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Published: February 11th 2008
Washington finale -- When in DC you must do the MONUMENTS - the imposing Lincoln; the classically beautiful Jefferson; the understated Vietnem etc are all unforgetable. So on our last full day we went to Arlington, walked over the Potomac to two of our favourites. The Korean War memorial with its 19 larger then life foot soldiers slogging through paddy fields ( 19 cos when reflected you see 38 ='s the 38th parallel). We've been there in the snow, in autumn and now in spring and the impact is always the same and as you walk alongside the struggling determined men, the futility of war is clear.
By contrast FDR's memorial by the water is over an extensive area. You walk through and around walls, pools and falls flowing over granite slabs with words and quotes of FDR's careved into the granite. We'd like our government and that here to read, reflect and act on what he had to say. This is Col's favourite. Helicopters and planes were buzzing around and you get used to the heightened security in all these places.
Maryonne our hostess worked for the World Bank and she organised for us to go to their
end of season concert in the atrium at the Bank. Coincidently it was James Wolfensohn's last day as Director and he had agreed to paly his cello in the orchestra. The MC called on people from various continents to identify themselves and we were the only two Aussies (3 counting James) so we got our photo taken with him...number one brush with fame - there will be more later!
We saw a lot of Phil while in DC even though a new boss meant extra work for him and it was terrific to see him well and happy. We met a few of his friends and 4 of us had a lovely dinner on the last night. The last morning was hectic as we were leaving for NY and Doug and Maryvonne were off to Nice and Corsica with their bicycles for a holiday.
We realised that Phil was right was right and even Lyn said DC is like Art Boot camp. However once in NY we graduated and moved into CULTURE 101!
What can we say about 2 weeks in the Big Apple? Living in a garret in a 5 floor walk up on West 70th,
shopping with the locals and sending ourselves broke with theatre and show tickets, wearing out our shoes (and us) pounding the pavements and visiting every gallery we can get to. Once home Lyn religiously watched the Weather Channel and found Bravo had 24 hour sessions of The West Wing that we could watch at all hours!
In our eclectic program we tried to mee tthe needs of all our fellow cyber travellers so see if you can find your selection amongst this lot!
In no particular order we've been to Ellis Island, walked through Brooklyn and over the Brooklyn Bridge, visited MOMA ( impressive renovation with a whole wall set aside for Monet's Waterlilies where Col coudl sit and view it to his hearts content); PS1 Gallery at Queens (for new up and coming artists and where Ian Burns, Uncle Don's nephew is exhibiting. We also went to an opening he had at a small gallery down past Soho and had dinner with him another night); the Guggenheim for the permanent collection (Kandinsky classics and a Daniel Bureen installation"The Eye of the Storm") and a concert at night (Milton Babbit a 88 year old composer of modern classical
music in a Work and Process series. Ros they had a 6 part choir who were wonderful), the Brooklyn Art Museum with its great collection of African art; DIA:Beacon, up the Hudson, which opened in 2003 and is a 300,000 sq ft exhibition space for new installation arts (we saw a Warhol retrospective; a Serra massive walk in metal cylindrical installation and John Chamberlain's car parts sculptures); The Frick (for its beautiful buildings and Renaissance collection. It was worth it just to see Bellini's St Francis up close and in person) and then the Whitney where we caught Tim Hutchinsons amazing fantastic constructions and then before we leave we still have the Noguchi gallery to visit with with Trisha Smith.
Sick of the visual arts yet well lets move to the theatre which have been equally as varied. We have moved from "Spamalot"( Eric Idle) for the Goon fans, to "Doubt" a powerful play about pedophilia in the Church (a must see if it comes to Sydney) and "Glengarry Glen Ross" - all three nominated for Tony awards. Music has included jazz in the new Lincoln Jazz theatre and a NY Philharmonic at the Lincoln with Rachmaniov's 2nd Piano
concerto. Now you can all understand why we're exhausted but still having a tremendous timeand I haven't even mentioned shopping at Century 21!!
Last Saturday we caught up with Janine -our Chelsea friend and had lunch. She sent her best to Noel and Chris and is still coming to Australia sometime in the future!
The weather has been very cold and windy with lots of rain this week- hopefully that will end soon and we will be back to milder spring days. Boston has had the lowest high on record for May and we are hoping to take better weather with us when we go on Saturday.
Thats it for New York as we prepare for our next adventure... and looking forward to catching up with Ross and Helen in San Francisco in two weeks.
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