Phoenix + Chihuly: Winning Combination

Photo by D.R. Ransdell

One of the best places to visit in the U.S. right now is just up the road from me. The Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix is hosting "Chihuly in the Garden" until May 18th.

Photo by D.R. Ransdell

The garden hosted a Chihuly event about five years ago, and I had the chance to visit it as well. I loved every minute--seeing all the beautiful, colored glass amidst the plants was a thrilling experience. When I learned that the garden was hosting another exhibit, I wanted to be sure to attend.

Photo by D.R. Ransdell

 But I expected this new exhibit to be a copy of the old one. This didn't bother me--I would have been happy to have enjoyed the same experience.

To my surprise and delight, almost everything was different. One arrangement might have been the same. Everything else was fresh--and in my opinion, wonderful.

Photo by D.R. Ransdell

I can't explain why I love the Chihuly glass pieces so much. They're unusual, they're fresh, they're colorful, they're exciting.

They're funny.

It's so odd to see glass with plants and yet, the arrangements are so cleverly constructed that they fit right in.

They're amazing.

Photo by D.R. Ransdell

I wasn't the only one who thought so. Granted, my friends and I visited the garden on a Saturday, so it's only fitting that there was a crowd, but I was actually thrilled to see so much interest in this work. There was an amazing array of visitors from all age groups speaking all kinds of languages.

Photo by D.R. Ransdell

There was even a young girl who put her hand on one of the glass bulbs! I wanted to cry out, because her mother wasn't paying any attention to her, but luckily!!!!! nothing broke.

Dale Chihuly and his team would probably have been pleased. They want their art to be for everyone. (However, perhaps there is a limit!)

Moral of the story: If you're close to Phoenix, you should visit this lovely garden. You can reserve a time for 8-12, noon-4, or 4-8 p.m.

Photo by D.R. Ransdell

Oh, To Be in Ivrea for Carnival!

It would be great today to be in New Orleans for Mardi Gras. You could walk from parade to parade catching beads and drinking alcohol on the streets while wearing a funny costume. It would be terrific to be in Venice where you could be taking pictures of the most exotic masked figures who would be strutting around just for you. But the very best place of all to be today would be Ivrea, Italy.

           

Ivrea is a small city near my ancestors’ neck of the woods in the section of Italy called Piemonte, or Mountain Foot. The town is an hour north of Turin, which is a city at least most people have heard of. Ivrea might be small, but on the subject of carnival, it has no rivals. Today, for the third day in a row, people will go around town throwing oranges at one another.

“Oranges, you say?” Yes. Oranges imported from Sicily. Today thousands of oranges will be sacrificed in the name of tradition.

 “What kind of silly tradition is that?” you might ask. To make a long story short, in the Middle Ages or so, brides were supposed to spend their first nights not with their chosen husbands but with the ruler of the town, who was a member of nobility. In Ivrea one night, the miller’s daughter rebelled. She attacked the nobleman, murdered him, and survived. She became the town’s revered hero. In her honor, then, the townspeople of Ivrea and neighboring areas join squads. Either they join squads of noblemen and women and drive around in carriages drawn by horses, or they join squads of peasants and stay in the squares ready for battle.

During the course of the day, all the horse carriages, which will number around fifty, will drive through the four main squares to have battles with the Mercenari and other squads. The “nobles” in the carriage will furiously throw oranges down at the “peons” who will fight back as quickly as possible.

Oranges will fly through the air until the whole piazza looks like a juggling match gone wrong. Sometimes an orange will bounce the wrong way and even attack the spectators. As long as you’re wearing a red cap, declaring that you are neutral, you are not a target—until a stray orange splats all over your coat. Then suddenly you are part of the fray.

The first time I saw the orange battles of Ivrea, my mouth dropped open. I couldn’t believe that people were wasting so many oranges or that the air could actually be perfumed with the smell of citrus. Such a thing was inconceivable. But that was back in the 80s. Today the traditional is still going strong. By the time I wake up Arizona time, the air in Ivrea will be scented with oranges. The big crates of fruit will be emptied, one by one, as the squads madly grab for ammunition to throw at their peers.

When the battles finally conclude, the day’s light will be coming to an end. The tired orange throwers will retire for showers—actually, my cousin doesn’t even let her sons in the house. They have to shower off outside no matter how cold it is to get the worst of the sticky liquid off their clothes and out of their hair. Then they can go in the house for a regular warm shower. After that, you might think the tired battlers would go to bed, but of course, that’s not the case. They will have a deep need to go out and celebrate their triumph by partying far into the night.

 If I were in Ivrea today, I would not join in on the battles. For one thing, it’s quite expensive. To participate, you have to have the right outfit, and you have to pay a fee to your squad. Most of that money goes for clean up. The horses don’t care that it’s carnival or not, so after the first few hours, the oranges blend with horseshit with spilled wine, with lost scarves. The streets become a slippery, gluey mess. It’s far better to crash at my friends’ house. They have a balcony that overlooks one of the biggest squares. From there I not only have a great view, but from three stories up, I don’t get any oranges.

All in all, Carnevale in Ivrea is a glorious celebration. The fighters say that it helps them get out their frustrations, that they can unleash all of their disappointments in one big, three-day festival. I prefer to get out my frustrations by killing off ex-boyfriends in books or short stories, but I admit that throwing oranges for three days at carnival would be a more efficient solution than putting in the long hours it takes to write a book. But it would also be a whole lot messier. Plus I’d have to find some earrings to match the vibrant carnival color of orange.

Mercenari Pictures

Short YouTube Video from 2009


D.R. Ransdell is a novelist in Tucson, Arizona, but her Italian roots take her to Italy time and time again. Please visit her at http://www.dr-ransdell.com.

Travel to Bolivia with Ignore the Pain

Note: I'm stepping aside today to invite Janet Greger to share some of her insights. Please welcome her!

Janet Greger:

I love to travel to interesting places. It’s hard to explain what makes a place interesting, but I’ll try. Maybe I’m a bit of an adrenaline junkie, but locations that were once forbidden (i.e. China Lebanon, and Cuba) are interesting. Places with history (e.g. London, Paris, Berlin, Beijing, and Washington, D.C.) and/or that still exhibit a unique “culture,” (such as Chiang Mai in Thailand, New Orleans, and Taos in New Mexico) are interesting.

Then sometimes in my travels I discover a place that didn’t make any of my lists, but which fascinated me. Bolivia is such a place.

Bolivia is somewhat isolated because much of it is at such a high altitude, i.e. more than 10,000 feet, and it is landlocked. The net result is the indigenous people have retained a distinctive culture. Bolivia’s rich history includes the silver mines near Potosí, which were the richest source of silver in the New World Spanish Empire. Bolivia is a sore point in US foreign policy now because it is the third largest producer of coca (the raw material for cocaine), and its current President Evo Morales is believed to be a coca grower.

Locations can add zest to novels. I decided to add a new twist to my third medical thriller Ignore the Pain by sending my heroine Sara Almquist to an exotic location – Bolivia.

The problems in Bolivia are real. Over 6% of the children born in Bolivia die before five years of age. That’s a big improvement; in 1990, 12.5% died before five years of age. Hence, I have Sara serving as an epidemiologist on a team sent to assess factors influencing childhood mortality and morbidity in Bolivia. (Yes, I have served a science consultant overseas.)

Instead of reciting statistics about the grinding poverty in Bolivia, I had Sara relate a story to her colleague Lew in Ignore the Pain. Sara’s story is based on the explanation an artist in the La Paz area gave me for a picture seen everywhere in Bolivia in 2006.

“This picture was emblazoned on all sorts of items in the markets of La Paz during my previous trip to Bolivia. When I visited a studio by the Valley of the Moon, an artist claimed he knew the story behind this drawing.”

Lew stopped shuffling papers and cocked his head. Sara continued. “He said when poor women in rural areas have twins, they give the smaller infant to the mountain gods. Supposedly this picture depicts the sad scene of a mother and her female relatives walking up the mountain to make their sacrifice.”

“Wouldn’t happen. Bolivia is a Catholic country.”

“That’s what I said. The artist laughed at me and claimed the women in the rural villages knew from experience they couldn’t produce enough milk for two children. And one healthy child was better than two dead ones.” Sara paused, “Don’t know if the story is true, but it would be interesting to collect data on perinatal mortality and the incidence of multiple births. We might be surprised by the results.”

There are lots of things to do in Bolivia. In Ignore the Pain, you get a guided tour of attractions in Bolivia, like the Witches’ Market of La Paz. You’ll not only see native women in black bowler hats and layers of brightly covers skirts sell llama fetuses for offerings to the gods, but also smell the aromas of the city. (Not all are pleasant.) You’ll also travel across the austere, almost Mars-like landscape of the Altiplano to see the exotic stone columns in the Valley of the Moon and the shores of Lake Poopó, long a summer nesting spot for flamingos and now polluted by mining runoff.

Sara is your guide. Of course, her view of Iglesia de San Francisco in La Paz might be a little different that that of the average tourist. Someone determined to kill her is chasing her across the church’s roof. The description of the roof is realistic – I’ve been there.

Unlike Sara, you won’t be exposed to danger. For example, the mountain Cerro Rico near Potosí is so riddled by five hundred years of silver mining that it is literally getting shorter. Sara and her friends are caught in a cave-in.

You’ll wish you were sampling juicy chicken salteñas, locro (potato stew), and quinoa with Sara and her colleagues, but be glad you missed the greasy stews made of cuy (guinea pig) and llama.

Although you may decide Bolivia is not their idea of a relaxing vacation, you’ll be thrilled by it vicariously in Ignore the Pain. I

P.S. The cover represents the red, yellow, green stripes of the Bolivian flag across the woman’s face.

Blurb: In Ignore the Pain, Sara Almquist couldn’t say no when invited to be the epidemiologist on a public health mission to assess children’s health in Bolivia. Soon someone from her past is chasing her through the Witches’ Market and churches of La Paz. Unfortunately, she can’t decide which of her new colleagues, especially the unsavory Xave Zack, to trust as she learns more about coca production and the god Tio of the silver mines of Potosí than she ever wanted to know.

Bio: For more on me, check out my website: www.jlgreger.com and blog: http://www.jlgregerblog.blogspot.com.

Here are thumbnail sketches of my two other medical thriller/mysteries. Learn whether the Philippine flu or a drug kingpin caught in a quarantine is more deadly in Coming Flu. Discover whether an ambitious young “diet doctor” or old-timers with buried secrets are killers in Murder: A New Way to Lose Weight.

My novels are available in paperback and Kindle formats from Amazon.

Coming Flu: http://www.amazon.com/Coming-Flu-ebook/dp/B008WDL84O/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1372715303&sr=1-1&keywords=Coming+Flu 

 

Murder: A New Way to Lose Weight: http://www.amazon.com/Murder-New-Lose-Weight-ebook/dp/B00DFCC3IM/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1372715439&sr=1-1&keywords=Murder%3A+A+New+Way+to+Lose+Weight

 

Ignore the Pain: http://www.amazon.com/Ignore-Pain-J-L-Greger-ebook/dp/B00HOODVTW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1390779199&sr=8-1&keywords=ebook+Ignore+the+Pain

After a Hot, Sweaty Day, Who Needs a Fake Temple? I Do, Of Course!

        

Wat Chedi Luang, Photos by D.R.R.

 After spending all day conquering temples, I hardly wanted to go back and find the one I’d missed in the morning, but after some pineapple and watermelon, I revived and shook some sense into myself. I might not have another chance. Yes, I was hot from a full day’s “work,” but Wat Chedi Luang was the famous one. How could I live with myself if I skipped it? I couldn’t.

So back I went into the Old Town of Chiang Mai, but this time I was aggressive. I gave up on relying on the map. I got close to the area where the temple was supposed to be and started asking questions. After three tries, I found Wat Chedi Luang right where it was supposed to be according to the map. (We’d actually made it to the temple grounds in the morning, but we hadn’t explored the whole compound after being scared off by the “Do Not Enter” sign. Since we hadn’t managed to go around to the correct side, we’d missed the entrance to the courtyard and hadn’t even glimpsed the huge temple.)

Luckily, for the moment I still felt well rewarded. The brick temple was cool even though it was in ruins. It was decorated with white elephants that stuck out of the walls and that were remarkably intact. There were also huge nagas or snakeheads. Steep stairs led up to the top.

When I saw some kids on the stairs, I immediately vowed to join them. Certainly I could rustle up a few more ounces of energy.  But not so fast--they were little monk boys charged with cleaning the temple. They were de-weeding it. Small green plants were sneaking up between the bricks, and they had to be pulled out one by one. The boys had been working on the whole temple. They’d accessed the top levels by means of a rope ladder. I wouldn’t have been brave enough to try that myself!

 I shot nearly a whole roll of film as I circled the temple. I tried to catch every angle. But when I got back to the guesthouse, I found out something quite disconcerting. The lovely elephant statues I’d seen were actually reconstructions. That’s why they were so intact. I was more than a little disappointed. I thought I’d been seeing the real thing, but the original statues had all crumbled. I had to stop and question the practice of reconstruction. Worse still, I subsequently found that the reconstructions had been done in the style of Central Thailand, but most historians think the temple was originally done in the Lanna style. It turns out that this tourist business is pretty complicated!

What's been one of your own travel disappointments?

In THAI TWIST, Rachel loses her cool when she finds out that Wat Chedi Luang is a reconstruction, but Gina is too busy finding Somchai to pay attention to a silly old temple!

http://www.drransdellnovels.com/thai-twist.html

Too Many Temples? No, Too Few!

        

Wat Umong, photo by D.R.R.

            One of the biggest reasons I wanted to go to Chiang Mai was that I knew it had lots of cool temples. Even though I’m not religious, when I went to Japan, I loved visiting temples because they were beautiful and serene. They represented a way of thinking and a way of life. In Bangkok I found that the temples were equally important or maybe even more so. In Bangkok we noticed that people came to temples such as Wat Pho and the Grand Palace with the full intention of spending a whole day at the temple site. The temples were places for people to get together and relax as well as to meditate and pray. 

            Thus when we reached Chiang Mai, I had a full plan for which temples I wanted to see. Of course this was not as easy as it sounded. We arrived at the first temple, which was supposed to be Wat Chedi Luang—or did we? We saw red columns. We saw doors with big figures in gold. There was a Buddha in the earth position. On the right were cabinets with religious urns. But something seemed wrong. We asked a school girl, but she laughed and said this was the temple we were supposedly looking for. So we took a few pictures and then we kept walking. 

Wat Phra Si Luang, photo by D.R.R.

            We got to Wat Phra Si Luang, one of the main temples. The red-carpeted structure had a Big Buddha inside with ten or so little Buddhas below. The roof had red beams which contrasted with white columns.  There was a pretty, smaller temple to the left side, and a smaller Buddha flanked by two more Buddhas and gold lotus blossoms.  A man and his son unwrapped lotus blossoms in big leaves to put in the pots before the altar.  In the corner was a vacuum and a monk.  Even temples get dirty!

            Then I had to let my poor tired friends stop for lunch even though I hated wasting the time for something so mundane. But then we proceeded to Wat Hua Khuang, Wat Lam Chang, and Wat Chiang Man. Wat Chiang Man not only had elephant statues, but it had its own elephant temple! It was very cool.

            By the time we’d visited Wat Umong, a temple whose name we couldn’t discern, and Wat Phan On, I conceded we might be done for the day. We headed back towards our guest house, but when we stopped for postcards at the edge of Old Town, I found views of the real Wat Chedi Luang. That’s not where we’d been in the morning at all!

         

Wat Chiang Man, photo by D.R.R.

   While my hot, tired, and footsore friends returned to the guest house, I retraced my steps until I finally reached the elusive Wat Chedi Luang. Luckily, it was worth the extra effort.

            For my fictional version of Thailand, a novel called THAI TWIST, please see http://www.drransdellnovels.com. Indeed, the protagonists visit a couple of temples--but not all of them!

            When have you had the most trouble finding an iconic site? If the Eiffel Tower weren’t so high, I would probably have trouble finding it too!