Showing posts with label photographs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label photographs. Show all posts

August 30, 2010

Say.....

Cheese!


Take One


Take Two


Take Three


Ta-Da!

June 13, 2010

June 12 of 12

Hi there! Miss me? People have been asking for photos, so I figured the 12th was a good day to post again. I know that everyone wants to see the new housing, but right now none of our own stuff is in it, so there's really no point. Once we receive our sea shipment and get the place personalized a bit I'll post photos of the house.

For now, here is our 12 of 12 June. All photos were taken in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Russian Federation. My camera was still on Spain time, since I had never switched it upon our return to Houston, so the times are approximate. Check out Chad's site to see what everyone else did!

7:30 - Good morning!

11:20 - Apparently we were sleepy this morning because for the first time in forever we fell asleep during Mama's exercise.

11:21 - The view from our front porch; fabulous weather this week!

11:22 - I love these trees; they do change color and lose their needles, but they look fabulous right now because they've all come in and are bright green.

12:10 - A neighbor has a new puppy named Wolfie. Miss Thing really enjoys playing/petting/hugging and as you can see here, feeding the good doggie.

12:15 - A friend of ours has an 8-month old. PJ loves to watch Miss Thing and Wolfie play.

13:15 - Colors! They keep us busy while we wait for our weekend lunch. Mama and Daddy have breakfast and the girl eats chicken or peanut butter and jelly.

13:45 - We LOVE to play "basketballs!" As in, we ask to play every day.

14:00 - This drill? It is apparently for squishing noses. Noses that are sniffing. I have no clue.

17:30 - BATH! We love this and go "swimming" every time.

18:15 - An after bath after nap snack with Daddy. We are watching the inaugural winter X-games on the television. Anyone know what year that was from? The shows here are behind a bit sometimes...

19:00 - Russian Dinner night at the community center.

The best thing was the meat-stuffed Cabbage and the Blini's (crepes, but not sweet, which are stuffed with anything...ours were stuffed with cabbage and apples and were quite delicious). Also present are stuffed pork, parsley potatoes, cold cucumber soup, and three cold salads: Russian (meat, potatoes, and carrots), cabbage (like a cold slaw with extra onion and different dressing) and Olympia (ham, egg, cheese, cucumber).

It was all very yummy; one of the best meals I have enjoyed there. Hope you enjoyed our day!

November 16, 2009

Salzburg, Austria: Schloss Hellbrunn

Many places in Europe are known for their Christmas markets in early December. Not to mention the music performances that are available all over town. Schloss Hellbrunn was one location for a market. It was built to be the summer day palace for the Archbishop of Salzburg, and since he always returned to Salzburg for the evenings, there isn't even a bedroom on the premises.

Another big draw are the grounds. There are trick fountains that get you very wet, but they are only open in the warmer months. Usually there are also tours of the palace itself, but since we were there during Christmastime we instead were able to walk through the rooms and see craftsmen and women making a variety of things by hand. It was very interesting.


This is the courtyard. The green stand in the center is selling warm drinks and food. Mostly mulled wine I imagine. Had we not had our rather fuzzy experience the first evening, we may have indulged; it was certainly cold enough for it.

I am not sure if it is clear in the above photo, but it had begun to rain by this point. I have one photo that is all umbrellas. What amazed Rocket Man and I most about this was that every individual had their own umbrella. No one shared. This made for some very interesting navigation, especially in the small winding streets in old town Salzburg. To say that we were poked a few times is definitely an understatement. On the plus side, neither of us had umbrellas, so not only could we move faster, but we were covered quite a bit by everyone else's umbrella.


The inside of the palace was decorated for Christmas, including a few trees like the one above. We always use artificial trees, but the real ones are beautiful. I didn't feel comfortable taking many other photos inside since there were so many people making and selling original work.

We walked around the grounds a little bit before the rain got very heavy. I am sure some of you recognize this gazebo from a rather popular film. There is a tour for The Sound of Music that many people encouraged us to take. The above photo is of the gazebo now located at Schloss Hellbrunn that was recreated in Hollywood (larger) for filming.

We chose not to do the tour for a few reasons. For starters, Rocket Man isn't exactly into that sort of thing. Another is that much of the movie is a fabrication; the family did not do what the movie claims, and the people of Salzburg don't understand how people believe it to be true as it was not. The von Trapps did sing as a family, but the entire storyline about his being forced to join Hitler's army and all that results is made up. Hollywood chose picturesque Salzburg as their location, but some sets were created (like the cemetery scene) while many other portions were filmed outside of the city.

More than anything, we wanted to see Salzburg for what it has to offer. We wanted to know its history and see it for what it is, not for what someone imagined. We had a really good time. There was a lot of rain our final day, not to mention a ton of people, but as we had seen most of what interested us the first two days, we did not mind. We spent our afternoon purchasing gifts for family members and finding warm, dry places for lunch and dinner. In all, it was a very good trip and I would suggest going to a European Christmas Market town in early December to anyone.

Tomorrow? I have no idea what I'll write about...but something, so stay tuned!

November 15, 2009

Salzburg, Austria: Untersberg

On our final day in Austria, we decided that we would get out of the city for a while. Included in our Salzburg card was a trip up the Untersberg as well as entry to Schloss Hellbrunn, both of which are a little ways away. We had to pay for the second half of the bus ride to the lift up the mountain, but that was less than two euros each.

Our drive through the countryside was not too long, and we were able to see some very quaint small towns along the way. It would be very easy for someone to stay in one of those towns and still get into Salzburg whenever they please. If you were looking for a place to stay that is very quaint and has less people, it would definitely be the way to go.

The day was shaping up as chilly and cloudy; there was a lot of low cloud cover our last day. This meant that we didn't get the best views while up on the Alps, but you can't control the weather, so it is what it is. We still had a lot of fun up there.


The building above is where you go to get your lift tickets and then ride up. I think the man on the side of the building is pretty funny. We headed inside, obtained our tickets and then had a couple of coffees while we waited for the lift to return and pick us up.

Just before going in, I took some photos of the area around the lift, and this one? It is for Jenky:


I would show you what our view out of the car was like, but basically it was a photo of a window out of which one could see nothing but white foggy clouds. Oh, yes and occasionally some rocks came at us out of nowhere. The visibility was only five feet at most, so we couldn't see much at all aside from the car itself.


I probably shouldn't even have had my camera out up there, as the air was very moist and the temperature was definitely below what we had been experiencing down in the valley. Rocket Man took the camera for a photo of me and then he tried to get a photo of the nothingness that was our view. Imagine whitish-gray. That was it. He pointed the camera, messed with the zoom a bit and declared that it wouldn't focus.

Um...yeah...

'Cause there was nothing for it to focus on.


There were a couple of men up there who were planning to hike to the next station, which in decent weather, is supposed to be quite a nice thing to do. Considering the weather and also the fact that my leather shoes had very slick soles, there was no way we were going anywhere. We did walk a tiny ways uphill away from the station and to get back, I had to walk right behind Rocket Man and basically let his feet stop mine from sliding all over the place.

Good times.


Everything up there was frozen. Pine bushes, leaves, and every other thing you can imagine. We did notice the markers for the trail, which are painted to look like the Austrian flag.


After just a little time, we were frozen as well. My hair was completely stiff and even Rocket Man's eyelashes were frozen. We took refuge in the lift station and waited for the car to take us back down to the bus.


From there we took the bus back towards town but got off at Schloss Hellbrunn. We saw some crafters making all sorts of things by hand and also the gazebo that was created in Hollywood for The Sound of Music. More on that tomorrow!

November 14, 2009

Salzburg, Austria: Veggie Pizza

So.

Our dinner on day two in Salzburg.

We had a very busy day, full once again of walking here, there and everywhere to see all that we could see. That evening, we were looking for a place to eat.

When we visited London, I made reservations and/or arrangements for dinner for every night that we would be there because it is such a large place and I wanted to know where we had to be each night so that we would actually manage to get there. In Salzburg, I made no such plans. This was in part because the area was so much smaller and also because I thought we would decide once we got there.

In a way, that was a mistake. In another, it was great as we found some really good food by just choosing a place based on the menu outside. Unfortunately, the December holiday we choose to travel on was one that much of Europe also chose...and quite a few came with us. By our second night, restaurants were filling up and we weren't having a lot of luck for eating, especially over in the old town.

We walked all OVER that area and found no place that had room. We went across the river to the Linzergasse area (major shopping and newer) to look around. There were sausage stands/restaurants everywhere we looked, but of COURSE Rocket Man won't eat THAT.

Duh.

So we became more and more hungry and more and more tired which made for a more and more irritable version of us. Since Rocket Man refused any place with sausages or the like, I chose a stand that sold these:


Mmm - Can you smell it? I got to watch the man make it from the street. We managed to communicate about what I wanted on it and how spicy he should make it.


Man, oh man did it smell good and taste good. All in all, it hit the spot.


While I suggested to Rocket Man that he get one as well, just without the mayo-looking sauce (which is actually YOGURT, which he LIKES), he refused. Instead he took a look at the menu, which was very limited, and chose a vegetable pizza.

Okay.

That sounds normal enough.

The man running the stand (hole in the wall) informed us that he had to make it fresh. Fresh! It will take a few minutes because he must get the fresh vegetables and make the pizza for us!

So, we are waiting.

Then he insists that we come inside to wait. He feels bad that we are waiting for his Fresh! Vegetable Pizza and that we are standing outside in the cold while we do so. And by insist, he really insists that we come inside. I really think it would have offended him if we had stayed outside.

We go in, and the hole in the wall place has a couple of tables and a few locals who obviously spend a lot of time in this place. They are smoking like ca-razy, so we are really excited about how our clothes and winter coats are going to smell once we leave.

We wait a while, with old scruffy men looking at us like we are a little off our rockers, and finally the Fresh! Vegetable Pizza is ready.

We pay, thank the man and then hike back over to our hotel to eat our dinners. As you can see from the photos above, mine was fabulous and delicious. It was huge and I couldn't even eat it all.

Rocket Man's pizza, on the other hand...well:


Oh, yeah. Your eyes do not deceive you. Those are green beans, corn and carrots on that Fresh! Vegetable Pizza. Basically, it looked like he took a bag of frozen veggies (and we all know how yummy those taste) and put it on there with some sauce and cheese.

Oh, and the sauce was very reminiscent of Spaghettio's...he didn't even finish one slice.

Yum.

Let's just say that Rocket Man learned his lesson about that.

And now we all know why those scruffy old men were looking at us like we were ca-razy.

'Cause seriously - who gets a vegetable pizza at a Döner Kebab stand?!?

November 13, 2009

Salzburg, Austria: Around Town

Each morning, Rocket Man and I would eat breakfast in our hotel (a decent included breakfast is usually one thing we look for) and then head off into town towards our first destination. Depending on where we crossed the river, we could see a variety of buildings and views. The first post on Austria showed you what it looked like if we took the bridge across to the old town further away from our hotel. This first photo shows what we saw when we crossed over very close to our hotel and then took a river-walk to the old town:


The buildings above are built halfway into the rock. I imagine that they have excellent temperatures inside. In Spain, people choose to live in cave houses because they provide warmer temps in the winter and much cooler ones in the summer.

On our second day, after we visited the gardens at Schloss Mirabel and the Baroque Museum nearby, we took some time to go here:


This building is where Mozart and his family lived. It is not where he was born (you can visit there as well; it is in the old town), but it is where he spent more time. There was a good presentation of family portraits, musical instruments, and general information about the Mozart family. Since most people only hear/know about Amadeus, it is a good way to learn about more members of the very musical family.


There are a variety of ways to get around Salzburg. One of the easiest is to walk. The city does experience something called string rain, which is rain that falls not in drops, but in never ending strings of water. We experienced quite a bit of it our last day there, and were very happy that there is an excellent trolley-bus system that runs on the cables pictured above.

One rather fun thing about being in Europe during the holiday season is the chance to see how other cultures celebrate; there are many different traditions and it is interesting to compare them to our own. I am sure you know that there are different versions of Father Christmas everywhere and that they travel in different ways and have different clothing.


An Austiran/German holiday tradition that we were able to witness was that of the Perchten and Krampus runs. On December 5th and 6th, these creatures roam through the streets. The Perchten come to scare evil from your home; the Krampus are there to scold the naughty.

The Krampus have horns, wear bells at their waists and are rather loud and scary looking. You can see the face of one here. They go through the city on the 5th of December looking for those who have been bad. Some even have baskets they wear on their backs: "The better to take you away in, my naughty child!" Kris Kringle walks through with them carrying a book that has all of the names of the good and bad for the year. The above photo was the best I could get as they were moving quickly through the streets.


Throughout Spain, cities and towns normally have a tile mosaic representation of themselves. Many of them are small, but some are quite large. This mosaic of Salzburg was inside the entry to the Mönchsberg lift. This is an elevator that takes people from the ground up to the top of the mountain and to the Museum der Moderne. As it reminded me so much of Spain, I had to take a photo.


We were immediately greeted by this fantastic view of Hohensalzburg Fortress overlooking the old town. As it was towards the end of the day, the light was fading fast. We ran into a couple of other tourists up there and we took each other's photos.


We did not go into the museum, but we did take a look at a couple of the exhibits that were outside. Then we investigated a few of the paths that lead away from the city. Only a couple of minutes in, and you'd never know that you are so very close to Salzburg:


In addition to the city and all that it has to offer, the environs of Salzburg are certainly worth seeing. We would spend our last morning in Salzburg doing just that.

But first, I simply MUST tell you about our dinner experience...

12 of 12 November

Guga, Papa Jim and Grandma are visiting this week. What this means for all of you is that I actually have something worth photographing for this month's 12 of 12. Thanks to Chad for the idea; be sure to check out other participant's contributions.

We traveled up towards Brenham today, so all photos were taken in Washington County, Texas. We visited the Antique Rose Emporium, then went into town and ate lunch at Must Be Heaven. After that we went to see miniature horses at St. Clare Monastery's ranch. We couldn't leave the area without checking out the Bluebell Creamery. Finally we returned home, had dinner and Little Miss had a bath before bed. That was our day; hope you enjoy the photographs!



11:04 am; Bird


11:10 am; Wind Chimes


11:22 am; Hug Part One


11:22 am; Hug Part Two


11:34 am; Family Portrait


11:51 am; Meow


1:03 pm; Hats


1:42 pm; Horse


1:43 pm; Eleven


2:15 pm; Hat


2:32 pm; Ice Cream


6:45 pm; "Mooooooo"



Thanks and have a happy Friday!