Germantown, NY, USA  -  9^th July 2003

 

I am not sure when and from where this Report # 26 will be sent, but at my advanced age and with a sieve for a brain, I better start and try and remember the earth shattering events, such as my crossing the Atlantic absolutely single handed with not a seat being left unfilled in a Jumbo. What these airlines are complaining about I do not know, because both the Qantas plane to Bangkok and the British Airways plane to New York was filled, although one or two extra persons could have ridden on the wings.

 

Clare and John brought me down to Stanstead airport from where I was to take a bus to Heathrow. The bus was late in starting for its return journey and the driver warned us about the bed traffic conditions, yet we had a clear run and arrived on time. After changing my Sterling into Dollars I presented myself at the final security check where I was pleased to see that the Brits seemed well aware of the possibility of terrorists and we were given a thorough going over.

 

The lady next to me was asking me if I would be prepared to change places with her husband and thus I had an excellent seat at the bulkhead with unlimited legroom and only a TV screen in front of me, not to mention a charming girl from Tasmania and her mother on one side and a miserable pregnant lady with lots of jewellery on the other. We arrived on time and the emigration officer was charm personified and after enquiring as to the number of times I visited the States wished me a pleasant stay and waved me on my way.

 

The question of how to get into Manhattan was decided upon various quotes by taxis. One asked for $80, but since I did not wish to buy his car I decided to obtain better quotes until a guy offered his services for $30. I did not realise that he also offered the same to 3 other guys, but since I was the first to be deposited I did not mind. On arrival to the NY Athletic Club I immediately made my way to 2^nd Avenue where Paul, (my father’s cousin and my host), his son George, daughter-in-law Bicky and Catherine were waiting for me. We had a very good Italian dinner and after some chat, during which we refreshed on each other’s news, we adjourned at 11 PM.  My body clock said that it was 4 AM, but surprisingly I could still keep my eyes open and was strong enough to kill 5 huge blowflies which congregated in my miniscule room at the NYAC.

 

My struggle next morning was with the thermostatic control of the shower which seemed to have any adjustment as long as it was ice-cold or scolding hot. Of course one found that out just as one completed to smear the body lotion (in lieu of soap) all over one’s body, an unpleasant surprise especially as the bathroom light goes out in the middle of such delicate operation. (Please note things can go wrong outside Russia!)

 

As readers of my last year’s report realise, the rules of the Club are forbidding such horrible sins as going around without a coat or tie and I was aware of this in spite of the heatwave enveloping NY at this time of the year. Since it seems to me that the staff of the Club has its main occupation to look out for the rules to be carried out (in fact I always feel as if there would be cameras placed everywhere to observe the guests and visitors as the rules are posted throughout the building). Thus I was pleased to sit in the dining room for my breakfast in my coat and tie but would have been even happier in a fur coat as there did not seem anywhere without the air-conditioning outlets pouring out a stream of Arctic weather to the benefit of the medical and pharmaceutical industries. 

 

Soon enough I was collected by Paul and his son’s driver in a borrowed car and we drove to Paul’s farm, where I was installed in the guest house, where the bird’s room was converted into another bedroom, with brand new antique furniture. As it was raining the car drove us to the main house where Paul’s maids served lunch after which we adjourned for a rest. Clara was in New York for a doctor’s appointment and she was in touch with our progress by frequent calls. She was expected to return late at night and in the mean time Paul and I were having our reminiscences about ye old days, the present and other matters of mutual interest, such as Russia, which Paul visited with George and Bicky a few years ago.

 

In the course of our conversation Paul pointed out a statue to me which was sculpted by an émigré Russian artist. The subject matter and the way it looked reminded me of something I saw before and when I asked for the name of the sculptor it turned out to be none other but the famous Mihael Chemiakin, the same designer of the fantastic Nutcracker performance I was raving about on my last night in St Petersburg, when the sculptor/painter/designer/dissident himself appeared on the stage.[1] It turned out that he is the friend of Clara and Paul Kellner, giving them a painting and various books on the creation of the Nutcracker, but not as good friend as to exclude receiving $25,000 for the statue of a clown, which now stands in their largest of 3 sitting rooms.

 

In addition to the design of the ballet, Chemiakin also designed the splendid memorial sphinx dedicated to the victims of political oppression, including a plaque in memory of Raoul Wallenberg and he also made the very interesting statue of Peter the Great which is in the Peter and Paul Fortress and which is in his brilliant style. Valentina will be impressed by the coincidence as Chemiakin seems to be one of her favourites. She usually tells me that most things are Hungarian, but now I will be able to counter this by reminding her that the long artistic hand of Chemiakin reaches out to be connected through me to her. There was a film in which Catherine Kellner starred named “Six Degrees of Separation” proving that everybody knows or is connected to everybody else somehow. The case of the Russian artist and Valentina surely proves this point. In fact there is no need for six connection. In this case Valentina-Steve-Paul-Misha will do and that is just three. Sadly this Misha Chemiakin is in Paris, otherwise I would have been able to meet him. He is moving to Europe permanently soon.

 

It is just a few minutes after 5 AM and I am up since 3. Obviously I am not a jet setter , it seems that I am a jet lagger. Outside the morning is arriving and the park surrounding my house is covered in the morning haze with the pine trees glistening in the dawn light. It is time for me to have another little sleep otherwise I might fall asleep while discussing some long ago happening. 

 

I had a second sleep, followed by a swim in the indoor pool located in the guesthouse. This is provided for Paul, who swims in it during the winter months, in preparation of which the temperature is kept at 100 degrees F. all year round with the water heated to a comfortable 85 F.

 

Friday 24 hours later. Yesterday I had an interesting two hours being driven by Paul all around his farm of which he is justifiably proud. He used to grow apples on his 15,000 trees but the market collapsed and he started to destroy his orchard. He now grows food for his herd of breeding cattle and hay for his goats, which he breeds with the help of a goat expert. Surprisingly this is a very capital intensive program requiring breeding bucks and special housing although the goats which are not expecting are in fenced fields. Interestingly the useless lamas, purchased by Clara for decoration, have found a use as coyotes are frightened of lamas and thus they are used to safeguard the young goats in the field. They are extremely curious animals and approached us as soon as they saw us.

 

Paul has also started another scheme in growing various berries in a highly intensive fashion being surrounded by 8 ft high fencing to keep the deer out of the berry patches. The deer are a pest here and while driving around in the late afternoon we saw many of them getting ready for raiding the crop of maize and grain. Since they were seen on the Rockefeller fields, Paul was not as angry as he would have been on seeing them on the other side of the road, which belongs to him.

 

In the evening we drove to a nearby town for dinner with the farm manager in charge of the driving. The meal was good, the waiter was loud as was the waitress. It seems to me that they were expected to entertain, be friendly and show their happiness, with service coming in as a close second consideration. When we arrived, we were told that they have not a single table, but found one in about 5 minutes when it seemed that we will move and lo and behold there were three empty non-pre-booked tables within about 10 minutes. It reminded me of a visit to Le Touquey where the proprietor asked if we reserved a table and found space for us as an act of kindness, with us observing not one more guest arriving booked or un-booked after us.  It seems that the restaurant trade is using the same ideas all over the World.

 

I had my usual early morning rise and am looking forward to my swim in the warm pool followed by some consideration as to which of the showers I should be using this morning. Afterwards I have to ring the main residence so that they lock up the dogs. One of the 4 dogs is a vicious guard dog. I see him raving behind a window as I approach the place, while silently praying that the glass will stand up to his throwing his about 50 kg Alsatian body against it. Two of the other dogs look exactly the same as this one, but other than boring their nose into you, they do no harm. The fourth one is a silly little white poodle which yaps non-stop and jumps up into the lap of everybody who is silly enough to sit down. There is another dog I saw, but that belongs to one of the maids who lives in one of the houses in the park. This one is segregated, he is “downstairs” as it were and does not fraternise with the “upstairs” dogs.

 

Saturday. Later today I am flying to Los Angeles. Paul arranged for a man to come here and drive me to JFK airport in one of their Mercedes’ of which they seem to have an abundance in their fleet, quite apart from the vans and trucks which they use on the farm.

 

We stayed at home last night and we had an excellent Hungarian meal cooked by the Jamaican cook. In 1997 when I was here with Joy, the same lady cooked her paprika chicken with “nokkedli” which was by far the best meal we had during our 4 weeks trip in various parts of the States. By the way my relations have two Jamaican ladies on their domestic staff, one of them for the past 27 years, while the other is fairly new, having been here just 18 years. Needless to say that cleaning the house is not part of their job, for that they have various people come who are all get a meal at the kitchen bar, while the owners, the farm manager and the book keeper it at the kitchen table being attended by the Jamaican ladies. Part of the visiting service people are sundry others, including a masseuse 3 times a week and the florist arrives once a week to change the flower arrangement in the many rooms of the main house and also in the guest house.

 

Throughout the houses, in both outdoor and indoor swimming pool, not to mention the ornamental pool with its fountains and along the path’ of the park there are countless pot plants. During past visits I never failed to see 3 or 4 farm workers tending to the garden but on this trip I did not notice any of them. This might be due to the fact that the berry picking takes preference and they are employed more usefully in preparing the orders which cannot be picked and stored, but must be fresh.

 

My next port of call is LA where I am staying with a second cousin whom I have seen just once for ½ an hour during the previous 63 years and her husband. After LA I am going for a week to New Zealand where I hope to see as many of my relations by marriage as is possible, including all the multitude of littlies, some of whom were born since my last visit. I should be back in Sydney of 23^rd, after an eventful 57 days of gallivanting.

 

 Leaving New York had a few tribulations. Cousin Paul arranged with a guy, who works as a gardener in the neighbourhood to take one of his cars and drive me to JFK Airport. Unfortunately Jim lost his way and until you loose your way in NY you have no idea what the definition really means. We found a police car which had a policeman in it and he explained to Jim which way to go and after successfully negotiating many twists and turns we arrived at the airport in spite of the many traffic jams on the way.

 

However America Airlines had a few surprises up their sleeve. There were about 70 people in front of me and they were dealt with by a single clerk, agent or traffic officer. With every check in taking 3 minutes that would have taken 3 ½ hours, but even that was wrong since some people seemed to take ample time to tell jokes, or at least so it seemed by the frustrated mass who observed the people at the counter laughing. Finally the number of people dealing with the queue was increased by first 100% and later by more to as many as a total 3 people, but of course by the time I was dealt with I was told that it is too late for that plane and I will be loaded onto the next one. (Frankly I doubt if any passenger on AA travels on the plane as booked, how can they unless they arrive 4 hours early to check in?)

 

Your suffering is not over as yet, because you than have to haul your luggage across the hall to an X-Ray machine, wait until your luggage is cleared by it and than you can go to be checked out with your hand luggage. Here you have to take your shoes and jacket off and finally, just after you get dressed you are asked to step aside and you are being frisked by some experts. (This is not a complaint, I like to feel secure!)

 

I had some problems of contacting by phone my relations in LA, but by the time I joined the passengers and boarded my plane I managed the intricacies of the American telephone system and was able to advise them of the delay.

 

Sitting beside me was a guy from Belfast with a delicious Irish brogue and I am afraid that we were chatting non-stop. He was going with his wife and two sons to join his third son for a holiday and they too were on a later flight than originally booked. He was a QC and a most interesting travelling companion. The almost 5 hours crossing of the Continent passed very quickly.

 

My relation and her husband awaited me in LA and drove to their home. I was given their spare bedroom/study and I was able to unpack. They cared for me as if I would be their lost son and made arrangements for my entertainment as well as any travel agency.

 

On Sunday we started off to visit the Getty Museum, a fantastic bunch of buildings perched on the top of a mountain overlooking the sea. You need to drive there, but once you park your car at the bottom of the hill a small automatic tram takes you to the top where a series of modern buildings house an immense collection of art, donated by an art loving billionaire (or was he a trillionaire?) whose son and grandson is still busy in trying to dissipate what was left to them after money being lavished on this and some other museums.

 

To describe the place would be extremely difficult, but I hope that the few photos I took will give an indication of the buildings and its size. As regards the collection of paintings, let me say that those Impressionists must have produced their art on a large scale, because the Getty had an even larger quantity than did the Hermitage and there are still a few in the Neue Pinakotheke and the Tate, not to mention that some must have been left over for the galleries in Paris. (Who knows maybe the Courtould collection has some also.)

 

Next we had lunch in the Rivera Golf Club where Edward and Martha are members. Their Sunday brunch is well frequented and the buffet table was immense. After filling yourself on a help yourself basis they bring you a choice of warm dishes, - but who can give justice to such a spread. I certainly gave up quite early and thus missed out on a line of sweets, which seemed endless. I was sorry to have had no space left.

 

After my afternoon sleep we were off quite early in the Mercedes to a parking lot, where we left the car and boarded a bus to take us to the Hollywood Bowl. I have heard such a lot about it that I thought I know, but I had no idea. We were carrying our food with us as did the others of the audience. The crowds from the car parks and bus stops were immense and we had to go up some hills to get to the actual place were the seats were arranged in a semicircle. To help us there were escalators and moving footways and we were confronted with an enormous hillside of seats holding some 12,000 people but the number might have been 16,000 – I am not quite sure. Let’s agree that there were lots of people other than the three of us.

 

 The program consisted of a concert performance of La Traviata and to introduce it the conductor John Mauceri explained the history and the plot of the opera with delicious humour and in a way which was entertaining and informative. The singers were very good and what was excellent was the amplification of the sound of orchestra and singers. Without it they could not have been heard in such an immense open air auditorium. The shell of the bowl was lit in various colour schemes and changed periodically, which I personally found a bit un-necessary, but who am I to criticise – the overall performance was 100 % better than I expected.

 

The crowd seemed to move out of the place in an orderly and good humoured fashion, thanks no doubt to the many guides who were stationed at strategic points along the way and we quickly settled in the correct bus to take us back to our car park.

 

Edward took the day of on Monday to be our chauffeur again but we managed to omit a visit to Pasadena where a large collection of an ordinary billionaire (not one in the Getty class) has an excellent collection. Instead we went to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art where cousin Martha has been a volunteer guide for some 23 years. LACMA is situated in “Museum Row” where museums and galleries are side by side. The one we visited is quite contemporary and need not be ashamed when being compared with such monuments to art as the Getty. Several buildings connected by a courtyard give quite a grand view.

 

We saw a Modigliani exhibition (including some other Montparnasse painters and sculptors) and I recognised one of the paintings from the Guggenheim Museum as the one which was on loan in the NSW Art Gallery in Sydney. Another special exhibition we saw was entitled Ghengis Khan, reminding me of the Mongolian Restaurant of the same name in Chatswood. (Must go there to see how the name is spellt!)

 

Edward’s office was near so we called in there and having seen some mementoes on his wall, where photos of the surrender of the Japanese forces in New Guinea were shown. I was intrigued to find out the connection between this Berlin born American and the Australian armistice ceremony in 1945 and during dinner I heard his story. In brief, in 1933 he was sent to school in Paris and eventually to college in England. As a 19 year old he was interned and on the well known hell ship Dunerra sent to an internment camp to Hay in Australia. Eventually he volunteered to serve in the Australian Army and was stationed in New Guinea when the Japanese surrendered. He was offered Australian citizenship but he wanted to join his brothers and sister in USA and he sailed to re-join them.

 

It is Tuesday now and later today I am boarding a Qantas flight to New Zealand, where I plan to be for a week, visiting my relations in Hamilton, Taupo and Auckland. While flying to Auckland I am crossing the International date line and will have missed out on having a 16^th July this year. It is a pity that it is not my birthday on that day.