Movie Madness: POTTER!!!

Tonight's THE night!!!

I finally get to see the Beginning of the End with friends of mine in Luxemburg (so English!!! no dubbing, yay!!!). I've already heard from my sisters that it's fabulous... so very excited! I think the hardest thing will be waiting 8 months for the 2nd half of the story, argh!!!

Last year I prepared for the release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince with Potter Wednesdays when I rewatched all the previous films on dvd and reviewing them here on the blog (Philosopher's Stone, Chamber of Secrets, Prisoner of Azkaban, Goblet of Fire, Order of the Phoenix). For this movie I wanted to re-read all the books, but I couldn't bring them with me to Belgium, so I just rented Half-Blood Prince on dvd to dip back into J.K.Rowling's magical universe. No need to mix up a batch of frenzy, I already got a fabulous dose last week in London when I happened on the World Premiere at Leicester Square!

If you want to dip back into the Potter Universe before watching the latest outing, you can either click on the titles above to re-visit my reviews, or you can head on over to Pop Classics where a Classicist gives her unique view on each of the films (very interesting reads!).

And you can be sure I'll be getting a Potter review out ASAP! ;o) 

I'll try to avoid spoilers... :p

Fishy update

I'm afraid a full weekend in London and lots of classes and essay correcting kept me from finishing up this week's special "on the road" Fishy Friday... so I'm just going to have to make it an update on the status of the baby rays at the Liège Aquarium. As you can see below they're getting a little bit bigger and are more active, and still adorable!

Have a good weekend everyone!

Japan - New York

Ever wondered how to get from Japan to New York?

Google maps has very detailed instructions!


View Larger Map

Go to Google maps. Write in Japan as point of origin and New York as destination. Then read through until you get to instructions #27 and #38. Report back here. :p

Oh, and by the way: the road has tolls! ;o)

(Another good one is Japan to China. Go to instruction #43, lol!)

Spotted animal?!

When you look out the window and see a spotted critter in the park...

you wonder if you're still under the influence of the half bottle of Rioja wine you had with dinner the night before!

But when you switch to the zoom lens of your camera (click to enlarge):

It's still weird! A pink polka-dot horse?!?!?! lol!!! :p

Movie Madness: crazy premiere in London!

Talk about walking into a madhouse! My sister and I were trying to cross Leicester Square tonight to collect our Mamma Mia! tickets with enough time to have dinner before the show... and found our paths blocked by a horde of screaming people!

My sister's like: "Thursday night? Oh, probably a movie premiere... I wonder which one it could be?... noooo... wait a minute! not... HARRY POTTER?!?!?!?!"

We found ourselves at a corner of the Square amongst a crowd of people looking up at a big screen showing the highlights of what was going on in the "fenced-off" zone (protected by Death Eaters no less!).

3... 2... 1... LAUNCH!

We have lift-off!!!

Of what?

My new travel blog!

Cris Crossing the Globe

has officially launched!

I've been fiddling with the design and layout since I started working on it in August, and haven't finished yet (I want to design a header with the name centred and in front of photos from pretty places I've been to), but if I wait until I finish with all the nitpicking... I'll never be done! So I'm taking advantage of my being on a trip to launch it officially, even though I've already been writing on it whenever possible since I got to Belgium. I've only got a few posts up on Belgium and Switzerland, but have 3 more in draft about birding along the Belgian coast (with lots of storks!), and the oldest Roman cities in Belgium and Germany. When I do finish those they'll appear "backdated", so on the dates I started working on them, shortly after each event. I've also imported a few posts from this blog that were 100% travel related (like my posts about what I did London in July 2009).

So check it out, see if you might be interested in adding it to your reading list... and if you have any readers interested in travel tales then tell them about it!

Fishy Fridays ep. 11: Special News Flash!

We interrupt our regular broadcast (which has been on hold since February, lol!) to bring you a special announcement!

The freshwater stingray population in the Liège Aquarium has recently been increased by two!

Rambling thoughts...

I went to the Opera last week... they were putting on my favourite, Die Zäuberflöte:

Mozart's Magic Flute! The Opera has been closed for renovations for over a year now, so they've set up this huge tent to continue with the shows:

It's just as comfy as before, better visibility... but the sound... OUCH! The acoustics are terrible! Sniff!!! It's like the sound barely makes it past the front rows and then just goes flat. Painful. Particularly because I loved the interpretation of the person playing Papageno, and the choreography and set pieces were very original! Must remember for future occasions that Opera must be seen/heard in a place with good acoustics. And a tent ain't it! >:(

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Winter seems to be sneaking up on us at an accelerated rate this year! The trees have all been changing colours faster than last year, and the leaves falling off almost all at once! I just hope the rain and wind will calm down enough for there to be some left this Sunday when I go on another hike in the Ardennes. I'd like to see a bit more Fall foliage before it's over!

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Speaking of hikes, I'm running behind on telling you about those! Next up is the crazy hike where we walked around a dry reservoir, saw a castle, had to take several detours (lengthening our outing by ~5km) and ended up hip-deep in freezing water... And then there's a semi-urban/rural outing from last Saturday... And I'm heading out again this Sunday (unless there's a downpour). Need to select and edit photos (and video from the first mentioned) faster!!!

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I've also noticed I'm waaaaaaaaay behind on Monthly Movies and Monthly Reading! The summer movies weren't really inspiring enough to write about. And although I saw a couple of lovely French movies in September, I shockingly haven't been to the cinema at all in October! As for the readings... I think I'm going to have to change that format to some kind of "Book Reports". I read so much last Spring what with rehab sessions for my ankle it's too many to list, so I'll just mention those I remember/liked best. Plus many of them are series so should be reviewed as a group. Eventually...

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Never get into a fight with a can of tuna fish... you are guaranteed to lose! Those jagged tin edges on the open lid are DANGEROUS!!! Too painful (and bloody) to record at the time, here's the life-threatening injury a week later (blurry 'cause can't seem to get a decent photo using only my left hand!):

One thing's for sure... our fingers are incredibly well irrigated! Damn thing wouldn't stop bleeding! Too wide to go in for stitches. Just kept applying pressure, and for some reason that old childhood scary story / joke about "bloody fingers" kept popping into my head! lol!
I've also noticed that the middle finger is useful for a lot more than a certain rude "gesture"... trying writing on a blackboard with it!!! I've had my students up doing my writing for me this past week... ;o)

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Speaking of fish, Fishy Fridays is making a come back!!! Re-inauguration tomorrow with a special announcement! :o) And then I promise I'll try and maintain my twice a month fishy schedule... We're only a quarter of the way through the Liège Aquarium! :s

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And now it's time I got back to work... I have 200+ essays to correct from my various classes, and I know tomorrow's group is going to be clamouring for them. *sigh* Correcting is so tedious!

Rally to Restore Sanity in D.C. (for those in the USA: GET OUT AND VOTE!!!)

If you're currently in the U.S. I'm sure you heard about the "Rally to Restore Sanity" that was held at the National Mall in Washington D.C. this past Saturday. Two political satirists hosted the event (Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert) for (as they state on the official website):

Ours is a rally for the people who’ve been too busy to go to rallies, who actually have lives and families and jobs (or are looking for jobs) — not so much the Silent Majority as the Busy Majority. If we had to sum up the political view of our participants in a single sentence… we couldn’t. That’s sort of the point.

You can read a review of the rally on the N.Y.Times (and other papers), but I'd like to share a more personal view with you. My dad's brother and his family flew up from Florida to D.C. to participate in this event, and I asked my aunt if she could tell me something about the experience and let me share it with you here:

post-Halloween zombiness!

Boy am I glad November 1st is a holiday!!! I couldn't possibly go teach in this zombie state today! And thankfully I've got tomorrow to recover as well (although some tourism will be involved)! YAY for 4-day weekends!!! :o)

I hope everyone had a good Halloween weekend! 

Farewell to Paul, our football-loving octopod.

I don't know if you saw this on the news yesterday... but football-loving-octopus-lovers are in mourning:

I'm not usually into football-related topics outside of the World Cup... but I had so much fun with the Paul stories this summer that I can't help but feeling a bit sad. :o(  Spaniards wanted to adopt him (to save him from ending up on a German bbq after Spain's semi-final victory against the Germans), they even put him on their flag:

And I managed to get my English students interested in a news report when I did a listening exercise based on a YouTube video showing Paul's prediction in favour of Spain! 

He was so much a part of my World Cup fun last summer that I adopted my own little Pol the Octopod at the Mallorca Aquarium. He won't be making football predictions, but he has been named the mascot of my new travelling blog! After all, you'd thing eight legs are better than two for travelling around the world! ;o)

Apparently Paul will be cremated, and the Aquarium in Germany has a "new Paul" ready to take up residence in the tank (octopi are always very popular in aquaria). Even here in Liège they've been talking about dipping into the football prediction game since we received our very own octopus from the Antwerp aquarium last month!

Farewell Paul, may you enjoy an endless supply of mussels from here on out!

More info (and videos) on this BBC page.

Hiking through Wallonia: a gorgeous day between La Roche and Marcourt!

I had forgotten the difference the sun makes in this country... It's like there's a Jekyll and Hyde switch between rainy days and sunny ones. And the latter are so few and far between... (it's actually more grey than rainy most of the time)... that when you find yourself in the midst of a truly glorious sunny day it's like rediscovering sunshine and warmth all over again!

On such a day (Oct 3rd... I'm running behind on these posts, argh!) I got to do my 3rd 1/2 day hike exploring the rural areas of Wallonia (the French-speaking part of Belgium). A fabulous hike through some gorgeous forests (with sadly fewer mushrooms, they're on their way out now) and fields, under radiant sunshine (that had me wondering why I hadn't thought of bringing sunscreen!) and going up and down and UP and DOWN some very, very, STEEP hills! Once again, this may be a flat country (highest point is 694m above sea level), but when a hill is steep, it's steep!

Letting out my inner child...

Careful! Special delivery!!! 

Guess what the...

... brought in today?

Blog Action Day 2010: Water!

I just learnt about this... apparently there's a Blog Action Day (every year on Oct 15th) where the purpose is to unite bloggers around the world by posting on the same topic in the hopes of sparking discussion and action.

Blog Action Day 2010: Water from Blog Action Day on Vimeo.

Unfortuately it's too late for me to participate significantly in this, which is a pity because this topic is right up my alley! I've often wondered why our blue planet is called Earth instead of Ocean, but that might just be the oceanographer inside of me popping her scientific ideas into my head... Sadly it's almost midnight and my brain is turning to zombie mush (has been a long hard week, finally noticing the season  changing due to waking up in the dark several days in a row and a significant decrease in temperatures,;have yet to get used to it) and I don't have the energy to put in the effort to produce something worthwhile.

But I did want to mention it here in case some of you do have time to participate in this (here are some ideas), and in any case so you can check out the website I linked to above and go read what people around the world are writing on the subject!

I could also remind you about our annual Oceanic Blog-A-Thon (click here for 2009, and here for 2010 editions) which is after all about water, from a certain point of view! ;o)

 

Finally, for those of you living in "developed" countries, take a few moments to appreciate the simple miracle of opening your water faucet, filling a glass of the transparent liquid, and being able to drink it without worrying about possible health problems. And then ditch the bottled water 'cause you don't really need it!

Hiking through Wallonia: Creppe with the FFBMP

I think I mentioned last week that some of the hikes organised by the University Hiking Group don't allow for meet-ups at noon and so you're either in for the long haul (25km) or you don't go... Well turns out my second weekend in Liège was going to be one those, and quite frankly after the aches of the previous week and worried about my ankle I wasn't up to trying a 25k hike on my second trip out! Fortunately for me some other people in the group felt more like a half day hike as well, so a friend (the one who got me mixed up with this group in the first place!) and I joined them on Saturday Sept 25th for a hike organised by the Fédération Francophone Belge des Marches Populaires (FFBMP for short). I hadn't heard about this organisation before, but I think it's fabulous! Each Saturday and Sunday they choose a couple of spots where they programme circular hikes of varying distances (usually 5-10-15-25-50 km) and mark the paths with colourful bowties or arrows so that they're easy to spot and follow (and you don't need to be an expert with maps and following complicated GR trails). You go alone, with friends, in a group... at your own rythm! There's a rallying point where you start and finish in a local school where they serve food (grilled sausages) and drink, and there are a couple other "rest stops" along the way where they also have drinks available.

So Isa, a University hiker with two dogs, e-mailed several people telling them she was going on one of those hikes in Creppe (région de Spa) instead of the big Sunday hike and who wanted to join her? Well 4 of us did and we had a lovely afternoon of it! Not as challenging as the University hike for sure, but was nice to get some km under my feet (we went a bit too leisurely and ended up doing the 10km circuit instead of the 15km as planned 'cause we were running out of time). Had a bit of rain (not too bad for Belgium) and mostly had to deal with a lot of MUD! :p

So ready to join me on another hike? Here we go! ;o)