San Antonio
I'm in San Antonio, Texas, for the APA/AIA, the big annual conferences for Classics and Classical Archaeology, and the ASGLE, a new epigraphy conference. A few friends and I have rented a house in Southtown a short walk south of the Downtown area. One of those friends rented a car for a couple of days, so today we went driving.
First stop was the McNay Art Gallery, currently home to Landscapes from the Age of Impressionism, an exhibition on loan from the Brooklyn Museum. As I quite like impressionist paintings, this was a fortuitous development. Part of the gallery was the former estate of American artist Marion Koogler McNay, so the internal decorations and architecture, including a very pretty enclosed courtyard, was part of the display. The permanent collection had a some other impressionists, a couple of Picaso's and a Matisse, but the most impressive was a Cézanne. I hadn't seen his work before, but I really liked the way he used negative space to create the image.
Leaving the McNay, we had lunch (really breakfast) at a nearby restaurant, Silo, had coffee at Sip back in Downtown, then went to the San Antonio Museum of Art. SAMA has a decent Egyptian collection, supplemented by a temporary exhibit, again from the Brooklyn Museum, of Egyptian funerary artifacts, as well as small but high quality collections of Greek and Roman material where I spent most of my time. The pre-Columbian rooms were also remarkable. That's not a type of material culture that I'm familiar with at all, but I should make more effort to investigate it while I'm in the US.
After SAMA, we drove some 20 kilometres out of town for dinner at a BBQ place, Rudy's "Country Store" and Bar-B-Q. It was a great experience, and the food was good (I had beef brisket, creamed corn, peach cobbler and some fizzy yellow beer), but it probably didn't live up to the online review which claimed that it was the best BBQ in San Antonio. Then again, maybe San Antonio doesn't have high standards on that count.
Our final stop was the Blue Star Brewing Company just down the road from our house. I started with their Winter Texan (Lager?) would have been fine for a mass produced beer, but not for a micro-brew), tried a bit of the Pale Ale, which better (it wasn't particularly hoppy, so it wasn't popular with the rest of the table), and finished with the Smoked Dark, which was smokey and not very dark - perhaps the colour of Arrogant Bastard. Apparently the Belgian and the Barleywine weren't that good. So, not the most successful brewery expedition, but it is conveniently located, so I'll probably go back before we leave, if only to try the stout.
Pictures will come when I'm back in LA.
338
First stop was the McNay Art Gallery, currently home to Landscapes from the Age of Impressionism, an exhibition on loan from the Brooklyn Museum. As I quite like impressionist paintings, this was a fortuitous development. Part of the gallery was the former estate of American artist Marion Koogler McNay, so the internal decorations and architecture, including a very pretty enclosed courtyard, was part of the display. The permanent collection had a some other impressionists, a couple of Picaso's and a Matisse, but the most impressive was a Cézanne. I hadn't seen his work before, but I really liked the way he used negative space to create the image.
Leaving the McNay, we had lunch (really breakfast) at a nearby restaurant, Silo, had coffee at Sip back in Downtown, then went to the San Antonio Museum of Art. SAMA has a decent Egyptian collection, supplemented by a temporary exhibit, again from the Brooklyn Museum, of Egyptian funerary artifacts, as well as small but high quality collections of Greek and Roman material where I spent most of my time. The pre-Columbian rooms were also remarkable. That's not a type of material culture that I'm familiar with at all, but I should make more effort to investigate it while I'm in the US.
After SAMA, we drove some 20 kilometres out of town for dinner at a BBQ place, Rudy's "Country Store" and Bar-B-Q. It was a great experience, and the food was good (I had beef brisket, creamed corn, peach cobbler and some fizzy yellow beer), but it probably didn't live up to the online review which claimed that it was the best BBQ in San Antonio. Then again, maybe San Antonio doesn't have high standards on that count.
Our final stop was the Blue Star Brewing Company just down the road from our house. I started with their Winter Texan (Lager?) would have been fine for a mass produced beer, but not for a micro-brew), tried a bit of the Pale Ale, which better (it wasn't particularly hoppy, so it wasn't popular with the rest of the table), and finished with the Smoked Dark, which was smokey and not very dark - perhaps the colour of Arrogant Bastard. Apparently the Belgian and the Barleywine weren't that good. So, not the most successful brewery expedition, but it is conveniently located, so I'll probably go back before we leave, if only to try the stout.
Pictures will come when I'm back in LA.
338