My mini-vacation started with the horrific flight delay. I was so happy with how I planned Friday, avoiding the congestion at ORD by taking public transportation, only to depart five hours later than it was scheduled!
The good thing is that I was at the AA lounge, so I had food, drinks, and comfortable seating, and also I had instance access to customer service. Eventually, I was put on a flight that departed earlier than my original one. However, we were delayed a couple of times, even on that flight. The aircraft just started to gain ground speed and then stopped, and we were told we would need to wait for the storm to clear! So – one more adventure! At least I was able to get to my friend’s apartment in Boston five minutes after midnight, not in the middle of the night!
A surprising advantage of a large portion of the museum being closed for renovation was that I could focus on some interesting paintings and actually consider them.
I love Kandinsky, and I am usually very good at decoding his symbolism, but I had moderate success with his “Pleasures.” The only object I was able to undoubtfully identify was a fork on the right!Surprising PicassoHenry RusseauPaul Gauguin – I never saw horses on his paintingsGorgeous Van GoghToulous-Lautrec!And guess who’s painting is that one!
I also saw several interesting installations by women artists and a large exhibit of art made by children participating in the museum workshops. But as I said, I focused on a small number of paintings (and I am still intrigued by Kandinsky’s work – still wondering what to make out of it).
Yesterday was the day of my Russian Consulate passport appointment, and at this moment, I am hesitant to say whether it was a good day or a bad day.
It went perfectly almost to the end. I managed to go to bed earlier the day before, so getting up at 3-15 AM was not horrible. Uber pretty much flew through empty streets, and I was at the airport at 4-30 AM. In eight minutes, I was through security (and had to wait until 5 AM for a lounge to open, just so that I could have breakfast). One more time, the AA lounge at ORD is perfect, and serve a high-end breakfast.
The arrival was on time, I took Uber to the consulate – it was way earlier than my appointment, and I asked whether I can come earlier. They suggested I come at noon (my appointment was at 12-40). I went for a walk, and I realized that I was just five minutes away form the Gugenheim Museum, so I went there (I had to wait for ten minutes for it to open). A big portion of the museum is closed for renovation, which was not bad, because I didn’t rush and focused on individual paintings. Then I walked around the Jacqueline Kennedy Reservoir, and returned to the consulate by noon. No line, no Russian TV in the waiting room, they took my papers, took my picture, and my payment in cash. Twenty minutes later I was out. The security surprised me saying: see, it’s even before your appointment time! Now you can relax, sit down at the cafe and have a glass of wine! I replied that I better go to LaGuardia and have a glass of wine in the lounge, and called Uber. There was almost no traffic, and I actually had time to relax, to order an exquisite cocktail and to make several calls.
The flight was on time, and when I took my seat in the aircraft, I texted my neighbor that I will meet her at the Lyric Opera House at 7 PM. Everything was still fine, we were going to land ten minutes ahead of schedule, and a flight attendant already asked us to stove away our laptops and fasten our seat belts, and the plane was already descending, when, all of a sudden, we heard another announcement: we are going to land in Milwaukee!
What?!
It turned out, that a sever storm broke out of nowhere, and it was so bad that we could not land! it was also very swift, but since we already landed in Milwaukee, it took us another hour to get back in the air, including refueling and maps reloading :). It was for the first time in my life that something like that happened!
We landed at ORD at 7-15, and by the time I reached Lyric, it was 8-25, time for the intermission. And I was in such a rush, that I didn’t even stop tp grab a bite to eat at the airport, and when I was already at the Lyric, there were long lines to all concession stands (and there was no real food anyway!)
I still think that there was more of success than not on that day, but it was one of the longest and the most eventful days in my life!
I feel like, at this point, “in spite of my best efforts, I managed to make my Amtrak train” has become a running joke. For every time I made it onto the station with plenty of time to spare, there are two times when I caught it pretty close, either because I didn’t leave as early as I could, or there were transit issues, or some combinations of both. But even compared to all that, catching the Empire Builder today felt like miracle.
My plan was to do what I usually do when taking the Hiawatha train to visit my sister. Since I usually head down to Milwaukee on Friday, I take Red Line/Yellow Line/Pace Route 210 combination to the Glenview Amtrak station. It just feels silly to go down to Chicago Union Station only to go back up again on Amtrak when you live in Rogers Park. That’s not an option on the weekend, since none of the Pace bus routes serving Glenview run on weekends, so I just take the train down to Union Station and take Brown/Red line train combination up to Rogers Park.
I spent Friday afternoon and Saturday in Milwaukee with my girls. The weather was as almost as bad as it could be, so we didn’t bike together as we originally planned, but we spent a lot of time together, which was very satisfying, especially after the last week as it was.
I packed several egg coloring sets and three boxes of cookies I baked last Sunday and decorated on Thursday.
After my escorting shift, I picked up more pastries from Vanille before heading to Union Station and boarding the Hiawatha train to Milwaukee. The first four days of the week felt like one gigantic workday, and I was more than tired, both physically and emotionally. I literally felt my legs heavy and difficult to move. On Thursday night, I sat on the floor in front of the opened suitcase unable to pack my stuff.
I feel tons better ow, although the to-do list didn’t become shorter. We had a great time in Milwaukee, decorating more cookies, coloring eggs, reading books, and talking. It’s amazing how much you can rechange just by being together with your loved ones.
Nadia had a group violin lesson, so we all went to the conservatory, and this time, I had time to explore this beautiful building.
The best thing that happened to me in Pasadena was Amara Cafe! It was on the list of recommended places to eat from the hotel reception. I was a little bit suspicious because I didn’t know much about Venezuelan cuisine, and Mexican cuisine is not my favorite, but after some hesitation, I went there, and I was sold on the spot!
I asked the clerk what kind of hot chocolate he’d recommend, and he said: Venezuelan, of course! I ate my arepa and proceeded with hot chocolate. Never in my life, even in Lausanne, I tasted hot chocolate like this! I was sitting, sipping it slowly, and taking it in. It felt more than a drink, more than a food – a complete mind and body experience!
I returned to Amara one more time, on Sunday morning- thankfully, their opening time does not change, and although the city was mostly asleep at 7-30 AM on Sunday, the chocolate was ready.
The owner came out and asked me how I liked it, and I tried to describe my feelings:). He said: you can make it at home, and gave me a package: just follow the instructions! I am unsure whether I can really do it myself, but I will give it a try!
One of my old friends, with whom we unintentionally fell out of touch about ten years ago, lives very close to Pasadena, and I messaged her on my way to the conference. To my delight, she immediately responded, and we agreed to meet. We ended up meeting twice: on Friday night, when we mostly talked, and on Saturday night, when we went to the Norton Simon Art Museum.
The museum is incredible – the whole collection was put together by one person, and although relatively small, it contains an amazing selection of the finest works of world art. I also quite enjoyed reading the annotations to the artworks: detailed, clever, thought-provoking. I didn’t even notice the time when we were informed that museum was about to close.
Just a couple of artworks to illustrate my point: in an hour and a half, a complete history of European art from 13th to 20th century is unfolding in front of you, and each major trend and style is covered. I recall this visit and smile 🙂
The most interesting part of our DC trip was the visit to the National Arboretum, specifically to their Bonsai exhibit. Vlad asked us whether we would be interested, and we said yes, but then all the plans got mixed up because of the weather, and I guess Vlad didn’t want to pressure us. We still said we wanted, and it was great! Vlad and Dylon are a lot into bonsai, and they train several bonsias on their deck. Vlad’s knowledge on the subject is really impressive and he talks about it with real passion. I learned a lot of new things from him, like the fact that most often bonsais are found in nature, and then people keep training them and guiding their development. A lot of bonsais in the Arboretum are more than a hundred years in training, and for many, the date they were discovered is unknown. Vlad explained to us the differences in bonsai styles, and which species are used most often. When he was in Japan, he was gifted a catalog of the first after-WWII bonsai exhibit, and we looked through it:).
I took a lot of pictures; I will post a small portion of them, just to demonstrate the variety of what we saw.
Since I have already reposted my post about the conference, I will continue mixing up two trips.
I arrived in Pasadena on Wednesday evening. I had never been to Pasadena before. I have been to SF multiple times, and I’ve been to LA once, but never to Pasadena. I never loved California like many people do, and I didn’t expect anything different this time, but Pasadena took me by surprise. I entered my hotel room at 7 PM on Wednesday, looked around, saw a balcony and a couch by it, crushed on it, stretched my legs, and all of a sudden felt relaxed like I had never been for a long time. I didn’t even want to think “why”, I just enjoyed this moment.
During the conference, I used all the opportunities to walk around and look around.
My next trip is already in progress, and I still haven’t shown everything we saw in DC, so I will be brief.
Sunday was not much better than Saturday weather-wise. It was not raining, but it was very cold, and the wind blew worse than in Chicago! We still saw a lot, but it was going like this; DYlon would drive us to a place, we would get out of the car, see around, and jump back in :).
Hettie's Reflections 