| Welcome to Monterey My remembances of this, most incredible of California towns, seems to be somewhat limited - limited, that is, to all the travelling around the area that we did. During my studies at the Presidio, Susan was working out in Salinas. With just one vehicle, we tended to do a lot of back-and-forth driving. As a result, we saw an awful lot of this area. |
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I'd imagine that these old fish oil tanks are probably about all that's left of Cannery Row, at least
as I knew it. Even when I was there, the city was trying to "modernize" the place, which would
have taken all the charm and interest from it. Now, 30 years later, I probably wouldn't even know
it. That would really be a shame.
as I knew it. Even when I was there, the city was trying to "modernize" the place, which would
have taken all the charm and interest from it. Now, 30 years later, I probably wouldn't even know
it. That would really be a shame.
| Fisherman's Wharf Probably our most favorite "hang-out" spot on the entire Monterey Peninsula. These two pictures really are representative of all my memories of the wharf. Pic on the right, the orange building used to host a little "hole in the wall" restaurant called "The Captain's Gig" where we got the best fish & chips we ever had anywhere. Great place! |
But touring around was what we did during the off-duty periods, even though we did a lot. On-duty, the
story was quite different.
First, there were the long days in class. Taking language courses in high school or college isn't nearly what
it is in a place like DLI. This was my site for intermediate/advanced Russian. The classes were 6 hours
long and nothing but Russian was spoken there. Study one thing for 6 hours a day and you will learn it,
one way or another. And then there were the inevitable side trips to the theatre, where we saw a fair
number of pretty decent Russian films. One film I absolutely NEVER will forget was "Nicolas &
Alexandra", the story of the last Russian Czar and what happened to them. It's now 30 years later and the
ending scenes where the family is being shot is as vivid in my mind as it was when we left the theater.
One thing you find out at class is that they've had a pretty barbaric past, even recently.
story was quite different.
First, there were the long days in class. Taking language courses in high school or college isn't nearly what
it is in a place like DLI. This was my site for intermediate/advanced Russian. The classes were 6 hours
long and nothing but Russian was spoken there. Study one thing for 6 hours a day and you will learn it,
one way or another. And then there were the inevitable side trips to the theatre, where we saw a fair
number of pretty decent Russian films. One film I absolutely NEVER will forget was "Nicolas &
Alexandra", the story of the last Russian Czar and what happened to them. It's now 30 years later and the
ending scenes where the family is being shot is as vivid in my mind as it was when we left the theater.
One thing you find out at class is that they've had a pretty barbaric past, even recently.
But the classes weren't all just grueling work either. Sometimes they were pretty crazy. As we got better at speaking the language,
we started to "fracture" it, usually driving the teachers crazy. I can remember a couple of the fractures - but both are kinda x-rated,
think I'll just pass them by. There was one, though, that's printable; "vysokij tam". "Vysokij" means "high", "tam" means "there" -
put them together and you have the English - in Russian it makes no sense at all. I've spoken to a fair number of foreigners over the
years, explaining the concept to them of "fracturing" a language - Americans seem to be the only ones that do it in class. I wonder
why? Are we THAT strange and different from everybody else?
Two teachers in particular, Mr Hiskie (who spoke no English) and my favorite teacher EVER, Mrs Galena Antonovna Sergeeva,
stand out as being nothing short of spectacular.
Mr Hiskie was a bit of a strange sort of guy. He'd been in this country since WW2 (the great fatherland war to a Russian) and never
did learn English, or so he said. I still have a hard time swallowing that. However, if we had a question that we couldn't ask in
Russian due to lack of vocabulary, we had to ask it in Spanish. Lot of fun, some of us learned more Spanish than Russian.
Galena Antonovna, she was a veritable queen. She actually served in the Soviet Army during WW2, but she didn't like to discuss
what she did - I always figured it must have been pretty horrible. Anyway, more than anyone, she was responsible for me making it
through all the classes successfully.
Anyway...
we started to "fracture" it, usually driving the teachers crazy. I can remember a couple of the fractures - but both are kinda x-rated,
think I'll just pass them by. There was one, though, that's printable; "vysokij tam". "Vysokij" means "high", "tam" means "there" -
put them together and you have the English - in Russian it makes no sense at all. I've spoken to a fair number of foreigners over the
years, explaining the concept to them of "fracturing" a language - Americans seem to be the only ones that do it in class. I wonder
why? Are we THAT strange and different from everybody else?
Two teachers in particular, Mr Hiskie (who spoke no English) and my favorite teacher EVER, Mrs Galena Antonovna Sergeeva,
stand out as being nothing short of spectacular.
Mr Hiskie was a bit of a strange sort of guy. He'd been in this country since WW2 (the great fatherland war to a Russian) and never
did learn English, or so he said. I still have a hard time swallowing that. However, if we had a question that we couldn't ask in
Russian due to lack of vocabulary, we had to ask it in Spanish. Lot of fun, some of us learned more Spanish than Russian.
Galena Antonovna, she was a veritable queen. She actually served in the Soviet Army during WW2, but she didn't like to discuss
what she did - I always figured it must have been pretty horrible. Anyway, more than anyone, she was responsible for me making it
through all the classes successfully.
Anyway...
| This shot of the wharf was taken from the beach - sure used to spend a lot of time down there, playing with the starfish and other critters, even getting the occasional hit from a jellyfish (damn, they hurt!). Great place just to live easy. I've tried to transplant the "ice plant" from those beaches - they only seem to want to live in California. |
| Cannery Row, where-ever, it was out to Carmel-By-The-Sea, or the Carmel valley, or Big Sur ---- ah, so many places. Pic's coming as I get them scanned in. |
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