Continuation, Germany 1992

I think I have solved the problem of quality with the scanned photos, so I will try a short post and include more pictures. I can only remember (and reognize) a few of the places we went, and the first is Neuschwanstein, King Ludwig's castle. I believe the castle at Disneyland was modeled after the one in Germany. It is difficult to get a full-on photo of it, and these are scenes from the area. I may have some better castle pictures from my first trip, and if so, I will post them eventually.







Somewhere in Bavaria:


We visited Oberammergau, which is famous for the Passion Play that is presented every year in the weeks before Easter. Since there was nothing going on while we were there, we just walked through the building and looked into all the little rooms where costumes and equipment are stored - Roman centurions, Pontius Pilate, etc.




Nuremburg is my favorite city in all Germany. There is a charm about it that I love, and in the times I've been there I found the people to be super friendly. The bakeries were superior to any I've ever known, and when Joe kept asking me to go back into one of the bakeries to get a pastry or whatever it was he especially liked, I told him how to ask for it in German and then made him go get it himself. He was pretty proud of himself when he came out holding his purhase.




Of all the sites I've visited in the entire country, in all the cities, towns and villages I've been in, the place that impressed me most in the Church of San Lorenz in Nuremburg. At the times I've been there it was still in the process of reconstruction, having been leveled during WW II. Pictures and exhibits show all the stages of rebuilding. The one that impressed me the most is a photo of women, young and old, picking up stones and bricks from the ruins of the church. They were the ones who made it possible for the builders, stone masons, etc., to complete the reconstruction of this venerable old church. Most of the reconstruction used the original materials which were salvaged from the piles of rubble.



More to come for Gypsy and Joe on the road again, in Germany.

A bit later I tried to scan some more photos but very few of them were usable. I'm not sure why all the wavy colored lines all over the pictures, but I may end up buying a new inexpensive flatbed scanner in the near future. I don't want anything fancy though, so that limits my options to just a couple of models.

Size of pictures

I notice that the pictures I scanned that were originally taken in the early 1990's, are roughly from 300-500 KB, while the pictures from my digital camera are more like 1.4 MB. That is a big difference which probably explains the great disparity in quality. Can someone tell me if there is a way to save the early pictures at a higher quality? I don't remember there being an option, but I think there is if I knew how to do it.

My g'daughter Ara came over this morning and we spent the day together. I love having lunch at La Bou restaurant, and for the 2nd time since she has been back for the holidays we went there to eat and talk. We gabbed all afternoon and she helped me hang the large needlepoint picture that is over my couch. I just love having her around and discussing the things that make us so alike although we are so many years apart in age. Our general perspective of the world is so similar, our political views are so alike, and most everything in between. I am grateful for her and the energy she exudes. It takes me back to my 20's.

I had set a loaf of bread to finish baking about the time she would be arriving this morning, and we enjoyed bread slathered with butter along with our coffee. My coffee maker is definitely not working right, and I'm not really happy with the backup machine I have on hand, so tomorrow I will start using the Melitta system until I buy a new Mr. Coffee. I think the Melitta brewed coffee is the best I've ever tasted, but the only way you can keep it warm is to transfer it to a thermos.

I wonder if others have noticed they receive considerably more spam comments in the past month or so. I get them quite often, mostly just a few words plus a link, and today I received one that had quite a long message plus the link. The language was such poor English that I'm sure it came from the Balkans, which is where a lot of this stuff is coming from lately, according to what I've heard. At least Blogger catches it so it doesn't get published.

Well, that's been my day. Ara has offered to help me get back to painting, so I think I will do the prep work on the closet doors so she can start applying the primer. I'd like to get all those little tasks that I've left undone, before I start on the kitchen or the remainder of the living room. Little by little it's coming together, and while I'd like to have everything completed yesterday, I think I can maintain my patience with it.

Stove is hooked up

I had a wonderful Christmas day with family, and this morning before going back to Monterey my son Steve & family came by so he could switch out the electric range for the gas one. Joe also dropped by with one of his daughters and helped carry out the old one.

The stove: The yellow cast must be from the lights. It is just perfect for me - dials for 4 burners and the oven, and lights for each to indicate whether they are turned on. I might need that little reminder. No digital clocks or anything hi tech - just the stove I wanted.


Steve and apprentice:


The little helper:



Liam got a 46 piece Black and Decker tool set for Christmas, plus the tool belt. Ya gotta start them out young!

I also received a range hood for Christmas plus a couple of Home Depot gift cards which will enable me to get the dishwasher soon. My car was loaded down with presents when I returned home.

Trip to Iceland

In approximately February 1992 I took my 13 yr old son, Joe, with me to Germany to visit my s-i-l and niece; my brother had been deployed to the Gulf War and was in Iraq at that time. Here is a picture of Joe on the plane - doesn't he look studious? I think that was probably the only time he ever opened a book in the entire 2-3 wk. period.


We flew from Baltimore on Icelandic Air, and touched down in Reykjavik, Iceland early in the morning. I had arranged that we would stay overnight and tour the city, and leave for Luxembourg the next morning. I booked a package deal that included the hotel plus a guided tour of the city, dinner, breakfast the following morning and transportation to the airport. Here are some scenes from the guided tour. The very modern structure is a museum dedicated to the artist-designer of the building:


Here is the house where Reagan and Gorbachov met:



Iceland is volcanic and the hot water is geothermal. Here is a picture of one of the many swimming pools in Reykjavik and you can see the steam rising from the pool, although you fortunately can't notice the sulphuric aroma. The shower at the hotel was blazingly hot as well.


Our hotel room was sparse and very plain looking, but also very comfortable. Both Joe and I agreed the down comforters were worth their weight in gold. The next day I looked at several shops to buy one, but the cost was too much for a humble single mom!
(Don't I look like a poodle with my curly perm!)



We had breakfast the next morning and went to wait for our shuttle to the airport. We were informed that the plane was cancelled, and we would be booked on the evening flight. Well that was a bummer, but I decided we would explore the city on foot. The temperature was around 30F which wouldn't be so bad, except it is too close to the sea to be comfortable and felt much colder. We trod around through snowy streets, stopped to look at interesting things, Joe grumbled a bit as the day wore on, and we finally found a mall - not anything like a big American mall, but a mall nonetheless. In it was a Pizza Hut, and I think it cost me $18 for a big slab of pizza which I gave to Joe. (I would have choked on an $18 slice of pizza back in 1992). A 13 yr old boy is impossible to fill up!

Here are some city scenes in Reykjavik:




It was finally time to go to the airport and board our flight to Luxembourg. The problem was that we missed the train connection to Mannheim, Germany, as well as the following connection to Karlsruhe. Iceland Air arranged for us to be shuttled in a van to Mannheim, and we caught a bus to Karlsruhe, arriving very late in the evening. We were left at the banhof - the train station. In halting German I asked the only other person in the station how I could get to the US Army post. She turned away and wouldn't even talk to me. Lucky for us there were several taxis outside, and God bless taxi drivers everywhere, they understood my German and then began speaking to me in excellent English. One of them offered to take us to the Army post, but left us at the guard station. I'm not sure how we managed it, but my s-i-l was expecting us and was out walking around hoping to spot us or find news from the guards.

In my many travels I have learned to be flexible and to just take things as they come - they always work out in the end. I will continue another time with what I can remember of that trip, plus some more pictures from my first trip to Germany when I went to Prague.

The photos being from 1992 and scanned on an old model scanner, haven't turned out very well and I apologize for the quality. However, I think you can get an idea of what I am trying to convey.

End of my patience

Gmail has finally forced its users to switch to the new look. I can't find my contact list and the new look version has about 8 names in the address category. So I've decided to use my aol account. My prime email address will now be: mgypsy97 at aol dot com.

I tried to change the email address that appears at the top of my blog, but Google won't let me replace the primary address which is the gmail one. I don't understand this since many users of Blogger have alternative email programs. I'm truly about ready to give up on Google and all its tentacle programs.

A trip to Czechoslovakia

In June of 1990 I made my first trip to Germany and visited my brother who was in the military, his wife and their daughter. My sister-in-law (Taffy) drove me to Prague which was in the midst of the Velvet Revolution at the time. We had to go through a Soviet border checkpoint, but once we were in Czechoslovakia we had no problem driving straight to Prague, a beautiful old medieval city. There was the hope of democracy everywhere, and it was an exciting time to be there. In the evenings people would gather to discuss political issues, and a crowd outside our open hotel window became quite loud. The sound of breaking glass ended the discussion and the people must have fled.

The hotel we stayed in was very old but comfortable - certainly nothing fancy. They took our passports on check-in, which bothered me tremendously. I didn't know at the time that it was once a common occurrence in many countries of the world, and they are returned on checking out. This is one photo I couldn't get into the blog in the correct rotation. Although it shows ok on my screen it uploads sideways. Sorry about that.


I had some of my pictures scanned, but instead of giving me my flash drive back with each individual picture in jpeg format, the photos were all contained in a pdf file. I had to do a screen shot on each picture I wanted to insert into my blog, and save it in the documents folder. I don't think the pictures can be enlarged by clicking on them, but you can try and please let me know how it goes.

Statue of King Wenceslas, in Wenceslas Square. This is the area where the Soviet tanks mowed down the unarmed demonstrators.


This is a memorial circle which is made up of candle wax from all the memorial candles burned since the uprising. There are still lit candles there.


Here are some pictures of street scenes:










On our way out of Prague. This could be the town of Pilsen.

When we left Prague the following afternoon everything was fine until we were within about a mile of the border crossing, and signs informed us that the crossing was closed! That required us to locate another crossing further south, and it was already late afternoon. I was pretty frantic (though I tried not to show it), but wondered what would happen if we couldn't get out of the country! I was a US government employee and Taffy the wife of a US Army Lt. Colonel, and all sorts of bizarre things went through my head. We made it to the border and were transitioned back to Germany with no problems. Germany looked absolutely beautiful to us, with the painted houses and every window box filled with red geraniums and white petunias.

I'm not sure when the border crossings were all closed, but it wasn't too long after we were there. The country eventually split into the Czech Republic with Vaclav Havel at its head, and Slovakia.

The little sweetie on a couple of the photos is my niece Jessica (Jessie) who is now a gorgeous young woman and planning to be married this coming March. My brother Phil has finally retired from the Army, and they live part of the year in Florida and part in a villa they purchased in Italy.

I went to Germany at this time to be present at the change of command ceremony, where Phil took command of the Black Lions Engr. group, which eventually was deployed to Iraq in the first Gulf War. I returned to Germany during the time of his deployment, accompanied by my youngest son (Joe) who was very happy to get an unexpected holiday from school in February. That trip was full of a few surprises, and I might cover it next if I can gather my photos and figure out how to scan them so as to get them imported into iPhoto.

I also attended the change of command ceremony at Ft. Carson, Colorado, when as a full bird Colonel Phil took command of an engineer brigade. That story and pictures are also for another time.

Again, I apologize for the poor quality of the pictures. The originals are excellent, but in the scanning process plus the necessity to take screen shots and save them in yet another format, make them less than I hoped.

Resting up

I don't know why but one day I can accomplish things or go out, and the next day I just like to vegetate. So today, after the party, I am vegetating. I have errands to run and should get to them before the last minute Christmas rush, but I just couldn't get going this morning. Tomorrow will be a better day anyway. I've always felt like Tuesday is the very best day to shop, travel, or do anything, maybe because I prefer the least crowded and least traveled days. So Tuesday it is, and I will get everything done tomorrow.

There was some misunderstanding over who is the cake baker in the family. Joe, the redhead, is my youngest son. Donald who is the chef and baker in the family is my son-in-law and father of the birthday girl. I looked for some recent pictures other than the ones of Joe & Don working on my floor, and neither is a head-on shot. I found this one taken a few St. Patrick's days ago, Donald on the left and Joe on the right.



This is Joe's wife, Sarah, and I'm holding their daughter, Alyssa. Alyssa is going to be 4 yrs old on New Year's Day (I'm sure Donald will make that cake as well), and Ally has a little 2 yr old sister, Keira, aka Kiki.


Rounding off my family is my middle son, Steve, his wife Megan, and their son Liam, who now live near Monterey Bay and who will be with us on Christmas Day. My oldest son, Mike, his wife, Sandy, and their two boys Joshua & Justin live in New York. I hope to visit them this spring and spend some time in NY. I've showed lots of pictures of my daughter, Jeannie (Donald's wife) and their oldest daughter, Ara, whose college graduation I'll be attending in May. I won't go into my 7 siblings, their spouses, and my many nieces and nephews. It is fun being from a large family, although it's probably insane by today's standards. Who could afford to raise and educate so many children? I'm glad I came from a large family though, and being the oldest I learned one of the best lessons in life: Don't get too attached to material things - they can be broken in a moment by mischievous younger brothers, or a younger sister can pour out your bottle of expensive make-up in a heartbeat. People are more important than things.

Back to the cake, the very top of it was the cake part and Donald took it off to cut it. I'm not sure what the tree trunk is, but I imagine the bottom part was made of Rice Krispie treat, and he often uses that for bulk. Fondant covers the whole thing, I believe, and it is this that is the base for decoration. I have watched him work painstakingly at creating small parts to be added to a big cake. He also does strawberries dipped in chocolate and decorated, and are almost too beautiful to bite into, but it never stops me from taking that bite!

I just took Lady for her afternoon walk, and noticed my next door neighbor taking down Christmas lights from his porch railing and the tree in front of his house. He told me the wires had been cut on two different strands so he was just taking the whole thing down. I feel so bad for him - he thinks it's because there is a $100 prize to be given to the best-decorated house, but I can't imagine anyone being that petty over a lousy $100!

I've already noted that just like RV parks, half the people are very friendly and half will look you straight in the eye when you greet them and just walk past you giving no response whatsoever. And so much for Christian peace and good will during the holiday season.