EuroLIfe: Day 125

The Winterling

The photos in todays post are not ones that I took myself, so think of today as a sneak-preview of sorts. (I'm hoping to have some nice pictures in the next two or three days.)

After church yesterday, Michael and I were finally able to meet our friend Bertold's wife , and we spent a lovely day with them. (I believe her name is spelled Marina, but I am not sure.) Michael and I had planned on going for a long walk to see the "winterlings", a small yellow flower that blooms for a short while in February. There are only a few places where they can be seen, and one of them is about a 90 minute walk from our apartment. (We stumbled upon the spot months ago; they have information about it along the trail.) Bertold and Marina were also planning on going to see these flowers, which are currently in bloom, so they invited us to come along. They also invited us to have lunch at their house, and to drive along with them--rather than walk-- to the famed winterling location.

Lunch was delicious, beginning with a homemade Hungarian goulash. Marina is originally from Hungary, and she is quite the cook. We spent some time singing together as well and had a nice afternoon. Then the four of us, plus their neighbor--an impressively active older woman who is originally from Greece--went off to see the winterlings. The weather was perfect--sunny and warm and just beautiful. Perhaps this was a contributing factor, but for whatever reason there were probably two to three hundred people walking the winterling trail! The trail itself did not feel crowded, but there was a constant stream of people all there to see this little rare flower. I was very impressed. I'm not sure a flower could ever get such a turn-out in the States, but perhaps I'm wrong about that.

Unfortunately, because we did not expect to go directly from church, Michael and I did not have our camera. This really is terrible, because as I said the day was clear and bright and the scene was beautiful. There were huge stretches of the hills just covered with yellow! In fact, here's a photo I got from the German Wikipedia site of a similar scene:

In addition to how beautiful these flowers look, they smell incredible. Actually, they hardly smell at all in small patches, but when we walked by one enormous stretch of them, the smell was intoxicating. I didn't want to leave.

So, we hope to go back before they go and take some pictures of our own. I will include one more picture, because it shows the surprising heartiness of this little flower. Apparently, they bloom in February no matter what's going on. They bloom clear through the snow if they have to. That is a spectacular sight, from what I hear, and one I hope to see next year or the following year.

We then went on to another site where we were able to see 2 other species of early blooming flowers, though I can't remember their names right now and I'm too lazy to try to find out. The crocuses are out now as well, and our yard has quite a few! It's a very nice side effect of what has been a remarkably mild winter.

OK I'm off to bed now. I apologize if this sounds a bit rambly, but I'm probably a bit too tired to be blogging.

Unrelated baby news of the day: We have an ultrasound in the morning! Hopefully, we will learn whether our little one is a boy or a girl. We are very excited, and will report what we hear :)