Germany To Belgium In A Spanish Car

Timothy Price22 Comments

Hi all! I’m Niki.

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.

Anime

Timothy Price19 Comments

Dawn

Koi in the Japanese Garden in Kaiserslautern

Not coy

Amine in the Japanese Garden in Kaiserslautern

“I’m being coy. Can I have a Koi?”

Common Shelduck

Bar-Headed Geese

Eurasian Moorhen

Last night

The Archer

The underside of a Eurasian Green Woodpecker

“The Woodpecker is way out of my reach!”

Eurasian Blackbird

Portraits of famous dogs in an Italian restaurant in Landstuhl

“Famous dawgs in Landstuhl? Not cool! Fool!”

Moon made an appearance between rain showers this evening.

Geschützgewehre zielen

Timothy Price35 Comments

Dawn

There’s a shooting range we walk by before entering the forest.

Die Bar ist geöffnet
Geh am Sonntag schießen, trink
Geschützgewehre zielen

Speaking of Karlsberg beer, the Karlsberg Brewery is in Homberg.

Under the ruins of the castle on the hill above Homberg is a sand mine.

With hard hats on our heads, we descended into the sand mines. In Italy truant children were turned into donkies and sent to work in the salt mines. I wonder if truant children were sent to work in the sand mines in Homberg.

Homberg residents took refuge in the sand minds during bombing raids on homberg in WWII.

Atlas purrfurs the yarn mine. Sand mines are for other purposes in the cat world. Photo by Tristan.

Lots of low ceilings. The tunnels were much darker than in the photos.

Homberg

Atlas: “Blanket caves are so much more comfortable than sandbox tunnels!” Photo by Tristan.

Black Forest In White

Timothy Price38 Comments

Dawn

We drove to the Black Forest to day and went to the Treetop Walk, and the Open Ait Museum that is buildings from the 1700s with different periods from the 1700s onwards.

Tunnels over a kilometer in length along the way

Enrance and walk to the Treetop Walk.

I started my exercise tracker when we started walking up to the Treetop Walk

It snowed on us all the time we were at the site.

On to Gutach in the snow to see the Open Air Museum

Black Redstart on the roof of the museum ticket office, gift shop and restaurant.

Had to take a Black Forest Cake break while in the Black Forest

Sunset

Atlas

Autokauf

Timothy Price43 Comments

Beware of Dog!

We drove to Wiesbaden this morning to shop for cars. Jessica needs a reliable car to run around to the different places where she does massage therapy.

We got a bit wired before venturing onto the used car lot.

Der Hund!

The cars in the running were this sporty Toyota…

A Maserati…

A classic BMW…

And a smiley VW Golf.

Any guesses as to which one Jessica bought?

Bridges over the Rhine

Alexandrine Parakeets were chirping in the trees. They are very large parakeets.

A medeival wheelchair ramp

There were also Rose-ringed Parakeets in the trees. They are smaller than the two.

We went to a Viking restaurant for dinner.

Sunset on the AutoBahn

Home

Atlas: “No one asked me if I wanted to go car shopping!”

Mannheim Dampfwalze

Timothy Price25 Comments

We went Dampfwalzen (steamrolling) around Mannheim today.

We rode the train in the rain

Nextdoor to Mannheim

We went to the Techno Museum. We started on the top floor with old stuff and worked our way down to modern stuff. I’m not going in order with my photos.

A White Stork flew by with sticks in its beak

A Wankel (rotary engine) motorcycle.

One of the museum staff teching a group of high school students how to make paper

Punchcards used to program looms were the inspiration for using punchcards to program computers. I used punchcards for my COBOL programming classes in the 70s.

One of the layouts for a poster.

Tristan and I both made posters. They are still rolled up, so I will have to photograph them later. The staff member started off showing how to make lead letters that are used in printing presses. He gave Tristan the W that he made. Then he showed us how to make black ink prints.

A lith-block for making lithographs of a kitty.

A half-track motorcycle that did great wheelies, based on the photo.

Say watts?

Speaking of wheelies, the peddling paparazo wasn’t able to do a wheelie on the watt generator bike, but he hit 759.5 wattss, maybe more. His average for 90 seconds was 450 watts.

A yellow-legged gull flew overhead while we were walking to the modern art gallery.

Little Boy Blue tuned into a golden angel

The water tower on the way to the modern art gallery

Walk like an Egyptian Goose

Pinguins filled with helium move around as visitors walk around them.

An orb that lit up and slowly swirled as people approached it.

A multimedia installment with lots of movement in the darkness and loud noises

I related to this installment

ICE, ICE Baby!

Atlas: “I’m worn out from all your photos!”

Karlsruhe

Timothy Price27 Comments

Squirrel Nutkin was jumping around in the trees on my morning walk

We went to Karlsruhe today, where Tristan and Craig had some business to take care of. It’s an hour and a half from Bruchmühlbach-Miesau, but we had a long roundabout way back after the police closed the AutoBahn.

This place is said to be a TikTok sensation for having Octopussy Gyros

Deutsche Postal delivery riders done delivering

Peacock flew into the elephant enclosure at the zoo

Eurasian Blackbird with an earthworm

Bridge over the River Rhine

I know my bike is in there somewhere

Sunset in Landstuhl

Wildlife Park and Greifvogelzoo Potzberg

Timothy Price38 Comments

I Condor you

We went to the Wildlife Park and Greifvogelzoo (Raptor zoo) in Potzberg about 30 minutes north of Bruchmühlbach-Miesau. The park was conceived in the 1970s as a way to attract tourists, and opened in 1984. Due to financial problems, the park was taken over by private management. The privaate management reinvigerted the park, added conservation programs, breeding of rare and endangered spicies, and reintroducing birds back into the wild. They have so many animals, I took nearly way too many photos. It’s sad to see a lot of the raptors in enclosures, but many, like the Condors, seemed content, wanted to play, and were quite interactive. All the animals were very well taken care of.

While on our morning walk, I thought I finally got the Europen Robin. But no, this bird is a Common Chaffinch.

A European Greenfinch

The ever-present Eurasian Blue Tit.

The hotel at the Wild Like Park

A goatlette crawled under to fence and greeted us.

Red Kites were flying around annoying some of the birds in enclosure

I’m no emo, I’m an Emu

Got it?

Andean Condor

Say Uncle and make the paparazzo laugh!

Foghorn Condor

Two male condors wound follow me back and forth, trying to get to my camera while I was trying to photograph the female condors spreading their wings. They were hilarious.

While we were eating lunch at the castle above Landstuhl, I realized the tower and building (Hotel) on the top of then hill across the way is where the Wild Life park is.

A decent sunset taken from the cemetery across the street.