LegoLand, Fireworks and Sledding

Happy New Year to all our family and friends. Or as the Germans would call it - Silvester. Hmm, I will know what that means by next new years I promise. So far I can assume it means - buy masses of fireworks and let them off in the streets from midnight en masse, then at exactly 1am STOP what you are doing, drink a glass of champagne and then go home. Do not pick up the empty cases and do not let off any more fireworks - at least that is what I saw from my window.

Backtracking a bit though we took the girls into Berlin to Legoland and to see an OV (original version - english speaking movie) at the Sony Centre a few days ago. Loved Lego


land and can't wait to take my nephews there - even the grown up ones! Sony Centre is built on the site of the 'no mans land' between east and west so is quite new and is surrounded by monuments to The Wall. It is 60 hectares and is quite amazing to have such a large area available for construction in the centre of a large city. Everything nearby is either new or a vacant lot.

It has been snowing pretty much everyday since Christmas and to mark each day until school starts (four more sleeps according to Ada, do not want to talk about it - Lucy) we have been sledding - see Chris in practice for the Iditarod. If you look closely enough you will see that Lizzie our dog has the right idea!!




Popular posts from this blog

An Ascent of Sunanda Devi (Nanda Devi East)

Image
Climbing past the gendarmes between Camp 1 on Longstaff Col and Camp 2.  I am climbing in the middle distance ANZAC Day always bring back all kinds of memories, some good and some less so. Just recently I had some old slides scanned which arrived just before ANZAC day. It was ANZAC day 22 years ago today that I received a call to get on an immediate flight to India to join a Defence cooperation exercise in India which was to involve an ascent of Nanda Devi. The mountain stands at 7816 metres is it protected by a ring of peaks of which 12 are over 6,400 metres. The first ascent was by Bill Tillman and Noel Odell who were able to enter the Nanda Devi Sanctuary via Rishi Gangi Gorge. The ridge between Nanda Devi and Sunanda Devi The peak has a colorful history which includes the attempted installation of a nuclear powered monitoring device for Chinese nuclear tests. Turned back by bad weather, the device was lost somewhere on Sunanda Devi and was nev
Read more

Three Days in Lisbon are Not Enough!

Image
Lisbon definitely falls into the shabby but chic category. There is a real sense of dynamism here which seems to be a combination of entrepreneurial spirit, to start up costs and supportive government policies It should not have come as surprise to us that three days wasn’t enough time in Lisbon.  Both Lisbon and Porto have been Monocle’s poster children for urban gentrification and progressive local government.  This was combined the features of a one of Europe’s oldest but now faded trading empires: a beautiful port with a hilly shoreline; elaborate and still solid buildings constructed with the wealth of derived from international trade routes to South America, Africa and India; and finally a mix of ethnic groups that came to call Lisbon home. Lisbon is built on seven hills above a pretty harbour and this was a great opportunity for Kate and I to train for Corsica.  The narrow streets were home to lots of
Read more

Risk Reward and Skiing in Kashmir

Image
Risk and reward can be seen as two sides of the same coin.  Normally, when you go to a downhill skiing resort, the coins that you flip are small, small risk small reward.  One of the reasons that I love Gulmarg is that you play the game with bigger coins. Paul and Sam, my brother in-law and nephew, had heard great reports about Gulmarg from Jack, Sam's brother, despite Jack coughing up blood for most of his stay.  They decided that a visit to India was in order and, as Sam is a keen skier,  Gulmarg was the priority destination. The adventure started when we boarded the aircraft in Mumbai when I was informed by a Kashmiri on the same flight that Afzal Guru, a Kashmiri native who had been convicted of supporting a terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament, had been executed earlier that morning.  Needless to say things were going to be interesting in Srinagar as this had occurred after a number of fatal military clashes on the Line of Control. On arrival at the airport at
Read more