Whimsical Windows, Delirious Doors! #154

Welcome back all, to your favorite little meme!

We're almost, almost done looking at my photos from this past summer, and then we can get back to Israeli architecture! Meanwhile, here are the highlights from the second half of the boat tour that my family went on in downtown Chicago:

 As a little girl, this one was always my favorite :)

Now it's your turn! Please play along with us here at Whimsical Windows, Delirious Doors! by posting your photo of a window, door, or anything architectural, linking here, and signing up in the widget, below. Thanks so much for stopping by, and have a wonderful, whimsical week, all!

Whimsical Windows, Delirious Doors! #52

Here we are, at the last WWDD of this year - wow! How exciting! Time sure does fly when we're having fun :)

Here's the last installment of my October 2010 photos - these ones are actually a little bit monumental, for me, at least. Although I grew up in Chicago, I had never been to the top of the Sears Tower, until this trip! I know, I know, it's now called the Willis Tower, but it's going to be a little while before I naturally call it that... anyway, here it is - my impressions of the tallest building in the US:

 

And here's the view from the top:

And here we are, back down at the bottom:

I think that's enough windows to cover the week- next week we'll be back to our regular Israeli architecture!
To participate in Whimsical Windows, Delirious Doors! just post a photo of a window, door, or anything architectural, link here, and sign up in the widget. Don't forget to visit the other players - have a wonderful week, everyone!

Whimsical Windows, Delirious Doors! #40

Welcome back to your favorite little architectural meme!

We are truly blessed to live at 960 meters above sea level. Our summers are far cooler, breezier, and less humid than those of our friends in Tel Aviv and anywhere along the coast, and we're very happy with it that way! That said, if we ever want to go to the beach, the closest one is about an hour's drive away. It's the one thing that's a bit annoying - how can we live in a coastal Mediterranean country, and not be near the beach? But then I open the window and breathe the cool sweet air, and realize that having a nice breeze 365 days a year far outweighs the close proximity of a beach...

Anyway, I didn't mean for this to be such a long introduction. The point is, when we do go to the beach, we generally like going to the one in Ashdod. It's close (only 55 minutes away), clean, not too packed, and has free parking and showers. What else could we need? Every time I drive there, the road seems to have changed a little bit, and I'm always comforted when at last we find this funky building - which means we've arrived at our destination at last. Get ready - it's an interesting one:

Doesn't it look like something out of an Aladdin movie? Or Disneyworld? And yet that's where we park - one minute behind this building is spacious, gorgeous blue sea. Well, during the daytime, anyway... Isn't it funny?

Now it's your turn! To participate in Whimsical Windows, Delirious Doors! just post a photo of a window, door, or anything architectural, link here, and sign up in the widget at the bottom of this post. Thanks for stopping by - I can't wait to see what you've found for us this week!

Skywatch, after and before

Well, we're hot and dry again. Truly, I can't recall a more brutal August in our little country! The dry heat provides sunsets like this one from tonight - nice, but without much oomph:

And so, I decided to make this post a little more interesting, and present you with another sky photo from our trip to the beach last week. That was a bit more picturesque!

Ah, that's the stuff! As always, feel free to click on either photo to get a closer view.


And for more fun sky-oriented photography from around the world, go check out Skywatch Friday! You'll be glad you did :)
Have a great weekend, everyone!

A slimy ruby

As I mentioned here and here, my family and I just returned from a fun vacation in Eilat. As my kids were approaching this... what should we call it? this thing, I nudged my oldest and said, "look! Ruby Tuesday!"

Well, what do you think? Was I right?

Feel free to click on the photo, if you'd like a closer view. And do check out more Ruby Red photographer at Ruby Tuesday, hosted by Mary over at Work of the Poet. Happy Tuesday, all!

Woo Hoo Wednesday!

This is an exciting photo for me - it's the first that I've had put up online by someone other than myself. I forwarded it to the Israel Meteorogical Service website this morning, and they apparently liked it enough to put it on their main page (on both the English and Hebrew pages), and credit me! Yea! So I'm totally excited. Thanks, Mira at IMS!

Here's the photo - it's of one of many currently flooded vineyards at the bottom of the valley below my home town of Efrat. I was passing by it yesterday, and just couldn't resist pulling over to take this shot!

Cool, right? Suffice it to say that our valley does not generally sport a seaside view. This is crazy! In my opinion, once it has waves, it's a lake :)

Feel free to click on the photo to get an even better look. Have a great day, everyone!

Thursday Challenge - Free For All

That's easy enough, right? The theme of this week's Thursday Challenge is "Free For All - Any favorite photo you have taken." This is my kind of meme :)

And so, here's a photo of the beach at the Dead Sea, taken two summers ago:

I really like how the salt and the water reflect together. Click on the photo to get an even better view!


For more Thursday Challenge photos, do check out Dale's blog. Happy Thursday, everyone!

Beach Windows

Today is a cloudy, rainy day. Yea! We're still excited about the rain here in Israel, which will hopefully prove to squash our drought status. But it's not great photography weather. Which is why I'll take this opportunity to flash back to this previous August: my husband and I took a weekend off, and were strolling down the beach in Nahariya. There were some lovely beachfront homes that I wanted to remember, and so I took a few shots. Here's one of them:

Not a bad looking place, right? I wouldn't mind retiring here :)

Feel free to click on the photo to enlarge it, and get a better view. And check out more Window and Door views of the week, here! Happy Wednesday, everyone! 

Skywatch Friday

There sure are a lot of photobloggers out there - and another game they play is called SkyWatch Friday. This is a good one for me, since I'm addicted to sunsets, as you may recall. Here's one from the beach, two nights ago:


Go check out the SkyWatch site for lots more gorgeous photos!

Okay, here we go

I remember when taking photos was complicated - you could only take as many as your film allowed, and so you had to carefully weigh whether your subject and conditions were worth the risk. And then you had to be careful not to accidentally ruin the film in any number of ways. And then developing them was expensive. And only then, when they were successfully in your hands, perhaps months later, did you realize that your subject had blinked, and you should have tried once more.

Now, with digital cameras, it all seems too easy - you can take as many photos as you like, whenever, and you can tell immediately if the shot worked or not. The fact is, I've never studied photography, and I have but a digital (albeit lovely) camera to work with - no classy lenses, no tripod, nothing. But I live in a beautiful country, and find myself taking pictures constantly. And so, despite my ignorance, I think that the subject of some of these photos really stands out.

I've taken quite a few over the past years, and I'll post them here as often as I can. To get us started, though, here's one from the beach, taken just this past Thursday afternoon. Enjoy!