Faces of Egypt

I had planned to publish my second post about Cape Scott today, but the recent events in Egypt have changed my mind.

Coptic Christian

You all have heard about what is currently happening in Egypt. This country is close to my heart. I visited it twice in the nineties - the first time I went there from Israel, just to climb Mount Sinai to enjoy the sunset from there (that, by the way, would be a lovely blog post on its own); the second time I stayed again in the Sinai, Cairo, Alexandria and enjoyed a Nile cruise that was kind of out of this world.

Doing laundry - and waving at us rich tourists passing by on a luxurious boat

Egypt is a fascinating country - some of you might remember my post about Aswan. And while I enjoyed seeing all its old temples and getting more knowledgeable about its history, what really fascinated me was the unforgiving landscape of the Nile, and I fell in love with the people.

The people of Egypt - such a colorful crowd. I saw everything, from educated women in western clothes heading to their classes at University to women in beautiful gowns doing the laundry in the waters of the Nile to covered women both in the big cities and in rural areas. Men who work the fields and in tourism - "maids" in hotels, waiters in bars and restaurants, staff on the cruise ships. Educated men in suits who work in Cairo, students who work as tour guides. Men who just hang out in the old temples, sell souvenirs to the tourists, follow you everywhere in the hope of selling you some trinket or other. Children who guard the goats or work in small factories, weaving rugs and beautiful carpets (this made me sick to my stomach). I remember how often I felt guilty to have so much money (compared to what they have) that enabled me to travel the world; often I felt like a voyeur and I wasn't always happy with myself taking all these pictures. People were so incredibly kind and friendly. What they always asked for was a "stylo" - a pen. Good thing I had tons of them as I was also journaling furiously at that time.

Bedouins

This is a poor country. And it doesn't look that this is going to change anytime soon. I remember how safe I felt there - well, that certainly is a thing of the past. Egypt will lose big time in its tourism industry, and that means the country's economy will suffer since tourism has been so important for it. I feel blessed that I could visit this beautiful and somehow magical country and I am tremendously saddened by its development over the past months.

I took these pictures of the people in Egypt 17 years ago. Many of them will still be there, some of them will have passed away. I wonder what has happened to them, what is happening to them right now. How they make ends meet. How they survive.

The Road to Cape Scott

During our trip to British Columbia we also visited beautiful Vancouver Island, the very north in particular. We had read about Cape Scott Provincial Park and had planned to hike out to San Josef Bay (that will be another post). But first you actually have to get close to Cape Scott which is only possible via a 63 km long gravel road from Port Hardy. It is a road through complete wilderness - a lumber road in the first place.

The shoe tree is what we first saw after we had started out.

It's right at the side of the road and marks all the hikers through Cape Scott. There is a trail through the park, mainly along its coast on the north side, that takes several days to hike.

The next we saw was this - it set the tone for the drive!

Yellow signs warned us of the dangers of the road - with an optimistic "Good luck" which I appreciated.

Friendly signs reminded us to share the road with whoever was out there - unfortunately we didn't meet any dwarfs or elves or fairies.

But we came upon this "little" guy whom you have already seen in an earlier post.

That was quite exciting. However, the bear wasn't too impressed with our presence and jumped quickly into the bushes and disappeared.

At the end of the road we arrived in the Cape Scott parking lot where all the other cars were just as dirty as ours. From here, it is another 2.5 km hike through the rain forest - but as I mentioned above, that will be a post for another time.

Shot Through the Window

Last week when I just looked out of my window, waiting for some inspiration, I saw a young oriole at the hummingbird feeder in my photinia. Eager to take a few quick snapshots - I don't dare to use the term "take photos" here - before s/he flies off again, I grabbed my Canon PowerShot SX40 HS with its amazing super zoom and snapped through my window - the only way not to scare the heck out of this little bird. Of course the shots turned out crabby, I don't even care to post them here.

However, while standing at the window, hoping for the return of the little guy, I noticed my sunflower and how beautiful it looked in the late afternoon sun that was illuminating it from the back. Before thinking any further I took a photo of it through the window. When I looked at it on my computer I liked how it had turned out and posted it to flickr as my photo of the day - and forgot about it.

photo of the week

Can you imagine my surprise the following morning when I opened my email inbox and it was overflowing with flickr mail?

What had happened? Well, the photo had made it into the "explore" gallery, something I have to admit I was unaware about until that moment. Apparently there is an "explore" gallery on flickr every day, but I don't know how the photos are chosen for the gallery. What I do know is that the photos in this gallery are exceptional (I felt very small when I looked at them) and get tons of views. I can't tell you in words how much I feel honored that my photo made it into this gallery. I still don't understand how this happened and it still amazes and astonishes me.

As of today, my sunflower has had more than 5000 views and my flickr circle has grown significantly. I still get notifications about people who favorite this photo. Every time I kind of shake my head over it in disbelief - and I am super happy, especially since this happened at a time when I felt totally uncreative and had those infamous doubts of not being good enough. This was a wonderful boost for me!

Vancouver Marina

This was the first time that we went to the marina in Vancouver - we didn't do that when we visited this city back in 2010.

It wasn't planned that we go here. We were still exploring our favorite art gallery in Gastown when the Geek asked one of the sales associates whether she has a good recommendation for a place to eat seafood. She mentioned "Go fish", not more than a shack at the Vancouver marina which serves the best fish and chips in town. Since we love fish and chips - and the bus heading to the marina stops right in front of this art gallery - we went to this place. There was a long line at the blue shack, but gosh! the fish and chips were deliriously good and worth every minute of waiting.

While we waited I walked around and took random pictures of the place.

Loading the fresh catch of the day:

You can buy super fresh salmon right here - and there were quite some people who did. I bet they had a lovely Sunday dinner.

Canadians are outdoor people - this is one way to spend an afternoon in Vancouver:

I loved the "organic ocean" - organic is a big thing in Vancouver (my kind of place):

These are apartment buildings right at the marina - I would love to have one of those apartments on top of the building! It must be gorgeous to live there.

Vancouver Window Art

One thing that fascinated me in Vancouver were the high glass buildings - stunning architecture with beautiful reflections made for gorgeous eye candy. It was something I remembered from my first visit to Vancouver after the Winter Olympic Games in 2010, and it hasn't lost any of its attraction to me.

Talking about the Olympic Games - the Olympic flame (or is the term 'torch'?) is located at the waterfront and reflected in one of the buildings nearby. Even this construction is made of glass!

Look at all the different reflections - isn't it fantastic? There was so much to see and I couldn't decide which ones I should photograph. I could have taken pictures of every single one, but then I would probably still be there!

I thought this was interesting. It took me a while to read the words. They say "The clouds looked no nearer than when I was lying on the street".

I love this building - the blocks can appear differently depending how you look at them.

This reflection I discovered when I looked at one of my photos more closely - it was only one small part in the building, but I cropped it down to this gorgeous red reflection.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is my favorite - just see for yourself!

Flowers In My garden

We woke up to a cloudy morning. Since the colors usually pop so much more on a cloudy day than on a sunny one I decided to go outside and take pictures of some flowers in my garden - I was pretty sure that the sun would come out very soon.

I really love the Mexican sunflower - I have three of them, and one is huge, one medium and a small one. This is the L version - just stunning, don't you think? They're annuals and I've already decided that I will have them again next year.

The verbena bonariensis is right next to the Mexican sunflowers - a wonderful color combination. My friend Jo gave me these plants, they are from her garden. We often exchange plants. This one is very popular with the bees.

I have African daisies in this color and lavender, and they have taken off in my front yard. I first had them in the back where they didn't do very well, but since I transplanted them to the front in early spring they have been happy as a clam and doubled in size.

The pink yarrow are also from Jo. When I got them they were small and I didn't really know what color they were. They go perfectly with the African daisy that are happen to be right next to them.

The red yarrow is my favorite among the yarrow. Such a beautiful, rich color.

Look, the poppies are still coming!! Only a few now and they are rather small, but small is beautiful, right?

Every garden needs to have some Shasta daisies. They are so uncomplicated, the deer don't like them (and neither do the raccoons who love to devour sunflowers) and they're just pretty flowers. This is the variety "Alaska". Hardy, of course.

I saw these gaillardias in the nursery this week - and their color just blew me away. So rich and happy. Usually I don't plant during the hot summer months, but I couldn't resist these stunning beauties. Would you have?

Yes, this is a California poppy - just in different colors. I love these shades, they look a bit delicate but they are tough little cookies. They wouldn't even die when the deer ate part of them.

Of course there is a bird bath here as well. This one I can see from my kitchen window. So far mainly the crows use it - whatever they find to eat they first dip into water here and then they enjoy it. Funny creatures (yes, I love them).

These flowers are all in the front of the house. Now let's go into the backyard. I haven't worked that much on the backyard yet, the main work went into the front.

The backyard offers more shade which is perfect for the delphinium. California isn't prime delphinium country, but they remind me of England. I just need a few of them here, all in blue shades.

Abutilon (Flowering Maple) - they love part shade as well. Some locations in my backyard are almost perfect for that.

Coreopsis - I love love love the color combination in this one! So gorgeous.

Echinacea is another must in the garden, I think. There are so many varieties available by now. I love how the center of the flower peaks above anything else.

I have always loved rudbeckia - this is "Indian Summer". The other variety I love is "Autumn color" with rich rust and bronze shades.

Most of my sunflowers fell victim to the deer and the raccoon, but in the backyard I was lucky with a few seeds I had put in the soil. This red sunflower is amazing - it's tall (about 6 ft.) with dark green foliage and this stunning red flower. It's one of my favorites in the garden.

This post wouldn't be complete without a picture of my little feathered friends, in this case a titmouse. They are such loyal visitors to my garden.

How does your garden grow?