vacations

Small vacations

This year is slowly coming to the end. I managed to go by without taking any vacations, except for a few days of when Maxim was born. That seems so long ago now…

Anyway, I still have about two weeks of paid holidays that I have to take or lose. I don’t think that I can disappear from the office for the two weeks straight. And I really don’t want to lose all these days when the new year comes. So I decided to take them in small bunches.

For this reason I requested a small vacation for today and tomorrow. Two days out of 12 or so that I have. Maybe I’ll take a day or two next week too. I’ll see how it goes.

Holiday

I was surprised to find out that I actually have a real holiday today. I wasn’t working the night before and I am not going to the office tonight. Neither I am needed there over the day. I even didn’t have to wake up early to go for a walk with Maxim as it was Olga’s turn.

I almost forgot how it feels, you know. With all this time at my hands I wasn’t sure how to properly spend it. And I spent most of the day thinking about it. It’s almost 9 o’clock in the evening and I haven’t done anything yet (except upgraded mysql and forgot to restart the service, bringing the site down for a few hours and not noticing it – thanks Sanjay).

Well, maybe that’s how one is supposed to spend a holiday – doing absolutely nothing. If that’s so, than I succeded to have a really good day.

P.S.: Unfortunately I finished my ice cream bowl yesterday. It would be so good to have some ice cream on a day off. Too lazy to go out and buy one today though…

Cyprus vacations

One of the things that was new to me when I came to Cyprus was the vacations in August that the whole island takes. Starting around the middle of August until the end of the month most shops are closed. Everyone is on vacations and noone is working except for tourist attractions – restaurants, bars, pubs, beach caffes, and the like.

I really like the unity of the population on the issue of vacations. The majority of people have three long vacations during the year – Christmas holidays, Easter week, and the end of August thing. Those who have to work during these days aren’t much of a use anyway. Nothing can stop people from resting and spending time with family. Lovely.

Album location: /photos/2005/2005-08-15_POTD

Back from Malta

Happy New Year and Merry Christmas to all of you reading this! I just came back from my vacations which I’ve spent on Malta (small island not far from Italy). Nice place. Lots of castles, fortified walls, musiums with knights and all that staff. Plenty of places to see. Some pictures from the trip are here.
Unbeleivable, but I haven’t touch a computer for 10 days. Have seen plenty of Internet caffees though. Basically, every place where you can eat or drink has a sticker with “Internet inside” and at least 1 computer. Expensive though.
Came back to a huge mailbox and a long todo list, so had to sort out some priorities. Found out a new policy on backup tapes and offsite storage: now everything is in a really secure place with water-, air-proof bags used for transportation. Excellent!