Rude awakening for the "au-pair"

Yesterday the plans for this day seemed quite relaxed. While my wife would spend the day visiting a local high school, I'd take care of some au-pair duties. Dishes, grocery shopping and IT-support. So I spent half the night at our laptop trying to figure out to create the perfect panorama picture combining several pictures. As it sometimes happens, when investing a lot of time into a subject, expectations go up and mediocre results are not satisfying anymore. At 3am I finally gave up and used the program I tried out second..... A wonderful eight hours of well-deserved sleep began...

...until I heard a long beep and a voice:
"May I have your attention please. An emergency has been reported in the building. While this report is being verified, please leave the building using the exit stairway. Do not use the elevators. BEEP. May I have..."

Quite annoyed I checked the time, 8.20am. Staying inside and having possibly a fire in the house would make me even more unhappy. So I got dressed, got up and went downstairs to go outside. There were a few people, including our room-mates from India. Some electrical wire installation went wrong in the building; a few wires were mixed up. Back in the apartment, all sleep was gone and I stayed up, having breakfast and starting my au-pair day.

Dinner was prepared by our Indian room-mates with adjusted levels of chili for us, yummy!

For today nothing else happened besides 10-15 more so-called fire-alarms, version 1.2. I had one addition from the guy in the reception: "Please disregard all fire alarms". Hopefully they don't work in night shifts.

As for last couple of days, we stayed mostly in College Park, once shopping to the outlet center in Hagerstown. Our aparment building is called the Varsity. My wife gave me a tour on Sunday and in the evening we went for a walk on the Paint Branch Trail which led us to lake Artemesia. There, the evening sun was shining so nicely, that I decided to take several pictures for creating a panorama picture later...

the Varsity, College Park

Lobby inside

Gaming room

Cardio room

View from the cardio room

Lake Artemesia

In Hagerstown, not the outlet

Arrival + first visit to DC

Last Friday I arrived in College Park, Maryland, after a 21 hour trip. To pass through US customs was easier than I thought - apart from the 1 hour waiting line. A welcome announcement caught my interest. Through the loudspeakers one could hear "Welcome, US citizens, we welcome you back to your home country". So I was waiting for the welcoming of non-US citizens. And I was waiting and waiting. Finally after some 5 minutes I heard again "Welcome, US citizens...". No welcome for the aliens, it seems.
I considered to bring this up with the customs clerk, but remembered my friends telling me to keep the conversation at customs simple. Although I was tempted, I kept quiet.. :)

For the first day my plan was only to relax and recover. Due to the time difference I was actually awake before 7am. Afternoon plans changed accordingly and my wife and me decided to go and have a look to Washington, D.C. We went there via university bus and metro (green line). We got off at the Navy Memorial and strolled over the Plaza.

After that we sat in a Starbucks (corner Indiana/7th) and enjoyed the street life in D.C. with the view towards the National Mall. We were heading there after sharing a double-chocolate brownie. The National Book Festival was held at the National Mall, located between Capitol Hill and Washington Monument (the obelisk). The festival can be recognized from the white tents in the picture :)

To rest our mind from many books and state presentations, we went to the sculpture garden, next to the National Gallery of Art. Enjoying the weather and water fountains, we sat there for quite a while until a park (or garden..?) ranger blew the whistle to get everybody out by 5.30pm. Shopping and dinner rounded up a great first day.

Archives from Navy Memorial Plaza

Navy Memorial Plaza - bronze reliefs

Navy Memorial Plaza

View from Starbucks

View to Capitol Hill

Sculpture garden

Water fountains in sculpture garden

Ready for boarding

I always knew that cleaning (excluding vacuuming) isn't really my thing. Not that I wouldn't like to do it, but I just don't have the talent for it. The past few days have been proof of that. I decided to clean the house before leaving to Maryland and it took me days.

Seriously, how can cleaning the freezer, fridge, kitchen, bathroom, all rooms and floors, take that long? I guess practise makes perfect also here, but what is the benefit of it? Makes me wonder, what's in it for me? I'm happy I finished, but was I really unhappy before I started?

I support the sharing principle in a relationship: one partner does a few things and the the other the rest. It seems I have to re-think the share a bit and hone my 'skills'. But luckily I have a trump card in my sleeve: the cat toilet!

Nothing is more powerful than the cat toilet, from my point of view. It's the best argument I have when avoiding some task I don't like to do (like cleaning). My wife had to clean the cat toilet perhaps 5-8 times during 7 years and it was - apparently - a kind of torture. The smell is beyond imagination if the cat 'forgot' to cover up. I got used to this or shall I say I resigned to my fate.

Anyway, the cat toilet is my trump card. Not surprisingly, I have a weak point myself, ironing. The iron and me just won't ever be best friends. For some reason it is yet a housework activity, but that's just coincidence...

Father Frost

..is actually not just a fairytale but arrived last night here in Oulu @ 0 ºC. According to a converter that's 32 ºF (gotta learn this eventually).

The early bird doesn't just catch the worm, but can also grabs its camera and takes some nice shots:

How do I get started with this...?

Some of my friends asked me to blog this autumn and as the travel fever has finally caught up with me, I decided to give this a go.

First thing which gave me a headache was coming up with a name for it. Why does the name matter so much? It seems I just can't use any random combination of words or letters and that's it. Always some meaning or at least reflection of my current mood. Funny thing. Perhaps that's normal? Or maybe it's a sign Iam looking for some deeper level connection to.. what? I've never discussed this with anyone.

Well, whatever the reason, I chose the title from a Genesis song which was always a favourite one for me. Album is 'Genesis' from 1983. The first words go like this:
Rivers flow uphill
Blue turns into grey
Winter follows springtime
Morning ends the day
Beyond the silver rainbow.

As my trip to the East coast of the US is coming up and Iam taking a sabbatical, this title felt right. It covers my mood, my expecations of the unknown what lies ahead. What experiences will I have, which kind of people will I meet, how will it feel to see my wife again, does morning really end the day in a place so far away beyond that rainbow...?

Good night.

PS: The song sounds like this: