sharleenstuart30 Minutes in the Life: October 2023: Sydney
Posted on October 30, 2023
We’re back in Sydney post the Bondi walk and I had things on my list that I wanted to see. In 1846 the Customs House (below) was built near the Sydney city center. Over a period of 10 years from 1837 to 1847, convicts worked to reclaim the land to form Circular Quay. The Customs house form the solitary symbol of British power over the land and sea, with custom officers checking for contraband and smuggling.
Towering over the customs house is this very unique building. Again I am fascinated by the juxtaposition of old and new buildings and grateful that Sydney has maintained it’s unique history with the upkeep of these interesting old buildings.
We were not the only people taking pictures of the city that day.
Below is a mix of new and old that we found on our walk back into the city center.
Below is the Sydney Sky Tower. We did not go up but it stood tall amongst the buildings and was pretty neat to look at.
The building that impressed me the most, and one that I had researched and also been told to visit was the Queen Victoria building. I loved the old dome roofing and the beautiful arched windows, along with the intricate scrolling on the outer façade of the building. Walking inside this gorgeous building is a shopping mall. And I wanted one pic, but I did get a few more.
The pastel window in the ladies bathroom was gorgeous. In fact, the ladies bathroom was impressive.
In the center of the mall was this tall clock with historical images in the center of the clock.
There were also some incredible stain glass windows.
This was the photo I wanted showing all the levels and the beams of the roofing.
We’re back out on the street again and the first thing I saw was this vibrant burst of color.
Last but not least I was out of time and added to that super tired. I will explore the clock tower on another day.
We’re back at the hotel, ready to put our feet up, but there is still the repacking to do. We have to switch up the contents of the suitcases because we are traveling Qantas in the morning to Melbourne, and honestly my camera back is equivalent to a small suitcase. So I am going to be booking my two suitcases and Richard’s one, and he will take clothes for both of us in his small suitcase, just in case.
My nerves are already getting the better of me. We are off for a quick dinner and then it is off to bed. We have an early start in the morning back to the airport. I am looking forward to seeing family again. We have not seen our nieces since they were 5 and now the one has a little girl who is 5. Crazy how time has flown. I am so glad that we are doing this trip now.
Check out my friend Lupji Photography to see what he has to share this month.
Until next time …. stay well.
Share Six: September 2023: Beautiful Light
Posted on September 6, 2023
This month theme {Beautiful Light} was chosen by It’s Still Life Photography by Elizabeth Willson. Beautiful light can mean different things to different people. Since I am still working through my Australian images, I decided to look though them and find the images where the light appealed to me. Walk through them with me as I share just a little bit more of our Australian trip.
In addition to the Australian photos are some of my older sunrise and sunset photos which are favorites of mine.
And, finally, a few outdoor flora shots.
Beautiful light, I believe, is in the eye of the beholder. We all see light differently. When googling the definition of light my favorite was this found in the Marriam Webster dictionary:
“the sensation aroused by stimulation of the visual receptors”
This is a circle blog and as I mentioned, we have some very talented artists in the group. Take some time to follow the links and see what they have for you this month. My incredibly talented friend Liz of It’s Still Life Photography by Elizabeth Willson is up next. I can’t wait to see what she has to share. You can see more of her work by clicking on her Facebook page and Instagram page. Definitely check out her incredible art.
Don’t forget to share your photos on the theme {Beautiful Light}
Look out for more blogs.
Stay well
30 Minutes in the Life: August 2023: Sydney Opera House
Posted on August 28, 2023
This blog is probably encompasses the 30 minutes, plus a few add on’s. The Sydney Opera house is an impressive sight to see. Unfortunately we timed it badly because 10 days after we left there was a light up Sydney event and the opera house looked stunning with all these lights on them. However, it is what it is. The fact that I was there makes it so much more impressive.
An unknown fact, maybe, is that I love different kinds of architecture and I have to be honest you just have to be impressed by this incredible building. In fact there was a lot of different architecture in Sydney that appealed to me.
So what is the history to the opera house. From what I have read Sir Eugene Goossens, conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra believe that “all people, regardless of their class or background, had the right to enjoy fine music”. In 1956 a competition was created for the proposed new building. In 1954 the beginning stage to support an Opera House began. In 1957, Jorn Utzon, an unknown Danish architect was announced as the winner. The estimated cost of the design would be around 3.5 million pounds It was believed that this design would become on of the greatest buildings in the world. In 1959 the construction began. Stage 1 was completed in February 1963. Stage 2 began in 1063 and took 2 years to complete. Due to a number of issue the cost of the building had now increased to 13.7 million pounds, In February 1966, after some conflict Utzon quit the project, blaming the then Minister, Davis Hughes, of forcing him out. In April 1966, a panel of Australian architects were appointed to complete the job. In 1966, Peter Hall was asked to complete the Opera House. Initially he declined, but later accepted the request. In January 1967, stage 2 was completed. Stage 3 focused on the interiors. On October 20, 1973 the Opera House was finally opened by Queen Elizabeth 11, and on September 28, 1973. the Opera House’s first productions opened. I have radically summarized the story. Credit is given to https://www.sydneyoperahouse.com/our-story/peter-hall-and-completion-opera-house for this information. There were 6 pages of interesting reading, which if you are interested in architecture and in this incredible building it is well worth visiting the website.
Sadly we did not get to go inside, we were out way to early in the morning and nothing was open, but I enjoyed every minute of this architectural masterpiece.
One of the other things I wanted to get was some images from the ferry both day time and night time.
These were taken on our return to Sydney were we headed out to Watson Bay on the Saturday evening to meet up with a cousin of mine and his family. Here are a few night shots coming back into the Harbor from the moving ferry.
These images were taken the last day of our Australian trip. We headed out to Manly via the very efficient ferry system. Although there were tourists it was a little blustery, and so most of them headed inside. I on the other hand was determined to stick it out.
Next stop will be the some of the downtown area that we got to walk through, so look out for the posts.
My friend Lupji from Lupji Photography is co-blogging with me today. Don’t forget to check his blog to see what he has been up to.
You can also find me on Facebook, and Instagram.
Stay well.
Share Six: August 2023: Adamski Effect
Posted on August 6, 2023
How did we get to August. Seriously this year suddenly seems to be flying. Share Six is up again and this month I chose to challenge myself with something I skipped in another project. The theme for this month is the {Adamski Effect}. Its a very neat technique, but I was challenged with new tutorials and working with my old CS6. Sometimes I did not have the tools they were talking about or I had to get to them via a different format. That said I did what I could to try and get the effect I was looking for.
I used my Australia photo’s again to play around with this technique. It is painstaking selecting process to get the main object, and I think on a couple my selection was a little off. I also found that they talked about modifying and expanding the selection but that did not seem to work for me. Then I found on some images it would fill with content aware and on others it would not. The effects typically used a motion blur but I did do one with gaussian blur to see what kind of effect I would get.
All that said, it was fun to see how creative I could get. So some of these pics you may have already seen in their normal format and now you will see them in the Adamski Effect.
I choose this image because it was the easiest of images to start with. That said I was not crazy about the black streaks to the right of the man. It was a person and I should either have selected them as well or cloned them out. This was taken on our walk from the hotel to Darling Harbor. Australia has what I think they would call green walkways. No cars and it is the best.
This image had the tall buildings and I kind of visualized the rainbow effects being a little different. We started walking up towards Bangaroo Reserve and then kind of did a detour and I am not sure where we resurfaced but we did eventually find our way back to our hotel.
So this is the effect I was looking for, however, I was not too crazy about the giant white pole in the way but I had spent too much time on the selection and was not starting over again. I loved the movement in the tall buildings. This was on one of the main streets in Sydney, George Street, on our walkabout back to our hotel.
This is probably my favorite of the images I played with. Instead of blurring vertical, I blurred horizontal. This was taken the morning we went to watch the sunrise over the Opera House. This guy was randomly sitting on the steps listening and looking at his phone.
I honestly love the background effect to this building. The boat was on it’s way in but it feels a little awkward given the height of the buildings. This was taken from the Sydney Harbor Bridge looking back towards Luna Park – the amusement park near the Kirribilli markets.
You met this guy in my last blog of the walk from Bondi Beach to Bronte. For the most part I think I did a reasonably good selection of the surfer and I do love the effect of the slightly off horizontal blur. And who doesn’t like a surfer.
For this image I used a Guassian blur instead of a motion blur. This is such a common picture of Richard – he always has his toes in the water. That comes from growing up within walking distance to the beach and spending time out on the water either fishing, surfing, paddle boarding, you name it and he’s probably done it.
For this image I was back to the motion blur. However, I did not want to do too much so this has more of a painterly look to it. This is the 12 Apostles on The Great Ocean Road. What I will say is I think that they are down to about 6 or 7 apostles these days. This image was taken on an overcast day with lots of wind and water spray. The scenery is stunning and this will be back on my bucket list when we go back. The cliffs here are incredible and so high.
For this image I used a horizontal motion blur. I loved the colors in this image. We had visited Australia in the fall and so we got to see a lot of reds and yellows. I am not sure where this was. It could have been after we came out of the Great Otway National Park. We had taken a detour through the Park to the light house.
I did this image twice. The first time I just isolated the leaves, but then it looked like floating leaves so I redid this to get the vine in to ground the leaves. Again I opted for a slightly off horizontal effect. This was taken during our time in Melbourne where we decided one afternoon to take a drive to a wine farm. What I loved about it was that it was about 15 minutes from where our family live. I could do that easily on a weekend for sure.
This is my last image. By now I was tired of tirelessly selecting the image. My version does not have “select subject”. So it was a painstakingly back and forth to get the selection as accurate as I could. I loved the way the colors in the back ground blurred. This was taken in Sydney 2 days before we left. There was a local market that we thought we would walk through and see what we could see. I had visions of bringing things home but that did not work out. So we ended on one of those Richard walks through the Rocks and up to the Lord Nelson Hotel and then made our way back to the hotel. This was a great day, as my childhood friend, who was now living in Brisbane came through with a friend to Sydney, and after a few beers back at the market area we headed by ferry out to Watson’s Bay to meet my cousin and his wife for the first time.
So those were my attempts at the Adamski Effect. Not perfect but I enjoyed trying to get the effect. I really hope that you will be challenged to try it as well.
Here are a few links that you can check out when trying:
https://photographychef.com/how-to-get-the-adamski-effect-in-photoshop-step-by-step/
I used this one a fair bit.
and this one as well.
This is a circle blog and as I mentioned, we have some very talented artists in the group. I hope that they are all challenged to do my (Adamski Effect) challenge. Take some time to follow the links and see what they have for you this month. My incredibly talented friend Janet of @wiredtothemoon_ is up next. I can’t wait to see what she has to share. You can see more of her work by clicking on her IG page. Definitely check out her incredible art.
Look out for more blogs.
Stay well
Share Six: July 2023: Bondi to Bronte, Australia
Posted on July 6, 2023
Two months in a row we have tried to do a particular theme. It’s not happening. First, I came back from Australia to a dead computer. It took around 3 weeks before I got it back. Then this past weekend, I managed to damage my 34″ monitor giving it the kiss of death. A huge black spot and then black lines going up and down the screen. Reminded me of Christmas bows, and it was definitely a expensive oops. That said I managed to get a new monitor via Amazon within 3 days and it is all set up, and it is better than the last one so I am all good.
Most of us were challenged with the theme we had originally chosen. So to keep it simple this month, we made the choice easy. The theme we finally selected for Share Six is (Your Choice). However, just a heads up this post is going to be a lot longer than 6 images. I would like to keep the whole story in one blog.
So why Bondi Beach to Bronte? My childhood friend, who lives in Brisbane, shared with me that this was a must do on our list. She told me this was the opportunity to get out and explore the natural coastline of New South Wales, and to really enjoy the beauty of this area. Not everything is about the city.
It’s around 7:30am and we are trundling along the city streets, by bus, watching with interest the world going by. The outer suburbs of Sydney city are much older and the buildings are dated, but they are interesting as well. People hop and off the bus using the tap on and tap off system.
Richard always has these options of how to get to places that involve walking. We could walk from the main Bondi terminal or catch the bus. Obviously I opted for the bus.
The weather is not bad, but kind of hazy while we were heading along the walk. This is also the one day in Sydney that I carried a light jacket. I wasn’t expecting to be cold but there was a gusting wind coming off the ocean.
We finally arrive, about 20 minutes later, at the infamous Bondi Beach. Bondi Beach is Sydney’s most famous beach. Is it a nice beach town? Absolutely. We did not explore the town as we were on a time agenda but it looked like there was a fair amount of shopping that could be done. As for the beach, it’s a wide open beach with lots of space and it spans a fair distance. I could imagine that it could be quite busy on the weekends. There were some surfers out, not as many as I expected. Perhaps because it was a weekday.
Richard walked down onto the beach. He loves to get his toes in the sand and he wanted to get closer to the ocean, since his camera was his phone.
I, on the other hand, decided to walk along the promenade taking photo’s of the graffiti. Eventually Rich and I met up again at the end of the beach boardwalk.
Below I tried to capture the bay’s two heads and the rolling waves in-between. The surf appeared to be pumping, however the only person I saw going into the waves was the lifeguard. The were a few people hanging out on the beach enjoying the weather.
Bondi Beach has everything you could want. Lots of restaurants and cafe’s, some interesting shopping area, a grassed area for you to sit on or picnic, and a very interesting board walk filled with beautiful graffiti. I did spot this interesting surfers code below as well.
At the end of Bondi beach we climbed stairs (the first of many) up towards Bondi Icebergs on Notts Avenue. Bondi Icebergs is a local swimming club with a restaurant and a beautiful sea pool.
This is where we started our Bondi to Bronte walk. For the most part the walkway is concrete, with a lot of ups and downs. The map below gives you a time frame for the walk but I think that is for speed walkers. To give you a time frame, the first photo I took was at 7:58am (at Bondi Beach), and the last one of the walk was at 9.26am. Of course, I keep stopping to take photos and Richard keeps walking, eventually he would have to wait for me to catch up. Clearly the beach area is a more upmarket area and the homes are really nice along the walkway. Perfect views of the water line.
Another heads up is that this is a popular walk so you are constantly passing people. There is also a exercise workout stations along the way as well.
We walked through some incredible rock formations. The pathway left the concrete road way and headed down some steps and along a created cement pathway.
I loved the rocky out crops and the different colors in the stone . We passed Mackenzie’s point lookout, and were heading down towards Mackenzie’s Bay. From what I read every so often Mackenzie’s Bay becomes a beach when the sand gets washed up. For the most it is a bay.
Beyond Mackenzie’s Bay we arrive at Tamarama Bay seen above in the distance. Tamarama Bay generally offers rough surfing conditions and strong rip tides and is generally better for suntanning. As you can see there is a wide open beach.
Moving along we now were on the last stretch of the walk, from Tamarama Beach, to Bronte. Again there is this rugged coastline to traverse and steps going down and back up again. While Bronte is a surfing beach, the water can be dangerous at times.
Bronte was the end of our journey, but the walk continues and you can follow the trail to Coogee Beach and Gordon’s Bay and beyond to Malabar Headland.
The one interesting thing that happened was switching busses on our way back. If you are traveling from Bronte to Sydney, the bus drops you off outside the terminal in Bondi. The pick up bus was about 15 steps away from where we were dropped off. However, due to our lack of knowledge we ended up walking into the terminal and then had to look at virtually every pick up point before trying to find our way back out of the terminal to the street. My advice check the outside bus stops prior to going into the terminal.
Bondi to Bronte was a beautiful walk and I certainly recommend it if you are traveling in the area. The area is rugged and stunning and like Day 2 on The Great Ocean Road it coast line was very impressive.
This is a circle blog and as I mentioned, we have some very talented artists in the group. The sneak peaks are stunning and I cannot wait to see the rest. Take some time to follow the links and see what they have for you this month. My incredibly talented friend Janet of @wiredtothemoon_ is up next. I can’t wait to see what she has to share. You can see more of her work by clicking on her IG page. Definitely check out her incredible art.
Next up is Days 2 of exploring Sydney – The Opera House, a short walk alongside the Botanical gardens, a bit more exploring through the city before packing out bags to head to Melbourne.
Look out for more blogs.
Stay well
You can also find me on Facebook, and Instagram.
Sydney and it is day 2…Sunrise over the bay
Posted on July 4, 2023
Sleep came early the previous night. 5pm and we were lights out. That does not bode well for wake up time. 3am and we are hello… it’s still dark outside. Somewhere around 4:30 Richard decides that he is going to walk down to the Opera House and go and watch the sunrise. Well, of course I am going to go, but I see no point in going all the way back to the hotel, to go all the way back virtually to the Opera House to start our day.
So off we go…… navigating our way in the semi dark, down to George Street and along to the Sydney Harbor Bridge. It’s somewhere around 5am. We are going to hang out there to watch the sun come up around the Opera House.
We stop at the end of the pier adjacent to the Sydney Harbor Bridge. The bridge is one huge piece of metal. Fascinating structure that spans the river from one side to the other. Interestingly, you can actually climb the arch of the bridge. Not something I would choose to do but I found it interesting that others would want to do that. It’s a lot of steps and I am not crazy about heights. When you stand under the bridge you really look so small. Looking across the river, you can see Luna Park, the amusement and theme park, in the distance.
One thing I do have to say about the people of Sydney, they are very health conscious. There were more people out running so early in the morning than I expected on a work day.
Sunrise is happening and there is nothing nicer than watching the day start with the sun peaking out through the clouds. OK, the setting sun is pretty awesome as well but we really did not do any of that on this trip. However, watching the sunrise over the Opera House is pretty epic. I never thought I would ever see that happen.
This morning was the culmination of a dream that has long been on our hearts. Standing in Sydney watching the sun come up was a thrill. Standing in the city of my grandfathers birth was even a bigger thrill.
Next on our agenda is the Bondi Coastal walk. So another cup of coffee and sausage roll later, yes…. I said sausage roll. Do you know when I last had a decent sausage roll? Not for a long long time, unless I made it myself. Okay I digress. With the coffee and sausage roll in hand we head back to Circular Quay to the bus that will take us to Bondi Beach. Join me as we walk along one of the beautiful coastlines of New South Wales in my next blog.
Thirty Minutes In the Life: June 2023: Given the choice of the whole world, why Australia?
Posted on June 26, 2023
It’s 30 Minutes in the Life time again, and our little group seems to have got down to 2 of us, so just a heads up my blog will be a lot longer than 30 minutes.
You may recall that during Covid (2021), Richard was diagnosed with a melanoma. Actually more than one melanoma, and I started pushing for him to make a visit to see his mom who lives with his sister in Australia. Up until now (2023) his results has been positive. He has shown signs of being NED which means no evidence diagnosed. In 2022 we were asked by Amy and Daniel to go to Macedonia. Having done that trip, Richard finally decided to he was ready to go to Australia. But only for 2 weeks. Yikes only 2 weeks…. I seriously tried to make it longer but he wasn’t budging.
Richard has not physically seen his mom since 2007. Zoom calls happen but that is not the same. He has not seen his sister and husband since 2011 when they traveled to the US. We have not seen our nieces since they were 7 years old and they are now in their 30’s. And he has not seen his brother for a number of years as well. We got to see all but his brother, who lived on the other side of Australia.
But there is also another side for me wanting to go to Australia. Both my fathers parents were born in Australia. My grandmother was born in Mackay, and his father in Chippendale, Sydney. For the longest time, I have wanted to visit Sydney. When I was in my late 20’s I asked my father to apply for an Australian passport. He was not interested. I tried to make him see that it was not for him, but for me, but he died without applying for one. In the end, we moved to the USA as Richard was offered a job there. So it was kind of surreal to be in Sydney knowing that this was the city of my grandfathers birth. In addition, his mother was born in Redfern and his father in Seven Hills. I am sure today they areas are nothing like they were back in the day of my grandfather’s youth but it was good to see something of where he had lived.
I had done a fair amount of research and come up with some plans of things I particularly wanted to see, or at least try and see them.
On map number 1, these where what I had selected to see:
- The Opera House from the Botanical Gardens near Mrs. Macquarie’s chair.
- Mrs. Macquarie’s Chair.
- The Opera House
- The Customs House (given that my grandfather was an emigrant)
- Circular Quay
- The Rocks
- Sydney Harbor Bridge
- Restaurants
- Photo spot for the bridge and the theme park across the canal
- Renewal project which is a 22 hectare waterfront precint. Shops and Restaurants, and you can catch a ferry from that point.
- Observatory
On Map number 2 these were the places I had listed to view:
12. George Street
13. Queen Victoria Building (Beautiful architecture)
14. Sydney Tower (restaurant right at the top)
15. Pitt Street Mall.
16. Hyde Park – Memorial Garden & Sculpture
17. St Mary’s Cathederal – Gothic style church.
18. Anzac Memorial
19. China Town
20. Chinese Garden of Friendship
21 Darling Harbor area
22. Restuarants.
23. The Green Line that took us back to the Hotel.
While I may not have done them all, I felt like we managed to get through quite a bit.
Sydney, Australia… I believe I fell in love over the course of 5 days.
Day One we arrived at the airport at 7am, having travelled around 32 hours from the time we left home to the time we arrived in Sydney, exhausted and sleep deprived. I do not sleep on flights and so I was surely dragging. As I mentioned in the previous blog, Australia has a long long list of what you can and cannot bring into the country. If you are planning on traveling to Australia, make sure to check out that list. Also do yourself a favor and get a doctors letter for prescription medication, they will ask for it. We did, so all was good.
Walking into the terminal there are about 8 check-in machines and people standing in line. Once you get to the machine you scan your passport, answer some questions, and it issues you with a card. You then take that card and enter it into the pass through and you by pass the immigration process. However, my card did not work. I had to go to a counter and a very friendly lady checked me through. We then had to pick up our luggage and go through border control. We had put our prescription medication into our check in luggage, so we had to dig it out and put the doctors letter with it. I feel like having shown them that, they were happy to let us go through.
Next we headed for the train. We had done some research and knew that we could use our American Express card for transportation, instead of buying one of their transportation cards and then having to top it up every time it got low. And yes there is a bank fee, but it was minimal and worth avoiding the possibility of having to leave money on a useless card. Interesting system they have there. They have a tap in and tap out system. So when you go through the station gates to get on the train you tap your credit card. Then when you get off at your station you tap your card again. That then defines your fee. It is so efficient and really works well. This system applied to all the transportation we used in Sydney. The only thing that was a little annoying about that is that I needed to have my credit card handy all the time and my wallet was in my backpack.
Our hotel, The Mercure Hotel, was situated pretty centrally and we got off at the Wynyard Station stop and walked a block to our hotel. Of course getting there at 8am means we are super early. We were unable to check in until 2pm. Fortunately we were able to drop off our luggage. That meant we were zombies going on a walk, or at least that is what it felt like. What I did not realize was our hotel was on a hill. So wherever we walked we were going downhill leaving, and uphill coming home. What to do, where to go? Seemed like the closest was Darling Harbor. So off we went and walked around. I had listed a number of places of interest on a map and Darling Harbor was one of them. We walked all over, took a wrong turn and landed up in places where I had planned to go on a different day.
It was finally close to 2pm so we headed back to the hotel, got checked in and into our rooms. We were able to have a shower, feel a little more human. I thought we would catch a nap but nope, Richard wanted to continue exploring. So off we went.
According to the New South Wales gov website “The Rocks was given its name by the members of the First Fleet, who, on 26 January, 1788, were landed on the rocky peninsula on the western side of Sydney Cove. This was the site of the first convict encampment, military camp, bakehouse and hospital.” To read more about this interesting area check out this link.
Back up the hill we headed, after missing our street, and finally to the hotel. I was super tired and ready to put my feet up. However we were also hungry and we wanted a early dinner, bed was calling.
Exhausted we decided to head back to Darling Harbor for dinner. Little did we know that the place had siesta time from around 3-5pm. That may not sound bad, except that by 5pm we were in bed, asleep.
Totally exhausted we headed back to the hotel. After the 32 hour travel, my knee was worrying me and all this walking and going up and down hills just aggravated it. I was glad to get back to the hotel. We decided to share a pizza at the hotel and then crash. The pizza was an interesting combination of cheese, pepperoni and what tasted like Worcestershire sauce or on second thoughts it may have been mango chutney. It wasn’t a bad taste but definitely different.
Sleep came super early. As I mentioned 5pm and we were both lights out. The time change and jet lag were not fun, but more about that next …..
Up next we get to watch the sunrise over the bay, explore Circular Quay and it’s surrounding area and head off to walk from Bondi Beach to Bronte.
Stay well
My friend Lupji from Lupji Photography is co-blogging with me today. Don’t forget to check his blog to see what he has been up to.
Kocani, Macedonia
Posted on September 13, 2022
We had climbed Vinicko Kale, and now it was time for us to head to Kocani for the afternoon. Kocani is about 15 or so minutes from Vinica and we had the most interesting ride. When we got to the house, the car was already decorated in wedding finery in preparation for Saturdays event, and the main reason we were in Vinica. While everyone was working on wedding plans, Amy, Richard, Luka and I were playing tourist.
Kocani, on first impression, is much larger than Vinica. Reading about Kocani that impression was confirmed The population is almost 3 x more than Vinica, the number of people living there is around 28 000. The population is made up of about 90% of Macedonians, 5% Roma, 3% Turks, 0.5% Vlachs (I added a link because I have not heard this terminology before), 0.2% Serbian, and 0.1% other.
I noticed a lot more apartment complexes around the town.
The Kocani River runs through the center of town and creates a beautiful river walk. One block of buildings back from the river is a peaceful outdoor entertainment area, coffee bars, restaurants, shops, and a children’s play area.
I loved this – Life is too short to wear boring clothes. I also think life is to short to not be exploring everything around us. There is a whole world out there.
Below, the story of our vacation. Carrying the stroller up and down stairs, hills, walkways etc. Luka did not complain at all. I let them do the carrying and I took photo’s lol.
I loved this image below of Marilyn Munroe on the walls of what appears to be a restaurant in Gadsby style.
We were heading to an Irish Pub that Amy had been to a couple of times. The look was somewhat Irish but the beers and menu were not. We had the standard Macedonian beer Skopsko IPL. One of my favorite finds was the beggars in Macedonia. They came with four legs and were all feline. There is a huge population of what I assume are feral cats and they are the restaurant beggars. I loved them.
I got to chat with the waitress at the restaurant. She was an English teacher but she said there were no jobs so she was working as a waitress.
When we were leaving the Irish Pub I spotted this church in the distance and asked if we could make our way to it. Little did I know we were going up and down hills again.
Below is one of the views of the housing in Kocani. We walked the streets to the church because the sidewalks have cars on them.
I was fascinated by this tree growing up the wall of this shop. Turning around to take a fuller image I realized that this was a grape vine that had grown up the side of the building and the leaves and grapes formed the awning.
Back up hill and making our way to the church I had spotted. Like Vinica, I saw piles of wood stacked against walls and houses. This wall is the external wall to the church.
Church St George, is situated just outside of the main riverwalk area, slightly up on the hill. I could find little information on this church but from what I did find it was apparently built in 1915 on original foundations.
Church St George, is an orthodox Macedonian church. I loved the design of the building with stone and plaster and traditional red style tiles on the roof. The grounds were immaculate, and we were able to walk around without anyone stopping us. We did not, however, go inside.
One of my favorite things that I saw in Macedonia with the churches was that quite often there were miniature replicas in the gardens.
Lastly we stopped in at Restaurant Kaj Pace for a late afternoon meal. We were all hungry. This was a great restaurant, some of it undercover and some areas had a more garden feel. My favorite part, I have to confess, was that the wait staff moved a giant fan over to us. Phew, with 104F temps we were dying. That fan was a blessing.
Of course, it was back to beer again. For food we ordered shopska salad which is made of cucumbers, tomatoes, mixed in olive oil and covered with a salty cheese, not unlike feta but looked very different. This appears to be a staple salad in Macedonia and we would eat it many times in the days to come.
Amy also wanted cheesy chips, which sounded great. The first taste of the chips was a bit of a shock as the cheese was salty. Amy tells me there is two types of cheese in Macedonia, a gouda type cheese which they call white cheese, and salty cheese. In addition we shared ribs as well which were excellent. What I loved about eating in Macedonia was that we could order a number of plates of food, and all share that food.
We headed back home in the wedding car, to a wonderful evening of meeting new family members, Daniels brother, sister in law and niece. It was a great day, busy with the climb and then the tour of Kocani. It felt good to stop and chat and learn a bit more of our new extended family.
Heading back to the hotel and the air conditioning, we took a little bundle of love along with us. Luka was dealing with a heat rash and Amy thought it would be good for him to sleep in the cooler temps. I made him a bed on the couch and placed chairs along the edge so that he could not roll out. He slept like a log, through the whole evening.
Saturday is going to be a busy day. Rich and I took Luka for a walk in the lower side of Vinica, then we got to celebrate for 3 hours at the house, before heading to the wedding venue. If I thought Friday was a long day, Saturday was going to be even longer.
Share Six: September 2022: Intentional
Posted on September 6, 2022
Liz from It’s Still Life Photography by Elizabeth Willson chose our theme {Intentional}. This was going to challenge me. I had to really sit and think about it. I have not had a lot of time to myself this past 2 weeks. Aside from my Luka days which always seem to be more than Friday (and I am not complaining), I have had a change in job description. I have been asked to take over two areas that our ex Finance Officer was handing, insurances & employee benefits along with HR. I may loose the HR later but right now it is on my plate. It has been a learning curve. So I had to go back and look at what I had been intentional about recently.
Macedonia was so different to what you see in South Florida. South Florida is so manicured that it is virtually impossible to see a weed. Whereas in Macedonia there was a wildness to the flora on our walk we were taking, and also plenty of wildflowers. On our walk to Vinicko Kale, the ruins of the fortress that sits on top of the hill, I was intentional about looking for the beauty that surrounded us. That and stopping every so often to breathe. The walk up hill was a killer. I am unfit, that goes without saying. However, while I am not asthmatic, I come from a family that does suffer from asthma. My allergies tend to play up when I hit dry climates and the altitude affects my breathing. So I would stop and take photos, and catch up on my breathing at the same time. As a result Amy and Richard were always way ahead of me on the hike.
Macedonia’s topography undulates. We were constantly going up and downhill. We had to go downhill to get to the point where we could go uphill to Vincko Kale. And then it all went uphill. While for many, the sides of the road may seem overgrown, I loved seeing all the wildflowers. Some of them may have been weeds, but they were beautiful flowering weeds. Nature has so many beautiful specimens to offer and I was seeing a good few of them here in Vinica as we walked.
About halfway up the hill I stopped to breathe again, and to breathe in the beauty of our surroundings. Florida is so flat that it is so amazing to be able to look around and see hills, valleys and mountains again. It reminded me so much of the countryside we used to explore in South Africa.
I have no idea of any of the names of the flowers sadly, but they definitely captured my attention. The image below is the ruins of Vinicko Kale, a fortress set on top of the hill that dates back to the Neolithic times. This is where our uphill walk was taking us.
No only were the flowers stunning but I was blown away by the spiderweb below. It appeared that the spider created this tunnel through to where it waited.
After huffing and puffing my way up the hill, with all my {Intentional} stops to breathe and seek beauty, the view from the top was spectacular. It was of the city below. Now while the walk downhill may not be bad, the last little stretch uphill had me huffing and puffing again.
Doing things {Intentionally} is not a bad thing. I intentionally plan before we go. I like to know where I am going and what there is to see. When I am there, I am intentionally looking for the beauty that is around me. Intentionally trying to connect with what the country has to offer. I loved our trip to Macedonia and a journey into an area of the world I have never been before.
This is a circle blog and as I mentioned, we have some very talented ladies in the group. The sneak peaks are stunning and I cannot wait to see the rest. Take some time to follow the links and see what they have for you this month. My incredibly talented friend Katherine of Cobert Photography is up next. I can’t wait to see what she has to share. You can see more of her work by clicking on her Instagram page. Definitely check out her incredible art.
If you want to learn more about the Fortress Vinicko Kale, then look out for the next blog due to go live later this week.
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Tallulah Gorge: Part 2
Posted on January 4, 2021
The 30 Minutes in the Life blog was just that 30 minutes, but it was also too many images so I decided to split the blog. If you did not see the first part you can click here to read the initial part of the blog post.
A quick summary of the previous post is that we were in Georgia for a short get away with the family and decided to head to Tallulah Gorge for some hiking and visiting the local area. You are picking up at look out point 2.
As I mentioned in the previous post, there are 750 steps from the top to the suspension bridge. There is an addition hike down to the water level. That is another 450 steps. There is a limit as to how many people can access that area and it is under certain conditions.
At this point we decided to move on to lookout point 3. Our ultimate destination was lookout point 5 seen above. This is when the fun started. While it was accessible it was a little more difficult going with the wheelchair and at some points Kathryn had to get out and Cameron had to move it for her over the roots or what ever obstructions there was.
I really enjoyed seeing all the fall leaves on the ground. The smell of dampness, soil, fresh air. All those things are an aroma to my senses. Added to that the weather was gorgeous for walking.
We made it to look out 4, but at this point it had been tough going for Kathryn, and when we spoke to some ladies about lookout 5 they said the wheelchair would not be able to get there, and there were steps on the way. So that was the end of the journey for Cameron and Kathryn. I decided to go on my own to look out 5 to see what the view was like.
The view was very similar, so I journeyed on towards the end of the property where there was an access up to the road
From the road you had a great view of the river heading away from the dam wall. And I got to capture Cameron, Kathryn, and Cody at lookout point 4. Having finished up my shots, I turned around to head back to meet up with them when who should come behind me but the stair climbers, looking somewhat fatigued.
If you are visiting Georgia, and you are within driving distance of Tallulah Gorge, then add it to your bucket list. You will not regret it. If you have any form of disability, there is still areas that you can get to and enjoy.
Thanks for joining me for the second part of the blog on Tallulah Gorge.
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