Weihnchtszeit in London

London ist traumhaft weihnachtlich geschmückt. In der Carnaby Street hängen Monster Schneemänner. die auf einen runter blicken. In der Regent Street sind große Lichterketten gespannt, die die bekannten Einkaufsstrasse mit einem weihnachtlichen Licht verhüllen.
John und ich habe es gestern sehr genossen, diese Weihnchststimmung einzufangen :-)

Advent, Advent... eine Kerze brennt!

Gestern, am 1. Dezember, haben John und ich die Adventszeit mit einer Adevnetskerze und zwei Adventskalendern eingeläutet. Einer ist von Lego und hat jeden Tag eine kleine Lego Überraschung. Gestern war eine kleine Lego Figur mit einem Truthahn in der Hand die Überraschung :-) Der andere Adventskalender ist von den Simpsons mit Schokolade. Hm...lecker :-)
Ich wünsche allen eine besinnliche Adventszeit!

BBC television centre 1956 - 2012 ?

Diese Woche hat Alan wieder ein paar Ealing MS Society branch Mitgliedern eine private Tour von dem ehrwürdigen BBC television centre gegeben. Alan hatte 20 Jahre im television centre bei BBC gearbeitet und kann uns Ecken zeigen, die der normale Besucher nie zu Gesicht bekommt.
Im BBC television centre wurde Fernsehgeschichte geschrieben. In den vielen Studios sind viele bekannte Serien, Shows und Filme produziert worden.Für das Television Center werden leider momentan Käufer gesucht. Es ist zu teuer... also, wer ein "kleines" Häusschen in London gerade sucht....
Der Plan ist bis 2012 ausgezogen zu sein.
Ein paar Teile werden nach Central London in ein neues Gebäude ziehen, andere nach Manchester.

Nach dem zweiten Weltkrieg konnte BBC das damals noch sehr ländliche Grundstück in West London bei White City erwerben. Der Grundstein für das BBC Television Centre wurde 1956 gelegt. Siehe das Foto....er ist im Keller des riesigen Gebäudes, in dem man sich ohne Probleme verlaufen kann....


Auch im Keller kann man berühmte Film Requisiten finden, wie zum Beispiel den Tardis von "Doctor Who". Hiermit ist Doctor Who durch "Time & Space" gereist.
Unten ist das Original zu sehen:




Man kann den Tardis aber auch als Spielzeug mit einer Doctor Who Puppe kaufen :-)

Das weltweite Web....

...ich liebe es!
Bei Naymz, einer der vielen Social Networking Plattformen, wurde mein Profil weltweit besucht. Man kann sich auf der Karte anzeigen lassen, woher die Besucher kommen.
Diese kamen wohl in den letzten Wochen aus Peking (China), Berlin (Deutschland), Kalifonien (USA), Texas (USA), Schweden, England und Süd-Amerika....siehe die Karte oben.
Das WWW macht die Welt in der Tat kleiner :-)

Der Jahrestag des 'Gunpowder Plot'...

... oder die Zeit der Feuerwerke vor Silvester.
John und ich waren am Wochenende bei einem der vielen Feuerwerke, die um den 5. November anlässlich des Guy Fawkes Tag gemacht werden. Wo man hinschaut, rechts, links, vorne, hinten wird "geschossen".
In England feuerwerkt man am 5.November anlässlich des ‚Guy Fawkes’ Day.
Damit halten sie die Erinnerung an den ‚Gunpowder Plot’ wach, der 1605 in London statt fand. Mehrere Verschwörer, darunter Guy Fawkes planten damals die ‚Houses of Parlament’ in die Luft zu sprengen, in dem sich auch der König von England aufhalten sollte. (James I.)
36 Fässer Schießpulver waren heimlich in den Keller des Gebäudes transportiert worden. Die Verschwörung flog auf und Guy Fawkes, der zum Bewachen der Fässer abgestellt worden war, wurde festgenommen und später hingerichtet.

Wir waren im Chricket Club Ealing. Das Feuerwerk war bombastisch. Die Pyrotechniker, die es manuell gestartet haben, standen direkt im Rauch, umgeben von Feuer. Das nennt man wohl Berufsrisiko :-) Siehe das Foto unten.

Niagara Falls....breathtaking !

We drove from North Carolina with the stop in Virginia to West Virginia. And then all the way to the Niagara Falls. This short video shows the Canadian falls. This was indeed the highlight on our East Coast Tour.....



It is no surprise to see those signs all over there...who wants to jump down there?



We did the Maid of Mist and got very close to the falls. This picture shows one boat fighting its way towards the falls.


Of course, we also wanted to get wet in the mist and got the fashionable blue plastic rain ponchos. The picture below shows the American falls in the background.

On the boat we had an amazing view of the Canadian falls as we were approaching the Canadian falls. Well, the view was nearly zero the closer we got because of all the mist. It was hard, or impossible to keep your eyes open.
By the way, I took the video from the upper right corner, when we were watching down the falls.



The Niagara falls were the highlight of our vacation! We indulged in having a very nice hotel with a room with a fall view. Waking up with this view of the Canadian falls with a rainbow is unforgettable! Because of the mist there was a rainbow most of the time when the sun was shining ....

Morgantown .. a new way to go by train

We continued our tour from Radford to visit John's sister in Morgantown. West Virgina.
One of the features of this great University town is a small almost personal train system. By selecting a destination at the station, soon a small electric wagon shows up with room for up to 8 people - all of whom are going to the same destination. The wagon then takes off and goes non-stop to your selected destination, bypassing all stations in-between. Something new to me. Very nice!

"Kick ass ...on grass!"

...was our motto when I played Field Hockey at the Radford University in Virginia. Onr stop was Radford, where we met up with my coach and his wife Maria. What a great thing to dive into your past and have all the great memories come back!
To keep that up and to stay in contact with former teammates, I was talking with my coach about an Alumni website. He liked the idea very much. So when returning home, I created the Radford University Field Hockey Alumni webjam. It is growing fast and there are more and more members. Check it out by clicking on the link above.
On the picture below you can see the current team at practice. All potential members of the Alumni webjam :-)

From NYC to Hollywood....

We contnued our East Coast tour and drove to friends in Hollywood, Maryland. They live right at the Chesapeake Bay. The weather was sunny and warm, perfect to enjoy the water. As it was Labor day, our friends threw a great party. Guests arrived either by car, boat or Seedoos. Was a totally different feeling, like in a movie.
Here John and I trying a Wave-Runner Seadoo. That was a LOT fun!

As our friends live right at the water, they have a boat and their own pier. The picture shows John making his way down to their boat.

Here you can see Captain John :-)

After the party, our friends took us out on their boat to watch the sunset over the Bay. That was spectacular!

Wheaton Arts Glass Blowing

Another highlight: we made our own bowls and paperweights at Wheaton Arts.
They have a great program where you can do you own glass-work under the tutelage of an expert glass artisan. So we made a day trip from Connecticut to Southern Jersey.
The picture below shows John working on his paperweight while it is still molten glass and very hot. He wears an arm protection to be safe. He brings it into the shape he wants.


On this picture he is looking proud at the finished paperweight, but still very hot. The cooling process takes 24hrs in a special oven.

And here is the final paperweight. Yes, is blue, not red or white. That was amazing!

NYC .... a great start of our vacation

We landed at JFK airport and stayed with friends in Connecticut. From there we headed to New York City for a day and visited some of our favorite places. We were at the M&Ms World. Always fun! On the piscture below John is walking towards it. They have big advrtisement as you can see. And of course, we also just had to go to our favorite Chinese restaurant. Delicious!

On one shopping window there was a big billboard counting Bush's last day as the elections are coming up. I wonder which candidate they are supporting :-)

2500miles or 3700km... our East Coast Vacation

John and I spent two weeks in the US. We drove along the East Coast and met up with many friends and did and saw lots of exciting things.
it was a great trip. I took 512 pictures. You will fine some in my blog very soon :-) Here's the map with the major stops flagged.

Fantastic weekend at Land's End

John and I had a breathtaking weekend at Land's End, Cornwall! Situated on the westerly point of Britain, it is surrounded by spectatcular views of the Atlantic Ocean. New York is just 3147 miles away :-)
It is named "Pen Sans" in the ancient Cornish language, meaning "Holy Headland".
Penzance enjoys the most temperate climate of the British Isles while early spring flowers, vegetables and other produce demonstrate the mild weather conditions experienced here. I was amazed about the numerous sub-tropical flowers and palm trees.

The last Inn in England can only be found here! The Atlantic Ocean being next.....

Edinburgh Military Tattoo

Last weekend John and I were in Edinburgh to see the Military Tattoo. It was amazing and we had luck with the weather. Though it was grey, it did not rain. And that is what Scotland is known for.

The picture below shows the Tattoo celebrating the celebrating 100th birthday of the Territorial Army. The Edinburgh Castle is in the background.


We were also at the Bank of Scotland. John is embracing one million pounds :-) Too bad that we didn't get a sample...

Red Bull Air Race London 2008

On Sunday, John and I had an amazing day at the Reb Bull Air Race. We were sitting next to the 02 dome. The planes were flying by us with up to 370kmh, impossible for me to get a good picture with my "point-and-shoot" camera.
But have a look at John's Blog. He took amazing pictures and posted a very good description of the event! He has the right camera to take those amazing pictures, very professional.

Click here to get to John's Blog!

And have a look at the videos to get more impressions ;-)
Click here to get an overview of the race track by somebody who raced humself at the Red Bull Air Race London 2007:

Video Track Introduction

And here is a video of the race:



Above the videos is our view we had. Big screens in front of us. Below is a picture of a Blue Eagle demonastartion before the race. Those amazing helictopters can do amazing things, like flying vertical (as shown on the picture) or upside down.

Tall Ship's Race in Liverpool

Last weekend John and I went to Liverpool to watch the start of the worldwide known Tall Ship's Race. It includes a dazzling array of vessels, from 30 foot yachts to square-rigged ships over 300 feet long.


The picture above shows crew members all the way on the top of the masts setting sails. They look like Ants on the picture! But they are humans -- amazing!

The race will head for Norway before ending in the Netherlands. It will bring almost 100 tall ships with more than 3,000 crew members.

Blustery winds meant few of the Tall Ships were actually in full sail at the Tall Ship Parade.

And we were able to go on board of the amazing Tall Ships. Highlight for us was to be on board of Alexander of Humboldt -- or better known from the Becks' commercial. Unfortunately Becks is not a sponsor of the ship anymore. But it still has the green sails.


Last year we met the Becks' ship the Baltic Sea and were sailing right next to it.
Watch my video

The ships are from more than 18 countries, like from Brazil, Poland, Oman and Germany.

And since we were in Liverpool we went by the birthplace of the Beatles -- the Cavern Pub.

MS Society Walk in Windsor Great Park

Our sponsors are great! Over the last few weeks, John and I have been searching for sponsors for the MS Society Wheel & Walk. Our goal was £1000 and with a late flurry of action, we nearly made it to £1600! It's great to see the generosity of friends and family.


After the great showing from our sponsors, Kerstin and I headed this morning to the Queen's weekend residence - Windsor. The Queen has a rather nice little house there.

From there, a rather long taxi ride to Virginia Water at the very southern end of the Windsor Great Park. While listening to start briefing for the 180 participants, I was ready to go and getting impatient!

The wait wasn't long and we were off. After a few hours, here I am crawling across the finish line after setting a pace that was perhaps a bit too quick.

Okay, in reality it was a great day - cool, mostly sunny. The 7km walk wound around the Virginia Water area led through forest and meadows - all with great views of the lake.

And at the finish line, everyone was cheered and those who finished the course were given a medal as proof of completion.

Many thanks to all of our sponsors and well-wishers! You guys are the best!