The Dog Days of Christmas

I am irresistibly drawn to dogs and regularly find myself admiring the many dogs we see while out and about. Occasionally I can get a quick snap or two of some of them, but dogs being dogs, most photos end up like this:
Fortunately, I did manage to catch a couple of dogs at the kerstmarkten the other weekend, and on this second day of Christmas (Tweede kerstdag, as it’s called here), I thought I’d share a couple of the photos. Because, dogs.
One of the first dogs we saw was this giant Newfoundland dog, AKA a Newfie. I knew these dogs were big. I’ve even seen them before in person, but it’s still easy to forget just how big a dog they can be. I don’t think the picture even gives the true sense, as he’s sitting down and fairly relaxed. I just wanted to throw my arms around him and burrow my face into his fur. He looked like a giant teddy bear you just want to cuddle!

This next dog was all too familiar to me in his straining enthusiasm to lick some fallen morsel of food off the ground. Well, I say food, and in this case it probably was, but often it just has to be something that smells good to a dog. Imagine walking an enthusiastic six-month-old dog through the streets of New York and all the inevitable stuff that littered the ground, edible or not. I still remember the game of tug of war when it came to keeping my Pippo away from a dropped slice of day-old pizza on one of our morning walks through Manhattan.

This little fellow managed to lick up whatever had fallen, as seen by the round wet mark just to the right of the dog in this next photo, before continuing his scavenging.

It’s been just over two years since we lost our sweet Pippo, an enthusiastic scavenger and licker. Our dishes just aren’t as clean as they used to be.

An Evening Look at Utrecht

Yesterday evening — or more appropriate, yesterday afternoon — we took a walk through part of the city to see some of the holiday lights. As has been the case for weeks now, it drizzled off and on throughout our walk, but that didn’t stop me from taking a few quick snaps. The streets were relatively quiet, as the day is officially a holiday here and many of the shops remained closed. This post is just a chance to share some of the photos I took so you can see what Utrecht looks like during the holiday season. Damp but festively lit!

The Domtoren as seen from next to the Buurkerk (now home to the Speelklok Museum). You can see that it was 5:20 pm when I took this photo.

The Oudegracht, with blue lights that are part of the Trajectum Lumen art light installation. The Stadhuis, in the background, is usually lit, but the lights didn’t come on until later.

The lights of Domstraat, heading toward the cathedral.

Two of the handful of Christmas trees throughout the city. These stand across from Janskerkhof.

A view through the archway of the Domtoren, looking toward the lights of the Oudegracht and Zadelstraat.