Action: Gay parade and preachers

When you watch American movie and the main actor needs for some reason to escape from the police there is ALWAYS a parade in the city. Well, when we arrived at Union Square there were thousands and thousands of people. San Francisco happened to host a gay parade. Very interesting experience.

At the same time we walked in to the street preaches. I don't have a problem with gay people or street preachers or for that sake any other kids of professions/believes. But... That street preacher was aggressive. He was shouting, talking about how sinful gay people are and that they all will go to hell. When, that might be true in his point of view, but... if he wants to bring the message of Bible and Christ to them, maybe, and again it is only my opinion, that is not the right way to do so. I am doubting that people will just jump right into his arms and ask to help them not to be sinners, especially in this kind of way. Oh well, it was fun to listen and see.

Above all that action, we are living in the center of San Francisco on Powell Str., right nest to Union Square. The rooms are quite small but the closer is as big as the room! So it is in a way an extension for the room at the moment.
And the picture of the day...

on the way

Well, the flight was fine. I have learned that one should not sleep in the aisles as it was a part of flight information.
8,5 hours with a wonderful David glued to the play station and annoying Masha not knowing what to do.
Anyway, we made it in time. Immigration, check out, check in took about 1 hour and so we are at the gate. What happens next is beyond our control. I look at the tickets and realize. Wait a minute, we are sitting on 4 different rows. So lucky me, not so lucky the passengers who were suppose to sit next to each of my kids. The personal of United could not do anything, so the result was that we got a room at Crown Plaza, 4x$15 food vouchers and new tickets 10 hours later. Not a bad deal judging on how jet lagged kids and we were.
We have arrived in San Francisco the next day with a wonderful 5 hours flight. The question was... where is our luggage... as the luggage flew the day before. But to our great joy all 3 bags were there, Chris was there as well. So everything and everyone were united and we went off to our adventure.

We made it

We made it to San Francisco. 12 hours later, but we made it. All are so jet-laget.

Off to USA

School is over, violin is over (just kidding, it is never over), work takes a break and we are off to America.

At the moment there are lots of clothes, wires, adapters, books, papers and hippos on the flour. Hopefully all of that is eventually going into the suitcases sometime soon. One of the positive thing is that the kids will stay away for the night, so it will be a little easier to pack.

I had to set up a limit about how many toys each kids should take (2 per person, including gameboy or any electronic device).

We are so looking forward to see "Uncle Chris" and "Uncle Herbert and Aunt Christine".
It is so fun going to TeX conference year after year because you see familiar faces and the familiar faces see you.

We will be flying directly to Chicago with SAS, changing to United going straight to San Francisco. If everything goes according to the plan, we will be on our way about 18 hours and we will setting a foot into the hotel 8 a.m. Danish time. And Chris will be meeting us at the airport, so sweet of him.

Bon voyage!

Trains, no kindergarten, concerts and America

America is settled. The plan is huge, a car is ordered, so are hotels. Places like Yosemite, Death Valley, Las Vegas, San Diego, Los Angeles, etc. are booked.

Two of my colleagues will be in the area right at the same time, so a big Nordea lunch will be arranged between Yosemite and Death Valley.

I have been asked why we are not going to see Great Canyon? Well, I am the only driver and to have 2 kids sitting at the back of the car for 6 hours every second day doesn't qualify as a super holidays. The other reason is all points up to the fact that I will be returning to Las Vegas in March 2011 for SAS Global Forum. So while discussing the possibility, we have decided to do the Great Canyon in March, much nicer weather and much less driving.

Things are going slow here at the moment. No public trains as there are major track renovations. We have buses instead. One can wait about 40 minutes for the bus once in a while. We have a schedule but that doesn't mean that buses follow the schedule. So at the moment we are taking the car to the city center in order to make it in time with school and work and violin.

Violin is going very well. Hopefully David will get an opportunity to show what had happened with his skills in SF. Yesterday he had performed at the concert with an orkestra.
http://www.youtube.com/user/davidmasha#p/a/u/0/KE_tgNMdykk

Masha didn't get a spot at the french kindergarten, so we are quite annoyed about the fact that she has to continue in the danish system. The matter of fact is that there are too many french kids this year and as NOT french nationalities we do not have a priority to get to the school, even taking in consideration that David is in the same school. So we will continue bugging the principal about the spot in the system.