Christmas is coming

We want to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

This is Jim on the cover of the Karachi Express. He was playing "Santa" at one of the local hotels during the American Women's Club Christmas Bazaar fundraiser. You might also see him on CNBC doing one of their "Merry Christmas" bits between commercials.

Copenhagen and Sweden

This is the reason we went to Copenhagen. This is the World Convention for the Esperantists around the world. We went to the World Convention when it was in Brazil in 2002.

We went on a walking tour of the city (by ourselves). We finished at the "Little Mermaid". Every tourist in the world who comes through here looks at it. It was donated to the city by Carl Jacobson in 1909. You might know him better as the brewer of Carlsberg beer! He had been to see a performance of the ballet based on Hans Christian Andersen's tale and fell in love with the prima ballerina.

We were fascinated by this little coffee cart. This is the style of little taxi / transporter very common here and in India. They are called "tuk-tuk"s because of the two-stroke engine noise they make.

Even the birds were complaining about the cold and rain. We were in Copenhagen for the end of the summer and were freezing! It had been cold all summer in Seattle and we were hoping for some warm weather. During the two months in Seattle, it got over 80 degrees for a total of 2 hours!

This is Rosenberg Castle and the King's Garden. These were almost literally across the street from the hotel we stayed in. King Christian IV built the castle. The royal Treasury, Crown Jewels and the Royal Regalia are kept here.


Jim discovered "Xtreme Lawn Bowling"!

This is one of the (very modern) guards at the Royal Treasury. Notice his cute little Guard House. It looks like a giant pencil.


These are the guards marching (with policeman escort) to the ceremonial changing of the guard at one of the other palaces.

We got these because we looked on the internet for things to buy in Copenhagen. We ignored the souvenir recommendations, but these things were on the list as being worth a look. They are called Floederboller and were delicious! We just bought them at the nearest grocery store. The food was very good, but very expensive.

The "Elephants on Parade" is an on-going, world-wide fund-raiser to help save the Asian elephant from extinction. This movement started about five or six years ago. It is similar to what the city of Seattle did with the pigs about ten years ago. It is actually a lot of fun!

Here are a few of the 103 elephants. We got pictures of 16 of them. We originally thought about visiting all of them, but just couldn't do it.

There are a lot of things to do in a major city that don't cost an arm and a leg. You just have to break away from the tourist guidebooks and look around. This is the local botanical garden run by the university.

We decided to visit Malmo, Sweden since we were so close (35 kilometers) and the train went each way every hour. You could ride a bus and/or take a ferry boat, too. We went by train.
These are some of the wind chargers we saw from the train out along the coast. The wind chargers were very common around the city.

If you have been in Tacoma, you might recognize this (style) bridge. It is called a single-support suspension bridge. It is just like the Golden Gate, except it only has one set of towers instead of two. Yes, that is a lighthouse right next to the city of Malmo. You can guess how far the horizon is by the height of the lighthouse. The lighthouse at Alki Point in Seattle is only about one-story high.
This is the "Turning Torso". It is a residential building in the middle of the Industrial Park next to Malmo and its port.
We like murals on buildings, but think the old-style advertising is nice, too.

This was the scene Esperanto convention. Jim went conventioning while Alonda visited the museums.
Here is a short clip of the subway in Copenhagen.

Bremerton Street Art & Statues

We don't know anything about this statue. It is on the corner across from the Navy Yard and didn't have a label. We missed the monthly Art Walk because Alonda had sprained her ankle. We hope to do the walk and find out more about the art next year.

This is a giant fish (in case you couldn't tell). They put it up last year. Kitty-corner across from the fish is, of course, the ...

... giant fisherman.

This is a lion on a fountain. He isn't very fancy, but he has been here a LOT longer than the other statues and art works.

This lady is what everyone thinks about when they think "Pacific Northwest." She is ready for the stereotypical rain.

We don't know what this lady is doing, but she is dressed up for the Kitsap Pumas soccer team playing their first ever international match. Kitsap is the Premier Development League Northwest Division champion. They will play Port Vale from England. Port Vale is the development team for Manchester United (world famous soccer champions). Manchester United is playing the Seattle Sounder in Seattle.

We have been revisiting our tour of the clocks in Seattle. This clock is here in Bremerton and was restored within the last two years and is in front of the bank building that is now the Kitsap Historical Society Museum.

This "Lone Sailor" stands on the end of the outer pier of the yacht basin. You can see the Navy Yard in the background.

This is a memorial to the shipyard workers. The boardwalk area is designed to look like an aircraft carrier deck.

This is a statue of Esther Bielmeier. She worked as one of the rivet heaters during the Great War (you probably know it as World War I).

This is the photograph that inspired the statue!


Bremerton is always an eye-opener when you take the time to walk around. It is clean, neat and is constantly trying to improve itself.

Dresden

We visited Dresden, Germany on our way home this year. It is one of our all-time favorite cities. We also visited a colleague we worked with in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. A friend from our German exchange program days also came down and visited us. This is a picture of the "Blaues Wunder" (Blue Wonder) bridge built in 1893. It connected the two most expensive residential districts in all of Europe and was considered a technological wonder of the day.


We had our "3-B" supper under the bridge: Bier, Bratwurst und Brot. The river boat is part of the tourist fleet on the Elbe River.


This is the Hotel Artushof where we stayed in Dresden. It is part of the city that survived the WW II bombing. Very quiet neighborhood!


This is the "Fuerstenzug", the most famous alley in Europe! It is all made of Meissen tiles and shows the history of the Electors of Saxony. This is, indeed, an alleyway and is always swarming with tourists.


Here we are next to the river. The weather was unbelievably pleasant after the heat and humidity of Karachi!


This is the Frauenkirche, better known as "die Glocke" (the bell). It was destroyed in the war, but the Germans used GPS to mark every individual stone at the site and rebuilt the entire thing to the original specifications. The random dark spots are where they used the original, fire- and age-blackened sandstone blocks. The lighter stone is new.


This is a Czech band playing in Germany doing Dixieland jazz. Dresden has a large, annual Dixieland festival! These guys were good, but it just didn't sound like New Orleans!


Here is a scene from a downtown beerfest. Notice the church in the background?

Easter in Karachi

We attended Easter Sunrise services by the International Church of Karachi. Our church doesn't actually own a building so we meet at various places around the city. The service for Easter was at the Beach Luxury Hotel owned by the Avari family (Nice family! All three of their children attend our school.)


We didn't want to have to get up veeeeerrrrrryyy early to get across town to the sunrise service, so our neighbors from school decided to spend the night with us at the hotel. This is what it looked like out our window looking toward the downtown part of Karachi (20 million people! Seattle is less than one million. Seattle metropolitan area is about 3 million.)


This is looking out our hotel window to the port. This hotel was built just after Partition (breakup of India into India, Pakistan and Bangladesh) and used to be THE fanciest place in the entire city.

We are home for the summer. We will be going to Copenhagen late July for an Esperanto convention and then going back to work in August.

If you would like to visit, please phone or email!

The Hague International Model United Nations

During the last week in January, we took 12 students from our school to The Hague International Model United Nations (THIMUN). They practice lobbying each other, representing the interests of different countries and trying to solve the problems of the world; just like the UN.
The first place we actually went was Rotterdam to ride the Pancake Boat. Yes, it is a boat on which everyone eats ... pancakes. You can put all kinds of stuff on them or in them. Don't think just syrup and butter!


The views of the harbor were rather cloudy that day. The last week in January is statistically the coldest week fo the entire year. It was cold. The "Rotterdam", a former cruise liner, is now permanently moored here as a floating hotel. We think we know where all those cruise liners are going to wind up when the cruising craze dies down a bit.



We saw some really serious bikes in Holland.

Even the parking for bicycles is a serious business in Holland.

We went on a short tour of the city of Leiden. It is famous since it has everything everyone expects to see in Amsterdam without all the big city crowds and noise.

This convention is actually world famous. Maybe not in America, though.

This is what the stage looked like at the convention closing ceremony. About 3500 students, but not all of them on stage.

We had a pretty good time. We brought back a bunch of cheese and finished the last of it for supper tonight (3 March). In about two weeks, we will go spend about ten days in Thailand. We will post about that adventure when we get back!

Winter travels

We visited Alonda's sister in Chicago. Compared to Karachi, it was extremely cold!


The city had the requisite Nativity Scene and Christmas Tree in Daley Plaza.


In spite of the cold, the Christmas Market was actually pretty crowded. We talked to some people who said that the previous week it had been completely deserted. Too cold even for Chicagoans!


We went down to Ft Worth area to visit Alonda's dad and sister. We didn't have time to go see Jim's brother. We did, however, get to see some real, actual, genuine, for-sure Texas Longhorns. This is the four o'clock "cattle drive" for the tourists.

We guess they like the singing ...

Happy New Year to you all!