Everything really is bigger in Texas: the expressways, the buildings, the distances between things, and even the event itself was on a bigger scale than anything I'd seen in a long time. It was, in short, a wonderful weekend celebrating the wedding of my cousin Travis Purdin.
The rehearsal dinner was held in the Ft. Worth Stockyards, a truly elegant affair with candles flickering from low tables, a delicious avocado bar, and. . . a barbecue fountain. Only in Texas, no? The most foreign element of it for me was the bull, Big Jake, that was there for photo purposes. Somehow my parents talked me in to taking a picture on it, despite the fact that I was wearing a skirt.
The best part of it for me, though, was finally meeting Judy Purdin, Travis's mother, in person after corresponding with her for some time. I had some vague memories from my aunt Lisa's wedding years ago, but that was before I knew her. Meeting my great-grandmother's sister June was also a highlight, having seen her picture many times, but never her face in person.
Before the afternoon ceremony, we drove out to Keene, home of Southwestern University. Dad has many memories there (and I never knew he'd had anything to do with it), and it's always nice to get a better mental image of a place I hear about from other students. The most striking feature of the place to me was the library--it's a tall, elegant building, though I couldn't see any of its actual stacks through the windows.
The ceremony itself was in a big, beautiful Baptist church on Travis Road. It was beautiful in a way European churches aren't--it was airy and well-lit, with lots of clean, white surfaces. The bridesmaids were beautiful in brown, and the bride's dress was a lovely, intricate number with a long veil and sparkly beading on the embroidered details. Travis's vest was white to match her dress, though his groomsmen wore brown, also. I thought that was a nice touch. It was a lovely ceremony, though I think the Bible boy stole the show--he kept on peeking out at everyone and making cute little funny faces.
At the reception, everything was a harmony of pink and chocolate brown. The happy pair's initials were lit on the floor of the reception hall, and the cakes were probably the most elegant part of it, very modern and geometrical, yet lovely. The bride's cake had intricate piping all over it, a complicated design of scrolls and flourishes.
After goodbyes were said, we were back to Pleasant Hill to get ready for the school year, which started the following day. Since then, we've been pretty busy as a family. Choir Retreat, for example, was the weekend right after school started. The group sounds good this year. After seeing them do so well right off of such an early retreat, I think they have the makings of a great year in them.
For a week or so I've been at PUC, working at the library. In fact, I'm writing from the library now. I apologize that it's been so long since I've written; it's been a busy time, as you can see. I could write more about this last weekend at home, but I figured this was long enough already. Hopefully you'll all forgive me for this long gap; computer woes don't help anyone publish things on time. I wish everyone a great school year, full of great learning opportunities.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
From Italy to California
I would like to apologize for being a very bad blogger by not writing squat since I returned to the States over a month ago. I've been traveling in this time, but that's a lame excuse and I know it. In my defense, my computer went AWOL on me by running out of hard drive space for pictures and, for a while, did not let me sign in to my own email account. Thanks to how much material there is, I've decided to do this in two parts, so please be patient with me.
Ravenna and Bologna are, at this point, very old news, so briefly, I'd like to say that Ravenna had absolutely amazing golden tile mosaics. There's so many awesome gold mosaics in this city that they have a specialized school there just for mosaic restoration. Bologna is famous for its incredibly awesome food, which I enjoyed very much after seeing their cathedral. Their cathedral is quite large, having been halted at some point in its construction for the crime of threatening to get larger than St. Peter's Basilica. I lit a candle there, even though I'm not Catholic, because it was the last cathedral I saw on that trip with real wax candles, not those nasty little electric things.
I did attend a lovely concert in Dante's church in Florence later that week, an oboe-soprano-organ combination. It was a nice prelude to seeing a then-popular film in an old theatre palace, the Odeon, which I recommend to anyone who enjoys old theaters and seeing films in original sound. It was a lovely break from the pressure of getting my project, death masks of Valjean and Javert from Les Miserables. Although the Valjean mask didn't turn out as cool as I wanted it to be, I feel like I properly blew the class out of the water with my presentation.
My return to the US was a whirlwind of visits with family and friends I hadn't seen all year. I enjoyed these very much, from seeing my aunt and uncle's new house in Fish Camp, to visiting the rest of my Spencer relatives in Desert Hot Springs, to a lovely family gathering in Napa with my Mom's side of the family where I swear, the bruchetta was even better than the Italian stuff I'd had shortly before.
In many ways, returning was a relief--many convenient things were at my fingertips once more, like cell phones and waiters who understood the word "vegetarian" and air conditioning in buildings. A number of things, though, were like visiting a foreign country all over again. I got frustrated at the ugly aesthetics of American paper, missing my A4 sheets wistfully. The lack of buses and trains was a bit disconcerting as well, and going back on to the American diet was a reverse culture shock as well.
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