August is Pride Month in Amsterdam, so we wandered up there to see things at the end of the Pride Parade a few weeks ago. The first time this post went up, a glitch deleted the sadder gallery below, one of those reasons I’m so happy to now live in a place where I can be more fully myself :-).
A video showing the full range of things we could see in the village of Soran, below the mountain that has Korek resort with the chair lift. Thought we’d save this as our very last image from the most recent Iraq trip, so you could experience how dramatic it is more directly 🙂
Two more images photographed on that clear late-July walk home from the Concertgebouw, to the apartment I now no longer live in, hence the choice to use both images in the same post as a bit of a farewell to that neighborhood. 🙂
So obviously this particular Borkum lighthouse is newer than the one we’ve shown you before which is labeled on maps as “New Lighthouse.” The distinction is that this one -unlike the other two we saw in our short stay on Borkum – seems still to actually function as lighthouse and is thus locked away behind gates and all. We still haven’t actually shown you the original “old lighthouse,” but bear with us and we will :-).
Last photos from the airplane when I left SF after my last US visit in early April, all three in order in which they were taken as our plane flew north along the central valley not long after take-off from SFO. I’m reasonably confident that’s Lake Beryessa in the first photo, and then more of the Snow Mountain Wilderness area.
With mountains can come waterfalls, so I’ve saved for the end these last two shots of the lovely waterfall we visited down in the valley below the road you see in the photo below. This particular series will now go dormant until I am again close enough to anything I can legitimately call a mountain to take appealing photos. A few trips expected in late August and September might conceivably make that possible…
My recent outing to the museum at Paleis Het Loo, spurred by that Guardian article my friend Steve linked me to, has caused me to decide I should start a new series on royal – related locations. After all, royals since time began have generally had privileges, as well as residences, gardens and even vehicles (e.g. below from an exhibit in the former royal stables) that most humans at any given time or place couldn’t dream of. Into this new category might have gone one or two of the post from our visit last year to Vienna — in a nation now no longer a monarchy, but still earning tourist income from visitors come to see those residences. Or perhaps some posts from those royal residences of Rajasthan which I visited more than 13 years ago, that both inspired me with their beauty and troubled me as indications of a hugely unjust socio-political system. Thus my name for this new series: I’m wanting to admire the beauty while I question the socio-political system, along with all socio-political systems (e.g. late-modern capitalism and its manifestations in the land of my birth) which allow power and wealth to concentrate, often in dynastic and family lines one way or another. Ugh, wealth, power and its perquisites. And yes, those gardens you see through the gilded-fruit-tree window decoration below are gardens whose canals you’ve already seen a few times :-). Gilded fruit trees: lovely but rather quintessentially “ah, royal,” don’t you agree?
These shots were all taken in Beatrixpark, south and east of where I used to live. We wandered over there in order to see more delegations in the festive starting parade for the Amsterdam World Gymnaestrada 2023 two weekends ago. It’s apparently a non-competitive gymnastics gathering that began here in A’dam 70 years ago (?), and aside from watching the flags and seeing which ones we recognized, we enjoyed seeing how much fun the highly diverse (in age most notably) the walkers were having with each other and the event. African, Asian and South American nations were generally less represented than European nations, but I was happy to see Zimbabwe bringing up the end of the alphabet, just before the very large Netherlands contingent, who as host country were the last delegation. It was also fun to note the occasional country that snuck in out of alphabetical order – generally more fun and less formal than you’ll see on TV with things like the Olympics :-).
(so much world, so little time....) 