The Christmas Spirit at the Pageant
There is nothing on earth as heart warming as three and four year olds at the Episcopal Day School doing a Christmas pageant. The teachers and aides are truly heroes, teaching Christmas Carols and a script to children so young. Getting the children in, getting them in their places, keeping them on track – it was adorable, heart warming – and totally hilarious. The songs were so sweet, the kids so delighted to see their loved ones in the audience (“Hey, Dad! Dad! DAD!”) and their joy in being a part of it so palpable. The little Star of the East who missed her cue and followed the Wise Men, the little girl belting out the Christmas songs, the adorable sheep – I grin just thinking about it.
Herding cats, LOL!
Joseph and Mary start their trip:
Joseph and Mary are presented with a pillow for their trip:
Jesus, Mary and Joseph!
The Star of the East:
The manger, Jesus, Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, the angels, the wise men, all the barnyard animals, and the Star of the East:
It didn’t last thirty minutes. It is a highlight of our Christmas season 🙂
Dinner at Hofbrau Haus in Panama City Beach, FL
We lived so many years in Germany, and one of the phrases that would drive me crazy is people exclaiming about schnitzles that “were so BIG they were hanging off the plate!” (said with big googly eyes). Big and schnitzle do not necessarily go well together. Schnitzle can be tough, it can have too much fat, it can be gristly. Living there for so long, I’ve had some really bad schnitzles, big and small. During our later years in Germany, we avoided schnitzle altogether; there were so many other alternatives, more refined dishes – pumpkin raviolis, white asparagus soups, St. Martin’s goose, venison ragout, duck breasts . . . (drooling in a very un-refined way . . . )
But lately, I had tiny hankering for a plain old schnitzle, and here we were in Panama City Beach, where there is a HofBrau House.
When we lived in Heidelberg, there was a HofBrau House nearby. Growing up in Germany, it seemed to me HofBrau House was everywhere, sort of like a German version of McDonalds. Now, you don’t see them so often as you used to, except for the original one in Munich.
AdventureMan is a great sport; he likes schnitzle less than I do, but off we go to HofBrau House, and actually, we have a great time.
I order a pretzel, it is huge and it is very hot, and served with a mustard dipping sauce. (This is nothing like we ever had in Germany; pretzels were mostly street-food.) It was salty and the sauce was delicious. I loved it.
The pretzel went great with the beer – very good beer – and the accordion music. The atmosphere in the HofBrau house is festive. The beer is VERY good.
When my schnitzel came, it covered the plate. I was aghast, but . . . it was crisply fried, not any fat, not any gristle and lots and lots of lemon wedges to squeeze onto it. We cut it in half and took half home for a late Thanksgiving snack the next night. We cut the remainder in half and enjoyed every bite. It will be a long long time before I feel a need for a schnitzel again, but this one did the HofBrau Haus proud.
Service was the best. All the wait staff looked really happy to be there, even those who had to wear the serving wench costumes. It is located in Pier Park, a great place to go walking after a schnitzel dinner, great shopping and a kid’s park with rides and a huge slide.
Holly Beach and Hackberry, Louisiana
AdventureMan knows how to thrill my heart, and just down the road, we find Holly Beach.
“Do you want to walk on the beach?” he asks slyly. He knows the answer to that question will always be “YES!!”
Holly Beach is not Pensacola Beach. I don’t see a single restaurant, not a single hotel. I don’t see sugar white sand. The sand here is golden grey, and the beach is littered – with SEASHELLS! So many wonderful seashells! I could stay here for a long time!
LOL, it’s also an Alaska kind of beach!
On our way into Lake Charles, we make a stop at Brown’s Market, in Hackberry, Louisiana, for a list of items, and they had every item on our list. It is a great little stop, and has clean restrooms, too 🙂
Moonglow in Pensacola
AdventureMan and I believe in creating our own small adventures, so off we went, Saturday morning, to the Angel’s Garden Arts Fest on 12th Avenue in Pensacola. So many talented people, with so many things to see.
Yes, I bought something. Not something to hang on the wall, LOL, we have become more choosy as our collection has grown. No, I bought something to make my grandchildren GLOW IN THE DARK! LLLLOOOOLLLLL! I laugh when I think of their parents faces seeing their shining, glowing little faces!
I love it that this man has discovered a niche product that he can sell. No, we don’t need it, but oh, what fun!
The Real Housewives of Disney
And these are wonderful, such send-ups of the Real Housewives series, dying laughing! These are the talented comedians on Saturday Night Live:
The Cable Bill: A Tiresome Battle
Every year around this time, we get a whopper of a cable bill, far above our normal bill.
And we gird for war.
I used to handle it and AdventureMan would sometimes laugh from his office. (Once an insurance agent said to me “You READ the policy??” when I told her I was discontinuing it because the things it covered were things that didn’t apply, and the things that I needed weren’t covered.) When AdventureMan volunteered to handle the annual cable bill call, I danced for joy.
If you want to win, you have to have a strategy. But not any old strategy is going to win the cable bill battle, you have to have the strength and fortitude for THE LONG PHONE CALL.
As we do this, I can hear my Dad’s voice as he would do battle over the phone, with the post office over an extra charge on a package, or a financial institution about just when that interest should be paid and how it should be calculated.
You can’t do this unless you have the time and energy.
AdventureMan ultimately prevails, and saved us over $600 over the course of the cable year, but it is a tedious battle, at one point, the equivalent of a siege, a battle of attrition, as he goes through what we are buying line by line.
The cable representative, however, has his own weapons – wire and smoke and mirrors, disguised as bundles and discounts and specials. They can “stack” some, but not others, and the packages may not be as described. It’s dirty warfare, down in the trenches, but the ultimate weapon is that AdventureMan has the time, and they have their time limits.
One day we are hoping to walk away from cable altogether, but until we can figure out how to get Downton Abbey, Game of Thrones, and other programs we like on a reliable basis, we stick with the devil we know.
From DIGG: Real Life Film Locations for Game of Thrones
The 7 Kingdoms in ‘Game of Thrones’ are actually these 5 real-world places
It turns out it takes less post-production tinkering than you’d expect to turn our world into the lands of Ice and Fire.
Not much in “Game of Thrones” could be described as “true to life.” King Joffrey, for instance? IRL, actually a pretty sweet guy. And the Khaleesi definitely ain’t a natural blonde. (Oh yeah, and to the best of our knowledge she hasn’t fire-hatched any dragons, either.)
Say what you will about the vaguely insane plot and ever more inventive ways of killing off characters, though, there’s one element of the show that’s surprisingly real: the locations. It turns out it takes less post-production tinkering than you’d expect to turn our world into the lands of Ice and Fire.
Whether it’s the steep crags of Winterfell or the stone palaces of King’s Landing, the scorched slave port of Astapor or the frozen whiteness beyond the Wall, the show’s most dramatic landscapes really do exist — in five countries and on two continents.
Hold on to your dragons, it’s time for a tour.
Malta: King’s Landing (season 1), Pentos
Mdina city gate (Alex Murphy/Flickr Commons).
Malta’s stone city of Mdina, with its aptly lion-topped gate, was the original King’s Landing. San Anton Palace, the Maltese president’s residence, stood in for the Red Keep, where kings are murdered and brothers and sisters get way, way too close. Other island fortresses, notably Fort St. Angelo, Fort Ricasoli and Fort Manoel, provided the backdrop for other scenes in and around Westeros’ ruling city.
The Azure Window (Robert Pittman/Flickr Commons).
Daenerys Targaryen and her ill-fated brother Viserys, meanwhile, were supposed to be across the Narrow Sea in Pentos but in fact filmed their early scenes on another corner of the island. One of Malta’s most spectacular natural monuments, the limestone archway known as the Azure Window, loomed over Daenerys’ wedding to beefy horseman Khal Drogo. Maltese officials would later complain that the shoot damaged the protected habitat, which may have been one of the reasons why the GoT crew packed up and found a different location for the following seasons.
Croatia: King’s Landing (season 2 onward), Qarth
Dubrovnik (ELVIS BARUKCIC/AFP/Getty Images).
If King’s Landing suddenly acquired a lot more red tile roofs between seasons 1 and 2, it’s because it moved to Croatia’s walled city of Dubrovnik. Unlike Mdina, which is inland, Dubrovnik perches right on the coast — fairly important if your boy king’s deranged uncle is going to attack there by sea.
Minceta Tower (Romanceor/Wikimedia Commons).
Daenerys, by now widowed and mother to three dragons, hopped over to the idyllic island of Lokrum, opposite Dubrovnik, where the crew created much of the creepy city of Qarth. The House of The Undying, the site of the season finale, was the mainland’s real-life Minceta Tower. The palace gardens where Sansa has taken to moping in season 4, meanwhile, are the lush grounds of the Trsteno Arboretum, just up the coast from Dubrovnik.
Morocco: Yunkai, Astapor
Ait Benhaddou (Stefan de Vries/Flickr Commons).
The third season ventured to North Africa as the Khaleesi went on her travels in search of an army and those ever elusive ships. Producers selected two of Morocco’s most unique landscapes, Ait Benhaddou and Essaouira, to represent the fictional cities of Yunkai and Astapor respectively. Both are UNESCO World Heritage Sites, Ait Benhaddou for its red citadel on the foothills of the Atlas mountains, and Essaouira for its stone sea walls topped by bronze cannon. Ait Benhaddou has the added bonus of a nearby studio in the city of Ouarzazate, so popular is the area with directors (Laurence of Arabia, The Last Temptation of Christ, Alexander and Gladiator are among the many movies filmed there).
Essaouira (Mark Fischer/Flickr Commons).
It’s Essaouira’s turn as slave-trading Astapor, however, that remains most memorable to me at least, for reasons that anyone who’s seen the season 3 finale will immediately understand.
Iceland: Beyond the Wall
On the shores of Lake Mývatn (Juergen Adolph/Flickr Commons).
If Morocco’s red plains bring the fire to ‘Game of Thrones,’ Iceland brings, er, the ice. The show’s makers quite logically headed north to shoot the part of the story that unfolds at the northernmost tip of Westeros, preferring Iceland’s otherworldly landscapes to anything CGI could produce. Vatnajökull National Park and the Svínafellsjökull glacier, both in the southwest, were picked for season 2, while most of season 3’s ultra-Wall action was filmed on and around frozen Lake Mývatn further north, littered with clumps of black lava from the active volcanos that dot the region.
Thingvellir (Andreas Tille/Wikimedia Commons).
Season 4 moved on to Thingvellir National Park, a protected area of exceptional natural beauty and another UNESCO World Heritage site. Aptly enough for the Wildlings and their proto-democracy (sort of), Thingvellir’s plains are where Iceland’s parliament was first founded and continued to assemble, under the open sky, for almost nine centuries.
Northern Ireland, UK: Winterfell, Vaes Dothrak, Kings Road, Storm’s End, Castle Black, the Iron Islands…
The Dark Hedges of Armoy (horslips5/Flickr Commons).
Northern Ireland is to ‘Game of Thrones’ what New Zealand was to ‘Lord of the Rings.’ No other country has provided so many locations for the show, from the towers of Winterfell (Castle Ward) to the shore of the Iron Islands (Ballintoy Harbour), the rocky beach where the sorceress Melisandre gives birth (Cushendun Caves) to the interlacing beech trees of Kings Road (the Dark Hedges of Armoy). If you’re watching a scene set anywhere near woods, chances are it was filmed in Tollymore Forest. Entering or exiting Castle Black? That’ll be the vast outdoor set constructed in the disused limestone quarry of Magheramorne. And the number of interiors shot at the Paint Hall studio in Belfast — where the shipyard that built the Titanic has been turned into one of the biggest studio complexes in Europe — are too many to mention.
County Antrim coastline (Paolo Trabattoni/Flickr Commons).
So keen are the regional authorities to keep the crew filming there, in fact, that Northern Ireland’s national screen agency, economic development body and the European Regional Development Fund have between them stumped up the equivalent of $15.5 million in grantsto the show’s makers. In return, the Northern Irish government estimates that the productions has boosted the region’s struggling economy by some $109 million — not least by attracting globetrotting GoT fans to themed tours of filming locations and nerd-fest exhibitions of official memorabilia. Don’t tell anyone, but we sort of want to go.
Heroes At The Dinner Table
“That’s Jollaf rice!” the Nigerian journalist said, a note of delight in her voice. She is famous for her passion and persistence drawing attention to the environmental issues in the Niger delta related to oil extraction and production. I told her that here in the Gulf, it’s called Jambalaya, but we all agreed that it very likely had African roots. She delighted my heart; she had three helpings.
When we have visitors from foreign countries, I try to serve foods they can identify – grilled vegetables, a chicken dish, several salads, a dessert. This time, because we had no Moslems, we used a real Cajun sausage in the jambalaya (pork), and jumbo shrimp.
The award-winning Finnish environmentalist has his own online website and a goal of planting 100 million trees by 1017. He is well on his way, visiting and planting trees in new countries every week. He also has his own band and has a CD out with Finnish music.
Our South African guest manages a large rhino reserve, protecting the rhinos from those who would kill them for their horns, thinking it renews sexual energy. Poor rhinos! He was quiet, but an acute observer, and the highlight of the evening was as he sang the haunting South African national anthem, Nkosi Sikelel’, with the Finnish guest. They did not sing all 11 verses (!) in all the different languages; just one verse, it was very moving:
Our own sweet environmentalist was with us. We think our son and his wife are super heroes; they fight for justice and a clean environment. This evening, our son stayed at home with the grandchildren and his wife, who works with clean water, was able to join and talk shop over dinner with her counterparts from other parts of the world.
It isn’t so easy anymore to get these dinners on the table, off the table, dessert served, etc. I used to be able to do these easily, for more than 20 people, but I also had help, LOL! But these dinners give us so much joy that I can’t imagine giving them up any time soon.
Happy Heidelberg
My high school stomping grounds; this video makes my heart flutter seeing all those wonderful sights with wonderful memories:
Ladysmith Black Mombazo Live in Niceville
My co-Mother-in-Law leaned over and said “I don’t think they could have done this twenty-five years ago.”
I think she’s right. Northwest Florida is still one of the most conservative societies in America, and yet, in spite of all probabilities, we are in the Mattie Kelly Cultural Center, in Niceville, Florida, surrounded by a HUGE and enthusiastic audience, all of whom have shelled out big bucks to hear this talented group out of South Africa.
As soon as we saw the initial ads, AdventureMan marked his calendar, so we could call the very first day tickets were available. I don’t really believe in bucket lists, but I do believe in grabbing an opportunity when it presents itself; we have loved the sounds of Ladysmith Black Mombazo forever.
Last night was a thrill. I was astonished at how wildly enthusiastic the audience was; it was a mix of all walks of the population, academics, retired folk, groups of school children, and . . . fans. Wildly enthusiastic fans. A group knows when it is treasured, and it feeds on the positive response. Ladysmith Black Mombazo thrilled our hearts.
Here is one of my favorites, expecially the introduction:
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