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La Palma Day 7

This post has been lost for months!  Well, not exactly lost, but ignored.  I started a draft in January, and just never got around to finishing it.  So here it is, day 7 of our La Palma trip!

 

On this day we did some easy excursions, like a walk to see some petroglyphs.  Certain members of my group were not convinced that these are authentic, but I'm a sucker for sights like this and think they are excellent either way.

Here's the view from the petroglifos; it's not bad either.  Palm trees dotting the landscape just make me happy, as do the colorful houses. 

After our quick visit to the petroglyphs, we drove to a pine forest and hiked up to the Cumbre.  This is like a long backbone running to the south of the island.  The view from up there is excellent, even if I did get dizzy a couple times from basically walking on a pass.

Can you spot the Caldera in the distance?

 

Here's what I mean about walking on a pass.  It doesn't look so dramatic here, but the wind and view did play some tricks on my sense of balance up there!

My long-lost habit of blogging

I got a message from a former student today that her colleagues were worried about me because I haven't posted anything lately.  I just looked today and noticed that I haven't posted anything for four months!  I can't believe it.  But here's an idea of what's keeping me so busy: 

Chasing crazy kids, for example!  But not only that, once again, I hit the ground running after our most excellent and relaxing vacation in La Palma.  I have so many ridiculous and crazy projects that it's not even funny.  I practically meet myself coming and going these days. 

But still, that's no excuse for not sharing some funny stories and neat pictures.  So here are a few things from the last months for your viewing pleasure!

 

One highlight of the first half of 2012 was getting to meet the cool axolotls on an English tour / presentation at an institute where I teach.  I have the greatest job I can imagine, I get to meet lots of interesting people and see neat things every day!

I love creepy crawlies and always have, so it was also a high point of one of our early workdays in the garden when I came across this pretty lizard.  I was transplanting some flowers and only saw a small part of him at first.  This small part was his belly, and I initially thought it was a giant, slimy, disgusting snail.  But no!  It was this friendly (and sleepy) lizard!  I must have woken him up from his winter nap, because he was very slow.

 

We've also been enjoying the nice weather as much as possible!  The last winter was really horrible for me, the dark days and cold were just awful.  So now that the weather is better again I feel like a new person!  We were waiting here at Martin-Luther-Platz for Wilhelm to finish singing in the children's choir.  He goes there every Tuesday.  He never sings in the group, but after I pick him up he sings all the songs all week long. The nice weather has also motivated me to pursue my 15-year-plan with dediction:  the plan is to retire to a sunny island asap!

But before I can pursue my 15-year-plan further, I'm going on vacation!  It's off to Michigan soon.  My three-week-plan for Michigan is to score a whole load of these and decorate the cars in the Neustadt with them:  

So if you spot some cars cruising Dresden with these, you'll know I've been hard at work.