Approaching Rio De Janeiro

Sailing into—or out of—Rio de Janeiro is simply spectacular.  Indeed, no matter where you are, in or near Rio, the views are stunning.

A New Marketing Strategy—Rio Style

I’m here to tell you that the art auctions on P&O and Cunard cruises are amateur acts compared to the Jewelers From Rio.  What they do is get on the ship as a regular passenger, usually the port before Rio, and just mingle and make friends with everyone else.  And, to anyone who is interested, they offer (free) a private car with driver and guide for the day (or part thereof) to take you wherever you want to go.  The only catch is, you will also be taken to their store in Rio…No obligation to buy, just to look.

There were, to my first-hand knowledge, three such ‘representatives.’  But, alas, only two days in Rio, so one was not able to sample the wares of all of them…  The first afternoon my friend, Dianne, and a young man named Jason  from England – a superb pianist who had been onboard to give a couple excellent concerts — and I were hosted by Saban Jewelers of Rio.  We first went to the Sunday flea market, which was busy and fun,

At least one stall holder found it all too much

then to the Saban shop, which was on Copacabana Beach.  Their jewelry was gorgeous.  (Purchases were made.)

We were returned to the ship in time to get ready for the evening’s entertainment—a lively and colorful, and very cheeky ‘Carnival’ performance by about thirty local dancers and musicians.  In traditional Brazilian style, the costumes consisted mostly of feathery headdresses, thongs, and…silicone.  But  great colour and rhythm…

The next morning our host for the day—this time from Ben Bros Jewelers—was ready to collect us promptly at eight.  We had a full agenda, starting with Corcovada (which means ‘hunchback, and describes the shape of the mountain on which the iconic and imposing statue of Christ stands and towers over Rio).

"Christ the Redeemer" on Corcovado

Much to the annoyance of our guide, however, it turned out that none of our quartet of women had any (or at least enough) Brazilian money to get us into the site.  An unplanned detour back into the city to find a bank that was open was required.  Brazil is a bit awkward in that regard—no ATMs except in banks.  At least it was awkward for us.  But finally the deed was done, and maybe the detour was to our advantage, as our driver took us via a ‘shortcut’ to Corcovado which I’m sure was better than the usual route.

It was a steep and winding climb, lined with interesting—and sometimes grand—houses. Views everywhere. It would be difficult to find a spot in Rio that didn’t have a spectacular view!  A little way into the National Park we had to transfer to a bus that would take us to near the base of the statue where we would take a lift, then escalators.  I needn’t describe the statue—pictures are better—but the crowd was amazing.  One could scarcely move, and apparently it is like that all of the time.  Many people wanted their photo take with their arms outstretched, like the Christ; it seemed to be the thing to do.  Apart from the statue itself—which is quite compelling in its beauty and simplicity—the 360^o views were awesome.

View from Corcovado

Next stop:  Ben Bros Jewelers.  I will only say: purchases were made.  Then on to lunch, which was at a typical (and very popular) Brazilian barbeque restaurant.  Everything except the meat was available at an extensive buffet.  The meat was brought around on large skewers by waiters who would slice it off directly onto your plate.  I didn’t sample the meat, but my companions did and all three reported it was delicious.  I guess it would be—we were in Brazil, after all.

Rio was a surprise to me in some ways.  It didn’t have the smothering density that you find in Sao Paulo.  It’s a  big, busy city, but not suffocating.  Of course, the beaches everywhere help…  Ipanema and Copacabana are only two.

Sand Castle on Copacabana Beach (sorry for the quality of the photo--was taken from a moving vehicle)

On to Sugarloaf.  Even though it is not as high as Corcovado, I liked the views better.  We took two cable cars up to the top, where the crowds were not nearly as dense as at Corcovado.  Again, pictures are better than words here.

View from Sugar Loaf

As you can no doubt guess, I loved Rio.  I’d never had a burning desire to go there, but I’m very pleased that I did.  And I have some rather nifty momentos to remind me what a swell place it is…          MM

My beautiful Brasilian dancing doll

Spot the Tourist

It isn’t that I “stand out” so much as stick out—as in sore thumb. I’m the type of person that would prefer to ‘blend in’ with he crowd, but it was never my fate to do that.   Over the years there have been many reasons for my inability to blend in, but these days it is enough that I’m a tourist a lot of the time.  We all know the telltale signs that shout “Hey!  I’m a tourist!”

• Camera over the shoulder
• Map & guidebook in hand
• Following a leader with a rubber chicken (or equivalent) hoisted high above the crowd
• Clothes  — often depicting the previous port of call (see my previous comments on this)
• Tote bags – especially those with the name and logo of the tour company
• Hats one would never wear at home
• Brand new walking shoes
• Sunburn

I’m sure you get my drift.

I’m not suggesting that there’s anything wrong with looking like a tourist—Heavens no!  Indeed, it’s part of the fun of travel—anonymity gives you license to look like a goose if you want to, so long as you respect the local cultural standards.

I do find that tourists in groups can sometimes be obnoxious, however.  It doesn’t matter where they are from—maybe a mix of nationalities—there seems to be this feeling of being inside a big bubble that isolates them from everyone else. Inside this bubble they can laugh too loudly, talk too loudly, and make general pests of themselves to waiters and others.  Perfectly nice, polite individuals seem to be transformed into insensitive clods the minute they are in the midst of a little enclave.  I’ve seen it all over the world—in restaurants, trains—wherever travellers gather in groups. I hasten to add I’m as bad as everyone else when I’m in a group.

Why do we do it?  I understand the dynamics of group behavior in other situations, but for the life of me I can’t quite get it with tourist groups. Is there a sociology student out there looking for a project?

Even on board ship it’s easy to identify tables where diners are a group, not just a collection of people seated together.  It doesn’t matter whether they started out as a group, or bonded over dinner and became a group—they’re the ones having fun!  Aha!  Now I’m getting warm.  I think I may have just cracked it: the reason a noisy group is irritating is not because they are behaving differently, but because they are having fun and I’m not.  Hmmmm.  I guess it doesn’t really need a sociologist to figure that out.  Rats. I thought I was onto something.                 MM

I’m sitting in the Observation Lounge on the Silver Whisper, watching …well, not much.  “Water, water everywhere..nor any drop to drink…”  So I’m drinking coffee.  It perhaps goes some way toward explaining why there is a “Martini Tasting” scheduled for 11:30 a.m. (about an hour and a half from now).  Martinis are not my cup of tea, so I shall give that a miss.  Am thinking ‘swim’ instead.

I love sea days—no scurrying around to be at the gangplank at a set (read: early) time.  Yesterday we were in Belem, Brazil for the day.  I didn’t go into town, opting to do a river trip instead.  ‘Twas a little underwhelming, to be honest.  The “key indicator” of underwhelmingness (Hah! See how easily I slip back into the old jargon, even after so many years retired?  I think it comes with being surrounded by “retired” business people who still think that way.  Give them time…)  But I digress.  As I was saying, the key indicator that I was underwhelmed was that I couldn’t stop thinking about how hot and muggy it was. I felt as if I had been dipped in molasses.  The local insects seemed to think so, too, as they couldn’t resist checking me out.  It did rain occasionally—briefly–which provided a fleeting respite from the humidity.  (When it actually rained, there were air spaces between the raindrops; the rest of the time the humidity was so dense it felt like I was doing the breaststroke just walking through it.

Amazonia is a remarkable place, but I won’t be remarking on it all that much.  There were several very knowledgeable guides on the river trip, and they each shared their considerable knowledge of the history, culture, flora, and politics of the region with us, but as I said earlier, I was busy doing the breaststroke.  Molasses, it turns out, provides an impenetrable barrier to learning.  I will, however, share a few photos I took along the way.  They speak for themselves.         MM

In which I discover the colours of reggae; and yes, Virginia, there are places with no litter…

Rosseau, Dominica

 On first impression, Rosseau, Dominica, appears almost prim and proper. The buildings along the waterfront are neat and well-kept, bustling with busy-ness.  It certainly does not feel like any of the island ports I’ve visited before.  No dockside marketplace to greet us as we disembark; no tourist-bureau-organised musical welcome; just the daily hustle.  Cabbies and ‘private tour guides’ chatting us up as we all go off to find our various tours, reggae music everywhere, and the colours.  Are they brighter because of the sunlight?  or are they really that vivid?

A waterfront market

Once my tour (The River Tubing Adventure!) departed, I’m pleased to say the ‘prim and proper’ image fell away to reveal a lively, energetic, and—to the observer, at least—exciting culture, full of variety, ingenuity, quirkiness, and joie de vivre.   And colour.  Oh! the colours!

...and contrasts

Take note, those of you who live in Virginia, There is no litter!

It was a long and beautiful drive to the point on the river (sorry—I don’t know the name of the river) where our tubing adventure was to begin.  In fact, the road was extremely twisty as it climbed steeply into the mountains.  One member of our group became miserably carsick, so our driver stopped the van to pick some lemongrass for her, saying it is an antidote to motion sickness.  He rubbed a handful together, releasing the scent, and she kept her face pretty much buried in it for the duration of the drive.  While she didn’t think it actually worked, I can report that on neither the initial, nor the return journey did she up-chuck, so maybe it at least helped.  And it made the van smell divine.   But I digress.

Because the drive was so long, and so high, I finally had to confirm with the guide that it was a river we would be tubing down, not a waterfall…  And, indeed, it was.  A gorgeous river.  I wish I had been able to take some photos along the way, but not only would my camera have been drowned, but I was too busy spinning around going through rapids and generally having a whooping good time to be taking pictures.

Where My Excellent Adventure Began

Our guides are waiting for us

As we drove back through the lush green forested countryside, dotted with pineapple and banana plantations, houses of all shapes, sizes, and colours—did I mention the colours?—I couldn’t help thinking what a perfect day it was.  And what a perfect place—filled with music and colour and laughter…I loved it.

We stop to sample some freshly-picked bananas

Stay tuned as the Excellent Adventure continues.  Next stop: Brasil!             MM

Road Town, Tortola

Okay, I’m  sucker for anything that begins with “eco-“  but when the hyphen is followed by “Kayaking and Snorkeling Adventure” it looked like (a) a really excellent adventure, and (b) I ought to know better.   Right on both counts.  It was excellent, and I should’ve known better—but I’m awfully glad I didn’t.

Not only was the kayaking lots of fun—and great exercise—but our leader was a marine biologist whose knowledge of the mangroves was terrific.  We all know that mangrove forests are a critical component in the health of our shorelines, but she was able to shed more light on the whys and hows of the mangrove ecosystem.  ‘System’ being the operative concept here.

Relax.  I’m not going to give you a biology lesson, but I will attach some online refs at the end, for those of you who are interested.  Wait…on second thought, you can google it as easily as I can.

Now.  About the kayaking.  I’m not completely without experience in these matters, but it is fair to add that my ‘experience’ is outside the range of ordinary living memory.  I was assured beforehand that it was “like riding a bike”—oh, s**t.  I can’t ride a bike.  ‘Nevermind,’ thinks I, ‘if I did it before I can do it again.’  And, indeed, I could.  At least as well as those who’d never done it before.  We were in 2-person kayaks, and I was in front.  I heard very little from the gentleman behind—I don’t know if he is just a quiet sort of person, was terrified, bored, or just busy concentrating.  It would have taken some concentration to keep track of what I was doing.  As in most things I do, I took a somewhat ‘creative’—or free-wheeling—approach. (Said another way, I don’t follow instructions very well.)  I don’t mean to sound boastful here, but I think my slightly unorthodox style added a certain element of … surprise to everyone’s day.

I did manage to be the first one to fall in the water.  Not into the water… I mean that grammatically—I was already in the water; I just fell over.  Everyone else was standing where there was a thick layer of sea grass underfoot.  I was standing in mud that was trying to be quicksand and my feet got sucked in at different rates.  Nevermind.  As refreshing as it was, it also had the dampening effect of identifying me as ‘high-maintenance’ to the guides. . . a reputation I could have done without.

Why did the chicken cross the road?

Before I go, I have to tell you about one more sublime moment in my splendid day.  It was the sort of moment we all dream of.  That magical moment when . . . wait for it . . . a chicken ran across in front of the van.   YESSS!  And I at last had the opportunity to ponder aloud the age-old question, Why did the chicken cross the road?   What a moment…

Yes, she did cross the road, but I have no idea why...

Hot on the heels of that merry adventure, I was booked in for river tubing the following day in Dominica.   Stay tuned!              MM

Why would I be instructed to stop sweating for five hours? I hear you ask.  Well, some of you might be asking.  Some of you already know the answer.  Spray tan.  Here’s what happened.  The night before I was to board the Silver Whisper for this amazing cruise, I took the shuttle from my hotel to the nearby shopping center to do a few last minute errands. I was given a map of the shopping center at the hotel, complete with the name of each shop and restaurant.  Said map was as useless as tits on a boar, as they say. (Whoever “they” are, they surely could find a better example for their simile.)  Anyway, to be fair, the useless map might well have been very handy at some other shopping center.  Just not this one.  I eventually gave up on my original quest and went in search of a new one.

Actually, I was presented with the new option right where I got off the shuttle.  I was standing in front of it.  A tanning salon.  I’d never been to one, and thought it might be just the thing to start the cruise looking a little less pale from the mid-western winter (“less pale” being a euphemism for white as Elmer’s Glue).

I went inside to make enquiries.  “Do you do spray-on tan, or just the sun-bed?” I asked.
“We do both,” I’m told.  I wasn’t interested in the cancer-rays, of course, so opted for the spray-on version.  The choices and prices were explained, and I handed over my credit card with a sense of adventure.  Being fair-skinned, I chose the lightest spray.  Off to the little room with the tanning machine we went.  Those of you who have never done this might like to know that the little tanning ‘booth’ is a bit like a wee vertical carwash, except that you don’t drive (or walk) through, you stay in one place and perform what, in my case, turned out to be a sort of Egyptian Jive as the spray moves up and down.  Thankfully, there were no rollers with flappy things, or giant brushes… just the tanning spray.

I need to back up for a moment and explain that I was given a full set of instructions, including a description of every move, position, posture, and stance to guarantee my golf  swing – er, tan — would be perfect. I was also shown where to put my clothes, given a nifty cap, like they wear in cheese factories, offered disposable bra and knickers if I didn’t want a ‘full body tan,’ told to put lotion on my palms and fingernails and toenails, lest I come out with dirty-looking cuticles, instructed to remove all jewelry, and… what else?  I know there was more.  Oh, yes—how to turn it on.  My tanning pro then withdrew and left me to it.

Well, I can tell you now, it all happens a lot faster than you expect!  My Egyptian poses turned out to be more of a St. Vitus Dance.  It’s hard to remember all those details the first time, so I concentrated on trying to remember to close my eyes and hold my breath while the spray was around my head.  Everything else was a blur.  Little did I know, the worst was yet to come.

The very first thing I noticed when I got out, after being thoroughly blow-dried, like in a carwash without the wax, was the box of foot-shaped stick-ons that were supposed to have been stuck onto the bottoms of my feet so I wouldn’t tan there.  No big deal, I thought.  So the soles my feet get tanned—so what?  As it turned out, they looked like I’d been standing in a puddle of dark chocolate.  Not a good look.

But that wasn’t the end of it.  When I got back to my hotel and sat down to read the instructions for how to care for my new tan (sounded like I’d just acquired a pet) I read those fateful words:  “Do not sweat for five hours.”   So I turned the air conditioner down to 60° and waited.   I gotta tell ya, goosebumps and spray tan do not make a pretty combination.              MM

First Warning: I broke my ankle the day before my much-anticipated trip to Toronto.  That caused all manner of trouble.  Many people were inconvenienced by that little slip.  Not only was my lovely road trip to Toronto cancelled, but I had to be looked after.

Second Warning: fast-forward to the current leg (I use the term advisedly) of my journey.  I left Olathe Monday evening to drive to Chicago to catch the Amtrak Cardinal, traveling with a dear and patient friend who was driving on to Madison, Wisconsin.  I had a stomach ache the whole way, so I was not great company.  I don’t do ‘stoic’ very well.  Tues night on the train I was supposed to be in a sleeper, but–alas–none was available, so I got to sit up all night.  Can’t complain about that; it’s a perfectly civilised way to travel, especially if you are under thirty.  Well under.

The daytime portion of the trip from Chicago to Charlottesville, W. VA, is quite lovely as it meanders through the beautiful New River Gorge in the Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia.   The New River–which actually is among the oldest rivers on the continent–is a rugged, white water river, flowing northward through deep canyons. 

View of New River Gorge from Diamond Point.

I’ve traveled that route on the Cardinal before–about eighteen months ago–with my niece, Mary.  It was summertime then, so everything was green.  This time it was cold and bare.  Even so, there was a sense of grandeur about the place.  Not surprisingly, it is a popular recreational area for whitewater rafting, fishing, rock climbing, hiking…  And I understand that in recent years the rock climbers have discovered that it is great climbing on warm (50°F) winter days when the sun has warmed the rocks.  I don’t know whether this includes those hardy souls who like to indulge in nude rock climbing, but apparently there has been quite a rash of this sort of climbing elsewhere in recent years.  Rash being the operative word.

I don’t think warm winter days have been too frequent lately, if the magnificent icicles draping the rocks are any indication.  They were like a waterfall frozen in time.  Quite beautiful.  I imagine it would be glorious in the autumn.  Apparently it is a very popular trip then.  If you are thinking of taking the train at that time, I suggest you book early…

This next UTube video is way too long to watch all of it–I presume you all have lives to lead outside of Blogworld–but if you’ve never experienced Amtrak, this is a chance to see what it’s like without having to pack.  The first lesson is just how long and far the walk to your coach is.  Always. And it’s the same when you get off.  It’s like one of those planes doing an extreeeemely long taxi out for take-off; you think you should get half your money back for walking halfway to your destination.  Anyway, just skip around by moving the little red ‘button’ ahead to skip over the bits you don’t want to see.

But I digress . . . I was whining before I got distracted by the New River.  Time to get back to it (whining)  When my lovely meander through the New River Gorge on the Amtrak Cardinal eventually ended, there was a bus transfer between Charlottesville, WV and Richmond, VA.  The bus was comfy, the countryside was lovely, and it was generally a pleasant hour and a half.  Except for the litter.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Sanitary Landfill.   USE IT, Please

I have to say it–yes, I do–I have never seen so much litter on any highway or roadway of any sort anywhere in America, Canada, or Australia.  It was awful.  Interstate 64 between Charlottesville, WV and Richmond, VA.  Shame!!

The litter was like this all along I 64 between Charlottesville, WV and Richmond, VA (apologies for the poor quality of the photo; I took it from a fast-moving bus)

Third Warning:  Once in Richmond I had a five-hour wait for my final train.  There was a very limited snack bar, catering mainly for caffein and sugar, but they did claim to sell cheeseburgers.  Having eaten little on the train (memories of Monday night still fresh in my mind) I decided to get the cheeseburger, which came with a can of pop, chips, and food poisoning.  Woe is me.  Five hours later, minutes after boarding the Silver Meteor to Ft. Lauderdale, I commenced up-chucking until around 4:30 a.m.  As that is already too much info, I will spare you any further details, except to say that I cannot report on any portion of that train ride.

It would be fair to say that I was not at my chirpiest when I arrived at my hotel.  Nor my most alert.  Within 15 minutes of checking in I managed to lock myself out of my room.  Don’t ask.

Fourth, and hopefully last, Warning–or one last whine:  This morning I tripped over the carpet outside my room and took a nose-dive.  I have pretty well perfected this manoeuvre over the past several years and can do it almost anywhere.  All I get from it is an ugly knee for the duration of my travels.  There’s something to be said for consistency.

Oh…before I go I want to return momentarily to the New River; I feel cheated–I didn’t see these guys anywhere on the train.        MM

P.S.  Tomorrow is THE BIG DAY–when I board the Silver Whisper (She’s the same ship I sailed on eighteen months ago in the Baltic).  Yes, indeedy, folks–I’m actually taking a slow boat to China.  Come along for the adventure.  Or the craziness.

Arrivals are such fun, but departures so rotten … As if it weren’t bad enough saying goodbye to loved ones, you have to face the drudgery of packing, which is preceded by sorting and deciding what to take, laundry, and…well, you know what it’s like.  It’s awful. If only I could figure out how to arrive without first departing.  In my mind, it seems a simple matter of transferring the chosen items from the closet to the suitcase. But it never works out like that. I don’t know what the problem is, but anyone who has been around me at this stage knows how hopeless I am in these last hours before leaving.  That’s why I’m here, now, writing.  Because I can’t bring myself to Take The First Step.

I don’t think I’m well-suited to taking frequent short trips.  I couldn’t face this any more often.  Fewer, longer trips means fewer packing traumas.  The proverbial fly in the ointment, of course, is that such trips tend to span more than one season, which adds another layer of complication to the packing.  I know you are thinking that I’m just whining, and why don’t I just stay home and shut up about it, but I have to tell you that I love traveling, so I have to do it.

As far as whining goes, just let me tell you what I have to do at the moment and maybe you’ll be a bit more sympathetic.  On Saturday I leave for Toronto for nine days.  Nine days of frigid cold.  Then I spend one and a half days back in Kansas before heading to Florida to get on a ship bound for the tropics.  So I’m packing to go from colder-than-a-witch’s-tit-Toronto to summer in the southern hemisphere.  Okay.  I get it.  You aren’t feeling sorry for me, are you? I can understand that.  But I plan on taking you with me on this amazing journey–right here on The Meandering Matriarch.  After Toronto I’ll be back on the Silver Whisper, the ship I was on eighteen months ago in the Baltic.  We’re in for some real adventures, I can tell you!  So stay tuned…

• they can have the baby and raise it in whatever circumstances they are in–circumstances which have already established the pregnancy as ‘unwanted;’
• they can have the pregnancy terminated, and get on with their lives;
• or they can continue the pregnancy, give birth to the baby, then give it away.

That’s it.  Those are the only options, and  not one of them is desirable or easy.  And none is intrinsically right or wrong.

I know that there are many people who believe that is abortion is wrong, and who would never choose it for themselves, but who also are offended by the hateful tactics of the militant so-called right-to-lifers.  My argument is not with those people who believe  differently than I do.  My beef is with those who think they have a right to prevent others from choosing their own course. The ones  shouting “But what about the baby? What about his/her rights? It’s wrong to kill a baby just for the mother’s convenience.  ..yada yada yada”  We’ve heard all those cries ad nauseum.  What we don’t hear them saying is, “I don’t agree with your decision, but it is your choice to make.”  I have no problem with people holding a different view from mine.  I have a BIG problem with people thinking their view entitles them to bully, threaten, intimidate, or menace women who are pregnant and in distress, or the workers trying to assist and support them.

I understand the moral conviction that values even the earliest stage of life as sacrosanct, and I respect it.  I believe no one holding that belief should ever be made to take action which offends that belief.  I also happen to believe that the well-being of the living pregnant woman is important, and should be protected.  If so-called Christian love, and concern for innocent and helpless children were genuinely the issue, then I should think we would be seeing a great deal more time, energy, money–and placards!–addressing the plight of the millions of starving, abused, and dying children rather than so damn much attention on the comparatively small number of aborted foetuses.

If the ugly bullying tactics of the militant right-to-lifers weren’t enough to strip away any credibility, the weakness of their argument defeats them.  Forget any so-called “Christian love,” folks. That went out the door when the hateful behaviour came in.  Forget the protestations about the rights of the “child”–and let’s call it what it is: an embryo, or a fetus;–there are no such ‘rights.’

But that isn’t what this is really about. This is about Judgement and Punishment, dished out by people who think that if a woman is pregnant and “shouldn’t be,” then she should have to suffer the consequences.  The old “She made her bed, and now she has to lie in it” argument.  She–and anyone who might try to help her–is fair game.  The aim is to humiliate and intimidate her into paying the price for her “sin” by not being allowed to ‘take the easy way out.’  By taking away her right to choose.

Who really believes all the nastiness and abusive behaviour is really about love for unborn foetuses?

Starving, sick, dying children — or not-yet-sentient embryos?  Which cries out to you loudest?         MM

The Price Tower, Designed by Frank Lloyd Wright

“The tree that escaped the crowded forest,” (Wright’s nickname for it) refers both to the building’s construction and to the origins of its design. The Tower is supported by a central “trunk” of four elevator shafts which are anchored in place by a deep central foundation, much as a tree is anchored by its taproot. Like branches of a tree, the building’s nineteen floors are cantilevered from this central core.  Each tiny elevator holds a maximum of three close friends, or me and half of my luggage.  The outer walls  are clad in patinated copper “leaves,” giving them a beautiful green colour. Wright had applied the same concepts in a design for an apartment complex of four cantilevered towers in New York City in the 1920′s, but as a result of the Great Depression, that project was shelved.  It was later adapted by Wright when he was commissioned by Harold C. Price, of the H. C. Price Company, a local oil pipeline and chemical firm in Brtlesville, Oklahoma.  Hence, the “tree” was plucked out of the “crowded forest” of Manhattan skyscrapers and transplanted onto the Oklahoma prairie.  It  was opened to the public in February 1956.

For those of you who speak “architecture-eze” here’s a better description of the structure:

The floorplan of the Price Tower centers upon an inlaid cast bronze plaque, bearing the logo of the Price Company and marking the origin of a parallelogram grid upon which all exterior walls, interior partitions and doors, and built-in furniture are placed. The resulting design is a quadrant plan—one quadrant dedicated for double-height apartments, and three for offices. The materials for the Price Tower are equally innovative for a mid-twentieth-century skyscraper: cast concrete walls, pigmented concrete floors, aluminum-trimmed windows and doors, and patinated embossed and disstressed copper panels. The general geometric element is the equilateral triangle, and all lighting fixtures and ventilation grilles are based upon that form while the angled walls and built-in furniture are based on fractions or multiples of the triangular module.   ^{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_Tower}

The image I’ve always had of Wright is of a man of great intelligence, wit, and ego.  Seeing the Price Tower, and hearing about the building  of it, has only made that impression stronger.  The Tower exudes his wit and creativity.  In the top-floor office of the President of the company there is a huge and beautiful globe, tucked back in an out-of sight nook behind a door.  As the story goes, Wright had a friendly dispute with Price over that globe.  Prce wanted the globe in his office; Wright didn’t want anything round in the building.  Wright finally gave in, but kept it largely out of sight.

I’m reading the novel, Loving Frank–a fictionalised account of his seven-year love affair with a woman other than his wife.  So naturally the opportunity to see one of his buildings was a special treat.  So infatuated am I with Wright at the moment that I have even acquired a nifty new Wright look myself…           MM

Note the Wright-like Embellishment