110 Ruminations

Calatrava in Venizia

For the Crippled in Venezia

BRIDGES OF EUROPE

ROCKER BASCULE - Belgean Canal

Old Swing Bridge, Belgean Canal

Firth of Forth, Scotland

Old Style Bridge

Pedestrian over Canal

Milleau Viaduct, France

     One of our first priorities when we went to Europe about eleven times was to be sure to investigate at least one major engineering project. Most of these were bridges but some were others, especially when we got to Holland.  The small bridges over the canals were all over the place but the Dutch engineered devised a sort of balanced type that one person could operate. That's like the one Van Gogh, the mother of all bridges. But we rented a barge and traveled over several canals of the continent and once in a while, you just have to stop when you see one ahead, and say "What they fuck is that?" On the canal near Brugge,(A)  there is a new bridge that basically rocks on a couple of arm and lifts the roadway up high enough for the boats to pass under. It's a strange feeling, calling the controller and they stop all traffic, even at rush hour, to let our small barge through. Another one is older, (B) but swings up sideways to get the clearance. But it drives me nuts, when I can't figure out how the designers integrated the  interface with the road, same thing  with the ( Falkirk Wheel, a mechanical device that replaced about 11 locks, which took a lot of time and effort to get through, and replace it with a giant "Ferris Wheel' utilizing the forever cleverness of the Scots engineers. But that's another story) The   Venetians have lived for hundreds of years with one or two bridges, but now they needed a fourth one due to increase of the hordes of tourists there. It had to be very unabtrusive, of coarse, so they hired Calatrava to design a slim pedestrian bridge over he Grand Canal next to the Gare. The Architect Calatrava, who does not bother with such details as Budgets, managed to throw one across the canal, but due to the use of steps (Glass, of course) they had to add a Gondola for the infirm to ride across alongside the bridge. Couldn't they just have a hired porter to help them across, instead of the millions pent on this which still requires someone 12 hours a day to help run it?  Well, the French seem to have mote sense and recently hired The architect Foster (British) to design the most beautiful and functional bridge in the world, the Milleau Viaduct.. This made the main highway from Paris to Nice or Marseille a beautiful experience in contrast to the horrifying road that had to go down into the little town of Milleau (Me-You) which always took dozens of lives each year. I just have to add that the cost was only 700 Million, in comparison to the new San Francisco Bay span, which cost about five Billion to complete, and about four times as long. 

Uxmal in Yucatan 1965

THE MAYA IN YUCATAN

   I made a trip to Yucatan in the mid 1960's , as a client wanted me to see how his house weathered a hurricane off he coast of Belize, Honduras, an English colony at the time. Sure enough, when I got to their side of the river, There stood a small guardhouse with a couple of straight-laced British guards, shorts and all, with rifles.  Belize was hit hard by the hurricane and the roof of the small movie theatre was blown off, which gave me carte blanche to anything playing as I rented a small room next door overlooking the devastation.  After renting a small boat (think 'African Queen' and. Perusing the island, I determined my friend's house was pretty much intact but on the neighbor's lot. Miraculously, it was the only house that survived on that Island. But that's not my story here, as I wanted to rant about  how the Catholic missionary, Diego de Landa, destroyed most of the Maya artifacts, as they were in direct conflict with the teaching of the Church. Anything that was breakable or flammable he ordered destroyed. Fortunately , a  couple of  Codex's (Hieroglyphic documents) survived and scholars were able in time, decipher them. As a sidelight, when my daughters went to Cancun for fun and games, ,I didn't think find it on my maps as it wasn't there yet.

Across street from Colosseum

GREAT MOMENTS IN EUROPE

  I''ve been writing about how some bummer times happen when traveling but I should relate a couple of great moments ha occurs once in a while that make it all worthwhile.

THE GREAT RESTAURANT EXPUNGING.

  On Joy and I's first trip to Rome, we had just experienced the giant colosseum and found a nice Ristorante across the street on the second floor of an old building. Being American, we were the first customers to enter, so the proprietors found us a table and gave us our menus, after taking our wine order, of course. Well, is wasn't long  before his second customers arrived and were duly seated with their menus. Now these folks were obviously British subjects, a nice couple with two pre-teen children. Our waiter (Owner) stopped by to take their order, and that's when the problems began.  The couple kept trying to change the menu as they wanted certain things on each item. Now this was an Italian restaurant that served spaghetti and Italian food that probably dates back to Caesars time, and not prone to dabbling. Anyway, we could hear all the  back and forth Brauu hau that escalated into the final order , loudly said, Get out!, Please".   get out of my ristorante! You do not want to be here, as I do not want you to be here!, GET OUT! ". So they left.

   Although we were completely flabbergasted, we could do nothing but applaud this behavior of human rights to protect one's own area, to actually clapping our hands together. After all, there was no one else in the place except us, and it was quite a large place. We even ordered an extra glass of  wine or two as a solidarity measure for the rights of man.

NIGHT TRAIN TO VENICE

   While we're focused on abominable folks, they are all not British (or German) but could even be from the great state of Texas. We had reservations on the train to Venizia from Nice and duly arrived on time and found our carriage and even our compartment, even though their was a lack of custodians to direct us.  The entire binarioes (platform) was kind of quiet and it took us a while to realize we were in the middle of the dreaded 'Greve' or strike. Evening was just beginning but the lights of the train did not turn on , actually, the entire train was being enveloped in darkness.

    We managed to get onboard. And find our tiny compartment consisting of a bunk bed with ladder, and a small corner lavatory, with the . toilet and shower at the end of the car.  A loud and boisterous couple got on and immediately began complaining about how  they did things in  Texas (When you can afford it and loudly extended their Ugly American persona to everyone on the train. "Where is the attendant?, where are the lights? How are we supposed to exist in such a primitive environment?, we paid good money for this trip, do we get any of it back? (No).etc, endlessly. ) We tried to reason with them, explaining that strikes are an every day occurrence here in Europe and we have to make the most of it. Naturally, this fell in deaf ears and they thought we were some hippies from California. (Well, partly true!). The train somehow began moving, sans any concierge or attendant and still lacking in lights. Slowly, order was being restored by the time we. Got to the next town, with even the lights on and an attendant just for this car. Fortunately, the Texans we're at the other end of the car and we busied ourselves with the luxury of our own compartment, were we opened our bottle of wine, broke out some fresh cheese along with a bagette to partake of a small repast as we sped thru the night with our window all the way open, watching the small villages slip by and wonder how the engineers can switch cars so readily and  end up with the the propper amount of compartments left on the train at the end of the line. Somehow, a small, tasty breakfast was brought around shortly before we pulled into the Venezia Train station, situated right on the Canal Royal.

BOOK REVIEW:

HIROSHIMA     As the Saturday Review of Literature says ;” Everyone Able to Read Should Read it.” Author Jorhn  Hershey  has followed the lives of a few survivors of the first Atomic Bomb and later,  tells their version of the terrible things that can happen to human beings and surprisingly, how many actually survived the results of radiation. A small pocket book which you will keep and hopefully re-read.

“THE EXPLORERS”  with SIR RICHARD BURTON

  No, not the actor but one of the most controversial explorers of the late 19^th century.  One of those amazing people who could readily learn to speak about 20 languages, the first non-Muslim to penetrate the Kaaba and the co-founder of the source of the Nile river , unknown until late 1800’s.  His partner was John Speke in this endeavor  fraught with many dangers.  As just an aside, Burton s’ translation of ““A Thousand and One Nights” is still the preferred one.

1924 - The year HITLER SPENT IN PRISON by Peter Range

  If you want to get inside the mind of a Mad-man, see how Hitler created himself and got the power of the German people in order to rule Europe and kill all of Jewish descent.

He had made some real progress with his agenda but was arrested and incarcerated for a few months before his Masterpiece transforming himself from  ‘Traitor’ to Hero in 1924.  After avoiding the death penalty, he spent a few more months in a posh prison before becoming the National Hero for a few years, until he killed himself (Well, someone had to do it.).  Reminded me of someone currently employed by the USA.