Events

Ligia’s first art show

This past Thursday evening, on December 3, 2009, my wife, Ligia, had her first art show, at Casa Schüller, an art gallery in the city of Medias, Romania. This is the same show she talked about during her interview on Radio Ring. She was also interviewed about it on Nova TV last week, and I plan to post the video from the TV interview after I get it sometime this week.

We were very happy with the turnout. There were over 100 people in attendance, all of them thrilled to see her art and to attend the opening. She displayed 36 original large-format quilling creations, and 70 greeting card-format pieces.

The show was hosted and critiqued by Adrian Matei, a local artist, art critic and writer of international renown. The mayor of the city of Medias, Teodor Neamtu, came by and gave a wonderful speech congratulating Ligia, which you can see and hear in the video clip posted below. We had a short Christmas concert, where a choir from our church sang Christmas carols, and a group of youth played musical bells. Unfortunately I didn’t get to record everything on video, as I was part of the choir and was also taking photos of the event (you can see the whole set of photos here). I’ll see if I can beg some video segments from someone, and once I get them, I’ll put together a more complete video of the event.

Until then, enjoy the photos and video clip posted here, and if you’d like to congratulate Ligia directly, please head on over to her blog and do so. You can watch the video on blip.tv, SmugMug, YouTube and Vimeo.

➡ Updated 12/6/09: Got more video clips this afternoon, and pieced them together for a 30-minute video which you can see below or on Vimeo. Many thanks to Claudiu Ciucor, a 7th-grade journalism student from Scoala Generala Nr. 2 in Medias, for providing me with the footage. All of the 16:9 format video from the following clip was recorded by him. The 4:3 format video is recorded by me.

Events

Ligia featured in Romanian magazine

My lovely wife’s blog is featured in the October edition of “Pe Tocuri“, a popular Romanian magazine written for women. Since my knowledge of women’s magazines is virtually non-existent, I don’t have an American counterpart that I could use for a comparison, but I was certainly impressed with its thickness — each monthly issue is about 100 pages, and it’s not chock full of ads like the thick American periodicals, either.

Ligia was selected because they found her all-natural, raw recipes to be delicious and interesting. My photos of her culinary creations appeared in the magazine as well, which made me happy. Of course, there had to be a fly in the ointment — they spelled my name wrong on the photos, even though I spelled it correctly in an email to them. Just how do you spell a 5-letter name wrong when you have it right in front of you? Is it that difficult to copy and paste? It looks like Americans and Romanians alike seem to have trouble with my name…

If you speak or read Romanian, you’re welcome to check out the magazine. You can even download each issue as a PDF. I enclosed a couple of screenshots of the page where Ligia appears below. She’s on page 82, along with a few other Romanian cooking blogs of note.

Places

The Baltimore Aquarium

The Baltimore Aquarium is located in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, right on the water, on a promontory that looks as if it was man-made for the specific purpose of accentuating the Aquarium. It was built in 1981, during Baltimore’s urban renewal period, when the city made a concerted effort to rebuild its waterfront. Their efforts certainly paid off nicely in time, as anyone who’s visited the waterfront lately will attest.

In spite of my less than lukewarm review of the Aquarium’s Dolphin Show, the Aquarium itself is a great place to visit. The location and the modern design ideas, which can be seen both on the outside and the inside, plus the many species of fish and other marine life that are inside, and the dramatic ways in which they are showcased, make it a must-see destination. Others agree. The Aquarium is considered one of the best in the United States, if not the world. It is also the largest tourist attraction in the State of Maryland.

Its official name is the National Aquarium in Baltimore, but I call it the Baltimore Aquarium, so as not to confuse it with the National Aquarium in DC (which, by the way, has been operated by the Baltimore Aquarium since 2003).

Another point of interest at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor is the Seven Foot Knoll Lighthouse. Also not to be missed is a walk through Baltimore’s downtown area, which is full of all sorts of interesting architecture. You can see more photos from the Baltimore Aquarium and from Baltimore in my photo catalog.

A Guide To A Good Life, Places

The Algonquin Hotel in Manhattan

The Algonquin will soon host its 90th anniversary of the Algonquin Round Table, and they’re holding a Commemorative Symposium of Wit and Wisdom on November 17th, from 7-9 pm. Tickets cost $100 each. Should be a lot of fun.

We stayed at the Algonquin Hotel in 2007, during our weekend trip to Manhattan, and we highly recommend it. The location is wonderful, very near to Times Square, yet on a relatively quiet side street without many street lights, which means you can get a good night’s rest. The beds are comfy, and the decor is tasteful. The setting is, of course, historic, and that’s worth quite a bit in our book.