With only a few hours left of this December 7th, I felt like writing a little.

Time is an odd thing!

Today I have been living 21 years with a father and 19 with out.

19 years ago we were planning a funeral and preparing the first Christmas with out my father. It was a peaceful time, cause my father had been sick for quite a while.

5 years later, in 1998 this day, Hans and I were celebrating 6 months as an engaged couple. We were about to celebrate our first Christmas together, and our last while living in Denmark. We also had our first Christmas with a dog in the family.

I don’t feel old, but I do feel that I was very young in 1993, way to young to loose my father. In 1998 I had grown so much older. But thinking of us back in 1998 I do feel we were young too. We had so many dreams, and such little knowledge of what was waiting for us. I think the only thing I was sure of, was that we belonged together, now and forever!

Many things have happened on the way from then to now. Many changes but the constant is our love to each other. It’s our foundation and it’s solid.

I feel that the red thread from my childhood, to my youth, our marriage, us becoming parents and up til now is LOVE. I grew up with lots of love, I live in love with Hans and we pass it on to Linnea.

Now Christmas is coming up. Hans and I are celebrating our 15th Christmas together. Only 2 of 15 has been celebrated in Denmark. 12 in Sweden and now our 15th will be celebrated in China.

I have had many fantasies of how my life would turn out, but never had I thought that it could be this amazing, I just wish my father could have shared some of these happy moments with us. That he had met Hans and Linnea, that he had been here in my wonderful old home.

Well I think he keeps an eye on us from where ever he is.

17/7-12
Sitting on the balcony at 7 in the morning. When I came out a woman in the house across the street said good morning from her window.
We all went to bed at midnight. Linnea did very well on the flight and we landed on time. Since we only had one suitcase and it was among the first ones out we quickly went to the taxi office, prepayed and drove off.
We got a first floor room facing the streets. Only a little noise this morning. Lots of birds are singing.
Hans & Linnea are asleep. Linnea has managed to turn her self into both sheets and I wonder if she will find her way out.
Today we’ll eat hotel breakfast for the first time since China, nice.
Then we’ll take a walk in the neigborhood and do a little shopping and unpack ofcourse.
Our room has 6 sides. We are in the corner. It’s quite big, 3 beds and we have a small fridge. The beds are ok excerpt for the noise. A wooden botten that makes very much noise.
I’m hungry now and soon I’ll take a quick shower. Hans put the alarm to 8 am so soon they have to wake up.
Just now I saw the sign: China Kingdom. Maybe a Chinese restaurant just down the street. Then a big bus parked just under the balcony – noisy! The AC on the top is on and blows hot air up to me.

18/7-12
Out of bed after 10 hours. No wonder my back hurts. But after a hot day with a walk to the sea and back, time in the pool, another walk, a couple of hours in the room and finally dinner I crashed into bed at 10 pm. The sun is very strong so both Hans & I got burned on our shoulders and neck.
I find it a bit hard to know what to do when you only have a few hours in the morning where you won’t burn. Linnea & Hans was in the pool for more than 3 hours and he didn’t feel a thing. Linnea on the other hand wasn’t near by beeing burned. We all had sun lotion factor 30 on but little did it help.
We have AC in the room but decided not to use it. We have a ceiling fan and that is on at all time.
The hotel is good, no more or no less than expected. But the surroundings are not so exciting. Lots of big hotels cloesed down. Restaurants and shops like wise.
There are bars/pubs open and some small shops. We want to get a map so we might be able to find more restaurants since we this time don’t have a kitchen.
We have been looking on boat trips to the blue lagoon. A day trip with 4 hours in the lagoon. It looks good but I do worry for more sun burn. We talked about waiting till Tuesday next week.
So for today we have no plans so far.

21/7-12
Our days look alike and sometimes we can’t remember what day it is. Our days are like this:
Breakfast
Pool
Shower
Walk in town to get lunch
Relax in the room
Pool
Walk in town to get dinner

We have found the square in town, with more pubs (= fastfood) and a few shops. the food is a bit borrning I do miss the Greek food, but is is nice to have holiday in a warm country when the summer is raining away at home.

Linnea has improved her swimming skils enormously. She really got notiser for her efforts in the pool: 4 Italian guys applaude when she managed a long swim in the deep water, an Italian man said bravo! a Danish couple had a lot of fun watching her and an young Danish woman said we were a lovely family. Now after these few days in the pool Linnea is just doing it. Swimming with out puffs/wings, under or over water, diving and jumping in.

Tomorrow, Sunday, we’re taking a sightseeing bus around the island. We make a stop in Valetta, the capital and go to the market. Hop on again and move on, maybe hop off again.

We also plan to take a boat trip to the blue lagoon, where the water is crystal clear.