Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to our family, friends and blog visitors who are celebrating the appearance of 2007 over the next hours, starting with New Zealand and Fiji!

We're off to be kids again tonight! After NZ banned the sale of bangers and skyrockets, M hasn't lit one in years. So, we bought out the local supply of fireworks and we're making our way into the woods behind the house to fire off a barrage of rockets into the valley which holds Bad Karlshafen!

We're not sure who's more excited - M or J's sons!

We'll try not to start WWIII!

Eid Mubarak!

Eid Mubarak to all our friends and visitors to this blog who are celebrating Eid Al Adha.

Taqabbal Allah minha wa minkum - May Allah accept the good deeds from us, and from you.

Berlin Christmas Decorations

Over the past week, we've been visiting parts of Berlin which are famous for their Christmas decorations.

Here are a few of the sights that we saw.

Shopping Arcade near the Sony Center


One of the world's biggest book and media houses, Bertelsmann, had their East Berlin building beautifully illuminated

TV Tower, Dom and Berlin Town Hall

The Berliner Dom and TV Tower with a Christmas Fair nearby


TV Tower and huge Christmas tree in the square


The Berlin Town hall

The KuDamm and Sony Center

The main shopping area, the KuDamm




The Sony Center

East Berlin Christmas Market

Lots of toys, food and decorations to buy!

Fairground Attractions

All the fun of a fair!

Snoopy's Christmas Update

Found! (courtesy of David Farrar's blog)

A brilliant little movie put together by Kimmi from various Peanuts' films to the tune of Snoopy's Christmas.



Enjoy!

Christmas and Snoopy

Christmas time rolls around again, and M got to thinking about her old NZ workplace, and how stressful it would be in the weeks leading up to Christmas as we worked to fulfill the print orders of our clients.

The radio would be on throughout the lab, and come December 1st, Christmas music would start to be played on all the radio stations. It was a running gag each year with us that it wasn’t Christmas until we heard Snoopy’s Christmas being played at least 3 times a day!

Being a fan of Peanuts and Snoopy cartoons, the song is dear to M’s heart.

It’s very popular in NZ at Christmas time, so it was with great amazement that M discovered that the song was not that well known in other parts of the world – particularly when talking to English, American or Canadian friends.

So she did some digging to find out more about the song.

Sung and played by a group called The Royal Guardsmen, you’d think that they were English, but no! They’re from the US and based in Florida. They recorded Snoopy’s Christmas in 1966 and were then forevermore associated with it.

The song is all about a Christmas Eve during WWI. Snoopy’s arch enemy, flying ace Baron Von Richthofen, aka The Red Baron, was flying again. (In the Peanuts' cartoon strips, Snoopy was forever dog-fighting with the Baron as he sat on his kennel which became his Sopwith Camel biplane.)

The Allied Command needed a hero to go up to face the Baron, so they call on Snoopy. The weather is bitterly cold; with ice on his wings, Snoopy is in trouble, and the Baron soon has him lined up in his sights. To Snoopy’s surprise, he doesn’t shoot, but instead forces Snoopy to land in enemy territory.

Christmas bells are ringing in a nearby village as the Baron pops open a bottle of champagne and wishes Snoopy a Merry Christmas. Then he lets him fly away, knowing that they will do battle again, but Christmas is all about peace and goodwill and not the time to kill.

So, with memories of 9 years spent with an awesome team at the best professional photo lab in the world, M dedicates this post to the gang at Chromatek Professional Laboratories in Pukekohe, New Zealand – now known as Queensberry Print Solutions!

I hope that the BBQ is fired up for that last day lunch – and that your chef is as good as the one from previous years!

And here’s Snoopy’s Christmas for everyone to listen to!




You can even sing along, because the words are here!

To everyone celebrating the Christmas season - may this time be filled with peace and joy - a time to reflect on what is important to you, and to give thanks to the people who enrich you - just by being in your life.

To all our blog readers - thank you for visiting and making our blog a more interesting place with your input. Thanks especially to those who leave comments, and to all the lurkers, it's about time that you comment too! We hope that you all continue to visit over 2007.

To our family and friends - thanks for being there when we need you, and thanks for also being there when we haven't! It's what friendship and love is all about - sharing the good, the bad and all the stuff inbetween. May 2007 be an even better year for all of us.

Merry Christmas and here’s to a Happy New Year from M and J!

Space Work over New Zealand

Cruising Rod Drury's blog tonight, I saw an amazing image of the International Space Station (ISS) passing over New Zealand.

The astronauts are out trying to fix the faulty port solar panel array.


A truly awesome shot. Above the station is the bottom half of the North Island. To the left of it is the top of the South Island.

We can see Nelson. Hi bros!

Click here for the high-res image from the Nasa website.

For more on the ISS, here's another link to info.

Winter Beach Walks

Although it's now cooler in the UAE in comparison to other months, it's still warm enough to go for walks on the beach, barefoot and strolling along the water's edge to catch the waves as they wash onto the sand.

Our nightly view as we walked

We're going to miss this as we now head back to Germany for Christmas in the cold!

Paris in Autumn

Click on the images to enlarge them.

We’ll always have Paris.

A famous line uttered by Rick to Ilse in Casablanca, and now true for M and J!

Shortly before coming down on this latest 2 week stint to Dubai, we went to the French capital for a couple of days as J had a business meeting to attend there.

It was M’s first time in France, so it was really exciting for both of us. The French have style – it’s everywhere.

Foggy on the first day and bitterly cold for the whole time we were there, it didn’t stop us from walking our feet off. The more we walked, the more we fell in love with Paris. We could even understand a lot of what was spoken to us – our schoolgirl French came in handy after all!

We’ll let the images tell most of the story, interspersed with a few words to describe personal memories and experiences.

Our hotel, the Mercedes was not far from L’Arc de Triomphe in the district of Wagram. We liked that we could open the window to look out onto the street.

5:30am

7:30am

The pâtisserie was very popular!

L’Arc de Triomphe


We walked to the top – 300 bloody steps of mostly spiral staircase.


It was well worth the effort to see Paris laid out with the roads leading spoke-like from Place Charles de Gaulle.

Les Champs-Elysées

M's first sighting of the Eiffel Tower - encased in fog!

Le Métropolitain


An awesome way to get around when our feet screamed at us to stop walking.


Le Métro was easy to find and also easy to navigate once we got our bearings on the city layout.


La Seine
This is a river that is meant to be walked along - so much to see and do. The Left Bank (La Rive Gauche) is full of art and antique shops. The bridges crossing the Seine are also artworks.

Here's a favourite:

Le Pont des Invalides

The Four Seasons Hotel is between the Seine and the Champs-Elysées

Les Champs-Elysées
We walked the entire length of the avenue from L’Arc de Triomphe to La Place de la Concorde, in biting wind and freezing cold – stopping at a mobile crêperie for hot citrus crêpes to give us warmth.


The avenue is best viewed at night when the lights come on. While J was at her dinnertime meeting, M walked for hours up and down the street to take photos and to observe the tourists and the locals.

Window displays are very classy – the French know how to dress windows. Understated and elegant.


You can find everything – even tazers and personal security equipment!


The Peugeot showroom displayed some cool and crazy concept cars.


Restaurants spill out onto the pavements.

Bistro Romaine - 3 floors of classical French dining

Avenue de Wagram
Walking back to the hotel from L’Arc de Triomphe at night.



La Tour Eiffel
We queued for a bone-chilling 90mins to get to the elevators that would take us to the top of the tower.


Again, it was worth it to get an even higher view of Paris. Very high!

Towards the middle of the city and on to Montmartre

Towards the new La Défense district

Cathédral Notre Dame
Our favourite stop during the 2 days that we were in Paris.


There’s something very special about this church.


We were privileged to visit while a service was taking place.


A visiting group of Russian Orthodox priests was being received by the Bishop, and their male choir was singing a cappella. Their voices filled the air in the massive cathedral and brought an extra sense of spirituality to our time there.

We lit a candle!

Le Louvre


Shaykhspeara Sha’ira gave us some great advice – go early and go straight to the Mona Lisa. We did both, and managed to beat the HORDES of Japanese tourists, to view La Gioconda with only a handful of like-minded people like us who had done the same thing.

Turn right at the top for the Mona Lisa

The Mona Lisa is in the Denon Gallery on the 1st floor. It’s hard to resist stopping to gawp at all the other artworks on the way, but it’s worth it to get a front-row view of what is perhaps the most legendary painting in the world.

Impressions of Le Louvre:
- it’s big – damn HUGE. If you want to see everything properly, plan for at least 5 days there. We mean it. Each gallery has 3 floors, multiple mezzanine floors and rooms leading off rooms which lead to yet more rooms. Leave a trail of breadcrumbs if you ever want to find your way out.
- take the time to look out the windows. Inwards, you'll see different aspects of the inner courtyard and the pyramid, like the shot below taken from the Gallerie Richelieu. Outwards, you'll see little cameos of Paris life.


- get a map of the galleries and cross out the rooms as you go through them. That’s the only way of ensuring that you see everything.
- each gallery has a cloakroom and a baggage room. Use them. Carry as little as possible with you as you walk the museum.
- wear good comfortable walking shoes with soft soles!


- the Ladies’ toilet facilities in the entry foyer (under the large pyramid) are woefully inadequate and long queues are normal. Take advantage of the toilets which are plentiful in all the galleries.

What?

- go for food in the underground shopping mall which adjoins Le Louvre. You get to it from under the Pyramid by walking west away from the 3 gallery entrances. In the mall center is where you’ll find the inverted pyramid made famous in the last scene of The Da Vinci Code. It’s also where you’ll see and smell the most amazing food hall up the escalators, with better prices and a bigger selection of food than in the Le Louvre eateries.
- there are NO PHOTOGRAPHY signs everywhere. The Japanese tour groups ignore them and shoot away at everything. You should too, and always without flash – although the guards around the Mona Lisa are more diligent and will tell you off!

No Photography allowed!

- Venus de Milo is smaller than we imagined
- Mona Lisa is also small, and yet big at the same time!
- we loved the Islamic art section
- the most impressive paintings and sculptures are in the Richelieu Gallery – especially the 24 huge Reubens’ paintings commissioned for the Palais du Luxembourg. At least, that’s what we thought. You can also walk through Napoléon’s apartment in the Richelieu.


All too soon, we were back on the plane to Berlin. We’ll be back to Paris, as we’ve yet to see places like Montmartre and Château de Versailles.

Nous aimons Paris!