1/1/11 - cool.

Welcome to the New Year!!  

I have high hopes that this will be the best year yet!!  :D

We spent the day working - unfortunately it was a school day for us and we were bellied up to our computers well into the evening.  We broke around noon to hit the grocery store for provisions since we knew everything would be closing early and would remained closed on the 1st and 2nd (Sunday).  As usual we forgot our shopping bags and ended up having to carefully balance our items in our arms until be made it back home.

As you can see we got all the really important things!  You should have seen the stores, everyone else had the same idea - busy, busy, busy!  

I explained a couple days ago that we are lacking central heat of any kind and with the outside temps hovering around 60 I've been curious as to what our inside temperature was.  My snazzy electronic indoor/outdoor Weatherbug died a year ago so while we were at the store I found a thermometer that was marketed for reading the temp inside of a refrigerator.  I bought thinking it should work just fine inside the apartment since I was beginning to believe that the temp difference couldn't be far off...  

The red hasn't passed 61 since I hung it up.  bbbrrrrrrrrrrr

Once I saw the number on the thermometer our space heater (Harvey) was turned on and remained on until we went to bed.

Harvey

We stayed up until midnight hoping to see all the 'obnoxious' fireworks that Malta is so famous for over using to celebrate everything from a typical Wednesday to New Years.  Since we have such a panoramic view we were really hoping to get quite a show from our patio but in the end we had to settle with a couple of small shows a few blocks over and, to the south, a fairly steady stream of red flares that were launched into the air for about 20mins.  It was still nice, we didn't have to leave home and we still saw a few explosions of pretty lights and for the first time since we moved in the highway that sits on the hill a couple hundred yards off our back patio was completely silent and void of cars and speeding crotch-rockets.  The night was beautifully clear and we realized that whatever we were missing in manmade fireworks the starry sky made up for it!!  Its amazing how many more stars you can see here!

We slept in a little today and it has been cloudy and drizzly and looks to be more of the same for the rest of the week but with our new friend Harvey we should be okay.

Monday we go into the office then go looking for a propane exchange and Wednesday we board a plane to Dusseldorf, Germany where we will rent a car and drive to Cologne for the following 10 days.  A chilly start to the year but it already busy and exciting and at least we are together (that's the best part)!








Here's wishing you a very Happy New Year full of love, excitement and happiness!!



Love to you all
xoxoxoxox

Mark and Jen