
After rambling around Romania, seeing beautiful summery farmland, busy cities, and a shepherd walking his sheep down a village street, suddenly it was Christmas with nativity scenes in front yards and this wonderful snowy hayride (virtually, of course via Google Streetview for the Virtual Paintout).

Yesterday I’d tried painting a different Romania scene (below) but soon realized I was laboring joylessly on a hopeless painting, fighting paint the consistency of toothpaste. I gave up, scraped off the panel (glad I’ve gotten smarter about when to cut my losses), and returned to Google’s wonderful new MapCrunch.com where I found the above photo.