Category: South Africa

Thanks for visiting our blog, we wish you a Happy Winter! and a very Merry Christmas!!

Loren’s and my week was one of multiple encounters of history. We spent one evening in Niles, in Fremont, California. We drove through the hilly curves of Niles Canyon in the dark to arrive at Essanay Theater, a museum devoted to the Silent Film era. We had two tickets from our gift exchange at a holiday party last week, and we chose to use them on a Silent Comedy night there. We learned from the curator that Charlie Chaplin had made five movies at the Essanay studio in Niles, including The Tramp released in 1915, which had catapulted him to stardom. That evening we saw him in His New Job, followed by “Buster” Keaton in Cops, Charlie Chase in There Ain’t No Santa Claus, and, Laurel and Hardy in Big Business. What was also of interest was the Civil War sword used by Chaplin in His New Job, and, the enormous old time camera that the museum owns. 

Another highlight this week was when Loren’s Mom enjoyed a couple of former colleagues who came for a visit bearing gifts of holiday food.

Another day, Loren and I returned to the University of California Botanical Gardens, and to avoid the drizzling rain, we visited a greenhouse with lots of cactus on display. One from Madagascar especially caught my attention, one from Mexico caught Loren’s eye.

The main reason for our return to the gardens was to indulge in a midday Winter Solstice Sound Bath, in which we were treated to an hour of singing bowls, gongs and chimes. It was held in historic Julia Morgan Hall opened in 1911. The event was a thoroughly relaxing experience to mark the turning from the longest night towards the longest day. What was noteworthy was we arrived in wet weather, and emerged to sun and partly blue skies. The relaxation reminded me of a similar experience Loren and I had when we visited a spa in Acqui Terme, Italy.

As we left the gardens, we found raindrops clinging to a web built on a cycad – the type we saw in Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden in Cape Town, an ancient species of plant.

Afterwards Loren and I enjoyed a lunch date with a former coworker of Loren’s at the Claremont Hotel. This was my first visit to this prestigious hotel built in 1915. Loren reminisced about a training he attended here when he first began working. Our views of the San Francisco skyline and Golden Gate Bridge improved as the sun sank lower in the sky.

After lunch Loren and I poked around to find the hotel’s art advertised in a brochure on our table. The most alluring was in the Hillary Tenzing room, celebrating Sir Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and Nepalese Sherpa Tenzing Norgay’s ascent of Sagarmatha – Mount Everest, which Loren and I also saw in Nepal. 

Our week finished with a gorgeous view of the full moon rising over Castro Valley.