Welcome to my blog. I document my adventures in travel, style, and food. Hope you have a nice stay!
For our last day in Cologne, we did probably the most popular tourist attractions, the Cologne Cathedral and the Chocolate Museum. While there were quite a few people at each, it’s easy to imagine how they could be so much more crowded.
We took our first side trip of this vacation, looking at the sights in the Middle Rhine Valley including a quick boat ride on the Rhine and visiting Rheinfels Castle.
The day started with a relaxing morning and a loop going across the Rhine. We then went to the Wallraf-Richartz Museum, relaxed at a café, then went a bit out of the city to a party.
For our first full day in Cologne, we met up with Kellen and Noël to go through the Museum Ludwig, grabbed some lunch, did a short walking tour through the city, and got to chat with a friend of Noël's.
This year’s big trip is to visit Kellen and Noël who have been living in Germany for the past year and a half. After spending time with them in Cologne, we’ll head to the Alps, Munich, Salzburg, and Berlin. It’s been almost a quarter-century since Melody has been to Germany and over 40 years for me.
A while ago my dad let me scan some photos he had of his family from when he was young. The one I always go back to from 1936 has the most people, most of them old enough that I can easily tell who is who. I ran the picture through a colorizing service full well knowing it would be only a best guess at what colors went where. The result evoked a surprisingly strong reaction. I thought it would be appropriate to share since tomorrow would have been my grandparents' 107th wedding anniversary.
The 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing is getting a lot of deserved attention, and there is a lot of media coverage and documentaries. Even in just the past ten years, a lot of great items have shown up in various media forms.
I recently passed 1,000,000 views of my photos on Flickr. While the number doesn't really mean that much (it's surprisingly hard to know what a view is), it seemed like a good time to take a look at the ten photos which have gotten the most views on the site.
The only thing we planned for Saturday was a hike up Neahkahnie Mountain. That took most of the day, and the great weather yielded lots of views.
We went a bit south to Tillamook County to a couple capes. And since we were in the area, we stopped by the Tillamook Creamery.
We decided to take a long weekend to go to the north part of the Oregon Coast before the crowds start to show up, so we packed up the car and headed south. We looked at a shipwreck near Astoria, visited Fort Clatsop National Preserve, and walked a bit along the Seaside Promenade.
It’s become a tradition for me to record something for my mom’s birthday, and this year it’s a Chopin Prelude, Opus 28, No. 6, Lento Assai, in in B minor.
Seeing a performance at Benaroya Hall, it's hard to miss the banks of pipes surrounding an organ console raised to be in the middle of the stage's back wall. Almost a couple of decades after the organ was installed, we finally got to hear it a couple weeks ago, but not with the piece you would expect.
Every year the Seattle Times holds their Pictures of the Year event, not only celebrating favorite photos and videos for the previous year but also highlighting two staff members who can talk about not only the past year but the path which led them to their current career. This year the presenters were long-time photographer Alan Berner and videographer Corinne Chin.
Traditions can come and go, but one that has been going for more than a half-century is my family gathering to make mochi for the new year. Melody and I also manage to play tourist for a day, and this year we walked along Hollywood and Sunset Boulevards.
For our last full day in New Orleans, Melody finished up her conference while I went to Audubon Park and the neighboring zoo.
Melody was once again in her conference for the day, and I finally made it to the National WWII Museum. Ended up not doing very much for the rest of the day, deciding to take it easy.
Melody had a full day at the conference, and I had a full day of playing tourist. I had planned to spend a good chunk of the day at the National WWII Museum but ended up going to the Aquarium, doing a walking tour of the French Market, and walking a bit from Loyola back to Carrollton.
Melody's conference didn't start until the afternoon, so we did a walking tour of the Garden District in the morning. In the afternoon, I went to Jackson Square, walked along the waterfront, visited the Insectarium, and met up with Melody for dinner.
This would be the only full free day before Melody’s conference started so we booked a couple tours. We started with a swamp tour, then went on a plantation tour. We then navigated down Bourbon Street on the way to dinner and ended with a ride on the streetcar.
