suppose this is what comes of being a Lufthansa hub though the feeling of distance is likely magnified by similar looking corridors rather than grand halls. There's also always something dispiriting about the revelation that one will have to go through security a second time, but that's perhaps inevitable when one's final destination is Tel Aviv.
Cleverly, airport employees actually have Access to bicycles. I wonder if I'll ever see an airport with a bikeshare program or the like. Frankfurt could certainly use it. That said, endearingly T-Mobile does offer 30 minutes of free wifi, a fine trick for weaseling your way into my affections.
As I wait for my next bordering, I'm mostly left with regret that I didn't travel much with Guy. We did all go out to Monterey together, but via separate means. His expertise in Complexity and years in Europe would no doubt leave him with any number of insights into the design and function of a behemoth like Frankfurt terminal. There wasn't a single clear opportunity I missed, but I can't help but feel I've made a profound mistake somewhere in that I am only traveling to my friend's homeland after I can no longer enjoy his company on the journey.
We were extraordinarily lucky in our vacation timing, as when we left the D.C. area there were temperatures above 100 degrees and thunderstorms causing widespread power outs. During the first few rainy days locals were apologizing for the weather; we gladly informed them that no apology was necessary. Our flight out to Seattle was straightforward; the only point of note is that this was my first flight where Southwest had both the technical capacity and legal authority to offer wifi on the flight. I passed on this revolutionary opportunity as I didn't feel like paying the fee, $5 if memory serves, although some future flight will no doubt dun me for my internet addiction. The airport itself was a bit more exciting as we got our Seattle transit smart cards: One Regional Card for All (ORCA). That said, we misused our Orca cards on our maiden trip and managed to miss the validation stations. We felt chagrined about that we docked our cards on the way out rather than the way in.
We used a Budget rental car place off 4th Street; it was a great location and we were relieved that they let us immediately leave our car in their garage as parking in Seattle starts at $4 for a half hour. We walked over to the Seattle Public Library on advice of Kate's coworker. The design is quite distinctive and modern with curves on the outside and any number of observation points and views out as well as towards the often open architecture on the inside. My favorite gimmick was the book spiral, depicted on the left. The hallway gently ramps letting bibliophiles walk through the entire Dewey Decimal System without needing to use stairs or elevators.
After seeing the library we walked down to Pike Place Market, known for its fresh fish and produce and thus quite a pleasing olfactory experience. We bought groceries and flowers and walked by the shops on the lower level. Kate was excited to see the original Starbucks, although she put off her pilgrimage through the line until later in the evening when the line was shorter. After seeing the market we enjoyed a late lunch at the nearby Crepe de France, which surprised us by the ampleness of their entrees. Our lodging was a timeshare in Birch Bay, some hundred miles to the North near the border, so we did not stay too late in Seattle. The journey up was beautifully adorned by fog which clung to the hills in a manner that I found difficult to capture on camera despite reminding me of Kurasawa films.
For the second time in a year, our plans to take the Amtrak Vermonter were foiled. The first time it was my fault, a mistake revealed when Kate commented that I looked rather different in my passport picture from ten years ago. Outdated passport meant no Montreal trip, the train to Burlington being the first leg.
This time, it was probably Irene's fault. Track maintenance work meant that our direct train was cancelled and we would have been training to Springfield Massachusetts and then catching a five hour bus. Instead we'll be taking a flight to Albany and driving up to Montreal, while staying in Burlington on the way.
It still will be a fun trip, but I'd really like to get that train ride in some fall. Oh well.
I've got my first international work trip coming up and, while less than two weeks, it's still a doozy for me. Thus, I'm putting the blog on hiatus for the next few weeks. I'm told pictures are allowed but I'm not sure about publicly posting them; regardless, still a lot to cover with Egypt.
Our next day began early for we were traveling to the desert. Going to the west, by bridge rather than boat this time, the journey was pleasingly augmented by views of hot air balloons. This is a popular area for ballooning as the sheer number of temples, tombs, and monuments means that you'll should have something to see whichever way the winds take you. That said, apparently the military used to get annoyed at certain balloon paths.
The desert makes quite a contrast after traveling through a mix of farms. The sudden change doesn't feel familiar to me at all, despite having spent some time in America's southwest. It may have something to do with the density of the Nile valley. In either a geographic or population sense, there's not room for settlements to slowly peter out.
I'll save a discussion of the valley of the kings itself for a future post, one that sadly will be bereft of pictures for historical preservation reasons. The sheer amount of history was fairly shocking, there hills at times seemed honeycombed with remnants of ancient Egypt. We even saw some settlements that were displayed by the government due to the inhabitants penchant for selling artifacts they discovered under their houses. There does seem to be a great number of sites where the government merely attempts to preserve and not study. Some of that is likely a sensible approach; Egypt has millennia of legacy and when rising dam waters aren't a threat there's no great rush.
All this does raise the question of how much of Egypt's legend is a result of its standing in the ancient world versus the preservative nature of the desert sands. I suspect it varies from era to era, but many of the sites we saw would be notable in most any era. On the other hand, perhaps the continuity between Egypt's Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom, and New Kingdom were in part a side effect of the desert. The Roman empire might provide a way to test that hypothesis: is there a correlation between a preservative climate and the survival of Roman engineering? If so, did areas with such a climate maintain more Roman heritage during the dark ages? Under this theory, the desert did not lead to Egypt's greatness; it led to its continuity as one civilization rather than three.
I've gone back an added the slideshow of Luxor temple to an appropriate entry. I highly recommend visiting the temple in the evening so you have a chance to see it both in the light of the sun and the light of modern day. They do a rather good job illuminating the pillars and temple grounds; moreover I'm told that most temples aren't open at night.
After the temple we visited a local jewelry shop that was recommended by the tour company. Apparently under the old government there was rather a problem with certified sales that were not in fact of the quality that they claimed. Businesses would be shut down but could open up again in short order. Seeing a bit of the silversmithing process was rather neat but I sadly don't have any pictures to share. I went on to get a cartouche for my wife but felt a bit underprepared. Transliteration into the hieroglyphics alphabet leaves a lot of discretion as to what symbols to do, so the smart thing would probably be to figure it out with the recipient before you travel. If you want something particularly authentic, maybe take a trip to the library first.
After crossing the Nile to return from our rural west bank adventures, we had some free time in Luxor city. We decided to take a walk up to the promenade. This was probably a mistake, the walk itself was alright, but involved constantly turning down various carriage drivers. My guide and guide book both agreed to be careful with such rides, as drivers were known to take passengers away from the tourist area and then charge more to give the trip back. Nonetheless, taxis aren't a problem and they may have gotten us past the gauntlet to enjoy a more leisurely walk in the city center. That said, some of our fellow travelers walked the same route without incident, so perhaps it was something in the way we carried ourselves.
On the trip back, we paralleled our route one block away from the main street. This made all the difference in the world, Luxor is dense but it's no Cairo and the side streets on a workday are neither vacant nor bustling. The people we saw weren't looking to sell us things, they were just moving around their neighborhood, running errands, and the like. I don't travel in a search for authenticity, but I do enjoy seeing parts of other countries that aren't there to cater to me or sell me things. Of course, the incentives for vendors are particularly strong in the developing world: the ratio of per capita GDPs between the U.S. and Egypt 47,400 to 6,200. However, as we'd see in more detail in future days, Luxor, ancient capital of upper Egypt, is more than just a tourist town and has a pleasantly different character when you get oft the main strip.
Wrapping up our first trip west of Luxor, we had lunch at the El Nakhil hotel and restaurant. I don't know if rooftop restaurants really originate in Africa, but the main one I go to around home is Ethiopian and that's good enough for a humorous assertion. The food in this place was a fairly standard Egyptian buffet style, but the rotisserie chicken was succulent and had a great blend of spices.
Traveling the Egyptian countryside was quite an experience and did feel quite distinct from my time in anywhere in rural America or in the Chinese countryside. I think I'll just need to see more of the developing world to better understand what difference can be attributed to culture distinctions versus climate versus ways things are made attractive for tourists.
The seamstress shop we visited had two rooms full of kids in child care. I'm not sure how representative this was, given international funding, but they really seemed remarkably normal. Enthusiastic kids doing songs that teach about body parts and the like. Mom recognized this piece of playground equipment from when she was growing up. A kid fell off and cried briefly before too long, which is probably why you don't see them much anymore, but it did look like fun.
Generally speaking, I don't blog about the familiar, but I think it's worth making the odd exception to avoid exoticizing the country. Now that I'm finally having some luck with Flickr, I'll close the section on Bearat village with a slide show that covers the seamstresses, the school and childcare, as well as a few shots of the town itself.
The first floor of the seamstress shop was a religious school. It was only enclosed on three sides with pillars being the only structure in the interior. There were students of a mix of ages represented and some of them were particularly talkative. "What's your name?" and "Where are you from?" appear to be some of the most commonly taught English questions. We didn't manage a full conversation by any means, although Mom had some luck with both french and English. We mostly spoke to the two gentlemen in the foreground, the lad in white hopes to be a journalist and the one in red a doctor. Near as we could tell both were pro-revolutionary, but that isn't a surprise really.. Our guide had mentioned that some English training is on the curriculum in the public schools, although special language schools are popular and offer an immersive approach.
The religious part of the education involved memorizing passages from the Quran. Homework involved taking home a slate with verses etched upon it, which actually reminds me of stories I've heard about the education of Abraham Lincoln. I think the poetic nature of the language helps the students. I suspect that despite the archaic language the King James version of the Bible might be easier to commit to memory than the New Revised Standard Version. One girl gave a lovely recital of some of the text she'd memorized. I did go through Sunday school, although there wasn't that much memorization involved and I'm glad of that. However, I suspect that it is a pedagogical technique that's fairly easy to deploy in places where educational resources are comparatively scarce.
I was surprised to learn that ancient Egyptians had fished in part by slapping the water to drive the movements of their desired prey. The technique itself seems straightforward enough, but it seems puzzling that it isn’t a favored method of children everywhere. Perhaps it only works with certain kinds of fish or there’s been some parental conspiracy to keep it secret.
When Ahmed’s mother took traveled to Mecca for the hajj, they commemorated it in style on the front of the house. For the record, he wasn’t the oldest brother. From what we saw primogeniture doesn’t seem particularly established in Egypt, even in large families. We heard another example during a dinner visit with a family in Aswan. In that case, the household would pass on through all of the males of the older generations before going to the oldest son of the next. In any event, Ahmed seems like the kind of guy that in an area with more opportunities would have been the first of his family sent off to college. Hopefully, that will be an option for his children. In any event, I found the painting on the walls quite charming and if you check through the slideshow on the farm general farm post once it’s online and you’ll see another example in the interior.
I don’t know if that sort of landscape is common, but I can confirm that bright paint on brick was a regular and welcome decoration that we witnessed on our Nile cruise. I haven’t spent that much time around the Mediterranean, but I believe the region is known for this. Given the heat, porches, patios, rooftops, and courtyards were often prominent and thus likely to be decorated. I think the impulse to paint patios is strengthened by the bland uniformity of the low cost brick construction that seemed omnipresent in areas that were more newly built up.
My favorite building artistry came at the end of the Nile cruise in Aswan. Nubian settlements are known for a mix of gold and turquoise that fits in with the surrounding sand and sky. At this point it seems to be a common style in southern Egypt, which somewhat confusingly was the Upper Kingdom. With any luck, I’ll have Flickr slideshows working properly by the time I start blogging about the trip down the Nile and to Aswan, as there’s much to see.
Ramses the II, or Ramses the Great, was a successful conqueror who guaranteed his place in history by the incredible measures he took to ensure that he could not be forgotten. This is shown all over Egypt, but for the moment it makes a good way to introduce his work in Luxor temple. He built and expanded temples, but he also made sure that he laid claim to older sites and statues by having his name, in hieroglyphic cartouche format, over that of prior rulers. Rejecting the sentiment of "turnabout is fair play" he then commanded that his cartouche be chiseled incredibly deeply into the stone, to ensure that such a rewrite could not happen to him.
Statues of Ramses II guard the entrance to Luxor temple, and he never seems happy to have just one statue of himself when he could build two or four. That said, the pharaoh may defend himself by noting that statues do fall down and their faces all too often are eroded, which is all the more reason to make backups. At least the statues didn't always have the same pose, he would sometimes change his headdress or even his height between statues. This also happened when depicting the gods, and I suppose this reflected different aspects of himself or just was meant to keep things visually interesting. However, we don't really see any Ramses at leisure, Ramses making a silly face, or the like.
Perhaps the least charming aspect of Egyptian temples is their tendency to depict chains of captured or beheaded foes, the pharaohs beating down enemies with their maces, or a sitting depiction of the pharaohs stepping on various rivals. As a testament to the range of peoples on Egypt's borders, these enemies tend to come in at least two ethnicities shown to the left and right. In this particular display each enemy had a cartouche with the name of the captured city, like a conquest tracking info-graphic out of the game Civilization. If I ever find an image of a bunch of these little guys pulling down the overarching figure of the king, I will snap it up in a second.
If you were an archeologist studying a mall, a "you are here" sign is among the best finds you could hope for. It would give an overall picture of the malls original dimensions and labels for various parts. A promotional image, would be a reasonable second best alternative. Such a picture could show the overall design of the mall and people using it in a typical manner. Luxor temple has the latter, and its shown on the right. Unfortunately, I haven't yet figured out an effective way to really highlight etchings, so you'll have to make do with seeing a bit of an outline in the left two thirds of the image.
What's shown is the front of Luxor temple, what's called a pylon. These two towers with an arch in between are a template for Egyptian temples. Ordinary citizens couldn't go past the pylon. They were limited to seeing decorations on the exterior and to viewing the icons of the gods on those special occasions when the priests would bring items to a window. However, there were still grand processions that were open to popular participation. The person in the right part of the image is leading a grand parade through the avenue of the sphinx from Karnak temple to Luxor Temple.
Forbidding all but a few people from even entering these grand monuments seems like a blasted waste to me. If the god are going to ask people to worship them, allowing visitors to come through the front door every now and then seems only reasonable. However, in fairness to Egyptians, just seeing the front itself must have been pretty dang impressive.
I spoke with our tour guide more today to nail down some uncertainties about land ownership in Egypt. She said more than 60% of the arable land is under government ownership, and that the farmers who work the land pay rent in taxes or in kind. The government does often want to claim the land for other purposes, but it sounds like the farmers successfully resist in a fair number of cases. I just saw today (April, 27) one notable example of successful resistance in the middle of Cairo. What's more, when land is seized it is reimbursed with other land. The replacement will likely be of lower quality, but that sounds like a hedge against lowballing and as a side effect slows the standard developmental transition from being a rural country to an urban one.
On the whole, these policies sound like a hedge against absolute poverty but that may also lock-in farmers. That lock-in could become a problem should urban unemployment decrease. Apparently the new government's agenda includes transitioning land from government to farmer ownership and renewed irrigation projects. Given the level of backlash against some of Mubarak's privatization policies, I'd suspect that any such steps would be pursued rather gingerly. Apparently achieving wheat self-sufficiency is also being discussed as a policy goal. I don't recall reading even liberal economist talking up self-sufficiency as a goal, but it may be a proxy for moving from subsistence farming towards a higher productivity agriculture. As an example, there's a narrow-gage railway in West Luxor for moving sugar cane which suggests that it is, or at least was, a crop that could be sold at market. I suspect that agriculture reform paired with the urban unemployment problem, will be the key tests for the upcoming democratically elected government.
Next: Luxor temple. That involve going out of chronological order, but I figure what readers I have left may be sick of farm talk.
The farm we visited on the banks of the Nile hadn't existed more than half a century ago. This may seem odd, Egypt is one of the world's oldest civilizations and since the beginning it has been centered around the Nile. However, until the building of the Aswan high dam, the great river's flooding was uncontrolled. When we later visited the dam, I learned that it had increased Egypt's arable land by some 30%.
When the land became safely available, Ahmed's family had claimed a small portion of it. As I understand it, West Luxor has any number of similar claims for 4-5 acres with nebulous ownership status. Denial of electricity in some cases aside, the farmers are allowed to keep their land but it wouldn't officially be there property. From what I've read elsewhere, this is important as it would mean that the land wouldn't be part of the official economy and thus couldn't easily be loaned against or sold. This, in combination with unemployment in the cities, would give farmers a reason to prefer subsistence agriculture to many alternatives.
I don't have a clear sense of whether the middle class farm we visited was representative. We did often drive by fields that were far greater than half a dozen acres. However, I'm told that in many cases the expanses are subdivided into any number of smaller farms. Thus the dam and land policy seems to effective guarantee an opportunity to earn a livelihood for some farmers, weather allowing.
All that said, as Ahmed was the first to acknowledge, the 30% gain in arable land was not without a price. First off, there's an opportunity cost in losing the economics of scale from larger farms. More important is a legacy I'll discuss when we get to Aswan: building the dam meant that tens of thousands of Nubians were relocated from the banks of what became Lake Nasser. The human toll was supplemented by other environmental impacts such as the denial of rich silt and a raising of the water tables.
When I think of reasonably successful farmers, I normally assume that they'd be selling their farm goods at market. However, our host Ahmed was a subsistence farmer in the Egyptian middle class. The 4-5 acres he was cultivating was aimed at feeding his twenty-some person extended family household. As you'd expect, this involved any number of ingenious techniques for making a range of products. For example, on the right is more than a dozen loafs of sun bread. While they do have an oven, the climate gives them the ability to get a fair amount of their baking done by just leaving the dough out. The end product is fine, not the best bread you've ever tasted, but it could work well combined with a good dip. The ingenious part is the baking 'stones' which are a reprocessed version of a common material that merchants are happy to give away with a purchase: egg cartoons.
Avoiding the market involves using a fair number of hand made tools, some of which are passed down through the generations. For one example, see the grindstone the family uses. While the weight is fairly daunting, the end of the video shows that even a child could operate it once you overcome the static friction when it is at rest. From what Ahmed said, not every farm has such a tool, others from the village come by to use it. I suspect that there is some in-kind trading involved as various households allow others in the village to take advantage of their specialty tools.
Manually operated grinding wheel.
Finally, those that read the last entry may be asking: so how did they afford new lights and a washing machine? The answer is that instead of selling food they use surplus labor to produce handcrafted furniture. The techniques involved in creating the wooden furniture were easily demonstrated but effective. Holes were bored with hand crafted tools and attachments made by exploiting the natural expansive properties of wood. The final pieces were great to sit on and quite attractive and I'm guessing could be sold at a much higher margin than agricultural goods. Obviously the family were good savers, reserving money for major purchases like an appliance or a trip to Mecca for Ahmed's mother. I think the key enabling factor is the small size and wide distribution of the farms, which I'll discuss in a future entry.
[Minor update: I've decided to mention Ahmed by name.]
Being in country for only a few weeks, let alone on a tourist trip, is regularly disparaged as a means of gaining in country knowledge. However, while hardly science, it still is a means of augmenting knowledge about a country. In this case, Overseas Adventure Travel includes a few interviews with admittedly a rather biased sample: a farmer in Luxor, a dinner with an Arab family in east Aswan, and a visit with a Nubian family in west Aswan.
Our talk with a middle class farmer was quite illuminating, his English was excellent and based on the answers he gave to our group he seemed both willing to speak honestly about his life and wise enough to see beyond his immediate situation. Like everyone else we've spoken to on the issue, he strongly favored the revolution. There wasn't much in the way of protests in west Luxor, based on what he said, but citizens did gather downtown to watch the news and cheer on the protesters.
The most immediate impact on their lives is that their farm now has electricity. That was a fairly shocking rate of progress until he explained the reason: the Mubarak government hadn't been extending electricity to parts of west Luxor in hopes that the farmers would move, which would free up more land for development. Based on this anecdotal evidence, it seems as if the difference between west and east Luxor may be the result of political battles rather than special traits of the Nile or a lack of bridges. However, that policy has now been reversed and electricity has reached the farm. This seems to be a fairly straightforward case of popular accountability sweeping away low-benefit unpopular policies. I have no idea what development approach would be best for Luxor in the long term, but I do think the high unemployment rate in Egypt shows the limitation of resort oriented development. In the meantime, I'm glad electricity has arrived to this farm and with it not television, but a washing machine (my mother noted that particularly delivery), which should greatly change how the females of the household spend their busy days.
As much as I enjoyed the trip to the Egyptian Museum, I really started to feel like I was in Egypt on the first day in Luxor. We boating over the Nile, visited with a middle class farmer, and walked the streets to a business that empowers local women, and enjoyed the view from a rooftop restaurant. I'll post on each of those in turn, but first the journey to the west and back. As a bit of context, ancient Egypt's cities were on the east bank of the Nile while the tombs were on the West side. Our guide has told us that this belief resulted from the path of the sun which when it sets in the west travels through the underworld to return to the East. While the Nile runs the length of the country there are only twenty some bridges and between Luxor and Aswan the two sides were often quite distinct from one another at times almost seeming like different countries.
Luxor proper is a city with a tourist district along the water with continuing density, five story plus buildings and the like, further in. By comparison, we spoke to a farmer directly on the west bank of the Nile and he didn't really consider himself a resident of the city. There are towns and some reasonably tall buildings amid the west bank farms, but I'm told that most of them are multi-generational extended family dwellings. [The picture to the left is of a few such buildings in West Luxor]. Population growth is fairly high here, 2-3 children for middle class farmers but 5-6 for poor ones, and from what I'm told that's driving most of the construction. Due to this growth, upper levels of buildings are often left intentionally unfinished, with rebar showing. This allows for adding more floors when finances allow or family size demands expansion. This didn't seem as common in the center of west bank towns, I would guess that this may be a somewhat recent trend.
[Update: I changed the post date to properly position it chronologically.]
After the Egyptian museum and lunch, we had a bus breakdown which ate up time for any smaller trips. So after a quick stop by the Egyptian tomb of the unknown soldier and the viewing stand where Sadat was assassinated, we were off to the airport.
The flight was fairly uneventful aside from some good conversation about reading material about Lawrence of Arabia and a female counterpart that had separately worked against the Ottomans.
We were staying at the Steinberger Nile Palace hotel in Luxor, which was off the Nile and in the city proper, albeit a fair walk south of the main river walk and Luxor temple. They had a nightly show, admittedly a more dinner theater than high culture one, put on by the staff in a lovely courtyard. The balconies were a real perk, both for entertainment and a place for quick drying the limited pieces of clothing I ha brought.
To my chagrin, I did have a couple instance of failures to communicate with waiters that night. First, after ordering for two, I ended up with two beers rather than the beer and wine I'd selected for my mother and I. I just went with it, but, apparently, a waiter was wandering around the wrong end of the table with an extra cup of wine that that I could have easily snagged. Second, I'd joined my mother and two friends after dinner for a hotel meal that was free for them due to their late arrival the previous night, but I would have had to pay for it. I wasn't really hungry and told the manager I'd be content with a piece of birthday cake I'd brought from the birthday party of someone in our tour. I was worried enough about the protocol there that I just resigned myself to paying when the waiter kept bringing dishes. That got him chewed out by a manager and an intentionally untouched dish was reclaimed. We left an extra tip. These fairly ridiculous instances of conflict aversion ended up just complicating things for everyone, and as my negotiating practicums have shown I need to stick up for myself early and often. To ameliorate the angst of this past paragraph, here's a picture of the first cat I saw in Egypt while wandering around Luxor that night. It wasn't an especially interesting trip, but it was still great being out on my own for the first time.
The streets themselves kept my interest but although I didn't get any sort of big picture feel for Cairo. That may change once I've walked around some, I think navigating and recognizing neighborhoods is key to learning the character of a city. Of course, major planned features like D.C.'s mall, New York's central park, or the lakefront in Chicago give an easy point of reference that speed the process. Rivers like the Nile help, but rivers are a defining feature for so many cities that even with giant papyrus themed towers aren't quite enough to do the trick.
That said, I am shallow enough to be charmed by statues wearing fezzes without know the details of who is being depicted. This particular one also has an interesting pose. There's some sort of stand behind him and it looks like he's rested an overcoat on it. I tend to be a fan of simplifying styles, but there's something about including the right unnecessary detail that can really make a piece for me.
Mixed use is the rule, cars and buses share the streets with pedestrians. Our guide pointed out that the mix varies from neighborhood to neighborhood with richer areas like Heliopolis being more automotive and downtown having more buses pedestrians and donkeys. Bicycling doesn't seem aren't here, but I did see rental places in Luxor. The use of donkeys isn't driven by the price of gas, which is highly subsidized, but instead by the price of new cars. This can also be seen in the age of many of the automobiles.
I normally prefer not to drive in cities, and that preference would be quite vehement in Cairo. Instead, on our return, we'll be ticking to the Metro system and we've gotten confirmation that we will be staying downtown rather than off isolated by the pyramids or the airport. I wonder if they have a smart card to add to my collection. Presumably not, I'll have to research that back at the hotel.
Hands down, my favorite part of Egyptian cuisine has the various dips and sauces that accompany the bread. There's both more variety and a mix of stronger and more sophisticated flavors than I've gotten at Middle Eastern restaurants back home. The pepper mixes and garlic dip were particularly tasty, which is good as the chicken I got for the entrée was fairly bland. Subsequent meals have had quite flavorful grilled chicken, so don't take that as a knock against Egyptian meats in general.
Fruit, typically citrus and bananas, are a common Egyptian dessert. The most distinctive other treat are variation on shredded wheat pastries or bars. In this case, they came with cottage cheese so I just sampled but subsequent encounters have been consistently positive. Honey is a major ingredient and I'm sure their loaded with calories, but the taste combines familiar ingredients in unfamiliar but pleasing ways.
While the lower floor was chronologically organized, the upper floor was more thematic. Our guide took us through the Tutankhamen tomb exhibit and we were suitably overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of items stored in a rather small tomb. I do wonder what happened to everything that was stolen from the other 62 tombs in the valley of the kings. Were they sold overseas? to nobles? to future pharaohs under the table? or just melted down for their valuable components? The sheer opulence of the mummy's head piece is impressive but it hadn't grabbed me from an artistic perspective. I felt differently about the throne and much of the jewelry, those were just beautiful designed.
We'd also learned that the young king had been buried with multiple sizes of crutches and shoes because apparently you de-aged 5-10 years when going into the afterlife. I'm guessing that was a benefit aimed at those who died in old age. Speaking of after-lives, the Egyptians and the Chinese both would include scaled down items, such as ships in the Egyptian case, and modeled representations of servants. I suspect they arrived at the idea separately for practical reasons.
After finishing with the main draw, we turned to the guidebook to choose what small percentage of the rest of the exhibits we could see. The animal mummies, some for companionship, some for food, were memorable and included a mummified crocodile. Another room had Greek mummies, which unsurprisingly had rather different styles. Finally we rushed through battalions of model soldiers and got quick looks at diorama of ancient Egyptian life. Due to the rush, I'm not sure of the purpose for which they were constructed, but it's a legacy I'm grateful for.
There aren't many museums that bear the name of significant countries. There's the British museum obviously, but you don't really hear about the Japanese museum, the French museum, the American museum, etc. Being the preeminent museum's honor and the national honor at stake simultaneously. The collection must be both exhaustive to earn the "the"and so superior that it doesn't merely suggest that it's merely the only museum of note.
The Egyptian Museum accomplishes both tasks, its collection draws from all over Egypt and millennia of history. Thus, without the benefit of pictures, trying to summarize the visit would be rather a distraction from completing the rest of the trip. So, instead, a few observation. First, while Egyptian art can be rather statuary-oriented and repeats many of the same style, this does have the advantage of making it easier to see the changes. Some pharaohs have stern expressions, but a few smile. In early years both men and women are sculpted topless but as the centuries pass some of the women pick up dresses. One key point that will come up repeatedly in the temples is that classical Egyptian art was replete with color, although it has faded in many of the most familiar pieces. Hieroglyphics can thus have a visual appeal similar to that of an illuminated manuscript when seen in their full glory.
My favorite art style is probably that of the monotheist pharaoh, Amemhotep IV [who changed his name to Akhenaten]. He introduced a less idealized style, although while more realistic in some ways, it was also more stylized than others. I'm not particularly entranced by perfect physical specimens. I'll take interesting styles and artistic freedom to experiment any day. However, while the various periods, notably the Middle Kingdom, did experiment with realism, ultimately, the more classical style seems to have won out. I wonder how the history of world art would have changed if Amemhotep IV changes would have stuck. The Egyptians were first in so many things, and I don't doubt that their influence has carried through the ages.
Our trip to the Egyptian Museum took us through Tahrir Square twice, due to confusion about which entrance to use. The boundaries were a bit ambiguous: square is more of a figurative term, it is quite active, and there's multiple entrances. That final attribute and its centrality made it a hard-to-cordon-off gathering place. There were also any number of large buildings bordering the area which provide easy roosts for cameras and snipers.
However, that Sunday, it just seemed to be the vital center for the city's infrastructure, under construction but not revolutionary. As the news accounts have covered, the big protest day was Friday, which corresponds with Islamic services and, as a result, the main day off in Egypt. The prior week's protest had been preempted by the arrest of Mubarak, and I'm told that later this week the long standing and long hated emergency law was finally lifted. I don't know the status of the remaining political prisoners, since I've actually been catching less Egyptian news here than when I was home, but I suspect this should be a fairly effective sign of progress toward a more stable society.
The main exception to a typical city center square was the building that ha been the former home of Mubarak's National Democratic Party which went up in flames after the revolution started. Last I heard, there hasn't been any attribution of responsibility on that one, although the popular theory is that it was self-inflicted to destroy records. I've got no particular insight on that score, but I am rather curious what will happen to the building. It borders the Nile and is visible from the square, an it is obviously on a prime piece of real estate. I suspect whatever happens with the building, it will be a symbol of the larger fortunes of the party. Supposedly, this party has more of a chance in the upcoming elections as they're to be held in only six months. With the exception of the Muslim Brotherhood, no other group has existing campaign infrastructure. However, that doesn't accord with what I've heard from some of the locals.
By the end of my trip to China, I was starting to pick up the ability to walk away. That was a skill I put to use with mixed success in Cairo. On the first day, we were stuck way out of town and our guide mentioned hitting a local mall as something to do within free time. I checked with the travel service at the desk about getting a ride their and back and their price was nowhere close to the $4-5 each way that my guide had mentioned. I got them down from 300 (~$50) Egyptian to 150 Egyptian (~$25) and was offering 100 Egyptian ($17) which was probably still too high but an acceptable markup for something to do. They told me to go talk to the taxis outside, and we failed to reach an agreement.
I'm fairly satisfied with that outcome, although my counter price should have been lower. I think they also may just honestly charge more than my guide thought when it comes to the pickup on the way back. I ended up swimming a bit, prepping my room, and checking out the hotel instead. I also exploited my two paid for meals and skipped getting a lunch. In the Cairo section, I actually overdid it a bit on the free food. By the time I left I was better knew my limits.
I did no other shopping of note in Cairo, sadly my subsequent bargaining experience have been les impressive.
People told me to take lots of photographs when I visited Egypt. After this post, they'll probably stop saying that. Helipolis is a ritzy neighborhood between the Airport and downtown Cairo. The mansion to the right was the fanciest, I believe it was own by a European baron, but there were any number of gated houses for the well to do visible directly off the highway.
Speaking of that highway, Cairo traffic was just as notoriously bad as everyone says. We did get stuck fairly often and my mother watched someone cut across at least three lanes of heavy traffic, including a bus, within about a cars length. Horns were rather prevalent and apparently it's rather difficult to even travel times. That said, I didn't pay that much attention to the traffic as I hate driving in cities in any event. One sign of hope, Cairo is apparently expanding its subway in reality after promising to do so for some time. We also later saw what might be a light rail track but perhaps is just the route for an electric train, as I don't recall hearing anything about that.
The traffic isn't surprising. Egypt's capital has 20 million people, more than a fifth of the countries 85 million total, but it only has two subway lines. A mix of underinvestment in infrastructure and incredibly cheap gas probably bare much of the blame. Thanks to subsidies, apparently 1 Egyptian pound a liter is common. That said, while infrastructure may improve, I doubt the new government is going to take on subsidies anytime soon unless the economic situation forces their hand.
Saving the downtown itself for the next entry, on the way back the bus managed to break down. Thankfully our driver managed to get us off the road safely and was able to call in another driver who managed to fix the problem. This whole trip is a bit of a special case, but I do feel substantially strengthened in my conviction to find walkable downtown hotels. That's no proof against breakdown of course, but I do feel I understand cities better when I navigate them by foot and transit and I'm biased towards transit-friendly cities in any event. It's not yet clear where we'll be at the end of the trip, but we'll find a way to try out the Metro in our last few days in Egypt one way or another.
The flight was a smooth one and the terminal appears to be quite new. The initial heat, sandstone style, Arabic, and other design elements all announce the location, but otherwise this seems like a standard word class terminal. Many of the people on the tour came over on this flight, which was a rather different experience than my arrival in Hong Kong a day before my tour in China. I suppose it isn't surprising that airports may become one of the more cosmopolitan and universal parts of world culture, although of course only to those who fly which excludes a large portion of the world's population. As I quickly learned, airport hotels are another area of similarity. The Iberotel has an all in one resort quality that reminds me of some time shares I've seen and includes both a Chinese and an Italian restaurant. That said, it does have its charms in the form of large stained glass windowss and some eat room art.
In any event, our next meeting is four hours away, so I may try to do some quick local exploring under the guidance of our guide. She gave the title to this particular post as its her first post-revolutionary tour. I must say, that was fairly exciting to hear. While I did speak to some friend Egyptians and Egyptian-Americans on the plane ride, that was the first time I actually have really heard commentary on the revolution directly from a local. That has a rather different feel than watching it on television or reading updates from twitter.
As I write this our Egyptian Air flight is passing south of Barrington en route to Cairo. I'd flown up to JFK, which had a nicer terminal than I expected and an unusual system of check-in desks at terminal four that seemed geared handling large numbers of passengers and easy reassignment of airline slots. As expected, I had to leave and re-enter through security which seems unnecessary but I did enjoy riding the air train between the terminals.
I believe I've managed to pack everything I need, about twenty-five pounds worth in my main bag and fifteen in my backpack, a good portion of that being my laptop. I would have liked to have done a more research on Egypt prior to the trip, although my obsessive following of the recent revolution means I know a reasonable amount about the present situation.
Reading the complimentary copy of the Daily News Egypt does bring home Egypt's status as a country that recently went through a revolution. In the day's news: eight of twenty six governors were fired, former President Mubarak remains detained for questioning despite claims of health issues, the treatment of 35 detained protesters is debated and a range of tycoons and former government leaders find their financial dealings investigated or their ability to leave the country denied. Critically though, it's a state more thrilling than frightening, the future is still unclear but disputes are of critical importance but appear to be handled through political and judicial venues. There's still much to be settled, but there's always something cheering about legal consequences for those once above the law.
While it's doubtless provincial to say so, I'm still impressed by international flights. The Spartan outlook of Southwest, my domestic carrier of choice, means that the TV screens, meals, and excellent features like under-seat outlets still strike me as extraordinary. We got a nice bag of freebies including a practical items like a toothbrush and toothpaste and a sleep mask, the ever popular standby of cheap headphones, and, to my surprise, a set of socks. There's also an under seat Ethernet plug but I have no idea if it's active, I'm told by a friend that I have a shot at wifi on my Lufthansa flight home but for now I'd say Egyptair has treated me rather well. Now I should probably get some sleep, as at this point it's 4:12 am Cairo time.
The Airtrain at JFK appears to be a fairly recent addition. I only rode it two stops, but it appears that there are lines (possibly via bus) to connect to several different means of traveling to New York proper. This is exciting news to me as it means we may have a chance to leave the airport during our the six hours we'll be laid over on our way home in two weeks.
As is fairly universal with these new airport train system the platform is completely separated from the tracks as a safety measure. In America, that practice seems largely reserved to the airports although when I was in Beijing the newer lines also employed it. I do wonder to what extent older system can be reverse-engineered to add such precautions. I recall a handful of suicides in recent in the D.C. Metro that disrupted whole lines and traumatized the Metro drivers in ways likely to stick with them for much of their lives. However, I suspect that there are considerable cost issues or engineering problems in achieving the required precision, as I don't recall ever seeing retrofitting to add these to an existing system.
(I could probably find the answer with some quick googling, but I figure that's not the best use of my time in Egypt and there's a hefty per minute charge on the broad band.)
My mother had planned a trip with two friends and a tour company well before the revolution. Egypt's future is still uncertain but the State Department has pulled back its travel warnings and the upcoming battles should be organizing and ballot box focused rather than taking place between protestors and police.
I'm quite excited to be going. I lack the words to express the admiration I feel for what the youth of Egypt have already accomplished by nonviolent means. The trip will be focused on Egypt's ancient history, starting in Cairo, going to Luxor, and then traveling down the Nile. It isn't oriented towards current politics and the State Department advises staying away from demonstrations, but during my guided travels and despite my lack of Arabic skills allows I hope to listen and observe and enhance my meager understanding. My regional interest is East Asia and that's not likely to change, but I've long studied attempts at democratization without ever coming much closer than East Germany a decade later.
Thus if any readers have any advice for my travels, please leave them in comments or send an email (gsanders at zort.net). I'll similarly take postcard requests for those so inclined.
Geography is rather peculiar in Epcot's world showcase, but perhaps it's just as well as I'm not sure the Japanese and Chinese exhibitions would be happy next to one another. Our first stop was Mexico, for food by the lake. The prices were in the $8-$10 range and the food was pretty good, but that's not really a surprise for Epcot. Higher end dining is available on the inside of the pyramid as is a boat ride which features Donald Duck a bit too prominently for my tastes. Even so, the inner courtyard has always impressed me although it does feel a bit smaller than the first time I saw it.
I have traveled to Mexico, but only for a few hours, a fact I must remedy some day. For the moment, the range of art and day of the dead related souvenirs reminds me of playing Grim Fandango, which brings back fond memories but makes me feel painfully underexposed to our neighbor to the south. I'm not sure whether it's a permanent exhibit, but I do recommend taking your time and looking around the crafts between the entrance and the courtyard. I didn't buy anything, but there were a few items I considered and the often surreal carvings seemed to be the work of vivid imaginations.
Following Mexico, we went on to Norway which features a mini flume ride that I rode later thanks to Fastpass. The boats were fun, although nothing so exceptional that I think it would make sense to wait in line for a non-trivial amount of time. There was a surprising bit of suspense on the ride though when we ended up having three boats line up behind us before we were shunted down into the drop. There was a succinct exhibit on Viking culture in the classic Scandinavian church that might be easy to overlook. Kate and I were both a bit surprised to learn (relearn?) that Lief Ericson's father was Eric the Red (obviously, Lief's father was an Eric; we'd just forgotten it was that particular one), who was known for founding a settlement on Greenland and giving it that deceptive name. Their relationship makes perfect sense but does make me think that I know far too small a sampling of historical Norwegians if two of the main ones are related to one another.
At the completion of our greenhouse tour, we went on to see Soarin' using our earlier acquired fast passes. The approach was a reasonable length walk, which is probably for the best give the popularity of the ride. After a Patrick Warburton-led flight safety video you're guided into a dark room with loose hanging rows of seats. The attraction involves being lifted above a screen in a hang gliding simulation over California. It was a lot of fun, even for Kate who normally isn't one for that sort of ride.
We had an excellent lunch in the food court of the Land pavilion. As you'd expect, many of the ingredients came from the hydroponic gardens and fish farms we visited. The prices were fairly reasonable and the portions ample. Afterwards we went to see the new attraction of the oceans: Crash's Turtle Talk. The attraction seats a small theater in front of a screen with an interactive computer-generated figure and a live human handling the voice. This worked pretty well; Crash had a range of behaviors, took questions from the audience, and whoever was handling the voice did a pretty good impression and did a good job working with kids.
We then proceeded through the classics of the topical Epcot exhibits, starting with the new Figment ride at Imagination! with Eric Idle. They haven't quite worked out how they want to handle that one. I'd recommend greatly increasing the level of surrealism; Idle should be capable of it. Afterwards, we wandered through some of the corporate exhibits in a classic world's fair setup on the way to the Spaceship Earth ride. The history of technology was enjoyable and Kate particularly enjoyed the 70s scientist lady near the end.
Afterwards Kate proceeded on to the World Exhibition and Mom and I went through the Mission to Mars centrifuge. The simulated G-forces were a lot of fun for me and we were amused by the slight interactive element. Each person had a role in the mission, but the role just involved pressing two buttons at an appropriate time.We were actually missing a commander, but through strategic reaching to an adjacent console, we were able to pull together anyhow.
This was my first live comedy show in a while. It wasn't for lack of opportunities; comedy is actually fairly common for D.C.-area fundraisers and as a teen I got a fair number of Capitol Steps CDs. However, I fell out of the habit much as I fell out of the habit of watching TV news. Between the Daily Show, Colbert, funny things on the internet shared by friends, and the sometimes comedic stylings of a range of specialist blogs (for international political economy humor, Dan Drezner is your man) I could get great humor on topics of interest for free. As a result, my standards for humor I was paying for went way up and I let various opportunities pass me by.
The show this afternoon makes me think I may have made a mistake and not just that time when I missed a show by leaving my tickets at home. Second City is a well known Chicago comedy troupe that I'd considered catching on prior visits to the Windy City. They do a mix of scripted skits, songs, and improvisation with highly talented ensembles that are feeder teams to various television comedy shows. For this particular show, they sent two of their writers to get to know Baltimore to give the show a local flavor. I'd say about a quarter of the sketches felt like they could just be performed locally, another quarter might have worked elsewhere but were adapted to Baltimore, and the other half included shout outs but would have been funny most anywhere.
This was a formula that really worked for me. I got most of the local jokes; my mother and her family are from Baltimore and the suburbs and since I moved up to Columbia I hit the city more often for a range of reasons. The real advantage was that it forced fresher material without mandating the headline chasing that can be common for topically oriented shows. The advantage over your average locally-oriented show is that Second City brings consistently intelligent writing and a top notch ensemble. [For the scripted parts, the writers were Megan Grano and T.J. Shanoff. Their introduction to the program was also funny, so I think I will try to follow their work in the future.]
[Warren Johnson was my] favorite actor for his sheer range. His role in the first musical number was questioning some of the rose-tinted glasses nostalgia from perspective of African American Baltimoreans, but his subsequent roles were by no means token and included a wide range of impersonations and shticks.
Favorite bits: the musical numbers (A take on city nostalgia, The Wire: The Musical, a dirge on the fall of the Baltimore Sun set to a tune from Fiddler on the Roof, and a musical revue of Baltimore's past mayors; a real estate agent bit; a crowd feedback session featuring doctors (princes of the city), A-Rabbers (not to be confused with people from the Middle East), and seventh year MICA students. You will notice the local humor pattern here, but that shouldn't be taken as a slam on the rest of the material. Without the range of other bits, which had some of the strongest punch lines, the Baltimore stuff would have risked getting too [incestuous] and some of Kate's friends who didn't have strong local ties did get a bit bored. Overall, most of them had a good time too and I'm really glad they invited me.
This is not by any means a show aimed at children, but for anyone else with any Baltimore ties I'd recommend grabbing tickets while you still have a chance. The venue, Centerstage'sHead Theater, offered a fair amount of seating while keeping an intimate feel. It did feel much more like a club than a theater; there was a bar in the back and there were tables with the chairs in the central seating area. We were all quite satisfied with our balcony seating: no tables but just one row so the view is great. If you pronounce Baltimore with the full three syllables and don't care about the local humor, than I'd definitely recommend catching a Second City show when they're doing a theme that grabs you. The tickets aren't cheap but it's an experience you aren't likely to get elsewhere. My only caveat: it is Baltimore by and large from the perspective of the reasonably comfortable middle class; they don't ignore racial issues but the Baltimore of Ta-Nehisi Coates' Beautiful Struggle is mostly seen through the filter of The Wire and a mocking of overwrought fears.
Buy tickets here. Prices go up some on February 11th and the show closes on the 20th.
Our tour group was comprised of eight people and our guide, a reasonable size for walking through fairly narrow areas. Our first stop was in one of the pest control labs in the back, where they study ways of fighting fungal blights and flora-destroying bugs with predatory insects that feed on or otherwise disable the destructive ones without harming the plants. Our tour guide handed out several vials of ladybugs to be released later. Greg took his ladybug-carrying duty with great seriousness. I remembered my mom trying a similar thing with her rose plants, gently transferring any ladybugs she found to them so they could eat the aphids there.
We headed outside and passed by one of the labs where they're growing plant samples and actively doing join research with the U.S. Department of Agriculture on various plant blights.
After that, we walked into one of the hydroponic greenhouses. This is where the walking tour starts revisiting parts of the boat tour, but from the other side. Here, pots of colorful edible flowers, herbs, and giant brussels sprouts dangle from overhead conveyer belts. Our guide admitted that this part of the setup was done primarily to look cool, but it is a tourist attraction in addition to a working greenhouse, so it's quite understandable. Here we also learned about making our own miniature hydroponic gardens at home, using an aquarium as the base. We're considering making an herb garden, since we would like to have fresh herbs available and neither the strong sun exposure of our front yard nor the shadowed parts of our backyard are conducive to growing them.
In the next greenhouse, we revisited the vegetables: cucumber vines, tomato trees, romaine spirals, and a patch of lettuce that spelled out the word "Epcot." Here the ladybugs were gently released to perform their pest-control duties. We also got to see the Mickey ear-shaped molds used for the cucumbers and got to have a sample of a non-Mickey one. It tasted pretty much like a normal cucumber, though I thought it was a bit more green than most. The greenhouse after that contained the massive citrus and squash, including a nine-pound lemon with a two-inch thick rind that could produce up to a gallon of juice, and giant pumpkins that could be the start of a Cinderella coach growing program.
Next, we headed back to the fish tanks. We discovered that tilapia is one of the most efficient fish to commercially farm, as they have a very high growth rate. We each got a handful of pellets and got to feed them They're very lively at feeding time, so there was a lot of splashing around. We also got a look at the huge bass, the large catfish, and the (no oxymoron) giant shrimp. I guess they're more like prawns. There was also a tank full of small alligators, which surprised me. I'm not really used to thinking of gators as something to be farmed, but they apparently have their commercial uses as well.
Finally, we made it to the last greenhouse, which was the first one we entered on the boat tour. Here we got a close-up look at a banana tree, which I had never seen the flowers of before. I had also never seen a pineapple plant, either. There were also a whole variety of teas: the standard tea plant, but also mint and jasmine and several others. There was also an herb garden, and we played a game where we passed around vials of different types and had to guess what they were. The ginger I got right away, but embarrassingly enough I missed the vanilla.
After that, we retraced our path through all the greenhouses, thanked our tour guide, and rejoined the hustle and bustle of the park. It was just about time to head off for Soarin', which we'll cover in the next entry.
~Kate
Photographs by Greg Sanders and family, available under a creative commons license.
No sudden but inevitable betrayals here, just lots of neat things to see at The Land pavilion in Epcot. Hello, this is intrepid guest blogger Kate!
When we first got in to the park, I had my requisite oohing and ahhing moment at the giant silver faceted sphere (actually called Spaceship Earth, after the ride it contains, but we'll get to that later) before we headed off to The Land pavilion. Our guidebook highly recommended Soarin', a recently installed ride in said pavilion, so we decided to go straight there and get Fast Passes for it so we could be assured a space.
I'll take a moment here to explain about Fast Passes, which we used quite extensively at the Magic Kingdom the next day. Basically, you take your ticket to the entrance of the ride/attraction and insert it into one of the Fast Pass machines. It prints out a pass for each ticket. The Fast Pass has an hour window in which you can return and get into an express line. So, for example, earlier in the day you might be able to get a Fast Pass for 11:00 to 12:00, but by midday you might be looking at 5:17 to 6:17. For the really popular rides, Fast Passes run out by midafternoon. Captain EO was Fast Passed out by the time we got into the park, which couldn't have been more than half an hour after opening.
We got our Fast Passes pretty early, but we still had two hours before our window opened. We decided to go on the Living with the Land ride, right next to the entrance for Soarin'. This is a boat ride through several animatronic landscapes, such as a jungle, a desert, and a prairie, followed by some environmental discussion on the effects of humans on the land (i.e. over-farming and deforestation versus conservation efforts) and finally a brief tour through the actual working fish farm tanks and greenhouse right on the premises. This is possibly the only remaining part of Epcot that's stayed true to Walt Disney's original vision of a place to actually live and work.
For an extra $18/person, you can take a walking tour of the greenhouse, which lasts about an hour. We were intrigued by what we saw on the boat ride and wanted a closer look. I admit to a love of greenhouses in winter and an interest in cool biology stuff passed down to me from my mom, a former high school biology teacher. So we decided to spend the extra money and take the tour. They gave us nametags to fill out and told us where to meet up for the tour star.
We had about half an hour to burn before the tour started, so we went to see The Circle of Life, a film starring Timon and Pumbaa (with a guest appearance by Simba) that's billed as an ecological fable. It was a little preachy, but not overly annoying, and I'm a fan of the original Lion King movie, so it was fairly cute. I admit to being a bit worried that we'd be late for our tour, but the timing worked out perfectly, continuing our streak.
Photographs taken by Kate and family available under a creative commons license. Slideshow to be included in the second half of the post.
While focused almost exclusively on the man's virtues, the museum deserves a bit more description in its own right than it got in my thematic analysis piece. The museum starts with artifacts from Walt's life, including a childhood desk that he'd carved his initials into, a range of early drawings, a work bench, video of his ride able backyard model train, and the like. At the end of the exhibit, a film covered this territory in greater detail with pictures from his life and narrated by the man himself. Walt Disney had encountered a fair amount of failure in his day, including losing rights to Oswald, his first brand-worthy creation and forerunner to Mickey. Based on the film, it sounded as if his brother Roy had gotten Walt out of jams a fair number of times. Ultimately Walt had passed on before Walt Disney World was completed; Roy had seen the project through but died three months after.
The exhibit spoke some about Disney's inspiration for Disney Land, apparently Walt was waiting while his daughters played at a traditional amusement park and started doodling ideas for attractions that would hold the interest of adults. At first this seems surprising: obviously the Disney parks have a definite orientation towards children; it may be more accurate to say he was trying to expand the appeal of such parks beyond thrill-seeking adolescents. Disney rides tend not to place less emphasis on excitement and more on story and spectacle. I think Disney was the first to really introduce theme parks with their lands inspired by genres, regions, or periods of history. Thus, it isn't surprising that the museum featured models that covered not just rides but also static attractions like the Tree of Life on the left. That's from Animal Kingdom, which I still haven't been to, but now I rather want to go if only to recapture fond memories of Quest for Glory 3. Taken to their logical extreme, these lands actually constitute a mix between a playground and a garden. See for example the Honey I Shrunk the Kids attraction, which I think gets to why they are popular settings for games and films in settings where park rules don't apply.
I doubt it will ever happen, but the models even made me want to see Tokyo Disney. The Age of Discovery land seemed like it would be delightful to wander around even if there weren't any rides of note. This was often the case in the World Showcase at Epcot where the rides and films were of secondary interest to the evocative architecture and streetscapes. While the constraints are different, I suspect level design for video games have a lot in common with designing theme parks. The Square-Enix/Disney Kingdom Hearts games may be the embodiment of this idea; in the best levels fighting enemies was often secondary to jumping, swimming, and flying around to explore the worlds.
Photographs by Greg Sanders and family; available under a creative commons license.
The Walt Disney museum in Hollywood Studios definitely engaged in heliography but it also provided an interesting look at the man and the parks. Notably Disney was a big fan of world's fairs, trains, and Lincoln, all of which endears him to my dad who would have likely spent less time around the parks otherwise. Before Disney had gotten into the theme park business he'd had one of the little trains that kids could ride on top of running through his backyard. Similarly, the Hall of Presidents was proceeded by an animatronic Lincoln at a world's fair. The design for Epcot is perhaps most interesting; it had originally been intended to be a model community of the future. The monorail would be supplemented by the people mover, featured in Tomorrowland, and would take people to workplaces that weren't centered around entertainment. Presently, there's only one exhibition, "The Land," that really seems to fit with Disney's original vision.
So, based on what I saw in the exhibit and know about Disney productions in general, I would say that there does seem to be a somewhat unique core philosophy: namely, providing high production value entertainment experiences to inspire and temporarily sate the dreams of a middle class audience. Generally speaking Disney doesn't traffic in irony or winks and nods, although that has changed some with self-aware Pixar products. As the Peter Pan ride to the left may remind you, Disney can provide the fairy dust but you have to think the happy thoughts. Rather than help you structural impediments to your dreams Disney tries to provide a walled garden where they can come through that in the real world you can recall through your imagination and the merchandise they'll gladly sell you.
Walt Disney World attractions regularly refer to magic when describing their automatic doors and the like. The school of magic in question is illusion, long favored by entertainers and apparent even in the architecture. Higher levels of buildings like Cinderella's castle are built on a compounding 5/8s scale which makes them seem much bigger than they actually are. I'd add that this illusion is quite necessary; by definition not every little girl can be a princess, but skilled trickery allow peddling an upper class experience to a middle class audience. The Disney Corporation sometimes falls short of this goal; I don't doubt that they did even in Walt Disney's day, among other failings. However, I don't think it's surprising at all that this vision can be enticing to the global aspiring middle class, as shown by the innumerable Brazilian tour groups we saw during our trip.
Photographs taken by my family and available under a creative commons license, not withstanding any copyrights on the original material being pictured.
While I am informed that we should have caught Muppets 4D, I am glad to say that I feel no regrets about what we did next: The Indian Jones Stunt Extravaganza. The conceit of this particular show was that they were filming scenes from Raiders of the Lost arc with Harrison Ford's stunt double. While this sort of meta-setup got middling results for the Great Movie Ride it worked well here because it was used to allow for audience participation and complex set changes without breaking the suspension of disbelief, and gave the cast and crew something to talk about in the down time. The three scenes in this version were a booby-trap filled temple raid, a battle in the streets of Cairo with a delightful chase up and around a castle a la Parkour, and finally a more traditional restaging of the airfield bomber/boxing sequence involving some crowd-pleasing explosions. The extras from the crowd participated in the latter two scenes and seemed to have a lot of fun, although they also demonstrated that being a good extra takes a bit of acting talent. All and all, the rapport of the cast was terrific and they could probably use some of those techniques for the Great Movie Ride.
We used the remaining sunlight to walk over to the east side of the park, which aims for a period Los Angeles style. To our delight, this included trolley lines and a streetcar themed food cart. I suspect that they made it in part as a tributes to 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit' which featured the old Red Car trolley system. I'd done the Tower of Terror before and neither my mother or wife were excited by the process. Two of us were pondering the Aerosmith Rock-and-Rollercoaster but the line was fairly long and we'd failed to grab a fast pass earlier in the day. Later on, we would make good use of the fast passes, but we had yet to learn of their great practicality
After checking out a villainous sweet shop, we went to the well-reviewed Little Mermaid show. The setting was an indoor theater, as compared to the arena seating for Indy. Another difference was that the show was a straight revue: a quick summary of the plot accompanied by three musical numbers. The fun part is that the sea life, with the exception of the titular heroine, is portrayed using puppets. The various characters are all well handled and the use of ultraviolet light both makes the creatures stand out and obscures the puppeteers. Mom had a bit of trouble hearing Sebastian, who had a rather deep voice, but otherwise the vocals were excellent. As is standard with the Disney shows, they also found ways to incorporate a multitude of senses with a watery mist that functioned as a medium for a supporting laser show work.
After the show, we did one last trip around the park before the 7 pm closing time. That observation leads to one other consumer advisory: in addition to watching for what parks and rides are closed in the off-season, if you aren't doing park hopping it's a good idea to check out how late the parks are open. It varies from day to day and from park to park. I'd really like if the Smithsonian would experiment more with a system like that. They have at times in the past and it seems like a great way to have at least one museum open after 5 pm without dramatically raising the staffing costs.
Photographs by Greg Sanders and family and are available under a creative commons license.
Walt Disney World had loomed large in Kate's mind as a kid, not an uncommon desire for American children, but she'd never made it down to Orlando. This trip we were remedying that, but since we were arriving midday we decided to hit one of the secondary parks for the first of our three days of visits. Hollywood Studios, an unfortunately generic name, is Disney's answer to Universal Studios and is an amalgamation of some Disney and Pixar-themed rides and shows with a range of other licensed properties like Star Wars, Muppets, Indiana Jones, and Aerosmith. While it is a comparatively smaller park, there was still too much to do in the time we had, so we relied heavily on a Frommer's travel guide given to us by my mother who was also along for the trip.
We started out with the Great Movie Ride in a replica of Grauman's Chinese Theater. The range of sets shown, sometimes for specific films, sometimes for whole genres, was neat but the audio system could have used some work as one of the guides proved rather difficult to hear. The sets were neat and there was a cool moment with the guides, although I think they might do better if their scripts had interesting content about films rather than focusing on expressing enthusiasm for them.
After hitting the Walt Disney museum, which merits its own post, we went on to the Magic of Disney Animation exhibit. That was a fun show about Mushu, Mulan's dragon sidekick, with a human 'cast member' interacting with screens showing the character and some of his original animators. Fun facts: Mushu went through a lot of iterations such as a two-headed dragon form, and the classical Chinese dragon animators were using as a reference model was said to have the nose of a camel. The show let out into a kid-friendly area where you could meet the characters, including to my amusement Mr. Incredible and Frozone, get drawing lessons, see a gallery of Snow White art, and the like. The exit was through an Art of Disney store which was my favorite type of store in the parks as they include Disney works in a range of styles, character sketches, and the like.
Leaving that exhibit we wandered through Pixar Place which was very kid and Toy Story-oriented. This seems like a bit of a missed opportunity, while there were several opportunities to meet Pixar characters there weren't any behind the scenes bits like we'd seen earlier in the day for Disney proper. I suspect that may be a result of the sometime indeterminate nature of the Disney-Pixar alliance. Leaving the Pixar zone took us by the Honey I Shrunk the Kids which was tragically closed ahead of schedule! This is a shame, as in my memory that playground was awesome; there were ant hill caves to crawl through, giant spider web meshes to climb up, and the like. Lesson learned: check the closing times and give yourself some time to spare. This is probably particularly true in the off season where a fair number of rides, like in this case the back lots tour, were just closed. Shortly thereafter, Kate also experienced great disappointment that in the Pizza Planet arcade there wasn't a claw machine dedicated to grabbing the little aliens from Toy Story, the closest available was a generic alien bin.
Finishing off the afternoon, we wandered through the cityscapes section which combined some of America's great cities at a single intersection. There was no real attraction there but it was cool enough to stand on its own. The adjacent Muppet area was also quite fun, although our guide book didn't recommend the show so we skipped it. I'd been through the show once before and found it enjoyable enough, but I think my ticket was nicked while waiting in line for it [the show on a prior visit] so despite being a Muppets fan I was a bit biased [against going out of my way to see it this time]. [That said, I'm told by a friend that this was a bad call.]
Photographs taken by the family and available under a creative commons license.
I'm now on vacation in Florida, so I thought I should finish up Pittsburgh and get on with my current trip. My friend and I spent much of the morning of my other day up in Squirrel Hill where his mother continued to be most hospitable. My last foray into Pittsburgh was then a visit to the Senator John Heinz History Center. The admission cost was [$10] , [$5] student discount available, and that covers both the History Center and the Sports Museum. There was also a Treasures of the Vatican exhibit available at additional charge, but partly because I've seen the actual Vatican museum we didn't care enough to pay.
We ended up only going through the Pittsburgh history exhibit since I had a bus to catch. It was a fairly classical approach, artifact-heavy with a with special touches like a very in depth visitor director Q&A with John Westinghouse. That particular interactive video had an interface that lent itself to frequently asked questions but allowed for more detailed exploration which seemed like a good balance to me. It was titled Pittsburgh: A History of Innovation, that wasn't quite true but [more history than innovation, but] the history of the city is [inexorably] linked with the history of its great inventors and industrialists notably Carnegie and Westinghouse. There's also a giant robot that smoked that's a holdover from a world's fair. All and all it was a satisfying way to spend a few hours and if you also want to hit the sports museum and other exhibits around the history center you could probably make a day of it.
After the visit we walked over to the convention center area, got lunch at a Subway, and then I caught the bus home. All and all a great way to spend two days.
We had reached our last day in L.A. and I still didn't have a smart card for the transit system, which would rather put a damper on my attempts to start a collection. I scurried about a few places in the government district downtown, but none actually had any TAP cards available. Setting aside that quest for the moment, Kate and I did our last exploration of Little Tokyo, checking out the exterior of a Buddhist temple in an alleyway and hitting the local bakery for breakfast. The Yamazaki bakery did seem to be fairly popular with the locals and was always busy of a morning with earlier risers and the local construction crews stopping in for various pastries.
We then decided to kill two birds with one stone and rode the light rail to Los Angeles Union Station. Even if you are arriving and leaving town by plane, as we were, the station is well worth visiting. It's one of the last of the grand American terminals to be built and it has a distinctively Western style. L.A. may be primarily associated with the automobile, but that doesn't mean that it's bereft of rail history. Aside from enjoying the architecture, the visit had a secondary purpose of finally allowing us to get TAP cards. Writing about this months later, we now have cards from three cities each and I have an additional one from Atlanta that I haven't used yet.
We rode back towards the hotel via the subway and after walking back by the L.A. Times building did one last circuit of the hotel garden and nearby open air mall with its somewhat surreal collection of murals. After that, we drove off to the airport and flew home. Thinking back now, I'm already nostalgic about the trip and I feel it certainly justified our preference for finding a hotel in a distinctive and walkable neighborhood. We should do more long-form travel, but in the mean time the closest we can come to really getting to know other cities is to gain some mastery over one part of town in addition to hitting some of the better-known sites. The real advantage of this technique is that it makes your home base a neighborhood rather than a hotel, which can't help but teach you more about the city.
Jumping back to our Sunday in Los Angeles, I realized that we'd forgotten to tell the story of how we'd gotten to the Huntington's Chinese and Japanese gardens. After playing around in the rooftop garden, we started that morning by driving up to meet with some of my cousins who were so gracious as to host us for lunch and to save us the price of one of our garden tickets. We unfortunately didn't capture some of the architectural thrills of the drive up; a few of the tunnels were cinematic in ways that we couldn't capture when driving back the other way. With the option to take the light rail into the city, I can see the appeal of living in Altadena or Pasadena, but Caltech had sensibly rejected my early application to undergrad, so I never found out.
After seeing my cousins, we went on to get as much time as we could in at the Huntington Gardens before they closed. The number of pictures we'd taken of various sections is actually a bit deceptive as we could only wander for an hour or two. Fortunately, we'd arranged our visit such that we were rather far away from the exit as closing time approached, allowing us to observe the lovely vine and flower-covered trellises that adorned a path back. That route skirted the rose garden which was obviously quite extravagant even at a distance.
Beyond the European-style arrangements our path wound through a tropical forest with more of a wild appeal that favored smaller numbers of exotic flowers. What we saw on just our exit would have satisfied me on a more typical botanical garden visit. With our time in Los Angeles then rapidly running out, we left the gardens and drove West to the Pacific Coast Highway. I do wonder how much irrigation it takes to maintain all this beauty and how L.A. may look to future generations if we have to retrench our use of water. On the other hand, the land seems to be so ridiculously verdant that I could easily see Angelinos supporting much of it at higher prices.
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