What Is Carole Up To Now?

Carole is wandering the world. Having had a couple successful careers, as a software engineer then a technical marketer, it's time to take a sabbatical and plan for the next big thing. New philosphy: "Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death."

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

Peri & Brian were here!

When I last left off, Peri & Brian had just arrived. They got here on Tuesday the 18th around 10 a.m. I met them at the airport and we took the Lufthansa bus into town. It turns out that it stops 4 blocks from the apartment, how convenient.

The weather was great – crisp fall sunny day. We got into the apartment through the work zone – the hall is being redone: stairs & landings sanded, some structural work, and then they’ll paint. So we’re now entering the apartment through 2 sheets of plastic taped up to keep out the dust. Peri commented that it was like going through a beaded curtain.

After we had lunch, we headed into town to the main train station so they could get their tickets for the remainder of their trip. We then took a bus tour to Schloss Nymphenburg, the summer palace of the Wittelsbachs ruling family. It once was a fair way out of Munich by horse carriage, it’s now within the city limits. Big place, laid out like Versailles – that must be the standard castle plan. Long drive with water up it (we’re talking a mile or so here) and then the courtyard opens up, ponds & fountains and the huge semicircle of the palace. We took a fast tour through, marveling at the remaining furniture, the paintings and architecture. Afterwards, the bus continued through Munich and the various neighborhoods. I would have preferred a tour with headsets, with a spiel in English. This one had a guide speaking over the bus intercom, and she talked very fast in German, then English. It was hard to pick up what she was saying.

Wednesday we got out to the train station again, to take a day trip to Schloss Neuschwanstein – the fairy take castle. The one Disney modeled the Cinderella castle after. The morning started out a bit rocky, Logan, me and Peri had showered and Brian was in when we noticed that Brian was apparently showering in the dark (there’s opaque glass in the bathroom door.) He thought Peri was playing a prank on him. Nope, the workers in the hall had blown a building fuse! Fortunately Brian was just about done, because with no power in the room the wall water heater was no longer working. Brrr!

We made our way back to the main train station & started the tour there. The train trip was great. The day started cold and foggy, but cleared as we went along. They got to see small towns & countryside on the way. We had packed a lunch, and ate it on the train. We got to the town of Fussen, and took a bus from there, about 10 minutes, to the base of the hill that contains the castle. Brian then had his first Wurst on Semmel – long sausage on a small round bun. Dunno why they don’t change the shape of the bun to better fit the meat. They just don’t.

We walked up to the castle – it’s a pretty steep 20 minute walk. The weather was great by then, partly sunny and cool.

This castle is one of 3 that Ludwig II of Bavaria managed to get started before he bankrupted Bavaria and died. He was in the castle for only a few months before he died (the day after being declared mentally incompetent to reign and forced to abdicate.) 6 weeks later they were running tours through the place. It is beautiful, very new looking and quite a sight to see. We dozed a bit on the train back, and had dinner at the apartment. I was very pleased to see they had replaced the fuse and all rooms had power.

Thursday morning we rousted the guests. Brian wanted to tour the Dauchau memorial and Peri so didn’t, so we sent him into town. She & I went to the Auer Dult, a 3-time yearly outdoor market with everything from antiques to infomercial stuff and carnival rides. We browsed through the antiques fortunately not seeing anything either of us had to have. Then we went off to lunch, it was the IWC monthly lunch about town. We ate at Prinz Myshkin, a gorgeous vegetarian restaurant. The first room in from the street is non-smoking. They feature Asian, Indian and Italian cuisine. The food was great, the room spacious and pretty. A winner.

We then wandered back to city center, to meet Brian at Marianplatz after his tour. I thought he’d be done by 2:30 ish, but he wasn’t done until 3:30. He looked OK when he found us, was glad he hadn’t eaten lunch but needed to eat so we headed for a nearby café. He got lunch & we got dessert.

That evening, we had dinner in Schwabing at a Bavarian restaurant called Wirsthaus Zur Brezn. We went early as they had to get up & out by 5:35 to catch their train on Friday morning. It’s a good thing we did get there early, the place was almost full. We did get a table, and had a great meal. Superb food, I will be going back there. It was too smoky to linger, so we headed back to the apartment for our aperitif. We had Absinthe! It was good, too. I don’t see what all the fuss is about – unless they have denatured it from what it used to be.

We then said our goodbyes & went off to bed. They got out on time the next morning and I hope the rest of their trip went well. They’re on their way back to California right now.

Later Friday morning I played Badminton, then did some cleaning at the apartment. I finished up Ewa’s business cards, printed some out as she is headed to Poland to launch her tour business by lining up hotels. Etc. I also finished up on my contribution to the cover for the IWC cookbook – a fundraising project, every contributes recipes and tips. You’ve seen the like. So I had gotten a calendar with gorgeous photos of food, took pics of that & arranged them in a Word doc. Turns out that we don’t have the budget to print that, so I turned to good old clip art. Between that and laundry from the week, the afternoon sped by.

Friday evening we got pizza takeout and a movie – Kung Fu Hustle. Last week we had tried a nearby pizza place (3 stops by U-bahn) and registered at a movie rental place across the street. So we knew that the pizza would be good and there were lots of movies to choose from. It was a great evening. Logan had come down with a cold the weekend before, so he was glad to make it an early night.

Saturday we did the usual chores, got groceries, etc. The weather was still beautiful so in the afternoon we drove a bit south of the city and went for a walk along the river. We went to a beer garden for dinner, sat outside until it got took cool then headed home.

Sunday morning I headed off to the Twisted Bavarian, where Gayle was launching her business with a ‘Healing Day’. People signed up for a time slot and an introductory treatment – Aromatherapy massage, Indian Head Massage, Reiki or Reflexology. The space Gayle was working in was great, and she had 6 or 7 people show up. I got a quick reflexology session – I will definitely sign up for more of those when I get back here! I got back home around 2, I had ridden my bike over & back in the warm windy spring-like day.

Then we got the boxes out of the apartment. Finally! Bruce & Barbara have space in their (dry) cellar, so we knocked the moving boxes down and got them and the appliance & computer & bike boxes stored over there too. We were loading them into the cars just ahead of the rain, and luckily it was not raining too hard while we were unloading. B&B declined our offer of dinner, and instead made bruschetta so we hung out there chatting for a while. Then we headed back home and went to an Italian place not too far from the apartment, called Al Pacino. And they’re not talking the actor, either. I had a great fish dinner & Logan had the lasagna. Another winner.

Monday morning it was Badminton again. Then, time to get ready for my trip! I am headed to Rochester on Thursday the 27th, to visit, and primarily “help” the folks clean out more of their house. I think in reality they will not be helping much, but we’ll see.

I am making dinners to freeze for Logan, Monday afternoon I made a big batch of beef burgundy stew. Started cleaning up various plies of papers, and doing the action items I found in the piles. Ooops. Made my list of things to buy in the states. Solicited friends for things they wanted from the states. (Some people are very particular about their deodorant! And some things are just 4 times more expensive here.)

Today I have caught up on the laundry – takes 4 loads & 8 hours total processing to change the bed, and there’s only 1 set of sheets. I will sign off now & go make dinner. Probably won’t write again until I’ve been in Rochester a couple days – when I ping awake in the middle of the night I’ll sneak downstairs and catch up online before anyone else is up.

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Busy busy busy! Friday morning I played Badminton – I am really liking this activity. Once my schedule settles down I will try to play 2 times a week. It’s aerobic and fun. In the afternoon, I worked on Ewa’s business cards. She is starting a business to take tours into Poland, where she’s from. Both Badminton, and my meeting Ewa are through the IWC.

Saturday, Logan had a first-aid course. It’s required for getting his German driver’s license. I spent the day catching up on laundry, grocery shopping, finishing Ewa’s cards. What a pain to try & get a template to match the cards themselves. The Avery U.S. site disclaimed all knowledge of the product number – which I was looking at, on the Avery branded-packaging. Finally found it on the UK web site.

That evening, we went to see the new Wallace & Grommit movie – Curse of the Were-Rabbit. It was delightful – funny, smart and lots of jokes for the adults. I highly recommend it.

Sunday we took a day trip. The weather here has been stellar – bright & sunny, cool, very autumnal. The trees are changing color & dropping leaves. We took advantage of this to visit the town of Landsberg, about 50 KM from here. It’s on the river Lech, and the east side of the town is hilly. There’s old town wall – built in the 1200’s, complete with lookout turrets – that goes for a mile or two. Down the hill, into town, are small twisty cobblestone streets. Many beautiful ornate buildings and statues and fountains. Then you come to the river – very broad, with a waterfall (man-made) and diversion of part into a mill-race. There’s a street of cottages built above the mill-race. With our history of water, it didn’t look like a good idea! Too much fast-moving water within a foot of the floorboards. But picturesque as possible.

There were cafes along the river. We sat there & had lunch, drinking in the view & sunshine. Lots of people were out for the day, most of them ended up in line to buy ice cream. We had noticed this before, it seems to be the national treat on Sunday, to get an ice cream. No matter what the weather.

I have to go now, grab breakfast then make a quick grocery run - Peri & Brian got here yesterday. Today the 4 of us are planning to take a train tour to Newschwanstein.

Thursday, October 13, 2005

The week flew past!

The days are still filled with one-off stuff so they go by fast. Hopefully this will slow down sometime soon.

SATURDAY
Foggy! Worked around the house, then we went for a bike ride later afternoon. Afterwards, we went farther down the street to a video store and signed up. We rented ‘Bubba Ho-Tep’, what a hoot! And we found a great Italian restaurant: Mario’s on Adalbertstrasse. Good pizza!

SUNDAY
On Sunday the 9th, I went to visit a museum and Logan went to Stockholm, again for work. His trip went well. Mine was great – I went to see the Hilla von Rebay exhibit at the Villa Stuck museum. This plus another art event this week (more later on) really opened my eyes to the art scene in Munich.

The exhibit is called “Art of Tomorrow: Hilla Rebay and Solomon R. Guggenheim”, the first exhibition dedicated to the entire career of Hilla Rebay (1890-1967), one of the founders of the Guggenheim Museum in 1939, and its first curator and director.

Hilla was an artist in the early 20th century, one of the first ‘non-objective’ artists. ‘n-o’ means not painting from an object, but from the feelings and emotions. She studied here in Munich, ended up in NYC doing art, part of which was portraiture, painted Solomon Guggenheim’s portrait. During those sessions, she convinced him that he should be collection non-objective art. And what is now the Guggenheim Museum in NYC was born. Details from the Guggenheim site:

An accomplished artist who studied in Munich, Berlin, and Paris, Hilla Rebay embraced the idea of "non-objective" art as both an aesthetic style and a manifestation of spirituality. She began to exhibit at the age of 22 in Cologne, and was subsequently introduced to the avant-garde in Berlin, where she was drawn to the work of the modernists who exhibited at that city's Galerie Der Sturm, including Arp, Bauer, Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Richter, and Schwitters.

After Rebay moved to America in 1927, she was commissioned by Solomon R. Guggenheim to paint his portrait and began her mission to encourage him to collect the non-objective art she so fervently supported. Rebay introduced Guggenheim to Kandinsky, and with her encouragement he purchased more than 150 of the artist's works as well as paintings by other abstract and non-objective artists, including Bauer, Albert Gleizes, Luger, and Laszl Moholy-Nagy.

In 1937 the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation was established, and Rebay and Guggenheim envisioned the construction of a museum to house his magnificent collection of modern art. In 1939 Guggenheim rented a building on East 54th Street in New York, which Rebay transformed into a temporary exhibition space, called the Museum of Non-Objective Painting; in 1947 it would move to a townhouse at 1071 Fifth Avenue. A fiercely independent woman of impressive energy, Rebay organized a series of traveling exhibitions devoted to the collection as well as exhibitions at the museum and continued to advise Guggenheim on the purchase of works. In 1943 Rebay contacted architect Frank Lloyd Wright, whom she perceived to be a kindred spirit, to design the museum of her dreams, "a temple to non-objectivity," which would finally open in 1959. By that time, Wright and Guggenheim had already passed away and Rebay had retired from the museum.

The extraordinary collaboration between Hilla Rebay and Solomon R. Guggenheim resulted in one of the world's finest collections of early twentieth-century modernism. This accomplishment was expressed in particular through Art of Tomorrow, the opening exhibition at the Museum of Non-Objective Painting, which introduced key works from Guggenheim's collection to a New York audience in 1939. The present exhibition will showcase over 30 important works by the artists that Guggenheim first collected under Rebay's guidance, and which were included in the Art of Tomorrow catalogue published for the opening of the museum, thus attesting to the prescience of the institution's founders and the historical importance of the collection today. Some 40 photos, sketchbooks, historic exhibition catalogues, and miscellaneous publications relating to Rebay's work and the exhibitions she organized at the Museum of Non-Objective Painting will also be on view.

After New York, the exhibition travels to Schlossmuseum Murnau and Museum Villa Stuck, Munich, in Germany and will be shown simultaneously in two parts from September 8, 2005 to January 15, 2006. Rebay's early life and career in Europe will be the focus of the presentation in Murnau, while her life and career in the United States after she moved to New York in 1927 and a selection of works in Solomon Guggenheim's collection at the time of the 1939 exhibition Art of Tomorrow will be featured in Munich. After the Bavarian venues, the exhibition travels to Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin from May 4 to July 30, 2006.



Non-objective art. Kandinsky. Bauer, humph. I do not like it on the wall. I would not like it in the hall. I would not want it in my home, nor to illustrate a tome. It’s very personal, you see; and it does not strike a chord in me.

BUT this visit was cool to the 10th – Alex was the one who’d organized it. You may recall from past reading here that she taught art history in NYC. To visit a museum with her is a wonderful experience. She knows much, loves to share it and knows all kinds of fun back stories. The other thing that was so great, is Hilla’s collage art. She was much taken with the non-objectivists, and painted in that style. I see those paintings as very studied and unfinished. “Let’s see, I’ll put a swoosh over here to balance out the black rectangle and the purple blob and I’ve filled the canvas so I’m done.” But her collages – oh, man, are they beautiful. Intricate, complete and striking.

That night, I went to Eva & Glenn’s for dinner. (Eva was the third person on the museum tour.) She cooked a great meal. And afterwards, we watched ER! So exciting. Glenn showed me through Bit Torrent, so I kind of know what to do to download American TV. And they gave me some DVDs with shows they’ve already watched.

MONDAY
Today I worked on the computer in the morning. In the afternoon, I set off on an expedition – to go visit Gayle in Ottobrun. I had completed her collateral – 4 ‘aftercare’ sheets for her treatments, and a new set of business cards. (Took some doing, too – the graphics would not print out as they were on screen. I had 2 computers going on Sunday – the Windows laptop with Illustrator, turning the graphics into a PDF, and the Mac which is hooked up to the printer, to print test runs on scrap sheets.)

It took 2 U-bahn lines & a bus to get there, but I made it! Gayle & I talked all afternoon. I got to meet Breeze, her cat. And I got a reflexology treatment, in kind for my services. Great deal!


TUESDAY
Had planned to meet a friend at the movies. Jean, with whom I’m now playing badminton, wanted to see Willie Wonka. We met with 2 other women at 11:00 for the matinee. Johnny Depp was channeling Michael Jackson for this role. It was an eerie, and otherworldly, out-of-touch performance. The movie was OK, but I missed the Oompa-Loompa song. Depp’s makeup & character, plus the score by Danny Elfman reminded us all of Edward Scissorhands.

That afternoon, I wandered in the neighborhood walking down streets I’d not been on before. I needed to get out & move and it was good therapy. Went to the cash machine (always fun) and found a bookstore with a few English books (bigger fun). Returned home in a better frame of mind.

AND – from one of the disks that I borrowrd from Eva, was able to watch current ‘Gilmore Girls’ and ‘West Wing’. This was such a treat – even watching on the computer it was absolutely soul saving. So I’ve figured out how to turn .avi files into something that QuickTime can play. Next, I need to get plugged in so I can download the shows I want.

WEDNESDAY
Wednesday was the monthly IWC meeting. It was the 15th anniversary of the club. We had a party – cake & Sekt (dry sparkling wine). Everyone who runs an activity got up & spoke about it and of course the meeting went late. Some of the folks prepared skits for their activity, it was fun to see.

That night, I met Gayle & Dawn at the Odesonplatz U-bahn stop. We were going to the weekly curry night, organized by the Toytown crowd. Gayle had asked Ema, from her language course, to join us, and Ema got a bit lost. We hopped the train up tot the next stop, spread out to cover all exits from the station, and finally found Ema. We trooped into the restaurant only a little bit late. It was Deeba, on Barerstrasse. Tiny place, our party of 24 took up ¾ of the restaurant. But they rose to the challenge and we had great food. The best Chicken Tikka I have had here – I’ll be going back! Gayle was having so much fun on her first ‘girls night out’ here that she & Ema stayed. Dawn & I headed back as they were following people who had left earlier, to a local bar well-known to the Toytown crowd. Even with leaving “early”, I got home at 11:30.

THURSDAY
Art tour, part deux. At 10:00, a group of women from the IWC meet in front of Munich’s Academie. Art, that is. A guide joined us and toured us through the local neighborhood, describing the art scene in Munich from the 1880s to the first world war. Munich was a happening place for art then (and still, I think.) The Academie was cheap – 70 Deutschemarks per year. Rents were cheap and there were lots of open places to rent. We walked past building where Kandinsky, Franz-Marc, Paul Klee, Thomas Mann and others lived & had studios. Very cool. Even better is that this took place in Schwabing, where I now live!

After the tour, 4 of us went into the city center for lunch. I went grocery shopping on the way back. (I have been advise to never climb the stairs to the apartment empty-handed. It has been good advice!) Got home at about 4:00.

I spent a little time straightening up, and cleaning, because next week – Peri’s coming! Wahoo! Our first visitors. Peri & Brian arrive on Tuesday morning, depart really early Friday morning. I have a gazillion places to take them – I think Peri, being a New Yorker, would like the Hilla von Rebay exhibit. There’s a Franz-Marc special exhibition in town now too. And I have been told that the Alte Pinatkothek (old art museum) rivals the Louvre. Plus there’s city tours, local castles to visit, food to eat and beer to be drunk. Looks like the weather will be wonderful too.

Well, that’s all for today. I realized that it had been a while since I blogged and wanted to get this down before I forgot the details. I have installed Torrent Tomato, a Mac OS X client to pull down media files. Am downloading another Gilmore Girls, but it sure is slow. Hope this will work, though. I want shows that Ewa & Glenn don’t watch.

Thursday, October 06, 2005

Innsbruk

Last week, as we recovered from being in Madrid, Logan remembered that Monday Oct 3rd is a holiday – German Reunification Day. He has been wanting to get to the Alps, so he decided that it would be good to go on the weekend. He did some checking and booked a hotel in Igls, a small town in the hills above Innsbruk, Austria. We set out in the car on Saturday the 1st. We drove south out of Munich, on a route recommended by a couple of coworkers. We passed some great towns and lakes on the way – Achensee is a long, very deep looking lake with a mountain on the far side, small towns with several hotels & cabins at either end, and lots of sailing boats. Most of the buildings are Bavarian style, wooden construction and long roofs, porches and decks with railings and built-in flower boxes, all overflowing with geraniums and petunias. Beautiful!

We got to a spot in the road with the Panaroma restaurant, we pulled in and lunched there. From the road, it looks like there might be a good view from their terrace, and when you get on to it – wow! It overlooks the Inn valley, a thousand feet or so below. Picturesque rolling hills, small towns clustered around a church, cows in the fields, dots of forested land. mountains everywhere. I’m not sure that the pictures do it justice.

After lunch, we continued to Innsbruk. Literally means ‘bridge on the Inn’, the Inn is the river that occupies the valley. (I think the valley was carved by glaciers.) Absolutely gorgeous drive. Every once in a while there’s a huge building halfway up a near hill, typically a ‘schloss’ or castle of a past king or emperor.

Innsbruk itself is a very 70s-looking city, driving by on the autobahn. Lots of flat-faced apartment buildings in 70s colors, lot of industrial looking buildings interspersed. But the location! It is an alpine valley, with huge mountains rising all around on both sides of the valley.

We found our way up to Igls, after being slightly confounded by the construction in Innbruk, by the Olympic ice rink. Had to pull a few quick U-turns but we finally achieved the road we needed. Climbed up out of the valley on the south side, found the little town and our hotel. We stayed in the Hotel Astoria, nice place with an indoor swimming pool & sauna. We made use of those that evening, before dinner. In the afternoon we had walked some of the local walking trails, well marked and they ambled through the high valley. Our ‘package’ at the hotel included dinner & breakfast. I was happy to be back at the hotel for dinner, didn’t really want to be wandering around on the mountain roads in the dark and the rain and fog.

Sunday the 2nd it was just pouring down rain. So we decided to be tourists, and went to the local Schloss Ambras. Archduke Ferdinand the II had this build for his ‘secret’ wife, Phillipine Welser. She was of much lower station for him, so they married in secret. The place is big, and they have preserved a lot of the grounds so there are walking trails in the woods. We saw quite a great display of arms & armament, probably the best display we’ve seen yet. The collection is very well marked & the signs are in German & English. There is a large portrait collection, the wealthiest families of Europe and all their interrelations over the centuries is pretty well documented. We saw a couple faces that we’d just seen in Madrid, the weekend before. After we saw what we wanted of the insides, we walked the grounds for a while. The trails led past a beautiful waterfall.

We went into Innsbruk to get lunch and warm up. (Castles seem very cold, very open to the elements, and this one did not have any heat going in any of the stoves. It’s no wonder that they wore lots of heavy layers of clothes!) The Innsbruk old town, pedestrian area is small and very beautiful. We browsed the shops for a bit, ducking in out of the rain, then walked over the bridge, back through some of the big public garden – with roses in bloom, in what seemed to me to be dead of winter weather! Back to the hotel for dinner.

Monday morning it was not raining, but very foggy. I could not see any of the mountains. It was getting thinner in some spots by the time we finished breakfast & packed up, so we decided to take the cable car from just across the street, up the mountain. It was a great decision – about halfway up, we cleared the fog line & could see the mountains all around. When we got to the top, we could see that it had snowed the day before – heavy, wet stuff. Fortunately not too deep. We walked around for about 40 minutes, until the next car down. I want to go back in the spring, after the snow melts, and hike there. It was an amazing place to be!

The days this week are zooming by fast. Tuesday I met some IWC friends at a local theater, we saw the film ‘Stage Beauty’. Wednesday, Gayle came over & we worked on her business cards & information sheet about her Aromatherapy treatment. Logan & I went out for dinner. Today the weather is nice, I plan to get out on my bike. Tomorrow morning is Badminton – I played last week and liked it, so will incorporate this into my routine.

I hope to get the Madrid, Oktoberfest & Innsbruk pictures up soon. Will post when I do.