Zaragoza, May 21

 Slept way too late (until 7:00) so had to hustle.  Ordered una tostada con mermelada y cafe con leche.  So much hope, so much disappointment! Both were cold, but that did not stop me from downing three cafes.  Sometimes you just have to suck it up.

Headed out on a river walk that takes in both sides of the Ebro.  Overall it was prettier than the Thames and just as flat.

But I am getting ahead of myself.  This is the bridge you cross to begin the circuit:

What is a river walk without water fowl?

At about 1:15 I sat on a bench that was supposed to offer a view of the river but grasses got in the way:

Nonetheless, birds were singing, the weather was fine, and the rest allowed me to make some headway on the Spelling Bee.  A two-and-a- half-day-old peanut butter and jam on challah sandwich is still edible.

On the return leg, one could see the Cathedral a few bridges away:

Back in Zaragoza, I was astonished to find....

There was a total of one person in the store! Speaking of stores, people here actually use them.  I have not seen one Amazon truck and this is a sizable city. 

It was about four when I got back to the hotel and it struck me that I had better hustle over to the Goya Museum conveniently located about a block from the hotel.  Most of the works were drawings, rather small, but Goya certainly knew how to depict horror.  Then it was on to a panadería to get a good loaf for tomorrow's sustenance and on to a kebab place for tonight's repast.  The chicken kebab was delicious.  On the way was a stop at a dried fruit and nut store where I augmented my supply.  Candied almonds in Spain are the best, gotta say!

Though I walked 18.5 miles today, it felt almost like nothing, but, no doubt, challenges lay ahead.

Zaragoza, Spain, May 20, 2024

 Grandma is at it again, and I am truly beginning to think this is  nuts, but let's forget about that and get to the kvetching and kvelling, which is the whole point of this blog.

Let me say that being picked up to go to the airport by someone who drives a way better car than you do is very nice, very nice, indeed.  The guy was a frightful bore, pero bueno, he got me th JFK sana y salva, and the mob scene at check in I had been anticipating did not, thank God,  meet my expectations.  In fact, it took about 2 minutes to check in—I highly recommend terminal 8— and security was pretty quick, too. BUT, as I approached the thingee you walk through, the guy asked me, "Any metal in your body?  Knees?  Hips?"  "Teeth," I replied, and was waved through.  (The questions did not please me.) Whilst cruising the lounge, I bumped into the corner of a cabinet or something, which caused a massive amount of bleeding.  "OH, ****, I am going to miss my flight because of this."  Many paper towels and much embarrassment later, I was given a large, square, blue bandaid (all they had), but then there was Hester Prynne who had it way worse. The bandage, which covered most of my forehead did not stop the bleeding, so more paper towels had to be applied—it is not at all elegant to walk around like this—but eventually (by the nest day) the bleeding stopped. 

I think I have discovered the perfect sleeping potion (private consults can be arranged) because I slept the entire flight.  The Madrid airport is something else; it requires an entire journey just to get to the baggage claim, where, it turned out, a number of luggages from our flight were not on the designated carrousel (#1), and the Air Tag had my bag thousands of miles away. This baggage situation must be a fairly common occurrence because there is a luggage help desk manned (will I be cancelled?) by  about four or five employees who track errant bags. "Your suitcase is in Madrid and will be  on carousel #6 in about 20 minutes." Forty-five minutes later it was.  Meantime, I had a car booked to take me to the train station and was frantic that la conductora would leave, but I made two calls to plead my case—I do not like speaking on the phone in Spanish—she waited, and was compensated, shall we say, handsomely.  Her car reeked of tobacco.

The train ride to Zaragoza was pleasant, the best part being two tiny luke-warm cups of bad coffee, badly needed, OK, not the bad part but the coffee.  At the Zaragoza train station there are more taxis waiting to pick up passengers than I have ever seen, hundreds of taxis, hundreds, honestly, a veritable convention of taxis.  At the hotel I was permitted an early check-in, a real luxury after a long trip, although the accommodation is far from luxurious.  It is extremely modest, in fact, note the quaint entry-to-the-room system: 

There is a pastry and coffee shop attached to the hotel, which, for guests only, is open 24/7.  I can hardly wait for a cafe con leche mañana.  In the meantime, and do not ask how, I dropped a copy of my passport out the window of my roon; it landed on the roof of a farmacia, also attached to the hotel, and was retrieved without too much trouble but with much embarrassment for me.

I spent the day walking about town, hither and yon, seeking out groceries, buying, inter alia, a shawarma (2 1/2 stars), fruit, cookies, bread and butter.  THE sight in town is the Basilica pictures of which you can examine at leisure.  Let's just say that I find it interesting to contemplate where different religions put their creative energy and to what ends. 

As I began out-and-abouting, I discovered that my phone was not connecting to the internet despite there being quite sufficient bar-age.  I fiddled with every damn setting, and at last got it up and running.

A selfie:

There is a huge amount of graffiti in the city, some of it not bad (if your standards are low):

But most of it just plain ugly:

I was intrigued by a pizza vending machine that promises to dispense an artisan pie in 3 minutes: 

Not intrigued enough to try it, though.

This here is a piece of fabric!  

A big accomplishment of the day, in addition to solving the internet problem, was learning that my credit cards and debit card are functioning as they should.  

Oh, but one scare before I left yesterday, was the discovery that the power strip I was planning on using has a grounded plug but my adaptors do not! So...AC grounded plug > UK adaptor > Eu adaptor.  Phew! 

August 08, London: Zoo, museum, and theatre

The London zoo is a very good zoo!   But you know it is not as if the animals hang around awaiting your visit, especially on a rainy day.  None the less, some were available for viewing.

Here, well, yes, but native to Indonesia, is a komodo dragon, the largest lizard in the world.  Adults can kill prey as large as water buffalo, which can weigh up to five times their body weight.  Should a water buffalo not be available for dinner, a deer or wild pig will do:

Sumatran tiger taking a nap.  Like the fellow above, it also dines on deer and wild pig, but also enjoys monkeys, birds, and sometimes tapir.

Not only were the tigers napping, so were the lions:

This African red river hog was not snoozing, it was rooting around for fruit roots eggs, insects, or nuts, anything it could get its snout on:

To see its face and some of its friends, look here.

What is a zoo without some monkeys?

Though not all have a butterfly house:

or a display of locusts:

or a big Brazilian hairy spider:

 Apres zoo, the Courtauld Museum. There, in a prominent position at the top of a staircase, hangs a huge painting (only a fragment shown here) by Cecily Brown, who, in the realm of predominantly male artists gazing at he female nude, decided to make the male body the central theme.  Not surprisingly, it is called Naked Men: 

Modigliani was content to stay with the naked female:

Naked bodies were not the only subjects. There were also lilies in a jar by Matthew Smith (1914):

 

And a lot of paintings that I was not terribly interested in. All in all, not my favorite museum.

However, Witness for the Prosecution was a brilliant theatrical performance at the County Hall:

Where, perhaps Counsel may have been a bit tipsy:

Though maybe just the audience indulged.

I was foreperson of the jury:

And actually got to speak for the jury and announce the verdict to "His Lordship!"  This was very exciting, very exciting indeed!

On the walk back to the Air B&B, I saw the Big Eye all lit up:

The next day, it was time to fly home.

The scarlet ibis stayed at the zoo.

August 7, London: Kew Gardens

Headed off to Kew Gardens on a route not along the Thames, otherwise it would have been a walk of way way way over nine miles. I am getting to see a number of neighborhoods in this  big city.

The first part of the walk went through St James Park and Hyde Park.  And it was not so early that, ahem, one should still be sleeping:

Most of the walk was through busy commercial streets.  Whatever they are building here, they are employing more cranes than the four or five—considered a lot at one site— used in the building of the two new colleges at Yale:

When you get right down to it, Botanical Gardens are different from gardens like Hidcote.  The latter are beautiful, decorative places, whereas botanical gardens' primary purpose is to collect species, study plants, and do research, therefore most of the flowers are grouped  taxonomically.  My self-appointed editor—you know who you are—correct me if I am wrong!

There were some pretty beds, but I don't have any good photos to support that claim.  The greenhouses were fabulous!

Note the appendage with the red pod-like thing emerging from the clump of bananas:

This is a palm that flowers and fruits underground (or maybe this is not that exact palm, but there is a palm that does that).  Most palms are pollinated by insects, but regarding this one, researchers have observed seeds being dispersed by foraging pigs.

A flower:

Water lilies:

So spectacular they merit two pictures:

Those saucer-like plants remind me of the poem about Wynkin, Blynkin and Nod who sailed off in a wooden shoe.  They could have used these and had a more comfortable journey! 

Now here is a factoid:

These are the fruit of the sago palm:

Very appealing looking, but ¡ojo!, beware!

                                                             

                                                           A dangerous delicacy

The common name sago palm refers to the edible starch derived from the spongy centre of this species stems, roots and seeds. Cycads contain a toxic compound called beta- methylamino-L-alanine (BMAA), so it must be processed before being eaten.

BMAA is linked to a neurological disease known almost exclusively from the tiny island of Guam where sago is a staple food. One theory points to fruit bats as the trigger for this disease. The bats eat large quantities of cycad seeds and so accumulate the toxin; humans then eat the bats and accidently consume the poison. A decline in bat population has been found to correlate with fewer cases of the disease. Less bats - less humans with BMAA.

                                                                            Killer bread?

People make the stems, roots, and seeds of sago palm into a spongy type of bread. It is a long process that removes poisonous chemicals found in the plant. If you don't do it right, these chemicals can cause a deadly disease that affects the nervous system.

There is so much to learn about in the world of growing things!

After the Gardens, I walked two miles to a bus stop, where I took a bus, yes, to the neighborhood, more or less, where Selfridges is, OK so a mile plus change distant.  I just had to see their food halls so that I could compare them to those of Harrods.  Harrods wins thumbs down, but I did buy a good lamb kebab that came with a container of tomato and feta salad and some delicious hummus. I also bought some weird candied popcorn destined to end its life in the trash, and two bottles of a carbonated lemon drink.

I wonder, should I have purchased one of these?

Whether or not that is a rhetorical question, I am not sure!

August 06, London: three parks and two museums

The drama of the day was that I lost my key.  How I do not know as I always put the key in my pants pocket.  The real problem was the Air B&B nightmare: host does not reply to message and the "people at Air&B and B who are always here to help," don't. It got straightened out...after five hours of frustration.  I didn't have to sit around and wait the whole time because I had a ticket to Macbeth at the Globe.  I left just before intermission, that is how painful the performance was.  There was good mood music all eerie and stuff and drums, but the costumes or rather lack thereof, acting, staging, the props, all of it really bad.  I expected more from the Brits!  I looked up some Reviews to see if I was alone in thinking that this was just about the worst Shakespeare I had ever seen, but although the reviewers are more restrained than I am, most did not exactly love it either.  And tonight, as I was texting my host, I mentioned the play, which, he, too, had seen.  In that quintessentially British way he summed it up:  Pure rubbish! 

The Globe Theatre, though, worth the price of admission.  

On the way to Hyde Park, one passes Buckingham Palace and the guards must have gone down with Alice because they were not in their little houses:

There were a couple of hard-working security guards on duty:

Hyde Park Rose Garden:

where roses grow up the trees.  Would you expect anything less?

And ducks swimming in the lake:

and where everyone is busy getting all preened up for the day (or else they are very itchy):

and where there is a sad story about a bridge.

            FIERY END TO THE PARTY IN THE PARK

If you were standing here on August 1st 1814 you would have seen a Chinese bridge with a spectacular pagoda on top.  It was built for a great national party held in the park that night to celebrate British successes in the war against France.  The pagoda was seven floors high and lit by gas lamps so that it blazed in the dark. It was covered in fireworks that would be let off at the end of the party.  

The Pagoda on Fire:

 

                                THE BLAZING TOWER

Large crowds packed the park to watch. But before the fireworks began, the gas lamps set fire to the pagoda. The audience thought this as part of the display and cheered loudly as the top half toppled into the lake. Most were unaware that two people died trying to put out the flames.

The pagoda was destroyed but the Chinese bridge survived until 1825. An iron suspension bridge was built across the lake in 1857 and this lasted 100 years until it was replaced by the bridge you see today:

On to Kensington Gardens where a bride and groom were having photos taken:

and then the Holland Gardens where I especially wanted to see the Kyoto Garden renamed the Fukushima Gardens.  They were small but lovely;

 "I own this place," says the egret:

Kensington is a pretty neighborhood where several streets are lined with houses look like this:

The Victoria and Albert Museum has treasures everywhere you look.

Is this a framed mirror or a frame that needed something in the middle?

This is a curfew (The Netherlands)!

                                Curfew About 1685

The fireplace was the focal point of a room. It was the primary source of heat and also helped to light rooms after the sun had set. Curfews were used to cover the embers of a fire at the end of the day to keep them smouldering overnight. This enabled the servant or housewife to rekindle the fire easily the following morning with a puff of the bellows.

I was shocked to see this Torah cover (from the Netherlands, c 1695):

When is there ever a Jewish ritual object in a non-Jewish museum ? I never saw a Torah mantle that flares out, though.  Maybe they did that to show the artwork or maybe it is a Sefardi style.  

Western suit of armour:

Chinese warrior dressed up for an occasion:

Speaking of war:

 

Then a stop at Harrods Food Halls.  There are many halls Ain't never seen anything like this!  The amount of space devoted to one item, chocolate say, is vast!  Very high-end.

For about $100.00 this cake could be yours.  Granted, it is big.  For less, I could bake one for you , but it would not look so pretty:

This is what you DON'T do in the Food Halls:

You buy and skedaddle, thank you very much.

On to the Wallace Collection, which would be better named the Wallace Collections because it is floor to ceiling and cabinets and cases full of collections.  Into weapons:  you will find more than you imagined, same with helmets and coats of mail, and porcelain, and what not.  It is a place for the expert or the aficionado, not so much for me.

But guess-who was there?

 

And there was a small (rather pathetic) exhibit of Queen Elizabeth and her Corgies.  Here she is in 2002 during her 20th trip to Canada meeting members of the Manitoba Corgi Association:

Qohelet says the eye is not satisfied with seeing, and a good thing,
but after a place like the Wallace Collections, my two eyes were supersaturated.  The neighborhood, Marylebone, was quite lovely.

P.S. Apple from Borough Market kind of mealy. Bummer.