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Costa Rica 2013, Part 4.

Friday, April 19th, 2013

Before we get to frogs and others, I want to talk about a couple other things.

One, our hotel in San Jose didn’t have a door. No door. As a New Yorker I can’t wrap my mind around that because we don’t have seasons, we have SEASONS!!!! With the cold and the hot and the rain and the sun and the hail and the sleet, etc. San Jose just has hot, not quite as hot and some rain. It was still dumbfounding for me. “But… how do they… close the door if they don’t have… I… my head hurts.”

Two, a comment about trees and language barriers. Our daily tour-guides spoke a great English, but often it was covered in a thick paste of local accent. There was only one time I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what our guide was saying. We went by a wooded park in San Jose that was filled with rainbow eucalyptus. They are very beautiful. The trunks look like watercolor paintings.

Our guide said, “This park has rainbow eucalyptus but the city plans to cut them down because they are an introduced species. The city plans to replace them with a species native to Costa Rica. Also, they are very tall and dangerous because of the LYYYYYYYYYNE.” I swear to God, that’s what she said. I said, “Ummm, what now?” and the guide responded with, “The LYYYYYYYYYNE, from the sky.” Finally she said the combination of “Thunder and LYYYYYYYYYNE,” and I was like, “Oh, lightning. Okay.” But it took a while. If you see me, ask me to do an imitation of how she said it and you tell me if you have any clue what I’m saying. I bet you’ll say no.

Frogs! Costa Rica has 138 types of frogs and toads. I went to a protected rainforest that had a chart of the difference between frogs and toads, which I found very helpful. I wrote down what it said:

Toads tend to lay their eggs in long chains. Frogs tend to lay their mass of eggs in clusters.
Toads tend to have skin that is dry, rough and full of wrinkles. Frogs tend to have moist skin that is soft to the touch.
Toads use short hops to get around. Frogs tend to move about with giant leaps.

I saw what was some kind of tree frog, but the camouflage was amazing. It was right in front of me, like in front of my face, and I still had trouble seeing it. It looks like a wet blob of leaf. Amazing.

Similar-but-different frog.

The frogs I saw the most were the poison dart frogs. As it says in my The Wildlife of Costa Rica book:

Small, diurnal frogs that inhabit leaf litter. Noted for spectacular coloration and elaborate forms of parental care. The brightly colored species generally advertise powerful skin toxins derived from a diet of alkaloid-rich invertebrates. None of the eight Costa Rican poison dart frogs pose a threat to humans.

The poison dart frog that’s actually used for poison darts is the Golden Poison Dart Frog from Colombia. One frog can kill you and nine of your closest friends. Scientists don’t know how they get so venomous but they assume it’s from what they eat, same as the Costa Rican ones, because Golden Poison Dart Frogs raised in captivity and fed non-native bugs aren’t toxic.

I saw a ton of the strawberry kind. They’re neat because sometimes they’re tomato-colored, sometimes cherry-colored. Sometimes they’re just red, sometimes they have little black freckles, sometimes their legs are blue. I liked all the varieties.

And I saw a ton of the green and black striped kind. They’re a little bit bigger. They are the only frog with carnivorous tadpoles. They hatch in the leaf litter, and then the daddy carries them up into little pools of water in the trees, water trapped in the hearts of bromeliads. This part is cool. In order to keep them from eating each other (carnivorous), he calls out and lady-frogs come from neighboring villages, climb the trees and lay unfertilized eggs in the water. That way, the wee tadpoles have something to eat without committing fratricide. Nature – it’s fantastic.

Cows! I love hot-weather cows, the kind from India. In Costa Rica they are called Zebu and I think they are so pretty. We were driving past a hillside and I insisted we stop because there was a calf there with lop-ears like a bunny. I was smitten. As you will see from its expression, it was not nearly as infatuated with me.

Toucans! I forgot to bring them up yesterday. At the refuge there was another giant atrium that had rescued toucans. They were accostumed to humans so if you held a little birdseed, they would come down and perch on you for a bit. The ones that came and perched were Keel-Billed Toucans. This was a woman who was with us on our tour.

And then there’s me! I really liked the toucans. They are sweet and gentle and not rowdy at all.

There was a Chestnut-Mandibled Toucan:

And at one point this little guy hopped over and stared right at me for a while. He’s a Emerald Toucanet.

Tomorrow I’ll talk about my nature walk. Yes, yours truly walked on a trail for two miles through a rainforest. The things I do for cool animals.

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Costa Rica 2013, Part 3.

Thursday, April 18th, 2013

Before we get to the anymules, I want to talk about orchids. I love orchids, I really do. There are so many different kinds. Every year there’s an orchid show at the Botanical Gardens here in NYC and it is mind-blowing. Here’s my post on it from about a year ago. And in Costa Rica they just grow wild! No cultivation required! So envious. They’re similar to bromeliads, which are plants that don’t need dirt to flourish. The orchids just wrap their root-tentacles around whatever’s nearby. I took pictures of several I came across.

Now before I left, I took my The Wildlife of Costa Rica: A Field Guide and I ended up reading it from cover to cover. I’m glad I did because I now know many things, things like the Mexican Burrowing Toad’s advertisement call is a bellowing uuwwaaaa, likened to the sound of a person vomiting, which is how they earned their common name “sapo borracho” (drunken toad”), or the Oilbird is the world’s only nocturnal avian frugivore (congratulations to you, Oilbird!).

So, on one of my first days there, The Moomins and I went to a refuge where indigenous animals that had been recovered from smuggling operations and were deemed unreleasable were kept. Our guide took tours through this refuge fairly frequently, so the animals were familiar with him. For example, he walked past an enormous avian cage and a Caracaca, which is a scary carrion-eating bird, flew down immediately and waited for head-skritchins. It was adorable.

We saw Scarlet Macaws being all parrot-y, squawkin’ and squabblin’ and flappin’ around.

And there were two Two-Fingered Sloths. They were sleeping. Because sloths.

But those weren’t the most amazing things there. The two things that were magical for me was the butterfly atrium and the hummingbird garden. Holy pumpkin-seeds, people. First, the butterfly atrium. Big, airy building filled with plants the butterflies enjoy.

There were two types of butterflies that were especially prevalent, the Blue Morpho and the Banded Owl Butterfly. However, there were other ones flittering around as well.

There were SO MANY. Here’s one of the fruit stations.

Seriously. Butterflies on all the surfaces.

One even landed on The Moomins and kept her company for the entire time.

They had plants that had butterfly eggs and caterpillars all over them. The eggs were beautiful, the caterpillars were beautiful – every aspect of the life-cycle of the butterfly is visually appealing in some way, it seems.

In the corner, staff had hung up all the chrysalises and there was a newly emerged guy with curled-up wings.

The only thing in the butterfly atrium that bugged me a little was this freaky plant that looked like a portal to an abyss. It was huge and veined and it had a dark pit in the center. It looked… menacing.

The other life-altering thing was the hummingbird garden. A little way outside was a small garden with five or six hummingbird feeders in them and a few small trees. Those trees were PACKED with hummingbirds.

It was pouring down rain and I could not have cared less. I stood there in the rain, water dripping off my nose, staring at all these teeny birds whizzing past my head. They make a cool noise when they go by, like a frrrrrrrmmm sound. It’s absolutely delightful. Here’s some video that I took.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ER8JOUdfrxg

They were mostly green hummingbirds with white eyefeathers that makes them look very alert.

There was a smaller, more colorful fellow who kept zipping in and out with a stunning aqua-colored head. I could not get a picture of his awesome aqua hat while he was sitting at the feeder, but I managed to get a vague shot of it as he zipped away. In the second picture, that turquoise smudge, that’s his cool head color. Don’t yell at me, I’m doing my best here people, hummingbirds are fast.

There was a bigger violet one.

And there was a teeny tiny little black one. He could have fit right in my palm.

I got an amazing shot from the back. He looks like a little jewel.

I really could have stood there in the rain all day. It was absolute bliss. I am now sorely tempted to get that strange hat with a mask and hummingbird feeder built in, so hummingbirds drink right in front of you. This one.

Tomorrow, frogs!

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Costa Rica 2013, Part 2.

Wednesday, April 17th, 2013

San Jose! San Jose is an interesting place. Even though it’s the capital of Costa Rica, only 290,000 people live in the city. Almost everyone who works there (about a million people) commute in from the ‘burbs via the bus. Here’s something that blows my mind about San Jose – they don’t have street names or numbers. They just don’t. If you want to go somewhere for dinner, you need to ask the restaurant what are some landmarks near it so you can tell the cab driver. That’s how he knows which direction to go. The Moomins bought a painting from a gallery in the center of town and I took a picture of their label.

That’s a legitimate gallery, and their address is “Diagonally Across from The Holiday Inn”. How, HOW, does the mailman deliver the mail? Do the envelopes say things like, “The Hernandez Family, pink house with green shutters, large tree in front, San Jose, Costa Rica”? They’ve started labeling some streets and avenues so at least there are blocks and corners now, but still no building numbers. If I lived there I would explode like a phoenix in a ball of fire completely fueled by frustration every time I had to go somewhere.

The city, similar to places I’ve been to in Africa and Israel, has that hot-climate stucco cement faux-Bauhaus architecture all over. The whole city looks like they hit 1974 and stopped, which is unfortunate, because 1960s and 1970s architecture is often plagued with a case of The Cube-y Borings.

Most of the buildings are no more than six stories tall because Costa Rica gets earthquakes pretty regularly. There are some faults running right through the country. I don’t know whether this fact is true or not, but I want it to be true so I’m going to believe it. One of the tour guides we had said the ridge of mountains running down the side of the country was originally part of the Andes from when Pangaea broke up. There are now some tall(er) buildings, built by Japanese architects using their earthquake-resistant techniques. There actually used to be a railroad weaving all over, but earthquakes ripped up the tracks and it was easier to switch to buses.

First stop, The National Museum of Costa Rica! We didn’t go in because we didn’t have time, but it is a lovely jaunty yellow building that vaguely resembles a castle. The really interesting thing is outside. There’s a weird round building and inside of it is a stone orb.

Costa Rica has about 300 ancient stone orbs scattered all over the country, like Stonehenge or those guys on Easter Island. The balls are really close to perfect roundness, at least the ones that haven’t been unevenly worn away by erosion, so many archeologists are trying to figure out how people from 200 B.C. figured out how to make giant marbles, and why. Here’s one theory:

In the cosmogony of the Bribri, which is shared by the Cabecares and other American ancestral groups, the stone spheres are “Tara’s cannon balls”. Tara or Tlatchque, the god of thunder, used a giant blowpipe to shoot the balls at the Serkes, gods of winds and hurricanes, in order to drive them out of these lands.

And here’s a picture I found of them on the beach so you can get a sense of scale. BIG balls.

Next, the Cathedral! Services were going on so I couldn’t really delve too far in, but I saw quite a bit and I was pleased to see excellent stained-glass windows and polychrome (painted wallpaper, common in the Gothic cathedrals of Europe).

I’ve mentioned several times that purple is a very difficult color to achieve in glass, so I was really impressed by this window in particular.

And this window was nice as well.

Then, The Pre-Columbian Gold Museum! I was blown away by the workmanship. These people hadn’t invented pants yet, and they were already using the lost-wax method of casting, and they had figured out that if they mixed copper in with the gold it would make the metal more malleable, etc. I mean, seriously, look at these lobsters.

The gold figures are almost always representations of animals. There was a jaguar, and a bat, and crab, and some lungfishes.

They had some pre-Columbian pottery as well. Two pots in particular caught my eye. One was a pot with the silliest-looking face on it.

And one was what I assume to be a armadillo, or perhaps a coati, shyly hiding his snoot in his paws. I loved it.

• | • | • INTERMISSION • | • | •

I like the Costa Rican fire hydrants. They’re red and there’s knobs and chains all over, they look like they’re very important and have very important things to do.

• | • | • INTERMISSION OVER • | • | •

Finally, the National Theater! It was built in the late 1800s by Italian craftmen and boy does it show. No one does ornate like the Italians. They are not afraid of some frothy gold decoration. All the marble is Carrara marble, the same kind Michelangelo carved his statues out of. It was a nice touch, though, that in the round paintings going up the staircase the painters put moonflowers and fruit, things that are common in Costa Rica, instead of Italian motifs.

And much to my delight, when I was outside looking at the facade I saw my familiar green obnoxious parrots, the ones who totally convince you they are laughing at you, right to your face. Because they are d-bags.

Despite the scary fences surrounding the houses, Costa Rica has the lowest crime rate in all of Central America, and the most common crime is theft which can be avoided to a large degree by using common sense, the same common sense you would use in any heavily populated city. I didn’t feel scared or uncomfortable at any point. San Jose is covered with beautiful parks all over, and there are bands rockin’ out in them and artists selling their wares and people playing chess and trying out stilts and doing tai chi and yoga and gymnastics. It’s life-affirming, I tell you.

Three other interesting things about Costa Rica. One, they have no army. It was abolished in 1949. If you want to attack them, go ahead, they ain’t gonna fight back. Two, even though they are a super-wee country, they contain 6% of the world’s biodiversity. And three, something like 97% of their population is literate. The rule is: if your village has kids, you need a school. Sometimes is a one-room schoolhouse with one teacher and five kids of differing ages, but it’s a school. I think that’s great. I would feel so lost if I couldn’t read.

Tomorrow, we will go into some of the fantastic beasties I came across during this week abroad.

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Costa Rica 2013, Part 1.

Wednesday, April 17th, 2013

I went to Costa Rica again! I spent most of my time in the rainforest, which continues to look like it has not changed since the time of the dinosaurs. Still looking for a brontosaurus to pop out and say hi, still didn’t happen. Imma keep looking, tho. I shall not be thwarted.

In case anyone is wondering what I am talking about, I’m referring to my last trip to Costa Rica a little over a year ago. Below is the first entry of about nine. I’m going to reference stuff from that trip occasionally, so perhaps if you would like you should read those so as to be up-to-date. Not a requirement, totally your choice.

https://design-newyork.com.fwtrading.x10host.com/wp/2012/02/07/i-have-returned-from-costa-rica-many-photos-await/

The plants are also still vibrant and waxy and enormous and vulgar. They all looked like things designed by Alexander McQueen after he had been to a rave for four days and was hallucinating. I spent a great deal of time being offended by vegetation. “Gosh, put some pants on, don’t you know there are kids here?”

This plant is called The Flamboyant Acacia. I desperately want one, but they are entirely tropical so no Drag Queen Acacia for me. Sigh.

And look at these hibiscii! So frilly! And happy!

You know our houseplants that we put in a window and love and water and care for and then they die? People use them for hedges in Costa Rica. People pay no attention to them, give them no love and the plants thrive.

Anyway, the first full day The Moomins and I were in Costa Rica we went back to the Poaz Volcano. I had no idea how lucky we were last time. Last time, we showed up at the volcano, the sun was shining, the volcano coughed up some sulfurous steam, we all took pictures, it was easy-peasy. This time… fog. All over the everything. Couldn’t see nothin’. I took a picture of The Moomins doing a “The Price is Right” impression, showing off the view of white haze we had to look at. You could still smell the sulfur, though. Really the best possible outcome. All stank and no view.

But then some fog moved away! And you could see the steamy bit! Costa Rica has about 22 volcanoes, and three of them are being watched by scientists because they’re feisty. This is one of them.

Poaz is in the mountains, so it doesn’t have a rainforest, it has a mountain forest with entirely different plants and trees. So, so many ferns. Big, freaky ferns that reach out from the darkness with balled-up leaves that resemble the arthritic fingers of giant ghosts. Oooooooogie boogie.

After we strolled though the mountain forest around Poaz for a while, we went to a rainforest with three waterfalls. I definitely deserve a cookie for that portion of the trip. I climbed many stairs, like 100 of them, they were mossy and slippery and various heights. When I got back my father asked me if my raincoat worked and I told him in all honesty that I have no idea because it was soaking wet inside the raincoat due to condensation and sweatiness. But the waterfalls were stunning and crazy-photogenic.

The Moomins went ecstatic over the plantlife. Every few steps she would clasp her hands together and say, “Look at that beautiful leaf? Jessica, isn’t that the most beautiful leaf you’ve ever seen? Take a picture of the leaf.” If I had a phrase that summed up this trip, “Take a picture of the leaf” would be it. I would try to patiently explain, Moomins, there are five thousand leaves on this tree, and there are five thousand trees. I took a picture of the same type of leaf five minutes ago when you asked. And The Moomins would look at me very seriously and say, “Yes, but this one is different.”

Long story short: I took a ton of leaf-pics to appease The Moomins. I quietly deleted many of them when we would get back to the hotel room in the evening, but she didn’t care. As my father says, “Happy Wife, Happy Life.” “Happy Moomins, Happy Life” doesn’t rhyme, but it’s the same sentiment.

Tomorrow we will delve into San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica.

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I have returned from the rainforest! (Surprise – it’s rainy.)

Saturday, April 13th, 2013

I am presently sorting through my 500+ photos to pick the bestest and brightest-est, so in the meantime, please look at this painting by Sebastian Gomez de la Torre.

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I’m going going, back back, to Costa Costa…

Wednesday, April 3rd, 2013

(Here is a link to the song I am referencing in the title in case you are not that familiar with Biggie’s works.)

I went to Costa Rica in January of 2012 and I liked it so much, I am returning to see even more awesome beastacular creatures. I love it there so much. It’s close (five-hour flight!), it’s relatively inexpensive, and awesomeness abounds. The one thing I was bummed about last time was that I was unable to go to the Sloth Sanctuary. Guess what, people? I’m going this time! Here’s a video on it:

http://vimeo.com/11712103

I am also going to a waterfall garden, a volcano, a serpentarium, a hummingbird facility, a butterfly exhibit and a scientific research laboratory located in the middle of the rainforest. I am so very excited. I may die because there is a bunch of hiking through muggy hot allergy-ridden forest, but it will be totally worth it. You know I will have tons of pictures on my return. Get emotionally prepared now.

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Some stuff and also some things.

Monday, December 31st, 2012

1. I just saw this picture of Brussels. Why were the giant orange bunnies not there when I was there? I would have made a concerted effort to see them. Who took away my bunnies?!?! I’m gonna write a letter.

2. I decided a girl’s gotta look out for herself at holiday-time, so I went online and bought a big box o’ dead bugs! Happy Holidays to me! Really.

It was tough, but I waited and waited and then one day, there it was! My box of beetle corpses! There were only two problems. One, the box was clearly labeled “Dead Insect Specimens – For Scientific Use Only” and then the rest was Chinese characters all over, so my doorman handed it to me like, “What’s up with you, girl? You get weird things.” The other problem, and Snorth tells me this is a thing with all beetles, is the buggies have a smell. A pretty strong smell, in fact. It’s not bad, like rotting flesh or anything, but it’s not good. I would describe it as pungent. I think the closest thing I could compare it to is roasted peanuts and a touch of musk. Now they are laid out all over my dining room table on an oilcloth airing out in the hopes that it will dissipate the odd stink. There are gorgeous, though. An excellent gift to myself.

3. I saw a holiday-themed commercial for Pringles the other night, and then the next day I saw this:

He makes an excellent point, but that’s not the thought I had. Every time the British voiceover person says, “Merry Pringles,” at the end of the commercial, I can’t stop thinking about a scary campfire story about a forest witch. “Did you ever hear the tale of Mary Pringles? It’s said she roams this forest, shaking a long can filled with compressed, formed cellulose slivers to lure children to her den. Ticka ticka ticka, that’s what it sounds like. Be afraid of Mary Pringles.”

4. Everyone who reads this blog knows how I feel about owls, particularly teeny-tiny grumpy owls. I always assumed they had ears, but due to the feathers, I had never seen an ear. And now I wish I still had not seen an owl ear. Eeesh.

The article I saw this in said, “Northern Saw-whet Owls are ‘earless’ owls in the sense that they have no ear tufts, as do Eastern Screech-Owls and Great Horned Owls. But the tufts on those species are not really ears – they are just tufts of feathers that probably serve in displays and in adding to the bird’s camouflage. In the photo above, we see the true ear of an owl. They are massive cavernous pits located on either side of the head, and covered by feathers. If your ears and eyes took up the mass of your head in proportion to a saw-whet, you would probably be making your money with the carnival crowd as part of a sideshow act.”

5. I saw these skeleton-painted vacuum tubes on SkullADay.blogspot.com. I think they’re adorable. So creative. I would like a wee battalion of skull-vacuums to guard my home.

Posted in Advertising, Beastiesbeastiesbeasties, Nature, Random Art Bloggery, Stuff, Travels - I Has Them | 3 Comments »

Belgium for Thanksgiving 2012, Part 7 and done.

Saturday, December 8th, 2012

Just to close the out the Flemish art theme, I saw some original Bosch paintings. And some other guys who painted equally weird things.

That guy in the first image is pretty famous. I believe he’s called The Mailman. When I went downstairs to the gift shop I became super-ultra-jazzed because lo and behold, a Christmas ornament!

He’s felty and glittery. His earflaps are beaded. I’m going to cut his little beak and put a small piece of paper in there that looks like an envelope and then I’m going to hang him beside my Chinese articulated Christmas shrimp ornament in my kitchen, thus creating a small collection of seriously weird ornaments for a holiday I don’t celebrate. My life is a Samuel Beckett play.

The rest of these images here are what’s now left that didn’t fit in the other blog entries.

A wine cask I saw in a liquor store window. If it didn’t weigh so much and wasn’t so cumbersome, I might have considered buying it because of the nifty doodles all over it.

The Museum of Music in Brussels. Designed by Horta. Shocker! I loved it.

Cool mural:

Niche with fountain beastie in it:

Architectural details:

The oldest bar in Brussels. It’s from the Renaissance. You have to walk down a creepy corridor/alleyway to get to it. Why must the city planning from the past have loads of places rife for pickpocketing and molestation? It’s almost like they wanted petty crime to happen.

As we exited the bar, behind was a tiny garden with big thorny vine trees, and sitting in the tree right next to my head was… a chicken. A freaky-looking chicken, just looking at me with it’s spooky velociraptor eyes. I thought it was fake. It was not fake.

Startled lion:

A sign for a children’s clothing store:

Some wrought iron from various buildings that made me happy:

The Brussels Cathedral. Also polychrome. Also distinctive windows.

Fox sculpture. He dustay.

In Bruges we went past a German Christmas shop. Holy macaroni, the Germans get Christmas on a level that mere Americans cannot understand. It’s in their blood or something. I ended up getting Cricket’s mother some creche trees there.

Alright, look at this picture.

Story from my childhood time. When I was three, four and five, The Moomins was writing her Master’s thesis on 15-century Flemish painters, so she would take me with her sometimes on reconnaissance missions to various churches and cathedrals in France, Holland and Belgium. I went to a Jewish day school, so I didn’t really know any non-Jews and you know, with kids you don’t explain everything to them all the time. So I kept seeing this guy on a cross with the word “INRI” over his head. I assumed it was an European spelling of the name “Henry”, so I called him Henry. For years. Only when I was about eight did anyone bother to tell me that he was not Henry. So when people yell the expletive, “Jesus H. Christ!!” I get very excited because maybe they called him Henry too! (They never do, but I keep dreaming.) Moving on.

They really, really, really like mushrooms in Europe. The one with the white stalk and red cap with polka dots on it. I saw them portrayed all over. Gnomes and mushrooms.

The Ghent train station had pertinent ceiling paintings. I kinda want to paint those all my workplace ceiling, see if anyone notices.

And finally, The Moomins and I wandered into a building and promptly died from the awesomeness of the interior. There’s a birdcage elevator! I love those! Why did we get rid of those?

That’s it. We now return to random postings about bad typography and the horrors of reality television.

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Belgium for Thanksgiving 2012, Part 6.

Thursday, December 6th, 2012

Brussels! One of the most important buildings in Brussels is the Saint Cyr house. It’s a odd, extremely narrow swirly art nouveau building that is simply great, and when The Moomins and I encountered it we discovered the best thing. It’s for sale. You can buy it.

WANT. I want this. I will happily sleep on a twin bed forever if I owned this. The house instantly makes you awesome. Coming out in a robe to pick up the paper in your present abode – Lame. Coming out in a robe to pick up the paper in the Saint Cyr house – Exciting! Theatrical! Mesmerizing!

So let’s move onto Ghent. Ghent is a big favorite of mine. What a great city.

Fun fact: in Belgium and possibly all over Europe, the streets tend to curve because if someone shoots at you, you can duck around a corner and not get hit with an arrow or a bullet or whatever they’re shooting. That’s the reason a lot of the streets curve. Good to know.

I saw the same thing in Antwerp. Curvy roads.

When we arrived in Ghent, The Moomins and I promptly headed off to the museum to look at more 15th-century Flemish art, specifically because the best painting EVER, EVER is being restored there. Van Eyck’s polyptych, the Ghent Altarpiece. It’s one of the first oil paintings, so it’s done with a thin layer of oil, and then a thin layer of paint-glaze, then oil, then glaze, so the whole thing has a luminescence that is breath-taking. The whole front part looks like this:

It may not look like much, but the level of detail will cross your eyes.

And it’s that complex and ornate all over. AND the back’s painted as well, same level of intricacy. Mind-blowing. Right outside the grotto-area that they’ve put the altarpiece in is the sweetest attempt at it painted by children (I hope, because if it’s painted by adults, oh dear).

The cathedral that the Van Eyck masterpiece is housed in is not to be ignored.

The stained glass windows were really interesting to me because I had never seen this style before. The bottom part is a tableau with biblical scenes, but the upper parts were little squares with a repeating pattern on it.

Once again, very big with guilds and tradespeople. Look at the strip at the bottom. People doing stuff, maybe sewing or cartography or milling wheat, stuff like that.

This dame. I loved her flouncy head-thing.

Not all the windows were old. I’m guessing these were damaged in the fire or in the war, so they have a modern pattern.

The cathedral had something else I really liked, which was a case of silver body parts. Apparently if, like, your leg was bothering you, you could purchase a silver leg ornament and pray and put it in the case and God would hear you and heal your leg.

After taking in the loveliness of the Ghent Cathedral we went to the museum because our hunger for Flemmy art had not been sated. The museum itself is really aesthetically pleasing even without any art in it.

Now, I know I should cut the 15th century artists some slack because they were just figuring the whole oil painting thing out, but you know there were people in the 15th century. Lots of ’em, just walking around. You could look right at them with your eyeballs. So my eternal question is why, why were those artists so frikkin’ amazing at painting cloth and jewels and so very bad at painting people? Why do all the people look… odd? And don’t get me started on the way they painted babies. Not good. The lion and tiger thing I get, they were going on descriptions that other people told them about fierce beasts from other lands, but people are right there. Here, look at some examples.

The detail work: UNREAL. The people: carved out of wax with lazy eyes and a touch of palsy.

While I was there I also gazed at some impressionist work. I call this one “The Smudgy Smootchers”.

You may be wondering, “Jessica, what trick have you come up with to distinguish between Monet and Manet?*” I’m glad you asked. Impressionism doesn’t really use black or white. It’s a lot of muted pastels, or vibrant tones like oranges and yellows and sky blues. Like this painting, for example.

Well, Manet used black in his work, so black has an “a”, and so does the word Manet. If it looks like the painting above, it’s Monet. Black, Manet. Enjoy this irrelevant tidbit.

Okay, back to Ghent the City. They have a castle! It looks very castle-y.

We went in the front bit where they were filming a movie. British cameramen were milling around, and there was a guy in a Puss-n-Boots outfit drinking Starbucks coffee. We couldn’t really go in further due to the shoot, but as I turned around, the doorway of the castle framed the street in a really photogenic way.

Nearby is the former fish market. They could have just built some kind of structure and tacked on a sign that says, “Fish Market” with an arrow pointing down, but no, it has Neptune carved on the front and all manner of other sea references. They went all out.

The local former meat market was more chill. There wasn’t hula-hooping pigs and cows on the roof or anything.

The inside part was the meat market. Those booths you see outside, they now are little craft stalls but back in the day that’s where they sold offal.

Inside, hams are hanging to cure from the ceiling.

I adore a cured meat product, so I decided that we had to have lunch there. I ordered the local sampler platter which came with a variety of meats, one kind of cheese and the local mustard which is considered by many to be the best in the world.

And that was my Thanksgiving meal. It was delicious. Hooray! Thanksgiving!

Across the street was the mustard shop. It was all olde-worlde-charmy.

The Moomins and I decided to buy a jar, so the lady pointed to the various jar sizes and we picked one. Then the mustard lady did something I did not expect: she walked over to a giant barrel with an empty jar, picked up a wooden ladle with a divot in one side, and poured fresh mustard into the jar. Then we were told that we had to keep it in the fridge and eat it within six months, otherwise it would get stale.

And right next to the meat market was where the gallows originally were. This house is called “The Hanging House.” I can only imagine back in the day. Buying mustard, watching a hanging, just a typical Tuesday in Ghent.

Finally in Ghent, The Moomins and I went to the Design Museum. Which I adored (no surprises there) and I took a gazillion photos that look like this:

But the one piece I would like to share with you is the beautiful wooden chandelier. I’ve never seen a beautiful wooden chandelier. They always looked clunky and solid. This one was really nice. The best part is, if you look carefully, you will notice a Lego pirate at the helm of the ship. I don’t know who put that there, but hats of to you, sir or lady, you are awesome.

*I am 100% fully aware no one is asking themselves that. Work with me on this.

Posted in Random Art Bloggery, Tasty 'n' Delicious, Travels - I Has Them | No Comments »

Belgium for Thanksgiving 2012, Part 5.

Wednesday, December 5th, 2012

Bruges! A cute little city of adorableness that I covered in the previous entry. The first thing The Moomins and I saw when we got off the train was a map of Bruges and the surrounding area. Here’s the name of one of the suburbs.

I immediately turned to The Moomins and said, “That’s where poor people live, because they asses be broke!” She did not find that funny. I stand by my joke.

As we sauntered through the streets of Bruges (which is pronounced “Brooj”, in case you were wondering) we saw signs for this all over.

And I think there’s a design school there, because groups of college-age kids were setting up interesting interpretations of Christmas trees in various buildings. Very creative, those kids.

In a different building they had some kind of contest involving making things shaped like cakes out of flowers. Any plant life, really. My favorite was the one where the crafter pinned individual raisins onto a base one by one.

Some people were setting up a Christmas market and I found it interesting that aside from the usual ornaments like shiny glass balls and pine cones and fluffy birds, they sold what looked like wool roving to wrap around the trees. Makes ’em look all felt-y.

The Moomins and I then headed over to the former hospital where they now have art. Really good art, if you like 15th-Century Flemish painters, like Peter Memling.

In the corner was a bishop who I can only assume was the bishop of pretzels (I’m going to hell, I know that).

They had a phenomenal collection of reliquaries. In case you’re not familiar, if you were a famous or important saint and you died, sometimes they put a small part of you in an ornate gold and silver and jeweled container, often with a small window so people could view the parts. In this photo, the reliquary in front appears to have a finger bone and a tooth.

I visited this museum as a child, and then I proceeded to make a horrible decision when I got home based on seeing these religious elements. I don’t want to ruin anyone’s day, so if you don’t know the tale and you meet me in person, I will be more than happy to tell you all about it face-to-face so I can appreciate your expressions. The Moomins is still upset about the experience, and it’s been twenty-something years.

After viewing the Memling triptych you see above (in a future blog entry I will delve into Early Flemish painting a bit more) I was amused to see this Mediterranean food joint in a nearby street.

After chortling about food slash old masters puns, we went to the Bruges Cathedral. It had some tombs of Dukes with a million crests on the side.

Underneath they had some really old tombs from, if I recall correctly, about 1000 A.D.

They also have the only Michelangelo piece of art taken out of Italy during his life. That man knew how to carve a piece of rock, I can tell you that. Look at the Madonna’s face. So evocative.

And there was a wall of marble plaques thanking the Madonna for various prayers that had been answered. I had never seen that before in a church.

One last pic of Bruges, as we were leaving (and the wind was blowing like crazy in an attempt to blow The Moomins and me into a canal) I saw a sweet old building called “God’s House”. I don’t know if it was a meeting house for the nuns (there was a big convent in the middle of town), but I thought it was charming.

Some more Brussels goodness: One day we went to the palace on the top of the hill. Because they totally have a king and a queen, still. Really.

Underneath the palace, though, is another palace. There was a palace from the 1100s that partially burned in 1731. Then, a bunch of years later, the remaining palace-bits were demolished to make room for the palace that’s there now. They’ve just started excavating the old palace under there and you can go down there and walk around in the what-used-to-be cellars and fireplaces and kitchens.

But the best thing was outside the entrance was a kitty! A friendly random kitty who meowed at us and wanted some pettings and snuggles. I wanted to take Kitty with me, but I couldn’t think of a way to smuggle it onto a plane. It was a talker. So sadly, I did not take it home with me.