Weekly Photo Challenge: Pattern

March 31, 2013 – Day 618

The photographic theme this week is…
The photographic theme this week is…
The photographic theme this week is…
The photographic theme this week is…
The photographic theme this week is…
The photographic theme this week is…

…patterns.

WordPress wants to see a picture that represents a pattern and so I will repeat myself and show you another picture of the central checkerboard floor that forms the center open-air space of the Museo de Arte in Lima (MALI).

Oh, look, there’s my daughter as she breaks up the pattern.

Weekly Photo Challenge: From Above

March 31, 2013 – Day 618

“From Above” is this week’s theme from WordPress.

Today’s response comes from the outing the family took to soak up some culture as we visited Museo de Arte in Lima, also known as MALI.

The building is a rectangle and in the center is a spacious center that looks like it would do a good job of hosting all manner of outside events. On this particular Sunday, this space was empty save its checkerboard-style black and white tiles and the four of us.

For no reason whatsoever except that I liked the effect, I decided to take a snapshot of one of the shiny black tiles while standing right over it.

A photo with a reflective quality

In one of those series of photos that I took, which I have submitted above as my response, my daughter photobombed me.

Buenos Aires: Day of the Dead

February 4, 2013 – Day 563

As part of our South American summer cruise, the family spent two days in the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires. While we saw many more sites than the subject of today’s posting, I wanted to take this space and highlight one of the locations we spent a chunk of time at.

Because nothing screams “Happy Time With the Kids” more than spending it among the dead, we toured La Recoleta Cemetery. Here’s the entryway…

Come on in….

Entering this graveyard allowed me to crack open one of my standard jokes. I asked our kids if they knew why cemeteries had fences around them. When they said, “No”, I was able to reply, “Because people are dying to get in.”

[insert rimshot here]

Some of the crypts were massive…

For those of you playing at home, this final resting place belongs to Marcelo Torcuato de Alvear (1868 – 1942), who was a lawyer, politician, ambassador, and whose name scores thrity-three points in Scrabble.

The following picture will not do justice to my next description, but this entire cemetery is crammed and packed with stone crypts. Sometimes the paths to and from graves were only wide enough for one person to walk through – which tended to be an issue when large tour groups came filed their way through.

We came across this interesting pair of crypts. I must admit that when I think of a mausoleum, my picture of it is a place that remains static. I never really thought that a place like La Recoleta would allow new tenants, but I was wrong. In the picture below, the crypt on the right is from 2011 whereas the one on the left is from 1905.

Since I can’t imagine that there had been an opening just waiting for the 2011 crypt to be built, it did make us wonder who was evicted to make room for the new burial…and where are their remains now?

Despite being surrounded by marble, stone, and corpses, this place did manage to keep the interest of our two boys. They have recently become fans of the British television series Doctor Who and we spent a good deal of time walking around the statues telling each other not to blink.

For those who have not the wonderful pleasure of watching the Doctor Who episode “Blink“, go here.

While it is crowded in La Recoleta and there are famous Argentine folk buried there, this place is renowned for being the final resting place for one person in particular.

Above is the grave of Eva Peron. For more, non-musical, information about her, you can jump here. The line to walk past her crypt was long and – because of the crowded nature of the place – single-file so it took some time…but well worth it.

After a few hours, we were done. As we left, this was the message presented to us as we emerged back into the land of the living.

My Latin is even worse than my Spanish, but Google Translate reads those two words as “We expect the Lord” or “We wait for the Lord”.

And with that lovely thought in our head – you will die one day also (at least that’s how I read that message)- we continued our vacation.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Up

February 1, 2013 – Day 560

Today’s photo is my response to WordPress’s Weekly Photo Challenge that has the topic of “Up“

In February, the family took a cruise/vacation where our first port of call was the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro. As mentioned in a previous post, part of our scenic looksie through the city that will host the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympic Games was to make a stop at the statue known as Christ the Redeemer.

Here is my “up”lifting photo.

I look forward to the upcoming themes from WordPress such as toy stories, a bug’s life, and monsters.

Park of the Fountains

March 28, 2013 – Day 615

Over the Semana Santa (Holy Week) holiday during the Thursday and Friday before Easter, our family took the opportunity to visit some sights around Lima that we had not yet seen.

High on that list was the Parque de la Reserva (Park of the Reserve). Completed in 1929, this public green space was built to honor those who fought in the battles of San Juan and Miraflores during the War of the Pacific (1879 – 1883) where Peru and Bolivia fought against Chile.

As a side note, and to highlight the fact that some folks are still steamed over the outcome of that conflict (over a century+a score+a decade ago), the government of Bolivia has gone to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to obtain the coastal land it lost to Chile.

In other ICJ news, Peru and Chile are awaiting the Court’s ruling on Peru’s petition to redraw the maritime boundary between their two countries.

However, all of that judicial and military maneuvering flowed to the back of our minds as we enjoyed a lovely evening walking around the park’s signature feature, El Circuito Mágico del Agua (The Magic Water Tour).

The tour is a series of a baker’s dozen of distinct and different fountains. Each one is numbered and named.

The Tour is best seen at night when the floodlights makes the dancing waters sparkle. We arrived near dusk.

Fuente de la Cupula Visitable

I also learned a valuable lesson for tourists. I learned that one needs to make sure that the battery in the digital camera is charged up before going on an outing. Sadly, I neglected to check the level of electric charge in my trusty camera and so right after I took the above picture, I was greeted with the “Recharge battery” message.

Ignoring the mocking green letters on my camera’s screen, I was able to squeeze out a few more images (seen below) before my camera truly gave up it lithium-ion ghost.

My apologies for the grainy, fuzzy nature of these photos. I’d like to say that I used some sort of Instagram filter on them, but as I said before, I had little battery life and so I only had a few seconds to turn the camera on and take whatever shot I could before my camera died.

Fuente Magica

The above fountain, Fuente Magica, is the tallest of the thirteen. People are not allowed in it, but that doesn’t mean the fine folk of Lima couldn’t enjoy a cool blast of water on a March evening.

Fuente Laberinto de Ensueno

Two days later, we went from the wet to the dry as we visited Caral.

Photo Friday: Natural Light

February 11, 2013 – Day 570

The picture below is my response to the Photo Friday challenge of “natural light“.

In February of this year, the family made a trek out to Iguazu Falls (as mentioned before here and here), a stunning natural wonder of falling water that straddles the border of Brazil and Argentina.

As this week’s challenge is all about natural light, please allow me to show you what happens when sunlight interacts with droplets of water.

Why are there so many songs about these arcs?

As you can see from some previous postings (like here and here), I’m a sucker for arcs of color.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Color

February 4, 2013 – Day 563

My response to the theme of color from WordPress is below…

A horse of a different color

These colorful equine statues and the buildings you see are a small part of the La Boca neighborhood of the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Future Tense

January 20, 2013 – Day 548

“Future Tense” is this week’s photographic challenge from WordPress. I have to admit that I did not follow the theme exactly as advertised. The creators for this month’s challenges has been calling March “phoneography month” and asking people to take pictures with their camera-phones. As I do not have such a device, I must rely on Siglo XX technology and my response comes to you courtesy of my plain ol’ digital camera.

One of the suggestions for this week’s theme was to capture the experience of waiting. This is the option for me.

On this Sunday in January, the family and I went to a local Lima amusement park called La Granja Villa. This location was a delightful way to spend a Peruvian weekend and I’ll try and remember to post more pictures about our stay.

There was one ride – and one passenger – that I simply had to capture on film bits and bytes. He is waiting so I belive he fits the theme, but he is not someone I would expected to be on this ride.

Will he yell, “Whee!” ?

This gentleman is certainly waiting for the ride (and dare-I-say, “excitement”) to start. I also like this photo for the theme because I believe that this image shows a man who can look to his past and see the fun he once had at parks like this; but he also continues to look to the future to see what other fun he can still have.

I also like this guy because he is on the bouncy mechanism by himself. He did not strap himself in to be with his son or granddaughter. NO! He took his place on the far left-hand side because he wanted to ride that ride.

He stares off into the distance – waiting, hoping, dreaming – for the fun that is about to commence.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Lunchtime

“Lunchtime” is this week’s theme from WordPress.

Normally, this here blog is all about Peru. However, since I already posted a picture about my new favorite pre-lunch Peruvian snack, cancha, in a previous posting, I will have to travel to another South American country to answer the challenge.

This post finds us in Brazil. Actually, it is the food court that resides inside the main international airport in Sao Paolo, but that still means we are in Brazil.

In my almost two years in Peru, I have not been all that surprised to see fast-food joints from the United States show their golden arches, finger-lickin‘ goodness, or Whopper-ishness in and around Lima. McDonald’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and Burger King are all international brands and so their existence south of the Equator was not a shock.

What was a shock was, while walking around the Brazilian airport food court looking for a place to have lunch, when I laid eyes on a brand of hamburgers that I had not seen since I lived in southern half of the Golden State. Branded as Hardee’s east of the Mississippi River, I was not at all expecting to see hamburgers being offered up by Carl’s Jr, a wholly Californian eatery. But there it was…

What is “star” in Portuguese?

My apologies for only having a close-up of the menu board, but it has been my experience that cashiers (and especially managers) of fast-food places tend to frown upon people taking pictures.

Anyway,….

What I like about this picture is that almost everything about it is instantly recognizable to the devotee of the handiwork of Carl Karcher. From the font used in the text of “Star Burger” to the picture of the burger itself, I would assert (because an upstanding lad like myself never swears) that I was in San Diego, Los Angeles, or Whittier.

However, there are some tell-tale signs that one is not in Southern California while looking at this sign. The first is the price. Now while Carl’s Jr does have the $6 Burger and while we are at the airport (where prices are higher), it is not many fast-food places that would sell a sandwich for $14.90. Since we are in Brazil, they use reals (R$) and at an exchange rate of one Brazilian real to fifty US cents, this basic burger sells for  $7.45 (which is actually in line with what a burger at an airport should cost). The combo sets you back $11.45 in greenbacks.

Also notice that this burger is advertised as “com queijo”, which is Portuguese for “with cheese”.

Oddly enough, the Wikipedia entry for Carl’s Jr. says the chain is in the process of expanding into Brazil. I guess someone needs to update the article since the chain with the smiling star is in Brazil as of last February.

The same article says that there are a pair of Carl’s Jr here.

Interesting.

Puzzle Post

During our cruise around the eastern coast of South America, I took pictures of many things.

However, this post is about a particular septet of photographs. Here, have a look. There will be a quiz later.

Outside a beach in Rio de Janeiro

Street statue in Buenos Aires

Souvenir items in Buenos Aires

Another statue in Buenos Aires

Couple and friend in Punta del Este, Uruguay

Cruise ship mascot all dressed up

Outlet and warning in cruise cabin room

The seven photos above all contain objects that share a common theme. The first part of your challenge is to discover what those objects are and what they have in common. Once you discover that commonality, your next step is to figure out what are some other objects I could have included that fit the common theme.