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Our house on Albright Street in February 2003
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2003 Hamburg
and Atlanta Entries from our Desk Calendar 2003
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Pacific
Palisades |
As
always when we return from a long absence, it was good to come home.
We are now sure that this house is truely our house.
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The
big Sycamore tree has no leaves, it is winter. When it gets warmer,
its dense foilage will shade the house from the afternoon sun.
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We
now have two sofas. We and our friends are getting older, sitting on
the floor has become difficult even for Barbara. We bought the rug on
the wall in Mádrid, New Mexico as our Christmas
present. Fittingly, it was woven by Oachacan Indians from a Tibetan
design!
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Barbara's
room is the nicest in the house. She looks into the sycamore and a
forrest of native palms seeded by birds.
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Friends |
Barbara takes good care of our many friends. In January Robert Forrest and Lorrain visted us for a couple of days. Barbara cooked dinner for them and Victor and Tania Evtohov. Monica Willumsen got married for the third time - to Checco, a sweet, fifteen-years younger Mexican. They were served a dinner with Heinrich and Gouri, Traudl and Susanne Willumsen. Our newest occasional visitor Maggy Häfner, the stewardess from München, spent an evening with her pilot with us. At Easter Peter and Anneliese came with Illush and Carolyn stayed with us. Then there was a very lively dinner for Makiko Nikaraze, a composer from Berlin, Virgil and Stefanie Day, our Buddhist friends, the Evtuhovs, and Judy Farmer who plays the bassoon and her composer husband Gernod Wolfgang.
Many of our our friends are getting old and hang on Barbara for emotional support: Ben and Jean Kahn, Bud Glikbarg is frequently ill and she sees him and Arleen often, and of course, Marga in Tübingen, who is much alone and whom she calls three times a week. Twice a year she brings Elsa Saravia, our old cleaning woman, a check in lieu of social security
Together we visited Kurt and Pamela Meyer
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Irmchen Gernand, our faithful, spirited old friend in far away Bonn had become sufficiently confused that Gisela and Uscha had to transfer her to an assisted home not far from Essen.
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Barbara
visiting Judythe and Jim Roberts in San Diego |
Like Nancy Bott, Judythe Roberts works as a legal assistent in a large law firm in San Diego. Enterprising as she is, she has become a special and close friend of Barbara. Barbara usually drives there by herself to go to an art show or a concert with her and Jim. On her way back she never misses to look up Irene and Wachtang Djobadze in Oceanside.
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Barbara
at Klaus' 80th Birthday in Hamburg |
Klaus' great wish was that his sister would come to his 80th birthday - and Barbara delightedly flew to Hamburg. All of Klaus' and Lilo's children and grandchildren, Dieter and Marlene and Marga were there, a true Lattmann reunion. Afterwards Barbara followed Marga to Tübingen, as always a difficult task.
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Barbara
in Atlanta |
Susanne had wanted her mother to visit them in their brand-new house in Atlanta. She had given up her job in Augusta in January and quickly found a new, even better one in Atlanta. Did Barbara fly on her frequent flyer account? I stayed home.
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Rolf
and Barbara in Italy |
Cornelius and Anne-Cecile had worked out a new living arrangement. AC, bored with her minor job at EMBL in Monterotondo, had found a demanding position in a large pharmaceutical company in Ivrea near Torino. There were no maritial problems, she just needed to assuage her restlessness. AC took Ulysse along, and patient Cornelius decided to fly to Ivrea every weekend - 4 hours door to door.
As we approached Rome, she had taken a week off and joined Cornelius in a spacious if not luxurous apartment in Monterotondo-Scalo near his lab. He had refused to leave EMBL and his lab there. We spent ten hot days with them in Monterotondo, and then rented a car and drove all the way to Sicily and around the island. I had never been there and knew many places I wanted to see: the Amalfi Peninsula and Pompei, Paestum, the Tyrrhenian Coast, the interior of Sicily, Enna and the Roman villa near Piazza Armerina, the Norman Cathedrals in Palermo and Cefalu, and the Greek temples on the south coast. The surprise would turn out to be Syracuse, a wonderful city. You find a description of this trip at http://rolfgross.dreamhosters.com/2003Sicily/ . Here I'll collect some of the more personal pictures .
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I was not as much in demand as Nonna Barbara. It was hot, which I compensated for by taking my shirt off. Ulysse didn't quite know what to think of this big half-naked, bearded man....
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... until he discovered me resting on the plush sofa in the unused bourgeous dining room (the furniture came with the apartment). He looked at me with his blue eyes, winked with a smile and walked off. At that momnet I knew that he was my true grandson, who sized up people with one glance and knew them completely. Like I....
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From
Monterotondo |
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On the first day we drove all the way to Sorrento – by-passing Naples - and rented a cheap room in a slightly ramshackle hotel with a view of the Bay and Mt. Vesuvio. From there we toured the Amalfi Peninsula (by Bus) and Pompei by train, where we spent a whole day. As usual the most interesting “villas” with frescoes were closed to the public.
Eventually we continued to Paestum, where I had last been in 1954. The sensation of this visit was the museum. Built from 1938-plans in the 1970s it houses a stunning collection of finds from Lucanian tombs of the 4th cent BC and a collection of female votiv statues which show that all three temples were dedicated to “Hera” in her various manifestations. After seeing the Greek ruins in Sicily, Paestum stands out as the most interesting and beautiful excavation site - maybe with the exception of Segesta's unfinished classically proportioned temple. Compared to Greece the Italian Greek temples are “colonial” architecture, plump, heavy, often unfinished, built by rich despotes.
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The Tyrrhenian Coast turned out to be hot, two days long, overbuilt, and not particularly charming. A disappointment. The same happened to us in Taormina, the overrated city on the Sicilian east coast. After loosing 30 Euro in parking fees and two cups of coffee in two hours we fled the tourist town and drove inland to Randazzo, a small old town which has escaped inundation by the lava flows from Mt. Aetna for centuries.
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The northern coast line being a string of drab industrial towns we stayed inland: dry fields parched by the summer heat, small towns nestling between ondulating fields, an occasional large farm it nevertheless has a charm all of its own. On curvy roads we reached Enna in the evening and right in the middle of its old town, on a hill with a sweeping view found a hotel with rooms furnished in a decorator Renaissance style. Actually quite charming, as the pictures show.
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Convenient as Enna was we used it for various excursions. The farthest was to Piazza Armerina, where the floor mosaics in an imperial Roman villa of the 3rd cent AD got me really excited. You can admire a series of photos (better for once than in the commercially available picture books) I took of the African Hunt at thttp://rolfgross.dreamhosters.com/2003Sicily/
From Enna we crossed the coastal range to Cefalu and then continued along the coast to Palermo and eventually to Segesta and Trapani. Two nights we slept in Cefalu, next to Syracuse the most beguiling city in Sicily. Awake, orderly, and by comparison to “Arabic” Palermo still imbued with memories of the Normans. Another two days we stayed in Palermo before we drove on to Segesta
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Segesta is as close to Greece as the Sicilian landscape permits. Do look at the photos of the theater and the temple on my main website.
From Trapani, which is not worth a detour, we drove south to search for the Church of SS Trinitá di Delia near Castelvetrano, which was not easy to find. A seldom visited Norman-Arabic jewel on private land. We found a very acceptable hotel in the village of Selinunte at the south coast close to the extensive ruins of the Greek city. Another hot and humid day in Agrigento and a tedious drive landed us in Syracuse - or more precisely on the island of Ortigia in the rental-apartment of Tonino (for once, all hotels were full). The touching little man had decorated it with antique bric-a-brac and a modern painting left by a tenant in lieu of rent. A most curious place, two rooms, bath and kitchen and a balcony above the narrow street. Highly recommended!.
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We roamed Ortigia and the Greek ruins on the mainland for three days. The main finds were the Latonia del Paradiso, the ancient quarries, the Greek theater and the Archeological Museum on the mainland and the Palazzo Belomo and the cathedral on the top of the ancient Greek acropolis of Ortigia.
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It was time to head north. Barbara drove heroically. When we got in sight of Mount Aetna again it showed itself without a cloud cover - except for a cold ice cloud - and we decided to take a a drive to the top - or as high (2000 meter) as it was possible by car - a beautiful and in the end stark excursion. We ended at our old hotel in Randazzo that night.
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After crossing the straight of Messina Barbara put the car in high gear on the Calabrian autostrada, which affords a much more interesting and varied route than along the coast. Except that we got into two fierce downpours in the Calabrian mountains, and had to stop in miserable Cosenza for the night.
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We were tired of the long drive, and I peruaded a reluctant Barbara to call Cornelius and tell him that we would arrive a day early. It became a very long day, but he was happy to see us
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Back
in Monterotondo |
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Anne-Cecile had made a dentist appointment in Rome and next day arrived in Monterotondo with Ulysse. On the weekend they had planned a multiple “birthday” party for Ulysse Cornelius and me, but also to show us their many friends, mostly colleagues from Cornelius lab and the women who had taken care of Ulysse during the past years. Obviously the blond child was their darling, everyone hugged and kissed him.
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On Saturday Cornelius took us to the market in Monterotondo up on the hill, where they live now (2008). A charming affair which showed us why he loves that place and its people.
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On our last day, while AC was at the dentist, we and Cornelius took Ulysse to the local playground.
We split, Barbara went to Ivrea to stay a few more days with Anne Cecile and take care of Ulysse while she was at work, - and I took the train to Florence to meet Evelyn and my brother Dieter, who had a three-month research appointment there. I went on to München while Barbara took the train to Tübingen to devote herself to Marga for ten days. We flew home separately
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Barbara in Ivrea and Rolf in München |
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As ususal I stayed at the Grosskreutzes who gave me their key to the house and let me roam München as I pleased. I visited all my favorite museums and the Mays in Gauting. On Sunday Jürgen and Irene drove me to the Buchheim Museum on lake Starnberg, the most exciting museum of “modern” art I saw on this visit.
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Autumn 2003 in Pacific Palisades Barbara at the The Weismann Museum |
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During 2002, after 20 years Barbara gave up her job as German tour escort. The business had lost customers, and she felt the 3-week tours were getting too much for her. She searched for an interesting, alternative, less strenuous job, and eventually found a docent position at the Fredrick Weisman Foundation, which has a Museum of very contemporary art in the Weisman Villa in West LA. She threw herself into modern art history and soon became one of their best interpreters. Billy Weisman, the present owner, turned out to be a most congenial and kind person. During the past 5 years Barbara felt completely at home among Billy's staff. Several became good friends. She finally retired this year (2008).
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The
Gingko Biloba at the Weisman Foundation |
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Christmas
in San Francisco |
Nobody was coming to stay with us over Christmas, and the success of our excursion to Santa Fe at Christmas 2002 gave us the idea to spend the end of the year in San Francisco. Barbara drove us there and parked the car at Chris and Manisha's north of Berkeley. We stayed at the Galleria Hotel, one of Barbara's favorite smaller hotels in the center of SF and roamed the museums of town : the Pacific Asia, the Modern Art and the Legion of Honor Museum. The De Young museum was in renovation. Every night we ate at another Chinese restaurant and occasionally at one of Barbara's little eateries in the neighborhood.
After a week in San Francisco we moved into a motel in Sonoma, where we stayed until after New Year. It was cold and rained most of the time. One day we drove to Sausalito and bought a new set of red dinner and soup plates at a factory there. In the end we spent a day and a night with Sasha and Tatiana Romanovsky in San Jose.
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It had been a long time since we had been together in San Francisco and seen our various friends. One of our first trips was to see Alan Teng, Cornelius' old roommate in Berkeley. We also saw the Berkeley Museum and found Julia Kempe and Odet in their apartment .
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On
Christmas Eve we met with Julia and Odet in Cornelius' (and our) old
favorite Thai restaurant on Geary Street. The place was so cozily
dark, that the only way to bring this photo to life was to convert it
to black-and-white. Julia now lives with Odet in Haifa, where she
found a professorship in astrophysics. We rarely hear from her.
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Lorrain's vinyard |
On Christmas Day Chris and Manisha Forrest picked us up at their subway station and drove us to Lorrain's house at St. Helena in Napa Valley for a family dinner with Lorrain and Robert.. During our week in Sonoma we saw them once more and went with them to Point Reyes for a December walk along Drake's Bay.
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