My Anonymous Blog

Royal Tyrrell Museum - Drumheller, Alberta

After landing in Calgary late, we raced two hours through monotonous oil and wheat field lined roads that suddenly gave way to hilly terrain dotted with ... dinosaurs!  Not real ones, unfortunately, but life-sized, brightly painted dinosaur models placed all around the town of Drumheller - their main claim to fame and a healthy amount of tourists is the dinosaur-centric Royal Tyrrell Museum. 

Matthew photographed a slew of toothy specimens while being escorted by a pair of locals that happily detailed factoids about various fossils, the surrounding landscape and even provided us with restaurant recommendations.  The museum had some interesting installations that were beautifully lit.  It's well worth a drive out there if you find yourself in Calgary for any length of time. 

The town of Drumheller alone is a destination in itself and is good for a meal and a walkabout to see the various dinosaur specimens installed at street corners, in front of shops, and there is even the so-called "biggest dinosaur in the world," which visitors can actually walk into and view the town from inside his open mouth.

Palau de la Música Catalana

Touring the Palau de la Música Catalana was such a treat.  It was built by architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner, who also designed the sensational Hospital de Sant Pau, also in Barcelona. Both the hospital and the theatre are regarded, and rightfully so, as landmarks of such architectural importance that UNESCO has designated them both as a collective World Heritage Site.  The mosaic work alone takes me aback, and I wondered how long it took to place all of the little glass pieces covering nearly every surface. 

It was such a thrill being in the main room of the theatre during the daytime, as its defining feature is the unique fact that the house is lit by gorgeous rows of stained glass windows, the most impressive of which being a giant sun that gleams from the center of the ceiling high overhead.  The light pouring into the theatre creates a music box-like effect that warms the entire space.  There is a huge organ that our tour guide played via a remote control that was connected to computer driven programs that operated the organ.  The sound in the space is near perfect. 

One thing I wasn't happy about was the fact that photos were not allowed anywhere in the theatre.  I understand that they want to sell the photos in the gift shop, and I usually buy postcards anyway, but the lengths they took to keep tourists from snapping an interior photo - we had a pale, creepy security guard staring us down during the entire tour - were ridiculous and prompted me to forgo my usual postcard-buying stop at the gift shop.

The Spooktacular Paris Catacombs

The Catacombs of Paris are every bit as dark and creepy as one would expect - constantly dripping water, claustrophobia-inducing passageways, millions of skeletons stacked in rows that seem to go on and on forever...it's enough to make some people break down into fits of hyperventilation.  And it happens, according to the cheery public relations woman we were with who bonded with me over flourless chocolate cake recipes as we stood amongst six million bodies.  About once a month or so, someone freaks out and has to be hauled out of the joint, which isn't an easy feat as it sits well below the city streets and is only accessible via a series of winding, seemingly endless staircases. 

The visit marked yet another Parisian tourist trap that had somehow escaped me all this time (the last one being Père Lachaise, another spooky-yet-beautiful stop) but thanks to Matthew's recent catacomb shoot I finally experienced it.  While there really isn't much to gain from going other than to experience the macabre ambiance while walking along walls of bones, it really got me excited for Halloween.  If there was a way to do it, I'd move the bodies and tunnels piece by piece to New York for my biennial ghoul fest.  And I wouldn't be the first to think of this - security staff at the catacombs thoroughly search visitors before they are allowed to exit and regularly turn up skulls, ribs, femurs and other body parts stuffed in backpacks and pockets.

Catacombs of Paris
1, avenue of Colonel Henri Rol-Tanguy
75014 Paris
France

Phone: 01 43 22 47 63
Hours: 10AM - 5PM Tuesday - Sunday; Closed Mondays

It's Raining, It's Pouring

It's pouring in Paris today, which unfortunately coincided with Matthew's Louvre scouting trip for a shoot later this fall. Every tourist in Paris was there, or so it seemed. Coughing kids, hobbling elderly, pushy teens, bumbling parents and grandparents by the thousands - it really brought out my claustrophobic / germophobic streak. I wanted to kill them all.

Bonsai

This was by far my favorite bonsai on display at the Kiku exhibit.
It stood about five feet tall or so and consisted of several trained
maples in full fall color. I would kill to have this sitting in my
living room during Thanksgiving week -- it was stunning!

Japanese Maple

I love fall, at least at its height -- in mid-November, after the
leaves have rotted off and everything looks dead and depressing, I'm
miserable and cold with nothing pretty and colorful to distract me.
But yesterday at the New York Botanical Garden was a delight, as
everything was in full fall swing and gorgeous, especially the
Japanese maple and many of the bonsai plants on display.

Purple Berries

I'm not entirely sure (rather, I'm not sure at all) what these
berries are, but as we passed this large bush in the New York
Botanical Garden on the way to see the Kiku exhibit, I had to stop
and admire them for a moment. Does anyone know what they are?

Kiku 3

This variety of Kiku showcases a SINGLE PLANT (!!!), pinched and
trained in such a way that each bloom is exactly the same distance to
the blooms surrounding it, producing a symmetry that I have never
seen in a plant before. This pot is rather large -- roughly 10 feet
x 10 feet or so, and takes about one year to grow from a single cutting.

Kiku 2

Just look at the symmetry! Each flower represents a single plant
that has been pinched to grow straight upward and produce a flawless
flower.

Kiku

Heading up to the Bronx via the B or D train from our house is easy, yet we hardly ever do it...and that's a shame given the riches that await us shortly after emerging from the 30-minute ride to the Fordham stop.

There's the critter filled Bronx Zoo, one of my favorite places to visit in all of NYC. There's Arthur Avenue, the REAL Italian section of town (fuhgettabout Little Italy). Or there is the New York Botanical Garden, where we visited today to check out Kiku: The Art of the Japanese Chrysanthemum and were blown away by the elegant forms each plant has been skillfully pinched and bent into over the course of one year by gardeners who surely must possess a touch of O.C.D.