Tag: museum

Rockets

SDSpivey

I decided that if I only have a 3 day metro ticket, I might as well get the items on my list that are the furthest away. Why waste a day walking around “local.”

I headed out to visit a botanical garden. I don’t know if there is a difference between garden and botanical garden.

After exiting the station, I walked down the road. I crossed a river, then took a turn onto a new road. Problem is it didn’t have a side walk, just a bare patch where others had walked.

I see a small path through the trees and I see a bridge, so I do the dumb thing and follow the little path. It took me down to the creek. The rivers and creeks I’ve seen are small, but fast.

There is nothing special, just an area where kids probably hang out breaking rules if not laws.

The creek has a large metal pipe running across. Do I dare to cross it, or do the sensible thing and go back? It is a challenge and I must conquer.

It was easy, until I got almost halfway. There were some tabs welded on it, on top of course. meaning I had to step over them, putting me out of balance.

I made it and continued to follow the path. I expected the path to return to the road, but it diverged further out, until I was walking down a paved path going through a semi-natural park.

It was quite nice, the wildness of everything, the flowers blooming willy-nilly. This was despite the path only being 30 feet from a roadway.

A check of the map showed I needed to turn and head away from the “wilds.”

I passed a small lake and made a detour to pass around it. You could rent paddle boats, but you wouldn’t want to get to close to the fountain. The Zolotoy Kolos fountain sprayed water in a 75 foot circle. Further up, there was a former ski ramp, but I don’t see how there was enough room to get up to speed.

There was an area with sunbathers, with clothes thankfully, it was mostly older people. The younger would be at work or university.

Multiple sand boxes for the tykes, but there seemed to be a “canal” meandering though them. I can’t quite figure out what they were for. They had “locks,” but I saw no way for water to enter or exit. If they were just for sand, then what were the locks for? Curious.

There was a giant climbing rope park, just for the kids, dangit.

The area had an “Eco bridge,” which was an elevated walkway through the trees. Isn’t the ground more “eco?” It was only 6 ft off the ground, so you really wouldn’t see much extra anyway.

An acre or so of cherry(?) trees surrounded a statue of someone I’d never heard of. Wait… What is that? I see the top of a freaking rocket.

Yep, there is a Vostok rocket surrounded by a Vertolot helicopter and Yak-42 and SU-27 airplanes. They all still had the original CCCP and Soviet flags painted on them.

Elsewhere they have a Buran Space Shuttle, which NASA obviously stole, even if no Buran ever left the planet. They have a tour, but the ticket office wasn’t open at the time.

Nearby, there is the remains of a 1938 agricultural exposition, initials VDNKh, which covers an area larger than Monoco. It was similar to the World’s Fair, but just Soviet Union countries. The Pavilions are still mostly intact, but some are currently under repair. Even walking by food courts, the flower’s aroma dominates.

Stone Flower Fountain sums up the Soviet philosophy: If you can’t make it good, make it big. If you can’t make it good looking, make it sparkle.

I see a Farris wheel, so I head towards it. You wouldn’t think it would be hard to find the location of something that big, but I came across a lot of dead ends and loop-backs, but finally go to it.

Normally, I wouldn’t consider going on a Ferris wheel, but I supposed I could get some good photos of the area and possibly find something else cool to visit. Checking the price, at an auto-kiosk, they want the equivalent of $30, plus it is card only, so I can’t buy one. Thanks Biden.

New York’s Central Park is a huge single park. This area is covered in smaller parks, sort of a Park Central. I headed off to another, to see the Museum of Cosmonautics.

I entered and headed to the ticket desk, but it was a “free day.” That’s my favorite type of day. There were plenty of groups of kids being taken on tours. I noticed quite a few had cameras on their watches. I don’t know if I ever seen that before, not even Apple watches do that, do they?

There were a lot of scale models of Russian and Soviet rockets and space capsules, and some USA’s including a Saturn V.

They have a Soyuz capsule that you can walk through and a Sputnik reproduction. They provide plenty of the era’s propaganda, as well as a horde of photos.

There is a large sphere with the globe illuminated on it, showing the launch trail of one of the Soyuz. I point out Florida to a couple next to me, the woman points out Cuba. We’re neighbors. I didn’t think of it at the time, but they might be one of the only people I meet that I might be able to chat with. Poorly, of course.

They have a display showing all the Russians who have gone to space. There’s still room, so I suppose they add new photos as needed.

Getting hungry, I headed back and went to the market. I’ve given up. The Russians don’t eat Russian food. All I find are kebab, shwarma, Chinese, and American restaurants.

I got sliced meat and cheese and some peanut butter and a pouch of raspberry jam. Yes, a pouch, just about every sauce here comes in a pouch with a twist cap. Cheaper to manufacture I suppose.

Went back to the kitchen and made some sandwiches. The peanut butter is more like the “natural” types in America, you have to re-stir it before use, also it is a bit paler, although that could just be the type of peanut used.

I went to my room, to check on my money, doing good, I still have some. Then started to pass out,  but I didn’t want to sleep, so I set an alarm for 30 minutes. Just enough time to recharge my iPad and myself.

Alarm goes off and I head back out. I go into the metro and scan my card and RED. I try the next one and RED. Crap. My 3-day ticket was only a single day’s. I don’t know if I was cheated or the old woman just misunderstood.

I have to then swim upstream against the river of commuters and the ticket office is closed. I don’t know how to use the machines, so no ticket for me.

Oh, well, I decide to just walk down the Arbat promenade. At the other end, is near the next station. Maybe they still have a office open.

Good, they do, so I bought one, but I don’t want to use it yet. The clock starts when I first use it, so I hold off. I can just walk back now, and save the time for later when I really need it.

Sunday Morning

SDSpivey

I have visited all of the specific places that I had intended, or at least tried.

This is Sunday, so many things are probably not going to be open anyway. I’m going to take a light day, just find a nice park and watch the people.

But first, I made a count of my money, uh oh, I’ve spent faster that I should have. I have $557 in my wallet and head out to a currency exchange.

There is but a single teller, but no one else in line. I hand her my cash and specify I need rubles. She starts by going through and looking at the backs of each, removing a couple of twenties. Then inspects the fronts, discarding a few more and my hundred.

She then runs the rest under a UV light, nothing bad this time. She hands me the $180 and then the whole remainder goes into a mechanical counter. Twice. Pointing at the displayed total, I guess she said something about “is it right?” I just nod.

She then punches into a calculator, then turns it to me, I had done a quick exchange on my iPad app, it looks close enough, so I nod again. Apps do not give exchange rates, they only give average rates. If I were a huge bank making a transaction with another bank, I’d get better than what the app says.

My app said the 29,000 rubles is worth $334.92, so I lost about $2. I’ll just call that a transaction fee. Strange though how it came to such an exact even thousand amount. I thought I’d end up with some coins. I bet they always round down to the nearest 50 ruble.

After another count and calculation, I now have about 3700 rubles per day, way better than the 550/day I had a few minutes ago. Plus I still have the $180, so maybe another exchange will accept the bills.

Now food.
I am near my room, but I haven’t been in this location yet, so I start walking opposite to my arrival, seeking a restaurant.

Without a specified destination, I wander the streets. If a side street looks more interesting, then I turn, otherwise I go straight. Sometimes the best plans are to have no plan.

I see a blue dome over the rooftops, so I make a general aim for that, but without seeing it always, it is just a guideline, but I find it anyway.

It seems to be a church of some type, but it has two obelisks, made of cannons. Strange message for a peaceful organization. Perhaps it is a symbol to melt down all the world’s cannons.

The doors are closed, probably a Sunday service, but I hear nothing.

I remember seeing something while on the bus coming into town, a huge victory monument. That seems like something I should check out. Check the map, I ‘m only a few blocks from the metro. I exit and proceed to walk down the road, heading into an area that I already know has no lines. I will have to return the same distance no matter what.

If this isn’t a Soviet building, I don’t know what is.

There is a large round-about, over 6 major roads circulating, the memorial is in the center. The round-about must be 3 acres, the memorial is centered, clearly viewed by everyone who passes.

I see quite a few roadways in Saint Petersburg that have short tunnels for the pedestrian to cross busy roads. Fortunately, there is one here too.

It is some statuary, showing the brave soldiers who defeated the Nazis, all by themselves. Its not like any other

countries were in the war, right?It has a ringlike structure, with stairs descending. There are “eternal” flames along the inner ring. A door on the side leads me into a museum, highlighting some of the siege of Leningrad (the city’s name at the time). While not as bad as the siege of Stalingrad (now Volgograd), I remember hearing of it in school.

There are children grouped around, watching a film about the siege. Many artifacts are displayed around the walls and in cases in the middle.

A group of soldiers is here, whether on protection duty or just visiting, I don’t know. It is the largest group I’ve seen yet, maybe 25.

One section of the wall has, I presume, names of the fallen. Each end wall is covered in a mosaic mural, depicting the bravery and valor of the men.

Whatever you think about other countries, you need to remember most of the conflicts come from the governments. The ordinary people are the pawns who are required to go off and fight and die for the petty politicians, who are too inept to do anything themselves. The ordinary people are just trying to protect their own families.

Museums

SDSpivey

After a nice shower, I looked at my saved locations. Oh, there is a museum I had wanted to visit. Not too far away.

Back in 1997, I went to my favorite theater, the Enzian, in Orlando. On this occasion, I saw a film starring Jeremy Irons, Dominique Swain, Melanie Griffith, and Frank Langella, called “Lolita.” It was originally a book by Russian author Vladimir Nabokov.

There happens to be a museum dedicated just to him, in the very house where he was born.

I enter and step up to a small desk with a computer on it. After a minute a lady comes out and points to a QR code, I use my iPad camera and open the link, but it is all in Russian. What I do gather is it is a way to purchase a ticket online with card.

I can’t (and don’t want to) use a card. I use translator to ask if I can pay cash. Apparently nyet, but she has me write down my name and email and takes the payment in cash, then she says she will pay online for me. Weird, just take my money and let me in. I don’t even care if the museum gets it.

She then asks if I would like to see a film about Nabokov, in English. Sure why not.

It is a interview from the BBC, 1962, called “30 minutes with Vladimir Nabokov.” I didn’t intend on watching a half hour, but it was somewhat interesting, so I watched. He stated he had color synesthesia (not in that term, maybe it wasn’t used in ’62), which is a condition where one perceives colors associated with numbers and/or letters.

I then browsed through the rest of the museum’s items, mostly photos of him and his family. There were also many games shown, he really liked playing chess, Scrabble, and other “thinking” games.

He was also an amateur lepidopterist, a collector of butterflies. Most of his specimens are on display.

There were many, many copies of his books, English, Russian, French, etc. He actually lived most of his life in USA, and wrote most of his books in English. He self translated Lolita into Russian. I had thought it was Russian to start.

As I said, I saw the 1997 film, but I also saw a Stanley Kubrick version from 1962, starring James Mason, Shelley Winters, Peter Sellers and Sue Lyon. With Sellers, I guess they thought the film needed some comic relief due to the theme.

I also found an unopened audiobook version at a yard sale, so I bought it. It was quite good.

After, I made another look at the map and there was another museum near, the Kunstkamera. I knew it as the oddity museum.

The majority of the collection is just anthropological items from ancient Inuits, American indians, Chinese, Koreans and Africans. But as this building was once home to the science society, it also now includes science and medical tools, along side human and animal specimens. It includes some medical curiosities, like a two-headed pig, which you can now view the skeleton.

Across the river was the Hermitage Museum, founded by Catherine the Great to house many of her artworks. Yes, nothing like having so much art, you are forced to have a huge mansion built just for them. The problems of the elite, I feel your pain sister.

Like the Louvre, I don’t think anyone can see the whole thing in one trip. There are rooms off of other rooms, halls that have expanse. Even with a map, I’m sure you’d still miss some rooms.

There are many Roman pieces, including busts of several Emperors. Also Egyptian works, not Tut’s or other pyramid stuff, more Roman and pre-Roman time periods.

There is a table with a lapis lazuli top, if you could find a piece that big today, it would run you tens of millions. Another had multi-stone inlays making a image. Certainly took time to produce.

Many marble “bowls” that are taller than me. I have to presume they were bird baths that you’d have in your garden and look down at them from your balcony.

Three items on my list and three successes. Hurray!

Hunger was getting to me, so I searched for restaurants. My eye immediately landed on Cafe Rasputin, I had to go.

I had a house specialty salad and a traditional meat soup. Both were good.

Houston, Days 2 and 3

SDSpivey
747 that carried the shuttle back to Florida

We went for breakfast, then headed down to Johnson Space Center.

It was just 35 minutes down I-45, but the directions were for the employee entrance. Apparently this happens a lot, the guard simply gave us directions and we U-turned.

As we drove up, we could see the 747 that carried the shuttles back to Florida, and it had a shuttle mock-up, the Independence, built in Apopka. The shuttle is a “fake”, but was built to the NASA blueprints and is now owned by NASA, so I suppose it is “real” now. They only built 6 shuttles and 2 are now gone, so a mock-up is as close as we can expect.

I was amazed how small it really is, a good hallway length, but only as wide as the 747 it rides. The boosters and external tank make up the bulk of the assembly.

The black tiles at the nose all have dot-matrix numbers on them. I presume these are tracking numbers, if a tile is lost, then a new one can be made that will fit precisely. Most of the black tiles are not rectangular.

After browsing a bit, we took a tram around the complex and to Rocket Park. The park a little bit disappointing as it only had 3 rockets, but one was the Saturn V, just about the largest thing ever flown. It is over 360 feet long, more than a football field, including the end zones. My car could have easily fit inside one of the rocket cones, while the Command Module had less room than a Smart Fortwo car.

We walked above the training lab, where we could see some of the robots they are developing.

They also have a local school’s Ag class’ cattle, Texas long horns, of course. They have horns about 4 feet long. Long indeed.

Another tram took us to the original Control Center, showing original mission footage of the first moon landing. One screen showed a chart with a X and Y lines and circles indicating distance, with a paper Command Module in the center. A hand then pushes another cut out indicating the field of view of the camera, then as the astronauts exit the ship, cut outs of them are placed on the chart and later moved around manually. Ah, the high tech of the late 60’s.

It began raining lightly prior to the second tram, so when we hear they were closing soon, we were not as disappointed as we could have been.

After returning to town, it was too late to go anywhere else, especially in the rain. No zoo or parks for us.

We went out for dinner and to bed early, Mom had a 9am flight and I had a 15 hour drive home.

After dropping Mom off at the airport, I drove to the Houston Museum of Natural Sciences.

I did not expect too many people at 9am on a Tuesday, but there were several school buses and a lot of kids inside. With Houston being the 4th largest city in the US, I suppose they have field trips just about every weekday, during the school year.

They had a 3-story, 2-ton pendulum swinging, showing the precession that occurs through the 24-hour rotation of the planet, every 10 minutes a small block on each side would be knocked over, making the whole thing a half-daily clock.

I decided it would be easier to take the elevator up to the 4th floor and work down, letting gravity work for me and avoiding most of the kids.

The 4th floor was all about oil drilling and fracking, it is an oil state after all. They had a “ride” where you were shrunk down to Hot Wheels size and flew down a drilled hole, experiencing what went on during the fracking process. The 360 view was not bad and the whole thing was a little interesting. Fortunately, they did return us to our original size. It would’ve been real hard to drive home otherwise.

There was an Egyptian exhibit, but after seeing the real King Tut, at Highclere Castle, it didn’t appeal to me.

I browsed a mollusk shell collection, but it was a bit repetitive, pretty but not enough variation. I passed the obligatory dinosaur bones and fossils.

Aurora Butterfly of Peace under normal light
Aurora Butterfly of Peace under florescent light

There was a mineral collection. So many colors and shapes of crystals. They were so vibrant, but I couldn’t capture their beauty on camera. Near the entrance is the Aurora Butterfly of Peace, a butterfly shape with 240 naturally colored diamonds, which fluoresced . I didn’t take a photo initially, so I returned as was leaving. A lady and girl were looking at it, she lifted the girl to see better and the girl noticed right away that the center diamond was shaped like a heart. Good eyes.

The collection also included Fabergé eggs and jewelry from the Russian Imperial household of Tsar Nicholas II.

Dik-diks

I had always presumed Fabergé was a Frenchman, but was from St. Petersburg, Russia. According to the film playing, Fabergé only made a few of the objects, most were designed and created by his employees. Much like Steve Jobs taking credit for the design of the early Apple computers, when he had no electronics knowledge or training.

If our visas come in, perhaps we will be able to see more Fabergé in St. Petersburg. Update: I did.

They had preserved animals from Africa, including what I consider to be the cutest deer, a dik-dik. It stands 12-15 inches tall. I think these would sell well in the US, but hard to raise as they need about 6 acres each.

The Art of The Brick was on display. An artist created pieces wholly out of Lego, including some recreated famous paintings and a T-rex skeleton.

When I was about 10, we drove around the southeast states in my dad’s schoolbus yellow pick-up truck with camper-top. One morning we stopped at the battleship USS Alabama in Mobile bay. What boy doesn’t want to check out a battleship?

I don’t know why, but we didn’t tour the ship. Too early? Too expensive? I the past decade, I have passed it 6 times, without being able to stop and tour. It is always too late.

I determined that if I left Houston before 11:30am, I might get there before closing at 6.

I left the museum just after 10, but I didn’t get to Mobile until 7pm. AHHHH, will I ever get to see it? At about 7 hours from here, I really don’t see it coming to be.

After leaving, I drove home. Both directions, I was able to cross Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana without stopping. Prius, Whooo!

I wasn’t sleepy until after I went through Perry, FL, on US19. I had just finished all my podcasts and an audiobook, so nothing but music to keep me alert. It was only a few more hours to get home, so I pushed on. There is a riverside park in Fanning Springs, so I did decide to stop there and crash out for a few, but as I pulled up, they now have a gate across the parking lot. No luck there either.

I really didn’t want to park on the side of the road, there isn’t much room between asphalt and ditch. So I had to continue. Only a little more than an hour away and almost no one on the highway.

Coincidences: Tuesday night, I went to YouTube and in my subscribed list, there was a video about Russia’s/Belarus’ name and another with the Hiho kids trying “astronaut food”.

After getting home, I had several podcasts or TV shows talk about or mention Johnson Center, the Saturn V rocket, the Lego exhibit, or the 747 shuttle plane.

I had 3 different Uber passengers who had taken a cruise to St. Petersburg. I had mentioned my trip many times before this week.

Saturday was the anniversary of the Columbia breaking up over Texas.

I’m sure these are just a case of overly noticing, like when you get a new car and suddenly that same model is everywhere.

Not a coincidence, but I have noticed more Texas tags in Orlando than Georgian, but I’m sure that’s due to population differences, than to closeness. I also see more NY tags, snow birds.

 

 

Johnstown Castle

SDSpivey

For our last full day in Wexford, we set out for nearby Johnstown Castle.

I needed to squeegee the rear window, staying on a dirt road does have some disadvantages. Apparently, gas stations here do not have any squeegees. Perhaps it is to get you to buy a car wash.

Shortly after the second gas station, I noticed google maps had gone “offline”. It had no directions, but still updated the maps as I zoomed and panned.

We were still able to follow informational signs to get to the castle, so no harm.

Our trip came at an inopportune time, the castle was closed and being renovated. It has stood since the Normans invasion of Ireland. There is still a large landscape we walked around, as well as an agriculture history museum. Mom and I are both over castles and churches, so this made a interesting diversion that we would not have chosen otherwise.

Prior to entering the museum, some owners of antique cars (pre-WWI) pulled up in the museums courtyard. One of them had kerosene powered headlights.

Inside there was a large collection of manual and powered farm equipment and period furniture that the Irish families had used. Also included were several “shops” that would have supported the farmers, cobblers, furriers (horse bridle makers), blacksmiths, etc.

The grounds were quite nice, but another timing problem was that there was an apparent storm recently (a week ago?) that damaged a lot of the trees, requiring many branches and even whole trees to be cut unattractively.

There was a “fishing” tower, but I’m not certain there were fish. There were lots of birds, including peacocks, hawks, doves, swans, and ducks.

Several small streams ran through the property, some with small water falls.

As we were ready to leave, I noted that google maps was still not working. We were close to the house, 30 minutes, so I was able to drive back without difficulty, but I had to skip the other sites we were going to visit today. It is hard enough to drive on the wrong side of the car, with maps, there is no way I would find my way to there and back, without.

Weeks ago, I signed up for an international data plan on my ipad. I am afraid I may have already used up my allotment. I don’t remember the monthly limit. My username/password doesn’t seem to work and I noticed yesterday I was unable to get my email on my computer or ipad (on wifi), so I can’t reset the password. I’m not able to check or renew.

I still have more than 2/3 of my trip to go and I need my maps.

Hopefully, it works tomorrow (and everyday) or we will be lost forever.

Day 19, Musée d’Orsay

SDSpivey

This morning we went to the Musée d’Orsay.

It is filled with more modern art than the Louvre, with many paintings by Renoir, Van Gogh, Pissaro, Degas, Manet, and Monet.

There was only one elevator that we could find to go up, all the others were closed behind doors, hidden from casual use.

Afterwards, we crossed the bridge and grabbed some food and ate in the Louvre gardens at a round fountain, feeding a few of the baby ducks a bit of our bread.

The temperature here is in the low 60’s, with wind blowing and shifting directions. Neither of us brought any sort of jacket, but I did have my Inverness, FL sweatshirt, thankfully. Mom had to break down and admit she was cold and bought a Paris sweatshirt this morning.

Day 18, Le Louvre

SDSpivey

We spend most of the day at the Louvre Museum, starting off going down to the Egyptian exhibit.

There is a walkway that originally would have been under water, in the moat, making up the wall of the original small castle, before it was expanded and expanded.

There were a number of sarcophagi, more than I thought even existed.

The cafe wasn’t too high priced and was surprisingly good. In part, I ordered a small yogurt, which came in a terracotta cup, for some reason. I might have kept it to reuse, but it had yogurt residue inside, plus I didn’t want to carry this heavy thing around all day, but I felt guilty about throwing it away.

Smartly, we then found the elevator and headed for the top floor. Working down the stairs is so much easier than working our way up them.

After looping to and fro throughout the various rooms, we headed straight for the room with the Mona Lisa, huge crowd of people around it, of course. They were acting as if that was the only painting in the whole place. I doubt they even noticed the other paintings within that room.

With our legs giving out and rain threatening, we called it a night.