California 2

Chose promie, chose dûe... voici quelques autres photos du voyage californien. 

Le Golden Gate embrumé

 Le quartier Chinois de San Francisco

  L'hôtel Hyatt de San Francisco, et son architecture atypique. Construit en 1972, conçu par John Portman.  

Carré de faïence sur un trottoir de Monterey, ancien port producteur de sardines. 

Un Majestueux arbre Red Wood à Big Basin

Un Red Wood troué et toujours vivant

La baie de Monterey

Des cormorans dans la baie de Monterey

Les vélos Google sur leur campus à Mountain View.

The Phoenix man

It's my last day in California. I must say that I'll be sad to leave. So I guess the Phoenix man was right... back track to my journal entry on the plane, flying to the Sunny West :

I'm still in the plane, but we stopped in Phoenix. Most of the passengers have left, and I wonder if there will be more boarding. My seat neighbor left. He was a large man, perhaps of Native American descent. When I asked if I could sit down (Southwest airlines does free seating now) he welcomed me kindly. I noticed a little later that his grey hair was long, tied in a flat ponytail. He was wearing silver feather earrings and had a large tattoo on his arm - a design that included an eagle, surrounded by the phrase "in memory of my father". He asked me where I was going. I told him I was visiting the Bay area. "You'll like it there. You won't want to leave". I've definitely heard that one before! 
Apparently, he's originally from the Bay area. But he seemed to like Phoenix, too. "It gets up to a nice 108-110 degrees". He didn't seem particularly oppressed by the heat when referring to it. I think that we really bonded when the flight attendant distributed small packages of peanuts. I started opening mine, not paying great attention since I was reading Song of Solomon at the same time. And since I was distracted, I wasn't really succeeding in opening it. The Phoenix man took my bag of munchies - large, assured hands - tore it open, and handed it back. Similarly, he took my cup when the flight attendant was walking the aisle with a trash bag. I seem to attract that type of behavior here. People very often help me without me asking them for anything. I never expect anyone to help me unless it's very obvious that I need help or if I ask for it. But here, for some reason, people take care of me. Maybe it's because they feel that I'll let them? I don't strike them as a control freak? I look clueless? I don't, by any means, want to take advantage of people, but I can't help but accept it when people offer something. I find it very ungracious to refuse help. But maybe I should put up more resistance. Anyway, in the case of the Phoenix man, I was charmed. It was his way of starting a conversation. 
Ah, new people are boarding the plane. But I secured the window seat. I will hopefully see some nice scenery. 


More photos to come from beautiful Californian landscapes.

California!

It has been more than a month since I last updated this blog! Shame on me.
I am currently in California, visiting my aunt and uncle in the Palo Alto area. We went on a week-end road trip, and went all the way to Lake Tahoe (splendid!), then down to Mono lake (which is a mineral lake with sediment towers called Tufas,also home to brine shrimp and flies ) then to Yosemite park (beautiful pine trees, snow capped mountains and impressive water falls).
Earlier in the week, I got to go to Pescadero beach (desolate, beautifully eerie) and Santa Cruz (laid back beach town, with a world-renowned university), And tomorrow, we will go to San Francisco.
This is such a wonderful vacation!
I also had some time to work on a writing piece, and remembered how much I enjoyed writing in coffee shops. It has also been cool to leave the East Coast for a while and to be in completely new territory. Because of my dislocated shoulder plus the mono, I was wallowing in the aftermath of injury.
I'm incredibly fortunate to have the opportunity to relax for two weeks, and now fully understand the benefits of vacation.
But anyway. Here are a few pictures to get a glimpse of California's diverse landscapes.

 Stanford University Quad

 Stanford University church

 Buzzard on a dead seal, Pescadero Beach

 Wood and birds, Pescadero Beach

Santa Cruz

 Lake Tahoe

 aunt Christine at Lake Tahoe

                                             High desert evening, California/Nevada border

Cute motel kittens

Going towards Mono Lake - Sierra Nevada mountains

Mono Lake

 Sediment Tufas at Mono Lake

 Tonton Jacques at Mono Lake

 Yosemite National Park rapids

Bridalveil fall, Yosemite National Park- 188 metres (617 ft)

Boston

I went to Boston. I moved my bouncy bottom out of Bethlehem and went out to explore the world, and it felt nice. Really nice. I'm starting to like buses a lot. Not nearly as much as I like trains, but trains aren't the way to go in the US. They're expensive, and impractical, and slow. Buses are actually faster, most of the time, and a lot cheaper.

So I took the bus from Bethlehem to New York, and when I got to Port Authority bus station, as I was standing on the escalator and seeing crowds of people pass me by, I heard myself whisper to myself "why the hell am I not living here". It always happens when I'm in New York. I can't help it. Completely spontaneous, completely uncontrolable. A real question: indeed, why am I not living here? Strange. But okay! I'm okay not living in New York. I really am okay with it. Nevertheless, everytime I'm there, I sense the vibe, the sheer energy of that city, and I'm drawn to it. I was a bit disappointed to simplytransit through, until I realized the bus from New York to Boston was crossing all of Manhattan before reaching the highway!

We rode on Amsterdam avenue, from the very lower part of Manhattan all the way up to Harlem. I watched and watched and watched as the neighborhoods changed, as we passed by a Central Park entrance, as a lady all dressed up for church (red and white hat, red suit, red and white shoes) stopped at the crosswalk. When we reached the highway, I could still see the roofs of a burrough, which I realized was South Bronx when I saw a panel on a building " Save the South Bronx".

Then we were on our way to Boston.
Past New York, Connecticut, into Massachusetts, I started realizing what the big deal was about New England. The big deal is that New England is really pretty. Forests and lakes, and you can almost see the crispness of the air. I remembered that some friends I had met in Dublin who were American came from here. And I remembered their descriptions as I was staring through the bus window. This was different from Pennsylvania. It felt more... "North", just as DC feels more "South".
When I got to Boston, I took the subway, which also made me happy, because that's what public transportation does for me. And then, I met up with Olivia. We hadn't seen each other for two years (!) so we of course had a lot to talk about, a lot to catch up on. And, as we immediately bonded again, and felt no awkwardness, we realized that, well, we really were good friends.

We walked a lot, visiting the various neighborhoods, going to Cambridge and seeing Harvard, and going to the Samuel Adams brewery for some beer tasting. And I got to eat the chowda', and some of the best cannoli in the world (Mike's pastry, you should check it out if you're ever over there). Life was good that week-end.
Maybe it was because I was with Olivia, and because we met up with another friend who used to go to Royal Holloway, but I could sense the Britishness, and the Irishness of the environment. Maybe because, for the first time since I've been in the US living here, I walked into a bar that felt more like a pub, more like a place where you actually take your time to sit and relax and drink good beer, and eat something else besides chips. Maybe because the buildings were all red brick, or because of the accents, or because of the public parks and plazas... Boston felt new yet recognizable. It felt like the perfect place to catch my breath, gain perspective and chill. Exactly what I needed!

Jack Nicholson hanging out on a Boston wall

The Harvard Philosophy Department

Harvard bookstore

A funny dentist's window

George Washington in the Public gardens

Old church - newer building

Oklahoma

Je ne devrais pas écrire en français, mais c'est la langue qui me vient maintenant. Pourtant, c'est de mon grand-père américain dont je veux parler. C'est lui qui vient de partir.

Je suis allée en Oklahoma ce week-end, pour Thanksgiving. On fêtait les 90 ans d'une de mes grandes tantes, Aunt Marie. J'ai pu rencontrer des membres de ma famille dont j'ignorais jusque l'existence, et je suis éblouie par le pouvoir de ce qu'on appelle "famille". Des personnes ont beau ne pas se voir, ne jamais se voir, il y a quand même quelquechose qui les lie. Pas forcément un lien du sang, parce que les familles se nouent aussi par alliance et par adoption. Mais il s'agit d'un lien qui dépasse l'individu, qui voyage de génération en génération. Si quelqu'un connaissait ma grand-mère, connaissait ma mère, alors, ce quelqu'un me connait, un peu. Si quelqu'un connait ma cousine, et que je suis aussi sa cousine, alors, on est cousines. On ne se connait pas, mais on peut commencer la relation quelque part. En tout cas, ce quelqu'un m'accepte. C'est assez fort, mine de rien.

Ok, English now.
I had never been to Oklahoma, that I remember, so this trip was a first. Although I hadn't been there geographically, I had heard of Oklahoma from different family members. From my grandparents, first of all. Oklahoma was the place where they spent their childhood, and their years as young adults. Oklahoma was the home land. That arid farmland, those endless plains. Now I understand. When we were sorting out my grandparent's belongings when they moved from their house in Richmond, I came across this picture of my grandmother, who couldn't have been more than 6 years old, with her brothers. It's a brown and white picture, but you can still tell that the kids are squinting because of the harsh sunlight. They are barefoot in a dusty garden. My grandmother has a short cotton dress, and my great-uncles are wearing pants and suspenders, and scruffy shirts. Oklahoma farm kids. The dusty soil, and the incredibly bright light. Now I understand.
I remember my mom fondly talking about her paternal grandmother, and I can now imagine how her accent could have sounded. I remember my grandfather talking about the landscapes, and now I have seen them. It wasn't planned, but going to Oklahoma has made sense in the grand scheme of things. As my grandfather passed away, I finally discovered where he came from.







We stopped by OBU, Oklahoma Baptist University, which is basically the family university. My grandfather went there, my mother too, as well as most of my uncles. I heard great things about OBU from my grandfather, since it's the place where he was able to access to higher education, and think about becoming a pastor. It's also the place where he met my grandmother, who was also a student there. I didn't hear such great things about OBU from my mother, or some of my uncles, but - good or bad memories - it remains the place where most of my american family was educated. And when I see the results, I'm thinking that, either they were able to recover from that experience, or OBU taught them some valuable things along the way.





We also made it to Thomas, my mother's birthplace. When I think that she comes from that little town, in the southwest of the USA, I feel slight vertigo... to see where she is now, in Paris, France (and not Paris, Texas - which wouldn't be so far from Thomas!). I'm starting to understand more clearly what she means when she says that she has had "several lives".







And to finish off this Oklahoma hommage, here are a few other photos I took during the trip...
... of my sister on the phone with my mom in Shawnee



... of the old Santa Fe train line sign ( rail no longer in service, unfortunately)



... of the Oklahoma-city skyline.

reconciliations on an opening night

Man, so many things to say! I feel like I should break up all my thoughts into different blog posts, to make everything look neater and less scattered. But I don't think that's what's going to happen. I'll just blurt all the thoughts out and see how that works.
I guess I should start by saying that I'm in the Touchstone offices writing this blog post while the first run of The Tempest is going on. The reason I'm not watcching it is because the house is packed with audience members! And that's pretty exciting. I'll get feedback on the show later tonight, and I'll probably get to see it tomorrow.

This production has been a race for all involved. First and foremost, the actors: three actors playing the ten characters from The Tempest in a quite physical rendition of Shakespeare's play. I was slightly skeptical at first, because it's an abbridged version of Shakespeare, and I think one must always be a little bit weary of Shakespeare "adaptations". But the show really is good, and I'm not saying that only because I participated in making it happen. I saw the dress rehearsal, and I was drawn to the playful quality of the character changes, and the physical rendition of comedy.

It's strange how, once something finally happens, it doesn't really matter anymore how you got to that point. All that matters is that it's all good in the end. These last few weeks were a lot of work, but the memory of how hard we worked is already starting to fade in front of what has been accomplished. That's probably theatre's redeeming factor, and the reason practitionners continue on working their butts off: there's magic there, I'm sure of it.

Zach and I worked on set and costume, and on anything that needed to be done, and that no one else had time to do (mainly, paint, paint, paint). I think this show definitely has gotten us involved in the midst of the company, and we are now seasonned apprentices. I feel like I know the nooks and crannies of this place after having searched - in vain - for black spray paint, which I finally went and purchased at the hardware store. I also searched for fabric, trims, thread and costume pieces in the costume store. I also had a fit of frustration in front of a sewing machine, since I had no way of figuring out how to put the bobin in so that the damn thing would work ( I now know: you don't try to insert the bottom thread in the hole, it does it on its own once activated...!)

I then reconciled myself with sewing by finally figuring out how to use the damn machine, and sewing a belt for one of the costumes (it was a team effort: Lisa, the producing director came up with the design, and I came up with the stitches). I made countless stitches for multiple puppets serving as the spirit Ariel. I also filled condoms with beans to make bean bags that were then attached to light-weight fabric, in order for the fabric to fly from one end of the stage to the other when thrown by the actors. Creativity can be umpredictable!

I think Zach knows the nooks and crannies of the closest fabric store (Joann's) since we went to buy muslin there once, which didn't turn out to be good for the set, so he went back to get burlap, and I think he had already gone once to find samples.

We're learning, so we often have taken longer roads to the solutions, but, in the end, it all worked out, as it most often does. I'm exhausted, but happy (the happiness only kicked in today. Yesterday, I definitely had a different attitude about all things theatre-related).

On a totally different note, I went to New York last week-end, and it was pretty great to be in a city, I have to say. I realised at every step that I'm an urban girl at heart. And as I was sitting in the subway and on the bus, I almost felt like public transport really was my true home. I got to see two good Trinity College friends, and as we went to a bar in the middle of the afternoon, I realised some things never change: we were back in Dublin pubs, only this was Brooklyn, on a halloween day, and kids were coming into the bar, trick or treating. The bar tender offered a kid a shot, but he politely declined.

It's cliché to say this, but I really do feel a connection with New York. I may never live there, and if I don't, it won't be the end of the world. But if I ever do, I think I'd enjoy it.

Here are a few pictures:

In Brooklyn...

In Manhattan, China town, on a sunday afternoon/early evening...

Tai-chi lessons in a neighborhood park




Card playing and sports