Flag

Remember the post about Eurovision I wrote a short while ago? No? Well, here is a link to it, so you can reread it. 

Anyway, yesterday a Polish colleague told me he had looked in two different shops over the weekend (he was in Poland obviously), but had failed to find a flag. He will however be going back to Poland soon and will have a look in some other shops. So, basically the Polish flag is in the bag. 

This morning I got a package in the mail. Containing a flag. Unfortunately an elephant must have sat on it, because the little stick was broken, but a bit of duct tape will soon mend that. 

And before anybody asks: no the United States of America do no enter the Eurovision Song Contest. But a flag is a flag is a flag and I can always wave it about when I don't have the flag of the country I should be having a flag of. (does that still make sense?)

Thank you Debby!

T is for...

Tornado

When I went to Canada in October of 2011, I had to change planes in Chicago. I had to wait a long time. A very long time! And when I have to wait, I get bored and start looking around me. And this is what I found: the sign for 'severe weather' and the little picture of a tornado.

I have seen some bad weather in my time: a green and yellow sky heralding a massive thunderstorm, snow storms, rain and wind storms, but fortunately I have never seen or been in a tornado! Now, the most famous person ever caught up in a tornado was of course Miss Galen (Dorothy to her friends) and her little dog Toto, as told by Frank L Baum.

This was the letter T for ABC Wednesday. Why not join?

'Earth'

Wow, how about making it difficult to pick! In the end though, I picked this photo taken of the earth from above, from an airplane. The subject matter is Houston Airport in the USA and I took this photo last year as I was flying home from my two-week stay in Canada.

I remember flying back from Edmonton. The first part of they journey was to Houston and from there I would catch a plane to Amsterdam. The weather was fantastic and I was able to see most of what we passed underneath. I am not sure, but I think we passed the Rockies in almost its entire length! Of course I didn't take any photos then (silly me), but I did when we lifted off again to fly to Amsterdam. Soon after leaving Houston though, the clouds became thicker and I wasn't able to see as much anymore. I did spot Prince Edward Island in the dark though, it was the last landmass I was able to see before we started flying below the clouds again in the Netherlands.

This is my sixteenth entry for Photo Theme for Thursday. Why not join?

Wait a minute here!

The plane from Amsterdam to Chicago

Well, if it had only been a minute I would have been quite happy, but unfortunately it seemed that today I did nothing but wait. And sit in an uncomfortable chair. For hours and hours on end. While my brand new mp3 player packed in half the time!! But I made it in the end. 28 hours after waking up I am ready to sleep standing up, but since there is a really nice looking bed in my room, I think I will be trying that!

Tunnel underneath Chicago airport

I waited for an hour at the airport this morning. Then a further two hours before going through the gate. The flight was over 8 1/2 hours and by hour number 5 I was well and truly extremely fed up with it. Despite the onboard films. And then the biggest horror of them all. I was told that the American customs could take absolutely ages checking everything and it could take hours before I passed from one terminal to the other. It took me thirty minutes. Which left 6 1/2 hours for waiting. But fortunately I was told which terminal to go to. Number 1 and gate C27. Where I dutifully sat for about an hour and then looked at my paperwork. Which said terminal 2.

Pepperfly's handiwork. The kept my feet nice and toasty on the cold plane

So, I asked and was told I had to go to terminal 2. I hopped on a small bus to the other side, got off, asked(!) and was told gate E2a. Which doesn't sound at all like C27. After a lot of waiting I had to go do something for myself and when I returned I noticed that Edmonton was finally listed. Departing from gate F12d. In the end I managed to get on the flight though and after (apparently) quite a rough flight I arrived in Canada just before 11pm. It's now an hour later, I am in my hotel room, knackered to the bone, dirty and grimy and looking forward to my bed. (According to my laptop btw, it's 8am, long live timezones...)

It might be photos!

As I got home yesterday I found a notice from the postal services. An undelivered package. Well, it had to be from my sister in Northern Ireland who has sent me some knitting booklets and all of her Paris photos on a stick. She probably paid extra so she would be sure I would receive them. The postal service would try again today.

Well, in a stroke of luck I was home when the mailman called. And instead of a small and flat package (that I had expected), the box was huge! And the sender's name didn't really ring any bells either. Until I saw Misfit scribbled somewhere.

Misfit has picked up on my challenge to find the perfect summer dessert and sent me a recipe a while back. Of course not a metric size in sight, but more importantly still: ingredients that I had never heard of! I figured out the one, but the other? I thought it might be jam (which is what American jelly is called in Europe), but couldn't find the version I would need. I looked in France: no luck. And I was about to make it with strawberry jam instead of apple jelly.

Well, now I don't need to, because in the box were a lovely note, a beautiful postcard, the pancake mix I needed and the apple jelly!

Misfit: you're completely mad, but I love it. Thank you so much, the cake will be made this Saturday!!!

Freedom

I was living in England in 1994 when Nelson Mandela was voted president of South Africa. The thing I most remember about that day were the endless queues of people waiting to vote. Miles of black people given the vote for the first time in their lives. It was a day for freedom and it brought me to tears.

Today is another one of those days. For the first time in the history of the United States a black man will lead the country. I believe more people than ever had showed up to vote in November last year. And today he was sworn in.

I don't know whether he will bring the goods he was talking about in his campaign and in his inauguration speech (that I'm listening to right now). He might be as great as he promises to be, he might fall hard.

But it's a day full of freedom, a day full of promise and I wish him well!