Euro Trip Day 40: Getting to indulge my love of Gothic cathedrals AND geology, all in the same day!
AKA, Why I’m the biggest nerd EVER. :-)
On Wednesday we headed up to Prague Castle to check out St. Vitus Cathedral, a HUGE Gothic cathedral. Now, I’ve known since my freshman year of high school in Spanish class, when we learned about Santiago de Compostela in Spain, that I’ve been fascinated by cathedral architecture. But if I’ve learned one thing about the dozens of churches I’ve seen in the past three years since I got my last passport, it’s that not only do I have a thing for Gothic architecture, but I don’t really care all that much about Renaissance, I like Romanesque, and I can’t stand Baroque. Sorry, but there it is. As I commented to John a couple of days ago, if it ain’t Baroque… DON’T. Just don’t. Unfortunately, some really really neat churches got Baroqued over time. Fortunately, in the late 19th century there was a huge classical architecture revival all over Europe, and so some dilapidated and Baroqued churches got restored to their Gothic glory (and in some cases, completed. Heh.)
Ok, so back in an entry about Budapest, I mentioned that Matyas Church (on Buda Castle hill) is one of my all-time favorite churches. Well, I’ve decided that St. Vitus Cathedral is now in my top five. It’s absolutely flipping AMAZING. I honestly think that, no matter how many Gothic churches I’m fortunate to see in my lifetime, I’ll never get sick of them. Ever.
Cathedral from the outside. This thing is at the absolute tip of the hill that Prague Castle is on, so an already huge church looks even bigger. It's just AMAZING.
.
Be still, my Gothic-architecture-loving heart...
.
St. Albrecht!
.
St. Wenceslas chapel in St. Vitus Cathedral. The walls are inlaid with semiprecious stones, and the whole thing dates back to the mid-1300s. It's INCREDIBLE.
.
The rose window.
.
Front of the cathedral.
.
John, being the wonderful man that he is, didn’t drag me out of the cathedral, but after almost an hour, he started strongly hinting that maybe we should let the other tourists enjoy it too, so we left, but not until after I’d found out when the daily church service times were so that I could come back and go to a service here. :-)
On our way out of the castle hill area, we decided to walk through the castle gardens. This was a GREAT idea, because we got to see BIRDS! LARGE ONES! And we got to HOLD THEM!!
If I thought the church was going to be the highlight of my day, I was sorely mistaken. I think this was the highlight of my WEEK. Can you tell by the grin on my face? That's a peregrine falcon, by the way. And why the heck am I wearing the same shirt in every picture?
.
John holding an eagle owl. He really was thrilled about this, we were just having a hard time getting Mr. E. Owl to look at the camera. :-)
.
Apparently it’s a tradition at Czech castles to keep birds of prey, so Prague Castle has turned theirs into a demonstration kind of thing. For about $5, you get to hold the bird of your choice. AWESOME.
.
After John pulled me off the ceiling, we headed down to the National Museum of Natural History to see what there was to see.
Main hall at the museum.
.
Being the nerd that I am, I made a beeline for their geology exhibit when I saw the sign. I can’t help it — I like rocks. Maybe it’s because I have plenty in my head. Anyway, since I’m a bit of a geology nerd, I generally judge a museum’s geology exhibit (however fair/unfair this may be) by if they have a sample of benitoite, California’s state gemstone, which is found only in San Benito County in central California. Picky, I know. Usually when a museum has a sample of benitoite, it’s a very small sample, and it’s usually polished to look like the lovely blue gemstone it is. Prague’s Natural History Museum didn’t have a very pretty, polished sample, but darned if it isn’t the LARGEST sample I’ve seen… it’s just a trip to see it all the way over here. So cool!!! And to be fair, they did have quite a nice display of other rocks too, including some really neat meteors.
California's state gemstone.
.
We closed down the museum and headed across the street to McDonald’s for dinner. I know I know… McDonald’s. I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned this here on my blog or just on Facebook, but we’ve been going to McDonald’s on this trip for several reasons. #1, McDonald’s in Europe almost ALWAYS have free wifi and free bathrooms. If we have time to kill while waiting for a train, it sure as heck beats waiting at the train station, and there’s almost always a McDonald’s near a train station. Second, their local menu is somewhat interesting. In Krakow, I had a chicken curry burger, and I swear I’m starting a petition to bring these to the US. Who’s in? I promise they’re really good! I mean, it’s not like having real chicken curry, but to me it was quite an acceptable substitute!
So anyway, I’d been seeing ads in the metro stations for a tzatziki beef burger. I had no idea what this was, but the picture looked interesting, so I figured I’d give it a whirl. And it had these really interesting seasoned potatoes that I haven’t seen anywhere else.
The potatoes were good, but the burger… not so much. The burger had feta cheese and fresh cucumbers in it, as well as some sort of pinkish sauce that wasn’t Thousand Island, and I think that’s dried dill as the seasoning on the bun. I kind of liked the feta and the sauce, but the cucumbers and the dill… notsomuch. To be fair, I’m not a cucumber fan anyway, but even after I took them off the burger, it was still really cucumber-y. I couldn’t finish it, and neither could John. Oh well, I tried. I’m now 1 for 3 in liking foreign McD’s burgers (the chicken curry was great, but I had a McCountry in Zagreb that I couldn’t finish either. Oh well — you win some, you lose some. Even at McDonald’s.)
Seriously. Fresh cucumbers. The fries in the background are John's, by the way. He's not quite as adventurous when it comes to McDonald's as I am... which makes sense given that he's always been happy with and able to finish his meal. :-)
.
After dinner, we headed to a DVD store to amuse ourselves with the cheap Czech offerings (I still think they’re pirated, but John doesn’t think so) and then we headed home. It was the perfect relaxed day. :-)
**********
Where we are now:
.
Milo the Screech Owl
Milo the Screech Owl, originally uploaded by Kari_Marie.
This little cutie is Milo, a Western Screech Owl and a resident at the Discovery Museum of Sacramento. John’s nephews (ages 9 and 11) spent the night last night, and since it was pouring rain today and we didn’t want to do anything outside, we took them to the museum instead. It was a fun afternoon. :-)
.
Ok, so I FINALLY finished uploading those Costa Rica pictures…
Costa Rica 139, originally uploaded by Kari_Marie.
These are leaf cutter ants, quite possibly one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. Seriously.
I finally finished uploading my Costa Rica pictures, and blog posts will be forthcoming (no, seriously–they will! I just don’t know when!) Right now though I’m working on more photo processing–I have the use of a micro four-thirds camera for the week (an Olympus Pen EP-1) so I’m taking every chance to play with that and see what I think.
And I’ll get those pictures uploaded too–I promise. :-)
.
I caught you a partridge, but I eated it
In case you don’t get the reference in the post title, it’s this internet meme.
A veterinarian friend of mine is holding a 12 Days of Petmas roundup on her blog, and I volunteered to take Day 4 (4 calling birds, in case you don’t remember the song.) So this evening I decided to take some pictures… I’m not sending her this one, but it’s my favorite of the outtakes… The aftermath.
Cat + Christmas Tree = bad news. The white thing he's munching on is a twin of the white bird in the foreground.
.
So much for that partridge in a pear tree.
My crazy-colored cat
Alert kitty is alert, originally uploaded by Kari_Marie.
I had another post all queued up for this blog earlier this week, but it broke my HTML, and until I get around to figuring out WHY, this ridiculously cute cat will have to suffice. :-) She was sitting up on my bed, staring out the window at the birds on the telephone wire outside… So cute. :-)
Oh, and this was taken on my new phone. The color originally wasn’t great (I had to do a bit of tweaking in Flickr) but it’s nice to get something that can focus for a change! :-)
My leopard, let me show you him
Randomness 015, originally uploaded by Kari_Marie.
I went to the Sac Zoo again this year for Smithsonian’s Free Museum Day a couple of weeks ago, and took this. Isn’t he gorgeous? I love this shot. :-)
Hanging out at the park
I live three blocks from one of the awesomest parks ever–it has a duck pond and a library and everything. I totally love it–it’s what made me want to move to my neighborhood in the first place.
So I was there last week hanging out and taking pictures, and stumbled upon this guy, who ever-so-nicely offered to pose for me for just a moment. It’s always nice to get full-frame shots of the smaller critters… I didn’t crop this a single bit–I really was that close. So fun. :-)
Squirrel.
.
Camouflage
Look closely. See anything interesting?
Reeds in the duck pond at McKinley Park
.
Look again. Maybe try clicking on this picture to see a larger version.
.
Do you see it now?
.
Now do you see her?
.
I was walking along the shoreline at the duck pond at McKinley Park last week, looking for some baby wood ducks who will make an appearance in a later post, and somehow, the faintest bit of movement in the above-pictured reeds caught my attention. I looked, and there she was, nesting away. Neat.
.
The peace of wild things
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water,
and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief.
I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light.
For a time, I rest in the grace of the world,
and am free.
.
~ Poem by Wendell Berry
.
Same thing every morning
This is generally the first thing I see when I open my eyes every morning.
.
A day at the races
Ok, so I was there in the evening, I was only there for a bit, and there were no Marx Brothers anywhere to be seen. But it was $1 hot dog night at Cal Expo, and there were horses to take pictures of, so despite the brisk, chilly wind, I hung out next to the track fence and had fun shooting the horses taking pictures.
If you've never seen a harness race, they use a mobile starting gate. I don't know why, but every one I remember seeing has been attached to a Cadillac, which I find oddly amusing.
.
View from behind the gate
.
This ended up being a photo finish. The horse closest to the camera won.
.
The reason I went, besides that it was $1 hot dog night, was because I was invited by some friends of mine. One of them has a coworker whose daughter owns Mack N Black, the horse in the following picture. Click on this link to read more about her and her horse–it’s a neat story!
Flying horse. This was a split second after he crossed the finish line. He won.
.
Click here for a gallery of more pictures
.
Ladybug!
The other day after I finished taking pictures of the CDF CalFire planes, I went to get back into my truck and was distracted by movement and color in the dirt. Now, I tend to get distracted fairly easily (and those of you who know me are going, “Gee, ya THINK?”) so within a minute (and after a quick lens change) I was on my belly in the dirt, taking pictures of the ladybug that had caught my attention.
Look--it has a heart! I didn't even notice this until I got the picture onto my computer. So cool.
.
I like the angle on this one.
.
One more picture.
.
One of the reasons I love Sacramento
One of the reasons I love Sacramento is the relative proximity of everything. We’re about an hour and a half from Tahoe/snow/skiing, an hour an a half (ok, or longer depending on traffic) from San Francisco and the coast, we’re a decently large city but can easily get to the Bay Area if we want a larger city, and we’re also close to the mountains if we want wilderness. I live in midtown Sac, which means I’m close to the Capitol and pretty much smack dab in the middle of everything, but in only 10 minutes, I can drive to where I’m out with nature.
I took advantage of this a couple of weeks ago when I made two trips (one sunset, one sunrise) out to the Vic Fazio Yolo Wildlife Area, about ten miles from my house. The entire Sacramento Delta area is part of the Pacific Flyway, so tremendous numbers of birds pass through here on their way north and south, making for some fun bird photography. I’ve driven over this particular stretch of land many times while taking the Yolo Causeway, AKA I-80, west from Sacramento to the Bay Area, and I’ve always admired it because of its wide-open space, rice fields, and wetlands. It’s especially beautiful at the end of the day, when the setting sun reflects off of the shallow, standing water and tens of thousands of birds (no, I’m not exaggerating) swoop and settle in for the night.
I went for sunset, and I was so blown away that the next morning I dragged myself out of bed in the dark and cold hours and went to watch the sun rise as well. I wasn’t disappointed… In fact, the worst part of the whole experience was trying to figure out how I was going to delete some truly awesome shots (since I really can’t and don’t need to keep everything…)
As always, a few shots :
Day 1: Sunset
Dried star anise. It smells like black licorice!
.
Mallards!
.
You really need to click on this next one to enlarge it.
Red-winged Blackbirds swarming and then settling in the reeds for the night.
.
Collision course.
.
Egret silhouetted against the sunset sky.
.
Day 2: Sunrise
Sunrise over the Sacramento River delta.
.
Red-winged Blackbird.
.
Red-tailed hawk.
.
I was carefully walking closer to an egret, trying to get a good shot, and inadvertently flushed out this blue heron. Sweet. Check out those wings!!
.
Great egret.
[Gallery of more pics can be found here]
.
