It was my last day in Munich, and I ran out to Marienplatz one more time with the streetcar.
It was just about noon, and the glockenspiel* on the townhall’s clock tower played to a smattering of on-lookers that risked getting frostbite on their fingertips as they held up their phones to record a video of it. (I was one of them).
From Marienplatz I went to a few beautiful U-bahn stations on the U1 line to take pictures.
*The Rathaus-Glockenspiel is a large mechanical clock located in Marienplatz square, in old town Munich. Famous for its life-size characters, the clock twice daily re-enacts scenes from Munich’s history.
Here is a jousting scene depicted by the glockenspiel. One of the knights was mortally injured, and falls backward on the horse.These enormous and dramatic lamp scones are at Westfriedhof on the U1 line.Here’s a red one.And I made this yellow one appear to sit on top of the SOS pillar.On the far end of the U1 line is the Olympia-Einkaufszentrum station. There are huge metal studs that line the wall, creating a spaceship-futuristic look.Nearby, and also on the U1 line, is Oberwiesenfeld station with a black and white tile pattern on the one side .... and burnt orange on the other.Candidplatz on the south end of the U1 line is painted in the colors of the rainbow.
It started snowing at around 8 am this morning here in Munich, but it could not have been more than an inch an or so, from what I could tell.
I used the Line 19 streetcar again to get Hauptbahnhof (the main train station), and from there, ran out to Odeonsplatz and a comic book store on Fraunhoferstrasse.
The view from my hotel room (using my phone’s 5x zoom to zoom in on the Deutsche Bahn train maintenance station) at 8 this morning.Here comes the Line 18 streetcar, at Am Lok-schuppen station.At Sendlinger Tor station, I stepped off the streetcar and went underground to the U-bahn. (The sidewalk surfaces were treacherous with the snow and ice, and there were no pedestrian crossings to speak of. Then I realized that is the other use of any U-bahn station: it’s an under passage for pedestrians to get from one side of an intersection to the other).Here is Odeonsplatz, named for the former concert hall, the Odeon, on its northwestern side. The church is the Theatine Church of St. Cajetan and Adelaide (German: Theatinerkirche St. Kajetan und Adelheid)— a Roman Catholic church. It was consecrated 11 July, 1675.Taking a closer look at the heraldic elements in the center (the lions and the white-and-blue checkered pattern is taken from the coat of arms of Bavaria).Here is the nearby Hofgarten (Eng. ‘Courtyard garden’), established in 1613.Back inside the Sendlinger Tor U-bahn station. I love the giant white saucer-shaped light fixtures.This is a comic book store called Comic Company near Fraunhoferstrasse station. I bought used three comic books for all of Є8.40. More books to weigh down my luggage but hey, I was still 10+ pounds under the weight limit with both my suitcases when I checked them in at Cape Town.By the time I hopped off the Line 18 streetcar close to my hotel, the snow had started to melt.
There was no palm tree at this beach house that belonged to my family thirty years ago. My dad sold it in 1996 and some time after that it was turned into a self-catering guest house.The 6-story atrium inside the Beacon Isle hotel.This is a western cattle egret (Bubulcus ibis).A decorative mask from Ghana, for sale in the Global Village art store here in Plettenberg Bay for US $184.
Knysna is a town on the Garden Route and 33 km (20 miles) west of Plettenberg Bay on the N2 national route.
The pirate ship on the Knysna waterfront offers a bar and snacks, and trips around the Knysna estuary up to The Heads and then back again for sunset.There are many other kinds of watercraft in the marina, of course.This is a view from a restaurant called Drydock Co towards the Knysna Heads: the headlands of two peninsulas that enclose and form the Knysna River Estuary.This public art installation of bronze with a chromed finish is called “Zephyr”, and the artist is Stephan Raubenheimer.
I am buying stamps from South Africa and southern Africa now that I am here, and saving a little money in the process. (Stamps from this part of the world are sent to the USA by express airmail or by international courier— which can be $40 or more for one shipment. Surface mail takes several months).
I love this 1951 definitive issue from Mozambique, part of a set of 24 stamps.
At the time, Mozambique was still a Portuguese colony, and the currency was the escudo.
The fishies are going to swim in freshwater when I get them home, so that I can separate them from the paper that they are pasted on.
It’s 2025!
Happy New Year!
The cartoon is from the South African newspaper Die Burger (“The Citizen”) and by cartoonist Dr Jack.
“Good news, swarrie*! Even though your barbecuing leaves a lot to be desired, we have decided to stay until after New Years” “You may have to run out to the store today, since the brannas** is AGAIN running a little low. “ #$!&🤬 Side Comment by the little hippopotamus: “House guests are like fish— after three days they start to stink”
A few weeks ago Lufthansa cancelled the direct Frankfurt to Cape Town flight I had reserved. They rebooked all of us on a short hop to Munich, to catch the Munich to Cape Town flight from there.
Pictures: I ran into several more billboard pictures of “Venus” in Terminal A. Would you like to see all of them? (Of course you do. The “merivaglia” in the slogan “Open to merivaglia” is an Italian word that means “a wonder” or “beauty”). That’s a Boeing 787-9 at the gate at Terminal A that took us to Munich. It’s a 45-minute flight due east.
Here are a few pictures from today, as well as a few clippings from the Sunday newspapers.
This closed-for-traffic street across from the Hauptbahnhof station (main train station) is lined with restaurants from the Middle East and the Far East. Döner kebab is very popular in Frankfurt: a dish of Turkish origin made of meat cooked on a vertical rotisserie.Inside the Hauptbahnhof. This train from regional operator Hessische Landesbahn GmbH (HLB) is a Bombardier Talent 2 model ET150 (a German manufacturer as far as I can tell, not the Bombardier that makes business jet airplanes). It is about to depart for Giessen, a 42-min trip to the north of Frankfurt.Hello. A fluffy pup inside the food court at the Hauptbahnhof station.My lunch from seafood franchise Noordsee. It’s Norwegian salmon. Very nice. An elderly woman took the seat across from mine. “Ich spreche nur ein wenig Deutsch” (I speak only a little German), I said. It was a little noisy to carry on a conversation, anyway. As I got up, she pointed to my phone and said “Dein Handy” (your cell phone). Cute word— and appropriate— that handy thing called a “Handy” in German.Paulaner from Munich also makes non-alcoholic beer now. (Weissbier is a wheat beer: a top-fermented beer which is brewed with a large proportion of wheat relative to the amount of malted barley (from Wikepedia). I will have some more when I stop over in Munich on the way back from South Africa.Back at the Flughafen train station, and across the street some nice dinosaurs on the sidewalk walls promote the Senckenberg Nature Museum in Frankfurt.“A MOOSE COW HAS ESCAPED FROM SCHONFIELDE WILD PARK” “WELL, ONE CAN SPOT THEM EASILY, BIG AS THEY ARE .. “ ” .. BUT THEY CAN STILL BE ASTONISHINGLY DIFFICULT TO FIND” [Cartoon by Naomi Feam for newspaper Tagesspiegel]A loose translation of a few paragraphs in this piece titled “When trees and nerves are burning out/ How to survive Christmas nonetheless” reads like this: Christmas can be a pretty stressful time. We have baked cookies, made the Christmas wreath, drunk mulled wine at overcrowded Christmas markets— and what now? Now the time has come. The extended family is about to arrive. Or: you find yourself in a crowded train traveling across the country and have to split your time between Christmas Eve and Christmas Holiday because your parents are separated. Grandma Inge wants to see you again, and Uncle Bert and his new girlfriend have invited you to dinner. Once you have managed all of that, New Years Eve follows. You should be totally festive here, as well— but now with sparklers and a glass of champagne in hand. And heaven forbid it’s not a great party! In short, December is a seemingly endless series of social, personal and societal expectations and gatherings that could send you straight into end-of-the-year burnout. How the hell is one supposed to survive all of that?This cartoon refers to the chaos in the German coalition government. (Chancellor Olaf Scholz lost a confidence vote, deepening the political turbulence in Germany). “Are these all returns? Rejected by the electorate? And what is inside yours?” “Candidates for chancellor”. [Cartoon by Stuttmann for Tagesspiegel newspaper]
Hey, on this winter solstice day I made it to the Christmas market at Römerberg. It was cold and raining, though, and I did not stay very long.
(It did seem that the inclement weather increased the glühwein sales volumes!)
Pictures: Entrance hall to Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof (main train station). There was a strong of police presence at the station. Hauptbahnhof station looked a little more ragged and rundown from the last time I saw it— especially the floors leading to the U4 & U5 subway lines’ platforms. Poster for Messe Frankfurt (exhibition center) close by Hauptbahnhof station.
It’s two stops on the U5 subway line (turquoise train car) from Hauptbahnhof station to Römer/ Dom station to where the Christmas market is. The U5 is getting a 2.7 km (1.7 mi) extension that will open in 2027.
Last picture: the S9 regional train (red train car) arriving to take me back from Hauptbahnhof station to Flughafen (airport) station where my hotel is, a 14-minute ride.
It has rained all day in Rain City.
It will rain on and off all week here, in the run-up to winter solstice.
Here’s an artificial intelligence (AI) generated image that I generated with Apple’s Playground application. I selected a day-time image of the Space Needle that I had on my phone, and added a text instruction ‘Space Needle in the rain’.
Here is today’s cartoon from South Africa’s Sunday newspaper Rapport.
The summer school holidays are underway in South Africa, and with it the exodus of the binnelanders* to the coast.
*Afrikaans word for those that live ‘inside’ the country— far away from the coast.
“And this?” “I want to look up those words that dad will use on the road.” About the car’s license plate: VAALIES = Old South Africa (pre-1994) nickname for inhabitants of Transvaal province, home to Johannesburg, and which is now called Gauteng (GP) province. [Cartoon by Dr Jack for Rapport newspaper]
Here are stamps issued by South Africa that would be candidates for a themed collection of elements on stamps.
Given South Africa’s large mining industry, it is somewhat surprising that relatively few stamps with a mining theme have been issued.
Gold (atomic number 79) 1961 First Definitive Issue Issued May 31, 1961 Perf. 14 | Photogravure | Wmk Coat of Arms 201 113 2c Ultramarine and yellow | Pouring gold [Source: Stanley Gibbons Stamp Catalogue Part 1, British Commonwealth 1997]Iron (26) Steel is primarily composed of iron, with most types containing around 98% to 99.5% iron, with the remaining percentage typically made up of carbon and trace elements depending on the specific steel grade.
1978 50th Anniversary of ISCOR* (South African Iron and Steel Industrial Corporation) Issued Jun. 5, 1978 Perf. 12 | Design: Hein Botha | Litho. | No Wmk 441 225 15c Multicolored | Steel rail *In the early 2000s, Iscor was sold by Thabo Mbeki’s government as his administration sought to run a tight ship and right the country’s finances. The name Iscor disappeared for good in March 2005. [Source: Stanley Gibbons Stamp Catalogue Part 1, British Commonwealth 1997]Carbon (6) 1980 World Diamond Congress, Johannesburg Issued May 12, 1980 Perf. 14 |Design: A.H. Barrett |Litho. |No Wmk 478 20c Multicolored | Cullinan II diamond*
*Yes, a diamond is nothing but a lump of carbon. The Cullinan II is a 317.4 carat cushion-cut diamond that is the second-largest cut from the original Cullinan diamond. It is also known as the Second Star of Africa and is the most valuable stone in the Imperial State Crown in the Tower of London. The Cullinan Diamond is the largest gem-quality rough diamond ever found, weighing 3,106 carats (621.20 g), discovered at the Premier No.2 mine in Cullinan, South Africa, on 26 January 1905. [Source: Stanley Gibbons Stamp Catalogue Part 1, British Commonwealth 1997]These four metals happen to sit right next to one another in the periodic table: Titanium (22) Vanadium (23) Chromium (24) Manganese (25) 1984 Strategic Minerals Issued Jun. 8, 1984 Perf. 14 x 14¼ | Design: Hein Botha | Litho. | No Wmk 558 11c Multicolored | Manganese 559 20c Multicolored | Chromium 560 25c Multicolored | Vanadium 561 30c Multicolored | Titanium [Source: Stanley Gibbons Stamp Catalogue Part 1, British Commonwealth 1997]Gold (79) 1986 Centenary of Johannesburg Issued Sep. 25, 1986 Perf. 14 | Design: J. van Niekerk | Litho. | No Wmk 607 30c Multicolored | Gold bars [Source: Stanley Gibbons Stamp Catalogue Part 1, British Commonwealth 1997]
Happy Friday the Thirteenth.
It was rainy and dark all day outside (but not quite as dark as in the forest from The Nutcracker in the picture below).
From the Seattle Times: A ballerina from Pacific Northwest Ballet performs “George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker” on Wednesday evening at McCaw Hall in Seattle. [Photo by Kevin Clark / The Seattle Times]
The second major update to Apple’s iOS 18 for the iPhone is out (iOS 18.2), and with it, the first Apple Intelligence image generation features, ChatGPT integration with Siri, and a few other changes and bug fixes.
I experimented with Image Playground a little today. (Image Playground came bundled with iOS 18.2 and is an app for creating stylized images based on prompts, and images of you and your friends).
Check out this animation-style high school graduation photo of me. (So this is after Image Playground had processed it, of course. Sorry, I’m not going to post the original photo). The original photo was black and white, so the image generator had to guess my hair color (actual color: light brown), the color of the school blazer (actual color: also green, great guess), and tie (actual color: green). The source photo had a blank background and I added a ‘Party’ effect stipulation before generating the image.
Here is an update that has Alice, the Mad Hatter, the Caterpillar, the Marsh Hare and the White Rabbit.
Monday 12/9: All done. The tree was a lot harder to do than I thought it would be. The little pink flowers inside the top corners were the last pieces to go in. All in all, it was a lot of fun— but I think I will go back to a painting or a landscape scene for my next puzzle.
Don’t you draw the Queen of Diamonds, boy She’ll beat you if she’s able You know the Queen of Hearts is always your best bet Now, it seems to me some fine things Have been laid upon your table But you only want the ones that you can’t get
– Lyrics from ‘Desperado’ (1973) by The Eagles
Happy Friday.
There it is: the pieces for the Alice in Wonderland puzzle, spread all over my dining room table for me to pore over them.
I have a long way to go, but the toothy grin of the Cheshire Cat is done, the clock faces are done, the ill-tempered Queen of Hearts is almost done, and I have the houndstooth trousers of Tweedledum and Tweedledee are in place.
I guess I should knuckle down and complete the frame.
Here is the final installment of the batch of Danish stamps on my envelope!
Clockwise: 1983 The 200th Anniversary of the Birth of Poet N.F.S. Grundtvig Issued Nov. 3, 1983 Perf. 12¾ | Design: Jane Muus | Issued in sheets of 50 | Engraving: Czeslaw Slania | No watermark 747 A232 2.5Kr Brown red | N.F.S. Grundtvig, Poet
1987 The 100th Anniversary of the Danish Cooperative Bacon Factories Issued Jun. 18, 1987 Perf. 12¾ | Design: Bente Olesen Nystrom | Issued in sheets of 50 | Engraving: Arne Kühlmann | No watermark 841 A289 3.80Kr Multicolored | Domesticated pigs (Sus scrofa domesticus)
1992 EUROPA Stamps – The 500th Anniversary of the Discovery of America Issued May 7, 1992 Perf. 12¾ | Design: Niels Winkel | Issued in sheets of 50 | Litho. & Engr. | Engraving: Martin Mörch | No watermark 959 A342 3.50Kr Brown & green | Potato plant* (Solanum tuberosum) *I’m not 100% sure why the potato is significant to this anniversary. The first permanent potato patches on US soil were established in 1719 near Londonderry, New Hampshire by Scotch-Irish immigrants.
1989 Nordic Cooperation Issue Issued Apr. 20, 1989 Perf. 12¾ | Design: Birgit Forchhammer | Issued in sheets of 50 | Litho. & Engr. | Engraving: Arne Kühlmann | No Watermark 868 A312 3.20Kr Multicolored | Woman from Valby
1984 “Plant a Tree” Campaign Issued Jan. 26, 1984 Perf. 12¾ | Design: Tage Stentoft | Issued in sheets of 50 | Litho. & Engr.|Engraving: Arne Kühlmann | No Watermark 749 A234 2.70Kr Red & green | Shovel and sapling
1982 The 500th Anniversary of the University Library Issued Nov. 4, 1982 Perf. 12¾ | Design: Lisbeth Gasparski | Issued in sheets of 50 |Engraving: Arne Kühlmann | No Watermark 731 A221 2.70Kr Multicolored | Library Seal [Sources: stampworld.com, Scott 2012 Standard Postage Stamp Catalogue, Vol. 2]
Clockwise: 1986 The 400th Anniversary of the Foundation of the Sorø Academy Issued Apr. 28, 1986 Perf. 12¾ | Design: Birgit Forchammer | Issued in sheets of 50 | Litho. & Engr. |Engraving: Czeslaw Slania | No Watermark 816 A269 2.80Kr Multicolored | Sorø Academy and Heraldry
1981 EUROPA Stamps – Folklore Issued May 4, 1981 Perf. 12¾ | Design: Palle Pio | Issued in sheets of 50 | Litho. & Engr. |Engraving: Czeslaw Slania | No Watermark 680 A208 1.60Kr Brown red | Tilting at a Barrel on Shrovetide
1985 The 300th Anniversary of the German and French Reform Church in Denmark Issued Jan. 24, 1985 Perf. 12¾ | Design: Mads Stage | Issued in sheets of 50 | Litho. & Engr. |Engraving: Czeslaw Slania | No Watermark 769 A249 2.80Kr Magenta | Reformed Church (Reformert Kirke) in Copenhagen
1982 EUROPA Stamps – Historic Events Issued May 3, 1982 Perf. 12¾ | Design: Jane Muus | Issued in sheets of 50 |Engraving: Czeslaw Slania | No Watermark 723 A215 2.00Kr Magenta | Abolition of Adcsription* *Adscription means the state of being added, bound, or annexed. [Sources: stampworld.com, Scott 2012 Standard Postage Stamp Catalogue, Vol. 2]
