When we were in Athens last time, we wandered around without tour guides, and I wanted to take one “proper” tour. I booked it for the first half of Tuesday so that I would be free to meet with people arriving on Tuesday afternoon.
Short summary: too many people! Back in 2014, we were in Athens in March. It was warm and there was enough tourists around, so I pictured pretty much the same in the second half of October, but I was wrong! This time, there were crowd and crowns, and one stream of people moving up the the Parthenon, and another stream moving dows. The marble steps polished my millions of feet made these ups and downs quite adventurous.
It was still beautiful, and the sky was still blue, but I missed the lonely climbs we had back then, when at least at some moments, there was nobody except of us, the mountains, and the marble.
After visiting the archeological site, we went to the museum see some excavated artifacts. It was equally if not more interesting than visiting the site itself. Our tour guide was very knowledgeable, and we learned a lot from him, and each time after he had given us the information he would say: look, what a beautiful art! And now as I am looking at these pictures I took at the Delphi museum, and I do not want to write about each of the sculptures what/who do they represent and what is their significance. I just want to say the same thing our tour guide Kosta said: look, what a beautiful art! Look at all these muscles! Look at all these imperfect wrinkles of the clothes!
The ivory and gold statues of Apollo and Athena. They were buried near the temple in the antiant times when were became deteriorated of natural causesDid you know that you could tell just by the clothes or absence of it that the first culture represents a polititan, the second one – a warrior and the third one an athlet?The bronze Charioteer is considered to be a most valuable exhibit of the museum was created in 470s BCI don’t know who has lunch at 2-30PM, but apparently, some Greeks do 🙂 That was supposed to be a picture by the #marathon hashtag, but I opted for the better view behind me
A speaker whom I invited to present at Chicago PUG on October 15 came to Chicago for the first time in his life. That meant that I had to show him the city, at least for a little bit.
I booked the Chicago Architectural Cruise, and we agreed to walk around after that. Fortunately, the weather was not bad, although not as gorgeous as last weekend. Also, the docent on the tour was really good. You never know; it’s always hit or miss, but this was really good!
As usual, when I have very little time, I try to show some non-obvious places, so when we disembarked, I walked my guest directly to the Chicago Cultural Center. There, on the first floor, i saw an exhibit that I had no idea about:
When I was in Ann Arbor, Lena and I visited the Artisan Market, and I put my eye on a fruit bowl.
I couldn’t tell what was so special about it except that the colors agreed with some of my tableware. Several bowls were made by the same artist. The colors of all of them were very similar, but I chose the one you can see in the photo below because of the combination of the size and the color.
The way it blended into my dining room exceeded my expectations. Wouldn’t you agree it’s “almost Cezanne”?!
Today, after a very long break, I went to the Art Institute with the youth from the shelter. C. tried very hard to make things happen that time, but in the end, the only reason everything worked was the staff, who suddenly became available and ready to drive the youth to the museum. I just started to describe what was going wrong and how there was no way it could work, but then I deleted two paragraphs because, in the end, the important part was that there were three really engaged residents and the amazing staff, and everything worked perfectly!
For all of the youth, it was their first visit to the Art Institute, and they were overwhelmed with the options. They wanted to stop by each object on their way and read everything about it. As always, there were remarkable observations and unexpected questions. As always, there was a stop at Amorino after the museum was closed. As (almost) always, the youth thanked me for the outing. One of the youth was especially thankful and said: Sorry, I am not really cultural, I do not know anything about art and I didn’t know what I would like, but I liked everything!
Lena arrived an hour after my friends from Helsinki left for the airport (and I am happy to report that despite the World-Wide-IT Crisis, they safely made it home). I barely finished washing the sheets and towels.
Lena brought lots of cherry-flavored goodies, some fresh pickles from her garden, and lots of enthusiasm for doing touristy things in Chicago. And if you ask me – I am always in!
Yesterday was very hot, but today’s weather was going to be wild, so I tried to squeeze in as many out-of-the-house activities as possible. Some of my house guests objected, saying that they wouldn’t survive and that it would be even worse, so whatever I wanted to do with my guests this weekend had to be done on Saturday. It was great to spend Saturday doing fun stuff in the city instead of catching up with life as I do too often these days.
Here is how it went. As always, I started the day with a bike ride (a relatively short one, just an hour). Then I made breakfast: a baked apple pancake, scrambled eggs, and breakfast patties. Then we went on the Architectural cruise. It was already burning hot by 10 AM, and Sonia could not possibly sit on the top deck for the whole duration of the tour, so I spent most of it sitting with her downstairs:). The rest of the party was entirely exhausted by the heat, but they still loved the views.
After the cruise, we cooled down in the Architectural Center
And then walked to the Art Institute because the Rayan Center was closed last week, and Sonia didn’t get a chance to do art.
As it often happens, parents do not mind doing the art either 🙂Sonia drew Rogest Park BeachAdults took turn to see the actual art exhibits.Taking the bridge to Maggie Daley Park
And after that came Maggie Daley Park, and no matter how hot it was, those who wanted to do the climbing wall climbed, and those who wanted to explore Ship did so, and those who wanted to splash in the fountain, did so as well.
We finished the day at Acanto, and my highlight was a new dessert called lemoni. From the first glance, it looked like a lemon:
We returned to Tallinn at 8 PM and had a very late dinner at Pepper Sack:
I took the outside photo the next day, at daylightMoose meatballsApple and raisin cinnamon crepesSorbet boatThe Holland-style Townhall photoContinue reading “Back To Tallinn”→
I just mentioned it briefly, but I wanted to write about it “properly.” Not even to write – there is not much to say about it except that it is marvelous, but just to show the pieces I admired the most. And I am sure I will visit this exhibit many-many times…
I got out of my office building and hopped on the J14 bus to get to the Art Institute. I was smiling, because I saw the Big News just twenty minutes before. And everybody was smiling. And those who didn’t smile when they got on the bus started smiling when they got themselves situated and took out their phones. The seats on the right and on the left of me started to fill as the bus was making stops. A lady on my right looked up at me and asked: Did you hear? Yes, I did! They were fast to decide! Well, not that fast … but I am glad it didn’t take days! Yes! And now the question is, what’s next!
I got off the bus and went straight to the Art Institute. Today was the first day of the Georgia O’Keeffe exhibit preview. I almost never can make it to the first preview day, and that’s the best time to see a new exhibit with very few people attending. Miraculously, there was almost no line at the bag check, and the virtual line for the exhibit was also almost non-existent.
While I was there, I received several texts from my friends – Did you hear? – Yes, I did! I do not know how many people around me were answering similar texts, but there were a lot of smiles around. OK, this could be all for Georgia O’Keeffe 🙂
I knew were I wanted to go when I got out of the Art Institute – just across the road to Amorino!
Several new flavors, including biscotti and cinnamon:)
And when I got off the Red Line, I saw that sign by the Jarvis Square Tavern:
Hettie's Reflections 