Filed under: Rome
After the Coliseum, we went home refreshed a little, picked up Patrick’s mom and decided to try the hop on – hop off bus tour. It was exactly what we needed in terms of jetlag, fatigue and heat. It is hot in Italy, hot and sunny. (And a special note for my mom – no sunburn yet!)
We relaxed on the bus for a while – and hopped off to see the Trevi Fountain. We each threw our coins in the fountain. The Foundation is also spectacular – and the spray from it is a huge treat on a super-hot day. The Fountain looks like it’s coming out of a building. There were tons of people – but with a little patience you can make your way to the fountain or get a seat and kick back for a while.
A: 133 steps Q: How many steps in the Spanish Steps?
The Spanish Steps are just a short distance from the Trevi Fountain. The view from the top is fantastic. Also this is the area where Keats died when he was 25. I’m mentioning this mostly in Patrick’s honor. He found a Keats Museum for us – but (un)fortunately is cost 4 euros in so we missed it. Patrick recited a lot of Keats to us while sitting on the steps. We considered asking him to speak up and putting a hat in front of him for donations.
After the Fountain and the Steps we hopped back on the bus. In fact, we just kicked back and enjoyed the rest of the ride. Again it was the perfect answer to some tried tourists. I suspect each of us nodded off at some point during the trip but that as OK. We also got a nice perspective on Rome. Nothing beats the view from a double-decker bus. They played recorded messages about the areas as we drove through. None of the details spring to mind – but I’m sure my subconscious is much richer.
Filed under: Rome
We are staying at the Campo di Fiori. It is centrally located – but even better there are several artists and tiny shops on our road and at the end of our road, there’s a market every day. It’s fresh fruit, vegetables, tshirts… At night the market clears away and makes room for great outdoor drinking – most of it in the bars. A few BYOB types in the square. Lots of buskers – admittedly I don’t many would make the first cut on Italy’s Got Talent – but fun nonetheless.
Patrick, Michael and I enjoyed a drink and appetizer Wednesday night. The joint was jumping – starting at about 9:00 – and definitely still cooking at midnight when we threw in the towel.
Patrick noted at the brilliance of the urban planning. It does make for a good vibe. There were people of all ages. You could compare it to Temple Bar in Dublin – although Temple Bar has much more a feel of Stag Party or just on leave. Our piazza is fun but not rowdy or sloppy.
Thursday morning we headed down to the Coliseum. The Coliseum was on everyone’s must-see list so we were excited. I was even a little afraid that we had built it up so much that we might be disappointed – we weren’t. In fact at dinner everyone noted it as a favorite. It really is big and imposing and kind of majestic.
In its day is sat 50,000 people. It was built in 72 AD. Who even knew there were 50,000 back then? Most of the floor is missing so it’s easy to see what the basement/lower level looked like – and there’s a great (modern) mural that illustrates what happened back in the day. The lions were kept in cages in the lower floor. The cages moved along a sort of conveyor belt to “the place” where the cages were pulled to the surface like an elevator car or stage trap door. On the field waiting would have been the Christians. Our guidebook calls the Coliseum the NASCAR of antiquity. Funny to think of it that way – but I suppose it is.
So we were able to check out the stadium from two floors. The views out of the stadium were as amazing as the views inside. The columns and pedestals give you a perspective of how large the place is. I tried to get a couple of pictures to help – but even in person the size is so overwhelming you kind of dismiss it.
On the way back we walked by Circus Maximus and the Palatine. The Circus Maximus was actually a larger stadium/sports area. It was built to seat 250,00 for chariots races and public games. Now it’s more like a giant field. The Palatine dates back to 753 BC. It’s where Romulus killed Remus and founded Rome. TO honor the spot later emperors built their palaces here. By walking around the area, we got an idea of how large the footprint of the area is – but it wasn’t until we took the double-decker bus tour in the afternoon that we got an idea of its size. (I’m going to add those pictures here in case that helps. Also – we saw several lizards in the Palatine. Lizards are always a highlight.)
Filed under: Rome
Tuesday morning Grandpa picked us up at 4 am for our flight to Chicago. We had a fun day with the cousins and then that afternoon went back to O’Hare to Rome. We arrived in Rome today at 9:00. We were in our apartment by noon. Our only sad news is that we don’t have Internet access. So I’m going to write up my days as soon as possible and post when I can.
I’m pretty tired today – it might be pictures only. We walked a ton. I won’t even pretend to name anything – except the Tiber and the Vatican.
We’ve promised Aine that we’ll make pigeon stew if she catches one. There are enough markets to keep Lily and Kate happy. So far we’ve learned that Italian food is not necessarily what we’re used to getting at home.
The apartment is nice. We just keep the windows open the whole time. The floor of each room seems to be up or down an inch from the other; so I’m sure to break a toe. We’re very central.
It’s hot – very hot.
The Vespas, cars and pedestrians seem to share the cobble stone roads and piazzas. By that I mean, it will be an act of God if one of us doesn’t get hit. Everything is very bustling and there’s no grass. These may sounds like complaints – but they aren’t. It’s just fun to be someplace with so many differences.
Nearly forgot to mention that it was great to see Patrick’s mom and brother.
Filed under: St Paul
Tomorrow morning we leave for Rome. Last night we got a pre-taste of Italy at Luci Ancora. Luci’s had a wine dinner with two wine makers – St Innocent and Bethel Heights – both out of Oregon. It was fabulous. We’ve been to wine dinners at Luci’s in the past, but this was even better than I remember.
The MO is pretty standard – hear about the wine and food, eat and drink the wine and food, repeat an embarrassing number of times. St Innocent is a popular guest at wine dinners at Luci’s so it’s a little like home week – but for us regulars it’s as much fun to hear about the family who owns the winery as it is to catch up with the family that owns the restaurant. And the new wine maker fit right in – being sure to say hello to each and every table. But ambiance isn’t the highlight; the food and drink are. Here is an annotated menu…
Pre-dinner – Grilled Prawn served with Watermelon, Radish, and Cucumber and garnished with Tomato Chili Oil with Astoria Prosecco and Ginger Scented Apple Juice
– a refreshing start. The shrimp was delicious; the Prosecco, which is always a favorite of mine had that hint of ginger that made it unique.
Bibb lettuce and Arugula served with Pecorino Toscano Cheese and drizzled with Dijon Mustard Vinaigrette with Bethel Heights Gewurztraminer 2010
– another surprisingly light choice, but appreciated more even for its lightness later when the real eating began.
French Chicken prepared two ways, sautéed Breast and Braised Leg served with Borlotti Beans and Demi Glace with St. Innocent “Freedom Hill” 2009 and Bethel Heights 2009 Chardonnays
– First that isn’t a typo starting with this course we got two glasses of wine each round. Score! I heard from the Chef that the chicken was sort of a challenge. Normally chicken isn’t something I order but this was very good – more like turkey and very moist.
Risotto served with Oyster, Crimini, and Portabello Mushrooms and garnished with sautéed Duck Breast with St. Innocent “Vitea Springs” 2009 and St. Innocent “Zenith” 2009 Pinot Noirs. The wines were getting more serious, the flavors were really starting to jump out. The duck was the perfect amount – really more than a garnish, but not a huge amount. The risotto was perfectly cooked.
Grilled Ivory King Salmon seasoned with Smoked Sea Salt and served with Chilled Asparagus Truffle Puree with Bethel Heights Estate 2008 and Casteel Reserve 2007 Pinot Noirs. Salmon and truffle. Do I really have to say more? Two of my favorite things on one plate. SO good that I didn’t even mind the asparagus, which I don’t always love.
Glazed Pork Osso Buco served with Roasted Baby Spring Vegetables with St. Innocent “Justice” 2009 and St. Innocent “Shea” 2009 Pinot Noirs. OK by this stage it was pure gluttony and Patrick was getting generous tastes from my plates – but the pork was a standout.
Dark Savory Housemade Bread topped with Quade de Cavra “Taleggio” Goat Cheese served with Chocolate Cherry Bark with St. Innocent “Freedom Hill” 2008 Pinot Noir. The goal was a savory, not sweet, dessert. But for those of us with a big sweet tooth, the chocolate set off the cheese and cherries.
I tried to remember to take pictures. I didn’t always succeed. And with a couple of courses I may have taken a bite or two before getting the picture.
Filed under: Minnesota
Last weekend the whole family packed up and went to the Raceway Park in Shakopee for NASCAR races. Only we actually went for the destruction night, which I think is more like demolition derby – although I must admit that the nomenclature sort of eludes me. But I can tell you it was good, loud fun.
We were drawn in with an Internet half-off coupon. We ended up going on a rainy cold night – so the events were delayed for a while until they could dry the track. I suspect that the experience is even better when it’s warm and on time. It’s fun to watch the races.
The night started with regular laps. So we each picked our favorite color and cheered. The races got a little more exciting when they held the flag pole race. That’s when they stick a flag pole in the middle of the track. The cars races up to it, then they have to drive around it and continue with their laps. The best part of course is when all of the cars are angling to be in the same place and then some cars are coming out of the turn just as other want to get in. The next race was the figure eight. It starts out much like the regular race but as the pack widens out you see the thrill of the cars have to pass each other at the crossroads in the center. There were some other events – but with the late start that’s what we saw.
Usually the winners drive up to get the trophy on their way off the track. One guy stopped, got out of his truck, ran up the into the stands and gave the trophy to a fan. I half expected the trophy to come with a proposal. Also Speed TV was there. I must admit I have never seen Speed TV – but it’s always exciting to have the TV cameras and interviewer walking around.
The other really great part of the car races is the people watching. A night at Raceway Park is pretty economical. A beer is $3 and they have candy for a quarter – compare that to Target Field! There were two young mothers in front of us with three kids easily under five and a preteen who had to be a sister to one of the moms. These women were clearly out for a night of fun (in a good way) and had decided that bringing the kids was cheaper and easier than a babysitter. Those kids got two bomb-pops each, several rounds of French fries, chicken drummies and two kinds of earplugs. While the moms got grown up treats. Many of the audience members had buckets of beer, which is an old Kemps ice cream bucket full of ice and some beer, like Bud Light.
I’m sure that I haven’t had a Bud Light since the turn of the century, but in the right atmosphere a Bud Light can be pretty darned good. (The girls did not get bomb-pops, but they did get Slow Pokes and KITS candy.)
Filed under: St Paul
Last night, I went to the TEDxTC with my mom. It was all about food – a grea t topic. My only direct qualification is that I like to eat – but I also have a brother who is a series chef. Billy went to the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) and has been warning me about genetically altered food for years. So I felt kind of prepared.
A quick primer, TED (Technololgy Education Design) is a format for quick (less than 20 minutes) lectures on ideas that are worth spreading. A TEDx is independently organized event. TEDxTC was held at the Minnesota Science Museum. There were two showings; I went to the later event, which included dessert. It was a funny, mixed crowd. This was my mom’s first TEdx. I noted that several people seemed to be there with their moms; the topic may have brought out the generations. The food-family conenction was prominent in at least two speakers, which included LaDonna Redmond, Winona LaDuke, Kevin Ryan, and John Walden.
Formerly of Chicago, currently at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy in Minneapolis, LaDonna Redmond spoke about how her son’s allergies to just about everything got her interested in food. Apparently a handgun was easier to get in her part of Chicago than a fresh tomato when she started to really think about food. (My dad also has stories about decades earlier traveling from the near north side of Chicago to the suburban grocery stoire to find food with expiration dates that were not yet passed.) Redmond worked with youth in her neighborhood to plant local, community gardens and sell local produce to low income neighbors. She challenged attendees to start asking about the origin of their food by asking grocery store managers about the food. Where does it come from? Who grows it? Her point being that food should be nutritious and support fair labor. Consumers can make a difference.
I was particularly interested to hear former Vice Presidential candidate Winona LaDuke, since I actually had the honor of meeting her last fall (at the Cabooze of all places!). She spoke about food as a family matter and about the importance of wild rice to Anishinaabe peoples. How Nokomis (and maybe Nanabozho – I should have taken better notes) followed a white shell to a place where the food grows on water – such as with wild rice. How Pawnee corn wasn’t able to thrive outside it’s natural habitat and how lack of diversity in the diet has been so unhealthy. Growing food locally is good – but growing food that was intended to be grown locally is even better. It suits the crops and the people.
John Walden gave a demonstration of a new way to sanitize that uses electricity, not chemicals. It was very cool. A spritz or two of “charged water” and food, counter, body parts getting prepped for surgery were sanitized.
Finally Kevin Ryan from General Mills spoke. He’s some kind of food visionary – or other job we’d all love to have except it’s probably harder than it looks. He was a great speaker and talked about how he uses history and human nature to predict food trends. For example he spoke about how we came to think of yellow as a good color for food. The super condensed version is – The British were fighting the French, which meant no wine. Their allies, the Spanish offered port. The British drank loads of it. Egg whites are used in making port. The huge uptick in port meant tons more eggs. But that left lots of unused yolks, which they gave to the nuns. The nuns used them to make yolky pastries, which we all love. Yellow yolks meant yellow desserts meant we like yellow. Fun food trivia but also fun approach to reasoning and predicting the future.
Both Redmond and LaDuke brought up the dangers of genetically altered food and the idea of usurping nature for some other purpose. Everyone recognized the impact that food has on health, which seems obvious but I think sometimes can’t be overstated, especially when we’re talking about choices that are made before food and consumer meet. One big lesson was the importance of getting to know your food and your food providers.
Filed under: St Paul
Northern Spark hosted a night of art lights Saturday night in St Paul and Minneapolis in a celebration that went from dusk to dawn. There were dozens of events happening across the Cities mostly happening from 9pm to 6am. We joined some of the festivities at St. Paul’s Upper Landing. For those who don’t know what the Upper Landing is (and I assume that’s most of us, since although I knew the area, I didn’t know the name) it’s the area on Shepard Road overlooking Harriet Island and behind the Science Museum. They’ve built up that area quite a bit in the last few years.
This was the inaugural Nuit Blanche (white night) in the Twin Cities; I only attended events in St Paul but it was fun to know it was a cross-city event. At the Upper Landing, we started with an ArtCar Serenade, which I caught on video below. Conductor Philip Blackburn led six ArtCars and their horns in a brief concert. It was fun. Each horn was very different. Occasionally, drivers on Shepard Road joined in.
Immediately following the serenade we witnessed the flipping of the switch for Jim Campbell’s Scattered Light. It was very cool. It included more than 1600 blinking light bulbs suspended from a frame. You could walk through and touch the light bulbs – and we all did. It’s funny how everyone there was drawn in. If you stepped back, you could see that there was a method to the blinking. If you watched long and carefully enough you could see the shadow figure of a person walk through the lights.
It turns out we had plenty of time to watch the lights because we hung around to see Andrea Stanislav’s Nightmare, which according to the program was an “eerie and unexpected vision of a white horse galloping on the Mississippi at night, produced by towing a video screen on the river.” First it was going to happen at 9:45, then 10:00, then 10:30; we left around 10:45 and as far as I know the horse never appeared – but the people watching was great. There were lots of different folks – some of us were with kids, some were clearly making the rounds and planned to hang on all night, some were just folks who happened to be walking by. And everyone had a theory on the horse. One said that the name (Nightmare) should have been a hint. Another asked if the horse was named Godot. Then someone eels asked if this was the plan. Did someone have a camera pointed at us – were we (the waiters) the exhibit?
Most I think there were hiccups that did make the installation a nightmare – but save one very sulky teenager (not thank goodness my preteens) everyone had a good attitude. It was a beautiful night. The Mississippi, while bursting at it’s seams, was beautiful and the bridge lights were on for apparently only the second time ever. Not confirmed – but when you’re waiting for a horse that long you’ll believe and find anything interesting.
Filed under: St Paul
Today we went to the Flint Hills International Children’s Festival. If we’re in town, we always try to go, but this is the first year that we’re seen one of the indoor shows. We started our day at 11 am at the Ordway seeing Corbian the Dinosaur. It’s part light show, part puppetry. Picture Harold and the Purple Crayon meets deep sea bioluminescent creatures. It was really cool – even the older girls had to admit it. The music was great. Aine would not let go of my arm for the first 20 minutes with the loud music and the awesome glow in the dark dragons.
The music went from classic, to Baby Elephant Walk to a little Riders on the Storm and some Ta for Tots folk music. My only wish was that they would have thrown in a little Led Zeppelin. (Not because I’m such a Zeppelin fan – but it just seemed like it would have been a perfect fit.) The theater was filled. The tickets were only $5. There were a lot of babies crying and antsy toddlers. But that didn’t bother us. A highlight – and it’s tough not to get a little crude is when the mean, orange dragon poops out neon spirals that become flowers. (I’m sure there was a weird ecology lesson there.)
After the show we went to Bruegger’s to get the makings of an easy picnic. Then we walked around. The Festival had definitely expanded since the last time we were there – but it still includes lots of craft and projects for kids (more for Aine than the pre-teen crew) but it had something for everyone. Kids Hair was there giving free spray on tattoos and dye jobs. The butterfly net is always a big hit – even if also always a little too crowded . The parade was pretty good – but the highlight was the Bandaloop.
According to their web site, Project Bandaloop performs “in natural and urban settings, the company uses theaters, buildings, towers, bridges, cliffs, and skyscrapers as its dance floor.” So for this gig they did their dance suspended from the top of the Lawson Software building. The dancers repel gracefully about halfway down the building – and then they stop. (I counted at least 6 floors up.) It had to remind the parents of watching Batman and Robin climb walls – that’s what it looked like – only real.
It was fantastic!!
Even being deathly afraid of heights, the dancers are so good that I didn’t worry about their safety the whole time. The dance, flip and fly around the building. They danced to two songs. I have the first performance, a duet below. I hope the jumps from the building look as amazing in video as they did in person. (Aine liked this one best because the couple danced together more.)
Filed under: St Paul
Looking for something fun and potentially education to do outside without getting sweaty? Think mini golf at the Minnesota Science Museum. It just opened last weekend; so we took a foursome out to the course to check it out. The location is beautiful – the golf course is between the Science Museum and the River. It’s a 9-hole course. I don’t think it took us an hour to play.
Our group included a first grade a couple of adults and a few in between and we all enjoyed the game. We did institute the six-stroke rule. Once you get to six strokes on any given hole, you’re out. So that keeps the game rolling along – but we didn’t use it every hole. There’s a mix of luck and skill involved in the game. (Although I can tell you that the most skilled player did win the game!) A few holes involve water traps, which I’m sure will be even more welcome in the hotter months. There are a few sandboxes too for younger players who may need to regroup between shots.
Each shot contains a key lesson. For example, in the second hole, you have to hit your ball through running water to get to the hole – but since flowing water acts in predictable ways on materials (such as golf balls) the hole isn’t as tough as it looks. If David Hume can use the pool table to tech probability, the Science Museum can use miniature golf to teach about ecology. Also there are various notes about the surrounding area. Apparently the bushes surrounding the course will bear fruit later in the season and players are welcome to eat what they can reach to pick.
One note – you have to pay to get into the Museum and then pay for the mini golf so if you’re not a member, it can get expensive. But after 5 pm, you can get in for just $5 per person and forget about the museum fee.
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