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!

Germany came in 2nd and I won a prize from Webjam

What an exciting tournament the EURO2008 was! I really get addicted to soccer when European championships or even better World championships are on. This Euro2008 was especially exciting for me to watch as Germany was sooo close to win it. Only beaten be one team, Spain, in the Finals. Germany stand still during the games.
School kids in Berlin got free from school earlier on Monday to welcome the team.

Since Germany came in 2nd at the Euro2008 after a good game, I got the 2nd prize from the Webjam Euro2008 pool...
This means that I got a) 10 GBP in cash and b) the two keychains as shown in the pictures ;.)I think I will spend the cash on a massage to recover from the EURO2008 :-)

Read more about the good performance of Germany in my Euro2008 - Germany Webjam

Thanks to the German team and to Webjam!

Wimbledon...

John and I were yesterday in Wimbledon...not to watch the Championship that is going on right now. But we would have been interested to go in to take a look. But the waiting time was still almost two hours -- and it was 6pm! We were only able to have a peek on the courts when we were driving by with the double-decker bus ...
Only in Winbledon the phone boots are decorated with a tennis ball :-)
Roger Feder won at Wimbledon 5 times and is heading for the sixth time. Quite impressive!

Sunny day with friends

On Saturday John and I had a very nice day with our friends Sophie, John and Sacha and enjoyed the nice weather in the Kensington Park.
In the evening John and I enjoyed an Organ concert in the Royal Albert Hall. As I don't want to replicate what John wrote in his blog, take a look at his blog. You find a desciption and also nice pictures there :-) Click here to get to John's blog

John and I are fundraising....please sponsor us!

We are doing the MS Wheel and Walk event on 13 July 2008 and every sponsorship goes to the MS Society. Every little bit helps. Please sponsor us -- thanks!

Scan-My-Media is scanning again....

As we have a new customer from Austria for Super 8 film, John and I set up the whole equipment to digitize Super 8 reels in our small flat. We kind of hesitatet to do since we moved to London. But it turned out very nicely with smart arranging of the stuff. So Scan-My-Media is in the Super 8 scanning again :-)
And we found a very nice store "The Widescreen Centre" in central London. They are family owned and has been since it started in 1971 (Wow, that is when I was born).
We needed necessary film cleaner for the old films as we were running low on it. We also have many Super8 films from my dad, which are overdue. Sorry, dad! But now we can do it again.
The son of the store owner recommended to me where I could find compresses air cans, which we also need to clean the films from dust. I can only recommend "The Wiescreen centre ltd." if you happen to need film equipment.

Bank

A "Bank" at "Bank Station", which is amusing if you know German. In German "Bank" means "Bench". The sign signals that there is a bench below as it is easily to miss :-)
"Bank Station" is called this way because of the Bank of England, which is right at the tube station.

A look to New York....

Hardly anyone knows that a secret tunnel runs deep beneath the Atlantic Ocean. In May 2008, more than a century after it was begun, the tunnel has finally been completed. An extraordinary optical device called a Telectroscope has been installed at both ends which miraculously allows people to see right through the Earth from London to New York
and vice versa. Read more on the website.
And John and I were there yesterday and had a peek to the other side of the world
View to New York through the tunnel. We saw people waving at us and the Broolin Bridge in the background, whereas the Tower Bridge in London can be seen from New York and us waving. We saw people who had arranged to "meet-up" with their friends on the other side this way.
The picture below shows the view through the tunnel to New York we had...

Throught this below you were able to have a peek to New York. John is standing next to it...
The Tower Bridge in London can be seen from New York. John ist watching the Tower Bridge above...

Graffiti at the Tate Modern....

Hard to belíeve, but this is Graffiti at the Tate Modern. I saw it already in the news: Tate Modern hired Graffiti artists to decorate the huge Tate Modern.
Some of them were in disguise so that they couldn't be recognized on TV. They fear that their style could be recognized from other perhaps not so legal locations.
John and I walked by there today and to check it out and saw they used some kind of foil. So in fact, the graffitis were done somewere else and then glued on the Tate Modern... maybe the only possiblity to create such a big piece of art in short time.

London skyline....

Today I had a project meeting in Central London. To get to it, I had to walk from the tube station over the Thames. Just want to share with your the beautiful view. I enjoyed it so much that I just had to take a picture :-)

Prove that I have a brain...

I just had my first digital MRI done. Very nice! Instead if a pile of images, you get one small CD. Very useful. And it is amazing to look through all the images at home on my monitor.

A beautiful weekend in London with surprises....

John and I had a great weekend .
We started out at the Royal Albert Hall listening to Filmharmonic concert. Classical pieces from movies were played, like Mission Impossible, Superman, Harry Potter and many more. Was amazing!!!
Before the concert started we were able to take a picture of the three London icons: Royal Albert Hall, and in front of it double-decker bus and a typical London taxi cab.
On Saturday we met Sophie, John and Sacha in the Hyde Park and used the beautiful weather to play some soccer with Sacha. Later we drove on to Ealing where we had a nice lunch. This was full of suprises as a thunderstorm hit us there. We had to take a taxi cab nack to our home as it was raining so strongly. But it lasted not very long and the sun came out soon again.

On Sunday John and I got up early (for us on a Sunday) to watch the changing of the guards at the Buckingham Palace.
There were lots of people already and we had luck to get a place in the front. It is not even the tourist season yet. Can you imagine how it will be in the summer....


It was a big Surprise when we saw those guards walking up :-) We asked a bobby where they are from. His answer with a smile on his face: "we ran low on guards, so these are from Malasya to help out". As Malasya being a former crown colonie from the UK, they were the guards this time :-)
From ceremomy at the Bukingham Palace we went on to do Big Bus Company's tour of London. Very interesting and we had a good tour guide. In the price of the ticket is also that you can take the boat on the Themse. So we changed from the bus to a boat and then back again in the bus. If you know the Board Game "Mister X", that is how we felt :-)

The pictutre below shows John at one of our stops when he is holding the London Eye :-)

A walk in the summer in London

Summer is here :-)
John and I went for a long walk through some of Londons parks (Holland Park, Hyde Park) and enjoyed the beautiful weather.
The British really love their dogs and provide toilets for them :-)


See also John's blog with more pictures from our walk....Click here

SEASONS -- change of one tree within a bit more than one month...

It is amazing to follow the change of seasons... the picture below shows of what one tree had to go through :-)
You find bigger versions of the images all in my blog, I posted them under the corresponding date.

NOW spring is here....

What was blossoming tree not long ago, is now a full of leaves (see earlier entries). And it is only less than one month ago that this tree was covered with snow. It is nice to follow how it develops...

The talking Rabbit :-)

We have adopted a talking rabbit (white with big ears)! We named him Paddingon Bear!
What really impressed us that he is always connected to the Internet, because he is a Nabaztag.
He reads news and even the E-Mails he gets to us.
Very sweet!

See the picture below of him with his friend Paddington Bear.

For Hugh Laurrie Fans...

Hugh Laurrie in the David Letterman Show. During Season 2. Worth watching :-)

House MD -- what will happen in season 4?

We have watched Seacon 1 to 3, but Season 4 is not out yet in Europe.
We can't wait!!!!!

Good April Fools' Day joke from BBC :-)

Flying penguins :-)