Monalia's World

Every year, our friend Marta holds an outdoor corto 1 minute film festival at her home in the country, just outside Barcelona. We have participated in the last 5 festivals. Here’s a link to the 3rd annual 2008 corto festival – little did we realize that the whole concept from 2008 of renting a big truck to sleep in would evolve into what planned for this year. If you check out the link you can view our 3 fun corto videos from 2008, the year we rented a big cargo van to bring our dogs and to crash in. Its tradition to spend the night for this event every year. Some people bring tents, others simply sleeping bags.

Three years later, we still participate and its still a blast, but we only entered 1 film this year.

There were a lot of unpleasant details I omitted in my last blog (its very stressful to drive a huge camper and also read maps and GPS); in fact the only real fun was the camping itself, which was an amazingly relaxing experience in itself. We bickered a lot while driving and decided “never again” although in the final tally the pros of the campervan experience outweighed the cons. We decided if we ever did it again it would be with a third wheel to co-pilot.

Mark has been wanting to visit his friend Bobbie (Robert Mann) for a couple years now. A few years ago we visited him in Paris, where he and Tracy have another apartment, but Paris is mainly Tracey’s; she does makeup for the stars and models of Vogue, Elle, etc.

So when the annual corto festival came around this year we rented another (slightly smaller) campervan and invited our good friend of 17 years, Cristina, to take off with us on our adventure in French camping. We pay all the expenses, her only responsibility is to sit up front with Mark and help him navigate. I am ridiculously useless at maps and at GPS, but wth someone else to help with the directions we could give campervan camping another go.

Cris is the friend who originally introduced us to Marta and invited us to participate in the festival our first year living here.

These parties involve lots of jamming as well as a yummy meal plus the climax of getting to see our efforts projected onto a big screen on Marta’s wall. Its really a hoot! Normally between 17 and 30 artists participate. With a duration of only 1 minute each there’s no time to get bored with any one film.

The slide show above begins with a close-up of our campervan and ends with us hitting the road, me with the video camera in back, Cris and Mark up front. This is going to be an interesting trip – Cris speaks no English, only Spanish, which is fun for Mark. I am the designated French speaker when needed.

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It is August. We have set out for France in our big campervan. Cris has a tent. Mark drives and Cristina sits up front to co-pilot. This is the agreement; Mark and I are paying for the van and the expenses, she tags along with the designated job of co-pilot. Little does she know what she’s agreed to; this is going to be one madcap adventure, of this I am sure.

a few words written from my bed-mobile in the back:

squeazing 3 big personalities into a tiny box.
endless sunflowers in bloom
wild, they dance in the flaming yellow sun.
Tom Tom GPS versus common sense
A 12 year old map versus Tom Tom GPS
a blur of yellow and green countryside
accompanies the staccato voices of Cristina and Mark mapping out our route.
As driver Mark is goal oriented. As passenger Cris is more of an improvisationalist.

I roll around in the back, in what will become my bed-mobile for the next 10 days.

1) A French toilet 2) View from my spot in the back of the campervan 3) passing hundreds of kilometers of sunflowers 4) Every so often we’ll stop and pose.

When we stop in Cahors it is almost sunset. Here the city poles are covered with crochet, which gives them a unique look. Of course, I cannot resist posing my dog on one:

We manage to find a nice three star campground at Riviere de Cabessut in Cahors. It has Wifi, which is a big plus. Our designated spot gives the illusion that we are alone, although it is only a hedge of plants that separates us from the next camper. Cristina sets up her tent, Mark tests the Wifi, Quixote and I go exploring for the river we see on the campground map. The river proves to be off grounds and inaccessible, but the walk there is amusing. Lots of local French campers, some with families, others of elderly couples enjoying a baguette and coffee in their respective foyers. Here is a typical French tent (and another spot to pose Quixote):

The next morning, after coffee and croissants we set out again. From my perspective in the back, I can see villages, castles, sun flowers … all a blur through my side window. It is better this way, Mark and Cristina have finally found a groove together as co-pilots. We stop for picnic lunch and frankfurts at a lake in Lubersac. it is like an impressionist painting, “A day at the lake” so I break out my Nikon and take some snaps:

I can’t resist trying out my super zoom here before we set out again:

1) Go granny go! 2) Endless series of divers

We make it to a municipal campground in Chateauroux by sunset, only we arrive 30 minutes after the campground closes. Too tired to go driving in pursuit of another campground, we set up camp just outside the grounds and are quite happy:

Its actually really nice here, next to a beautiful park. Although we can walk into the campgrounds and use the facilities there, there is no way to enter the grounds with our van because the kiosk is closed and a metal bar prevents entry. But its okay – we have a nice time, its very relaxing. Cristina sets up her tent and after a home cooked meal we all sleep like babies.

We set out in the morning. We are still several hundred kilometers from our destination on the Loire. We stop in Pompadour to take in the castle of Richard the Lionhearted:
Castle of Richard the Lionhearted in Pompadour

Every place we stop, I make a mental note, “it would be nice to return here someday and spend time…” But we have a schedule, so we press on.

This was a highlight for us; a sign with Fromage in the middle of nowhere: we follow the sign to a little hut, where we stock up on fresh cheese, home made marmalade and honey. We walk around the grounds after making our purchases, and find the animals we need to thank:

Mark records the sound while Cris and I shoot photos:

GPS versus maps; I’m glad to be left out of the decision making. We stop at a passing chateau while Mark figures out which way to drive from here:

PART 2

After several days of improvising our route and campsite, we finally make to it Chamont, where our friends Bobbie and Tracey live. I will begin a separate blog for this.

This is Sol and Jordi. We’ve been friends with them for over 3 years now and I’ve been meaning to (and still plan to) devote a blog post to promote their Monster Museum and the crewe of outcasts that costume themselves like the undead and follow and help them in their endeavors. These kids are enterprising. They remind Mark and I of ourselves 20 years ago. They have their own business which when we met them was located on our street in Gracia. The day the Monster Museum opened up I went in, even though I was dressed totally “uncool” and aware of it. I had just come back from playing tennis when I saw all these goth kids hanging out a few doors up. I had never seen them in our neighborhood before. “Wow! How cool is that?” I thought to myself, “a bit of the 80’s on our own street”. I considered ducking home to change into hipper attire, but I’m one of those inner conviction cool people so I was at ease as I introduced myself and purchased a few macabre oddities in my funky clay court tennis fatigues.

Jordi and Sol organize events, like Zombie walks, and they make cheesy horror movies for fun. Jordi has a band (called Eyaculación Post Mortem ) with a big following in Mexico. He is a talented composer; we’ve been selling some of his trashy horror tracks on Musicloops.com. To make money on musicloops you have to crank out hundreds of tracks. Our top earner makes an average of $5000 a month. Jordi’s too busy to submit a lot music at this point and time, but his sales are gaining a slow but steady momentum. Come every Sept./October he gets great sales, which inspires him to write and submit a couple more. We’re hoping he’ll compile a Halloween CD for Partners in Rhyme when he has time. His music is very B-52’s meets the Cramps. We dig it. One of his tracks reminds me of the old hit “Do The Monster Mash.” Here is a page of Jordi tracks available on musicloops.com for any Jordi fans reading this.
Jordi as Nosferatu.

One year Mark and I allowed ourselves to be made up as Zombies, with the following result:

In “the old days” (3 years ago, when we were still living in Gracia) Jordi would come over to jam with Mark. Jordi is a multi-talented guy. In the following shots he plays his theramin while Mark sits at the Partners in Rhyme protools desk:

Now that we have moved to the beach, and Jordi and Sol have relocated a few blocks away to another street in Gracia, instead of living and working on the same block, its more of an effort for us to get together. They actually came out to visit us in Barceloneta once, while our place was still a work in progress…

Jordi and Sol made a rare appearance at the beach when they visited us. They and most of their friends are shade dwellers, reminding us of our Hollywood selves a couple decades ago, when Mark and I first got together. (it took 5 years for us to make our union “official”). Their visit to our new, pre-modeled apartment at the beach cemented our friendship. These guys are the alpha dogs of their pack and I felt honored that they would come seek us out just for friendship’s sake. We try to help them out however we can when they need it and they make sure to invite us when they have an event or party.

Jordi and Sol have had cameo appearances in past blogs, and although we don’t get together very often we try to make it to their birthdays and the occasional happening event they spearhead. In March of 2010 I did a blog about the strange snowstorm that hit Gracia – in that weird one day blizzard they were our accomplices; we got in a snowball fight and  built a silly snowman in the plaça. A natural friendship evolved, because our rappoire has always been easy. Jordi “gets” me and my Florentine sense of humor. (Florentines are famous for being quick on their feet and to always have a dry but quick wit. If I didn’t know better, I’d think Jordi was a Florentine).

OKAY – I’ve provided a bit of backlog to our friendship. In the future I hope to do a whole blog on them and on their Monster Museum Shock Horror funny but scary following of zombie friends and outcasts, a bit like our scene 20 years ago in Hollywood, only without the heavy drugs. Same look though, and same taste in music. Mark and I quickly became icons in their quirky circle.

As you can see from the following 2 photos, I’m a client of their store. I used to buy gloves like this at Luz de Jesus when it was on Melrose. The skeleton gloves came in handy the day it snowed in Gracia. Though its rarely cold enough to actually wear them, on that day I was patting myself on the back for having recently bought these macabre mittens from them.

In early May we received this invite:

So when Jordi and Sol invited us to their wedding last month, even though we had just returned from Italy a few days before the event, we made the effort to attend. They were to be married on June 9th in a tiny medieval village in Catalunya that has no train or bus stations and is a 2 hour drive from Barcelona.

We arranged to rent a campervan for the week, an unrealized fantasy we’ve had ever since moving to Europe. As it were, the only available camper-van that would suit our needs was available on June 7th only, so we made the trek to Lleida two days before the wedding and one full day before any of our friends would make it to the tiny town of Gimerá. It became a family holiday. (Our family being ourselves and Quixote, who is perched on my shoulder in the next photo of us in front of our humongous vehicle at the trailer pick-up depot).

OUR ADVENTURE BEGINSWhen Mark was 16 his dad made him work summer’s at a construction yard. At a very young age he  learned how to drive stick in a dump truck that had 8 gears going forward and 8 gears in reverse. He had to take loads of trash and dirt to the dump and dump it. The first time he tried to dump a load he forgot to unhook the tailgate and the whole truck almost went into the dump. As a result, Mark is a natural at navigating the big trailer. I’m impressed. He really is a capable driver!

The drive to Gimerá is fairly simple, chiefly involving one highway and then a well marked turn-off. Once or twice we had to pull over to consult Mark’s iPhone GPS (I’m hopeless at applied GPS knowledge) at which time the actual size of the vehicle became apparent; its not easy to get on and off the freeway, let alone make a u-turn. But we manage.

We arrive in the tiny village of Gimerá by early evening. There are no camp grounds in these parts and we don’t know the town yet, so we simply find a nice spot in the hill overlooking the town and pull over.

This is a view from the van of our first night camping spot:

The driver’s seat and the passenger seats are on swivels, as illustrated by this photo of Mark on our first morning.

COFFEE:

In the morning we make coffee on our handy little campervan stove. This trailer has everything we need, including utensils and cook ware. After coffee we drive back down into the one lane town and park our monstruous vehicle. We go to a local café where we are warmly attended to by the owner and her son-in-law. They tell us a bit about Gimerá, that in winter the population is only about 175 people but it fills up in summer, up to 1000 people. The grammar school (where her daughter goes) has only 11 students – all the schools in the region share the same teachers; evidently the teachers schedule their time so that all the neighboring villages get the same lessons. The teachers rotate. This fascinates me… but I’ll move on for the sake of narrative and photo sharing…

After breakfast we send a text to Jordi to find out when they will arrive, and are informed they have no idea, sometime in the evening, that they were going crazy organizing loose ends. So Mark and I set out to explore a bit.

The most obvious place to explore first is the medieval tower which can be viewed from everywhere in Gimerá. So we drive to the tower and park.

These next two photos show the town of Gimerá down below.

I take so many photos that I’ll continue for a bit with some thumbnail pix you can click on to enlarge:

Of course, we have to climb the tower. There are cool peep holes looking out as we climb to the top.

View from the top:

Quixote is a fun dog to travel with:

We go into the church, where in many ways the most impressive thing was the grafitti from the period it was converted into a prison in the 1930’s:

After spending the morning climbing around the tower and the church etc. we set off to find the place where tomorrow’s marriage ceremony takes place, called “El Sanctuario”. We are told by a man working at the church that the sanctuario is nearby, indicating with his hands how to get there.

We set out and find it easily, but save the photo taking for tomorrow’s ceremony, its time for lunch! So we head back down to the restaurant/bar where we are welcomed like celebrities. The whole small town seems to know who we are, because Jordi’s best friend Guillaume is from Gimerá and his father still owns a home here, and everyone know’s Guillame, who will arrive later with Jordi and Sol.

More photos of Gimerá, only taken from below:

Gimerá is surrounded by wheat fields:

In the above thumbnails I love the one where the wheat grows taller than my dog, and also the one of Mark in the middle of a wheatfield.

On our way into Gimerá we had passed some ruins which we now return to:

After scampering through the Roman ruins we decide to drive back to the Gimerá tower and camp next to it for the night. It seems like the most logical spot; its hidden from the town below and is protected from the wind with its stone walls.

Our trailer is big, but it tucks nicely behind the tower. Mark pulls out the awning and makes himself at home. He relaxes while Quixote and I go out and explore the mesmerizing landscape with my new Nikon:

We take a poetic walk to the nearby cemetary (which we find closed). The light turns a magical rouge:

color bursting in the sky

As Quixote and I make it back down to the trailer, just as we get there, so do Jordi and Sol, who had just arrived in town and have walked up to the tower with their small posse of friends, unaware that they would find us at the top. Perfect timing!

Jordi and Sol the day before they are to get married. We manage to fit 6 people into our party trailer. That was fun!

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We spend a comfortable night in our campervan, waving at passing friendly tractors and passers-by. Everyone in this town is friendly. I find myself speaking Catalan, as many of the locals here do no speak anything but Catalan. I have a good ear and memory for languages, and it proves to be helpful more often than not when we travel.

The next morning we go to our café. Almost on cue, Jordi arrives with his friend Guillaume. It is the morning of the wedding and I will soon take this blog into part 2.

1) Jordi the day of his wedding. He will be costumed and made up as Wolfman for the wedding later today. 2) Guillaume lived here in Gimerá until almost 11 years old, before his family moved to Gracia in Barcelona. His father still owns a house in the village, viewable from where we are sitting.

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Two more poetic shots taken last night on my hike:

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The wedding itself has an 80’s theme. Music of the B-52’s greets us as we walk from our parking spot (where we plan to spend the night) to the Sanctuary, which is the perfect setting for this alternative wedding.

1) View from our parking spot 2) Walkway leading to the Sanctuario.

some thumbnails of people arriving:

This is where my Nikon batteries give out and my trusty iPhone finishes the documentation. So I’m going to cut to the chase here and try to end this lengthy post with photos of Sol, bride-to-be and groom, Jordi, dressed as wolfman for the occasion:

as a post script I add some thumbnails of some of the colorful invitees (all of them love to pose):

… Sealed by a kiss …

Every year Mark and I try to go somewhere special for our wedding anniversary, which is on May 31. This year we went to Florence, a romantic trip because 15 years ago we spent our honeymoon in Florence, and I first introduced Mark to my extensive, fun loving Florentine family.

1) The usual self portrait from hotel balcony. 2)  View of Ponte Vecchio from our hotel balcony.

1) poetic shot of the Arno River from our room 2) Piazza Santa Croce, just around the corner from our hotel.

We were pretty broke when we got married and we stayed at a funky hotel with a small window looking out to the top of the tower of Castello Vecchio. But now, 15 years later  we travel in style and are staying at the Hotel Balestri where my parents used to stay and Mark and I have been staying the last 6 years when we visit Florence. I’ve been upgrading my gear over the last 15 years, and my new Nikon will be the beginning of more photos, less narrative blogs.

My close cousin, Stefano came out the first night and we walked around the city and had a bite. Stefano has grown a beard. To my surprise, he is one of the few men I’ve ever met that actually looks good in a beard.

Cugino, Stefano

Mark and I strike just the right balance of sightseeing, shopping and catching up with family. We are popular in Florence, and have dates with various combinations of fun loving relatives all week.

My cousin, Robertina is a doctor. She took time off to spend an afternoon with us, bringing us to her lovely villa which represents Tuscany at its best; her views overlook vintage countryside and her big garden is all in bloom. I might have overdone it with my new Nikon, with the cherry trees and various fruit trees in bloom and all…

1) Big cherry tree in cousin Robertina’s garden 2) Mark is the tall guy. He gets to pick us some cherries.

1) View from Robertina’s patio  2) Cin Cin; cousins reunited.

Eating a basket of fresh picked cherries in Robertina’s enchanted garden.

Although Robertina has the most impressive villa of all my relatives in Florence, almost all my cousins have beautiful views from their homes. The last shot is of Robertina’s bedroom window; divine enchantment.

The next day we go to the Museo Strozzi to see an exhibit of American impressionists who lived in Florence and painted under the patronage of various rich Italians. Although its not permitted to take photos, I could not resist a snapshot or 2 in passing, just to keep the memory with me..

Seeing as I snapped a few forbidden iPhone snapshots, I think I’ll also copy and paste the following narrative:

American artists often spent some time in Florence, bringing with them the experience they had acquired first at home, then in other European cities and touring the Old World.

Frank Duveneck and William Meritt Chase shared crucial experiences both in Germany and in Italy. Duveneck worked and taught in Florence in the 1880s in the company of a group of American painters known as the “Duveneck boys”, his disciples from Munich days. Chase lived in Florence in 1907 and 1913, choosing the city to hold his summer classes modelled on those that he and other American painters held in country and seaside settings in New England. The portraits of Henry James and Vernon Lee bring us to the heart of the sizeable Anglo-American colony in Florence.

Made up of scholars, writers and art critics, they moved around between Paris, New York and Florence sharing the same sparkling, stimulating lifestyle. The illustrations of Joseph Pennell and Maxfield Parrish show the villas and gardens which they frequented when staying in the city.


John Singer Sargent – 1906 (Self-Portrait – oil on canvas)

Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi, Corridoio Vasariano

Robert Vonnoh – 1915 (oil on canvas)
Portrait of Bessie Potter Vonnoh

It was fun and educational to see how much American art has been influenced by rich Florentines. I’d never thought about it before.

For our anniversary itself we went to the same restaurant I used to go to as a kid with my parents, called Il Troia. I used to order pollo al burro for dinner and meringhe with fragoline (wild strawberries) for desert. My chicken dish was still on the menu, but not the desert I remembered, so I asked for it.

“Avete meringhe con fragoline?”

“Diamine; si signora,” I was informed by Massimiliano, who is the son of the son of the son of the original owner who opened the trattoria in 1869. He says he’s the last of the line though – no more males coming from his family. (old school;  women don’t count in this scenario…)

This might be the only reasonably decent photo of Mark and I together on this trip, taken in front of Ristorante Il Troia on our anniversary.

I know I should show more food photos (Mark does that) but instead I’ll share with you some of the delicious deserts we’ve had this week.

In order to burn some calories and also go on a Nikon shooting spree, we walked to the Bardini and also the Boboli Gardens one day:
From our hotel we cross the bridge and walk up this street to the Bardini Gardens entrance.

1) Classic Bardini garden inlet 2) We can actually see our hotel from this spot.

From here we wend our way to the Boboli gardens.

Its hard not to get carried away with such beautiful vistas.

There is no place as enchanting as Florence in the spring…

These last two shots show how fantastic the zoom is on my new Nikon.

As I mentioned earlier, I got together with cousins Lisi and Francesca, had dinner one night at cousin Sivia’s as well as lunch with my Zia Fiorella.  I’ve blogged about my family in Florence at least twice in the past, so I’m just gonna go with the best photos of Florence in Spring  for narrative.

On Friday night we were invited to dinner at cousin Stefano’s, who lives in Mugello, which is a bucolic 45 minute drive from the city. Stefano also has a great view, so again I went crazy with my Nikon.

Although the original plan was to go for dinner, we spent the night there and got to experience the magic of Mugello:

Mugello is really removed from the stress of the city and is in full spring blooming.

Stefanino’s wife, Laura and his son, Giovanni.

There’s nothing like fresh fruit from your own garden.La familia.

I recently found this photo of Stefanino and me as kids, about the age of his son Giovanni. We’ve always been close. This shot is from Santa Monica Beach in the 60’s.

Weren’t we precious at that age?

 

1) Stefano’s dog Sally looks a lot like the dog I had as a kid (her name was Jackie) who is in the photo above of us as kids. 2) Another spectacular bedroom window view from Giovanni’s bedroom.

Daybreak
Goodbye Stefanino

On our last Sunday in Florence we decided to take the 40 minute train ride to Pisa, where Mark had never been. Why not? Its fun to improvise, and we were leaving the next night.

Pisa is in my opinion an unexceptional place, but I suppose the tower is interesting to see. What Mark and I found more fascinating than the leaning tower is the way people pose in front of it. Out of context they look like they’re on some weird drug or something. Here are a few examples:

People posing in Pisa

And now for some real silliness; Mark bought a souvenir plastic leaning tower, which I had fun photographing on the train ride back to Florence. Hopefully he won’t object to their being included in this blog: