Mountain View Cemetery

21 June 2009

I love where we live. But what does it say about this area when the most beautiful open space within (easy) walking distance is a cemetery?

Okay, you can't fly a kite or play frisbee there. But it is a great place for walking, once one gets past the macabre feeling of recreating with the bones of our local ancestors.

The edge of the cemetery abuts the edge of our neighborhood. But the cemetery management people don't like the idea of uncontrolled entry onto the grounds. So they have put a fence around the entire property. The formal entry gate is almost 4 km from our house by road.

For years, there has been a battle simmering between the cemetery management people and our neighbors. The fence is repaired and reinforced by one side. A new hole appears. The fence is repaired again with "no trespassing" signs added. Another hole appears. And so it goes.

For California, the cemetery is old. It was established in 1863. Its designer was Frederick Law Olmsted, the same landscape architect responsible for the layout of New York's Central Park, the grounds of the US Capital Building, and Stanford University (Go Bears! Beat Stanford!)

Scattered around the grounds are a variety of statues. Some I love, like the angel at the bottom. Others I just have to scratch my head over, like the sphinx-like creatures in the photo at the top.

Parting shots

2 June 2009

So, for the first half of 2009, my travels included these adventures:
early January -- the tail end of an extended-family trip to Idaho
mid January -- begin an 11 week stay in Costa Rica
mid April -- begin a six-week stay in Spain
late May -- two days in Copenhagen
later May and early June -- six days in Hamburg

Now, it is time to return home.

As we leave Hamburg, Germany, Europe, here are a few last looks.

Stolpersteine

1 June 2009

In Hamburg, we are guests of Alexis' employers, staying in their large home in a lovely residential district that is in the heart of the city. The houses here are stately multistory units that stand contiguously along quiet, tree-lined avenues. The nearest station accessing Hamburg's excellent metro system is only a few blocks away. The Alster is also close by, offering recreational opportunities. We've walked 10 minutes each morning to bakeries to buy fresh German bread. Ingrid and I also enjoyed a superb Indian dinner last night at a restaurant that was only a 15 minute walk from this house.

It is incomprehensible to think that it was not many decades ago -- really only an eye blink in the span of human history -- when the horrors of the Jewish genocide were occurring in Europe. And these terrors were not happening in some vague, across the Atlantic, far away, alien Europe. No, in fact, lives were destroyed among those living here in this neighborhood.

"Stolpersteine" is German for "stumbling block." It is also the name of a project of artist Gunter Demnig as a way to commemorate the holocaust. It is being carried out by creating and placing small bronze plaques on sidewalks in front of houses where Jews lived who were destroyed by the Holocaust.

The other pictures in this post show three of the many stolpersteine that I have seen walking around this neighborhood in Hamburg. The project is an international effort and apparently Demnig has placed 13,000 (as of late 2007) of these plaques in 280 cities. And this is a tiny fraction of the number of lives destroyed in the Holocaust.

The first of these has this translation: "Here lived Werner Glückstadt. Year of birth 1925. Deported 1942 from Drancy. Murdered in Auschwitz." [Drancy was a transit camp located outside of Paris.]

Die Alster im Hamburg

30 May 2009

In addition to being happy to see Alexis and feeling most welcome in her German family's home, I have two dominant senses -- one internal and one external -- from our first day in Hamburg. The internal one, rather natural at the end of a long period of travel, is that I'm ready to return home. I've enjoyed our time away, especially this period in Europe. The travels have been enriching. Working on the road has been okay, but not as productive as when I'm in my home environment. And, while a break from being intensely productive was probably necessary, I've already realized the benefits of the break and am ready to get back to work fully.

The external impression is that the light is dim here, today. It is pretty stunning to consider, but the sky we've lived under has been blue with only one or two exceptions throughout our time in Mallorca and Sevilla. When there were clouds, they were large fluffy white ones. The skies were bright and the landscape aggressively illuminated. Even for my few days in Denmark, although it rained at the beginning, mostly it was brightly sunny.

Today, in Hamburg, for much of the day the sky was heavily overcast. And even when the sun came out, and it did, it seemed to lack the power I felt from it in Spain. Maybe it is the dark waters of the Alster or the green grass in its parkways. Or maybe the feeling comes from the street trees that are in full leaf, so that the sidewalk on Rothenbaumchausse seems only dimly lit, even in midday. Or maybe it is none of these thing so much as the contrast with southern Spain. Whatever the source, this is the external sense that dominated my impression of this day.

Black Diamond

29 May 2009

Today, I attended the inauguration event for the new CISBO research center in Denmark. The presentation was held at the "Black Diamond", one of the architectural "gems" of Denmark. Considerable new development has happened along this stretch of the harbor in Copenhagen and it is lovely in a way that I would characterize as "nautically elegant."

The meeting was about 4 hours long and 75% of it was in Danish. Only the presentations of two international scientists -- Kjell Andersson from Sweden and me -- were in English. Kjell, an MD with an engineering education, gave a very interesting talk summarizing some extensive work studying the role of the indoor environment in contributing to the growing incidence of allergy and asthma in Sweden. He has coined this new term -- neuropsychoimmunoendocrinology -- for the type of work on human subjects that he thinks is necessary to sort out the complex physiological response to the environmental stressors we now encounter.

My assignment was to take on the seemingly impossible task of summarizing the state of indoor air research from a global perspective. I was up late last night and again early this morning putting together visuals for the talk. It was well received.

Late this afternoon, I took a 35 minute flight from Copenhagen to Hamburg where I've met up with Alexis. We just finished playing Scrabble -- Alexis won by 5 points (286 to 281) after I made a strategic error late in the game that allowed her to place "quit" on the board! We're expecting Ingrid, Daniela, and Dana any minute.

These photos are all from the Black Diamond and its vicinity.

Copenhagen: Pigeons and northern light

28 May 2009

I arrived in Copenhagen last night at midnight for a brief, two-day stay. I'm serving here on an external advisory committee for a new research center "CISBO."

Although Europe seems small compared to the US, the trip still took serious time. The flight from Sevilla to Barcelona was 90 minutes. Then I had a few hour scheduled layover before a 2.5 h flight to Copenhagen. We were delayed departing Barcelona for an hour and the ride over the Alps was turbulent. Still, it was nice to arrive here and not have to deal with jet lag.

I'm staying at a nice harbor-side hotel, the Copenhagen Strand. I have a tiny room on the 5th floor with a little balcony. This morning, I was surprised to find a nesting pigeon with two small chicks on the balcony just outside my window! I even got to see the mom feed the babies, but she wouldn't do so for the camera.

Copenhagen is much more modern than Sevilla and feels less friendly (although not "unfriendly") on the street. People are bundled up more against the cooler temperatures and strong winds. The walkers' paces are much faster and there are more people walking alone. The streets are bigger and the traffic is faster. Even the bicyclists seem in a serious hurry compared with the more leisurely feel of Sevilla. Stereotypes often are based on kernels of truth!

After an intense day of presentations and discussion, we were treated to an excellent dinner at Le Sommelier. As we walked from the hotel to the restaurant, we were also treated to the magic of the late-afternoon light of Denmark.

Los niños en Plaza de San Lorenzo

26 May 2009

In middle America (US of America, that is), you might find parents out with their young children on a late May afternoon at a neighborhood park playing catch. In middle Sevilla, you find parents out with their young children on a late May afternoon in a neighborhood plaza practicing for religious devotions. The relaxed, easy going, playful spirit of the activity in Sevilla is remarkably similar to that in middle America.

Plaza de San Lorenzo is very much off the tourist path in Sevilla. It is a few blocks west of the south end of Alameda de Hercules. We sought it out yesterday because one of our guide books recommends it as one of the loveliest plazas in the city. That might be right. It is cozier than Plaza del Salvador and it doesn't feature such a large open space. Instead, there are two rows of London plane trees to provide shade, benches for sitting, and a large statue of the sculptor Juan de Mesa (1583-1627).

The north side of the square is bordered by Iglesia de San Lorenzo. He was martyred by being burned by the Romans in 258 and in the church he is depicted holding a grill! The top picture is from the lintel above the door to the church, which is shown from across the square in the second picture. The marble statue of Mary holding baby Jesus is one of the least spectacular altar pieces inside the church and the easiest one to photograph decently.



This time of year is the celebration of "Cruces de Mayo" or Festival of the May Crosses. I've already written a bit about the processions. They feature a float carried by people on which are some religious items followed by a marching band sometimes with brass instruments and always with drums. The most impressive one that we've seen carried the large statue of Jesus of the Sacred Heart, which went past our apartment on Saturday 16 May (see 17 May blog entry).

Yesterday evening, in the Plaza de San Lorenzo, we saw one of many of these processions that we've witnessed involving small children. Moreso than any other, though, this even seemed like something between play acting and a dress rehearsal, rather than a real procession. With a couple of fathers coordinating and a few mothers consoling, children jostled for position as potential float bearers. Some had brought whatever toy drums they had from home to be in the procession, which dutifully traveled back and forth along the front of Iglesia de San Lorenzo, with the float half carried and half guided by proud fathers.