Day 2: Edmund-Graf Hütte to Niederelbehütte

In numbers: 4:05h, 9.25 km, 589 m ascent, 707 m descent.

Cows

Attack of the Killer Cows

Do you think this cow looks cute?



Do you get all mushy and tingly when you look at these calves?

Well, you could not be more wrong.



These are Killer Cows, looking for their next victim, who turned out to be me. On our way to the Hochstubaihütte we saw these cute calves frolicking in the grass. As soon as they saw us, they start heading for us --- which seemed really cute at that moment. Then the whole herd turned towards us and started running! This was slightly less cute, and rather intimidating. After stupidly encouraging them by running away, and paying the price for it by falling down (and being sore for almost three weeks), we finally gained the upper hand again by shouting at these monsters.



The rest of today's trip was luckily less eventful. After going down 1000 meters, we had to climb 1200 meters, which is not too hard after 2 1/2 weeks of hiking.





And everything is forgotten and rosy again.

Cows

Dolomiti Revisited

After the conference in Rome had ended, we quickly did our laundry (or at least, the bastards at the laundromat near Vatican city pretended that our laundry had been washed) and headed towards the Dolomiti to start our yearly hike.



We started at a different hut than 8 years ago, to follow the route that Ellen and Christiaan did with SNP in 2007. Because we had been too busy (lazy) to plan our hike this year, we were planning to just follow their route and then to some of the huts from 8 years ago.





This was the view on our first morning hiking...

Hiking the Alps -- On the Road

As is our annual tradition, we went hiking in the Alps again this summer with Ellen and Christiaan. This year, we hiked the Lechtaler Höheweg and Lechquellen Runde. Ellen will hopefully publish a nice, detailed, chronological report of our adventures. Here at WTAW, you'll have to make do with a sequence of posts containing random assorted pictures.

Part one of the series: things we saw on the road.

1. Lots of beautiful flowers.

2. Picturesque mountain lakes.





3. Numerous horny Murmeltiere, as well as many mothers with babies.



4. And of course the Alps are not complete without cows.

Washington DC

On our way to the snowy mountains in West Virginia, we stopped in Washington DC and visited Tuncay and Chad. No visit to DC is complete without stopping at Zenebach Injera.

Pho King Good

Pho king good pho at Pho 76 in Newport News.

Hard Work

We've finished giving our final exams, and there are huge piles of paper waiting for us to grade them. A also has a (part of a) grant proposal to write. But we are expecting guests! Time to get the house in order.

Last weekend, we bought a leaf blower and sucker, since it turns out our street is named after a very leafy  tree for a reason. This week, we bought a lawnmower as well.

F is really taking to working in the garden. This morning, he worked his hands to a pulp chopping wood for the fire place, reporting that "It is like golf, but more fun!"

 In the mean time, A assembled the dining room furniture, and our guest room is ready too! (It is most unfortunate that we did not buy our own bed yet, so our guests will be more comfortable than we are).

We don't have time or energy to cook, but fortunately Costco sells really good frozen pizza, hummus, mini quiches etc.

The last serious cooking we did was last weekend, when we made this:

 

Dinner

Tuncay knows the awesomest restaurants in DC. We knew the Ethiopian restaurant from a previous visit, and this time he took us to a Thai restaurant.



It was like being in Thailand, maybe even better. These first two pictures are the appetizers: chicken salad and cucumber soup.

Then another four dishes were served:



Beef salad.



Fish.



And pumpkin curry. I am missing a picture of the slow cooked pork. Each dish was simply awesome.



As a "filler" there was some Pad Thai, and for dessert sticky rice with mango.

Highly recommended: Thai X-ing in Washington DC.