How Much Longer Until Ice Out???

Villa Rosa for my layover in San Jose - not too shabby!

I've been checking my lakes for open water, but even with lots of imagination, there isn't enough to put a kayak in yet :-(

On the bright side, I was watching an elusive beaver play in one of the open pools for quite a while. Always fun - they are just too cute. It looked pretty skinny for a beaver, I bet it’s looking forward to some better weather too!

But since the weather can't be helped, we might as well look at some pictures from my Costa Rica vacation 2 years and 2 weeks ago now and keep our hopes up! :-)

Cherrie blossoms while waiting for the bus to the yoga retreat on the East coast only a hop skip and a jump away from Panama.

At Samasati.

Bananas! What would PB be without them?

Name that funny fruit!

Porto Viejo. Lots of hippies calling their kids "Buddha" and Rastas napping in wheel barrows. Lots of cute little cafes and restaurants for the tourists, so you don't have to miss your cappuccino and your bacon and eggs...

Views from my porch.

Looking down to the ocean from the hot tub on one of the many rainy days. They weren't exaggerating, when they called it the rain forest :-)

Walking trees! No seriously they move up to a foot or so each year by putting roots out in front of them and slowly uprooting at the back, always moving towards the sun.

Guavas just lying around left for the monkeys to nosh on.

Coconuts!

LOOK SHARP!!! In the foto above, what may look like a bit of dust on your screen are hundreds and hundreds of large birds sailing on the thermos screwing themselves up higher and higher. I was watching that for a long time. I was positively mesmerized. I wished I had a better camera but you'll just have to use your imagination a little here. It was like a tornado funnel of birds, which corkscrewed higher and higher without a single beat of their wings!

More views from the retreat.


Is that a white egret?

An old pontoon with a tree taking it for a big plant pot.




Porto Viejo.
Aren't those houses fun? Why aren't we using more color?

My little treehouse in the rain forest! I absolutly loved it! It came with a little gecko to keep me company. Also there were little bats hanging off the eaves so I could watch them lying in bed. My favorite sound to wake up to is definitely the song of the howler monkeys! It's somewhere between a roar and a belch and echos through the forest as they are swinging from tree to tree. (Least favorite companion under the shower - scorpion!)



But how's that for a refreshing shower!?! I went on a waterfall tour, a highlight of my vacation! We were guided by a local hunter who obviously knows the forest and showed us medicinal plants. He also showed us little berries the Tucans adore for their intoxicating nature. They sing a lot, when they are "stoned" or should I say "berried". And we could tell the difference in areas with lots of those berries :-) Tucans are just so funny to watch flying. It just looks like the swing their little wings like crazy nuts in order to propell that HUGE beak through the air!


Ah now, this little not very exciting looking tree is the source of one of the most coveted substances on the planet: Chocolate!!! This is one of the trees of a Bri Bri Indian woman who makes chocolate by hand and sells it to the tourists. So from growing the beans to the tourist's mouth she does everything herself, apart from the cane sugar. A buddy makes that for her but also himself. She showed us all the many different steps in her dirt floor manufacturing facility :-) . She also let us try the raw beans, which don't taste like much, apart from bitter and astringent. Now THAT did make me wonder, if there wasn't an interventionist God involved, but then again, they didn't have much else to entertain themselves with back in the olden days other than what the forest provided. That's a lot of time on your hand to try all sorts of stuff and see if something good comes of it.

Oh and yes, the chocolate she makes is delicious. My personal favorite was her ginger chocolate!

On my way home after a few days of particularly torrential rain. It nearly looked like we wouldn't be able to leave Limon. But our driver tried various routes and eventually one led us savely out. I was starting to get a little worried, when an acutal log swam past our mini bus...

Bye bye Costa Rica. I had been a good trip and my first time in a developing country. Quite an eye opener. We are just taking so many things for granted! Also I was really disgusted by the behavior of some of my fellow tourists. But that's no way of ending a post!

Back to the lack of open water. I am going to end on a high note and predict a first lake kayaking session for next weekend! Next week we are supposed to hit 70 and no temp below 57. That's gotta mean some good melting by Saturday!

My Daemon Nicoleus

For those who haven't read The Golden Compass yet, the daemon of a person is a part of that person, like soul, free will... In the world of the Golden Compass that part of a person is a separate entity, in the shape of an animal. For children the daemon still changes shape, depending on mood and necessity. For an adult the daemon settles to his or her final form.

Check out my daemon below and feel free to click the link and see, if this is a good match in your opinion.




If you want to find your own daemon go to The Golden Compass website. It's quick and it's good clean fun :-)

Winter Kite Festival at Lake Harriet, Jan 12, 2008

How a big kite takes to the air:


The German word for kite is "dragon" and we can see why.

But there's lots more going on: Toasting marshmallows around the fire.

A little picnic can't be missing, after all the sun is shining!
Ice-fishing of course -we are on a lake for Pete's sake! And you gotta start them young.

Patience in pink.

Now there's an interesting technique from a young hopeful.

Snow leopards sledding.

A n d back to kites!

Are they not an epitome of fun and carefree childhood?

Sunshine Gilds the New Year

To cold to linger.

Two bouncing dogs left their traces.

Copper Tones.

Delicate resillience.

Snow dunes.

Happy New Year!

My all time favorite way to spend the last evening of a year is with good friends at my or a friends home!

I was lucky enough that some of my friends had time to come round for a nice 4 course dinner everybody had contributed to!


Laurie & Kurt and Frank & Laura, Roxanne behind Lila visiting before dinner.

People regularly seem to be surprised, when they first encounter my domestic side. The other day I threw a few simple things for a card evening together and a friend asked me what was going on and whether I had been overdosing on the food network. (I don't have cable, I need to get recipes the old fashioned way, through the internet...)

I am messy and the number of things I'd rather do than spend time cleaning is infinite. But I really like to cook and I really like to set a nice table. Maybe that's a bit of a European thing too, but for a festive occasion a several course sit down meal is quite the standard. It is fun though to mix it up with the more American way of a buffet style meal and alternate between one and enjoy the variety.

Funny thing: I used to think that having sweet and savory food touching on the plate is just gross. In fact my brother who had vacationed in the US quite a bit used to tell me horror stories about breakfasts with sausages and bacon on the same plate as pancakes and people pouring sweet syrup on top of it all. (99% of Europeans will shudder violently) as they read this. And then I saw Swedish meatballs and fresh fruit salad happily intermingling next to each other on my Iowan friend's plate, joyfully forming more and more complex marble patterns of opaque gray and brilliant reds, as the eater progressed. But I digress...just one more note, while I still, after nearly 6 years in the Midwest, can't see myself having meatballs and fruit salad on the same plate , I wouldn't hesitate a second to ladle big dollops of orange jello salad next to pretty much whatever :-)

Hurray! Scott (on the left) had arrived and the feast could begin!

Just to make sure that everybody knows I am not actually "downloading" a life from the internet I made Laurie take a picture, well actually Laurie made Kurt take a picture with me in it as well, just to prove I was there :-)

Aahh, after our leisurely meal, which lasted until about half past 10 we were all pretty mellow and leaning back to give our stomachs a little more space than they had needed a few hours earlier...

We had toasted the New Year as it reached the North American continent at 9.30 pm CST so those who wanted to beat the drunkards could slip out before midnight.

For the rest of us Garisson Keillor counted in the New Year. I take that as a sign that 2008 is going to be a very amusing year ;-)

It was a lovely evening! (Lila and Scott somehow never made it to either of the two parties they were invited to...)

Happy MMVIII !

Come out, the snow is beautiful!

After all this partying in the last month and the afternoon, beforenoon or whenever naps in the last week it was not easy, but so good to get out into the cold, fresh air and for a good workout. I had enroled in a beginners cross country class after doing really, really badly, albeit in crappy conditions, a couple of years ago. I ended up waiting for my friend, who had braved the trail, sitting in the chalet. Well, I can't say that didn't have its attractions, I had a very good view of a lot of fit guys skate skiing past in very tight outfits...Huh, I thought to myself, I won't give up on that sport just yet, I'll have to get myself some lessons!

Here she is carving a track for us on the bunny... er... flat.

We had absolutely perfect conditions, the snow was lovely and powdery and in fact it was snowing all during the day! It was cold enough to have stable snow, but warm enough not to bite our faces. AND I had the best teacher I could have! Her name is Jenny and she had a really gentle approach, putting us at ease and explaining about gear and technique, while at the same time challenging us and constructively critiquing our moves.

Everybody is watching Jenny's technique, while I am funnying about with the camera instead of paying attention of what I am supposed to be doing. I bet Jenny thought I was going to be "one of THOSE students".

Tracey-Lou and Li-Hwa. Yep, it's snowing.

There's Chris and there is Alison! I actually know her from brunch at Hell's Kitchen. I love it, when I bump into people I know, when I least expect it. Makes me really feel like part of a place!

There's Jenny with more helpful pointers! She did a fantastic job! Within a bit more than an hour we had all improved a lot and where ready to go on the trail. After her instruction I felt so good about my skills, that I was going down hills with my sticks tucked under my arms like a race driver in tight bends and everything, only slowing down when I caught up with the skier ahead of me! I can't believe how dare-devil I was! What a great day! I am still sore from it after 3 days, but again, what a great day! I hope to do that again next Saturday :-)