Palais des Nations, Sunrise over Lac Leman and the Alps, and Blog Statistics Humour

unrises!

I've been an admirer of sunsets all my life, which comes from summers spent in Kusadasi and watching the sun set into the sea every night (my grandmother used to tell me and my sister that if you skipped a stone on the water and made a wish, then stayed silent on the walk home, your wish would come true. Now I wonder if she wasn't inventing the silence bit just to keep two young girls from chattering endlessly!). The sun rose over the mountains and its colours weren't easily visible from our house.

I've shared photos of the sunrise over our Swiss village before, and quite a few photos of the grounds of the Palais des Nations, Ariana Park, as well as of the entrance to the United Nations. Oddly, though, even though I've taken quite a few photos, I don't think I've ever posted photos of the sunrise over Lac Leman and the Alps before.

Before that, though, I thought I'd collate some random blog-related stuff.

First up, a new collection of funny blog spam. I last shared a few of these Funniest, Most Ridiculous Blog Spam Comments in 2012. Here're the latest:

I hardly ever check my blog statistics, I suppose because it's all I can do to keep up with posting and commenting; trying to curate my visitors and attract ever more comments is not in the plan right now.

Speaking of plans, I did notice that I omitted any mention of ROW80 last week. I'm alternately slacking on writing and embarking on a new reading goal. I've tried this before (180 books to read by 2015), but now that I'm more seriously looking into options for shipping our library out of storage and back into our home, I decided to tackle once again the matter of reading books I already own. Already since we've come to Switzerland I've attended four book fairs at the library and hauled home a bunch of paperbacks. What's the sense in doing that if the TBR pile topples over quicker than I can read any of the books in it? Best to keep adding to wishlists and not actually buying any more. Out of 60-80 books (it depends on the method of counting; sometimes I like to be factual and count every single book, other times I figure there's no sense including the books that I didn't choose myself and am not likely to read at all), I've already read five in the last two weeks. All that to say my goal for the next little while is to read up a storm. And then with a clear conscience get some of the books floating towards the top of the wishlist (the longer the list sits, the more the items in it move around, but certain authors always stay near the top), especially Neil Gaiman's Trigger Warning, and the brand new Julian Barnes, The Noise of Time.

Back to the statistics. In the last five years or so, the main search terms that brought visitors to the blog were the following:

borek, and it's accurate spelling, börek

jamie fraser

palos de la frontera

natalie wood

akzhana abdalieva

severus snape

yertle the turtle

bonifaccio

cat with book

Some of these are only to be expected (cats, books, Jamie Fraser, and my recipe for börek). Palos de la Frontera is the port from which Christopher Columbus first sailed, and at which my character Rosa first learned the truth of her paternity.

Akzhana Abdalieva is an artist from Kazakhstan. There's precious little information about her online. Severus Snape must be because of my post entitled Severus Snape. That Is All.

Bonifacio must be due to the gorgeous photo of a ship in sail that I took in Corsica many years ago. Oddly enough, I can't find the post now. Comes from not ever having using tags in my posts. Sigh.

Natalie Wood I can't explain. The only time I've ever mentioned her is in reference to Rosa.

And Yertle the Turtle comes up in a series I was doing of famous authors and musicians and their favourite books; Dr Seuss was one of drummer and manager of Spirit of the West Vince Ditrich's picks.

Then there are the top ten posts, which are apparently the following (and oddly, peaked in 2012. I wonder if that's accurate?):

Jessica Bell, Hobbitfest, and Dispatches from the ... Dec 12, 2012
IWSG, and Whole Lotta Authors: Talli Roland, Alber... Dec 5, 2012
Gaiman is Rochester, The Next Big Thing, and Ameli... Dec 9, 2012
Character Questionnaire - Rose in 1492, with Googl... Jun 3, 2010
The Hobbit Review, and Year End Books Read Statist... Dec 23, 2012
Wish List! Dec 16, 2012
End of ROW80 Round, Year-end Goals, and Romantic F... Dec 19, 2012
Kait Nolan's Riven, CC Humphreys' Jack Absolute, W... Nov 27, 2013
Blog of the Year Award! Also Year-end Writing Revi... Dec 26, 2012
Unusual Research Topics May 14, 2010

Now for the photos! Sunshine and sunrises across the Palais des Nations:

Also, sheep

Are you an admirer of sunsets or sunrises?

What interesting things have you discovered about your own blog?