3 sleeps till Christmas!

The countdown is on, only 3ish or 4 sleeps till Christmas! Here's a couple of pics from the Christmas shopping crowds in York last week, one in the little Shambles part of town, the other in the main parade.

Street music

There was a local orchestra playing outside in my street last night. In the middle of watching Ratatouille, a festive tune crept into the soundtrack. It wasn't until we paused the film and Silent Night continued to play that we realised that Remy the Rat wasn't wandering through the streets of Paris during Christmas time, it was actually coming from two doors down the street. Kudos to them, it was very cold out. They have a very clever system though - the road is so narrow and the houses so close together that they can go doorknocking and collect from every house after just a couple of songs, because everyone could hear them.

Master photographer

The first photographer to truly open my eyes to the power of the medium was Ralph Gibson. I admire his use of 'chiaroscuro' to create mood and emotion, and his unique cropping and framing technique to completely transform the subject of the shot.

Counting to ten

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10...
It's hard not to read these in English when I see them written as roman numbers. I'm trying to learn numbers in other languages too. So far I know them in these languages:

• one two three four five six seven eight nine ten (my mother tongue)
• tahi rua toru wha rimu ono whitu waru iwa tekau (te reo maori)
• un deux trois quatre cinq six sept huit neuf dix (français)
• ichi 一 ni 二 san 三 shi (or yon) 四 go 五 roku 六 shichi (or nana) 七 hachi 八 kyu 九 ju 十 (I can recite the Japanese numbers fine, but I only remembered half of the kanji - thanks to my computer for filling in the gaps there. I found this cool learning tune too)
• uno dos tres cuatro cinco seis siete ocho nueve diez (espanol)
• eins zwei drei fier fünf sechs sieben acht nein zehn (Deutsch)

After that my knowledge is a little bit rough. Just give me a bit of warning first before you ask me to recite them:

• jeden twa trzy cztery piec szesc siedem osiem dziewiec dziesiec (Polish. My pronunciation of these is still a long way off. I also only have the spelling because my friend was showing me I'd be better off learning them phonetically than reading them)
• tasi lua tolu fa lima ono fitu valu iva sefulu (Samoan ...okay I admit I didn't know number 10, but the rest are easy because I know it's like counting in Maori, but with a different phonetic alphabet)
• jedan dwa tri... deset = 1, 2, 3, 10 (Croatian. Thankfully not too different from Polish, which helps)
  

And the coolest thing is, aside from Poland, I've been to all of the countries where these numbers are used, and it has definitely come in handy to know them... and then I only have to resort to the international language of hand gestures when I 'parle comme une vache espagnole'!