Enchanted Village - Nostalgia Reigns

 

At this time of the year, nostalgia reigns. We remember those perfect holiday seasons in years past and all the things we did as kids when the snow was deeper, the ice wasn't as hard when we fell down and it took forever for Christmas to arrive every year.

Lin and I have been hearing an ad on the radio for the Enchanted Village in Avon, Massachusetts. It's a huge 20th century holiday village that used to be on display every holiday season at Jordan Marsh in Boston when we were kids. It was there for 30 years. I even took Lin to see it when she was little.

Then Jordan Marsh, a Boston department store icon since 1861, went out of business and the village lay dormant until the city of Boston bought it. When the city couldn't afford to display it any more, they put it up for auction. Along came Jordan's Furniture owner, Eliot Tatelman, who bought it, restored it and now it's on display once again … for free, no less!

Though we had no plans to buy any furniture, we headed to Jordan Furniture to check it out. We walked through acres and acres of furniture to get to the holiday activities. Then waited in long lines for our turn to have fun.

We followed the crowded queue through the storybook village enjoying the fine details that created an ambiance of holiday spirit from days gone by.

They've commercialized and added to the spectacle just a bit. There's a synthetic ice rink, which we saw, but didn't try and a holiday laser light show that we thought was pretty lame.

The 4-D 20 minute version of Polar Express was a multi-sensual experience and absolutely outstanding. We wore fashionable 3D glasses so the screen jumped out at us. We had to fasten our seat belts to hold us in our seats which moved in every possible direction as the Polar Express train went out of control on roller coaster hills before arriving at the North Pole. When hot chocolate was served on the train, we smelled hot chocolate and when the children were sitting by the Christmas tree, the scent of evergreen wafted through the theater. We felt snow and cold wind on our faces. It was hoot.

They even offered the huge blueberry muffins that we used to be able to buy at Jordan Marsh while we walked through the village. A touch of nostalgia … just what I needed to fight off the post-holiday blahs and missing David.

On the Third Day of Christmas, my true love sent to me...

Three e-mailed errands

Two bigger duffels

And a Christmas morning greeting on Skype

(feel free to sing this out loud … we certainly do)

The Blue View - Back on Nine of Cups

 

I am back on Nine of Cups. It was a long trip with bad layovers – 11 hours in LAX and 5 hours in Sydney. The total elapsed time from leaving Lin's house early Monday morning to arriving at Cups late Wednesday afternoon was 44.75 hours, after correcting for timezone changes. I don't sleep on planes, but I did read 1.5 books, watched 7 movies and got a start on converting our new book, Nine of Cups Caribbean Stories, to Kindle format.

Now I find myself upside down in more ways than being on the bottom half of the world. Adelaide is 15.5 hours ahead of Boston. Marcie calls me when she gets up and just before I go to bed. My watch says it's time to go to sleep here, but my biological clock says it's time to get up.

In addition, the temperature in Boston when I left was 25F with a half foot of snow on the ground. When I arrived in Adelaide, it was almost 100F (and not nearly as much snow). I'm sure I will adjust quickly. It's easier to go to a warmer climate than the other way around. A few years ago, we left the warmth of South America to spend Christmas in Boston. That was brutal – this is much less painful.

And now it's time to unpack, clean the boat and get started on the list of things to do.

More to come … but I'm home!

Getting a Little Cultcha...Boston Fine Arts Museum

 

It was a gray, rainy Sunday morning … cold and raw. What to do? A good museum day! Especially since Bank of America offers its customers free admission to the Boston Fine Arts Museum on the first weekend of each month and this was the first weekend in November.

We missed visiting the MFA on our July weekend in Boston and it was still on the “must-see” list, but our time here is getting shorter and shorter. Founded in 1870, this is one of the largest museums in the USA with a collection of nearly a half million works of art. This was the perfect day to visit. Lin dropped us off across the street in the rain at 10AM … opening time. The lines seemed long, but our timing was good. A half hour later, the line wound around and stretched out through the main lobby, but we already had our admission tickets, our coats checked and were on our way.

We began our tour at the special exhibition of John Singer Sargent's works. Let me say that we are not particularly knowledgeable when it comes to artwork, but we're not complete dolts either. We like what we like and we have an appreciation for the rest. Sargent was prolific and brilliant. He painted with passion and it shows in his work. This man was worldly and it shows. From marble quarries to boat docks, landscapes to portraits of Bedouins and everything in between, the man captured the essence of his subjects and we were enthralled by nearly 100 works on display.

Our interest in birdwatching and bird photography led us to a special exhibit entitled “Audubon's Birds, Audubon's Words”. We always admired his detailed drawings, but never surmised what an eloquent writer he was.

Egyptian art and mummies always fascinate us and we headed to the Ancient World galleries where hundreds of ancient artifacts, mummies and sarcophagi awaited us. It's hard not to be impressed and totally taken in by the ageless beauty of the pieces on display. It's hard to look at them and not wonder about the people who fabricated what we saw and the people for whom they were made.

En route to the Ancient World, we passed through a gallery with pages of the Islamic Quran beautifully displayed and explained. Another gallery displayed Buddhist works. Another highlighted the Hindu religion and the god, Ganesh, caught our attention. Yet others concentrated on Christian and Jewish themes. There's always so much to learn about … it's mind boggling.

It's impossible to rush. Even if you're in a hurry to see mummies or Renoirs or Washington Crossing the Delaware, how can you pass up an Ansel Adams photograph or a Greek statue or a Winslow Homer lithograph or a Picasso that's hanging there, begging for your attention?

We tried to be systematic in our approach to seeing as much as we could, but there's gallery after gallery after gallery of permanent exhibits to work through … Art of the Americas, Europe, Asia, Oceania, Africa.

Every imaginable art media is represented … fabric, jewelry, oils, watercolors, etchings, sculpture, photography, pottery, weaving, furniture, clothing, stained glass … it went on and on. Everything from balalaikas to bells, totem poles to tapas, Renoir, van Gogh, Monet, Manet, Cezanne, Hopper, Wyeth ... our minds were swimming.

By 4pm, we could absorb no more. We needed to process it all, discuss what we'd seen, appreciate the day and plan our return trip on the first weekend in December. Maybe Lin will come along next time.

We boarded the train back to Walpole in the dark where Lin waited for us at the station. A edifying day well spent.