Current Mood: Cool

Hi folks! We’ve just started our second day in this fascinating city. After a very quick (1 hour’s) flight we arrived Thursday night, and again were given a free upgrade to a “Superior Bosphorus View Room”. The Ciragan Palace is rightfully considered one of Kempinski’s finest. Although the guest rooms for the “ordinary” folks are in the hotel building adjacent to the actual palace, it’s still very palace-like. It’s just plain wonderful!

So after 5 days in the snow, we’re back to the sea… Sadly, the weather is letting us down badly, it’s been raining almost non-stop since we arrived, and the +5°C or so don’t feel that much warmer than -5°C! Nevertheless, armed with umbrella and packed in warm clothes, we walked the 15 minutes to Ortakóy, a seaside place with a market, cafés and the beautiful Ortakóy Mecidiye Mosque, just underneath Bosphorus Bridge, which spans a little over 1.5 km between Europe and Asia… fascinating!

Traffic is a little insane over here - and to think we haven’t ventured into the city yet! Which is what we have planned for tomorrow. If only it stopped raining…

I just realised that I’ve missed to consecutive photohunts, it completely slipped my mind! Oh well, will try to get back to it next week.

Have a good Sunday!

Current Mood: content

28th December 2008 - ARRIVAL

Oh boy… Yesterday morning I woke up at around 7.30 am, and I haven’t slept since! The travelling part was uneventful - pretty quick actually, as the flight was much shorter than the advised 2 hours. At 10 minutes past 6 we  arrived at the Kempinski Hotel Zografski, where we were surprised by wonderful VIP treatment! We wouldn’t mind staying longer than just 5 nights in our wonderful junior suite on the 18th floor - the view over the city and the Vitosha mountains is truly breathtaking. There even was an ice bucket with a bottle of sparkling wine waiting for us in the room. It’s a little early for that, though LOL!

Did I mention it’s cold outside? The plane was full of Maltese, and everybody was shivering, including myself. It was -4°C when we arrived, you won’t believe it but I’d forgotten just how cold that is. But that won’t keep us from examining our surroundings a little closer now. Guess we’ll just add a lot of layers on top of each other! Can’t wait to touch the snow!!

29/30th December 2008 - MONEY TROUBLES

After a promising start to my travel reporting activity (see above) serious blogging slumber set in. One of the reasons was the time we wasted with an infuriating experience with our HSBC credit cards: apparently, wherever you pay or withdraw cash (not only ATMs) you need to know your PIN number. The snag: as we’ve never used them we simply never memorised our PINs. And so we found ourselves stuck without money, and subsequently spending time - and about 15 euro - while attempting to talk to an HSBC customer care person on the phone: Monday evening all operators were continuously busy… (sorry if I don’t buy that!) but instead of getting an engaged tone you’re kept on the (expensive) line. The person we eventually spoke to on Tuesday morning also did her utmost to keep us on the line as long as possible - and to discourage us from hoping that we’d get our PINs in time before leaving Sofia on January 2nd. However, all’s well that ends well: somewhere down the line (or perhaps rather, up the line?) there was one super-efficient person at work (namely Janice Spiteri), who reacted to our shout for help via internet banking and saw to it that the PINs for all our cards where delivered to our home address the very next day!! Needless to say, Ms Spiteri restored our faith in HSBC banking…

29th - 30th December 2008 - SOFIA

After our banking misadventure we proceeded to enjoy our stay.  I took less photos than I thought I would, but still there are loads! For now they are on Facebook (you should be able to see them even if you’re not registered with FB), until I find the time to update my photoblog.

Sofia as a city is slightly disappointing, though I’m sure it has come a long way since I last saw its airport and vicinity 25 years ago, while in transit on my first trip to Malta… It hasn’t shaken off the Communist flair completely yet. The city seemingly boasts a record number of designer label outlets - which in turn contrast sharply with the poverty displayed once you venture just a few metres away from the high street.

I don’t want to come over as all negative - we really do enjoy our stay! - but one more downer was the word of warning one shop assistant in an electronics store had for me when he saw my camera. “Better watch your camera,” he said, “it can go easily!” - meaning it could be stolen. The same evening I read in a tourist guide that you should “use your common sense when it comes to walking around the city at dusk or night,” and “avoid lonely areas even in daytime.” This information did it for me; I’m already rather on the timid side, so from that point onwards I started seeing our long walks to and from the city in a new light…

31st December 2008 - VITOSHA MOUNTAINS

Yesterday we ventured into the mountains - a wonderful way to end 2008! We took a taxi to the lift station, about 10 minutes drive from the hotel. A cable lift took us to an altitude of about 2000 m - and to the highlight of our vacation! In the city still has snow and ice everywhere - but up there the white stuff is simply abundant; except maybe for wishing that I knew how to ski, this was as close to pure bliss as you can get!  (Again, photos are on facebook!) After 25 years without it, for me there couldn’t have been a better way to ring out 2008 than to spend the day in the snow!

BULGARIAN TRANSPORT

Upon returning to the base we found ourselves stranded without transport, and no means to phone for a taxi. (Incidentally, I’ve never managed to make a phone call from my mobile while abroad - I really wish someone could explains this to me. I’m dialling the correct number including country code and all, and I only ever get the message that the call cannot be completed. It’s infuriating!) While looking for a way to leave the place a local cowboy marked us and offered to take us down for 20 leva (10 euro), more than double the amount we paid to get there. We politely declined, and also were a little scared… (I had the camera hanging from my neck, it’s just impossible to hide it!)

In the end a taxi brought up a couple and I’m certain the driver must have been more than happy not to have to go back down without load. Not that his joy was showing - taxi drivers seem to be a little on the grumpy side over here… Be that as it may, he took us “home” in no time, while we found out that our driver from the morning inflated our bill by taking the long way to the mountain!

1st January 2009 - HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Time flies - no news, that! - and so here it is, the year 2009. I’m looking forward to it, although the “big” numbers coming up are a little intimidating. I’ll have lived in Gozo for 25 years, been married for 25 years, and - the worst one - LIVED for 50… *shudder*

I hope your start into 2009 was a good one, and that the New Year brings you everything you wish for. Mind you, you better watch out: sometimes life brings you exactly what you wanted, it’s just difficult sometimes to recognise it!

Hope I’ll get a blog post in from Istanbul. Until then, take care!

Current Mood: Ecstatic

I thought I’d share with you a little of my pre-travel excitement.

The weather here in Gozo is quite beautiful after a very early morning thunderstorm. It’s a big contrast to the above, although right now more clouds pulled up… I have three pairs of jeans hanging outside that don’t want to get dry. I fear that I’ll have to dry them in Sofia!!

Does anyone of you remember my laptop troubles that always rear their ugly head when I’m travelling, or preparing for a trip? The first time it simply died on me in London; I kept carrying the dead weight around until my resuscitation attempts succeeded with a low-level format back home. This year the hard disk copped out the evening before I went on one of my trips to Frankfurt. This time round, yesterday afternoon the screen went all carnivalesque on me, showing the weirdest of colours (like shocking pink and bilious green) in a bizarre pattern. I was ready to grab my credit cards and go out to buy a new one. For a moment I forgot that I’m living in the land where certain modern comforts haven’t arrived yet… So I switched it on again after a couple of hours again, and what do you know: it worked fine! I’m keeping fingers crossed that it’ll survive the journey. You may laugh or shake your heads, but without a computer I just won’t do!! (Especially not if there’s free wifi in the hotel rooms!)

So… In Sofia it’s bitterly cold but that’s just how I wish it to be. I’m going to see snow for the first time after 25 years! Although I should be used to travelling by now (this year I flew to Germany 4 times already!!), I’m excited like a little child, to the extent that yesterday I didn’t (couldn’t!) eat anything except for one little snack in the morning. Not that a fasting day or two after all the Christmas sweets would do me any harm.

I better get going now. Still have to iron some last clothes (I really wish those jeans would dry!!), then try and fit all those heaps of stuff  into the suitcases. In 12 hours we’ll be on the ferry…

If my laptop stays alive I’ll certainly let y’all know how we’re doing in the cold!

Take care and a happy New Year to all!

This might be my last post this week (if not this year!); there aren’t enough hours in a day to cope with everything that needs to be done (a) before Christmas and (b) before going on holiday next Sunday (and that our flight is at 03:50 hrs in the morning, doesn’t help either!). A couple of days ago it suddenly occurred to me that this is the first time in many, many years that I’ll be working on Christmas Eve. We always had a “big” dinner at home on the 24th, which I don’t see how I can possibly handle this time. I was already panicking when an idea hit me - this year we’re going to have fondue, so everyone simply cooks his/her own food LOL! Still, there are preparations to be made. But I’ve already started feeling better since I had this idea!

Last weekend was quite a hectic one. I did get the most important shopping done. I even did my grocery shopping at the Duke - but I’m not sure when I’ll do that again. You see, they have underground parking - fabulous, eh? It wasn’t even busy, and I’m still thanking my lucky stars for that. Because to get two storeys down below, you drive on a single lane, which would be fine if it wasn’t the same lane you have to take to get back to daylight. In any other country on this globe the traffic light system would probably even work: if one has a red light, one stops and waits. But in this blessed country it’s different (like so many things…); since when do people here stop at a red light if they don’t see a reason why they should wait? And sure enough, I had almost reached the end of my way out when I met a Maltese vehicle head-on. Oh the joy! It wasn’t that bad, but I shudder to think how the system will cope with a really busy shopping morning…

Late afternoon I finally got to see Chasing Pandora live again, who had a gig at Arkadia. It was nice, but too short, and the atmosphere on the whole was a little too “cool” - not the music’s fault, but the crowd’s! But hey, it’s a shopping mall (albeit a small one!)… I uploaded three photos to my photoblog, but more can be seen in my facebook photo album. It just takes too long to do them one by one on the photoblog. One of these days I’ll have to see how I can improve on that site… (yeah, right!)

After the gig we went off to admire Bethlehem in Għajnsielem, at long last (again, photos are on facebook )! The “village” is very pretty, and the idea a great one, too. Silly me wished for a stand with mulled wine though LOL! But I reckon they didn’t have that two thousand years ago… :D Baby Jesus probably wished for something warm, too. I don’t think it’s great fun to stay in one place for hours as the “actors” did. So a big prosit to all involved - you’re putting up a truly wonderful show!

After Għajnsielem it was pizza at Smugglers’ again (they ought to give us some kind of frequent visitors’ discount!!). They had this little Father Christmas that from a distance looked like a real person sitting at a table (as a matter of fact, it was only half life-size and standing behind the table). Although hubby gets annoyed when I do that, I couldn’t resist snatching a shot…

That’s all for today, I think. I wish you all a very happy Christmas and hope you get to enjoy it in peace, with your loved ones - and without too much stress!

Current Mood: Cool

I’m publishing my PhotoHunt early, because who knows when I’ll find the time after tonight… Tomorrow I need to do some serious shopping!! Apart from that, I’ve known all week what I’m going to post for the theme - Wide -  it fits just perfectly my Tokina wide-angle lens!

You’ll notice that I’ve learnt a few new photoshop skills, I couldn’t resist putting them to test. (Big thank-you to my son - or then again, not, because now I’m spending even more time with my photos!!)

The first was taken at the same place and time as my breakfast photohunt a while back, albeit after breakfast, showing the bay of Marsalforn:

Then there’s one of my favourite places for photo-shooting, Dwejra. The wide angle really dwarfs the gigantic rock. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Gozo: there are actually two people walking right on top, those tiny dots you can see about half a finger-width to the left of the arch!

Last but not least, this is the lobby of the hotel where I work:

As usual, larger versions of the pics are found in my photoblog, but I’m too lazy to set the links right now…

I’m off now to find a cosy place in this house. My hands and feet are freezing. Yes, it is cold over here: 11°C the last time I checked, and inside it’s not much warmer. These are not normal temperatures for December - but then, you hardly find “normal” weather anywhere any more, eh?

Oh, I don’t want to forget: if you happen to be in Gozo tomorrow, don’t miss Chasing Pandora!! They are going to play in Arkadia’s function hall at 6 pm - and there’s going to be a wine-tasting too!! Chasing Pandora’s last Gozo gig at the Astra was cancelled - I’m keeping my fingers crossed for tomorrow!

Happy weekend everyone!

photohunt

The PhotoHunt theme - Favorite - gave me a little bit of a headache. My favourite pastime is photography. I suppose I could have taken a self portrait in the mirror, but I’ve done that before, so I decided against it. In the end I ventured out into the garden - glad that it didn’t rain, for a change! - and shot away at Felix. She (!) is not the perfect photo model; more often than not she starts all kinds of silly movements as soon as she sees me with the camera. However, I was the more stubborn of us two!

Another favourite activity of mine is playing with my shots in photoshop. So here’s Felix! :)

Now I’m just glad that my favourite cat - Simba - doesn’t know how to browse my blog. I’m sure he wouldn’t like Felix to feature in my Favorite post!! But of course there’s nothing wrong to feature Simba, too… This pic was one of the first photos I uploaded to my fotoblog last February; it shows his favourite look, which almost caused us to rename him Garfield LOL!

Now I’m sure that as soon as I start surfing other participants, dozens of other Favorite ideas will start cropping up in my head…

Happy Hunting!

photohunt

PS - I used the American spelling of “favorite” only in connection with the photohunt theme; I’m so conditioned that I cringe every time I leave out the British “u”!!

Suddenly it’s Monday afternoon, and I have no idea how that happened! (For those of you outside Malta, we enjoyed a long weekend, today being the feast of the Immaculate Conception.)

On Saturday we went to the Christmas Market in Nadur, but somehow the festive atmosphere didn’t want to materialize. At least we stopped a couple of times here and there to greet friends, otherwise we wouldn’t have spent all of 10 minutes. Afterwards we visited my creative friend Hermine, who lives just a few minutes’ walk away from the square. After showing us her latest creations, she served us Glühwein and popcorn in her very cosy (heated!) open-air space, which made us feel better instantly!

Yesterday was one of those slow Sundays (I’m trying to remember what I actually did all day long…), and in the evening we tottered off to Ghajnsielem. The idea was to admire the Christmas village (aptly named Bethlehem in Ghajnsielem). Unfortunately I hadn’t taken notice of the opening hours advertised on their website - and so we arrived when it was all over. Oh well… Pizza at Smugglers was consolation for yet another disappointment. Today was even slower than yesterday, and so half an hour ago we dropped plans to visit the village; by the time we’d be ready to go out, they would be closed again… It can wait until next weekend.

Most of today vanished in cyberspace. I visited as many photohunters as I could, and then I attempted to give my blog a proper Christmas dress. When I finally found a theme I liked and that didn’t need a lot of tweaking, I realised just how cluttered my blog has become over time… I tired rather quickly of dodging all the errors my blog threw up when I attempted to transfer the sidebars’ contents. So I gave up on the whole idea. Yep, I’ve become extremely adept in wasting my time LOL! But seriously, one of these days I will give my blog a fresh look. Just a matter of time…

Also this weekend I went to the hotel on a couple of occasions, to take photos of the main meeting room when it was set up for different types of functions. While there, various Christmas decorations caught my lens - at the top of this post you can see the result of what I spent the rest of my time doing. Not sure if that last sentence is actually English. I’m tired…

I guess this is one of my more boring posts and I admit to being guilty of breaking the golden rule of blogging: don’t blog if you don’t have anything to say. But then again, it’s my blog, isn’t it?

Only 20 days until my vacation… I’m sure you agree I need it!

Uh-oh… another week over and done with!?! At least this week the PhotoHunt theme - Breakfast - is extremely easy for me. Shortly after my wide-angle lens arrived last month, hubby and I went for a photoshoot, even though the weather was less than perfect. It was grey and overcast, but still warm. If you’re photo-crazy like yours truly you’ll likely to shoot anything that comes your way - well, that’s what I do, anyway, much to hubby’s consternation. When I took this breakfast shot he wanted to disappear, he was so embarrassed. Funnily enough, he wouldn’t have felt the same if we’d been on vacation somewhere (I asked him that LOL!). Oh well. That’s how it goes if you live on a tiny island where there’s no such thing as anonymity…

Is there any better way to have breakfast than on water’s edge? Even half-burnt sausages can’t diminish that kind of bliss!

I was flabbergasted just now to find out that Daniel has already posted his photohunt… (what’s this world coming to?!); he chose to publish a couple of pics he took when we had breakfast together last weekend before we went off on our photo stroll. Nice! :)

photohunt

What? Another blog post so soon?!? Well, to be honest, I feel obliged to give my web host a plug, and it’s almost overdue LOL! As most of you probably know from my Yahoo saga last year, there’s little I despise more in the online world than those automated e-mails you receive in response to your screams for help. On the one hand, I guess I’ve got to be fair and concede that support services are probably inundated with a lot of crap, which must be sorted out before setting the machinery into action. (During a programmers’ course I once learned that users are to be considered idiots, and sadly, there’s a lot of truth in that!) Nevertheless, it can be painful to be at the receiving end.

Lunarpages is a web hosting company in California, who charge very (I mean, very!) reasonable rates and give you a lot (a real lot!!) of everything you need to run your website without quibbles including unlimited bandwidth. Their basic hosting plan is probably more than you’ll ever need - even if you’re in business (if you click that link, you’ll see the complete list).

But that alone wouldn’t be worth as much if there weren’t real people working there. During nearly 3 years hosting my site with Lunarpages there were a few of occasions when I needed help, and always received it very promptly and accurately.

Most recently, a bunch of friends and I got together and came up with an idea for Kathy’s birthday: we were going to pool and pay for her website’s renewal (she’s always used Lunarpages and actually she was the one to persuade me to do the same), so she wouldn’t have to think about it for the next couple of years. After all, she’s to blame for keeping us all together!! :) And that’s were Randy Tarpley of Lunarpages’ Helpdesk came in: he went out of his way to make it happen on a Sunday while enjoying his own weekend off away from home, and even presented her with a notification e-mail that said it was a birthday gift from us.

Although Randy kept us on our toes throughout our usual Sunday chat - we were all waiting for “it” to happen, only it didn’t because, as it turned out, he had problems with his internet connection - Kathy received her birthday gift later in the afternoon (’t was midnight here LOL!). Thanks to Randy Tarpley & Lunarpages! :)

And just in case you’re wondering (I know how cynics think - I am one myself ), I do not get paid for this post, and the above link does not include my referral details. It’s nothing but good intentions, because I really am grateful for the great service we received! If you intend to use Lunarpages and would like to do me a favour, click on the link on my main page - but if you don’t I’ll never know, and honestly: I really don’t care! Stupid, you think? Naaah. Just happy it worked out so well, that’s all! :)

Today is the first Advent… Christmas is just around the corner - and we haven’t done any decorating yet!! (In fact, I took this photo off my blog from a year ago!) That’s probably because time has passed so incredibly quickly, this past year must have been one of the fastest yet!

Apart from the first Advent, my dear friend Kathy is celebrating her birthday today! Girl, I wish you everything that you wish for yourself - and that the next twelve month will be full of happiness, health and contentedness! Another reminder of how the years keep swishing by: this is already your fifth birthday since we first “met”!

I’ve started counting the days (less than a hundred!) to my “big one”, not without trepidation. Wherever I go nowadays it becomes clear to me in a matter of seconds that I’m the oldest person in the room… when I’m tempted to “dance like nobody’s watching” I quickly realise that although I might feel like two decades younger, looked at from the outside I probably invoke pity; and that usually stops me dead in my tracks…

No, actually I’m not asking for your pity or reassurances. I still do feel younger than 50 (ha! There, I said it!) but I just can’t forget that there was a time when I thought 25 was old age.

Ok, on to less heavy stuff. Yesterday I talked my son into coming with me for a little photoshooting, and later his GF joined us, too. I hadn’t ventured into the valley of Marsalforn for many, many years, and it occurred to me that it should be a nice place for a photo stroll. Marsalforn, for those of you who aren’t familiar with Gozo, is the largest seaside resort of the island - though it’s still tiny in comparison with the mental image you might be having right now. The valley behind it carries rain water from the surrounding hilly fields to the sea. At this time of the year it’s developing into a swamp that somehow doesn’t look like Gozo at all. We took loads of pics - of the surroundings and of each other… :D

Here are a few select images that I’ve put into a collage; of course I also uploaded these - and more - to my photoblog.

A peaceful first Advent everyone!