06.03.05
Posted in Travels at 11:57 pm by Leopoldo
Friday, June 3, 2005 11:55PM
Bristol, UK
The flight ended up leaving a half an hour late and arriving about fifteen minutes late which was quite fine. Teresa picked me up at the airport and drove me around Bristol for a short while before we got to her place and dropped my bag off. I am quite loving the British west countryside, rolling green hills, rivers, lots of hedges and beautiful towns.
From her apartment we went up to Aardman Studios where Teresa took me on the sets of Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005). I cannot say much (or show any pictures) because of a non disclosure agreement, but I think I can safely say that the sets looked marvelous. A number of them were huge with motion control rigs swinging cameras in and around streets with many buildings and big backdrop fields. We had a delicious lunch at the Aardman canteen of broccoli/cheese pie, peas, new potatoes and a banana toffee dessert. I was very impressed with the ‘lunchroom’ cooking and with how friendly everyone we met was. They seemed like grand people to work with.
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Posted in Travels at 9:33 am by Leopoldo
Friday, June 3, 2005, 9:15AM
CDG Airport, Paris
Sitting in an overcrowded waiting room at Charles de Gaul airport in Paris. The bad news is that the place is stuffed to overflowing, most people are standing and it will be another half an hour before the bus comes by to take me to my plane. The good news is that from the place where I stand I can see the monitor for the X-Ray machine and get a glimpse at what everyone is carrying. Cool. Amazing how many people are flying with a couple of bottles of wine and how many of the bags have condoms in them.
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Posted in Travels at 2:00 am by Leopoldo
Friday, June 3, 2005, 2:00 AM
Had lunch at a hip neo-Italian joint on Rue de Rivoli near Place des Vosges. The waiter was cute and friendly but rather inept. The food was ok, far from great but I did enjoy my eggplant and mushroom Pizza. After lunch Dad and I went to the Musée Carnavalet (which contains the Museum of History of Paris), a deceivingly large museum for being housed in an old private house with Parisian artifacts going back to the Roman colony in 4000 BC and up to the French revolution. The collection was impressive and extensive though a bit disorganized. As we went from hall to hall we jumped forward then backward in time from Louis XV to Napoleon back to the Revolution then to prehistory and then to the renaissance. I walked a bit with a schoolteacher leading a group of young kids that spoke French slowly enough for me to understand him and wished I could have taken the whole museum in with a tour.
This is probably an appropriate time to make a comment on the French language. Let me quote myself from my first entry in Paris:
I can make out most the written French, understand about half of what is being said and bumble my way through simple questions.
Lies. I can make out what slow talking (country?) French people say but Parisians speak like they are constantly late for an important engagement. I have heard Parisians give out a whole chain of sentences like it is a single word with no pauses. Truth is I can barely understand what people say and read about half (maybe a bit more) of the written language. The part about bumbling my way through simple questions is true enough though I am sure I sound to the locals like a secondary character in a bad western: “Me wanting big glass beeerie plueze”. Kind of makes me want to start taking language lessons again.
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06.02.05
Posted in Travels at 3:08 am by Leopoldo
Thursday, June 2, 2005, 11:58AM
à la maison
Nearly noon. Got up this morning and popped by the Crêperie downstairs for a cheese and ham crepe. I have spent the last four hours doing photo editing, cleaning up blog entries and prepping them for publishing. Being my penultimate date in Paris it seems like a bit of a waste to spend it in the apartment but I wanted to get the entries out while I had a chance. I have also been working on a photo album of the whole trip to share with everyone and have been making notes for some special non-journal travel log entries. I have also been enjoying great music, this morning I have gone through
Manu Chao / Clandestino
Maria Callas / Callas 1949
Nitin Sawhney / Prophecy
Supreme Beings Of Leisure / Supreme Beings Of Leisure
Morcheeba / Who Can you Trust?
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06.01.05
Posted in Travels at 11:55 pm by Leopoldo
Wednesday, June 1, 2005
Later that day…
Had lunch at an artesian sandwich shop called Cosi that was recommended by my friend Jeux d’enfants (2003) (aka Love me if you Dare). I thought I would be able to follow the story given that I knew something about the movie and have recently had some good French language practice; boy was I wrong. These kids talk at full speed and even with subtitles I was barely getting a quarter of what they were saying.
A brief nap later we went to meet the Colombian ambassador to UNESCO, a friend of Himelda’s. The talk was mostly over high end discussions on the state of national education, politics and the workings of the Colombian ministries. I had little to do but sit and keep quiet, this has happened to me before where I find myself in company that runs in circles I am barely aware of and have little to contribute to. Dinner however very much caught my attention (hmm, anyone notice a pattern here?). The minister told us we could go to a restaurant where you make no choices other than how well cooked the meat would be and that is exactly what we got. At le Relais de l’Entrecôte the uniformed waitress welcomes you with a lettuce and walnut salad with a mustard sauce and asks how you would you like your steak. A couple of short minutes later we had a bottle of the fine house wine and each had a plate full of some of the best dammed steak I have had anywhere and frits (those are French Fries for the non-French in the crowd). Start to run out of either of the two and more is put on your plate. The wait staff seemed familiar with the old Europe form of signaling with silverware because I got a break when I set my fork and knife in the ‘just resting’ position and as soon as I put them down for ‘all finished’ my plate was gone. After dinner came a menu with about 30 delicious looking desserts, I had a raspberry sorbet with fresh fruit as well as about half of my dad’s meringue tower with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce. The place is a bit pricy at €41 per dinner plus another €6.5 for dessert but I think it is worth the visit.
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Posted in Travels at 12:45 pm by Leopoldo
12:45 – I just walked around what they call the Menagerie (a small Zoo) and saw a small marsupial (at least it looks like a marsupial) the likes of which I have never seen before. I haven’t the fogiest what this beast might be called and decided to take a pic in case someone recognizes it.
(hey that’s George!)
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Posted in Travels at 12:00 pm by Leopoldo
12:00 – A siren just went off and scared the hell out of me. My thought was ‘air raid’ then to wonder if there was a fire or some other need for an evacuation but no one around me seemed to be bothered. Fortunately for me a gentleman walking by explained to his young son ‘ce la midi’. Many cities in old times had the custom of setting a cannon off at exactly noon so the locals could set their watches and clocks. I guess some habits die hard.
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Posted in Travels at 11:42 am by Leopoldo
Wednesday, June 1, 2005, 11:42AM
Jardin des Plantes
It is mid morning and I am sitting on a bench at the Jardin des Plantes. The Jardin is a botanical garden with sections of plants from different areas of the world. The sun is playfully sneaking out from between clouds and then being filtered by the leaves of the trees around me. Sweet and soft unidentified scents waif through the air teasing me to explore one way or another and children run by in occasional groups on their way to the Zoo or the Muséum National d’Historie Naturelle. The flavor of the two nectarines I had for breakfast lingers in my palette and I have plenty of time to sit, breathe, read and write. Life on vacation is good.
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