Chile: Valparaiso, Day 2

VALPARAISO, DAY 2

Today was foggy and cloudy and in the 60’s with a few snatches of sunlight.  We had a half day walking tour of some of the neighborhoods in Valparaiso’s historic quarter. Named a World Heritage Site in 2003, Valparaiso has undertaken an ambitious effort to clean up and restore many older buildings as well as to repair crumbling streets and steps. It’s also notable for the number of firsts in this part of the world—first railroad line in Latin America, first telephone, first Spanish newspaper, and first cemetery among others.

Valparaiso was the most important port and first stop for travelers from Europe bound for San Francisco and the Gold Rush (before the birth of the Panama Canal). Thus, by the end of the 19th century, Valparaiso had sizable German (40,000), British (10,000) and Italian (5,000) populations. Many of these business people stayed and their influence is reflected in street and building names and in the cuisine.

In the main business district near the port, there are traffic lights (none up in the hills), lots of banks, historic hotels being remodeled into new hotels or restaurants and apartments, and facing the water, the pale blue French style headquarters of the navy, Armada de Chile.  It could be a sibling of Philadelphia’s equally ornate city hall.  

Our guide, Esteban Tacul, was simply marvelous. Extremely knowledgeable and personable, he gave us some of Chile’s history, talked about street artists by name, many of whom he’s met, told us about the first cemeteries (one for Catholics and one for Dissidents aka Protestants) and introduced us to some of the special staircases leading down to the port area.  His tourism company, Ecomapu (ecomapu.com), operates seven days a week and offers both private tours and a daily free tour.  We highly recommend him!

Our tour was three hours, on foot with lots of steps, except for one funicular trip on Queen Victoria, the shortest and steepest of the 16 remaining funiculars. To his credit, the route Esteban chose took advantage of flat streets whenever possible. One of the most interesting aspects of the buildings we saw on the hills was how many have corrugated iron facades; this iron originally was cast off from ships where it had been used to wrap foodstuffs to preserve them on the voyage.

After leaving Esteban, we had lunch downtown, looked at the all the boats, ships and containers in the port, and then rode the Peral ascensor (funicular) up to our hotel.  

I absolutely loved all the street art and took many photos of human faces, animals (there are a lot of sleeping dogs around plus a number of cats and they figure in the art), fish, and other creatures. So many bright colors, so much variety, such creativity! Here is just a further sampling.  

 

 

Art on corrugated wood!

 

Note:  All photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved)

 

Chile: Valparaiso, Day 1

VALPARAISO:  FIRST IMPRESSIONS

We flew overnight from Houston to Santiago where we were met and then driven the roughly hour and a half to Valparaiso. We passed through a fruit growing region and then a valley around Casa Blanco, site of several vineyards producing white wine. We will visit a couple of these wineries next week.

Coming into the city, we went through an industrial section and were struck by the sheer volume of graffiti on almost every building. We were told that there is or about to be new legislation that will make it a fineable offense to engage in graffiti.  

This would be a very good move. As we got farther into the city and up one of the several hills to our hotel, we began to see street art in the from of colorful murals along with the graffiti (a bit less here). The stucco and stone buildings themselves are also painted in solid bright colors, everything from strong turquoise to blazing orange to yellows, deep blues and vibrant greens. It all makes for a lively and attractive landscape.  

Our hotel is an old house on a narrow dead end street in a neighborhood of art galleries, small shops, and little restaurants. After getting cleaned up, we got a recommendation for lunch and then walked a few blocks on the level, then up one street, and then down a long steep street with blocks of steps on the sidewalk. When we had almost reached the bay, we arrived at La Concepcion.  The waiter showed us to a lovely table on the terrace with a bay view. We proceeded to unwind and enjoy a delectable meal, a spicy shrimp curry and rice for the Chief Penguin and for me, grilled hake on quinoa with julienned zucchini, carrots and red pepper. Service was attentive, but not hovering, and it was a great way to refuel mentally and physically.

Before dinner, we took another shorter walk checking out a small park, viewing more art murals, and stopping to see the ascenseur, the small elevator that runs up and down one of the steep hills to the bay below.  I think we will ride it tomorrow.

Note:  All photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved).

Tidy Tidbits: Memoirs and Movies

READING MEMOIRS

 As my regular readers know, I am fond of reading memoirs.  I am also fascinated by the dynamics within a marriage and intrigued by the nuances and tensions within romantic relationships in general.  Here are two new memoirs touching on these and other issues.

The Victorian and the Romantic:  A Memoir, a Love Story, and a Friendship across Time by Nell Stevens.

I included the full subtitle here because this little book is so much more than a memoir.  It’s an enchanting, frustrating, and somewhat curious account of this young academic’s struggle to find her place in the world and to fulfill what she views as her rightful female destiny.

Nell is in love with Max, an aspiring American writer, and employs all sorts of economies and part-time projects to fund trips from her home in London to his in Boston.  She even signs up for several research studies, including a sleep one that requires her to spend 14 days in a lab and be awake for 40 hours.  At the same time that she’s angling to visit Max, she’s grappling with the topic for her Ph.D. dissertation.   Eventually she settles on Elizabeth Gaskell and the several months Gaskell spent in Rome socializing with a group of noted writers and artists.

Elizabeth Gaskell (tattonpark.org.uk)

Although I occasionally had too much of Nell’s troubles, I found the sections on Gaskell in Rome and her relationship with Charles Eliot Norton delightful and creatively imagined.  As Stevens makes clear in her short introductory note, her memoir is based on true events, but is not truly accurate; so, reader, take heed and apply salt as seems appropriate!  One result is that I now want to read or re-read one or more of Gaskell’s novels.  (~JWFarrington)

 

Strange Paradise:  Portrait of a Marriage by Grace Schulman

What goes on inside a marriage is always something of a mystery to those outside it, no matter how close they are to the couple.  Poet Schulman came of age before careers for women and multiple roles as professor, wife and also mother were widely accepted.  She felt that her own mother had been compromised in her aspirations and her abilities in her marriage, and she, Grace, feared a loss of independence and freedom for herself.  Nonetheless, she and Jerry Schulman, a medical doctor and virology researcher, wed in 1959 and were mostly together for more than 50 years.  This is her account of their continuing love despite some years living apart and his long decline due to illness.  But it’s also about her friendships with other poets and writers and her years as poetry editor for The Nation and coordinator of literary programming at the 92nd Street Y.  As she writes, “the phrase, ‘happy marriage’ is a term of opposites, like ‘friendly fire’ or ‘famous poet.’  My marriage has been a feast of contradiction.”  Informed by her poetic sensibility, her book is both bracing and poignant.  (~JWFarrington)

 

WATCHING FILMS

In this new age of content available on iPads, smartphones and other screens, we rented these two films online and watched them on our own large screen TV.  Cheaper than the price of one movie ticket, and you can make your own popcorn!

(Image from imbd.com)

Three Identical Strangers   

How would you feel if you arrived at college for the first time and lots of students were greeting you warmly as if they knew you and then called you by another name?  For Bobby, this is a strange and unnerving experience, as he discovers he has not one, but two other brothers.  All three were adopted and each was raised by parents of a different socio-economic class.  What is the role played by heredity versus environment in one’s development, the old nature vs. nurture question, and why were these three boys separated at birth?  A film that starts out joyful unfolds to a more serious and somber set of issues.  A bit repetitive at points, but well worth seeing.

The Children Act

The Children Act by Ian McEwen is probably my favorite of his novels that I’ve read.  I was predisposed to like the film and, with Emma Thompson, a favorite actor, and Stanley Tucci, in the lead roles, how could it go wrong?  It’s a superb film and, with McEwen’s screenplay, the equal of the novel.  Judge Fiona Maye handles cases relating to children’s welfare.  She and husband Jack have hit a bad patch in their marriage which comes to a crisis just as Fi gets a difficult case involving a 17-year old young man.  He’s a Jehovah’s Witness, who needs a blood transfusion to treat his leukemia, but his parents are refusing it.  How this case plays out and its impact on Fiona and those around her is the crux of the film.  Thompson is wonderful in the role with the right combination of judicial dedication and exactitude mostly masking her inner feelings.  Definitely an Oscar-worthy performance!

Note:  Header image of Emma Thompson in The Children Act is from an article in the South China Morning Post.

On the Road: November Thoughts

REMEMBERING AND WAITING

November is a month for reflection, remembrance and responsibility, the latter being our duty to exercise our precious right to vote.  The most consequential election eve of my life was not 2016 (although that result was stunning and disappointing), but 45 years ago in 1973.

November 5

It was November cold and the night was winter black.  In the end, or rather at the end, we were all there.  Mother, of course, and EB, plus S. and D. who lived nearby.  A. had been gently persuaded not to return to Oberlin just yet.  Greg and I, from the furthest away, made the seemingly endless drive from Clifton Park to the hospital in Rochester.  On the way, snow flurries wet the windshield.  It must have been near eleven when we arrived.

Dad was Dad and not.  His labored breathing, with a hitch like a bone stuck somewhere deep—death rattle they call it—and his distended abdomen were not.  Semi-awake, the light in his eyes and the slight smile were him.  He was lucid and called us all by name.

“Jean, I have your book—haven’t finished it—the Bruce Catton one.”

“That’s okay,” I said.  (When Morning Comes, ah, the irony of that title.)

We all left his room and huddled down the hall in the lounge; blessedly we had it to ourselves.  Tom D, childhood friend and now a young resident, was around, providing comfort and warmth and himself gearing up to lose his first patient, a longtime family friend.  We mostly sat and conversed about not much, focused separately on our about-to-be grief and the impending loss.  So young were we that we selfishly thought primarily of ourselves and not our mother, who was about to lose her life’s companion, her anchor, and her love.

Tom brought in a McDonald’s supper—more something to occupy us than true nourishment.  And we waited and waited, for what we now knew would be the inevitable conclusion.  There were going to be no miracles, no second chances.

CODA: November 6 (Election Day)

My marvelously nurturing father died in the wee hours of the morning.  None of us made it to the polls.  Dad, always a responsible citizen, had already voted absentee by mail.

Note: Header photo, Night Sky, is from www.lifeinthefingerlakes.com