Happy New Year

New Years Eve... all over the world it is celebrated, but of course with different traditions. Being in Germany at that time I noticed a few 'strange' German traditions myself... like 'Dinner for One' (original title). Every time there is a native English speaker in our party he/she is asked about this British skit about an old lady and her butler having New Years dinner with 'old friends'. But of course... nobody else knows it except the Germans... a David Hasselhof moment once again ;-)

The next very traditional thing everybody has to do at New Years eve is 'Bleigiessen' which roughly translates into 'lead casting'. You need lead, a candle and a cold water bowl. You are then telling your fortune out of the shape of the molten lead you poured into the water.

Interesting... I got a swan! I leave it up to you investigating what 2009 is having up its sleeves for me... but it could be worse I guess ;-)




And then of course fireworks. Not in every country this is the way of welcoming the new year. In Ireland and even in Colorado fireworks aren't sold in public and you have to trust your city for setting something up. Over in Germany... not a problem. I hope the owner of the Benz didn't have any problems with his insurance too... or that would have been a bad start into 2009 :-)

A Happy New Year to you and yours!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Meanwhile back in Germany... finally I got the chance to see several proper Christkindle markets. It is a similar thing like Irish pubs back in Dublin I guess... we have an own Christkindle market downtown Denver too which again is nothing compared to the real deal back home. So what's so special about them then? Well... lots of people freezing in the cold, drinking steaming hot mulled wine, listening to Christmas carols, also sprinkle some snow on top of them... DONE.

So I spend my time several days before Christmas going from one Christkindle market to the next one. The biggest one I saw this year was the one in Kassel. No snow though :-(

Still plenty of mulled wine and good food!


But that is not what Christmas is all about, right? Christmas is the time of year where we can slow down, relax and forget about our stressful life for a moment. And appreciated that there is something more important in life then work and money... love and peace among all people!

Merry Christmas to all of you!

Real Irish pubs

After several 'dry' months... well, not exactly a drought but you get the idea ;-) I finally made it into a real Irish pub again! Of course we have Irish pubs in Denver and vicinity but it is not the same. Maybe it is more comparable to Temple Bar back in Dublin which is the really tourist area over there with everything a tourist would expect to see in Ireland... including one or two leprechaun a night :-)

And as you can see... my Irish friends were very, very happy to see me. And there was no argument over who is picking up the bill! That is what true friends are all about... but the exchange rate to the Dollar made it hurt more then the bruises ;-)

Once again I had a great time in Ireland! Thanks again to everybody... you really make me missing this place!

Back to the Fair City

Finally I made it back to my second home... the one and only Fair City... where streets have no name... home of Guinness... Dublin. And of course I had time to meet a good old friend of mine, Molly Malone! Still waiting for me at Grafton Street where I left her exactly a year ago... there are not many women on this planet you can pull that one off :o)

And the whole city is already decorated and getting ready for Christmas. But despite being only one more week to go the city and the shopping centers were quite empty. It took us only 20 minutes taking the M50 from Tallaght to the airport on a weekend afternoon! Impressive! That would never have happened on my watch two years ago :-P

And finally after six years my friend Brian told me how to say Halfpenny Bridge like the locals do... ha'penny of course! Try to get that one right after half a dozen Guinness ;-)

Winter horror hits Denver

Well... winter is not always fun and games as we know. Especially when it sneaks up at you like it does over here. One day you can have quite pleasant temperatures, people running around in T-shirts and the next day you have suddenly 6 inches (15 cm) of snow covering the highways. What happened in the meantime you might ask? Colorado has one bis advantage: most of the time the weather happens at night which is great in the summertime where most of the time no cloud is disturbing the sunshine (hence the advertised 300 days of sunshine).

But this has one big disadvantage in the wintertime where you suddenly awake to lots of snow on the ground and lots of traffic blocking the roads which makes up for the perfect winter horror which we had now the second week in a row. I better get a sleigh and some Huskies and leave my car at home ;-)

Crazy Vending Machines II

Revisiting one of my latest posts about elaborate vending machines at American airports. Remember the Rosetta Stone language course vending machine I was on about recently? I found a posh version of it at the Houston airport (which funny enough is called Georg Bush airport, but that is a different story now). This version of the vending machine came with a real but bored looking person! :-)

Every time I see something like that I really wonder what is the margin for selling this product if they can afford an expensive vending machine or even a real person selling that product. Which brings me to one of my favorite topics... Apple! They had an own wending machine for i-phones, etc at that airport as well!

Maybe I am getting to old or I am not hip anymore... more likely both... but I still find the idea of buying a several hundred Dollar product of a vending machine somewhere at an airport amusing... I guess I am easily amused at least ;-)

Dallas and JFK

The next stop on my grand Texas tour was Dallas. Two things come into my mind when I think of Dallas: first the well known soap opera about a bunch of rich Texan oil moguls and of course the infamous assassination of John F Kennedy. It is interesting to see how this tragedy is becoming a tourist attraction nowadays. Here you can see me spotting the snipers nest in the window of the bookstore on the 6th floor... unfortunately a few decades too late ;-)

But of course there are plenty of conspiracies around this single event in history and it is nice to see the place with your own eyes. Even after watching several documentaries in favor or opposing the blooming conspiracies, it is interesting to see how small the Dealey plaza really is. A second (or even third) sniper would have been very easy to spot with all the people filling up this place. But that is only my opinion and so I was wandering over the world famous Grassy Knoll a tourist myself .

And of course there is a very interesting museum about the evens of November 22nd 1963. It is located in the very same building and floor where Oswald had his 'alleged' snipers nest including a recreation of it.

And before you enter the museum you are passing this door with three pictograms on the bottom... attention, very bad joke... if they would have had the icon forbidding guns in that building already in the 60s... this would never have happened :-)

Alright... sorry. This place is definitely worth a visit regardless if you believe in conspiracies or not. And don't forget to visit the Reunion tower which was sadly closed for redecoration when I was there :-(

Houston we have a problem

But Houston is of course widely known because of its NASA space center. While queuing for the tour the guy in front of me tried to explain his son where we were. He said (and this is NOT a joke!): "Remember the movie Armageddon? They were calling their base station in Houston. And that is... HERE!" I really had to laugh about that comparison but even I was able to understand that... maybe not such a bad explanation at all then ;-)

But beside the historical mission control center which was basically involved in every maned space mission and of course the new mission control for the space shuttle and ISS missions, they also have the astronaut training facility here. Basically they have a copy of each module on the space station, space shuttle, etc. in a big hanger to train astronauts. Due to the hurricane their roof was leaking that's why most of it was covered up.

And another great attraction here at NASA in Houston: you can touch a real moon stone! Here you can see me (or better my index finger) touching those stone. Remember the big fuss about the contamination by moon microbes in the 60s after the first moon landing? I hope it isn't me know who is wiping out humankind ;-)

Another entertaining element of the tour were the warning signs in different parts of the mission control building. This one might be not that entertaining for my English speaking readers but the combination of the direct translation of 'cell phone' which looks more like prison cells in German and the chosen word for 'switching off' is really funny. At least not everything is perfect even at NASA ;-)

Hurricane over Galveston

As I said in an earlier post, just a month before my trip Hurricane Ike hit the Houston area quite badly. In the direct path of destruction was the little holiday town Galveston... and to make it short, it will take them several years to recover from this devastation.
Galveston is a lovely down directly on the waterfront with a beach which stretches for miles and miles. Lot's of little bars are build right on the beach or on poles onto the ocean.


And as you can see that seem to be the place where you don't want to be when a Hurricane hits. While the devastation in Houston and the suburbs was mostly roofs, windows and advertisement signs over here you had entire buildings getting flattened.
And in between the ruins you had lots of tourists taking pictures and having drinks in the repaired bars around. I guess the first signs of an economical recovery at least.

But I wouldn't worry too much about Galveston. Even with all the damage it is still a great place to see with a fantastic beach and great nightlife. And at least the beach will remain regardless what Hurricane hits next ;-)

For next years summer vacation this is definitely an alternative to Florida! Let's see...

Houston and Beyond

My last weekend trip for this year brought me to the two biggest cities in Texas: Houston and Dallas. The first one known through the infamous words 'Houston, we have a problem' and Dallas known through the most famous TV show of the late 80s. But first things first... Houston which is an sprawling city near the gulf coast with an interesting city center where old buildings meet high rise office towers.

Being that close to the gulf coast has its advantages like a very mild climate with 80 F (26 C) while I was over there... but also has its disadvantages manifesting in Hurricanes. Just a month before my trip Hurricane Ike hit Houston and surrounding areas and left quite a devastation. More about that in my next posts...





But getting to the coast was a challenge in itself already. The traffic is really strange in Houston with lots of big trucks (everything is a bit bigger in Texas) flying past you 20 mph over the local speed limit while you wonder which of the freeway flyovers you have to take next ;-)