Feeling a bit Luna-ey

A couple of weekends ago I joined Courtney and Kate for tour of chicken coops in Oakhurst...yup, you read that correctly :) If you want to see a post on the coops then check out Courtney's post where you will also get to read about my Peep experiments! :) At one of the stops, the one with the baby ducks, there was the incredible Luna moth sitting on one of the coops. I don't remember ever having seen one before and was amazed. he is pretty big--3-4 inches across. and was just sitting there for the many photographers to come by and have a ball taking pictures. A truly beautiful animal!

Powerful Sights To See

Another travel blog:

Today was a day for a walking tour of the old town (Staré Mésto) of Prague—we headed out the apartment into the old town—only a couple blocks away.  Our first stop was the Old-New Synagogue (Staranová synagóga).  This is the oldest practicing synagogue in Europe (begun 1270) and was very interesting to see—it is fairly plain inside, but there is a lot of history for the Prague Jewish quarter and much of it is reflected here.  There is a very old banner, red, with the Star of David on it that was given to them by one of the past kings.  It is carried by 8 members of the congregation on the occasions of a royal visit to the Jewish Ghetto (no pictures allowed).  They also have a great clock tower that counts time backwards in honor of the fact that Hebrew is read right to left.  We then headed over to the old Jewish Cemetery (Starỳ Židovskỳ Hřbitov).  For a period of a couple hundred (439-1787) years the Jewish inhabitants of the city were not allowed to bury bodies outside of the city and were only allowed to use the small space within—the result is a very small cemetery, say a couple hundred feet on a side that has a couple thousand tombstones and then under each one can be up to 12 bodies—it is believed that there may be as many as 80,000 people who were buried there.  It was fascinating to visit.  Also attached to the cemetery is a converted synagogue (Pinkas Synagogue—Pinkasova synagóga) that lists on the walls the names of all of the Polish Jews killed during WWII.  It is a very humbling thing to see.

Did Someone Say Look Up?!?!?!

The year was 1530 and the Bebenhausen Monastery ceiling needed a little bit of primitive painted sunshine.  This is what they got :)

Looking Up, Again

Once again, it is time to look up at and see what is above you!  While touring Eastern Europe we ended up in Prague which is a wonderful city to visit--though a bit hard to drive around in!  I found this ceiling in the castle--I like the patterns and the seeming randomness of the types of stone--it has been repaired several times over the years and they used whatever local stone they found each time.  It makes for a great patchwork of color and lines.

A Different Perpective

 

Spain, 2005.  I have had the chance to photograph many beautiful churches around the work and the cathedral in Barcelona was no exception.  However, the pictures can start to look the same after a while so I start to experiment with points of view and perspective.  I was particularly happy with this one--this was taken from behind the altar looking up.  I like the flow of the picture and the altered point of view.

More Purty Flowers, Netherlands Style

 

 

And back to The Netherlands again today :)

6/10/2005

Though I was pretty sure that I was past the time, I headed down to Haarlem (ever wonder where that NY neighborhood got its name?!?! ) to see the bulb fields.  And I say a lot of fields, but no blooms.  Darn it.  I think that I missed it by about 3-4 weeks.  Ah well, a reason to come back someday.  Which I will, I really like it here.  I did find 3 or 4 very small plots in bloom and of course took pictures   Iris and Alliums.
I drove around looking at the country side for a while then headed up to the town of Spaarndam mentioned in my green guidebook and this was a great find.  It is a little tiny town perched along one of the dikes.  It also has a small number of houses on one side, but much is perched right up along top.  Also three locks in town and on the third is a statue to the little boy who put his finger in a hole in the dyke all night too keep it from flooding!  The town was a lot of fun though and I am really glad that I headed up there.  They are also having some sort of a festival in the not too distant future (after I leave unfortunately) but several sail boats had shown up and had blocked in one of the locks—the one around the town square.  People were out on the boats just talking and enjoying the company.  I actually had to wait while the pedestrian draw bridge was raised to get a couple of the boats in.

Say Cheese!!!!

Here is another lunch time vacation...a bit of my travel blog from the summer of 2005


6/10/2005

            Cheese anyone?  Lots and lots of it?  I went up to Alkmaar this morning to get to the cheese market that happens there every Friday morning during the summer—and has for a long time!  They have records of their being a scale there since 1352!  650 years of cheese markets—we just don’t have any traditions like that at home.  It was fun to see it and realize that it has been going on so long!  And it wasn’t just a standard market.  The cheese makers lay out their wares—28,000 kg this time though in the middle ages it was close to 300,000 kg!  Anyway, so the cheese is laid out in long lines (we are talking 20 kg wheels and 10 kg balls here) by gentlemen in blue shirts, part of a guild in the market square, or Waagplein.  The buyers and maker reps then sample the cheese and finally agree on a price per kg by slapping hands.  But, each wheel weights slightly different so it all needs to be weighed. In comes another guild, the cheese carriers.  There are 4 teams of 7 men who carry the cheese.  They are dressed in shirts with straw hats brimmed in one of 4 colors so that they can be identified in their group.  The guys in blue load up these cart/sled things (not sure how to describe it—it has no wheels, is completely carried) with up to 8 wheels of cheese and two of the carriers attached ropes on harnesses they wear to the sled and carry it to massive scales.  The carts weigh 150-200 kg total when loaded.  After weighing, overseen by another guild, the carriers then take the cheese over to another area where another guild, dressed in brown, load them on to carts and nowadays then into truck though it used to be onto boats.  In all, it takes about 2.5 to 3 hours to sell all the cheese now though it used to take until midnight in old times.  Needless to say it is a colorful spectacle and they carriers seems to have a great time, and constantly play some with the crowd—taking some people around on the sleds and one cart I saw go by had 8 wheels of cheese and a 4-5 year old girl on it—I assume they took her off before weighing and didn’t charge the buyer for her weight as well! :)