City Daily Photo Theme Day: Coffee Houses And Cafes

I had to really stretch for this month's theme. Visits to coffee houses are very rare for me. No time in my crowded life for such leisurely pastimes, and the only ones close to my office and home are Starbucks. So what to do?

This is the coffee bar in my office. My staff got one of those Keurig single-cup-at-a-time coffee makers, one of the most wasteful and environmentally unfriendly products around. I don't drink coffee during the day, the people who work with me are wonderful, and so I don't make a fuss about it. Still, this makes me think back on a few wonderful cafes we've visited: Cafe de la Paix in Paris, sitting at St. Louisan Josephine Baker's table; Cafe Sacher in Vienna; even Cafe du Monde in New Orleans. 

Tomorrow morning at our home, though, once again it's French roast, brewed inky black and strong enough to clear a clogged drain.                

February City Daily Photo Theme Day: scene from a coffee house

February already... There are no coffee houses in France, at least not like the brilliant ones in Vienna where this month's theme comes from... There are tea shops and cafés of course. Saturday was a horrible, wet, stormy day and VDP ended up in a café she likes, which of course she has shown you before: the snuffing cat (here in 2009 and there in 2010). What's more, VDP doesn't like coffee, so she went for a hot chocolate, though it wasn't particularly cold outside. Just icky wet and Charlotte-Adélaïde looked happier than VDP did! To see takes on the theme from all over the world, click here! Happy February!

Déjà février ! Le thème du premier du mois dans la communauté des blogueurs City Daily Photo c'est un truc qui n'existe pas vraiment en France, à savoir le "coffee house". Samedi il faisait un temps à ne pas mettre un chien dehors et VDP a atterri au chat qui prise, qu'elle vous a bien évidemment déjà montré par le passé, ici en 2009 et là en 2010. Pour voir les interprétations du thème dans les villes de par le monde, cliquez ici ! Bon mois de février !

Departure hall "café"

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Merisi of Vienna chose this month's City Daily Photo Theme Day theme.
Vienna, coffeehouse capital of the civilized world! --  Merisi must have a thousand choices.
She is asking us CDP bloggers to share a favorite coffee place in our neighborhood.

Actually I am not a café type of person so I have few photos of such places, especially not Israeli places.
This strange one that I show you, well, I never sat there. 
But I LOVE walking by it.
Why? Because it is in the Departures terminal of Ben-Gurion International Airport, and that means I am on the way to a gate to a plane, to fly away somewhere!

The tables in the big circle are surrounded by over-priced coffee and cake stands; I think you just buy what you want and go sit down. 
In the center a fountain does its water show under the high dome, adding its noise to the general clamor.
All around the circle are duty-free shops and fast-food places. 
For some reason unknown to me an Indian totem pole is part of the "decor."

People, a lot of them, sit and eat, drink and talk, and happily watch the screen on the wall show their flight's departure time getting closer and closer.  
(We have to be at the airport at least three hours before, because of all the security checks.)

If you want to see a real coffeehouse in the grand style, see my post on Café Museum, to which an Austrian friend took me in my first-ever hour in Vienna last November.
And check out the wide diversity of coffee places that City Daily Photo bloggers will be posting starting now.
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More about our nice airport in these earlier posts.
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Ted and the great roll off

Disorientation

Running low on material but still finding images from the Ice Carnival a couple of weeks ago. This was a strange amusement, apparently a double sphere, the inner and outer connected by these green pins. Someone gets in and then runs like crazy down a track bordered by inflated tubes, trying their best not to fall or go upside down. It's actually a race. There is a second sphere, not shown here, in which another contestant tries to go down and back more quickly.

I don't think there was a prize for the winner but second place got a packet of Dramamine.
                        

The theme for City Daily Photo bloggers on February 1 is

"A Scene from a Cafe or Coffee House."

7 ans...

Seven years of VDP... The exhibition draws to a close with later funerals. This is a reconstitution of Louis XVIII's funeral in 1824, with XIXth century replicas of the original emblems of the monarchy that are kept in the Louvre museum.

Sept ans de VDP... L'expo s'achève avec des funérailles royales et républicaines postérieures et une magistrale reconstitution de celles de Louis XVIII en 1824 avec des répliques du XIXème siècle des emblèmes et ornements royaux, les originaux étant conservés au musée du Louvre.

Trois parapluies...

Three brollies... Can you spot all three? And a courageous cyclist about to ride off...

Vous les voyez tous les trois ? Et une courageuse cycliste sur le point de reprendre son vélo...

The Sand Castle

Slowly washing away as the Thames tide rises. The sand castle makers make grand creations on this sandy patch of the river at Gabriel's Wharf in the expectation of coins tossed to them by passersby. Then hours later stand by and see their work washed away.

Closed For The Season

One of STL's favorite institutions is the Muny Opera in Forest Park. It's America's largest outdoor musical theater with 11,000 seats. There are 1,500 free seats for every performance, first come, first served. 

The repertory tends to be oft-recycled Broadway shows. Mrs. C and I haven't been since we were newlyweds. By this time, if I had to sit through The Music Man on a sweltering St. Louis summer evening it might take 76 trombones to silence my rage.

The theme for City Daily Photo bloggers on February 1 is
           "A Scene from a Cafe or Coffee House.”                   

                       

Ambiance lugubre au Belvédère

VDP can't resist this scene... It isn't the first time she has taken this photo though it wasn't shown on VDP but here on AV. To see the Belvedere at Petit Trianon castle inside out click here.

VDP a les pires difficultés du monde à résister à cette vue. Ce n'est pas la première fois qu'elle prend cette photo, mais ne l'avait montrée que sur AV, c'était ici. Pour voir toutes les photos du Belvédère au Petit Trianon, cliquez là.

What is a Messerschmitt but doesn't fly?

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Ta-da!  It opens up!
Lihi, the nice guide of the Open Museum at Omer Industrial Park, is proud to show us this special microcar.

It's a 1960 Messerschmitt Isabela, with a 690 cc, 2 piston engine, made in Germany of course.

After the war, the Allies for a time did not allow  Messerschmitt to build aircraft.
In the early 1950s the company turned instead to small motor vehicle manufacture.

The collection of 32 antique cars exhibited at the Omer Open Museum is owned by Eitan Wertheimer, son of entrepreneur and industrialist Stef Wertheimer.
I'll show you some more in future posts. 
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A Labyrinth is not a Maze

What is the difference between a maze and a labyrinth.  Although the two terms are basically synonymous, there is a difference.  In this case a maze refers to a complex branching multicursal puzzle with choices of path and direction, while a unicursal labyrinth has only a single path to the center. A labyrinth in this sense has an unambiguous route to the center and back and is not difficult to navigate.

The difference between the two meant the KidZ learned something during our summer holiday in the Overberg region of the Western Cape.  We drove to the town of Napier and I told them that we were going to make a stop to do a cache at a labyrinth.  They wanted to know what a labyrinth was and I told them it was like a maze.  That was where I made the mistake.  They had done the big maze at the Plett Puzzle Park before and in their minds there was going to be something similar.  When we got to The Red Windmill outside Napier and dashed off to go and find the maze only to be met by a "wall-less" labyrinth.  Oh the disappointment.  The ran off to the middle though following the path round and round, kinda defeating the purpose of this labyrinth being one of meditation and contemplation.  They had fun regardless.  While they were following the route to the middle I retrieved the cache from its hiding place and signed the log, adding another smiley to my Geocaching map. 

A Posh Tree House

A novel way of advertising dream holidays in Africa is there reason for the treehouse on the Southbank.  There was an opportunity to win an overnight stay in the lofty hut by registering your details with the company.  No lions and tigers to see from your bedroom window but a not half bad view over the Thames instead, and plenty of people wandering by to replace the trumpeting of a stray elephant.

Self Expression

I don't think you could find a car that looks like this anywhere in the world but the US. This kind of complete cover is uncommon but it's not unique. You do see plenty of vehicles that have lots of stickers on the back promoting political or sometimes religious views, any kind of music from heavy metal to the symphony, organizations of every kind or just whatever the owner wants to make a statement about.

Makes you wonder if the weight of all the stickers reduces the car's fuel economy. On the other hand, think of what the owner could save on car washes and minor body work.

Found in University City along the Delmar Loop.                      

The theme for City Daily Photo bloggers on February 1 is
"A Scene from a Cafe or Coffee House.”

Le cénotaphe

Louis XIV's cenotaph, a 1/5th model by Pier Luigi Pizzi... VDP loved the photo op it provided.

Maquette au 1/5ème, réalisée par Pier Luigi Pizzi du cénotaphe de Louis XIV...

Below is the king's funeral procession.

Ci-dessous, la procession funèbre du roi.

Party

Having fun

Aloha

For some reason on a cold winter day in St. Louis, my thoughts drift to an image of Marge Simpson in Hawaii wearing a slinky dress. (Conditions here must be hard.) Actually, I found this in a shop window in the University City Loop.

Mrs. C and I love the Simpsons. It is the only consistently literate show on TV, which makes me wonder how it has lasted for so many years. There are lots of interesting details about Marge. Did you know her middle name is Jacqueline and her maiden name was Bouvier, as in Jackie Kennedy? And that hair! It's said to be based on a combination of the bride's in Bride of Frankenstein and the style cartoonist Matt Groening's mother wore in the 60s. But why blue?

The theme for City Daily Photo bloggers on February 1 is
"A Scene from a Cafe or Coffee House.”

                   

Eventails de deuil

Back at the 'the king is dead' exhibition, some mourning fans. Fashionable mourning... with a reflection of this.

De retour à l'expo "le roi est mort", les éventails de deuil ou la mode en deuil... Avec un reflet de ceci.

Beer Sheva's Holocaust Memorial

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The United Nations decided that January 27, the day on which Auschwitz was liberated, should be the International Day in memory of the victims of the Holocaust.
Israel has its own day, in the spring, to remember the Shoah.

This is Beer Sheva's memorial square "to remember the victims of the Holocaust."
The four words written in Hebrew are from the Book of Esther 9:28 and mean
"Their memory will not fade from their descendants"
or in a different translation,
"The memorial of them should not perish from their seed."
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