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Well my first American christmas is over and it wasn’t a white christmas. Not much to talk about it really other than the fact that I have been doing a lot of thinking over the last few days. Yes I do feel lonely right now at this time of year. But that is to be expected. I am a metric buttload of miles away from my family, all my friends that I have known for quite sometime are back there as well. So yes it’s tough. But I knew that going into it.

Work helps.. but it doesn’t distract you 100% of the time, part of me wishes it could though. Maybe that was why I kind of regressed a bit yesterday to old mal for a little bit. I took my “All bets are off” on Christmas day a little to far and I ended up going a bit overboard I think. But I will cut back, work out and work it all off and get back on track ready for the new year.

I do want to thank David though. He took me in, he let me become part of his family for the evening. It wasn’t by any means a “Traditional” christmas but it was pretty damn good, and I got to teach david a few aussie things as well (like what my dad’s rocky road is all about ;))

I might be posting a bit over the next few days covering my usual 2012 round down. What I did over, what my highlights were, how I went with my goals and then also what is in the plans for 2013.

But first I leave you with this… my one and only gift opened on christmas day… thanks to my friend Kat in Canada who knows me all to well and sends me a coffee gift basket.

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Words just can not describe how ecstatic I am right now. So much time and effort has been put into today, my apartment has been beautifully warm and I haven’t even needed the heat on due to the cooking today. As I have always wanted to try and make a christmas pudding on my own (usually I’m always helping my Dad who is the cook back home for this kind of thing). Now that I am over here, may as well give it a try, no harm right? Well add in a bit of a tough call on this because I comitted to bringing one for Christmas Dinner at my mates place. There was no going back it HAD to happen. If it didn’t, I had no real back up.

So for almost a month now since I made the comittment, the fruit has been soaking in Bacardi Black Label. Now it is far from traditional for this as usually it would be bundy that the fruit would of been soaked in. I have been stressing for weeks now, wanting to make sure that it all worked. As I spent weekend after weekend prepping to make sure I had the right things for the recipes. I had to hunt down a pudding cloth which meant a trip to the local craft store to get some Calico, but over here thats not all that easy now is it, because it isn’t even called calico, its muslin cloth. Then there are some of the spices, the recipe called for Mixed Spice, which of course isn’t here. Apparently it is called “pumpkin pie spice” and it exactly the same! And people say things are not different over here!

So the day approached, planning had to be done as once I started cooking this thing, it was all or nothing. 6 hours it would be on the stove, for at least 6 hours I would not be able to leave the house. So I made sure all my shopping and groceries were done yesterday, all the ingrediants were in the house, I had everything! I woke up this morning hit the gym and then as soon as I was showered and clean, before even having breakfast I got started on the pudding!

From Expat Life

The mix was made. Now time to deal with the cloth. One of the wierdest things and the most crucial. First you have to make sure the cloth is drenched in the boiling water, then you lay it out, cover it in flour and hope & pray it all works. Because if you don’t tie that string tight enough, it is SCREWED. So I did what I could. I tied it as tight as I could, I retied it again just to be sure. Totally worrying over each little bit. The funny thing was when I started putting it into the pot, well that was when I was starting to really worry.

In the bottom of the pot full of boiling water your meant to put a plate so it has something to protect the pudding from the bottom of the saucepan just in case. Also serves a dual purpose as the rattling of the plate keeps you aware that it is boiling. I wasn’t going to use a good plate though, stuff that! So off to the “thrift store” I went. Pretty similar to a Vinnies back home, I picked up a plate yesterday for 55c (incl tax). SCORE! I would have no problem if the thing cracked or was ruined cause seriously who cares about 55c. So into the saucepan it went with loads of water and then in went the pudding for the next 6 hours.

From Expat Life

So now I am stuck here, watching a stove for 6 hours. What to do, what to do! Well I made sure to finally eat (since by now it was almost 930am and no breakfast) but I had also decided to use up some of the leftover fruit. I kept some aside for a backup dessert in case the pudding didn’t work (Ice Cream Christmas Pudding in the middle of winter anyone?) and took the remainder and turned it into Fruit Mince Tarts. They turned out ok, and a spoon full of the mixture I tasted… HOLY CRAP WAS IT STRONG! Half a bottle of rum went into that fruit and it was killer. The tarts could do with a bit of perfecting and I may attempt another batch next weekend.

From Expat Life

But the main thing was I was still stuck around the house, So I gave the apartment its biggest clean, i tidied up everything and put hours of work into cleaning the house (especially after the mess I had created this morning). 6 hours later though the timer finally went off. After having to fill the pot with more water every 20-30 minutes it sure was good to know it was all done! I pulled it out of the pot and let it drain. I even had to call home and get Dad’s advice on what to do if I should pull the cloth off it. He told me I should of done it the minute it came out. WOOPS! So I did it straight away and SUCCESS!!!

From Expat Life

It worked! No water got in, nothing! It didn’t have the skin I like but hopefully some time in the fridge will help that out to set now. I am totally stoked that it turned out. All the stressing, effort and everything was not in vain. Now comes the problem… do I serve it with Brandy Custard or Ice Cream? one little problem.. I don’t have any brandy :/

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The run up to Christmas is always shocking at work but this week has just been crazy in life in general, adding to the madness of work. I posted earlier in the week about my weekend full of cooking and the 2nd update to the christmas cooking will be coming next week but with more planning and investigation there is now more to be cooked 😉

The craziest part of this week has been the temperatures up here in Seattle. Today marks the official start of Winter here in Washington state (apparently). It is also the Winter Equinox and also apparently the day the world is due to end (but I am still here so go suck it mayans). The temperature has now plummeted. I have struggled all this week with dealing with the temperatures. Monday it was raining and freezing cold, so that meant moving the run into the gym, no big deal but I feel like a Hamster on a wheel sometimes. Tuesday brought with it the first impending snow. It was meant to come down just north of my place in Everett.

It did snow Tuesday morning but none around me and it was no rain so out I went into the cold weather either way, I needed it! Seeing cars driving past with all the snow piled up on top was surreal and some guy in Shoreline (another suburb not to far from me) was out running in the snow. Instantly that was like “OMG that would be me if it was snowing here”. Plenty of stories on the news about roads and cars going everywhere, crashes etc. This was going to be interesting!

Wednesday it really did snow at my place! I walked outside to falling really light snow, I ran as fast as I could to the gym for my workout (since I don’t usually run on Wednesdays) and by the time I came out, the snow had turned to Rain and it was pretty much all gone 🙁 so no photos. Thursday, no snow, but plenty of rain in the morning but it had ended by the time work had finished, hell there was even Blue Sky before sunset (at like 4:30pm) 🙁 But this morning it was Ice. My first real morning of dealing with ice as I had to get out and run in the cold (I couldn’t do another day inside) and it was crazy. The first half a kilometre was a bit slippery so it was super slow and a few times I almost fell over! The drive to the park and ride this morning had a bit of a fishtail to begin with in the truck, but 4WD and traction control fixed that and I made it safely to the car park where I slowly walked across it 😉

I wonder what this weekend will bring now that its officially winter and its barely getting above single digit degrees C. Kinda wish I was home and it was like 30c and warm and blue sky. Guess I will just have to cope with the occasional bit of blue sky we get here like this afternoon. It may have been blue sky outside but it sure as hell was not warm!

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So as usual around this time of year, there is usually a lot of cooking and baking done. Now normally this is shared between me and my dad making all the goodies. But this year, it’s all up to me. The hardest part though is finding all the stuff that I used to cook.

Each year family tradition means lots of little treats and most of these aren’t all that common in the USA. Things like Rocky Road, Rum Balls, White Christmas, don’t seem to be all that common over here. But doesn’t mean I am not going to make it and introduce my yankee friends. But finding some of the ingrediants has been a challenge. Small little items that I took for granted at home, are just a hassle to find. Turkish delight got a whole raft of “what is that?” from my American friends, but it was ok to find in the end. A mediterranean grocery solved that issue. Things like dessicated coconut over here isn’t that common. Sure there is coconut but it may look like it, but its not. The coconut over here seems to be wet, and wierd looking. It kinda makes the rum balls a little bit different. Obviously with no Bundy (Bundaberg Rum) over here, they will taste slightly different.

So here we have the rum balls before:

and after:

The Rocky Road though, the only hurdle was the turkish delight. I could find replacement chocolate and everything else. But it looks pretty much like it did bake home

Copha was a whole other story. Copha is essentially vegetable shortening, but unlike Crisco, its solid. I think it is because Copha is made from Coconut oil, crisco is not. So after lots of research online I managed to find a substitute:

Palmin is a German Coconut based vegetable shortening. It looks pretty much like Copha did. And it is available in Seattle at a Scandanavian Grocery and they seem to always have it in stock. SWEET! White Christmas & Chocolate Crackles are in my friends future! The mix turned out well:

and tasted pretty damn awesome (i tried a little bit)

I made some shortbread to, though not the best it was my first time making it, as I usually leave that to dad, who is the shortbread expert imo.

Next weekend will be a whole other story. Mal’s adventures with Christmas Plum Pudding is going to be a blog post alone!

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Introduction
Delivery Dinner
Seattle to Doha
Exploring Doha Day 1
Exploring Doha Day 2 & 3
Doha to Seattle
Conclusion

Friday 16th November 2012

There wasn’t much at all planned for me over the next couple of days. I had some time free on both mornings in the original plans but this changed once I got to Qatar as I had an opportunity come my way. In the end it was pretty relaxed couple of days. After a morning run in the Qatar morning warmth (first time worn my sunglasses running in months) around the airport perimeter for a bit, I got to spend the first part of my day doing some stuff for work. I was on assignment to investigate Qatar as a stopover destination for our clients travelling to Africa. So my job was to go and check out a few hotels, get a quick idea of what is here what isn’t.

I negotiated a taxi for the morning and spent some time exploring a list of hotels I had managed to put together after chatting to a number of people (including the taxi driver). Some pretty decent hotels out there, I was seriously impressed and if I get a chance to go back, I know a couple of hotels I wouldn’t mind staying in (New Intercon comes to mind).

From Qatar Trip
From Qatar Trip

After visiting the last hotel, I got the Taxi driver to take me out to the Katara Cultural Village where I was due to have lunch and attend some events for the Dhow Festival. Things didn’t go quite as planned but it was still a good afternoon. Katara has a pretty nice location, right on the water with its own beach but it was the surroundings that got me. Also playing “Spot the Commodore” was a bit of fun.

From Qatar Trip
From Qatar Trip
From Qatar Trip
From Qatar Trip
From Qatar Trip

The amphitheatre, the Golden Mosque and a whole heap of other buildings just made it seem like something out of Lawrence of Arabia. It was pretty good to explore and to make the afternoon better the Qatar Defence Forces Band was performing along with the Belarusian Honor Guard. There was a heap of events underway for the Dhow Festival including some rowing events (think Dragon Boat/Outrigger) but I was pretty beat and the sun was setting so I left early and headed back to the hotel to do a bit of work.

From Qatar Trip
From Qatar Trip
From Qatar Trip
From Qatar Trip

After a couple of hours working I was pretty hungry and decided to head to the Souq for dinner. I had a desire to have some indian food as with a good population of Indians in Qatar, I figured there had to be some good indian food. Sadly the one and only place around the Souq was a solid hour wait to get in, even for 1 person. So I broke one of my rules and headed back to the hotel for dinner. BUT this turned out to be pretty great. I knew they were having a special Indian buffet for the Diwali festival and the food was REALLY good. I really enjoyed it and I tried so much stuff I had never had before. What made it definitely the right decision was that they mistook me for someone who worked for Qatar Airways so gave me their discount which was 20% of the normal rate. Not 20% off, 80% off! Dinner cost me about $15! For a hotel buffet that’s pretty damn good pricing! By the time I finished dinner, I was full and ready for bed!

From Qatar Trip
From Qatar Trip

Saturday 17th November 2012

A Saturday morning run around the airport, in the sun but this time I remembered to take a sticker with me for a fun little game I play with a mate 😉

From Qatar Trip

My morning was to be spent pretty relaxed actually. After breakfast I was being picked up by someone from Qatar Executive Jet to go and be introduced to a few people and also see one of their aircraft (only 1 aircraft was free and even that was only for 30 mins). We cleared the airport security as I wore my shiny new Airport pass (which I couldn’t keep unfortunately), and headed out around the Tarmac on a mini tarmac tour of sorts.

From Qatar Trip

Getting down low with all the aircraft is always fun for an Avgeek but this was even better. As at the other end, I was getting out on the tarmac in front of the hangar where a Challenger 605 was being prepped for departure. When we arrived they offered us something truly awesome. We didn’t need a lift back to the terminal, as we were getting a ride onboard the aircraft as it was being positioned over to the other side of the airfield (to the same bay we arrived at on the 787 actually). What an opportunity!!

From Qatar Trip

The ride around was good, watching the ground crews do their setup of the aircraft and tow it around to the bay. Onboard the Challenger is truly the best way to fly. You have enough space for 8 or so people comfortably, 4 of the seats turn to two HUGE single beds, the couches turn into a double bed and you still have another Divan. Add onto this that you can come and go when and where you want, eat what you want, drink what you want, stay connected in the air & Smoke if you desire. It has to be the best way to fly!

From Qatar Trip
From Qatar Trip
From Qatar Trip

After that I had a couple of hours free before I was scheduled to head over to Katara again for more stuff on the Dhow festival, so I ended up sitting by the pool, catching up on life and doing some plane spotting as the pool had a truly awesome view of the aircraft as they rotated off the runway. I managed to get a couple of decent shots and the sun was just awesome to be out sitting in. Did I really have to head home to Seattle? Please can I stay?.

From Qatar Trip

While I was spotting I got a message telling me I was free for the afternoon If I didn’t feel like going to the stuff that was planned, so I took that opportunity to explore the city some more. I jumped in a cab and headed out to the Qatar Grand Mosque. I had never visited a Mosque before so wasn’t sure what to expect. I made sure I wasn’t there during call to prayer as I didn’t want to be disrespectful. I made sure I kept my sleeves down as well.

The taxi ride over was eventful after the driver took me in the total wrong direction (he thought I said “Green Mosque” not “Grand Mosque” and we fought a little till I told him to drop me off and ill walk the rest of the way, gave him less money than he wanted and I left. Not the best thing to do, but I wasn’t sure if he was trying to rip me off or truly didn’t know where he was going. After a 10 minute walk from where I was dropped off (I could see the mosque) the sheer size of the place just stuns you.

From Qatar Trip
From Qatar Trip

When I turned up a security guard showed me around, answering my questions (first time that has happened) about how big, how old, etc He told me that on a Friday at Midday prayer, they get over 15,000 people there. That was a huge shock and he explained (in his limited English) that they spread everywhere even outside above the car park (which had escalators to mind you, a thing you don’t expect to see).

From Qatar Trip
From Qatar Trip
From Qatar Trip

I took a mountain of photos, some panoramas and just soaked in the sight of this massive building before heading off in search of a taxi to take me downtown. I was aiming for city centre mall, which I could kind of see in the distance (I could see the buildings near by it, so figured if kept walking that way and was careful I would be ok). Pretty soon I had been walking for half an hour and no sign of empty cabs. So I gave up on the cab and kept on walking.

From Qatar Trip
From Qatar Trip
From Qatar Trip
From Qatar Trip

I walked for a solid hour and a half all the way from the mosque to downtown (About 4-5 miles) all the while trying not to die. I did manage to get some directions from a lovely expat couple at a gas station who showed me which way to keep going. Heaps of weird sights but I eventually found one mall which had a Breitling store in it, so I quickly fled out before I wasted all of my money 😉

From Qatar Trip
From Qatar Trip
From Qatar Trip
From Qatar Trip

After that mall I headed over to City Center Mall which was my intended destination to check out a few things, see what passes for a mall here in Doha and get some lunch from the supermarket. It wasn’t all that bad the mall but it wasn’t all that good either. They had some of the usual stores you would expect to see, a whole random weird range of other stores but the main draw card to me was Carrefour. I am a big fan of just wandering through local supermarkets in new countries/areas and seeing what the locals eat. This was an eclectic mix of Arabic, American, British and European stuff all rolled into one crazy mix. Pretty mind blowing to be honest.

From Qatar Trip
From Qatar Trip
From Qatar Trip
From Qatar Trip

After City Centre I decided I had more time to kill till my intended destination (the post office) opened at 5pm, so why not keep walking. It hadn’t failed me yet. So I did. Walked for another hour or more all the way to the Sheraton, to the Corniche and along the Corniche (did I mention yet that I didn’t have a map and was navigating by guessing and kind of remembering things I had checked online before leaving the hotel). It was good to be walking again, I was feeling bad being cooped up in a taxi.

From Qatar Trip
From Qatar Trip
From Qatar Trip
From Qatar Trip

By the time I got to the post office, got some stamps for my mum and one to post a letter to someone (I never did get any postcards sadly) it was dark so time to head back to the hotel for dinner cause I was being lazy and it was meant to be an early morning tomorrow for my flight home. Dinner that night was a Japanese themed buffet and it was pretty damn good even if it was in the middle east 😉 Hit the sack early ready to prepare for a LONG LONG day.

From Qatar Trip
From Qatar Trip

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Introduction
Delivery Dinner
Seattle to Doha
Exploring Doha Day 1
Exploring Doha Day 2 & 3
Doha to Seattle
Conclusion

Thursday 15th November 2012

My first full day in Qatar was busy with arrangements made with Qatar Airways to not only see the city but also to visit the New Doha International Airport (hereby referred to as NDIA) under construction. It was an earlyish start to head over to NDIA but to be honest, I try to keep a normal routine when I am travelling to help beat the jetlag. This means that no matter what I am always up around normal time (530-630) to have a work out. So this morning was no different and I hit the hotel gym for a run nice and early. Pretty decent gym to!

From Qatar Trip

Breakfast at the hotel restaurant was pretty spectacular as well with no end to the options and after seeing “Porridge” on the menu I couldn’t help but try it and it was British style as well. Still a bit runny but made on milk not water. With lots of goodies on offer, it was a tough call on what to have but I kept it under control, kind of.

From Qatar Trip

After breakfast we headed off to NDIA for our brief and tour of the facilities. Unfortunately no cameras could be taken with us on the tour of NDIA so lugging the big camera bag around felt like a waste (but in the end we were allowed to take photos on the outside, just not the inside). We got a full brief by the project manager of the airport on everything and some of the figures were just staggering. The new airport expects to handle 24 million passengers a year with a Minimum Connect time of 30 minutes between flights. That is a BIG call considering most flights start boarding at that time!

From Qatar Trip
From Qatar Trip

The facilities were impressive; especially the new Amiri Terminal (still couldn’t get a quote out of them about the 747-8). The Amiri terminal is the new replacement to the Ministerial lounge we had arrived at the day before. This facility was way more impressive, surrounded by water; large domed style facility which I’m sure on the inside would be truly epic. Even on the outside it has a full jet bridge that is open to the air, but can be covered and allows people to step off the aircraft onto the red carpet with no stairs involved.

From Qatar Trip

The Mosque at the airport was just as impressive with a beautiful design. It would have been stunning inside if we had of been allowed in. I would be a very happy person to spend some time in that airport considering what it was. The biggest thing that startled me was just how finished it is, however it’s not scheduled to open anytime soon due to delays in the construction. During our tour we got taken through the immigration area which was eerily empty (sure it won’t stay that way) and also went past all the baggage testing that was being done, with test bags and all (where they got so many god awful looking suitcases I’ll never know).

From Qatar Trip
From Qatar Trip
From Qatar Trip

After the tour we dropped a couple of people off at the Premium Terminal as they were heading home, before heading to the hotel for a brief pit stop and to pick someone else up. It was good to have a bit of a rest for one where nothing was required and I surfed the net a bit on my phone thanks to the Wi-Fi. Eventually we got back on the road and headed to the Museum of Islamic Art. Designed by I M Pei who also designed the Louvre the place is just beautiful.

From Qatar Trip
From Qatar Trip

It is full of pieces of Islamic art and culture from all over the Islamic world (Egypt, Iran, Iraq, and Turkey etc.) and some of the pieces dated back to the 10th century or earlier. Just looking at some of the pieces was amazing, sadly we only had about 30 minutes or so here before we had to go to lunch (since we were running late… as usual). One thing I will give the museum is it is on a damn prime piece of real estate. The views towards Downtown Doha were incredible. Breathtaking would be a good way to describe it.

From Qatar Trip
From Qatar Trip
From Qatar Trip
From Qatar Trip

From the Museum we did a bit of a quick tour of a few places before heading off to the Souq area for lunch. Unfortunately the Souq was closed as they seem to close between 12 and 4pm daily, pretty much cause in summer, there is no way you could be out during that time!

From Qatar Trip
From Qatar Trip
From Qatar Trip

We had lunch on the balcony overlooking the now closed Souq and it was again, more Arabic cuisine, but our entertainment was provided by one of our fellow lunch guests and some Sheesha. Pretty good food to, I do like some of the Arabic food, especially the bread. Yummmm.

From Qatar Trip
From Qatar Trip
From Qatar Trip

After Lunch we were picked up by our driver Mustafa and we headed out to the Desert about 45 minutes from Doha where we were going to go off the highways and roads, let down the tires and hit the sand. I hadn’t been sand driving in years (last time I was on Fraser Island) and even then that was on a huge bus. We were in a Landcruiser (which funnily enough is the number 1 car in Qatar, and I think they sell them all with the same stripe down the side to). Mustafa was pretty cool and told us a lot about living in Qatar and being a local born Qatari. How life differs here to back home in Aus or the USA. Always good to learn these things from a local in a more relaxed setting.

From Qatar Trip

Once we hit the desert we were both stunned by just how many people were out and about in the dunes by that time (it was around 415-430 by now) and just how beautiful it could be. The light was fading, the sky was changing colors and the photos were getting snapped like crazy. I did manage to get a couple of videos and it was a heap of fun going up and down the dunes. Some of the dunes you looked at and you just looked at it thinking “Am I really about to do this?” They were just looked like the dumbest thing to do. But we were fine and Mustafa was in his element.

From Qatar Trip
From Qatar Trip
From Qatar Trip
From Qatar Trip

After making it all the way out to the Inland Sea where we only there about 5 minutes we headed off via the dunes to the Bedouin Desert Camp where we were to have some time relaxing and some dinner. We were told we could go swimming (neither of us did) and when we arrived that we could do as we pleased. What we didn’t expect was that the Desert Camp normally holds 150 people. Myself and Ben were the only two people there! It was a bit overwhelming. We got waited on hand and foot and kind of felt a little bad that all these staff were looking after us.

From Qatar Trip
From Qatar Trip
From Qatar Trip
From Qatar Trip

After a lovely relaxing sit by the water chatting, dinner on a carpet sitting on pillows and a bit of a lie down, we navigated our way back through the dunes in the dark. How they can do that I have no idea because it was pretty much pitch black. Once off the sand we pulled up by the side of the road at some shops where a couple of guys were refilling people’s tires with air. Great service, you rock up, tell them the tire pressure, hand them some rials and your tires are pumped up without you even moving an inch.

We got back to the hotel and Mustafa dropped us off, Ben was leaving around 1am but it was only around 9pm and I wasn’t all that tired. Mustafa had mentioned that the Souq (which we missed out on seeing) was open till around 11pm. So I headed out to explore and get some souvenir shopping done. The Souq Waqif was pretty pumping. People were enjoying their “Friday” night (even though it was Thursday, but the Qatar working week is Sunday through Thursday) out in the Souq, eating, drinking tea and smoking some Sheesha.

From Qatar Trip
From Qatar Trip

I explored the laneways, looking, browsing, and bartering. I bought a couple of things (and an extra bag to carry all the swag home in) and found the spice Souq (but couldn’t take anything home with me since I doubted I could bring It back) and also the animal Souq where you can buy a lot of different animals including fluro colored chicks.

From Qatar Trip
From Qatar Trip

After shopping to my heart’s content (and not costing me all that much) I headed back in a cab to the hotel where I passed out pretty soundly. My first day in Qatar had been a success.

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This time something a little different book wise… something that will shock some people.

Suite Francaise

The book is Suite Française by Irène NÊmirovsky.  This is a novel written in the 1940s during the war period by acclaimed writer and novellest  Irène NÊmirovsky.  A Russo-French-Jewish author who wrote this booking during the war period and then unfortunately died at Auscwitz in 1942.  The book sat a long time before being found and published in english in 2002, 60 years after her death.  That is a LONG time.

The book is a fiction novel but slightly towards my interest as it is written about France during the occupation by Nazi Germany.  Not only that it follows the lives of French Citizens during not only the occupation but also during the Invasion of France by the Germans and the seemingly mass exodus of people from Paris.  The book felt like I was reading a modern take on War & Peace as there was love, war, all the bits and pieces you would expect from the Tolstoy Classic but in a much more modern feel as rather than the French Russian war of the 1800s it is of the French German war of the 40s.  A very different time period obviously.

Although not my normal kind of book it wasn’t bad and I don’t really have all that much to talk about it, to be honest it broke up the usual books I read and gave me something different to read but I probably wouldn’t of read or even heard of it had I not been recommended it by a Tour Guide while visiting France last year.  In saying that, if you want a fictional representation of Nazi Occupied Europe, it should be on your list.

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Sunday I ran my last 5k race of the year. My third and final race this time was the biggest. After getting myself confused with a different Jingle Bell run that my trainer was doing (sadly she was talking about the one in Tacoma not Seattle). I ran the 2012 Seattle Jingle Bell Run
Meant to support arthritis this was a 5k run straight through downtown Seattle.

Meant to be on the 2nd Sunday in December I was looking forward to one last run and not taking it so seriously, getting some Christmas spirit as well. What I didn’t expect was just how many people. I had managed to con my manager Anna into joining me for the run and she conned her partner in.

It was a pretty awesome route though going up (and i mean uphill) 5th Ave through the middle of downtown then an awesome experience of going down through the tunnel into the I5 express lanes, where we would spend a good period of the run. But this was also what made it difficult at the same time.

The run was a mess, so many people. I was seeing race numbers in the 15000s! That is seriously another level above anything I have ever run before. The run at PFAD was maybe 100 people, the run at Halloween was maybe 400 or more, but this was crazy!

Due to the volumes of people we worked out we were a solid 2 mins behind our time and spent dodging other people and breaking out of the pack. The tunnel added more problems because you just couldn’t go anywhere at all, you were stuck in the middle of it all. I swear I stood on someone a few times.

Post race was pretty good, took a mere minute to get my bag from the coat check and 20 mins after finishing, waving bye to the boss and some rehydration I was in the truck heading home.

I will link in the run map but it’s not entirely accurate due to the tunnel but the time is spot on!

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So after spending all morning running errands this morning driving all over the place here and there (without really stopping at all, spending more time in the truck than out of it) I met up with a few fellow #avgeeks up at Z’s burgers in Mukilteo. I had blogged about this place earlier and I know David from Airline Reporter wanted to check it out and with a couple of other Avgeeks in town it was about time for them to check it out.

I didn’t eat anything there as I was still in “weight loss” mode (managed to lose 4 pounds last week, should be back on track this week I think) but once they had consumed their tasty looking burgers, we headed off to Future of Flight as there was meant to be a couple of 787s, a 737 and a 767 on their way back to Paine field.  The 16s were running so we headed off to Future of Flight and thankfully there was not much wind up on the Strato Deck (unlike last week where I thought I was going to be blown off the roof) and we settled in for some spotting and some general #avgeek chatting.

What transpired was a couple of hours of watching planes come and go (mainly cessna’s) a 787 coming into land and a 767 playing silly buggers by doing an aborted landing, 2 touch and go’s (and at some point it looked like he wasn’t going to make it back off the ground) and then he finally came into land.  The 737 got sick and tired of waiting for all the Cessna’s to pass so it just up and left without even coming close to the field (and I don’t blame then).

David & I ended up giving into temptation and buying something that we probably could do without (and i’ll post about it later in the week probably, if not officially on  Airlinereporter.com) and then set off hunting down a good clear shot of the random Qatari 747-8 VIP sitting at Paine Field (the strobes were going and we were hoping and praying it was going to take off… it didn’t).

After being shown a couple of new shooting locations for some of the parked aircraft, I dropped David back at FoF and headed on to continue my errands of which I barely finished by 7pm!  Crazy busy day and tomorrow just as bad probably!  I haven’t even had time to touch up the photos yet so they will wait for another couple of weeks.

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It has been a while since I got my rant on, but right now I need it to release. So for those of you not interested please return to your regular morning reading, the rest of you, read on.

Seattle has the US’s 4th worst traffic and I know exactly why. It has nothing to do with bad roads, crappy weather etc. It is because the public transport here is pathetic. It is unreliable, slow and just badly managed. But let’s break it down and put blame exactly where it lies.

In my part of Seattle there are two main operators of the buses King County Metro and Community Transit. This rant is 100% targeted at the latter. Community Transit (hereafter referred to as CT) is part of Snohomish County all the way in the North and I pretty much live just inside the Southern Border. O how I wish I lived just a few miles south.

There are two main kinds of services you have the Feeder Services and the Commuter services. Both are as bad as each other but one more so than the other. The thing that pushed this rant from pet hate to “Fuck it, I’m over this shit” happened last night and until then I just kept my trap shut, even with the bad service.

As I mentioned the two different kinds of services run by CT. Usually I have no problems with the Commuter services as they are pretty good but last night took the cake. I missed my usual bus as I was tied up at work a few extra minutes, no big deal the buses (532) go every 15 minutes pretty much so I was golden, I should make it to the bus mere moments before it arrives and I won’t have to stand long in the cold. Wrong! 3 buses never came. No warning, no apologies, nothing, 30 minutes in the freezing cold with about 100 other people lining up waiting, frustrated.

Add that onto the fact that the Feeder services are always late. I have heard people mention hours delays by drivers and not a single word or apology. CT don’t seem to participate in the Seattle Transit app as they never seem to show properly, let alone that some of the drivers are just rude, annoying or drive either erratically or at a snails pace.

I want to drive into work like everyone else but the traffic is pathetic! So I guess I am stuck for a while. I can’t complain to much as work covers my Public Transport costs and that alone saves me more than the hassle probably but when incidents like last night happen, a little apology would be nice.

Right about now, I am a bit calmer after ranting but it always helps to get things off your chest. Is it going to change the way CT operate? Nope. Is it going to change anything at all? Nope. Will I keep catching the bus, yep, but then it’s either a bus where I can switch off, read a book, or blog or just tune out for the hour door to door commute or I can be stuck in the truck the same length of time.

Which would you choose?