Christmas 2018

Greetings to all! We spent three weeks in Arizona between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Everything was already decorated for the holidays.This is a Christmas tree at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix. It is odd to see cacti and Christmas trees together. The displays were very nicely labelled and they have a huge variety of desert plants (not just cactus). The views of the mountains and cities around the Garden were also excellent.

This is downtown Old Town Scottsdale. They were all geared up for Christmas shoppers. They had a stagecoach ride and a "Singing Cowboy" sitting on a horse. Great place to buy souvenirs and gifts.

We went to see a musical version of Miracle on 34th Street at the Arizona Broadway Theater. Sandee Donahue, Alonda's roommate at the University of Illionois, invited us to go with her. This was a dinner theater and the food was excellent. The production was very well done.

This is Sandee and Alonda. Sandee is retired and living in Sun City West.

While in Arizona, we also visited Barb Weaver. She was one of our neighbors when we lived in the condo in Bremerton. She moved down to Arizona about 10 years ago. We went on a scavenger hunt for life-size, bronze Jackrabbit statues with her in Tempe. In case you hadn't noticed, there are a lot of Christmas trees in Arizona. 

This is a giant Christmas tree ornament in downtown Sedona. We drove up from Phoenix with Sandee for a day trip. 

Jim posed with the ornament, too.

This is the Wells Fargo Museum in downtown Phoenix. The museum is (surprise!) inside the Wells Fargo Bank in downtown Phoenix.

The best Christmas-y thing we did in Arizona was to ride the Holiday Lights train in the McCormack-Stillman Railroad Park in Scottsdale. We were originally going to ride the train during the day, but saw a poster for their night-time light show.

This is a full-size locomotive all decked out for Christmas.

This video shows how busy this holiday event was and gives you a good shot at the size of the trains (one leaving and one arriving). It really was an enjoyable ride! The next five shots are from the ride.

Back home, we went to see the annual Gingerbread House exhibit at the Sheraton Hotel in downtown Seattle. This is their 26th year and the theme was "Who-ville" from How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss. This is a fundraiser for the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation. This house was about five feet tall and about four feet wide. They are decorated with candies!

This close-up shows the gum drops and jelly beans!

Don't let the Grinch sneak into your house!

A Seattle tradition is the star on the downtown Macy's building.

Another long tradition is the Christmas carousel in the middle of town for the kids.

This is the official, downtown Christmas tree in Seattle. Happy Holidays to you all!

Croatia, Summer 2018

We started our time in Croatia at Zagreb, the capital. Zagreb was originally two small walled medieval towns separated by a small river. One city was run by the church and the other was more merchant oriented. The roof of the Church of Saint Mark shows the two coats of arms of the two cities which united to form modern Zagreb.

This cathedral was the heart of one of the two original towns which grew up to be Zagreb. 

This is one of several chandeliers in the Cathedral which came from a Las Vegas Casino. The church was very reluctant to accept them due to their origin, but the modern chandeliers certainly fit in well with the medieval building!

This fort is in Rijeka. We rode a bus from Zagreb to Rijeka. This fort is being restored by a grant from the European Union and has a very nice cocktail bar / coffee shop.

This is the view down into Rijeka from the fort. The water is the Adriatic Sea. If you cross it, you will be in Italy.

This is the island of Krk. Alonda's rheumatologist's family is from Croatia and he strongly recommended we visit this island. It was very interesting and tourists are starting to flock to it from Italy and Germany. Resorts and vacation homes are popping up all over the island. We stopped at this overlook after crossing the bridge to get on the island.

This is the bridge we crossed from Rijeka to Krk. It was the longest concrete arch bridge in the world when it was built. It is still the 2nd longest. We had a nice picnic lunch here which we bought at the Lidl chain of German grocery stores.

This is a "Jet Boat" ferry for bringing tourists from Italy to Rovinj. We like taking pictures of ferry boats.

This is Rovinj Center. The St. Euphemia cathedral crowns the hill. We did the Rick Steves' self-guided walking tour.

This is the market. Lots of souvenirs.

This is one of the passageways walking up to the cathedral. Cars were generally down on the flat.

This is St. Euphemia Cathedral. It overlooks the entire town and out over the water.

This is looking back at the town from the ferry boat we took to Red Island.

This is the ferry boat. Not what you expected, was it? It was run by the resort. You got on the boat in town, rode to the island and THEN bought a round-trip ticket to get back to Rovinj.

This the "sandy beach". We had asked about the beaches and were reassured that the Red Island had a sandy beach. This is it. It was less than 5 yards long.

The only things on the island were the Hotel Istra and a wildlife refuge, but the beach seems to be open to all comers. We were, of course, well ahead of tourist season.

Alonda was not super impressed by the sandy beach.

Jim was not super impressed by the sandy beach.

This is St. Euphemia and Rovinj on the way back. As we said, the church looms over the entire town. Beautiful blue skies, high temperatures in the 80's and a Mediterranean blue sea.

We went out to a restaurant recommended by our host family. 

Jim had the scampi with the tomato sauce. The bib was necessary!

Alonda had the scampi without the sauce so she didn't get a bib. The scampi were huge and truly delicious!

The next town we visited was Porec. It is supposedly the "tourist capital of the Istrian coast." Think of this as the Croatian version of Acapulco. This miniature library was in Porec. This idea is not limited to the US.

This bench was decorated to match the library.

About the only thing to see in town was this Euphrasian Basilica, a Sixth-Century Byzantine church.

We took a day trip to the southern tip of the Istrian peninsula. The town of Pula has one of the best preserved Roman amphitheaters in the world. The word "amphitheater" actually means that it has two halves. It if didn't, it would only be a half circle. This location was on the Rick Steves' self-guided walking tour.

The inside was amazingly well preserved. This one is not as well known as the Colosseum in Rome, but it is a lot cheaper and easier to visit.

After 2000 years, you can still walk down into the basement under the floor of the amphitheater. The museum has the largest known collection of amphorae in the world.

This is a well preserved Roman mosaic which was found when they were cleaning up after WWII. It is very difficult to see, since they have a fence around it and it is in an alley way. The tour guides actually yell at each other because it is so crowded. There are many more and better displayed mosaics on Cyprus.

This is one of the original city gates. Towns used to be a lot smaller.

This is the aquarium in Pula. It is in the bunkers of an Austro-Hungarian artillery emplacement left over from a couple of hundred years ago.

Alonda posed with the turtle at the entrance. 

All of the signs were in 7!! languages. People come here from all over the world.

Octopus hiding in a crevice. 

Sole hiding in the sand.

One of the rooms was a nursery for the exhibits.

If you zoom in, you will see Jim standing at the other end of the bunker. The entire place is bullet proof and has exhibits in all the side rooms.

This is Motovun, a Croatian hill town. It is very similar to hill towns in Italy. We took this photo from a restaurant/coffee bar near town.

Walking up to the town meant walking UP.

This is looking back the way we came in. Rain was moving in.

This is the ceiling inside St. Stephen's Church in the middle of town.

The altar was quite impressive. 

We took the bus back to Zagreb for a day before we flew out. We went to visit the Technical Museum. Nikola Tesla is the best known of the Croatian inventors.

This was quite an impressive museum. Like many museums outside of the US, you will see car brands you have never even heard of.

Planes, trains and automobiles! And submarines and clocks and coal mines and telephones and movie cameras and computers and on and on and on ...

We had a wonderful time, ate some wonderful food and enjoyed sitting outdoors in Croatia. The prices were all very reasonable. People sit in coffee shops and restaurants for hours and no one will bother you. A much more relaxed life style!