SMITHSONIAN: The Art of Video Games

The Art of Video Games
Through September 30, 2012
American Art Museum

SAN FRANCISCO: The MADE

The Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment
San Francisco’s newest museum funded through Kickstarter

App Around the World: Rio

Scottish Highland Gathering & Games

WHAT: The Caledonian Club Of San Francisco Presents
the 145th Scottish Highland Gathering & Games!
W H E N : September 4 & 5, 2010
W H E R E : Alameda County Fairgrounds, Pleasanton (maps & directions)

M O R E : Bus and Bart Schedule To The Games
A T T R A C T I O N S : OPENING CEREMONIES | GRANDSTAND SHOW | PIPE BANDS | U.S. MARINE BAND | HEAVY EVENTS (ATHLETICS) | SCOTTISH DANCING | IRISH PAVILION | ENTERTAINMENT| CELTIC HERITAGE| LIVING HISTORY| GATHERING OF THE CLANS | FOR THE YOUNGSTERS | BIRDS OF PREY | SHEEP DOG TRIALS | CLYDESDALE HORSE TEAM | HIGHLAND CATTLE | SOCCER AND MORE | RUGBY & SHINTY | VENDORS | FOOD & BEVERAGE | BRITISH MOTOR CAR CAVALCADE | KILTED MILE | WHISKY TASTING | FRIDAY NIGHT CONCERT | SATURDAY NIGHT FREE PARTY

+ frogmom: Scottish Highland Games in Pleasanton: Tartan, Bagpipes and Haggis

FESTIVAL ITINERARIES: Aloha from San Francisco

W H A T : The 16th Annual San Francisco Aloha Festival
W H E N : Saturday & Sunday, August 7 & 8, 2010, 10am – 5pm
W H E R E : San Francisco Presidio, directions

The Pacific Islanders of the San Francisco Bay Area offer their talents in music and dance during this FREE ADMISSION, two-day festival of arts held during the first full weekend of every August. Entertainment highlights include Pacific Islander music as well as Polynesian dance. The festival will also feature arts & crafts vendors, island cuisine, educational exhibits and workshops, and an `Ohana Korner with simple games for the kids! This is an alcohol-free event.

HOLIDAY ITINERARY: Hanukkah Fun & Festivities

W H A T : Hanukkah Hullabaloo
W H E N : Sunday, December 13, 3:00 – 5:30 PM
W H E R E : T’enna Preschool
Oshman Family Jewish Community Center, Palo Alto

M O R E:

• Crafts (shrinky dinks, menorahs, decorating picture frames)
• Games (bingo, latke flipping, dreidel spinning & many more)
• Eat Traditional treats (latkes & sufganiot)

RSVP: Cody Schaffner
FEE:

• Adults: $14 M, $17 NM
• Children 12 & under: $7 M, $10 NM
• Children 2 years & under: FREE

W H A T : Hanukkah Candle Lighting and Hebrew Sing Along
W H E N : Wednesday, December 16, 7:30 pm
W H E R E : Oshman Family Jewish Community Center, Palo Alto

Join us for the lighting of the sixth Hanukkah candle, in the courtyard in front of the Theater. We will light candles, eat Sufganyot (jelly doughnuts), and sing Hanukkah songs in Hebrew.
Wednesday, December 16, 6:30 pm
The event is open to the public, and free of charge

The candle lighting event will be followed by a night of Hebrew Sing Along, hosted by our own musical group, Sheer Ba-Emek.
Room E104
Wednesday, December 16, 7:30 pm
$8 M, $10 NM

BARCELONA underground … FIGUERES highlights

Back to Passeig de Gràcia railway station, right in time for an express train to Dali‘s Figueres. We even had time for a short visit to Casa Amatller‘s kitchen and a snack. Only that the underground cafe clock had the wrong time, so we didn’t understand why our express train was just leaving the station… another missed train, ouch!

After almost a underground hour wait we are on our train trip to Figueres and everything went fine from here. Well, almost, the train back just had an hour delay, so another wait for a train turned into relaxing time.

Train details apart, we were only sorry we had such little time in Figueres, since it’s a very nice and walkable town. We walked straight to Dali’s Theatre-Museum and that was a nice and playful stroll, had a yummy snack at a pastry shop, discovered the Toy Museum of Catalonia but didn’t have the time to visit so adding it to the wish list, and closed the Dali itinerary of this trip at the largest surrealistic object in the world.

More online itineraries for exploring Figueres, extending the visit at the Virtual Museum and enhancing the persistence of memory.

Jewellery Museum: It’s My Day!

It’s Monday, not a sun day anymore.
But that’s fine in London where there are so many museums for kids!
Ah, and to make it sweet for families, most of London museums are still free.

It’s pretty early for us before 8AM, and it’s not raining yet. Our place in Chelsea makes it perfect to explore both ways, so we decide to take a morning stroll to Buckingham Palace before the rain starts. It was a nice and peaceful walk, it feels like there’s nobody in London, the bank holiday weekend seems the perfect time to visit London! But there was no guard changing ceremony that day, and that’s just another reason to come back to London!

Still no rain, so we continued our walk to Big Ben since it is a synonym for all towers in the world for our little one. Like many things in England, Big Ben is old, and its clock dial needs a good clean in time for its 150th anniversary party, here’s a virtual tour and a fun fact game: Race Against Chime.

Still no sun, so we decide to …mind the gap… to the “Jewellery Museum“. For our 5-going-on-6-year-young-girl this was a MUST destination, or in her own words: “It’s My Day!“
We definitely all enjoyed Victoria and Albert Museum and we’ll visit again every time we’ll have a chance! Especially since we could not get out of the Jewellery Gallery and there are so many nice collections in this museum! I’m not sure I understand all this excessive interest in jewels at this young age, maybe we have a budding jewellery designer because we couldn’t leave the design-a-ring screen for quite a while. Tried it yesterday online again, sent rings to all friends, and learned to read, type and spell some names and words in this design process. Here are more links for kids interested in jewellery design.
To make it perfect for families with kids, V&A has a lovely garden where you can have a picnic and a splash.

It’s hard not to spend a full day at V&A, but we wanted to get an idea at the Wallace and Gromit exhibition too. That was a fun cracking idea, and here are more online cracking challenges.

Finally tired after a full play day we went back to Chelsea to have a family dinner at La Famiglia. Hearty italian food, best panna cotta , kids loved fiori di zucca, but not the pasta, so yes, we might try it again if we’re in the neighborhood.

One last night bus trip to Trafalgar Square, good night London!