Autumn and other adventures.
Last Friday I flew up to Philadelphia, despite AirTran's very best attempts to hold me back: after overbooking the flight - egregiously, apparently - they kept upping the bump offer until it stood at two free round-trip tickets per person, a meal voucher, and a seat on the 10-something flight. That's quite the return on a $90 investment, but I just couldn't justify making Nina drive to the airport after midnight. As it turns out, she does some of her best work at that hour (Nina: "Let's play Scrabble!" Rachel: "…it's 1:30." Nina: "Scrabble." I won.); I couldn't have known that, though. And I would have missed Mirrormask.
Nina's a good hostess because she doesn't mind not doing anything, which is my preferred style of tourism. At the same time, she's handy with suggestions in the 'walking around, looking at things' vein. So it was that we spent from about 11 to 6 on Saturday and 1 to 9 on Sunday walking around, looking at things. Day One started something like
Krishna Tent and Art Museum
Originally uploaded by byelka58 Then we walked to the penitentiary (Foucault count: 1), a monastery, a boarding school walled off like a penitentiary, a nursing home rather resembling a factory, then through a cute neighborhood, down to the river, and around the art museum, where we found ourselves at Hare Krishna Fest '07. The… main guy was ensconced in this highly decorated wagon with a hydraulic top that telescoped up and down; between that, the flunky fanning him with a horsetail plume, and the crowd of chanting onlookers, he would have placed respectably in any lowrider contest.
We continued down the Avenue of Flags, dropping into the cathedral (where we thought we were interrupting a wedding, but we weren't) on our way to City Hall, whence we tracked to Reading Terminal Market. The market is full of Amish people (or equivalent) and their frighteningly efficient lunchmeats, plus produce stands, a small Jewish diner, a Mexican food stand, a tiny food court complete with piano player, etc., etc. Still rather full from two consecutive cheese-based meals, we dined on beef jerky, water, and dates. I developed a genuine fondness for dates on this trip, actually. Then we walked down to South Street to tour the Magic Gardens, which look like what you'd get if you had an acid flashback while carrying a department store, dropped it, and insisted on piecing it back together before coming down. It also looks like the artist had a hell of a lot of fun in the process, so I'm not complaining.
When we walked back towards the apartment, we said we'd go back out after dark in order to photograph the fountain in Logan Circle, but what we meant was that we would buy, somehow, still more cheese, and watch one and four-halves movies. That would be The Philadelphia Story, and parts of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe - grossly, unnecessarily violent - Rain Man, X-Men 3, and something I'm forgetting. I'd only just for the first time seen Jimmy Stewart act a few days before, when my mom and I were too stunned by the middle of Ziegfeld's Follies to escape TCM's clutches. (Not only is it one of those movies that uses thin scrapings of plot to glue together lavish, ridiculous stage numbers, but it features Judy Garland lecturing her downtrodden gal pal on the dangers of alcoholism. Plus Ava Gardner, Lana Turner, Mr. Stewart; old films are weird.) So here again was Jimmy Stewart, doing what appears to be His Thing, and I liked it. He held his own as a romantic prospect against Cary Grant, for heaven's sake, which takes some doing. In answer to Nina's question - whether the actress playing the younger sister was ever in anything again - the answer appears to be… something, yes. I appreciate that one of the IMDB plot keywords is "hangover," too. It's no Ironija Sud'by, maybe, but it'll do.
Sunday we got off to a later start, but still found time for the Mütter Museum (medical oddities), various bits of Old City (the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall), a walking tour of the rowdy bit of South Street, and… you know what? Let's go back to the Mütter Museum part, because seventy-pound ovarian cyst. Chang & Eng's liver(s). Skulls from all kinds of dead Europeans, a giant skeleton, a dwarf skeleton, multiple fetal skeletons, a fucking myositis ossificans progressive skeleton, and assorted other candidates for the Grossest Damn Thing/Whoops, Time to Die Awards, to be handed out when I forget the sight of a seventy-pound ovarian cyst and a guy with bony wings where his biceps should be. Jesus, what a museum. And only eight bucks for student admission! Bring your friends.
The other thing I learned over the weekend is that when the falafel guys start reeling off the sauces, you need to pay attention. If you're not sure you've got them straight, don't be afraid to ask. And if, against all advice, you pick a pretty-colored sauce at random, feel free to joke with the guys behind the counter when the cook walks over from the fryer to ask, "You know that's the spicy one, right?" after your third dollop. But I do recommend that you wait to take a bite of the sandwich until your fries have cooled somewhat from their dunk in the oil, because when you get that first mouthful of ground-up habaneras in fire paste, or whatever, you're going to want some neutralizing starches that aren't two hundred degrees Fahrenheit. Finally, if you absolutely must follow up your bolus of chile with a heaping scoop of searingly hot potato mash, just… be cool. Concentrate on the thugged-out dude riding his tiny trick bike in and out of traffic, and wait for it to pass. Now is not the time to chug your drink, because you're going to need it: there are still twenty bites of pita left, and it's tasty. Go slow, though.
Sunday night we did make it out to the fountain for clichéd-photo-taking, and then back for more random movie watching. Or actually less random movie watching, since Nina had to wake up earrrrrly to start her surgery rotation. Monday morning I steered myself back to the airport by way of SEPTA. I considered walking down to 30th Street Station, which is apparently the pretty one, but ducked into a nearer station instead when time kind of got away from me. Luckily the train was a few minutes late, so I had time to find the platform and buy a ticket at the cheaper pre-boarding rate. (Once I got to the front of the line, the man behind me pointed out that the teller around the corner was available, after which he added another sentence with the general inflection of "And your bag is unzipped." Only I didn't hear what it was, or couldn't resolve it into meaningful English. Talk about unnerving. I checked my luggage, my clothes, my hair, but couldn't find anything badly amiss. What on earth could he have said?) Anyway, I'm glad I took the train I did, because the conductor for my car was this slender man with a narrower version of David Duchovny's face, plus the hair, build, and general manner of Harold Ramis as Dr. Egon Spengler. Except he had the voice of a thin man who ate James Earl Jones: very deep, but somewhat strained. The first time he came into the car to announce the station, I almost choked. A++ for you, R-1 conductor.
Cheaha Twisted Vista
Originally uploaded by byelka58 After that four-day work-week, Friday was a deep fall blue, so Saturday Mom and I went out to the lake house for some settin', pickin', and grinnin' (no swimmin', however. The drought is just as bad there). Mom being a librarian, she has crack research skills she can't turn off even if she wants to; while reading the local flyer-thing she found us an arts and crafts fair up on Mt. Cheaha (highest point in Alabama, which is about as high as the radio tower on Stone Mountain - but thanks for playing!). It was outrageously country, and the fact that Mom found three separate things to buy only made it funnier. Regardless, I was glad to have a chance to re-walk one of the little trails with a camera, and I got some peanut brittle, so I guess I can't complain. (Mount Cheaha State Park consists of a loop of road that rings the peak like a tonsure, and then a handful of short walking trails from the road out to various overlooks. Last time we visited we heard a ranger in the welcome center making fun of a woman who'd called in worried about her son: "She said, 'Well, what if he's lost?' And I told her, 'Lady, we don't have a trail here longer than a mile. He's not lost.' I mean, he might have fallen off the mountain, but he's not lost.")
Then on Sunday she found a magazine article directing us to Sweetwater Creek Conservation State Park, a nice green space off I-20 on our way back to town. It has some mill ruins, like all other river parks in Georgia; since it was a cotton mill, the workers got turn-homeward-Hannalee'd during the Civil War, and the building was burnt. More good hiking there (on top of the six AM walk I took back in Alabama) and a few more pictures; I'm still no good at balancing exposures on sunny days, alas. But fantastic weather.
Nina's a good hostess because she doesn't mind not doing anything, which is my preferred style of tourism. At the same time, she's handy with suggestions in the 'walking around, looking at things' vein. So it was that we spent from about 11 to 6 on Saturday and 1 to 9 on Sunday walking around, looking at things. Day One started something like
- Wake up.
- Try to close sofa bed (shrrrrreeeeak) and reassemble living room (thunk, shredding sound of velcro) without waking Nina.
- Steal a book and start reading.
- Take a shower across the hall from host's bedroom (thundering cataract).
- Read some more.
- Creep into kitchen; retrieve bread and cheese from previous night's feast.
- Make tiny rustling noise unsheathing baguette.
- GOOD MORNING, RACHEL. I SEE YOU HAVE SOME CHEESE.
Krishna Tent and Art Museum
Originally uploaded by byelka58 Then we walked to the penitentiary (Foucault count: 1), a monastery, a boarding school walled off like a penitentiary, a nursing home rather resembling a factory, then through a cute neighborhood, down to the river, and around the art museum, where we found ourselves at Hare Krishna Fest '07. The… main guy was ensconced in this highly decorated wagon with a hydraulic top that telescoped up and down; between that, the flunky fanning him with a horsetail plume, and the crowd of chanting onlookers, he would have placed respectably in any lowrider contest.
We continued down the Avenue of Flags, dropping into the cathedral (where we thought we were interrupting a wedding, but we weren't) on our way to City Hall, whence we tracked to Reading Terminal Market. The market is full of Amish people (or equivalent) and their frighteningly efficient lunchmeats, plus produce stands, a small Jewish diner, a Mexican food stand, a tiny food court complete with piano player, etc., etc. Still rather full from two consecutive cheese-based meals, we dined on beef jerky, water, and dates. I developed a genuine fondness for dates on this trip, actually. Then we walked down to South Street to tour the Magic Gardens, which look like what you'd get if you had an acid flashback while carrying a department store, dropped it, and insisted on piecing it back together before coming down. It also looks like the artist had a hell of a lot of fun in the process, so I'm not complaining.
When we walked back towards the apartment, we said we'd go back out after dark in order to photograph the fountain in Logan Circle, but what we meant was that we would buy, somehow, still more cheese, and watch one and four-halves movies. That would be The Philadelphia Story, and parts of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe - grossly, unnecessarily violent - Rain Man, X-Men 3, and something I'm forgetting. I'd only just for the first time seen Jimmy Stewart act a few days before, when my mom and I were too stunned by the middle of Ziegfeld's Follies to escape TCM's clutches. (Not only is it one of those movies that uses thin scrapings of plot to glue together lavish, ridiculous stage numbers, but it features Judy Garland lecturing her downtrodden gal pal on the dangers of alcoholism. Plus Ava Gardner, Lana Turner, Mr. Stewart; old films are weird.) So here again was Jimmy Stewart, doing what appears to be His Thing, and I liked it. He held his own as a romantic prospect against Cary Grant, for heaven's sake, which takes some doing. In answer to Nina's question - whether the actress playing the younger sister was ever in anything again - the answer appears to be… something, yes. I appreciate that one of the IMDB plot keywords is "hangover," too. It's no Ironija Sud'by, maybe, but it'll do.
Sunday we got off to a later start, but still found time for the Mütter Museum (medical oddities), various bits of Old City (the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall), a walking tour of the rowdy bit of South Street, and… you know what? Let's go back to the Mütter Museum part, because seventy-pound ovarian cyst. Chang & Eng's liver(s). Skulls from all kinds of dead Europeans, a giant skeleton, a dwarf skeleton, multiple fetal skeletons, a fucking myositis ossificans progressive skeleton, and assorted other candidates for the Grossest Damn Thing/Whoops, Time to Die Awards, to be handed out when I forget the sight of a seventy-pound ovarian cyst and a guy with bony wings where his biceps should be. Jesus, what a museum. And only eight bucks for student admission! Bring your friends.
The other thing I learned over the weekend is that when the falafel guys start reeling off the sauces, you need to pay attention. If you're not sure you've got them straight, don't be afraid to ask. And if, against all advice, you pick a pretty-colored sauce at random, feel free to joke with the guys behind the counter when the cook walks over from the fryer to ask, "You know that's the spicy one, right?" after your third dollop. But I do recommend that you wait to take a bite of the sandwich until your fries have cooled somewhat from their dunk in the oil, because when you get that first mouthful of ground-up habaneras in fire paste, or whatever, you're going to want some neutralizing starches that aren't two hundred degrees Fahrenheit. Finally, if you absolutely must follow up your bolus of chile with a heaping scoop of searingly hot potato mash, just… be cool. Concentrate on the thugged-out dude riding his tiny trick bike in and out of traffic, and wait for it to pass. Now is not the time to chug your drink, because you're going to need it: there are still twenty bites of pita left, and it's tasty. Go slow, though.
Sunday night we did make it out to the fountain for clichéd-photo-taking, and then back for more random movie watching. Or actually less random movie watching, since Nina had to wake up earrrrrly to start her surgery rotation. Monday morning I steered myself back to the airport by way of SEPTA. I considered walking down to 30th Street Station, which is apparently the pretty one, but ducked into a nearer station instead when time kind of got away from me. Luckily the train was a few minutes late, so I had time to find the platform and buy a ticket at the cheaper pre-boarding rate. (Once I got to the front of the line, the man behind me pointed out that the teller around the corner was available, after which he added another sentence with the general inflection of "And your bag is unzipped." Only I didn't hear what it was, or couldn't resolve it into meaningful English. Talk about unnerving. I checked my luggage, my clothes, my hair, but couldn't find anything badly amiss. What on earth could he have said?) Anyway, I'm glad I took the train I did, because the conductor for my car was this slender man with a narrower version of David Duchovny's face, plus the hair, build, and general manner of Harold Ramis as Dr. Egon Spengler. Except he had the voice of a thin man who ate James Earl Jones: very deep, but somewhat strained. The first time he came into the car to announce the station, I almost choked. A++ for you, R-1 conductor.
Cheaha Twisted Vista
Originally uploaded by byelka58 After that four-day work-week, Friday was a deep fall blue, so Saturday Mom and I went out to the lake house for some settin', pickin', and grinnin' (no swimmin', however. The drought is just as bad there). Mom being a librarian, she has crack research skills she can't turn off even if she wants to; while reading the local flyer-thing she found us an arts and crafts fair up on Mt. Cheaha (highest point in Alabama, which is about as high as the radio tower on Stone Mountain - but thanks for playing!). It was outrageously country, and the fact that Mom found three separate things to buy only made it funnier. Regardless, I was glad to have a chance to re-walk one of the little trails with a camera, and I got some peanut brittle, so I guess I can't complain. (Mount Cheaha State Park consists of a loop of road that rings the peak like a tonsure, and then a handful of short walking trails from the road out to various overlooks. Last time we visited we heard a ranger in the welcome center making fun of a woman who'd called in worried about her son: "She said, 'Well, what if he's lost?' And I told her, 'Lady, we don't have a trail here longer than a mile. He's not lost.' I mean, he might have fallen off the mountain, but he's not lost.")
Then on Sunday she found a magazine article directing us to Sweetwater Creek Conservation State Park, a nice green space off I-20 on our way back to town. It has some mill ruins, like all other river parks in Georgia; since it was a cotton mill, the workers got turn-homeward-Hannalee'd during the Civil War, and the building was burnt. More good hiking there (on top of the six AM walk I took back in Alabama) and a few more pictures; I'm still no good at balancing exposures on sunny days, alas. But fantastic weather.