Orchids at Olbrich Gardens

 

Today the snow was not nearly as bad as advertised, so Travalon and I did make it all the way downtown to our usual parish for Mass. Afterwards we took a walk outside, and here are some photos, including the tree I keep featuring on here.

I had Travalon take a picture of me so you could see my new hat better, since my selfie game is so weak.

Then we went to Olbrich Gardens, and I turned in my membership renewal info to the guy sitting behind the desk marked "Membership." I showed my membership card to the woman letting people into the conservatory, and to my surprise she took it and was looking up info. She asked for my address, which annoyed me - they never ask for that when I go into the conservatory - but I gave it to her, and my phone number and email address too. Finally she asked how I was paying for my membership renewal, and I was like, "What?? I gave that info to the other guy!! I just want to get into the conservatory!!" and she apologized for misunderstanding. I said, "I was wondering why you were asking me for all that info!" Methinks someone is a bit too eager to re-up members.

Some of the plants in the conservatory appeared to be singing. Here are the boys in the chorus.

And this one sure appears to be the soloist.

They were having an orchid show, so Travalon and I took photos of the most interesting orchids. They even had orchids hanging from the ceiling! This orchid looks like it has eyes.

The next two orchids make me hungry - they look like they are caramel and chocolate!

There were other interesting flowers too.

And there were moss "creatures," shaped like fish and birds.

There were real birds too. This is a common quail.

When we got home, we took another walk, because we are both trying to get so many steps every day. Then I had Irish class, and I'm starting to get whiplash, just like when I took Portuguese in college. My first semester, a grad student from Portugal taught us. Second semester, a grad student from Brazil taught us, and his accent was totally different. Third semester yet another grad student from Portugal taught us, and I didn't take fourth semester because he was teaching it again and I didn't like him. Now that I'm studying Irish, it seems like every teacher speaks a different dialect. For example, the word for "place" is "ait," which I was taught was pronounced "oich," but my current teacher keeps telling me I'm saying it wrong, it's like ash but with a "ch" at the end, like "atch." I tell you what, if I ever get back to Ireland I'll be able to read the signs, but I won't have any idea how to pronounce them!

Famous Hat