The Holy Grail

 

Two weeks ago, my daughter spent a few days in Geneva. She sent me a lot of pictures of which I will share a few here. All of the photos in this post are by Kaefer.

Did she have a vacation there?

Oh no, this was a pure work trip. She and one of the professors in her team had organized an elective for medical students in Public Health at the University of Münster (where she works as a research assistance) and Witten/Herdecke University. In the course of this elective they had planned this trip to Geneva.

She was fascinated by this "Broken Chair" sculpture which stands in the Place des Nations across the street from the Palace of Nations, the home of the United Nations Office at Geneva.

It symbolises the opposition to landmines and cluster bombs and acts as a reminder to politicians and diplomats visiting Geneva. It was designed by Swiss artist Daniel Berset and constructed by carpenter Louis Genève. It is constructed of 5.5 tons of wood and is 12 meters (39 feet) high. The "Broken Chair" is an original idea and project of Paul Vermeulen of Handicap International Switzerland, who commissioned it to be installed on the Place des Nations in October 1996 in order to try to get as many nations to sign the Ottawa Treaty on landmines in December 1997. As of August 2022, 164 countries had ratified or acceded to the treaty.

The United States of America did not sign the Ottawa Treaty.

But the chair wasn't the object of Kaefer's work trip to Geneva. That happened in the buildings in the vicinity of the chair.

First stop: UNHCR, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. For her, the talk about how they do their data collection was especially interesting since data collection is part of her research at the university.

They spent a long day at the United Nations, filled with many talks and discussions.

During breaks she took photos - they don't need any comments from me.

And then they went to the place that Kaefer has dreamed about for a few years.

The World Health Organization. The holy grail not only for epidemiologists like my daughter.

This year the WHO celebrated its 75th anniversary.

The building of the WHO Headquarters, where they spent a very long, very interesting and very exhausting day.

And a very happy young woman! This is for Nicole's Friday Face Off.

When I asked her which of the organizations left the deepest impression on her, I had expected the answer was "WHO". But it wasn't, it was GAIN, The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, a Swiss-based foundation launched at the United Nations in 2002 to tackle the human suffering caused by malnutrition. Their mission is to "improve the consumption of healthier diets for all, especially the most vulnerable, by improving the availability, affordability, desirability, and sustainability of nutritious and safe foods, and reducing the consumption of unhealthy and unsafe foods". You can read more about GAIN here.  

Despite the packed days, she still had time to enjoy the sunrise over the lake (she is an early riser like all of us are).

On the day of her return she had booked the night train, so she had the entire day to explore Geneva and the lake.

She liked the colorful shutters on the residential buildings.

A very fascinating bronze sculpture by Eleanor Cardozo.

I'm ending this with a night shot of Lake Geneva. I hope you enjoyed my daughter's trip.

It's Almost Halloween

 

Halloween used to be a fun holiday for us as long as Kaefer was still living here, and especially when she was younger.  I used to decorate the house and we both had a lot of fun with that. Nowadays my Halloween decoration is reduced to a bare minimum (as are also any other holiday decorations). There are two craft pumpkins outside in the front garden that I painted several years ago.

A few years ago I had bought eight small pumpkins and painted and arranged them so they looked like a big Halloween crawler.

That was the last time I actually did any kind of Halloween decoration. By now I have given most of my Halloween decorations to the family with two small children two houses down and thus can still enjoy them when they put them up in their front garden.

I think I just prefer pumpkins in their natural "dress".

But since Rain's topic this week is "Halloween Decorations" I simply can't resist posting this creepy find in one of the back alleys I love to walk. I processed it to make it a little bit more sinister.

And what about some sweet little spiders which I'm sure some people think of being creeping? For my part, I like spiders. Aren't these guys pretty?

For the dinner part of Rain's Thursday Art and Dinner Date I want to tell you about the shrimp gratin I made last Saturday for dinner with friends. This is what it looks like before you put the finishing layer on top:

And this is what it looks like when you take it out of the oven:

It is very easy to assemble and cooks in just 15 to 20 minutes. Everybody liked it. I didn't use panko bread crumbs but regular breadcrumbs and I also used different cheese (Emmentaler and Gruyère and no mozzarella). I would stick to the ¼ teaspoon of red-pepper flakes if you don't want it too spicy. Thus it had a "kick", but didn't set you on fire. You can find the recipe here, and for those of you who can't access NYT Cooking here it is:

Cemetery Walk

 

The old Rural Cemetery is close to our home and when I want a quick walk under trees on dirt trails without taking the car first, this is where I turn to. A brisk ten minute walk and I'm surrounded by the stillness of a place like this. I'm seldom the only one who loves to walk here.

There is a surprisingly high number of trails through this cemetery, despite it being rather small. This is no Père Lachaise (Paris) or Zentralfriedhof (Vienna) and it certainly lacks the wild and almost romantic charm of the Südfriedhof in Munich. But it plays an important role for my city's history.

It's also a place for wildlife - Western Bluebirds raise their families here, squirrels chase up and down the trees, California Mule Deer roam the cemetery and there are even some sightings of mountain lions.

In late summer the Naked Ladies (Amaryllis belladonna) dance across the cemetery, showing off their beautiful pink dress.

On my way home I took an apple from a "free box" and shot some photos of it in my backyard, playing with light and shadow.

I love this season!

Today's drink for Bleubeard and Elizabeth's T Tuesday is Kakade, a cold and refreshing hibiscus drink that I make every summer. I first had it in Egypt back in 1996 and it always takes me back there when I sip it. Beautiful memories.

A Crab Feast

 

In my last post I promised to write more about the gulls we met at Doran Beach. The above one - a juvenile Western Gull or a Herring Gull? (David, to the rescue, please) - found the fat crab first and thought it might make a nice afternoon snack.

Alas, not for long since another gull (and I think this is a Western Gull) had the same idea.

He (she?) got to work immediately and with a lot of skill. It was hugely entertaining for us watching him/her pulling out the crab meat.

A close-up for Nicole's Friday Face Off. You can almost feel sorry for the crab.

And soon after, this gull got company as well...

The Call of the Coast

 

Goat Rock Beach

It was the Geek's birthday at the begnning of October and we opted to spend the day at the coast. We don't give presents to each other; we rather spend a beautiful day together. It's only a short drive to the coast, but by the sea feels like being on vacation in a different world. You just need that every now and then.

We started at Doran Beach in Bodega Bay and slowly made our way north up the coast, walking at favorite beaches. The weather was a very mixed bag - a swift change from thick fog to clear skies and sun and the other way round as well.

This is what it looked like from the cliffs on our way down to the beach...

... and this is what it looked like at the beach. There are only a couple minutes between these two photos. (The picture below is Portuguese Beach, "our" clean-up beach where we used to participate in the state-wide coastal clean up day in September; unfortunately we can't join that anymore since it is always on a Saturday and I have to be at work.)

This is a typical Northern California day at the coast.

While walking along the beach, I enjoyed seeing all the "stuff" that the ocean swept onto shore, without knowing what you call most of these (well, I know kelp and crab of course).

Feathers could be found everywhere and they make a beautiful subject. I assume it's from a gull - more on gulls in a later post.

This "creature" was my favorite:

Of course I couldn't resist sticking my feet into the surf. The water wasn't as cold as I had expected, maybe because the beach here (Doran Beach) is rather shallow and in a protected bay. Usually the ocean along our coast is freezing, being supplied with nice cold water coming down from Alaska.

Someone had played with sand - Stonehenge on the beach.

I always look for shells and I found a couple beautiful pieces.

At Goat Rock Beach - my all-time favorite beach - we hung out on a large piece of driftwood, looking out onto the foggy ocean.

The gulls kept us entertained. We also saw Brown Pelicans swooping over the ocean, barely touching the water. They are such graceful birds and always look a bit primeval.

We ended the day with a visit to our favorite seafood place, Betty's Fish & Chips. It's hard to beat their seafood and we always compare seafood that we eat anywhere to them. So far only the Seafood Shack in Gualala comes close. We find that many places make the batter too thick (probably to save on the fish), but at Betty's the batter is just right and the cod can't get any fresher.

I'm sharing this delightful, tasty fish with Rain's Thursday Art and Dinner Date.