Ready to Go!

By this time tomorrow I will already be in Chicago waiting for my flight to Switzerland.

I have printed off my boarding passes, the last item on my long checklist of things to do before I leave.

Yesterday I received an email from my cousin Brigitta.  She knows that I am trying to learn German, but I think that she overestimates my fluency in the language.  Her short message was entirely in German.  However, I had a pretty good guess of what she wrote.  I went to Google Translate to be sure, and I was correct.  I guess my German is progressing.  I would probably be tongue-tied trying to say it myself, and I would probably be lost if someone said it in rapid fire German.   But I understood her written word.  I figured out that Brigitta had told me, "We will wait for you in the big hall outside of customs."

Switzerland, here I come!

Berea Cousin

Here is a photo of my cousin Gail and me that was taken earlier this summer.

We are sitting in a park in Berea, Ohio.  Gail lives in Berea, and I live five minutes away in the neighboring town of Olmsted Falls.  In the background is Coe Lake which originally was a sandstone quarry.  In the late 1800's and early 1900's Berea was known as the "Sandstone Capital of the World".  Berea sandstone was used in the making of grindstones, sidewalks, and the construction of buildings throughout the world.  The Canadian Parliament Building in Ottawa, and even a small portion of the Kremlin in Moscow are built with stone from Berea.

Our great-great grandfather was a stone worker in Switzerland, and the family owned a quarry on the edge of Othmarsingen.  (The remains of it can still be seen in the forest outside of town.)  During a severe economic depression in the late 1800's, our great-great grandparents and their children (including Gail's great grandfather and my great grandmother) emigrated to Berea.  They had heard about the sandstone industry here, and the father and some of his sons got jobs in the quarries.

So, if it were not for those sandstone quarries, our Swiss ancestors would not have settled in  Ohio, and Gail and I would not be here today. 

I Will Soon Be There

As I have written previously, early next week I will be heading across the ocean to Switzerland to see my wonderful Swiss family... the distant cousins that I discovered through my genealogical research.

As I have also written, my Ohio cousin Gail will be joining me.  She and I are third cousins from the Swiss branch that we share in our family trees   Gail and her husband Wes are already in Europe.  Last Sunday they flew to Vienna to begin a guided tour of Austria and Switzerland.  At the end of their tour they will stay on for several days so that I can introduce them for the first time to her Swiss relatives.  Our cousin Werner will take us under his wing and introduce them to our ancestral town of Othmarsingen.  

Earlier this week Gail sent me a photo of the two of them in front of Vienna's Schoenbrunn Palace, the summer home of the Hapsburg rulers of the Austrian Empire.

Ironically, far back in the Middle Ages, long before they became the most powerful dynasty in Europe, the Hapsburgs were an obscure noble family who had a castle located just a few miles from Othmarsingen!

After Gail and Wes return home to Ohio, I am going to travel to Austria and Germany.   Schoenbrunn Palace will be one of many places that I will visit.  In fact, I already have my admission ticket for the palace.  So, be sure to come back next week and read all about my European adventures!

From the Internet

Alejandro found this on the internet and sent it to me...

I Just Want to Scream!

When I go into a Walmart in Mexico City, I have never feared that some gunman is going to walk in and start shooting people.  Nor have I had any fears when I go to a movie theater or an outdoor music performance in Mexico.  I do not worry that there will be a mass shooting at the school which Alejandro's nephew Ezra attends.
  
So when I hear individuals or the media portray Mexico as a dangerous place I just want to scream!  After the horrific events of last weekend, just the latest in a long, long line of senseless killings, I feel as if I am safer in Mexico than here in the U.S.

A Republican state representative from Ohio posted a list of causes for the mass shootings... among them drag queens and gay marriage.  What an utterly idiotic comment!  Again, I want to scream when I hear the lunacy of some people who are in our government.

The Republicans offer their "thoughts and prayers".  Enough with the "thoughts and prayers".  As many in the audience chanted when the Ohio governor spoke at a vigil for the Dayton victims, "DO SOMETHING!"

In the case of the El Paso massacre, the cause is clear.  The shooter was a white supremacist.  Now anyone who has studied U.S. history knows that racism is nothing new and that it has raised its ugly head time and time again in this country.  The orange "Pendejo" made a statement decrying white supremacists.  Sorry, "Pendejo", too little, too late.  You have shown your true colors since long before the election.  Your constant statements and tweets demeaning Hispanics, blacks and Muslims have clearly demonstrated the kind of person you are.  You have emboldened the racists in this country to act out on their hatred.


I am truly ashamed of my nation. 

Birthday Lily

I have a few lilies in my garden which are the descendants of bulbs that belonged to my maternal grandmother.  When I was a kid I used to call them "grandma's lilies".  I also sometimes call them my "birthday lilies"  since they always bloom in August as my birthday approaches.  

We use to have a long row of them, but now only a few remain.  I have never seen anything exactly like them in any of the garden stores.

Happy Birthday to Me

My birthday is coming up later this month, so my sister-in-law Phyllis planned a little early celebration.  You may remember Phyllis from a few years ago when she accompanied me on a trip to Spain and France.  She lives in Columbus, Ohio, and I live outside of Cleveland, so sometimes we will get together for lunch in the Mansfield area, about halfway between the two cities.

Phyllis did some research, and found a restaurant we had never visited called the Oak Park Tavern.  It had very good reviews, so yesterday we tried it out.  The outside and the interior décor of the place are not very impressive, but the food was definitely a winner.

Accompanying us was our grand-nephew, Benjamin.

Of course, what would a birthday celebration be without cake?  Phyllis and I indulged in an Italian cream lemon cake that was scrumptious.

(photo taken by Phyllis)

 Thank you Phyllis for a fun get-together!