Month: December 2009

  • Christmas in Malta 2009

    Main street in Zurrieq

    On the eve of the 22nd Ann and I made our way to Gatwick airport. We had a flight to Malta the next morning at 7.15 AM and didn’t want to count on public transport getting us out there in the morning as London was having severe traffic issues due to snow and ice. Lucky for us the the flight was almost and time and we made it to Malta without any problems.

    While England and the rest of northern Europe was struggling/celebrating snow and ice we ended up in Malta’s warmest Christmas in more than 20 years with temperatures up to 24 degrees – nice!

    On December 24th, while Ann was busy, I walked around the village she is from taking pictures of the Christmas decorated houses.

    Door in red

    Miniature windmill

    Christmas decorated house

    Handpainted picture on the back entrance to a bar

    The last photo is a hand-painted picture on the back entrance to a bar that really have an aura of Christmas. As I walked by Christmas music was blasting out in the streets. Check out the front and side photos.

    In the evening of the 24th we went to the village’s Christmas Procession where kids dressed as angels and shepherds walk the baby Jesus through the streets as they sing carols.

    Christmas Procession

    In the evening we went out with Ann’s siblings and partners to a nice restaurant on Vittoriosa Waterfront.

    All the kids

    After that it was on to the university church where we went for midnight mass. The church was packed with people sitting outside watching the service on a big screen. We got a seat inside and watched the Maltese service which started with this kid retelling the Christmas story. Very cute.

    Christmas recitations by boy

    Well I’m used to celebrating Christmas on the eve of the 24th but here it’s different so we had to let the gifts stay under the crib for another night before we could release the excitement.

    The main crib with gifts

    The next morning we got stockings, opened gifts, played games, Wii and watched films.

    An extra bonus is that Ann’s mum has orange trees in her garden so we could all start the day with a glass of fresh juice – delicious.

    Delicious
    Making juice

    Merry Christmas!

  • 10 years of Gelle.dk!

    I really feel old when i realize that something I thought happened recently happened 10 years ago. This is one of them.

    10 years ago it was getting close to the Christmas break. I had finished high school six month earlier to work at a photo development lab to make some money. Previously I had made a website together with my dad for a couple of years but now I wanted my own domain so I could have my own website and email without having to use hotmail or any of the other free email services of that day.

    In high school I had acquired the peculiar nickname Gelle among my friends and since it was short and I couldn’t think of anything else I picked that. Not that I really like the word – it looks and sound a bit like gele but I got it now, it’s fairly unique and it’s my username on most websites if I can get it.

    The first thing I was really using the site for (except for a page of quotes about beers) was to write about the preparations before, and keep friends and family update during, a trip to USA for 3 month in 2000.

    Travelogue from my trip to US in 2000

    I have lost the actual updates I wrote during the trip and only the shell of the site is left.

    The first front page from 1999 is again lost in history. After I came back from US in summer of 2000 I started university in Aalborg and this became my for next couple of years. A collection of links to small websites I’d made for myself and friends.

    Gelle.dk back in February 2001

    In 2005 I was heading to US again, this time for an internship in Ann Arbor so I created the blog you are reading in April 2005 and started blogging in Danish about my upcoming trip.

    Blogging Gelle in 2005

    Blogging became a habit with about a post a week which I try to keep up. About a year and a half later I was back in Denmark and switched over to blogging in English.

    The design of the blog has changed slightly every now while the tone of the blog has stayed more or less the same throughout the past 4 and a half years, I think. I have blogged a lot about place I have gone, things I have done and very little about my company, thoughts and reflections. And I think it will stay that way.

    Who knows what will happen in the next decade but for some reason I doubt we’ll still be using domain names and URLs to find each other. If we do you’ll maybe find a strange 40-year-old(!) behind gelle.dk rambling about and taking pictures of whatever he comes across in his days.

    Happy birthday gelle.dk 🙂