Why haven't I ever gotten through here? Walls Off Washington has been around for a few years, another project supported by the Kranzberg Arts Foundation. Kranzberg is a major sponsor of the St. Lou Fringe Festival, which, as long-time readers know, is a big interest of mine. Most of the wall art is along an alley between buildings mostly devoted to arts organizations. You can't see much from the street. More to come.
Almost curtain time at Opera Theatre. This is the lobby of the Loretto Hilton Theater on the campus of Webster University, a smaller local school less than 10 minutes from our home. (No one remember why it's called that.) It is just under a thousand seats if all the back and side bays are open, with an unusual thrust stage. The opera shares the venue with the St. Louis Repertory Theatre. The acoustics are excellent.
Apologies to Manet. Lots of people bring picnic dinners or order catered meals to have on the lawn outside the theater before our opera performances. There are many tables under the tent. We always go early to get a place there out of the sun or rain, but the tables extend much beyond the view in this photo. It makes for the start of a very civilized evening.
One of the nice, unusual things about our Opera Theatre is that it takes place on the leafy campus of a small university. There are broad lawns and gardens. Many people come early and have dinner al fresco. The crowd can be interesting. These two look like a mismatch. She was looking for attention. What you can't see here is that she was wearing just-under-the-knee black leather boots with three inch chunky heels. She made her point.
Yesterday was opening night of the 51st season of Opera Theatre of St. Louis. We've been subscribers for somewhere in the mid-upper 40s. They do four productions in rotating repertory in May and June, all in English with super titles. This year kicked off with a wacky and hilarious production of Pirates of Penzance. The man who played Major General Stanley may hold the record for the fastest comprehensible speeech in the English language.
When my son and granddaughter were in town recently, the mandatory first stop for the kid was the ride to the top of the Arch. It is triangular in cross section, with one apex pointing inward. The little slit windows point out and down. The Illinois side in the background is very flat, less so in Missouri.
It's opening night of our opera season later today, a big deal for us. I'm sure to get a few snaps.
This modified freight container sits in the rides and amusements section of St. Louis Union Station. We sometimes refer to our town as The Lou. However, I'd wager that most people who pass by here don't get the British-ism. There are the usual symbols on the doors to the right, which solves the problem. It's clever, but does it communicate well?
Would that it were so simple.
There is a restaurant at St. Louis Union Station simply called The Soda Fountain. It serves kid-pleasing, bad nutrition food, cheeseburgers, hot dogs, mac and cheese, curly fries, etc. The big draw is outrageous, huge ice cream concoctions. The one my son ordered one for the table, called The King, was too much for the four of us. No one felt quarrelsome when we left.
In the entry hall of the St. Louis Aquarium. The watery projections constantly change but the circle in the center is a window into the world of real fishies. Son Andy and granddaughter Josie stare into the depths.
Of course, this is in our once-grand railway station, hence the arch with the indication To Trains. The corridor leads to a mock train car, whose windows take you on a spectacular VR ride through and over the city, and down into the Mississippi.
Because it is, as Ben Stein used to say, your moment of zen. The St. Louis Aquarium, in addition to the usual wet things, has hourly mini-shows with a variety of dry things to amuse the kids. This little armadillo kept pushing around this plastic toy as if it was its purpose in life. Maybe it was.
A kid tour of St. Louis includes the Aquarium at Union Station. It's not Seattle or Chicago, but it's not bad. I always get pictures of the jellyfish, sub-phylum Medusozoa, named to the mythological Medusa, who has snakes for hair. They are unperturbed by our presence.
We look Andy and Josie out to dinner at a local restaurant famous for its flaming desserts, particularly cherries jubilee. Josie's big sister, Audrey, talked it up big after she experienced it. I don't know the whole recipe, but after cherry sauce caramelized sugar, the server pours in brandy, tips the edge of the pan towards the burner and foooom! It's quite a show. Tastes great, too.
A day out with son Andy and granddaughter Josie. First stop was the mandatory ride to the top of the Arch. Back underneath, there was a VR experience, wandering around the bustling Mississippi riverfront in 1850. Josie must have been interested enough that she didn't notice that her hoodie was falling off.
Son Andy and granddaughter Josie, 7, are flying in early this morning for the weekend. They will take our light rail downtown from the airport, meeting us for breakfast at a locally famous hash and chili parlor. Then it's up to the top of the Arch for all of us. The afternoon plan is the zoo, and we have an exceptional one.
New stuff, in two ways. Time for some fresh material, and there is a lot of good outdoor sculpture around. (Although someday I'll do a series about the public artwork at St. Louis University, which has the worst collection of accessible sculpture I've ever seen.) Also, while we were in Europe, the shutter crapped out on my main camera, a Fujifilm X-T5. (After only 47,000 actuations! Harrumph!) So I wanted a quality, very small camera to take anywhere, and settled on a Sony RX100 VII. I took it out for a test drive yesterday.
This is a Tom Otterness piece simple called Mouse, on Manchester Avenue at the entrance to the district known as The Grove. Its head seems to be quizzically tilted, as if wondering who is coming through.
More Route 66 neon. It would not occur to me to travel anywhere with an overnight stay without booking a hotel online in advance. It didn't used to be so. I remember a family road trip in my early teens up through New Hampshire to Quebec City. My father, who was, um, a bit of a character, drove up to the door of the Chateau Frontenac, expecting to put us up in style. Je suis désolé, monsieur, mais nous n'avons pas de chambres disponibles. Then we drove around for what seemed like a long time before ending up at Helen's Motel (sic., in English), which I recall being a bit of a dump but the kids loved it because they had a big trampoline. Vacancy.
Possibly signs that appeared along old US Route 66, or maybe just neon from a bye-gone era. Now the displays are all LEDs and Route 66 has been replaced by sections on the Interstate Highway system. More from the Missouri History Museum.
The classic cars I've been showing for the last few days were part of a program at the Missouri History Museum. It's a pretty interesting place but more about our local area than the whole state. A sign in the central hallway sets the theme. The graphic is a section of the city's flag, representing the meeting of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, as well as the fleur-de-lys of our French origin.
The cockpit of a 1929 La Salle. I thought that its age and monochrome interior made a B&W rendering appropriate. Strange controls. The spiky thing in the center is for the headlights. There is another dial to advance or retard the spark (who can remember that?). And not a lot of us Americans know how to drive a manual transmission any more.
Another entry at the Missouri History Museum's classic car show. The cafe au lait brown color is unusual. Note the top center, with the 50s-early 60s fuzzy dice hanging from the mirror. Since I am a Frank Zappa fan, the meme reminds me of one of my favorite Mothers of Invention tracks.
This is the rear of the automobile seen in yesterday's post, identified as a Packard by a friend. The antique car license plate indicates 1949. Just what Ultramatic means was left to the imagination of the buyer. Marketing hooey has old roots.
Big, elaborate hood ornaments used to be a thing. I remember that my family's first car, a 1956 Chevrolet Bel Air (we lived in NYC and didn't use it every day), had one that looked like a chrome jet plane with twin vertical tails. I'm sorry that I didn't note what this car was, but you can imagine how it could eviscerate a pedestrian in an accident. Now the marques are all flat.
Some time back I posted a picture of a dove that had built a nest in the crook of a downspout from our porch. It sat there for so long that I wondered if the eggs were still viable. Fortunately, I was wrong. Two healthy chicks have now set up residence on top of a hanging swing chair on the other side of the porch. I assume that's mom supervising. Dad was on the porch rail just below keeping watch. They seem to feel safe here,
I don't have any special skill in photographing automobiles. but it seems to me that sometimes you can get more interesting images from the details rather than the whole. If you squint, you might see me in the red jacket reflected in the letter I.
Another Central Europe memory, although there are some local things to shoot this weekend if my spine holds out. This is a cold, drizzly day at a cafe in Cesky Krumlov, with no one out for coffee and treats. The old town in southern Czechia, https://www.amazingczechia.com/destinations/cesky-krumlov/ , is the second most visited in the country after Prague.
From the Covered Market in Budapest. The prices are in Hungarian forints per kilogram. The names of the products, with one exception, are indecipherable.
No surprise, but I took a whole lot of pictures during our trip. The quality and variety was limited by my need of a cane and wobbly balance, but some good ones came through. This is Prague, in the palace gardens of Albrect von Wallenstein, the leading general on the Catholic side during the devastating Thirty Years War. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albrecht_von_Wallenstein. The garden has rare white peacocks, something entirely new to me.
Got home last night. Flew British Airways from Budapest to Heathrow, then BA's new non-stop service to St. Louis. Big convenience! The flight arrived early although the food was remarkably bad and the little international arrivals area in STL wasn't a good introduction to our town. But we're happy to be here after a fascinating if tiring trip. Now to get our body clocks reset seven hours.
Our river cruise went back out on the Danube after sunset on our last night onboard. Many of the magnificent riverfront buildings are illuminated. This huge confection is the Hungarian parliament building.
Budapest is much larger, more beautiful and interesting than I imagined. Unfortunately, I had a lot of trouble walking on this trip. If I can get my spine fixed I'd love to come back with more time. Home today, Tuesday. Just one stop at Heathrow, since BA just started non-stop service to St. Louis. Maybe I'll get more pictures edited on the plane.
There is a big, multi-level food hall in central Budapest known as the Covered Market. It is geared toward tourists as much as locals. We have no idea why we would buy a jar of paprika. We use it only occasionally in cooking and buy it at the supermarket. Lots of visitors wanted some, though.
These posts are going up on different days. It's Monday here but will be seen Sunday in North America. We are taking a half-day trip out of the city today, home tomorrow.
That's a new idea to me. The people onboard seemed to be having a noisy good time. Another exhausting day in another very interesting city. I've got a lot more pictures to edit. We're spending today and tomorrow here. Home Tuesday.
A new country for us, Slovakia. Only six million people, with the capital, Bratislava, at about a half million. The country punches above its weight, with a huge auto industry exporting cars all over Europe.
The old town of Bratislava is charming. A favorite spot is the contemporary sculpture of Cumil, the friendly sewer worker (https://www.nomads-travel-guide.com/places/cumil-statue/) who pops up to say hello to the world. Lots better than the monuments to monarchs and wars.
Stock im Eisen-Platz, Vienna, outside St. Stephen's Cathedral. We have only one brief day in this interesting vibrant city. We'd love to come back with more time, but we wonder if age and spines will rule out future trips like this.
I usually limit myself to one photo. However, yesterday we went to Melk Abbey, situated on a hill over the Danube in Austria and I was pretty impressed. I can't begin to explain its history and architecture here, so if you want to learn about this Baroque blockbuster, I suggest you go here: https://bit.ly/3QtPNig .
My Catholic elementary school made us learn Roman numerals. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the year over the gate is 1718. Corrections welcome.
Vienna today.
In America, a river ox bow is an area where a river forms almost a complete loop, not quite cutting off the neck to form an island. There are lots on the lower Mississippi, which are quite striking to view from the air. There is one on the Danube, passing through beautiful scenery of low hills, forest and farmland.
After devouring our sausages in Regensburg Sunday afternoon, we went out to the street to find a large and loud group of young women and their supporters marching through town. The themes were feminism, consent and, to use an American expression, enough of mansplaining. I doubt that Google Translate got all the subtleties, but the orange and green sign means something like "unsolicited advice from strange men," and the black on orange "protection is not a privilege, but a right."
Around the back of the cathedral, there was a smaller group who were apparently supporting the old Iranian monarchy. I think that is the pre-Islamic Revolution flag, and I heard the name Pahlavi mentioned. I wonder what they hoped to accomplish.
Long bus ride yesterday from Prague into Germany, where we stopped at the charming small city of Regensburg. One thing everybody does there is go to this tiny place known in English as The Sausage Kitchen. This is all they got. You get a plate with a few of these things on sauerkraut, sweet mustard on the side and rye rolls. Everyone was warned in advance: there are no options here for vegetarians or gluten-free people. Just old school.
I'm bloody exhausted so maybe I'll add to this on the bus to Germany tomorrow. We passed by the hall where the Prague Symphony plays. Leonard Slatkin, who was music director on the St. Louis Symphony for many years and is now conductor laureate, was conducting the orchestra for two nights immediately before we arrived. The koruna, or crown, is the unit of Czech currency. Plans to join the eurozone are in progress.
We're here, and floored by jet lag. For now, a phone shot just outside our gorgeous art deco hotel. More to come when the brain is functioning.
Mrs. C and I had a terrific anniversary dinner Tuesday night (52, thank you) at the locally renowned restaurant Little Fox in the Fox Park neighborhood. Wow. Looking around, it seemed like the open kitchen's reflection in the front window was a television screen with a cooking show, layered with customers and customers' reflections.
Down to Dallas-Ft. Worth mid-day today, London overnight and Prague tomorrow afternoon. Now I'm worried about whether there is going to be jet fuel in Europe in 12 days to get us home. I guess it would be relatively cheap to be stuck in Budapest but what would would we do with ourselves? Couldn't be many more expensive places to be stuck than London but it would be fun.
Caffe, Italian, or cafe, French? In either event, no baristas were on duty. The caption comes from a family travel memory. We were all in Milan in August, Euro vacation season. The tourist office gave us a list of restaurants that were supposed to be open. None of them were, that we could find. We ended up eating at the cafeteria in a department store, which was actually pretty good. It was in Italy.
For locals, this is on Gravois, just southwest of the Bevo Mill. I may be off line for a couple of days, unless I can find something interesting at Dallas-Ft. Worth or Heathrow.
Post-performance ovation at Sunday's concert by the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra. We have a first class orchestra and music director Stéphane Denève led a searing interpretation of Gustav Mahler's Fifth Symphony. I wonder - do conductors ever use hearing protection? My Apple Watch was setting off high decibel warnings up in the balcony.
The lumbar steroid injection went well this morning. Some improvement Monday afternoon but it takes longer to fully kick in.
And it's supposed to be a gorgeous weekend in Prague.
The name on the building may sound odd to out-of-towners. Nothing to do with keeping meat and dairy separate. When I arrived here for college in the late 60s, there was Barnes Hospital and Jewish Hospital facing Forest Park, both affiliated with the Washington University School of Medicine just behind them. In time they all got sucked into a single entity, including several suburban hospitals. What we see here is only a small part of today's complex, which goes back and to the left for several blocks. One of the buildings is the self-consciously named Center for Advanced Medicine. That's where the big guy in pain management is giving me caudal lumbar steroid injections this morning. 🤞
