spring?

i still have 2 posts in the drafts folder ("paris III" and "baby shower...", promise to finish them this weekend!) so look for them later.

it's spring today - temperatures climbed to over 10C, in the 50's F, that's super warm in chicago weather. it's really nice. i had to borrow one of ben's short-sleeve shirts, since i don't have any that fits over my belly (ordered some yesterday, just in case it gets warm again...). the climate in the office isn't that pleasant, the heating is set too high - i'm actually considering taking my laptop outside!
i'm glad that i won't be pregnant in the summer.

ben is away all week, meeting people in california, and i feel lonely. gladly he'll be back soon.

we're moving to a 2-bedroom apartment (in the same building) next weekend, so when i get tired of working i pack a little bit of the apartment into a box, so it's easier to move. another upgrade in out living situation, is moving our car into the indoors parking garage at the building. so nice! i think it's worth the extra $$ we're paying now...

i'm getting more tired lately, i guess what they told me about the 2nd trimester being the easiest is sort of true. i find myself craving coffee in the middle of the day and daydreaming about napping on my desk. also, i have to run to the bathroom a lot more, since someone is head-butting my bladder. not nice!

and lastly, workwise -- work is kinda fun lately. i've started to enjoy what i'm doing again, and this is a very good feeling. i was quite miserable for a while, doing things i didn't care for and wasn't enthusiast about. i'm almost happy to be going to work in the morning! yayy!
also, my thesis was finally approved and got good reviews. i've officially started my fellowship (i was employed on a temporary position until now), but still waiting for the actual letter saying that i got my phd. i wonder what i'll be first -- a Dr or a mom!

these are the updates for now... and don't forget to check in early next week for those two other posts in the pipeline.

Paris (III)

those two days in paris seemed a lot longer - we got to see so many things! here are some pictures... and for a full description, read about it in Assaf's blog :)



1. pricey little espresso at a pricey little deli; 2. Venus over a building across the street; 3. Molin Rouge; 4. Montmartre; 5. river Seine

our last destination in Paris was Musee Picasso - the Picasso museum.

a few years ago when i was visiting Pasadena, i followed a friend's advice and went to the Norton Simon museum. that museum is quite tiny, but it has an amazing collection. in a very nonchalant way, it has hanging side by side Degas and Rembrandt, Monet, Renoir, van Gogh, Cezanne, Gauguin...
and there was one painting by Picasso, that caught me.
growing up with all those are books so accessible, it wasn't the first time i've seen a Picasso - i have to admit, i didn't make much of Picasso's art before seeing that picture. couldn't understand what's with the asymmetric features, the cross eyes, just didn't get it.
and then, looking at that one painting from up close, its thick layer of oil paint, bright vivid colors, i finally got it. it's hard to explain exactly what "it" is that i got, it could be something emotional that i can't explain in words... but i think i finally learned to appreciate Picasso. maybe you have to see it in real life and not in a picture in a book.

next to the painting, there was a small plaque with a couple of paragraphs of text -- it was probably similar to this (from the Norton Simon museum website):

In early 1932, Picasso painted a number of large canvases of women, brightly colored and elaborately drawn in heavy dark lines that flow into great sweeping curves. His model for these paintings was his mistress, Marie-Therèse Walter, who in this picture looks up from her book and momentarily daydreams. In Woman with a Book, Picasso referred to Ingres' great portrait, Madame Moitessier (National Gallery, London). Striking similarities can be noted in the pose, the graceful, sensuous lines, and the reflected image in the mirror behind the sitter.

the last part, about this painting being somewhat of an answer to a classic, probably commissioned, portrait, made me look at this picture even more closely and appreciate it on a deeper level.



i was excited to see more of Picasso at the Picasso Museum in Paris. here are a couple of paintings that i was moved by:

"Still Life on a Pedestal Table" - it's your basic still life paining, in "Picassish". when i was in, i don't know, 5th or 6th grade i took art class, and the teacher would put a bunch of fruit and a vase on a table, with some table cloth draped around them, and we were supposed to draw. i think i did a pretty good job.
i think Picasso did a better one :)
it's the vase, and the fruits, floor, background... all told in the language of Picasso.


"The Sculptor"
i think i stood by this painting for 15 minutes and stared. here's a sculptor, sitting in his studio, and admiring his art... he's sitting there looking relaxed, but has two faces: one face is looking at the sculpture, but the other face is looking at you - maybe looking to see what your expression is, looking for the approval of his audience. isn't that what many artists secretly (or not secretly) crave? after all, art is a way to express oneself. i think it's not only means to get your feelings out there, but also to have your thoughts reflected off of other people's perception.

Paris (II)

[i have 2 computers running for me now, so i can relax and write the next chapter...:) ]

After a great lunch, we took the metro to the Louvre.

we didn't have a lot of time to see it, and even if we did have all day - the book says that in order to see it all you need 3 months. it's huge.
i'll only talk about the things that i was moved by in some way.

first, the Mona Lisa. don't think less of me, but i was really, really not impressed. i know, people told me not to get my hopes high, i knew ahead of time that it's a small piece, but still - i found nothing special about it. to me it was just another one of those commissioned renaissance portraits - and i've seen others that have touched me more. maybe it's the fact that there were lots of people around and we couldn't see it from very close (trying to justify... hmmm...).

my favorite item that afternoon was a sculpture, "The Rebellious Slave", by Michelangelo. The sculpture seems to be unfinished, and the figure of a mostly-naked man is emerging out of the rock that it's carved from. i like the italian sculptors, and Michelangelo in particular - the attention to details and the anatomic accuracy are mind blowing. but those unfinished sculptures, like this one and the four that i saw last spring in the Accademia Gallery in Florence, i can look at them for hours. they are, to me, more interesting than, say, the David.

i can't help but think about the artist's state of mind when he was working on this piece. some parts of it are highly finished - muscles and veins come out of the marble and almost come to life. other parts are rough and unpolished, including the face and hair. it's as if Michelangelo was done working on the interesting bits (to him), and then got to bored to do the obvious parts. like "eh, this is too boring. i'll finish it some other time".
you can really see the process in this sculpture, and not only the finished artwork.

Paris (I.5)

some local entertainment on the metro... after the show was over, the puppet guy walked down the car and collected coins from the audience.

Paris (I)

ben and i have never been in paris before, so we decided to spend the weekend in the middle of our (work-)trip to france there.
it's pretty amazing how distances are made short just by having some reliable, efficient means of public transportation. the train ride to paris took just over 3 hours, whereas google map says that it would have been a 6+ h drive. wish we had something like that connecting Chicago with Ann Arbor! it would have been awesome.
but back to our trip.

the baby seems to really like train rides - i didn't like it as much, because of the 1. pressure changes every time we went in/out a tunnel, which hurt my ears, and 2. the obnoxious french family sitting across from us, who wouldn't shut up the entire ride, and didn't bother using their "indoors voice".

when we finally got to paris at midnight, excited to reunite with Assaf at the hotel, tired and still letlagged, going down the escalator to the metra, i suddenly remembered that we forgot something on the train. totally forgetting that i'm on an escalator and not normal stairs, i turned around and started running up... bad idea! i lost my balance and fell up the stairs, catching myself with my hands and knee, which at first seemed to be nothing. we kept going down the stairs, and ben returned to the train and got our missing bag. after a minute or so, i noticed that my jeans was torn, which i dismissed, and after another minute i realized that i'm also bleeding.
it turned out, that even though not painful, my knee-bump was unfortunately aimed at the sharp end of a stair, and the jagged cut obviously needed some medical attention.

so i got a trip to the hospital for my birthday.
fun!

the hospital, or maybe it was just an all-night emergency room, was, um, weird -- but it seemed like the people there knew what they were doing. they didn't know much english (!!). the doctor and i had only one language in common - spanish - and mine is kinda broken, so i managed to communicate the important things to him (i'm 6 months pregnant, yes, it's our first baby, and it's a girl... we had quite a chat). he guessed right away that it was a subway-escalator-related injury (hehe, i'm not the only one!). they dug up a nurse who spoke english, who made sure that i didn't tumble down the stairs and don't have any abdominal pain.
a couple of stitches and an x-ray later, we were released and took a taxi back to the hotel.

my parents were supposed to meet us in paris, but they had to cancel their trip at the last minute :(
fortunately they could give their ticket and hotel room to Assaf. we were both very happy to see him again! it's been so long :)

the next morning my knee was a bit swollen and stiff, so we decided to take it slow but still see as much of paris as possible in a day and a half.

Assaf was our wonderful tour guide (i knew he was going to be - he was my wonderful tour guide a few months ago in Italy!). it was a gorgeous day (although the wimpy israelies would probably say that it was cold), the sun was shining, and Champs-Élysées was vibrant and beautiful.
we walked up the street to the l'Arc de Triomphe with it's impossible roundabout. cars were generally driving counter-clockwise, but were cutting each other, entering and exiting the roundabout without any noticeable warning, that all i had to say was "i'm glad we're not renting a car" :)


from there we took the merto to the Eiffel Tower. the first sight of it is very impressive. we took the obligatory (all family!) photo, and went over towards the elevator to go up - but the lines that snaked under the tower seemed to be much much longer than we were willing to stand in.
so i suggested to the boys, that i will sit on a bench and take a break, while they go up the stairs. that seemed to be a good idea - ben and assaf are both in good enough shape - but the line to go up the stairs was just as long! shocked but not too disappointed, we decided to skip this tourist must and headed towards our next stop, the Louvre.

no, no, wait. we had lunch first. mmmmmmmmmmm!
Foie gras appetizer, big salad for me, and juicy burger and steak for ben and assaf, accompanied by baked potatoes, and some chocolaty dessert. NOW we can go to the Louvre.

Orchid update

we have bloom!
i'm so proud.

Marseille

i'm reading a paper which is so annoying to read, i figured i might as well take a break and blog for a while.

so last week ben and i flew to Marseille, France for work (you say it "marsey". france is weird, half the letters in the word are pretty much redundant).
the trip was a great success, i met with some people at the cosmology institute, and spent a long time working with them. it's so refreshing to be around people who do exactly what i do, and run into the same problems as i! i didn't have such a work environment in a long time.
plus, they were all so nice!

there's not much to tell about that week besides work things, we didn't get to see much of the city (we spent the weekend in paris, that's another story) but there are a few anecdotes:

we stayed at a small apartment-hotel at the center of town. the bedroom has a bathroom, toilet and a small kitchen, and opens to a small living room. i walked around and opened all the doors in the room, looking for the bedroom - and then realized that the bed is actually a fold-out couch. hmm.

the second night there, we asked people at the institute for their recommendations for restaurants in the area we were staying in. when in France, eat like the French, no?!? someone suggested the area around the port, that is pretty touristic and has lots of restaurants. on the metro on the way there, consulted with our lonely planet chapter and selected a Marrocan restaurant that was a few blocks away from the train stop.
we navigated to the restaurant easily, but were very surprised to find that it was closed! looked around, and basically everything was closed! hmm. 7pm, on a weekday, the tourist book says that the restaurants should be open way after midnight, what's going on? this was so weird. i thought, maybe it's some national holiday? but someone would have told us that... hmm.. as we kept walking around, more and more places were closing their doors, and we decided to stop at a grocery store, so at least we won't go to bed hungry. we got some ingredients for dinner and breakfast (juice and cereal, and milk that tasted more like half-n-half) and made our way back to the hotel.
still puzzled, we stopped at a bakery to buy a baguette, and to our surprise the guy behind the counter was wearing a black yamaka, and spoke hebrew. i asked him what's going on? how come everything is closed today? he thought about it for a minute, and then said - ahhhh, i bet i know what it is. there's a soccer game today, so all the restaurants are closing early.
yes.
there's a soccer game.
so all the restaurants close early.
surely, you can follow the logic behind that?!?

french. go figure.


all in all, i'm really glad i went there, and very happy that ben could join me :) ...and sorry, no pictures.