Zen

I wanted to buy something in Japan and picked out a package of hard candy that was chocolate with a liquid coffee center but the line was so long to pay for it I decided to leave and not buy anything there. I saw bags of shrimp flavored chips there, YUCK! Although that sure would be a funny gag gift to give someone! The picture on the bag looked like crinkle French fries. I like shrimp but the thoughts of this just nearly made me sick. Japan was so beautiful and tranquil. I love the architecture of the buildings and the trees… oh so lovely! Zen.

Brats, Beer and Cookies

Ah... pretty, pretty Germany! So colorful and fun. By the time we arrived there it was lunch time so we stopped at a restaurant and ate brautwurst with sauerkraut and had a pretzel and washed it all down with a pint of German beer. Yum! I bought a little pack of cookies at a shop in Germany. They were like a sandwich cookie, 2 plain cookies with chocolate in between. Again, very good and not nearly as sweet as in the US. I prefer this type so much more than the sugary sweet cookies we have here. Below are a few photos of Germany.

China

On our way to China we stopped to watch some girls performing. While there I bought something that I thought was probably like a sugar cookie. I didn’t want to spend much money on each thing so I looked around for something cheap each time. This came in a package with lots of small individually wrapped packs inside and was only $1.60 for the whole bag. It had to be the best bargain in all of Disney and was sooooo good! It was not a cookie at all but more like a cracker I guess. Hard to explain it but it was not sweet and not salty yet had like a cheesy taste to it, absolutely delicious!!!! I have always wanted to go to China. A couple of years ago we thought we had an opportunity to move there for a year. David had a job opportunity working for an American company located in Shenzhen and we were both very excited but unfortunately it didn't pan out for us. It would have been a wonderful cultural experience. So for now this is the closest we've been to the real China.

I just love the colors of China!

David with Buddah

Mexico and Norway

Last fall David and I took a trip to Orlando and stayed at one of the Disney Resorts. The next few days I will be posting about that trip. David was on business and I had tagged along. We only had one free day to go to one of the parks so we opted for Epcot. We went to ALL of the countries and saw all of the attractions/shows where offered. The crowds were minimal, which was really nice. That meant no standing in lines for anything. The bad thing though is that it was still hot and soooooo very humid! I can’t recall the proper order in which we visited each country but will try to do my best. I started out trying to buy some type of food in each country…. Something to take back to the resort. We only stopped in Mexico for a quick photo. Since we had been to the real Mexico several times we didn't want to spend much time there and end up not getting to visit the other countries. In Norway I bought a candy bar that looked something like a 3 muskateers or so I thought. I ate it that night and it was nothing like that. It looked porus and really fluffy inside but when I tried to bite into it, the thing was as hard as cement! Usually candy in other countries is not nearly as sweet as it is in the US and that was true for this candy too. Below are a few photos from Mexico and Norway. Tomorrow I will highlight some of the other countries and tell you about the foods I bought there.

Ahhh... welcome to Walt Disney World!

EPCOT!

Linda in Mexico

David posing at the old Viking Ship in Norway

Norway

Norway

The People's Princess

It’s hard to believe that it has been 10 years since the death of Princess Diana. On one visit to France, David and I went by to visit the site where she was killed. There was a memorial there and people had left flowers and notes. It was a rainy day which seemed appropriate for the somber mood we felt while there.

Two Women

Venus de Milo is one of the most ancient Greek sculptures. It is thought to depict Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love and beauty. I have been to the Louvre Museum on several occasions and have always been amazed at the things I have seen there. One particular visit David was with me and the photo below is of him standing in front of Venus de Milo.

David is all smiles standing in front of the goddess of LOVE!

Mona Lisa is the other woman. You can find her hanging in the Louvre Museum as well. She was painted by Leonardo DaVinci and is one of the most famous paintings ever. It is surprising how small the painting actually is.

Linda standing in front of the Mona Lisa... yes it is hanging back there in the dark. I tried to lighten the photo up a little so you could see her but this is the best I could do. Sorry.

Thatch Roofs

Thought I would talk about thatch roofs today. When I was in Ireland I was impressed by this type of roofing. It amazed me that thatch could actually keep rain out and actually insulate. I saw it on many homes. There is a little town in County Limmerick called Adare and it is known for its beautiful thatch roof homes. Below are some photos of thatch roofed homes there.

This is a close up photo I took showing what thatch looks like. The photos below were all taken in Adare.

A Sea Monster

Last night we were sitting outside eating our dinner when I noticed two little boys on the lake shore throwing rocks into the water. I then saw some animal swimming around right where the rocks were landing. I grabbed the binoculars to take a closer look. At first glance I thought it must be their dog and they were throwing things in for the dog to fetch because this animal seemed to be “playing” with the boys. I kept watching and the animal would at times run up on the shore and it was NO dog! I grabbed my camera and walked across several other campsites to get a closer look. The boys told me it was a beaver but this thing was huge! It was larger than most dogs. The odd thing is it continued to play with the boys and each time they threw a rock in the lake it would go chasing after it. Occasionally the boys would hit the thing in the head and it would be dazed momentarily but would continue playing. Within minutes there was a large group of people standing around watching it. Everyone agreed it was a beaver but I had no idea they were this large. He looked more like a cross between a rat, a bear and a hippo and was about the size of a pig. He hung around playing with those boys for about half an hour before they left. He then swam around for a while longer in that area then swam away. It was certainly an exciting evening. I had no idea beavers lived in the lake! You never know what sea monsters lie deep within the waters!

you really can't tell just how large this beaver is in these photos, but he was BIG!

this shot was taken from our campsite and is not very clear but you can see his broad flat tail as he walks back to the water. I wish I had the boys in the photo too so you could tell how large the beaver really was.

The Gift of Gab

In County Cork, Ireland stands the Blarney Castle. On my trip to Ireland I made a point of going there for the purpose of kissing the Blarney Stone. According to legend, kissing the stone endows the kisser with the gift of gab (great eloquence or skill at flattery). The word "blarney", meaning to speak with soft talk or to deceive without offending, derives from a lot of unfulfilled promises of Cormac MacDermot MacCarthy to the King of Munster in the late sixteenth century. After agreeing to deliver his castle to the Crown, he continuously delayed doing so with soft words, which came to be known as "Blarney talk". It's tough to reach the stone -- it's between the main castle wall and the parapet. Kissers have to lie on their back and bend backward (and downward), holding iron bars for support. Can you imagine kissing something that has had people's lips all over it for 500 years? Yuck! But kiss it I did! First I had to climb a spiral staircase to reach the top level which is outside. There was a long line of tourists waiting to do the same. I couldn’t help but notice the southern accent of the couple standing in line behind me and had to ask where they were from. The answer… Atlanta… the same city I was living in at the time. No wonder I recognized that accent! One thing I found rather interesting, there is someone posted at the site to assist you with the kissing. That person tells you how to position yourself and helps you into proper position. They make sure to let you know this person expects a tip as they have a bucket there and money on the stones next to him. The area you kiss is very oily looking as many lips have touched it before yours. After you have kissed the stone the assistant gives you something to wipe your lips with. After standing in a long line for a length of time the actual process of positioning and kissing takes only a few seconds. Any trip to Ireland must include a trip to Blarney Castle and a kiss of the stone.

a view of Blarney Castle

yes the top center of the wall shows where you must lay to kiss the stone

these were the people standing in line in front of me waiting to kiss the stone

this photo is actually a post card, not one I took, however it shows the position you must get into in order to kiss the stone and how the helper assists you

Biosphere 2

Just north of Tucson, Arizona near the town of Oracle is a very strange looking cluster of buildings. Biosphere 2 was originally built to be an artificial closed ecological system. On one of our many trips to Tucson, we decided to take a tour of the biosphere and found it fascinating. It was the largest closed system ever created. It was used to explore the possible use of closed biospheres in space colonization. The air tight structure allowed scientists to monitor the chemistry of the air, water and soil contained inside. The health of the human crew was continuously monitored by a medical team. Inside the biosphere there was an ocean with coral reef, wetlands, savannah grassland, desert, agricultural system, and human living quarters. Heating and cooling water circulated through independent piping systems, and electrical power was supplied from a natural gas energy center through airtight penetrations. I believe there were 7 scientists living in the Biospehere 2 and they lived inside for a few years. The facility was eventually vandalized and no longer air tight so the projects had to be abandoned. For a while it was for sale and a group was interested in purchasing it to build homes in the area. It is presently managed by the University of Arizona using the site as a laboratory to study climate change, among other things. We found it to be an extremely interesting place to visit and see.

Flowers

I recently purchased a new camera and have been playing around with it. Here are a few photos I made using the macro setting. This is a hibiscus in my mother's yard.

Sunrise

Sorry I am a little late in posting to my blog today. I left early this morning to go visit my mother and spent the day there. Below is the scene I woke up to this morning. The sun was rising over the lake and I just loved how the clouds were reflecting in the water. It was a beautiful start to my day but as I returned to the campground this afternoon I was met with a horrible storm...thunder, lightning, wind and heavy rain. If only I had been 5 seconds earlier but instead I ended up getting caught in the car and had to wait it out for half an hour before the storm passed over enough for me to even get out of the car. It was messy!

Toilets

Let’s talk about toilets today. Yes, you read that correctly, I said toilets! I don’t want to talk about everyday ordinary toilets that we are accustomed to but rather toilets I have seen in France. On my first visit to France I had arrived at the home of my friend, Claire. I needed to use the bathroom. I went in and used it and when I was finished I reached for the handle to flush and there was no handle! I looked everywhere and there was no handle to be seen. I had never seen a toilet without a handle to flush but I wasn’t going to let this get the best of me. I knew there had to be some way to flush it. I searched and searched looking for a clue. At one point I was even down on my hands and knees in the floor looking for a pedal or chain or something and still nothing. Finally I decided to do the only thing I knew to do and that was to lift the lid on the tank and pull the chain inside to let the water out to flush the toilet. When I lifted the lid imagine my surprise when the toilet flushed!!! I thought to myself, “NO WAY!” that can not be the way they flush toilets here. I lifted the lid again and once again it flushed. Oh my! Then I noticed a little silver thing on top of the lid. It looked like a lid to a shampoo bottle. That was the flush knob! I had never seen a toilet like that. In order to flush the toilet you had to lift that silver knob. During the course of our visit I saw all sorts of toilets with different flushing mechanisms… some you had to pull the knob on the lid while others you had to push the knob and still others had chains to pull from a tank that was located near the ceiling, high above the seat. I didn’t see any that had handles like the ones I am used to seeing in the USA. The toilet in the photo below takes the prize for the most different type of toilet I have used. This one was located in the Orange Colliseum in Orange, France. You place your feet on those raised parts and squat down. Oh and of course there is no door for privacy. Very different indeed!

A Pet ... Duck ???

In our travels we stumble upon some pretty interesting and strange things from time to time. This is definitely one of those strange things. On Friday night we were about to go out to dinner when I saw 2 women walking along the lake shore in front of our campsite and saw what looked like a black duck following them. I had to blink and rub my eyes because it appeared this duck was walking right with them. We see a lot of ducks, geese, blue heron and various other things while camping but this caught my eye as something different. I called for David and Hannah to come look. We decided to walk down to the waters edge and inquire. Sure enough it was a duck! A PET DUCK! Now I can't recall for the life of me the kind of duck it is but it was pretty awesome. It is not a mallard. It wears a harness to hold a diaper made especially for pet ducks. And they take it on walks and it walks right along with them. Sometimes they use a leash too. The older lady said they live on a lake and one year there was a duck like this that landed in the lake near their home. It built a nest and laid eggs but the eggs were never fertilized and she sat on them for over 2 months. So these ladies decided to order some eggs and replace them with the unfertilized ones. The duck didn't want anything to do with them and only one of them hatched out and it identified with the older lady as its mother. So now they have had this duck for several years and it thinks it is a human. It never leaves their sight. She said when kids come over it thinks it is one of the kids and runs and plays with them. David asked if it could fly and she said no, that it had never been taught that so it doesn't know how to fly. When it has been around other ducks it is not interested in them and prefers to be with humans. She let us all pet it. It is not really black but looks that color from a distance. It is more of an irridescient green with some white. The diaper and harness are red so from a distance I thought those were red feathers! Its name is Mumbles. So I must say this is one of the more strange things I have ever seen! A pet duck in diapers that thinks it is a human. LOL. Yesterday as I was heading out to take Hannah home I saw the ladies out walking the duck again and stopped and asked if I could take a picture. I had something smudgy on the lens so these didn't come out very well but will at least give you some idea of what I am talking about.

Hannah

We've had the pleasure of having our little grand daughter, Hannah, here with us all week long. This is the longest visit we've had with her and we have thoroughly enjoyed our time together. She is one special little girl. Below are a few candid shots of her, notice how her face changes once she realizes the camera is focused in on her. Too funny!