Bellydance: June 2011

A while back I sorted through the photos of the various shows and scanned them in. The photographer doesn’t provide them on a CD/DVD for whatever unfathomable reason.

Didn’t get to upload all of them yet, but here are some photos of the show we did in June 2011. Including my new, fabulous red dress. Probably the most expensive piece of clothing I own, together with my corset.

Said red dress:

Travel: Seattle, September 1st – 17th 2011, Part 5/5

After a longer break than planned (damn, those past weekends were busy; plus the London trip which I also need to blog because I got some fantastic shots, if I may say so myself *G*)… here’s finally the last part of our Seattle adventure!

Day 12; September 12, 2011 – Leavenworth… with the Bavarian Village

Since we did the Northern part of the Cascade Loop, it was only natural to also do the Southern part. Which took us to Leavenworth – which apparently isn’t too far from where my friend Linda lives.

So we met up there! “We” being me, my parents, Linda, and her husband. They were both very lovable and nice! Linda brought some great engraving work – that being the TARDIS glasses I posted about way back then and a granite thingy *G* with a wedding picture of my parents’.

Great work, all of it! This is her Etsy Store!

Now, Leavenworth has this “Bavarian Village” and, well, it did look a bit like little Bavaria. If you only take the touristy parts and add a zillion cars to it.

Some impressions:

Now that’s a Christmas tree to my liking!

Travel: Seattle, September 1st – 17th 2011, Part 4/5

More from the big trip to Seattle! Almost done now… Featuring the North Cascade Loop, beaches and a waterfall.

Day 9; September 9, 2011 – North Cascade Loop and Winthrop

As my mum wanted to see “Western City”, we added that one to the North Cascade Loop that we wanted to do anyway. The Loop features some beautiful landscape – our stops were at the Washington Pass Overlook and the Diablo lake dam.

That’s the Diablo Lake. Look at the colour of that water!

Some more pictures of the lake and the surroundings:

Next stop: Washington Pass Overlook!

Fusion Bellydance: Snow White

Here’s another video from this year’s Tribal Fusion show in March.

This is Michelle and me dancing to Xandria’s “Snow White”.

Travel: Seattle, September 1st – 17th 2011, Part 3/5

After a one week break, I’m back, sorting through more pictures. Should be well over half way done now! This is a very, very picture heavy post. 30 pictures, or so!

Day 6; September 6, 2011 – Boeing, Outlet Mall

No pictures for this day. We first went to the Boeing manufacture where we were visitors thanks to my sister having an employee pass. Naturally, we could not take any pictures, so I didn’t even try to bring my camera.

We were given a very interesting tour by one of her colleagues and were able to see the inside of Lufthansa’s new Boeing 747-8, as well as planes in various stages of assembly.

After the Boeing tour, we spent the rest of the day at the outlet mall. My haul: A pair of Hilfiger jeans, Adidas track pants, a shirt and a pair of lovely Skechers. All that for ~$100. Go me.

I went to be early that night because I had to get up at something like 4am for…

Day 7; September 7, 2011 – San Francisco!

My flight to San Francisco left at 7:33am, so I got a shuttle to pick me up at 4:45am. The flight was thankfully on time – usually, I don’t worry much about that, but when you only got a day in a city and want to fly back on the very same day… the flight better is on time.

I got into SF downtown by 10:30am where I waited 30 minutes to catch one of these:

And it was definitely worth the money and the wait! I took a ride from Powell Street down to Fisherman’s Wharf. By the way, few days before my flight to SF, we watched Wheel of Fortune. The solution for an “event” was “Riding the cable car to Fisherman’s wharf. I was very much amused by that.

Here are some pictures I took during the ride:

Steeeeeep streets. Wouldn’t want to hike up those!

The brake/go mechanism. Pretty cool!

Drying laundry – the oldfashioned way!

Once I was down at Fisherman’s Wharf, I went in search of food. I had a delicious crab cocktail. And a very lovely view.

Always foggy…

Animals

Taken at the Luisenpark in Mannheim today with my rather “new” camera – Canon Powershot SX30IS. Several months old by now, but I’m still experimenting.

Travel: Seattle, September 1st – 17th 2011, Part 2/5

Day 3; September 3, 2011 – Bremerton Blackberry Festival

The third day was reserved for the Bremerton Blackberry Festival. Which involved… blackberries. And your normal street fair/market things. I bought really good blackberry wine, had gorgeous blackberry shortcake and we even saw some random planes flying in formation!

And, of course, in order to get to Bremerton we took a ferry so now I’ve been on one of the infamous Washington ferries. Bloody expensive it was, too!

In Bremerton, there’s also the USS Turner Joy – a former military ship that you can go on. We didn’t, but here, have a picture.

On our way back we stopped at a mall where I got some really lovely and warm cardigan from Abercrombie and Fitch and glorious eyeshadow from Urban Decay.

Day 4; September 4, 2011 – Mt St Helens, Mt Rainier

The drive to Mt. St. Helens seemed to take forever, but it was certainly worth it. I’m not a fan of volcanoes and mountains, but this was impressive, still. The video in their visitor centre, however, needs improving. The CGI was a bit too hilarious for my taste.

Here… have some pictures of the mountain that blew off his own head.

Knitting: Colourful socks

After, what, three years of knitting, I finally knitted my first pair of socks. Nothing fancy, just your standard pair of socks using Zauberball in the “Kleiner Fuchs” colourway.

The result:

For these, I did the short-row heel. For my next pair of socks, I will try out the other kind of heel. And then I’ll see which one I like better when it comes to knitting. They both feel okay on my feet – my mum makes the other kind of heel, so I already own quite a few pairs with that one.

Geekiest shotglasses ever

This is kind of related to my Seattle trip in that I actually got these shotglasses on my trip.

They were done by the fantastic Linda from Etched in Time, LLC.

She did two sets, one for my sister and one for me. And they look like this:

Then on the other side of each, there’s this:

Aren’t they just great!

She also engraved my parents’ wedding photo on a granite thingy (as I like to call it). Which turned out just fabulous! They love it.

I highly recommend this business! She also does other stuff – even wood! Check out her etsy store for inspiration.

Travel: Seattle, September 1st – 17th 2011, Part 1/5

I finally managed to sorth through some of the 1.5 GB of photos and I got around to typing up part of my travel diary. Splitting this up in (probably) 5 parts, as it’s going to be rather picture-heavy.

Next parts to follow during the next few weeks, as I get them done.

Day 1; September 1, 2011 – Arrival

Let me tell you, getting up at 2:30am for the airport shuttle at 3:30 am is painful. But that’s the price for catching a plane at 7am. However, I made it, and of course I also was full of glee because hey! Holiday! In Seattle! Visiting my sister !

I had a six hour layover at Amsterdam Schiphol, but before I got there, I boarded a tiny plane and happened to sit next to a girl who was flying for the first time. I think I managed to explain all the noises and sensations sufficiently and in the end, she enjoyed the flight. And I wasn’t even wrong about some of the explanations that I was sure I’d just made up.

Here, have some artsy picture taken at Schiphol. I was bored and playing with my new camera.

Oh! And I encountered my first body scanner in Amsterdam. Which was rather uneventful, given all that fuss about it.

When I finally got on the plane (Delta, btw. Almost as sucky as United Airlines), I found that all that internet information was right and I didn’t have personal Video on Demand entertainment. I ended up watching Arthur, which was quite enjoyable, and some episode of How I Met Your Mother. I can’t remember what else was showing – I wasn’t paying attention.

Ten hours later, we finally had touchdown in Seattle! My family was already there waiting for me. It was already pretty late, so we got some groceries, got "home" and pretty much to bed. At this point, I’d been awake for something like 26 hours.