Grandma Oma's World

I haven't been blogging for a little while because I was busy restoring an old bench. I had this bench for years and it was falling apart and was ready for the dump. I decided to fix it and give it a new life. First I needed to unscrew the old rusty screws that were holding the old broken boards. I used the good old  WD-40, but that did not work, everything was way too much encrusted with rust. So, I decided to use a hack saw (reminds me of breaking out of a jail) and saw all the screw heads of. Then, I got some pine boards, conditioned them with Benite and painted them with six coats of Sea Fin Teak Oil. Once the boards dried I drilled the holes for the new screws and put the bench together. And voila.... my new bench! Isn't it pretty?

During my travelings, I came across some interesting events that I felt the need to share. The white slug and the mating earthworms were a first for me. Slugs Slugs are standard pests in the gardens of Pacific Northwest, but when I was in Alaska I took pictures of these two. One was all black and the other one was all white. Both were really large, about 8 - 9 inches long. The slugs I have seen in our area are mostly brownish gray with spots and were definitely shorter. This slug was really, really black White slug - or is it albino? Did you ever see a white slug? Mating earthworms While visiting my home in Futog, Serbia I came across this pair of mating earthworms. I never even knew they mate! I am glad I did not step on them. Earthworms are hermaphrodites, meaning they each have the makings of both sexes: male sperms and female eggs. They fertilize each others eggs, but not during the mating. After they are done mating, they separate and each lays their eggs in a co...

I was born in Novi Sad in 1941 in a lovely house on the shores of Danube River,  today Liman I. Most of my early memories are associated with the river and the Strand (the Novi Sad beach). Today, the university campus is on the location where our neighborhood used to be. The campus was created in the late 1950's and early 1960's, and to create it, our house along with all of our neighbors homes were taken away. Some families, including ours, were never compensated for the the loss. Here are a few pictures of me on the Danube that my father took in the summer of 1943. I have no pictures of the house in Novi Sad At the time of my birth my father, Karoly Wissinger, (Karlo Visinger, in Serbian) was working on the interior designs of the Banovina building. The architect of the building was Dragisa Brasovan. Today the building serves as the government offices for Vojvodina Region. My father and samples of his work inside Banovina.   We left the...

I do not  know why, but all my life I wanted to visit and take a bath in one of those famous Turkish thermal baths. Budapest has several bath houses such as the Gellert, Szechenyi, Rudas, and Lukacs  baths, but the Gellert, located in an upscale hotel, and the Szechenyi thermal bath located in the City Park are the most famous. The Szechenyi thermal bath is  one of the largest baths and spas in all of Europe. The origins of the bath date back to 1879 when medicinal springs were discovered on the location. The first bath was built in 1913, than expanded in 1927 and remodeled and improved several times. Today there are 3 outdoor and 15 indoor pools. Approaching the baths from the City Park side One of the outdoor pools  It was such a treat to spend some time at the Szechenyi Thermal Baths. The lights came on Pool art Enjoying the pool at dusk