Xi'an Terracotta Warriors

This was actually the reason we went to Virginia Museum of Fine Arts a couple of days ago.

Happy New Year!

Christmas Dinner 2017

Home-made pâté de campagne to start.



Followed by butternut squash soup.



By the time of the main course, we were already quite satisfied. But we managed to still find a bit of room in our stomachs for sirloin steak with a red wine reduction.

Christmas dinner accomplished. Time to go back to grading.

Richmond Art

After all these years we finally discovered Virginia Museum of Fine Arts!

Richmond Food

Excellent food at Supper in Richmond VA: Charcuterie, fried oysters and griddle cakes with pulled pork. Yum-o!

Random Geese Post

Thanksgiving 2017

Tuncay invited us over for Thanksgiving --- something you do not want to say no to. We had very nontraditional Thanksgiving foods: amazing foie gras, wonderful meatz and cheeses for lunch, and a full dinner with sous vide duck (pictured above).



We started with pumpkin soup which was even better than it looked.



Then we had this beautiful salad with goat cheese.



And then there was the pièce de résistance: duck that was first sous vided, and then pan fried.



Also, veggies.

We are very thankful to Tuncay!

Flying Time Intermezzo: Philadelphia

Apologies for lightposting (again)! I hope I can make it up by starting this blog post with wonderful Chinese food.



Last weekend was time for our biweekly get together, this time in Philadelphia. Our only goal for this weekend was to have good food. We succeeded with flying colors. On Saturday evening we went to Barbuzzo (no pics), where inspired Mediterranean food was prepared with balls and love. We had wonderful trout, meatballs, acorn squash and bread pudding.

Then for breakfast the next morning, we went to Chinatown, specifically Heung Fa Chun Sweet House. We asked what was good, and got a soft tofu and a noodle dish. The soft tofu dish (first pic) was out of this world!



Then it was time for some mind food, so we visited the Rodin museum.

One more food pic: we then went to Bud & Marilyn, which is advertised as retro-American. This fried chicken was another big hit.



Another biweekly get together that worked out terrifically!

Intermezzo: West Virginia

Our biweekly get-away/meet-up took place in a yurt on a mountain in West Virginia this time.
We had been watching the weather forecast with some apprehension — the forecast was rain and temperature of 40 degrees Fahrenheit (less than 5 Celsius) during the day. But this was for the village down the mountain. Surely, it would be nice and sunny and warm higher up, right?



Unfortunately, no. It was indeed rainy and somewhat cold during the day, although we did not let that stop us from having a wonderful day. We drove around, took a brief walk in the mist around Spruce Knob Lake, and spent the afternoon cooking a hearty stew and drinking wine.



While we were enjoying our stew, it started snowing. Extremely beautiful, but the night was freezing cold! Fortunately, we had taken our own down duvets, so we were nice and cozy as long as we stayed in bed. Getting up at 6:30 in a yurt that was freezing cold despite the tiny little space heater was less pleasant...



The drive down the mountain was very exciting as well. It took about 30-40 minutes just to get to a paved road (although I guess paving is kind of irrelevant if it is covered by snow and ice). Luckily, trees that had fallen and blocked the road had already been cut and removed from the road by early-riser neighbors (I imagine that West Virginians have a gas powered chainsaw in the back of their truck just in case). It was so much fun, and the surroundings were really like a fairytale!

Day 4: Badener Hütte to Bonn Matreier Hütte

The next day the weather was beautiful. There was a clear snowline on the mountains, and the sky was as blue as it gets. (Note the Murmeltier in the picture above.)



We first went down about 500 m, before we had to go up to 2878 m.







Unsurprisingly there was still quite a bit of snow at this altitude.



In the previous hut we met an American family, who had done this hike in reverse the previous day. They were still smiling somehow, which was rather impressive!



And then we went down to the next hut.







In numbers: 4.48 h, 20.08 km, 896 m ascent, 868 m descent.

Day 3: Neue Prager Hütte to Badener Hütte

The next day the weather was even worse than the day before. Anke overheard the Hüttenwirt talking to the other group, and we knew today was going to be a strenuous hike even in good weather.



We decided to postpone our decision of going to the Badener Hütte or back down to the valley until the very last minute.



The road was slippery --- but also very beautiful!



The route went down, through the remains of a glacier...



... with some spectacular (and slippery) rocks.



We found a sheep that had fallen and broken one of its legs, and called the hut to make sure that the shepherd knew about it.



We also called the next hut, asking them what the conditions were on the other side of the mountain.



It was all good, they said, so we decided to go on...



... trying to find our way in through the snow.



So close...



... and yet still so far.



We made it to the highest point!





After that it was smooth sailing (more or less).











This day was an absolute awesome adventure!



In numbers: 4.51 h, 10.05 km, 948 m ascent, 976 m descent.