Filed under: Toronto
We’re on a summer road trip; it’s me, the girls, a friend and Grandpa. We spent the first night in Chicago. It was fun to see the cousins. We plowed through the second day to Toronto – with a drive-by sighting of Detroit for me.
I have to start by saying that Grandma found us an amazing place to stay in Toronto via AirBnB. It’s pretty central, very cool and plenty of room for everyone. And the beauty of AirBnB is that you can get some insider tips from your host.
We got in just in time for dinner and had a delicious meal at the House of Parliament – upon recommendation. Granted it was a gastro pub, but it really did have food that was more UK than US – smoked salmon and sticky toffee pudding. Yum!
Today we started the day at the St Lawrence Market. I was expected boutiques or flea market type stuff. It’s really an expanded food market. It was a perfect place for everyone to start getting their bearings.
The Lily and I took the subway to check out George Brown College. It appears to be in a very nice neighborhood – and of course it’s always fun to take an underground. I’m not sure this is top of her list – although Toronto might be. Kate, Aine and Lucia hit the shopping district and we met up with them after our meeting at the school.
Then the older girls hit the streets for more shopping while Aine and I walked back to the house – maybe not directly back. We visited a gallery, checked out the Blue Jay’s stadium and the Canadian Walk of Celebrity, we saw plenty of street art and Aine talked me in to getting her hot chocolate, a muffin and a chocolate croissant.
PICTURES OF VACATION
PICTURES OF THE ART
Filed under: Winnipeg
Winnipeg has a host of great street art. We saw some of it in the neighborhoods we visited – Osborn Village, The Forks and driving around downtown, walking around the skyways and underground and the area around the University.
We also got to see some great art indoors. One treat for me – we visited an on-campus gallery at the University of Winnipeg. There was an exhibit called Cafeteria by Elvira Finnegan and Lisa Wood. .They invited students in to have lunch. The took pictures during lunch and used them to piece together pictures/collages, which became models for drawings. They also maintained the lunch tables and food as part of the installation. I think they used a brine crystallization process to preserve the food.
Then funny enough – I saw another work by Elvira Finnegan at the Winnipeg Art Gallery – a tea cup with the same process. The WAG featured a lot of local artists and a lot of Native artists. There were number of small-ish statues that looked like they were sculpted boxes of stone. The figures are very roundy and have a cute edge to them. They are playful. I’ll just include a couple of examples.
There were a few pictures by KC Adams – she explores a “dualism of human life and intelligent machines, reflecting on her own mixed Euro-Indigenous ancestry and her dependence on technology for communicating and art production.” The series included four pictures of stereotypes of women.
Another favorite was a work by Rosalie Favell – a take on a familiar image from the Wizard of Oz with text from Louis David Riel’s statement – My people will sleep for one hundred years, but when they awake, it will be the artists who give them their spirit back.
Filed under: Winnipeg
Our reason for visiting Winnipeg was a tour of the University of Winnipeg. So we came, we saw, we conquered. University of Winnipeg is an urban campus. In the middle of town, the campus spans a few buildings but it seems like there’s one main building for most of the classes, a fitness center/gym, a high school and a shared building for student administrative stuff.
We got a tour from a senior studying political science from Winnipeg. He was nice and knew a lot about the school. Although having gone to a neighborhood school myself, I know you have different questions when you’re going away to an urban campus.
I think it was fun for Lily to see what a college is like. Not that she hasn’t spent tons of times on the St Catherine’s campus as a little kid, time in the child care at Normandale Community College or walking through Macalester on the way to work these days. BUT walking through when you’re thinking about attending is a different experience.
I need to note that Winnipeg is cold this weekend – well mostly it’s been brutally windy. Shopkeepers have been commenting at the terrible change of weather. So my guess is that Lily may not actually choose the cold winds of Winnipeg but I think this has been great opportunity for Lily to see the difference between college and high school. This is actually an off-week of UWinnipeg; they have finals next week but still kids are lounging everywhere. It’s a ready-built community or series of communities – and there’s a lot of appeal to something like that.
Filed under: Winnipeg
Lily and I are in Winnipeg looking at colleges. Yay! It’s only a 7 hour drive from home. It’s a very easy drive so here we are. We’re going to check out the universities today – but yesterday we went to check out the Canadian Museum of Human Rights. First impressions – the people are so kind and the building is amazing.
We only had an hour so we had to rush but we started at the top – the palm-sweat inducing top of tower of the glass building and made our way down. I think we found the sections on the Native communities most striking. There’s a Witness Blanket, which isn’t really a blanket, it’s a like a shelf of favorite, lost or forgotten items that is inspired by a woven blanket. It’s includes patterns like a quit and has the feeling of memory that you might get looking at a family quilt.
It is created in memory of the Native children who were taken from their homes and sent to boarding schools. A terrible atrocity that tears apart families and causes a people to lose a language, which I think is a big step toward erasing a memory of a people. How do you remember when your words are gone?
Contributions to The Witness Blanket were donated by residential school survivors and their families, band offices, friendship centers and governments. Other items were reclaimed from former residential school sites. Those responsible for the school system – churches and the Canadian federal government – have also donated pieces for this installation as a gesture towards reconciliation.
The museum itself is filled with tremendous information – mostly the brave people who speak up and act up for human rights. Lily asked a good question about why we know so much about the Holocaust and so little about terrible events in other parts of the world – generally non-Western areas. It’s a god question that answers itself. This museum is clearly one step in changing that. With the advent of the Internet and increasing access to broadband I think we have no excuse to learn more about what has happened in different parts of the world and sadly what is still going on.
On a lighter note, the people were amazing. We talked to one museum worker who met Hillary Clinton at the Museum. He gave Lily some tips on how to get a job there when she comes up for school. And one very lovely young women gave us a bird eye tour of the city from the tower. I asked if she would give us the 2-minute rundown of what we were seeing. She did much better and pointed out everything a future student might need to know – from where to hand deliver your water payment if your bill was late to where to get a tattoo or fun dinner. Which led us to a very tasty dinner at Deseo Bistro. They found a way to split the gnocchi so that Lily (veggie) and I (meat lover) were both happen. (Also a tribute to the power of bacon!)
Filed under: Uncategorized
I rarely write about our adventures in the Twin Cities and since the girls are older and we travel less frequently, I don’t write as often as I used to but if for no other reason than this post will help Aine remember, I thought I’d write up our day today at the memorial march for Paris. It started at Alliance Française, folks marched to the Minneapolis Basilica (maybe a mile) and ended with a rally outside the church and finally a prayer service inside.
It’s not our first march. Our last one was a Black Lives Matter march near the State Fair. But this march was a little different. It was more somber than angry.
I’m terrible with numbers but there was a cathedral worth of people marching. We took up 5-6 city blocks. The march started with some instructions. And a police officer explained that they would be blocking the traffic for us, asked us to keep to the right – and sidewalk as much as possible. He wished us well.
It was 60 some degrees on November 15 in Minnesota. (Last year it was 14 degrees on November 15.) I’m sure that helped the numbers. People were friendly. I heard as much French as English. We heard a lot of “voulez?” as people offered us pins and signs. People carried flags and signs that read fraternité. It was a good language lesson day for Aine and a good reminder for both of us that at its best the US embraces other cultures.
We chatted with people. We walked to the church. We heard Representative Ellison speak about the importance of standing with our friends in France, help mourn the loss and to let terrorists know that would not win. “Vive la France!” he shouted and we echoed. Then the group sang the French national anthem and the group moved inside the church.
We went because we thought it was important to show support. We have been to Paris – for a very short trip and I spent my 18th birthday in Paris so that was a draw but really we were moved enough to want to be counted in the tally of people who actively stand up against terrorist attacks – albeit in a pretty easy way.
While we walked some passersby asked about Beirut and why didn’t we march for them. I thought it was a misplaced question. More than half of the people marching seemed to have a direct connection to France – so their weighted interest was clear. And many of the rest of us would march for Beirut given the opportunity. Some may have already done so. We have marched against wars in the past. I would turn the question back – if these people want us to march for civilian deaths in Beirut, invite us to the rally. Many of us would come. But commenting as you walk by isn’t very helpful. On Friday, hours after hearing of the events in Paris, Aine came into my room to tell me about all of the tragedies of the day – Paris, suicide bombers in Beirut, earthquake in Japan… It was overwhelming. We talked about it briefly. It’s part of what got me out the door to the march today
Now that being said, I recognize that there is a difference in how the Paris deaths are handled versus the deaths in Beirut. I think fewer people in the Twin Cities have visited Beirut so there is that missing piece but also I think the media is missing an opportunity to better introduce Americans to other nations – and not just nations in distress. By the time we hear about nations in distress I think we can sympathize with them but it’s hard to empathize. All we know about them is their tragedy. We need resources that help us be better global citizens by introducing us to neighbors around the world on a more regular basis – by that I mean more often but also showing us glimpse of their more regular lives.
We need that as a community – for my part it makes me want to help the girls travel more again.
We spent four nights in New Orleans with everyone – cousins, aunts, uncles, grandma and grandpa. (Everyone else was smart enough to fly!) We stayed out near Tulane, a couple miles from downtown. It wasn’t very far but it was a pretty sketchy walk – Katie and I tested in out. SO it was fun to learn that area (Freret) although we spent more of our time in the French Quarter.
We took a couple of tours – a ghost tour and a cemetery tour. It was fun to learn little bits and pieces about New Orleans. I now understand why the street all change names at Canal Street. (After the Louisiana Purchase, the Americans came in and renamed everything and the locals weren’t having it.) I learned that a corpse will cremate in those creepy mausoleums given the heat in NOLA. That is why the tomb must be sealed for a year and a day – before it can be opened (if need be) for the next resident. I saw Nicolas Cage’s tomb – waiting for him. (Some people kiss it. The guide thought that was funny since he’s not in there. I think it’s weird either way.) I heard a few gruesome “ghost” stories that I wish I could unhear.
We spent a lot of time walking around – from Jackson Square to Bourbon Street. We visited a few voodoo shops. So be nice to us, at least until you think our positions have run out! One of us got our fortune told. We visited a Tomato Festival. I got us close with some modern art – very realistic looking women in swimsuits.
We ate a lot. We went back to brunch at the Court of Two Sisters and we were very happy there again. We went to a place called Purloo, where we saw Randy from My Name is Earl. It was a thrill for us. If service had been better we might have had enough liquid courage to talk to him as it was, we played it cool. We did learn the difference between Southern hospitality and Northern efficiency. It could have been an opportunity to learn patience – but we don’t have time for lessons like that! The food was great; we ate shrimp, gumbo, jambalaya, catfish, oysters, poboys, and Aine’s favorite deep fried peanut butter and jelly.
We loved New Orleans. In respect to population, it’s about the same size as St Paul. But it’s much more like European city, with a great buzz in town all day and night. It rained while we were there, which was actually nice in terms of heat management. We did notice that the water doesn’t really go anywhere after the rain. The puddles linger. I can only imagine what that’s like in a hurricane. But given a chance to return to NOLA – we’ll take it! Lily says she’s moving here but she says that about a lot of places we visit. Good thing she’s young, she can live in them all at some point!
Filed under: Louisiana
We took a pontoon trip around the bayou of Lake Salvador. It was the perfect activity for a very rainy day. We saw a ton of alligators from our covered pontoon. And the area is so pretty and so different from anything we’re used to seeing. Some of us held a baby alligator; some of us didn’t.
Filed under: Arkansas
Day three of the road trip started in Little Rock. The first place we visited was the Little Rock Central High School – ground zero (maybe birthplace?) of school desegregation. In 1957 (same year Grandpa started High School), nine African-American students were denied entrance into the school, despite the 1954 Supreme Court order to integrate (Brown v Board of Ed). They arrived the following day with an army behind them.
On day one there were apparently 1,000 protestors. I can’t even imagine how many protestors, guards and hopefully some supporters on day two. I’ve seen the pictures but what I didn’t realize until we visited was how big and fancy the school is. (Note for those who don’t know I went to a very small high school. Not even a little bit fancy.)
There’s just something about the stairs and the majesty of the building that increases my awe of the young students who bravely went to school – as was their right.
We left armed with books to read on the issue. It was hard for the girls to believe how recent the event was.
We also went to the Clinton Library – but due to two sleeping teens in the car our visit was very brief.
Then we drove for roughly 400 hours – at 55 mph – to get to Baton Rouge. (All of the locals drove the speed limit, which made us nervous!)
Filed under: Missouri
Day Two of the road trip starts in Missouri. Turns out Independence is pretty close to Kansas City so we stopped to see President Truman’s home town. We saw his house, which is pretty posh. And we learned a lot about him – like he was a haberdasher before and after being President.
Also we talked about his big decision to “end the war decisively”. It was an interesting discussion about what we would do if we were in his shoes – and how glad we were not to be in them.
We also saw (from a distance) Independence Temple, which has one of the most interesting steeples I have ever seen. It was designed by Gyo Obata and was the headquarters of the Church of the Latter Day Saints.
And we got our kicks briefly on Route 66. And landed in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Filed under: Missouri
OK it’s been more than a year since I posted anything – but we’re on the road again so I’m going to post.
The girls, Grandpa and I are on the road. We’re going to New Orleans, where we’ll be meeting with Grandma, Katie and her family and Billy. We just finished the first lag of the trip to Kansas City. I learned at a conference earlier this year that I love Kansas City.
We are staying near the Plaza, which I have to say is beautiful even through it’s really an upscale, outdoor shopping mall. The older girls spent the afternoon shopping there. Aine and I spent the afternoon at the Nelson Atkins Museum. We saw the amazing shuttlecocks and the touring The Four Seasons by Phillip Haas.
In the late afternoon Aine, Grandpa and I went on a quick tour of Kansas City Startup Village – an amazing community with Google Fiber. It’s in a working class neighborhood (mostly) in Kansas City, Kansas. Matthew Marcus gave us the tour. He is one of several instrumental entrepreneurs in the neighborhood who have worked at making the community fertile ground for other entrepreneurs. Several houses in neighborhood have been turned into homes for entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial efforts. In the area they have about 54 startups in 15 local houses in about a square mile area. I’ll be writing more about it for work – but I will say the idea of a community bubbling up organically, starting with access to Google Fiber is so compelling to me.
We had yummy barbeque for dinner. After dinner, I walked around the University and the girls went swimming. Tomorrow we head to Little Rock.
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