Mikey's Christmas Party

Thanks Mike & Dan for throwing a fun Christmas party last night. Food was delicious, as usual. That manicotti was so good and the ham, scrumptious. Festive times were had by all.

Birdwatching on a Cold Day

Last Sunday, I joined Judy and Larry (and a few Museum members) to birdwatch at Headlands. What a fantastic day. Yes, the wind chill was -20, but we were a hardy bunch. We all enjoyed seeing two Purple Sandpipers frolicking on the rocks. They'd run down to the edge of the barrier, get splashed by a wave, eat some algae and run back up the rock. It was fun to watch. After Headlands, we went to Burke to see the Snowy Owl. The numbers of gulls were incredible. All photos by Judy Semroc. It was too cold for me to take my mittens off my hands! Kudos to Judy for such great shots.

Purple Sandpipers

Snowy Owl

Blue Heron Farm

Last year at the Natural Areas Conference, the conference committee gave me a weekend stay at the Blue Heron Farm in Geauga County. Juliano and I finally put it to good use with our friends Theresa, Brian & Luis. We had the most relaxing, fun time eating, playing cards and chatting around the fire. It was great to be away from television, but fortunately the Farm has wi-fi! 

The house was gorgeous. It sits on a large lake and we were able to canoe and hike. We didn't see anything too significant. The most exciting wildlife spotted was a pair of Hooded Mergansers.

Traditional Halloween

We had gorgeous weather for trick-or-treating this year! Greg came over our place and we passed out candy to over 100 kids. We all enjoyed brats on the grill, skrimps, wine and too many chips! After passing out all our candy, we watched The Strangers, what a terrifying movie.

Memories of a Dreadful Halloween

Last year, I befriended a headless horsewoman on Halloween. We enjoyed an evening of texting and crafts. Little did I know she had an evil streak...

Haircut

OMG! I just got all my hair cut off! I needed a change. My new hairdo...

How easily all hell can break loose

So last weekend, I visited my cousin Jen and her family in Charlotte. Jen and Mike have two cutie pies, Nikolas and Caleb. While one is sleeping, the other is an angel. But when they're both awake, it doesn't take much for all hell to break loose. The scene below will make anyone who has ever visited shiver with fear. Yes, Caleb was attempting to play with one of Nikolas's 2 million toys. As you can image, the photo below led to chaos at the Melkonian household.


Dub reading a book

Niko making me suffer through the famous 1980s Trucks movie

The Truck movie Jen rented at the Library

Nikolas showing me Wingo from Cars (what a cute movie)

Auf Wiedersehen Deutschland

What a sad day. Today, we must leave Germany and say good bye to Mrs. G. We had a wonderful vacation. Thank you Genie, Brian and Luis for being our tour guides. We look forward to doing it again...Tschüss.

Hiking to St. Hildegard's

We set out this afternoon on a hike to St. Hildegard's Church (Hildegard of Bingen). I had no idea the cool bird watching that existed right behind Genie's house! I wish we had discovered this hike sooner. We walked through the Bingen cemetery. German cemeteries are much different than American ones-they're filled with ornate, unique tombstones and landscaped gardens done by the family on each grave. As we proceeded up the hill, we came across a neglected Jewish cemetery. It was a moving sight, obviously a consequence of the war.

We finally made it to fire tower and looked out at Bingen. It was cool to see the confluence of the Nahe and Rhein Rivers. We proceeded to hike through the grapesvines to St. Hildegard's, visiting a sweet horse along the way. St. Hildegard's had an outdoor, amphitheatre-style altar with lots of seating for mass. I'd like to see an outdoor mass here sometime.

That evening, Mrs. G arranged for us to visit the well that is believed to be the starting point of a horrible plague in the Middle Ages. It was located in a basement in downtown Bingen. The original cobblestone street was still intact within the building. Afterwards, we went out for a delicious schnitzel dinner, joined by the lady that owns the building we visited! It was a perfect last evening in Bingen.

Shopping in Bingen

We spent the whole day shopping in Bingen. Of course at around 4 p.m. we had to stop for cake & coffee! We entered the bakery and proceeded pick out what we wanted. Clearly, Luis asked Brian to get him a traditional German pastry and what did Brian get for him? A big ole, American, chocolate muffin. Nice Brian.


Jules's cake

Dinner at Genie's!

Mrs. G made us so many outstanding meals while we were in Germany--potato pancakes (my favorite), goulash with spätzle, vegetable soup. On this day she made us a dish called Rouladen. As most nights, we feasted on lots of side dishes and drank much wine and bier with our rouladen! We cannot thank Genie enough for making us feel at home and feeding us so much good food!

Oberwesel & Bacharach

We slept in today and headed out around noon to two towns north of Bingen, Oberwesel and Bacharach. These towns still have intact walls around them. It was really cool to take a walk on the wall around a city. People have actually renovated the towers along the wall into homes. Wine festivals were being celebrated up and down the Rhein and we happened to stumble upon a parade in Oberwesel. The parade had a team of horses that nearly went wild on the crowd. Since Oberwesel was so crazy, we went to Bacharach to grab something to eat. 'Tis the season for Zwiebelkuchen! Yum.







Prost!

Köln

We awoke at the crack of dawn to catch the train to Köln. It's about a 2 hour ride from Bingen. We made sure to sit on the Rhein side of the train! We changed trains in Koblenz. The second train was packed so we had to stand for much of the trip. There were a group of men sitting near us who turned out to be vogel watchers. Brian had me tell them to "haben Sie einen Spaßtag".

Köln is incredibly big and busy. It's the 4th largest city in Germany. There were tons of shops and we walked around for a few hours before going into the Köln Catheral. The remains of the Three Wise Men are kept at the Cathedral. It is an enormous structure, by far the largest building I've ever seen. We planned to take a guided tour, but learned that the entire area around the altar was closed due to a choir practice and confessions. We weren't able to get very close to the altar, so we decided to walk around on our own.

After touring the Cathedral, we grabbed a few berliners and kaffee. Then we hopped back on the DB to Bingen. We came home to a heaping mound of potato pancakes. What a great day.




Jules buying berliners