Cruise: Day 7

As the cruise wound down to a close, I was ready for a day of sun and relaxation in Palma de Mallorca. I did travel into the city centre to get a carry-on bag, and being there reminded me of being in Milan, or La Jolla, or Boca Raton, but on a smaller scale. These were the beautiful people. There were tourists, of course; but beyond your average tourist, there was a sense of style, and wealth, and love of the finer things, which permeated the city center. Gucci, Prada, et al. all had storefronts, and if you entered the store (looking, as I’m sure I did, the tourist) you were not spoken to. After finding my bag, and snatching a surreptitious squirt of fragrance sample, I got a gelato for lunch and made my way back to the ship. There, I spend my remaining onboard time at the pool, listening to the band, talking with fellow passengers, posting my photos, and adding a bit more blush to my sunburn. It was delightful. We said goodbye to Scott, who had been great company around the pool, at meals, at the shows, and on the dance floor. We disembarked just before 4:00, where we boarded the transfer bus to the airport.

The flight home was (as most Thomson flights are, we learned) filled with young children. It was THE loudest flight ever. However, I sat beside a delightful widow named Mary from Chester, and, through all the commotion of the children, we talked about life. How unexpected it can be. How, no matter what it throws you, you choose what you make of it. How you never know what adventure it will offer you next. How utterly wonderful it is.

Cruise: Day 6

Because I had spent a week in Spain before on vacation, on the coast and in Barcelona, I chose to use our port day in Spain to explore Girona. My excursion advisor told me I would love it, and that I could easily do it on my own, without paying for an excursion. So without a map, without a guidebook, without any advance research or planning (so unlike me!) I set out. The first bus was at 10:20, so I wandered the early morning streets of Palamos as the shopkeepers were cleaning and preparing for the day. I came across a beautiful old Gothic cathedral (built 1439-1521, according to the sign). The door was unlocked and the interior was completely still. Because some small candles flickered around the room, I knew I wasn’t the first in here this morning. But for a brief few moments, I was alone with my thoughts, with God, in the quiet. It was a lovely start to the day.
Leaving the church, I found the bus station, and briefly struck up a conversation with one couple from the cruise ship. There were no other cruise passengers, so we began chatting as we boarded the bus. Quickly, Richard (from Middlesex), his partner Marzena (Mar-ZZHAY-na,) from Poland, and I became traveling buddies. We discussed American politics, higher education in England, health care, unemployment, travel destinations, growing up Polish, … with the exception of religion, we pretty much solved the world’s problems on the bus to Girona.
By the time we arrived an hour later, we felt like old friends.

We didn’t have any guidebooks, and only a tourist map, but the three of us stayed together to see what there was to see. I still don’t know exactly what I saw. But it was fabulous. We wandered cobblestone alleys and took photos of each other everywhere. We found our way to the Arab baths, built in the 11th century, and almost completely intact today. We ambled through the Jewish quarter. We climbed up the “Passaig Archaeologique” – is it a fortress? Is it a castle? Is it a monastery? – and discovered hidden gems: gardens, vistas, gracefully rendered architecture. We even discovered a stone toilet built into the city wall, which by that time Richard could almost be convinced to take advantage of. We walked along the ‘Great Wall of Girona’ (Never heard of it? Well, it’s there.) Sensing the desperation for facilities, and not finding them where they were marked on a map, we deferred to Marzena’s direction into an art museum, where we found clean modern bathrooms.

By this time, we were ready for tapas and wine. We stopped at a café along the Rambla and shared lives and stories and laughs. It began to rain and we followed our internal navigation system back to the bus station, where the line for tickets was too long for me to get a return ticket (they had bought round trip, but I had not.) So I made the decision to travel sans billet, and my partners in crime aided and abetted me, even offering me fresh fruit from the ship’s morning buffet that they had absconded with.

After our arrival at the ship, they invited me to dinner and the show with them later that evening. All in all, it was a lovely day, with lovely people.

Cruise: Day 4

Another Clemson student is working an internship in Rome this summer, and we laid plans early on that we wanted to visit Maja there. So the cruise stop in Civitivecchia allowed us the opportunity to spend a day with her. We disembarked Wednesday and found our way to the train station to catch an early train to Rome, along with, apparently, the rest of the population. There were no seats available so we stood in the passageway between cars. At each stop, more people would pile into the train. Three dozen people in the space of, oh, a typical bathroom-sized space, all trying to avoid making eye contact with each other, while holding onto their wallets. At the last stop before Rome, I found myself belly to belly with a rotund gentleman, about 9 inches shorter than me, with an inch of cigarette hanging out of his mouth. Thankfully, he put the cigarette stub in his pocket (for later, I guess). But yeah. I was glad to arrive in Rome.
We found Maja and a friend at the McDonald's as we planned. Anders, a Norweigan guy visiting in Rome himself, was great fun and good company/conversation and made it a pleasant foursome. Then started our Amazing Day in Rome. In the space of under six hours, we somehow managed to tour the Coliseum, sip wine, throw coins in Trevi Fountain, eat gelato, mug at the Spanish Steps, wander around the Capitoline Hill, visit the Vatican, enjoy a fabulous meal together, and almost miss a train. Basically, it was a perfect, sunny, happy, friendly, whirlwind day in Rome.

Chatsworth House, Derbyshire

If you have an ounce of a soul in you, you'd probably enjoy Chatsworth House, at least today. Today was filled with gorgeous art and baby animals and gardens and beautiful spaces and flowers. After a WARM night (must have worked to our benefit that I tipped up the furnace) Tabitha and I woke happy. Lisa, our hostess, drove us down to the bus stop to catch the 9:12 to Chatsworth House in Peaks National Park. It is the ancestral (and current) home of the 12th Duke and Dutchess of Devonshire.
After a lovely half hour drive in the countryside, we arrived before opening. We got a cup of coffee/tea and wandered through some shops, then into the gardens surrounding the estate. We lucked into arriving on one of the days of the "Florabundance Festival". Even though it was raining, we walked for several miles admiring all the landscaping and flowers in bloom and baby animals (lambs and ducklings). The home exterior was undergoing some renovations, but the gardens and interiors were still fantastic. The tulips were all in bloom, along with about every other flower you can imagine. It was really incredible. Reminded me a bit of Biltmore House, Versailles... you know, houses and gardens erected by really rich people, who now must let the likes of me inside their homes, in order to pay for them!
We dined at the restaurant and then tackled the house itself. The art collection alone was worth the trip: from Van Dyck, Rembrandt, Franz Hals, and Correggio, to Joshua Reynolds, David Hockney, and Lucien Freud. Then there were the awesome interiors. Then the gorgeous flower arrangements. Just my cup of tea, for sure.

Oh, and be sure to watch the upcoming documentary about Chatsworth House on the BBC. It will feature all three of these feet.

View across Presbyterian

Today, I began my practicum at Presbyterian College. I hardly had time to breathe, so this was the only shot I took all day, the view from my office window across to the library. Interesting to have regular contact with three universities and to be able to compare how they do things: Clemson (pop: 14,400, 70% from SC), High Point (pop: 3300 from 46 states and 51 countries), and Presbyterian (pop: 1200, 97% residential).

Swamp Rabbit Trail

Zeus, Kati and I went walking today along the Swamp Rabbit Trail. It's a 12+ mile trail along an old railbed, so the scenery is often industrial and sketchy. But the trail is bringing life and visitors to a side of town that has needed it. Even though it was 32 degrees out the trail was full of bikers and walkers and dogs. This was one of the scenes along the route.

Blue Star mom

Students aren't back yet, so the campus is pretty empty. Certainly, the dorms are. Today the sky was gray, and so I thought this shot captured the feeling of coldness and emptiness. But then I noticed the little blue star in one of the windows, and that made me think of Gray. I talked to him today for a short while. He spent midnight on New Year's Eve in a helicopter above Afghanistan. Talk about cold and empty.

Beaver Dam Free Will Baptist Church

Along the ride....

Plantation ruins

Savannah

I didn't take many pictures, so you're stuck with some lame ones. But I spent a few days in Savannah at a conference. I love that the Savannah School of Art and Design has taken 70+ old buildings around the city and has restored them for campus space.



This is an interior shot of the cathedral there. For a colony that didn't allow Catholics when it was formed, Georgia has made progress! The cathedral is beautiful.

Aerial photos

My boss on Friday afternoon borrowed my camera to take some shots from above. The top photo shows our school. It is bordered to the right by I-85 North, and appears in the upper right corner of the "block" you see. The lower right corner is a CarMax, the lower left corner is a factory, and the upper left corner (new construction) is a new public high school. It's amazing how an aerial shot flattens a landscape. St. Joseph's is perched overlooking I-85 and the rest of the block on a hill that is almost undetectable from the photo.



Anyone who's blood runs orange will recognize Death Valley in the lower photo, with Littlejohn Colosseum in the foreground. For those who have no idea what I'm talking about, it's Clemson University's stadium.

Thanks to my guest photographer Charlie for the shots!

Ubiquitous neighbors

I live in a really great city. But its unique sense of place is, as everywhere else I suppose, slowly giving way to the universally recognizable. My home is, sadly, conveniently situated a short walk from both of these. More and more, Bill and I would like to find or build a place that has a singular feel to it, away from the chain retailers and nearer to the heart of our unique city.

Last night found us having a party for Mackenzie's 17th birthday, so it's a bit draggy around the house this morning. Of course my husband is up and at it. Bill's riding with a fellow adventure racer, because he is training for a triathlon? half-iron man? adventure race? coming up soon (I can't keep all his races straight!) I'm headed to mass, and this afternoon we hope to meet up and watch the US Cycling Championships, which are being held in our city. I'll try out the new camera there.

Metaphor: Fear

This assignment was to take pictures of metaphor. Unlike in past years, this year they gave the class a theme. I found it hard to portray fear (or do they want us to elicit fear??) without turning to cliches. And to portray fear in a universal sense, yet having that sense informed by my personal choices. Not sure whether I succeeded or not. I'm posting more than my usual five because I haven't yet decided which of these to turn in as my final 5. After you look at them, I'll give my comments of what I was going for. I'm sorry I downloaded these in small format...I am not sure that Pictures and Busted I & II really come through in this small format.

Bedroom Floor:


Bras:


Busted:


Pictures:


Hand:


Busted II:


Porch:


With Bedroom Floor, I was challenging myself to take a roll in the house...to find fears close to home. In my bedroom I laid on the floor and pictured the aftermath of an event (a robbery? a heart attack?) and what that would be like. The idea here was to show the disorientation of not quite having your bearings. Thus the odd focus, odd perspective thing.

In Bras, I had a few thoughts in mind. One was breast cancer, or the thought of mastectomy (and the bras therefore being irrelevant). Another thought was the empty nest...fearing that I'd no longer be needed, that I myself might be irrelevant, once my nurturing role was done.

Over the weekend, we went to the ACC tournament in Charlotte. Leaving the arena, we passed the bus station and found some happenings going on. Lucky for me the car was nearby with my camera, so I got out and tried out my future in the growing field of papparazzi. In both Busted I and Busted II, I tried to capture the feeling of vulnerability this woman must have felt, and her fear of what would happen in her run-in with the law.

In Pictures, I set up a shelf of my family photos so that none of the faces except Grayson's was actually visible, and tried to make his eye the focal point of the shot. I fear for him in the Marines (well, I fear for him anyway because he is fearLESS, but being in the Marines exacerbates my fear). There's always a pang in my heart when I view his official military portrait, knowing that if something happened to him, it would be the published picture in the newspaper. Maybe that's morbid, but it is what it is. Because this fear is more personal to myself, it might not be the best one to put in my portfolio....I don't know.

Hand is another shot taken in my bedroom. It's supposed to be ambiguous and elicit unease. Again, it could reference someone trying to escape an intruder; it could refer to falling or losing one's orientation; it might be a plea for mercy; it might reference feeling sucked into a vortex.

There's a small old house on a busy street near me. It is unoccupied, so I stopped one afternoon and took quite a few views of it. This was my favorite, and I was trying to illustrate a fear of abandonment.

Illustrated Motion

Pinhole camera: Geometric Distortion

This series of photos were taken with a homemade pinhole camera, for my class. I made mine out of a long skinny cardboard box, and therefore my shots are long and skinny! The pinholes were fun, but oh-so-labor-intensive! The original out of the camera image is a negative. These are contact prints made from the negative image. Only one shot could be taken at a time, then processed to see if I guessed the exposure correctly, so there were quite a few out-takes on these. They're difficult also because there is no viewfinder... I had to guess that my box was positioned correctly to get the image I wanted, not the sky or the dirt or whatever. But after hours and hours (and peeling fingers from all the darkroom chemicals!) I ended up liking these. I only posted one in each category: the assignment requires five in each category for a total of 30 usable shots.

I like how the collection hangs together. In all but the landscape there is an enclosing curvilinear form, and even in the landscape it is enclosing if not curvilinear.

Packers

The glass ceiling

Ravenel

Daylight Crescent