She will have to explain this character in a comment. She told me about him, but I’m sure I would mix it all up.
I spent a delightful last day in Dundee walking around with Shey and John. We visited St Paul’s Cathedral, a museum, and the V&A. Then I stayed in the V&A until it was time to catch the bus to Edinburgh.
St. Paul’s Cathedral
The musem had excellent history of Dundee and Scotland.
This is an old movie theater turned into a performing arts space. John said the Lone Ranger visited the theater when he was five.
Precarious tagging
The gull on the streetlight was eyeing the man’s food.
Then we walked around in the old graveyard. The oldest headstones are from the late 1700s.
A lot of the graves had fascinating stone engravings.
The V&A us a wonderful place to hang out.
The have great exhibits
I was sitting in front of a window that leans out over the water.
Gigi asked if I was ever going home. There was an interesting question after I woke up to text messages that my flight to Frankfurt was canceled and had been rescheduled to fly out of Edinburgh to Zürich on Sunday and the fly from Zürich to Frankfurt on Monday morning. The problem with that schedule was I was scheduled to fly from Frankfurt to the States on Monday morning, also.
The reason the flight was canceled was due to a strike by the German airline workers on Friday. Which was planned to create major disruptions for people traveling back home from Easter break. To make a long story short, my flight back to the States has been moved forward a week so I could stick with the new flight schedule if I had to, because flights and hotels were filling up and prices were going up on whatever was left by the minute. After a lot of searching, I got a better scheduled flight back to Frankfurt on Saturday.
Freyja will be happy to get another week of morning walks in.
John gave me a tour of the Verdant Works Museum, and gave me an excellent history of the jute milling industry that made Dundee a boom town in the 19th century. Visit the Verdant Works Museum website for the history of the rise and fall of jute milling in Dundee in the 19th and 20th centuries: https://www.dundeeheritagetrust.co.uk/attraction/verdant-works/
Mostly women and children worked in the mills
Then we went up to the top of the Law, which gives people a 360 view of Dundee and the surrounding area below.
Meow Meow meowed at the door last night. I let him in, and he was wet from the rain. He stayed around for a while comforting me. Then when he was dry, he asked to go back outside.
Laurie called me early this morning because Marble Kitty was having problems breathing. She took her to an emergency vet, and Marble had fluid pressing on her lungs. The vet removed the fluid and Marble had a collpsed lung with a mass in it. A long story short, she didn’t make it. Sadly we lost one of the sweetest kitties.
Between back and forth with Laurie on Marble’s condition, Marina, Socrotis and I went out to buy bread, and then in the afternoon we went to dinner in a restaurant by the sea.
It’s been raining on and off all day, and the area has received “buckets of rain” over the past few months, so the vegetation is green and wildflowers are blooming everywhere.
Dinner
View from the table
Local black cat
Long Legged Buzzard
Assissin Bug
Local frogs
We heard a chirping sound that sounded like a bird, but it was coming from under a concrete slab, and Merlin Bird ID could not identify what it was. Marina looked under the concrete but could see anything. I took photos under the concrete, and after I processed the photo, I found the frog on the right-hand photo with its head sticking up out of the water.
Houses with a great view
Handicap access to the water
This sweet dog came out to greet us
Sunset to the east
Cool lights over the dining room table in the Airbnb I’m staying in down the road from Marina and Socrotis.
I flew to Athens today to visit Marina and Socratis. Good Friday was a good day to fly to Athens because everything, but the airport, was closed in Germany.
Besides finally meeting Marina and Socratis in person, I made a couple of new canine friends as well.
There were several of these locked, grated grottoes around the outside of the church with lighted votive candles inside them.
A man driving a small utility truck filled with lighted votive candles in the back stopped and said hi to us and explained to Hermin in Flemish that his job was to keep the candles lit. He had done it for ten years and loved the job.
Nike was watching for us to return from his bed in the garage.
I got back in the late after noon, and returned the rental car. Then we went straight from Enterprise car rental to Trivia at the Irish Pub. There were a couple of Golden Retrievers that came to Trivia Night. The white one really like me, and I had to pet it most of the time. It would put it’s head in my lap when I stopped petting it.
Tristan snuck a picture of me petting the dog. We are not supposed to use phones while a trivia round is in play.
I drove from Germany to Belgium this morning to meet Herman and Niki. Herman and I have been following each other since 2013. You can find Herman’s blog at https://hopedog.wordpress.com. Laurie and I were planning on meeting Herman and Bowie in 2020 when we were scheduled to go to Antwerp to give papers at an international linguistics conference, but the conference was cancelled because of COVID. Six years, two cats later (Jimi was in between Mr. Bowie and Niki), I finally met Herman and lovely Niki. Herman is a wonderful and gracious host. We spent the afternoon visiting two abbies, both built in the early 12th centuries, and then we happened upon the War Cemetery (WWII) on the way home. Herman said he’d lived in Geel all his life and had never been to the War Cemetery. Most of the soldiers buried there were in their teens and 20s when they were killed in battle.
Dawn in Germany
Niki is very friendly and inquisitive
Espresso and the best cake in Belgium by popular vote. It was wonderful.
Niki liked il paparazzo’s hair.
Gate the the first abby we visited
The church has a painting of The Last Supper started by Leonardo da Vinci and finished by his students.
A Eurasian Moorhen in the moat around the abbey
The Last Supper
While we were in this building that has a reproduction of The Last Supper at eye level, a couple of women were counting the hands of all the people in the painting and couldn’t get a match. There are 13 people (Christ and 12 disciples) in The Last Supper, but the women were only coming up with 22 hands instead of 26. We all got involved in counting hands, and we were all coming up with different numbers. Then I asked about the feet, but the women were heading to the church.
Display that names Christ and the disciples, and the button turns lights on to illuminate the painting.
White pigeon
The new bridge over the canal that Herman’s great-grandfather helped dig around 1901.
Buildings that are part of the second abby we visited.
The old pipe organ
The new pipe organ with a rearview mirror. Hmmm. What might the organist need a rearview mirror for?
A modern monk
Herman treated me to a tradritional Blegium Fries lunch. It was great.
After we returned from visiting abbies and the war cemetery, Niki was more curious about camera.
I checked into the Corbie Hotel in Geel. I will have this lovely lady watching over me tonight.
Off Center & Not Even 