Jalla Jalla.... and Merry Christmas

The trip to Egypt was great!! Well...ok, it was good. Nice, sun, warm, the sea, relaxing time. A bit short - 4,5 days but still worth it. Filip and I went to Hurghada. The town itself is not so exciting (there are kind of two downtowns - an old one with many shops, mess, dirt, huge traffic, people draging you into the shops. And the new one - fancy, clean, fresh, quiet, cool). Our hotel was kind of in between those two areas. Close to a small beach (pictures later). The majority of tourists in our hotel were Russians. Amazing - almost each Egyptian guy spoke Russian fluently!
We went on one boat trip to Giftun Island and then snorkling - beautiful!!!! I got a bit stuck in a coral reef but managed to get out of there. A bit scary though...
What more? Talking to some locals, playing beach volley, swimming, reading books.
Too bad the trip was so short. I promise to add some pictures after Xmas.

Yesterday we came to Gdynia. And tomorrow going to grandmom's place.
I wish all of you very Merry Christmas, relaxing time with your families and loved ones. Also party wild on New Year's Eve ;-)
And hope the new year 2009 will be good, prosperous, and full of new exciting challenges and adventures.

Xmas tree

I didn't manage to get a real one, and also a pity when all the needles fall down. So I got a little tree with soft needles. And bought some ribbon and an ornament. And here you can see the effect :-)



What more has happened?
Well, finally today I bought a trip to Egypt! I'll go with Filip on Sunday! Yuppi!! Ok, it will be only 5 days but better than nothing.
And since I was in the booking fever I also got tickets for flight for Xmas to Poland.

Yesterday Sandra and I went to the movies and saw Woody Allen's "Vicky Cristina Barcelona". It was a good one and with the great action city! :-)

Vacations

So I have started my vacations. Incredible. Since it seems that I'm not going to Göteborg this coming week, and I will stay in Hamburg I need to come up with some activities to do.
Gym and training of course. It may be nicer to do it during the day - not so many people and a better air quality ;-)
Then I plan to go to some museums - so far I've just been to the Art museum and it was also a long time ago...
I may also start a new painting, since the last one was I think more than 1 year ago. Shame!!
Of course I have some books to read.
And then I hope to meet some friends when they are done with work.

Yesterday we met with some friends at Altona Xmas market. We had some gluhwein and schmalzkuchen (so unhealthy and so good!). It was nice that almost everybody was there.

Enjoy the work week! ;-)

Xmas feber started...

The first Advent candle is lit. I cannot believe that we have December already...
After a crazy and tough week there was quite a relaxed weekend. Alex arrived on Friday evening, then he went to our neighbor to give him some birthday present (we were invited over but I didn't have the energy). On Saturday we decided to do some Xmas shopping. I guess 1 mln other people decided to do the same thing. There were so many people downtown!!! Anyway, we got most of the stuff and were home quite early.
Then we watched Kung fu Panda on DVD, ate something and gave each other Xmas presents :-)
Afterwards we went to one bar in Schanze to celebrate our Japanese colleague's birthday. Cyril managed to fix the present in a form of Autoliv F1 T-shirt. Kazuhiro was sooooo happy!!!
Here you can see the Xmas market in front of the Rathaus in Hamburg:


Here is the happy Latin population (left - Mexicans; right - Catalans: Raul and his wife):


Here the purchase-logistics-connection:
Jenny, Johan, Alex and Miguel ("dos")


Here: Dennis, happy Kazuhiro, Cyril, Karo, Mathias and his girlfriend in the back


And here also with Vengatesh (an Indian colleague who left the next day back to India). Plus you can see Kazu's Autoliv T-shirt :-)


Sunday was just a lazy day...When Alex left I went to the gym, then looked for some trips somewhere warm. Still no plans for the next weeks...Hope Filip will have some news this week and we can book a trip.

Oh yeah - some news: my Mac is "almost" ready now. Hope I can pick it up tomorrow and that everything will be working fine. After almost the whole month being "dead".