Sunset over Manhattan

I've been told by you know who that I have to be choiceful in the pictures I keep.
The thing is that I'm not so good at making choices especially when I see a reason why to keep something, otherwise I would have less pairs of shoes or pictures of elephants :)

I can truly justify why I want to keep all the below pictures: the sky might be slightly different, the color of the light on the antenna changed, the sun moved, you name it.

Empire State building at sunset

THE ball

We did see it…

… digitally :)

The famous stair case of the MOMA

Metropolitan Museum

The Metropolitan museum is one of my favorite museums in the world. If I were living in New York, I would have an annual pass and come every other week to visit one section at a time. This museum is huge and it’s impossible to visit entirely in one day.

We started with a tour of the museum highlights. We were extremely lucky as only the two of us showed us at the meeting point and therefore had a private tour. I still cannot believe we had a guide just for us for one full hour. Not only did we get to ask all the questions we wanted, but also we saw more than in the standard tour as with only 2 people to move, it goes faster.

Here is a selection of my highlights, leaving aside the paintings.

Time Square

The lights, the crowd,

The musicals, the crowd,

The shops, the crowd...

Brooklyn Bridge

First glimpse at the Brooklyn Bridge from the pier below.

I was quite surprised by the pier area. Last time I was down here it was not really the place to be. Now it’s been cleaned up and revamped making it nice to walk along. If only it was warmer weather.

Unfortunately for us there were works on the bridge and big parts of it were covered. Still we walked it all the way to Brooklyn and back. Once again, this walk is much nicer in a warmer season. With the wind it felt very cold on the bridge.

Also first glimpse at the Empire State Building and the growing “twin” towers.

NY Financial district

Let’s face it, there is not much to see in the Financial district, apart from people working there rushing from one building to the other. We still walked those legendary streets stopping at the Federal Hall and of course Wall street.

Interestingly, churches used to be the highest buildings built by humans. Clearly in Manhattan this does not apply. Look at this church and how small it seems between two skyscrapers. PS: unfortunately I was not successful in capturing the full impression on this picture but I hope it gives an idea.

Ground Zero

To start our visit of New York, Wolfram picked lower Manhattan, and more specifically Ground Zero.

The apartment of my cousin is in the campus of Columbia University, right next to the subway station 116^th street on line 1, line whic happens to very conveniently cross the whole Manhattan from north to south. We quickly figured out how to get a metro card and started our journey all the way down to Rector street.

Founding Ground Zero was very easy as 1) a huge whole between all the skyscrapers is hard to miss, and 2) simply following the crowd will get you there in no time.

Visiting Ground Zero on the other hand requires preparation which we didn’t know. The 9/11 memorial will be inaugurated in Sept’12, until then it’s possible to visit the construction site and get a preview. It’s free BUT one should book online his ticket before coming. Of course we had no idea, so we looked at the site from behind the fence.

I guess we’ll have to come back when the memorial is finished as well as the two new towers. Until then, it’s just one of the most photographed construction sites.

Christmas lunch/dinner

This year, we did improvise quite a bit in terms of food for Christmas dinner and lunch. But we managed to have our classics.
Consequence, the whole floor was perfumed by our turkey :)

Look at the beast!

No ice skating yet

Lake is not ready, yet. Pity.

Diet Coke in French from Canada

Diet Coke in French from Canada is not Coca-Cola Light like in France, it's Coke Diète. Truth be told, diète means indeed eating less so is probably closer from a translation point of view to the English diet. Still it's weird to see.

The Georgian Bay

While Jean-Habib and Lisa were busy preparing the turkey, my parents and I drove to the top of the hill of Blue Mountain. Objective was to have a walk up there and enjoy the view on the Georgian bay, i.e. the great lakes.

After struggling to find the parking that was simply not well indicated leading to people passing it without realizing, we did park and got out of the car. It was windy, very windy, so windy I was happy to wear my “North Pole special” outfit.

Sadly there was not much to see as the weather was very cloudy by the time we got there. We could still guess the shadow of the lake far away but that was about it.

We walked a bit on top of the skiing trails, watching the few skiers fighting for the little snow available. It was almost surreal how the hill had snow but the plain and everywhere else not.

Despite the cold, it was nice to be outside, breathing (very) fresh air.

Now it’s time to go back and have a hot chocolate.

A Christmas away from home

Traditionally my family meets at my parents for Christmas. There have been a few exceptions throughout the years. One of them was the first year I was in Belgium. This year is another one.

We all (except Wolfram) flew to Canada where my brother and Lisa now live. This year we’re spending Christmas in Blue Mountain, a ski resort. This year we are having a white Christmas. When you live in Brittany chances of a white Christmas are low, therefore whenever it happens we are all excited.

Obviously we have to adapt to being away from my parents’ home in the way we celebrate Christmas. This said, some elements are no miss so we figured something out:

-          Christmas tree: Jean-Habib brought a small plastic one. Not as nice as a real one big one, but at least there is a tree.

-          Small silver tree that decorates the TV since I can remember did come in a suitcase.

-          Christmas cookies: couldn’t travel with them so we bought already made cookie dough and will bake them. We also bought Christmas M&M’s to set the mood.

-          There will be turkey, Canadian one, but still turkey.

-          There will be Koulibiac on the 24^th, with some adjustment to the recipe due to some ingredients hard to find but hopefully it will look (and taste?) like a Koulibiac.

-          Joy brought a couple of small Christmas table cloths and other decoration elements to set the scene.

-          There will be foie gras. Don’t ask how it made its way here.

-          Tons of Christmas music is available thanks to CDs and iPhones.

-          Puzzle was kindly provided by the locals

-          Last but not least, we will be altogether which is the most important.

A walk through the village

This afternoon, my dad and I dressed up warm and went for a walk in the village. Temperature was manageable as long as there was no wind. As soon as the wind was blowing, you could feel the cold all the way to your bones.

Bravely we walked through the village to see what’s out there. First lot’s of ski trails. There has not been much snow so far so the station is using heavily canon to make snow and have some of the slopes open. I cannot help thinking about the cost that must represent to have so many canons working. At the same time a day of skiing will cost you around 100 dollars including ski rental. Somewhere it must square financially.

Like I mentioned, we happen to have an apartment right at the bottom of the slopes. Which is nice as you can spend your afternoon by the chimney watching people skiing.

The village is quite small and from the look and content could have been a Disney village. Mostly village is made of hotels or other housing to rent, and the traditional “apres ski”: restaurants, bars, shops, aquatic center, etc.

Weider lodge, where we stay

Winter scenes

The artificial lake, frozen in this season

In the summer I guess you can nicely sit around and enjoy the sun. In the winter you quickly have a look and rush back inside for a hot chocolate.

I have to say I like this idea that you can simply go down the ski slope straight into the village and drop your skis in front of the shop or restaurant. It’s the first time I’ve seen a valet parking for ski.

Roughly after 30min outside we rushed back in with red noses. That was enough cold for the moment.

Blue Mountain first impressions

My brother picked us up at the airport, us and the caravan of luggage we brought. My family is not known for travelling light.

We drove to Blue Mountain village where he booked us an apartment.

Not much snow while driving there. Seems it’s the warmest winter in Canada. Lucky us.

This said the apartment is right at the bottom of the sky domain. Literally speaking one could sky and walk directly into the apartment. I’ll take pictures tomorrow.

Note: this morning we woke up with snow. It started to snow sometime during the night. We might have our white Christmas after all.

Not much space

When I arrived at my seat I discover that my space would be very limited. Not leg space, but width. The man sitting in the middle seat would have probably fit into 2 of them. When you see him it’s hard to believe he could squeeze himself into one economy seat. That’s probably why he was expanding on mine.

I’ve spend the whole 8 hours fighting for my space. While I did give up the arm rest from the beginning I was not willing to let go more space. This translated of 8 hours of bumping into his arm, but what else could I do.

Apart from that little annoyance, the flight went well. I watched movies, ate my low calorie meal and was starving most of the flight. I ordered a special meal so I get food before everybody else and I feel a bit special. The low calorie meal however is not enough and clearly it’s not credible to order a low calorie meal and ask for snacks later on. Next time I’ll pick another option. I heard the Kosher one is not bad.

5 hours to kill in Schipol airport

Once again I have 5 hours to kill in Schipol airport.

Last time was on the way to Thailand and I was with Alice, i.e. I had good company and someone with a Platinum status to get me into the lounge.

This time I am all by myself. I started by finding the Internet corner with free internet. Slow but free internet is better than nothing.

I had a tea and a muffin for breakfast there.

I finished a few emails for work.

I finally finished working the pictures of the elephants from Thailand. With 3 millions of them at least, I never managed to go through all of them until now.

I watched a couple of episodes of CSI.

I browsed through the shops and bought myself a new trolley on sale. A month ago I had to say good bye to my red trolley. I had it since I started working. It was time as it was falling apart and louder than an aircraft taking off when rolling. I replace my red Delsey for a grey one. A bit smaller as the new rules on cabin luggage are smaller than 7 years ago but expandable. Don’t tell Wolfram  as he thinks we have too many suitcases, which I would obviously challenge. Clearly one can never have enough bags.

I visited the newspaper shop pondering with the thought of buying wedding magazines.

I considered buying Gouda for my brother.

Despite all these activities, I was bored. Travelling alone might be acceptable on a business trip, but it is not fun on vacation.

Good news

I started packing for the trip to Canada and of course the suitcase looks very full and potentially too heavy. Don't ask why, most of it stays in Canada.
I checked on the KLM website but found conflicting info i.e. 1 piece of 23kg or 2 pieces of 23kg.
To clarify I called their customer service and talked to probably the most polite and helpful person in a customer service in a while. Not only was he polite but on top he had good news. I can bring:
- 1 piece of 23kg checked-in
- 1 hand luggage of 12kg
- 1 laptop bag
- 1 handbag
Clearly those guys have no idea how much a woman can stretch the above.
But even better, thanks to my Silver status I can check in one extra bag! Being Silver is not like being Gold (sigh....) but it's better than nothing.
Suddenly packing is much easier.

Unfortunately he couldn't book me an emergency row seat as within 30 hours from the flight it has to be done at the airport. I'll ask for it tomorrow morning, when I get there, at 5am. Keep your fingers crossed.

Marshmallow World

To keep the spirit up and get into Holidays mood.

Not good, not good at all.

More information on the general strike on Thursday 22 December

The three big trade unions in Belgium are calling for a general 24-hour strike in the public sector from Wednesday 21 December 10 pm to Thursday 22 December 10 pm to protest against the pension reforms. As a result there will be no train or bus servicesfrom and to Brussels Airport. Passengers are advised to take the necessary precautions.

At this moment we do not know if or to what extent air traffic operations will be impacted. We will try to keep you informed as best we can. In any case, passengers due to depart on Thursday had best check the flight information as of Wednesday.

Let's just hope my flight to Amsterdam won't be cancelled, nor the train of my parents.

Christmas tree made in Beirut's new souk

Office with view

To make my colleagues back home jealous. This said with such a view and weather not sure I would ever feel like working :)

To make my brother jealous

That's what I had for Breakfast this morning in Beirut with of course view on the sea.