Introducing Soko

Well I finally got a little furry friend to share the house with!  I've been thinking about getting a cat for a while so I've been watching the classified ads in the area.  Someone this week posted up about a "beautiful orange cat" so I emailed them and asked for pictures:

Well when I got those photos he had my heart!  For those of you who have met Baxter, who is currently staying with my parents, Soko looks like his identical twin!  They have very different personalities though.  Baxter is the Steve Carell of cats, a smart, lovable goof-ball.  Soko is much quieter and reserved but very affectionate and curious!  Soko is so quiet it is easy to lose track of him, he's like a little kitty ninja!

Unfortunately, Soko doesn't look quite like this right now.  Apparently he got some bad mats in his fur while with the previous owners.  They took him to the vet and they ended up really chopping his hair down!  It's growing back now but he looks like a little lion.  I'll post some new pictures later.

When I brought him home the poor guy was so scared he spent the day hiding under the bed and the stairs.  How he's relaxing a bit and found a nice sleeping spot under the covers in the spare bedroom.  He's eating and using the litter box so he knows his way around now.  In a few days I'm sure he'll realize this is his new home and he'll be thinking he rules the roost :-)

Idar-Oberstein

Before the weather turned really bad I did make a trip to Idar-Oberstein to see some attractions there.  The town is known for gem mining and they have a really interesting church.

The town is pretty easy to get around in, until you want to walk up to the church.  The great thing about Idar-Oberstein is that there is a lot of shopping and the town center is really interesting.  As you can imagine, there are jewelers everywhere with some fantastic work.  Here is a fountain for the gem miners:

One of the plates at the base of the fountain:

The church there is cool because it is built into the side of the mountain.  It is a more modern church but worth going to go see.

Here are the steps up to the church.  As usual in Germany, no elevators or escalators.

The inside of the church has a water source that comes directly out of the rock but not a lot of water was flowing that day.  Here is a picture from the balcony in the church.

There was a backdoor at the church that you could use to get to an overlook for the city:

There were a couple of castle up in the area that I checked out too.  One was closed so I couldn't tour it.  The other was pretty much in ruins but interesting to see anyway.

One of the neatest things at Idar-Oberstein was their museum on gem stones!  I couldn't take pictures inside but it was completely awesome.  I think it was worth the drive alone.  The had stones from all over the world and I got to see things that I have never in my live experienced before.  On top of that they had some HUGE geodes!

Finally, there was an old mine near by that I drove up to.  I didn't go in because I was pretty much worn out at that point.  I did walk around the park and they had some things you could see.  One was an area where they used to have some gallows...a little creepy if you ask me!

Here is an entrance to a mine shaft:

Overall I really liked Idar-Oberstein.  I will probably go back eventually to see the mine.  Since the weather is so bad that at least gives me an option to do something inside!

Lack of updates...

I know I've been lacking on the updates but a combination of not feeling well some weekends and really crappy weather has kept me from traveling.  There really doesn't seem to be a Fall season over here, it just goes from really beautiful in the summer to cold, dark, and rainy.  On the days where the weather is not as bad, meaning it might only be drizzling, the days are very short.  So I haven't done much of anything lately.  I'll post up one place I've neglected to do above and put up some other news in a second.