Day at the Zoo

We went to Vienna yesterday with Kája's friends Hana and Alena.

After the 90 minute train to Austria we started the day at Aïda, my favourite Vienna coffee and cake shop.   

Then it was off to a day at the zoo.  Of course I had to check out the the pandas, koalas and penguins.

The pandas, because they are my goddaughter Tünde's favourite.

A few years ago I told Tünde that the English word for "penguin" was "snow chicken."  She knows the real word now but we still call them "snow chickens."

23rd Strážnice Vinobraní

This past weekend was the 23rd annual vinobraní in Strážnice. 

We went on Saturday morning.  It was a full-day wine and folk festival.

Lots of wine and burčák, plus beer and slivovice, along with performances by local music and dance groups.

Here are a couple of videos I filmed at the festival.

Open-Air Concert

On Thursday, the Janáček Theatre out on a free open-air concert, in front of the theatre, to kick of the start of the 2023-2024 season.

Kája and I met up there after work to enjoy the performances before going to dinner.

There were performances by soloists, a choir and the opera company orchestra.  

Here are a couple of videos I took during the performance.

52nd Birthday

Yesterday was a pretty cool day.  I celebrated my 52nd birthday with my family.  The last time I was with my family on my actual birthday is when I turned 18.

My nephew Kai plays the drums and he has been participating in a jazz camp at one of the local community colleges this week.   

As the final wrap-up he performed in a jazz concert that we all went to.  I look at it as getting a jazz concert for my birthday.  

It was pretty cool to see him do this thing.  Here's a video of his group performing.  

Afterwards, we came back to my sister's house and had dinner and cake.  

This has been a really nice holiday but it's hard to believe that it's already been three weeks.  Just one more day and then it's back to Euroland.

Some Major California Sightseeing

We did quite a bit of sightseeing yesterday.  With mom, my sister Angela, and brother-in-law manual we showed Kája more of the LA/Hollywood touristy experience.  

The first stop was Union Station which is in the northeastern corner of downtown Los Angeles.  Union Station opened in 1939 was known as the "Last of the Great Railway Stations."  

The station is beautiful, combining Art Deco, Mission Revival, and modern styles.  In 1980, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

Union Station is the largest and busiest passenger rail terminal in the Western United States.  It is the 13th busiest train station in North America.  This also shows that train travel isn't really a thing in the USA.  Just the city of Los Angeles has about 4 million people but the station only serves about 110,000 passengers a day.  Brno has about 400,000 people and more than 65,000 passengers use hlavní nádraží every day.

Me & my sister

Across the street is Olvera Street.  It's a historic pedestrian street in the historic centre of the city.  There are plenty of street vendors and restaurants to check out.

Olvera Street is home to Ávila Adobe, built in 1818, which is the oldest standing residence in Los Angeles.

Olvera Street gets about two million visitors per year.  Some people don't care for it because it can seem touristy.  I like it because of the history; it was the historical city centre in both the Spanish and Mexican times prior to California being taken by the U.S.

Then it was on to the Warner Bros. Studio Tour.  Warner Brothers (WB) was founded in 1923.  It is one of the major American film, animation and television studios.

It's fun but expensive.  An adult ticket is $76 and the tour lasts about three hours.  You get to visit a soundstage and the backlot, which is where we got to sit on the Friends couch.

Some of the most popular sets we got to visit were from Friends and The Big Bang Theory, plus big exhibits for Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, and The Justice League.  

Barbie gets released this week so there was lots of promotion for the film.  I had to get a photo of the Kája Barbie doll, plus some video of him dancing around like Dobby the house elf.  

78th International Folklore Festival

We spent the weekend in Strážnice with Kája's family.  Every year, Strážnice hosts the International Folklore Festival, the largest and oldest folklore festival in Europe.  

Czech TV even broadcasts it across the country.  This year was the 78th edition. 

The festival is organised by the National Institute of Folk Culture which is part of the Ministry of Culture. 

The festival includes dancing, music, and various competitions for both children and adults.  This year there were over 31.000 visitors who came to see 3.150 performers from across the country.

There were another 230 performers that came from Slovakia, Hungary, the Netherlands, South Korea, and the USA.

The first festival was in 1946 and it was only for ensembles from across Czechoslovakia.  In 1957, the first foreign folklore ensembles participated.  The festival is for both amateur and professional groups.

On Saturday, there was a parade that proceeded to the open-air museum and stadium.

It was pretty interesting.  It's interesting to see how each region and village's traditional costumes vary.

Johannes Oerding Concert

Back in 2020, for Christmas, I gave concert tickets to Tünde, for the three of us to see Johannes Oerding at the Mercedes-Benz Arena in February 2021.  

However, due to Covid restrictions, the concert kept getting pushed back.

Much like the Pet Shop Boys concert, that I bought tickets for in 2019, but we didn't get to see until 2022. 

The concert last night was great!  We really enjoyed ourselves.  

©Jens Hettwer

The opening act was ELIF, who's real name is Elif Demirezer, a local Turkish-German singer.  She also later performed a duet with him.  

Here's a YouTube video I found of her singing Alles Brennt with him.

©Uli Mü

He also had another Turkish performer join him on stage.  Zeynep Avci, also a Berlin local, competed on season 11 of The Voice of Germany, where Johannes Oerding was a judge. 

Here's them singing Stärker.  

©Uli Mü

A fun weekend but to Berlin and back for a concert was a bit much.  Still worth it and Tünde finally got her 2020 Christmas present.  I guess I lucked out that after 2,5 years, he's still one of her favourite singers.  

Pamukkale and Hierapolis Tour, Türkiye

On Wednesday we had a tour to Pamukkale and Hierapolis.  It's still a couple of weeks before the tourist season really starts so we got lucky that our group tour ended up just being the two of us so we basically had a private tour.

We were met by our guide Umut and our driver Ali who drove us, from Kuşadasi, on the 200 km (125 miles) to Pamukkale which took about 2,5 hours.

Pamukkale, in southwestern Türkiye, means "cotton castle" and it is famous for the carbonate mineral residue from thermal springs which at a distance looks like snow covered mountains.

The Ancient Greek city of Hierapolis was founded in 2nd century BC.  In 133 BC, Hierapolis became part of the Roman Empire but it and it was destroyed by an earthquake in 17 AD.  The Apostle Philip lived the last years of his life here and he was crucified here in 80 AD.  

There are lots of Greek ruins, a necropolis, theatre, temples, and a museum that are all easy to explore by walking around.

In 1988, Hierapolis and Pamukkale was added as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

There are 17 hot springs in the area and they range in temperature from 35℃ to 100℃ (95℉ - 212℉).  The most famous one is Cleopatra's Pool.  It's said that the waters have curative properties and you get to swim around ancient ruins.  

I'm still not sure why it's called Cleopatra's pool because she never swam here.  The plan was originally to go swimming but Kája was fighting a bit of a cold so we decided to skip the swim here.  Although we did wade out a bit in one of the springs overlooking the valley.

The big draw here is still the travertine terrace formations formed from mineral-rich waters cascading down the mountain side for hundreds of years.

Here's a Rick Steves video I found out on YouTube.

©Rick Steves

One of the cool things to do here is go paragliding.  I am still not a fan of heights but for some reason I had it in my head that I needed to do it.  I have no idea why but I did it.  It was brilliant!!

It was a tandem run and my pilot Gökhan was great.  Here's a bit of the video he took with my iPhone.

Me and Gökhan

Müggelseesingen

This evening we met up with a few people for dinner at our favourite sushi place on Bölscherstraße.  Afterwards it was on the beach at Müggelsee, where we went ice skating before, for a a Christmas sing-a-long.  

It was fun.  There was a stage with choir singers and there a few mini-bonfires and candles while people drank glühwein and sang Christmas songs.  

Some of the songs I knew but there were several German songs that I'd never heard before.  Fortunately the programmes contained the lyrics to all of the songs.

After a few hours of singing it was back to the flat.  I needed to make the buletten for tomorrow's Christmas dinner.

I still can't believe that Christmas is tomorrow.