As we walked to the Musee Fabre, which is practically next door, we got distracted by happy sounds from the Christmas Market across the street. This video hopefully gives a bit of the flavor of the street. The roller coaster is in the far background of the second view of the market street as I turn. Notice the food words I used (flavor, taste). I admit we have sampled the many food booths extensively. Luigi is so happy that there is a booth that will make him un-sugared waffles. I'm really enjoying the European way of making Christmas so festive! Today we rented a car and visited the walled 13th-century town of Aigues-Mortes. Very interesting history and stunning medieval architecture. We didn't have long enough (or enough energy) to explore as much as we wanted. But I got my medieval fix.
Today is the 100th day of our trip! To celebrate, we went out to a steak dinner. This particular restaurant makes life easy. You don't really order. They just bring you salad, then steak (with their special sauce) and fries. We did get to order dessert, whereupon I disgraced myself by completely misunderstanding the waitress. Wesley had to intervene and explain to me that "yes" was not the expected answer to "do you want this, this, or that?" Luigi impressed us by actually eating steak. He has really branched out, culinarily speaking! We're all ready to go home. But we have 9 more days At the bottom, it just stops. They need to drill through the wall into the apartment to connect it.
I'm sure that if you disconnected someone's gas you would leave a note. But, this is France. The pipe is in the stairwell, which is a stone spiral staircase. Seems a little perilous to put a gas pipe in a narrow staircase up which people may be carrying stuff that could knock into the pipe, but they didn't ask me. This has been one if those parts of our epic journey of which the less said the better.
Briefly, our rented apartment has no gas, which means no hot water and no heat. We didn't discover this until it was too late to do anything about it. We spent last night huddled under blankets in a 40F apartment. Unfortunately, our warm huddles were interrupted by the frequent barfing of poor Columbia. Poor poor thing. Tonight we have decamped to a hotel. It's basic but we're not being picky. Now we are warm and showered and Columbia is rocking a fever but seems to be able to keep down Sprite. The men plan to connect the gas on Monday, so hopefully we'll be back to our regularly scheduled awesomeness then. Meanwhile, Luigi is being a terrific brother, reading to his sister and not complaining. Before all these shenanigans started, we had a wonderful evening at the huge Christmas market right outside our apartment. It runs every day, so we will explore it later. Montpellier seems pretty awesome. We just hope to get our personal circumstances back on track to enjoy it. Antibes is lovely. And warm. And delicious. Today we walked along the seawall and visited the mega-yacht harbor. I am not exaggerating that these yachts are bigger than our house in Seattle. I mean, these things store regular-sized boats in their holds. Wesley took lots of photos; my iPhone ones don't do them justice. They are mostly registered in the Cayman Islands and Bermuda. Almost all of them were actively being worked on by numerous crew. You know your yacht is a big deal when it has a Wikipedia page (this is for the one in my photo below ... there were many more.) There is an awesome sculpture on the old bastion next to the port. This font-related blog does a much more literate job of explaining the whole thing than I would; plus it's got some great photos. I may have to send Wesley out with the camera after dark tonight! Afterward, we walked the other direction to the beach on the Juan-les-Pins side of town. Luigi was feeling tired but Columbia took off her shoes and socks and frolicked on the beautiful soft sand. What a life! This morning I had an almond croissant that was so good I asked Wesley to kill me then and there so that I could die in a perfect state of grace. (I may be reading too much about the Cathars in preparation for our trip to Southwest France.) But it's a good thing he didn't, because then I would have missed tonight's dessert.
With our friends visiting from Minnesota, we made a pilgrimage (ha!) to Genoa to buy food for Thanksgiving as well as to show them our favorite sights. The kids all wanted to go to the aquarium, so Wesley and "Mayflower" (well, they left me to make up noms de blog for them!) took all 4 kids (Luigi, Columbia, Squash Blossom, and Sweet Potato) to the aquarium. Meanwhile, "Wishbone" and I decided to visit the Galata Maritime Museum just down the Porta Antica from the aquarium. First we passed this awesome sailboat being painted (lacquered?) in dry dock. I wasn't really sure that I would find much of interest in the Maritime Museum, but it turned out to be really great. On the ground floor, there was a lot of information about the port of Genoa and its history, as well as a display about Christopher Columbus, with large-ish models of the 3 famous ships. (People in Liguria are *really* into Columbus; there are statues of him everywhere, including in Rapallo. Oddly, although most of the statues feature him pointing boldly, he doesn't seem to be pointing toward the New World but rather just vaguely toward the sea. Whatevs.) Then, we saw some cool conquistador-style armor, and the "living history" part of the museum kicked in. The rooms featured audio of the sounds of, say, armor being forged, and many of the displays also included videos with life-size costumed actors exhorting you with regard to some aspect of seafaring. Of course, this was all in Italian, so we were just skimming the surface of understanding. Though one guy distinctly said, "I've been to Barcelona, I've been to Venice, but they don't compare to Genoa!" The museum really got fun when we came into a room with a full-sized galley (rowed ship). You could go into the hold and onto the deck, and then along the side of the ship were several sections with interactive exhibits. I particularly enjoyed shackling Wishbone to his bench and making him row (the oars are heavy!) while accidentally forgetting to press Record to make a video. I think there were a total of 3 full-sized ships in the museum. In addition, there was a map room with 17th-century globes and 21st-century touch-screen displays, a gallery of beautiful paintings of ships, a whole ton of intricate and beautiful model ships, and a room dedicated to ship design and shipbuilding. I was really happy when I understood one of the videos (all in Italian) talking about the boats "galleggiante" (floating) ... yet another word from the very same Lyric Language song as nascondino! And lastly, on the top floor, a really awesome exhibition about emigration. You got a passport as you entered, and then in a completely interactive experience, your friends and neighbors gave you their opinions on the idea of emigrating, then you bought your ticket, then you went through passport control onto the boat, then toured the boat (including the various classes of accommodation), then disembarked in either Argentina, Brazil, or New York City. Bookending the exhibit were thought-provoking questions about modern immigration into Italy, comparing the motivations and experiences of the various waves of migrants. The period depicted was the same one in which my Italian ancestors emigrated, so it was a wonderful experience. I wished that my kids had been there. It was very special. Oh, there's also a real submarine moored outside, but we didn't tour it. Sounds like the tour is pretty interesting, though.
If you're ever in Genoa, this museum is a must-see. I just wish I had had time to take the kids to it. They would have loved all the interactive displays, and especially the emigration exhibit. Here's the museum's photo gallery. Their photos are so much better than mine (despite their funky fish-eye lens!). But here is what the day looked like outside. Ahhhh. |
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January 2014
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