3am fun and games with Master Ethan!

Ethan is growing and developing, as it should be, and he is getting more aware for every day that passes. Now, instead of waking up around 2-3am for a quick 2 minute devouring of a bottle and his usual ‘roll-over-to-show-you-that-I-am-done-with-you-and-you-are-free-to-go-back-to-sleep-now-mom/dad’ he has now moved on to ‘I-am-just-going-to-snack-a-little-and-then-stand-on-all-four-ready-for-giggles-and-playtime-then-snack-a-little-bit-more’. As you can imagine, this is putting a little dent our much needed nighttime sleep. So far we have coped with it, we’ve just been a little bit more tired than usual, but let's hope this is just a phase that’ll pass shortly!

What else? We are now starting to see forward motion when he is playing in his cop car (last week he could only chase bad guys in reverse) and Ethan also has a brand new matching set of teeth in his top jaw. He will probably be very proud to show off his pearly whites to the world real soon. At the same time, our little buddy has gotten more sensitive to loud noises and sudden noises (like tonight when I ripped up a new box of nappies or when mommy and daddy 'team burped' after dinner), but that’s all normal of course.

We have been very, very lucky with Ethan so far, he is not prone to colds or colic and ugly things like that, he is hungry like a wolf, playful and happy as ever, and to top it off, he is cute as a button!

Ethan's Pimped out Throne

This one's for you Great Grandma!

When in Rome

Next Sunday is the start of my company's 2010 kick-off in Rome and I have about 5 or 6 hours of free time in the afternoon before it is time to suit up and attend to business. After that, I will be in meetings, presentations and dinners in a hotel, still in the city, but will probably not have time to nip out and see the town. Therefore, I would obviously like to make the most of the opportunity and go out and see some sights.

On the top of my list is a visit to the Vatican City and also a visit to the Colosseum. If I have time to spare I'll probably check out a few more sights, but I doubt it. These two attractions (if you can call a whole sovereign country an attraction) have always been high up on my 'bucket list', things to do and see before you kick the bucket, as they are both such amazing historic landmarks and I am really excited that I'lll get a chance to check them out next week.

Since I only have a limited window of opportunity here, I have to make the most of my touristing so I have researched the distance from the hotel thoroughly and according to Google Maps the Vatican is a 45 minute walk from our hotel which, under the circumstances, is way too far away to walk. Taxi would take me around 15 minutes and public transport about 45 minutes, same as walking for some odd reason, so I think it is quite obvious how I will be getting around. The Colosseum, according to Google Maps again, is about another 20 minutes away from the Vatican, so hopefully I have the logistics figured out at least.

I won’t be traveling alone though; my fellow CB co-workers from Edinburgh will be traveling to Rome as well, so it is likely that I will have company on my Sunday afternoon adventure outing. I am really excited to see some sights, but as always, it would have been much more fun if the rest of the family could come. Next time!

Here are some interesting facts about the Vatican City:

• The Vatican City is the smallest country in the world with the smallest population. It measures 44 hectares ( 110 acres) and has a population of about 1000 people.
• The Vatican has its own Post office and issues its own stamps. The Vatican mail system is widely used by Romans as in most cases is a lot quicker than Italian mail.
• The Vatican's radio station is located in a tower inside the Vatican Gardens and broadcasts in 20 languages throughout the world.
• The Vatican's railway Station was opened in 1930 and is mostly used for freight.
• Piazza di San Pietro (St Peter's Square) and the colonnade were designed and built by Bernini (completed in 1667). At 314 meters long and 240 meters wide it is the largest square in Rome. Bernini (with the help of his pupils) designed the 140 statues of saints which decorate the colonnade.
• The Vatican City issues its own passports; the Pope, cardinals, members of the Swiss guard and clergy being the recipients.
• The Vatican City is a UNESCO World Heritage Site; the only site to encompass a whole country.
• Italians are allowed to donate 8% of their yearly taxes to the Vatican (this is instead of paying it to the Italian Government).
• In 2007 the Vatican opted to become the first Carbon neutral state by offsetting their carbon footprint with the creation of a forest in Hungary.
• The Vatican stamps its own coins. The €1 coin which has a portrait of the present Pope is in high demand with collectors.
• The Vatican museums are over 9 miles (14,5 kilometers) long, and it is said that if you spent only 1 minute admiring each painting it would take you 4 years to complete the circuit!
• Established in 1506 by Pope Julius II the Pontifical Swiss Guard (Vatican guard) were originally employed as personal bodyguards to the Pope, at present they serve as the military force of the Vatican.
• To be a Swiss guard one must be: at least 1,74m (5'8.5'') in height, Male, Catholic, between the ages of 19 and 30, have completed basic training in the Swiss military, and of course, be Swiss.

Here are some interesting facts about the Colosseum:

• At the time of its construction, the Colosseum had the capacity of seating around 50,000 spectators.
• Initially, the amphitheater was used for holding gladiatorial contests and public spectacles, such as mock sea battles, animal hunts, executions, re-enactments of famous battles and dramas based on Classical mythology.
• Roman Coliseum remained in use for nearly 500 years. The last recorded games were held in it in the 6th century.
• It was in the medieval era that the amphitheater ceased to be used for entertainment purposes. Thereafter, it was used for housing, workshops, quarters for a religious order, a fortress, a quarry, and a Christian shrine.
• The games played in the Colosseum are believed to have taken the lives of about 500,000 people and over a million wild animals.
• Though ruined by earthquakes and stone-robbers, the amphitheater serves as an iconic symbol of Imperial Rome.
• Roman Coliseum is one of the most popular tourist attractions of Rome and still holds close connections with the Roman Catholic Church.
• On every Good Friday, the Pope leads a torchlit "Way of the Cross" procession to the amphitheatre.
• The amphitheater has been depicted on the Italian version of the five-cent euro coin.
• There were special boxes in the Colosseum, at north and south ends, for the Emperor and the Vestal Virgins, providing the best views of the arena.

Britain: Get a grip! Literally.

I heard on the radio this morning that Scotland can expect another fortnight (2 weeks) of bad weather and ‘snow storms’. For us, being used to a more arctic climate from back home and all, the weather situation here is really not even worth mentioning compared to what we are used to.

Imagine this: -40 Celsius and so much snow in the morning that you can hardly even find your car, let alone start it because the cold drained the battery. Add cold wind and even more snow coming down while you are trying to salvage your car from the parking lot where the snowplow drove past and covered the back of the car with wet snow that turned into solid ice overnight. By the time you are done scraping your windscreen free from snow and ice, your layers of t-shirts, long johns and socks are soaking wet from snow and sweat.

We rarely get snow here in Edinburgh in the winter, but this year we have had a bit of snow for the last 3-4 weeks, and we are talking about 1-2 inches on the ground, which in fairness has made the streets quite slippery. The result of this weather situation has been closed airports, closed highways, closed schools and people staying home from work. Someone at my work told me about her friend who had been completely stuck in her car on the M8, a major highway, for 15 hours before the army came and dug them out! Why? No snow tires. Someone else had seen their neighbour scraping off ice from his car with the backrest of a plastic garden chair!

At the moment, the situation here is kind of a mix between the movies ‘Ice Age’ and ‘The Day After Tomorrow’; it is a bit funny in a tragic kind of way how paralyzed people get and how serious they take ‘the blizzards’. They just don’t know how to deal with all this snow. Another example of the effects of these extreme conditions is our front door at work, which has been broken and left open since New Year’s Eve. This apparently due to the cold and the snow, and the repairmen in this country do not always have the best sense of urgency. This has resulted in a very cold reception area with a very moody receptionist wearing gloves and a winter coat inside.

Ethan stands...almost!

Lost Dublin-photos from 'The Brick'

Today Shaena and I are doing some more packing for the move and we are going through a bunch of our stuff to figure out what we need to keep and what we can toss. For the longest time, we have had a bag of cords and various electronics stuff sitting in our closet and we decided that it was time to clear it out once and for all. Also found in that bag was my old, nay ancient, digital camera commonly known as 'The Brick' for it's clunkiness from when we lived in Dublin and low and behold when we put batteries in it, there were photos on the memory card!

Below is a selection of photos taken around Christmas time from Grafton street, O'Connell street, St. Stephen's Green shopping centre, and our friend Naomi made the selection as well:

Ethan's Pimped out Ride

My playlist makes me nostalgic

I have recently updated Mr. LePod with new (but still old) music and when I sit here on the number 25 to work, performing my normal morning routine of extensive people-watching (without being creepy of course), looking out the window trying to count how many Polish delicacy shops there are along Dalry road, and trying to imagine what the prisoners at Her Majesty’s Prison Sighthill are doing right now, I realize that my music is bringing me down memory lane, back to my teens.

I am almost ready to get off the bus outside work and so far I have had the pleasure to enjoy: Alice Cooper’s ‘Poison’, AHA’s Take On Me’, Lighthouse Family’s ‘High’ as well as and Swedish music like Magnus Uggla’s ‘Fula Gubbar’, Ebba Grön’s ‘Pervers Politiker’ and from back home in Piteå, the local punk band Tarmgas with ‘Du’, ‘Nostalgi’. Funny how music can trigger memories and set the of the mood in such a distinctive and direct way!

The blog is back to normal. So are we.

The holiday season is over, a new year has begun, and the Christmas decorations for the blog are now stowed away in a folder and will not see daylight again until next December. If we are still blogging by then, that is. Halfway through the week and work is back to normal as well. Busy as ever and the only difference from last year is that I now get to add a ‘Senior’ to my job title. Om the home front, we are trying to get a bunch of stuff organized and packed up for the move. We are getting more and more excited and Ethan is getting closer and closer to actually crawling, so it’ll be interesting to see if we’ll make it over to the new flat with the modern, shiny floors before he is completely unstoppable.

What else is new? Not sure if it has been mentioned before, but I am helping Piers with a website for his company, something I really enjoy doing, and it is coming together more and more. It is starting to look quite sharp if I may say so myself.

Oh, and Shaena and I have been working on our budget for 2010, so I gooogled ‘count your pennies, count your pounds’ just because I know of a song by The Feeling with those lyrics in it. Can’t believe how many old sayings there are in reference to ‘pennies’! Check it out (if you have nothing better to do):
http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/count+your+pennies

bad penny always turns up
Prov. A worthless person always
comes back to the place he or she started out. Jill: I just found out that
Tom left town after we fought last Saturday. What if I never see him again?
Jane: Don't worry. A bad penny always turns up.

Found on Erin's camera

Let's face it. Some people need longer than others to upload their holiday-photos and videos. Like that time when it took a whole year for Grandpa Keith to produce our wedding video! :) Erin has uploaded her photos from their visit today (but I guess that's ok, as it is the last day of Christmas today. Phew! In the nick of time!) and self-centered as we are, we picked out a few good ones where our pretty faces are represented:

Sneaky Pics

I have finally figured out what the photography class Peter and I took at Telford College was good for!!!...

Snapping a night time photo of my Son sleeping without using flash!

New Years party at Piers & Lesley's

I got to tell you, the New Years dinner at Piers and Lesley’s place was absolutely fabulous! We are thinking this could be our best New Years party so far in our years abroad. Piers is a great chef and treated us to a fantastic pheasant & pasta starter, a traditional roast pork dinner with all the trimmings and potato bake for main course and he also had a desert prepared but we were just too stuffed to handle. (I have only had pheasant once before in my life and that was after my step dad ran one over with his tractor. And yes, you are right, that is what we traditionally would call a 'road-kill stew'.)

Lesley contributed by being an awesome hostess and she had also put together the playlist that would set the mood for the night, which of course is crucial for a successful party. Ethan was stylish as ever in his little green Christmas cardigan and entertained us for an hour before it was sleepy-time, and after that he was out for the rest of the night, which in a way was nice so that we could have some grown-up time for ourselves. We had a great time with lots of food, drink and banter and probably solved most of the problems in the world over the course of a couple of hours.

Never a Year Like '09