#29 Boston - Jetlag and Heartburn - Now That's Christmas - December 22, 2005

Hello my friends across the ocean, across the street and wherever else you may be hiding. Petra's weekly remarks are being composed in the lovely town of Neuenburg in Southern Germany (www.neuenburg.de), where the weather is cold (33 degrees F currently) and dreary, and I am suffering from a good dose of jetlag and heartburn. If that isn't Christmas! We might be expecting a little snow in time for the holidays, but most likely it ain't going to be a White Christmas this year for us.

I arrived here this past Monday morning, with no sleep on the plane, exhausted but happy about having a nice two-week break and about being able to see my family and friends at home. Before that, of course, there were still some fun activities to attend in Boston. On Saturday, my friend Elaine and I headed over to the always worthwile Museum of Fine Arts (www.mfa.org) in Boston for two exhibits - Ansel Adams Photography in the Gund Gallery - and a second fairly decent display of "The Facets of Cubism". Ansel Adams, as many of you know, is the consummate Black and White nature photographer and one of my favorite artists (http://www.anseladams.com/). In particular his photographies of Yosemite Valley and the Sierra Nevada mountains are stunning works of art - in his own words he considered this area "a great earth gesture". He was an avaricious defender of wilderness and the environment, and more than outspoken on threats to natural areas, including what he called the National Park Service's "resortism". He died in 1984 but not without leaving a tremendous legacy of remarkable technical skill and passion for nature.

His son Michael describes one anectode:
“Ansel was driving, and Cedric was in the passenger seat. I was eight years old, half listening to the banter, watching the world fly by out the window. We were in Ansel’s old Pontiac station wagon, heading back to Santa Fe. It had been a long day, and not, apparently, very successful. I don’t really remember any discussion about the potential of Moonrise at the time, only that we were moving really fast. Ansel was by nature prone to driving fast, but skilled and certainly not reckless. It was quite a shock, therefore, to suddenly be on the gravel shoulder of the road, fishtailing and dust flying as Ansel slammed on the brakes. “Hurry ! Hurry ! Hurry ! Grab the camera case ! It’s under there, get that out of the way. Where’s the tripod. Film holders ! Hurry ! Where’s the light meter ? ! ! Where’s the light meter ? ! Oh, no, the light’s going…” Things were flying out of the car and onto the ground as we were frantically grabbing things that Ansel needed. Certainly not a direct quote, but at the end of it, Ansel knew he had something. He didn’t find the light meter, but he made exposure based on the known luminosity of the moon – 250 foot candles. The rest, as they say, is history.”

The second exhibit of the day focused on cubism, a style of modern art mostly dominated by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braques, which is seen as a continuation of the art of Paul Cezanne and the so-called fauvism, a post-impressionist movement that incuded Paul Matisse. This style aimed at reducing the depicted objects to a set of cubes, cylinders, cones, and circles. The MFA exhibit was not a very comprehensive display of cubist artists aside from a few paintings and illustrations by Picasso and Bracques, and I for one would have liked to see a bit more from Juan Gris and Marc Chagall. Interesting nevertheless.

This decent dose of culture was immediately followed by a different kind of event; Ellen, Patrick and I headed over to the movie theater to take in "King Kong" (http://www.kongisking.net/index.shtml). It is a must-see, and definitely has master film maker Peter Jackson's signature to it, including the 3 hour time it takes to sit through it. Pretty cool special effects, excellent movie making. The evening ended with a nice beer at the Silvertone Bar and Grill on Bromfield Street, where we had to convince Patrick that they had indeed the best Mac and Cheese ever!
The rest of the weekend was completed by finishing packing and a lovely Chrismas brunch Sunday morning before heading to the airport. Life is good.

Since arriving here in Germany life has been good as well (maybe aside from the heartburn), and all kinds of fun activities have commenced. On Tuesday Gitta and I paid a surprise visit to my friend Gisela in the neighboring town of Auggen (http://www.auggenblick.de/auggenblcik.de_Auggen_Serie03.htm). Gisela's husband is the mayor there and she had to officiate a most charming event - an "advent calendar on foot" - every day during the advent season, another home reveals a Christmas window with a story attached to it. What a lovely event - quite a good crowd gathered, enjoyed hot cocoas with Amaretto or a little Schnaps and sang Christmas songs together.

Yesterday, my friends Fredi and Wendy and their daughter Tassia from California came by for a visit, and after a very tasty lunch in a local restaurant, we headed up to see some snow in the foothills of the BlackForest. Our visit lead us to see Schloss Buergeln (http://www.schlossbuergeln.de/). The castle as it is now was built in 1762 (some of the buildings actually date back to the 11th century) and is lovingly called the "Pearl of the Markgraeflerland". It was mostly used as a monastery but is now privately owned. A solid wall surrounds the castle, and there are some very amiable hiking paths nearby and even a natural water source, where locals come and fill their bottles with natural spring water.

Last night Marion (my brother's girlfriend), Andrea (her sister) and I headed to Freiburg, my old college town - http://freiburg.de/ - to vistit the "Weihnachtsmarkt", one of the traditional German Christmas markets, very quaint and appealing with lots of regional arts and crafts, tasty treats (Dampfnudeln, Striebele and Bratwurst, yumm!) and lots of mulled wine (Gluehwein!). I promised my friend Beth to write all about the food, but will save this up for my think-piece next week.

Tonight, the Schoki Club is meeting, tomorrow cross country skiing is on the agenda, and a visit to the theater is in the planning stages as well for early next week. Christmas celebrations are coming up for the weekend - so no rest for the weary and no boredom in sight.

My friends, again Happy Holidays, however you are planning to spend them! Have fun and go play in the snow!

pet:)