It was another windy day when we got up in Galveston. Off toward the Houston - Johnson Space Center. http://www.spacecenter.org/ I’ll get it off my chest right away; we pay for NASA with our taxes but we still pay $20 each to get in the Center.
We took the Tram around the sight and saw the training center for the astronauts; they practice on full sized shuttle parts. A couple pictures will show the immensity of one building.
Then off to a mock-up of the Saturn V what a giant of a spaceship. You walked along the massive rocket and saw the parts of the craft, piece by piece.
Now we went to center it this has many exhibits. It was fun to see the space vehicle mocked up on the moon.
We sat in a mock-up of mission control. A lady briefed us on the present mission STS 123, where it was when we stepped in to the room. It was headed off the east coast of South America about mid-Brazil. When we left it was 7,000 miles further, over central Europe, around Czech Republic. Maybe I am partial.
We headed into town and for a lunch spot. We were around Rice University campus. We found Hungry’s café & bistro since 1975. Shirleen had a burger and fries, I a Poblano Chicken Breast, grilled chicken breast with poblano, mushroom cream sauce. Served with garlic mashed potatoes & French green beans. http://www.hungryscafe.com/ in Rice Village. Good taste, fries home cut, poblano sauce tasty.
Shirleen had read about the Byzantine Fresco Chapel Museum around Rice U. This Museum displays the dome and the apse of a small Byzantine votive chapel of the thirteenth century. We are always interested in frescos since our first Italy tour. http://www.menil.org/byzantine.html From the handout: the Chapel Museum is the repository in the United States for the only intact Byzantine frescoes in the entire western hemisphere. These masterworks from the 13th century -- a dome and an apse -- were ripped and stolen out of a chapel near Lysi in the Turkish occupied section of Cyprus in the 1980's, cut into pieces, and smuggled off the island by thieves prepared to sell them piece by piece. The fresco fragments were rescued from the thieves by The Menil Foundation with the knowledge and approval of the Church of Cyprus, the rightful owner of the frescoes. The Menil Foundation then funded a painstaking two-year restoration of the paintings. The wall surrounding the chapel was made from the stones of the original chapel in Cyprus.
The Lysi dome represents Christ Pantokrator, “All Soverign”. It defines space with no beginning and no end. Absolutely frontality has driven time out of space. His gaze is transworldly: not looking but seeing all.
In the apse the Virgin, flanked by archangels Gabriel and Michael, stands in the ornate posture.
We then took a stroll through Hermann Park, by Rice. Many beautiful BLOOMING flowers, yes they bloom in March. They had a small Oriental garden.
Peace Garden with statues from all over the world memorializing those who tried hardest for Peace. No GW here. - jerr
Mahatma Gandhi
Dr. Martin Luther King
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