A Sunday visit to the Metropolitan Museum

Nardi, Mary and I wanted to see the Rooms with a View exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum, so we met for an enjoyable Sunday afternoon.  The exhibit focuses on the open window as a romantic theme during the first half of the 19th century.  Artists included in the show are lesser known, but the exhibit is charming and very well curated.  No photos were allowed so you'll have to visit the Met's website for a tour. 

Nardi & Penny

Our favorite German couple

The museum was getting crowded so we nipped up to the roof garden.  It's such a wonderful setting overlooking Central Park and lower Manhattan.  The view is as much of an attraction as the art and the people watching is fantastic.

Nardi went off to buy some lemonade at the little rooftop cafe and came back with that plus a mojito!

Dakpogan "Kitchen"

Down from the roof we walked through a hallway exhibit "Reconfiguring an African Icon: Odes to the Mask by Modern and Contemporary Artists from Three Continents."  We really enjoyed works by Calixte Dakpogan from Benin and I took some pictures before the guard told me I couldn't. 

It's hard to know what can or can't be photographed.  Perhaps no current exhibitions?

Willie Cole (bike parts)

Enough!  Early afternoon and some parts of the museum were already gridlocked, so off we went to find a restaurant for a belated celebration for Nardi's birthday.  We were in search of Sarabeth's, but when we finally found it, the wait was 45 minutes, so we went next door to Island which was very, very good! 

 Happy Birthday, Nardi!

Visit to Hyde Park and FDR's home

Yesterday, Leena and I along with Leena's childhood friend Ritva and her husband Hans took a drive up the Hudson River to visit Springwood, the home of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in Hyde Park, NY.  The scenery was lovely - all the way.  The landscape is totally green now with all the trees in brillant green leaf - just three or four weeks ago they were bare sticks on a brown background.


Leena, Hans & Rita with their mouths full

 I hit some traffic driving into the City to pick them up it was lunch time when we arrived.  So after getting our free tickets with my National Parks Senior Pass (just want you to know that I'm taking full advantage of my senior, almost-retired status) we stopped in at the Henrietta Nesbitt cafe for lunch.  The menu was surprisingly inventive (do you think it the influence of the Culinary Institute of America down the street?) for a National Historic Site, and we enjoyed our food.
I had forgotten all the contributions FDR made to the social welfare of the United States in the very difficult economic times of the Depression, especially instituting Social Security, as well as a host of other programs for "relief, recovery and reform."  You can read more about FDR on wikipedia 

Leena, Penny & Ritva with Eleanor & FDR

We toured the house.  The second floor was closed for renovation but as a substitute for the bedrooms we caught a glimpse of the kitchens.  And we enjoyed FDR presidential library (the first) with many exhibits about the Roosevelt's personal and professional life.  It all made me want to rush home and start reading about the Roosevelts and the New Deal.
The grounds were lovely although cut up and littered with construction debris - funded by money from Obama's Recovery Act.

All in all, a wonderful day of exploration in an idyllic setting. And here is Leena saying good-bye to FDR's little dog Fala.

Happy Mother's Day

 There was a knock on the door about 7:15 p.m. last night, and there was the Edible Arrangements delivery man with a lovely "little something" from Laina. Here is Grandma enjoying a chocolate covered strawberry. And we had fruit with our oatmeal this morning. Thank you, Laina!

Porvoo

If you checked my Picasa Photostream gadget you'll realize I'm back in Fillmore.  And it's a quiet, hot Tuesday afternoon.  I'm sitting with mother.  She's reading a flower identification manual and I'm trying to read my Finland Guidebook.  But while the reading is easy, the remembering is not.  I'm in a section about excursions from Helsinki and we're on our way to Porvoo about 31 miles from Helsinki.  It's the second oldest in Finland, established in the 14th century but known as a trading post before then.  It's know for its old town, with its lovely wooden houses and cathedral, but the surrounding islands and countryside have "much to offer."  And it has several quirky museums - an Outboard Museum, a recreation of a 1950's outboard motor repair shop, and a Toy Museum with toys dating from 1800 to 1990 as well as preserved steam railway running for 7 and a half miles into the countryside. 

So how to you say Porvoo....click over to Forvo to search and listen.  I've added Forvo to my list of links over there to your right. 

Birds of Finland

Watching the birds in the morning has become a routine to accompany coffee and e-mail.  This morning I remembered Mother lamenting not having a bird book when they were on the fjord cruise in Norway so I thought I'd better prepare for Finland.

BirdLife Suomi-Finland is a website with pictures and sound.  At first glance I see a lot of familiar birds (the waxwings have some beautiful pictures) and the call pops up with the photo.  I'll have to delve deeper for birds that are not common here.  Try it and let me know what you think.

Off The Beaten Path: Wash a carpet

Here's a blog entry I couldn't resist. 
"If possible try and wash your carpets like all the Finns do. There are places at the sea where this is possible, in Helsinki Kaivopuisto there is one of these places. You have to use environmental-friendly soap to wash them so that the sea doesn't get polluted. The carpets won't be polluted because water here is quite clean and there is only 0.5% salt in it here in Helsinki.

I think it's very unique to do it. Or does any other nation wash their carpets at the sea? It's fun! I did it! You should try it! "  this is a blog post by Sabsi on Virtual Tourist  She also has a page on Helsinki which she calls "probably my favourite place on earth."

My only question is "Do I have to pack my own carpet, or can I borrow one?"  I do have a Finnish carpet beater that Leena gave me once, but that's probably only for winter use.

Helsinki

I'm not doing too well here.  It's been over a week since my last post, so here goes.

Positioned on a rocky headland cradling the Baltic Sea, Helsinki was established by Sweden to catch up with Russia's expansion of its Baltic trade routes.  But it only really began to grow after the construction of Suomenlinna fortress off Helsinki's coast in 1748 which brough thousands of builders and soldiers and their families to the city.  Then in 1808 during the Russian occupation, the entire city was levelled by fire. 

Reconstruction began in 1817 - once Swedish FInland had become property of the Russian empire - and architech Carl Ludwig Engel and planner Johan Ehrenstrom based their city planning directly on St. Petersburg and he built a capital that was remarkably Hellenic in look.  They developed a grid of wide streets and Neoclassical, Empire-style brick buildings.  This grid forms the basis of the modern city and around Senate Square the planned grandeur is evident.  When Engel came to town, the city had a population of 4000; when he died, it had grown to hearly five times that. 

The square itself, overlooked by the gleaming Lutheran Cathedral is still the city's single most eye-catching feature.  A few blocks away, past the South Harbor and the waterside market square, is the handsome tree-lined avenue of the Esplanadi, with a narrow strip of greenery along the center.

Oh, I can see that this post really should have been about Finland's history of being batted about between Sweden and Russia, but I guess that will have to come next.