Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Tomorrow night seems so far away...
Then I saw that British Airways is striking over the holidays. I was very worried since that is who I am flying to Seattle, then I saw that they are striking from the 22nd of Dec to the 2nd of January. I fly on the 17th of December and on the 7-9th of January, so hopefully there won't be any problems.
I have quite a bit of stuff to do before I leave but I'm not too worried. All I need are packed bags and that is almost done. I would like to have a few more things taken care of but oh well if they don't!
I will be leaving Wednesday night at 11:55pm and I won't be back in Doha until the 9th of January, YAY!! I won't be blogging from home (no offense, but I would rather play with the dog) so I hope you all have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Ten days and counting!
I am working on my to-do list for before I leave. Nothing too exciting, just some things that I want to make sure I get done, like clean out the fridge. So far this is what I have:
1. Clean out fridge
2. Pack suitcase
3. Take out trash
4. Get passport back from HR with new work visa
5. See #4
6. Finish presentation for church and get multiple copies available for presentation
7. Knit Brook a hat out of the red yarn that I dyed
8. Wind into a ball the red yarn that I dyed
9. Do laundry
10. Make mini apple pies for some friends and don't eat the extras
11. Charge all electronics. (This will take a long time, I have 5 iPods, 2 cameras with 2 batteries each, an eReader, a cell phone, and a DS lite. This is a multi-day process.)
Oh, the semester is finished for me. I have to proctor final lecture exams but other than I just have to move and set up a lab.
I hope all is doing well with you.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Cable and Bobble Hat
I finished a hat for me! This is the Hermione Cable and Bobble hat from the Charmed Knits knitting book. It was an involved pattern but not difficult. I made it out of baby llama from Peru. The brand is Katia, which is Spanish, that I bought on vacation in Estonia and made in Doha, Qatar. It is quite the international hat. I working on a scarf to go with it, not the same pattern but the same type and brand of yarn.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
I blame it on the bug...
The other exciting news is that I have reached my latest goal on Weight Watchers. I have lost 15% of my starting weight and I am on track to meet my goal of having lost 50 pounds by Christmas. There is one problem with losing weight and that is clothing. My clothes don't fit any more, but I make them work, so I have to get new ones when I go home at Christmas.
Speaking of Christmas, I have 36 days until I leave and 41 days until I'm in Alaska. (I'm going to Oregon first to see my sister's kids, and her too.) I'll be home soon and I can't wait!
I hope you are doing well!
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Home again home again, jigity jig
So, we hoped that we would be able to get off the boat early and have some more time in Venice before we had to get on the plane. Well, we were the last group off the ship so we only had time to get the shuttle to the bus station, get some lunch, and then get to the airport. So we got our bus ticket, found where we needed to be (not easy with 2 large suitcases), and then went in search of lunch, pizza particularly. We found this little place that only required 1 bridge to haul our suitcases up and down so we sat down and ordered. The pepperoni on this pizza was amazing. (So amazing that we asked the waiter if we could buy some from him.) He said yes and wanted to know why we wanted it. I told him that we couldn’t buy anything with pork in it where we lived and, I kid you not, he said “Momma Mia!” It would have made hauling our suitcases over 3 bridges worth it just to hear that from an Italian.
We took the bus back to the airport, only 2€ compared to 13€ for the water bus, and got checked in. My friend frequent flyer on Emirates, who we flew this time, so she gets more weight in her suitcases which was nice because my sandals put me over on weight so they got moved to her suitcase.
We flew to Dubai and then waited for our flight to Doha at 2:45am. About midnight we realized that we weren’t hungry but if we didn’t eat we might be hungry when we got home, so we had McDonalds at midnight.
We got home about 4 am and I went to work at about 11 that morning. I was still sick so it was a short day at work that day. That morning when I got up I went to the kitchen to see if I could find anything to eat and I saw bananas in a bag on the counter. I thought that they were going to be really icky if I had left them out all week and then I looked in the fridge. There was milk and apples, and other stuff too but I was really tired. I realized then that my neighbor had got some food for me so I could have breakfast. How cool is that? It was awesome and I was very thankful that I hadn’t left any food out for the week.
So that was the trip in a condensed version. The next trip on the agenda is home for Christmas. I currently have 46 days until I am in Alaska and 42 days until I am in the US. I am starting to plan next summer's vacation. My interest was peaked about the Austria/Hungarian empire so I am planning on going to Austria, Hungary, and Estonia in July. I would like to go to Croatia next September so that should be interesting and planning will seriously start in February.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Dubrovnik
The brown roof tiles are the old ones and the orange ones are the newest.
Corfu
Athens
Oh, and I caught a cold.
Miniskirts!
Mykanos
Before I got off the boat I had talked to one of the workers about the place and she said that you could get gyros for 2.50€. So we found a small hole-in-the-wall place that had no tourists eating there and ordered. It was yummy. The gyro and a soda was 4€ which was the cheapest meal we found off the ship. I also found some Greek chocolate which was yummy. After dinner we watched the sunset, getting some great photos, and my friend went back to the ship. I wandered my way back and I’m sure I gave some people some laughs. I was on the main tourist street and I went into a store, looked around and then walked out. Well, I turned the wrong direction and then had to turn around again to head back to the boat. It wouldn’t have been so bad but I did this 4 or 5 times within a block area. I finally made my way back to the shuttle to go back to the boat.
The blue doors are to keep the 'evil eye' away from the members of the house. Basically, it is to keep bad things from happening to people in the household, like when we knock on wood.
Santorini
The stairs with the donkeys, and if you look really close, you can see the poop.
A day at sea
I also did arts and crafts on the ship. These were only for adults, and some of the people were real overachievers. Globs of paint suddenly took the form of a floral display. This one gentleman in particular could make anything but that’s ok, none of the other knew how to knit!
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
The walled city of Urbino
I realized that I don’t know much about Italian history. I don’t know anything after the Romans (and I don’t know that well either) but it was interesting to learn about some of it. I didn’t realize how powerful the city of Venice was in its heyday.
Venice really doesn't have any cars!
So maybe I should start telling you what happened from the beginning. I arrived, with my friend, in Venice at about 2 in the afternoon after flying all night. We didn’t get a lot of sleep but we were functioning. The hotel we stayed at was right off of St. Marcos Square so we just had to get there. So, we got on the water bus, at 13€ each, and started the bus ride through the city. It was a great way to get there because of the route it took and I learned something, I get seasick on small boats. (Not a good thing to find out when confronted with no cars!) So we made it to St. Mark’s square and then proceeded to try and find the hotel. The first problem was that I didn’t know exactly where it was and after walking around for a bit we found it. By the way, St. Mark’s square is crazy busy at any time of day, well, at 730 am it was fine.
So, by the time we got there is was about 5 or so in the evening and we thought it might be best to look for dinner. We wanted pizza. So we asked the front desk where THEY would go for pizza not where the tourists go. We walked that way and crossed the Rialto Bridge. This is one of the major bridges across the Grand Canal and I didn’t realize it was a big deal until I saw all the postcards of it later. We looked for a place and we found a place right on the Grand Canal for pizza. I had ham(J) and mushrooms on mine and it tastes better if you fold it in half. The pizza is a very thin crust and I would have taken a picture of it but then I would have had to stop eating it.
So after our expensive dinner, my portion was about 16€ or $24, we went walking in town. And then it got dark so we figured we should figure out where we were. Finding ourselves on the map took about 10 minutes. Then we walked back to the hotel. It wasn’t very far but since the streets are rather confusing it took about an hour and a half to find our way back. We also found out that businesses close at about 730pm on a Friday night. (There aren’t many locals left in Venice so people leave the town to go home.) We got back to the hotel, cleaned up, and crashed into bed so we could have the fullest day possible the next morning.
The next morning we got up, got European breakfast, and started walking around the city. Took lots and lots of pictures and then found a yarn shop (YAY!) and then went back to the restaurant for another pizza. We got back to our hotel about 1:30 pm, got the bags, and then went to get the boat to take us to the boat.
It was very easy to get on the boat, we dropped out bags off, got our boarding number and waited until with was called. We had to go through about 4,000 security checks before we got on the boat but it worked out ok. Our cabin was much larger than I thought it was going to be. It wasn’t large but we had room for our suitcases, carry-ons, and all the other stuff we carry around. I was pleasantly pleased with the size, especially for the price we paid. The ship was big and confusing. I finally figured out my way around the 6th day which didn’t do me a whole lot of good.
I don't know what this building is, but it was a pretty picture that I took from the cruise ship as we left Venice.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Mid-October Update
It has been 3 work weeks since I've been back and I'm ready for Christmas. Mostly, I'm ready to see my family and this week has been difficult. I know that I only have 2 months and 1 day to wait and then I'll be on my way to the States but it seems like a long time.
Work has been busy in the last 3 weeks. I've been grading a mountain of papers, prepping labs, and trying to get unused glassware ready to move to the other building. The last thing hasn't happened but I have great hopes that today it will start. We, as in Chemistry people, want to have the extras moved out of our current location by the time I leave for Christmas Break.
I've been knitting in the last few weeks. I'm trying to get Mom's blanket done BEFORE I get home, we will see if that happens. It is a simple pattern but small needles and skinny yarn make for a LONG project. Only 3 more balls of yarn to knit into it and then it is done. I'm also making another hat for my brother-in-law. I'm using some yarn that I bought in Italy that is different shades of green. I must say, that it is very manly so I hope he likes it.
I am trying to do my budget for the next year so I'm trying to pick out the places that I want to visit next summer. I am leaning toward visiting Austria, Hungary, and Estonia. I am not certain that I'll pick those yet, too many choices and not enough vacation time or vacation budget.
Hope all is going well with you!
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
The Darn Pink Shirt
1) Qatar
2) US
3) Finland
4) Germany
5) Estonia
6) Latvia
7) Lithuania
8) Poland
9) Italy
10) Greece
11) Croatia
12) United Arab Emirates
13) Czech Republic (I think)
Italy
Greece
Croatia
Not too bad for a shirt that I really don’t like very much. I don’t remember if I took it on the trip to Czech Republic last year, but I’m pretty sure it went. I wonder how many countries it can go to before it gets thrown away in favor of yarn?
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
So what did you do last weekend?
Tallinn-only 1 picture
Ok, so also on my travels from Poland all the way to Estonia, I needed a red pen. The typos or word errors were everywhere. This one below if my favorite.
Hiiumaa, Estonia-Part 1:AKA Almost Perfect
This was the 2nd lighthouse I saw and I went to the top of this one. The stairs were very deep, about 12-14 inches each. You could feel the stairs in your thighs by the time you got to the top. The next picture is of the view of the island from the 2nd lighthouse.
Tartu, Estonia
This picture is of the Town Hall. You can see the dark clouds behind it and shortly after taking the picture the heaven's opened and it poured. I was dry underneath an umbrella eating dinner. Oh, dinner was interesting. I ordered pepperoni and pepper pizza. The menu said it was sweet peppers, like bell peppers, so I figured it would be ok. Well, I took a big bit of the pizza (I was hungry and it looked really good) but holy jalapeno! A little surprise for the mouth.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Riga-Part 2
Ok, so I think this picture should be titled 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof' or 'Cat Take a Crap.' This was on a lot of tourist stuff and I found it by accident. It is amazing what happens when you just walk around town seeing what you can see.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Riga-Part 1
This is the park on the side of Old Town Riga. It is a small park but it was a beautiful place.
So on bridges in Lithuania and Latvia I saw these locks on them. These locks had names and dates carved on them but I didn't know what exactly this was. When I asked a person at the hotel she said that when people get married they put the lock and the bridge and then throw the key in the water. The marriage will last as long as the lock is on the bridge.