Memories of Yore

nerdiness

2007-02-19T12:10:00.000Z

Here's how nerdy I am:

What does this mean? Your nerdiness is:
Somewhat nerdy. I mean face it, you are nerdier than about half the test takers.

2007-02-18T22:20:00.000Z

Here's a clip from Gran Canaria, it's all Christina's work. If you'd like to vote for it or leave a comment, here's the link on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bc0qebQl2Fk

copenhagen pics

2007-01-31T23:17:00.000Z

Copenhagen

2007-01-30T11:22:00.000Z

Last weekend we took a break and we flew to Copenhagen. Why Copenhagen? Well, last year, I had a special offer from Easyjet, some 10-15 pounds off the next booking, or 25?! I can't remember. I needed to book something by a certain date in order to claim the discount. So I looked at the cheapest destinations we can go to and Copenhagen was one of them. As we haven't been to Copenhagen before and it was a cheap flight even before the discount, why not?

We had to fly at early hours in the day, use night bus and leave our place at 3am. Not that nice as you're tired for the whole day. Anyway, no pain, no gain.

In Copenhagen we started walking around the city and on the main commercial street (I forgot the name now). We walked to see the Little Mermaid: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Mermaid in the first day. It was a long walk. We also managed to see some snow there and have some snow fights :-)
In the second day, we decided to take buses to do things quicker. The only walk was following the guard and seeing the change of guard at the palace. It was raining but that didn't stop us and didn't stop about 100 other people that were there to see the change of guard. From there we visited a round church across the street from the Palace. Quite unusual to see a round church.
Then we hopped on a bus and we went to take the tour of the Carlsberg brewery. You have to cross through the Elephant gate ... a gate with the statues of 4 elephants on the side. The tour is quite nice, you learn about the history of beer making in Denmark and the history of the Carlsberg brewery. They also have a collection of bottles. At the entrance they have a Skoll bottle for some reason. Chris noticed it was Made in Romania and it was in romanian. :-)
We also had vouchers for free drinks included in the price, so we ended up tasting the beer (me) and coke (Chris - she hates beer).

From there we took a bus all the way to Christiania: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freetown_Christiania
It's an interesting place, a different world. Not much pavement there, not much street lighting, not so tidy, with people setting barrels alight for warming up (like homeless people would do - they make it for fun though as they live there). We also entered a coffee shop and we had a coffee and a hot chocolate. I ordered a beer but the barman said .. No alcohol. The people that we saw there were mainly hippy style.
At some point 4 police officers, all looking 2m by 2m, entered the pub and they started looking around, without saying anything. Apparently this happens a lot, as the Danish government wants to crack down on the area, seen as a centre for drug trade. The policemen were quite scary. The barman started filming with a digital camera, as soon as they got in. I asked him ... why do you film them? Because sometimes they do stupid things, he told me.
Yeap, reading the story on wikipedia, it seems like they had a long hate relationship with the police.
I must say that being there at night, with not much street lighting, was a bit scary. It was mainly the unknown I guess. But then in the pub, they had the Christiania rules printed on the wall. Some of them are:

No Stealing
No Violence
No hard drugs (light drugs you can buy on the streets)
No bike gangs
No guns
No bullet proof vests

So, after reading that, I felt a bit safer. Although reading the description on wikipedia, you learnt that there have been murders sometimes in the commune, but not as many as in the rest of world I suppose.

So that was the trip to Copenhagen. On the way back Easyjet flight was quite late, so we had to take the night bus again and by 2am we were at home. A bit tiring but worth it.

travelling

2007-01-26T14:12:00.000Z

Tomorrow we're getting on a flight to Copenhagen, Denmark where we'll spend the weekend. I've printed already the to-do and to-see list. It promises to be an enjoyable trip, although a bit colder than London.
What else is in the pipeline?

Chronologically:

1. March - a week in Portugal, 4 guys, renting a car and travelling between Lisbon and Porto. One of them speaks portuguese, so we won't have a problem. Just in case, I'm taking my romanian-portuguese phraise book. Tudo bom!

2. Easter - we're planning a trip to Italy, the plan so far is to fly to Milan, rent a car and then drive all the way to Venice where we leave the car and fly back. On the way we can hit: Bergamo, Brescia, Verona, Padova. It's not booked yet, but likely to be soon. 4 days trip.

3. April 21/22 - a short weekend in Budapest, meeting up with my sister and her future-to-be husband. In the heart of Magyar country.

4. 5-7 May - 3 day trip to Munich, Germany. We'll be with 2 friends, one of them german, so again, no problems. Just preparing our stomachs for lots of sausages and beer :-)

5. We also think about a trip in late May, nothing yet decided.

6. End of june - early July - 2 weeks in Romania at my sister's wedding and travelling a bit around Romania. Brasov very likely, maybe even the Black Sea coast, who knows?!

7. For august we're thinking of a trip to Scotland with Lilian maybe when she's coming here. Details not yet finalised.

So it's all good huh? :-)

Ad generation

2007-01-22T11:15:00.000Z

Here's an interesting project, it was a thesis project at at Parsons The New School for Design.
Basically it takes corporate slogans and buzz words, mixes them together to generate new slogans. Then it automatically takes images from Flickr and generates fake advertisements.

The goal of the project is to “show how the language of advertising is both deeply meaningful, in that it represents real cultural values and desires, and yet utterly meaningless in that these ideas have no relationship to the products being sold.”

It's fun to watch.

http://www.theadgenerator.org/

2007-01-11T13:22:00.000Z

I know I haven't written in a long while ... I have a good excuse: Laziness!
Now, I am due to write about my travel experiences in New York and Gran Canaria. I will. I have some pics too.
In the meantime, let me post some pics of me in the office :-)

What's going on?

2006-11-22T16:40:00.000Z

A while since I last wrote. So what's up...

1. I've seen Momix (http://www.mosespendleton.com/), it's a dance group, however everything happens behind a semi-transparent curtain, with the dancers dressed with fluourescent colours against a black background. You get nice visual effects but it gets boring after a while. Nice as a novelty, but repetitive and soon you lose interest.

2. With Marco and David mainly, I've started a business group. We had our first meeting in a pub where we discussed business ideas and what do we want from a business group. We were four people in the first meeting. The result was a private google group and regular business meetings. We also played poker which was fun. :-)

3. I booked the accommodation for New York in a hostel (for 2 nights) next to Madison Square Garden. Very good location. And cheap. Well, sharing with 8 other people. It will be fun. I don't mind that. And straight after that, moving into a 4 star hotel which the company pays for :-). You get the best of both worlds.

4. I've switched from reading blogs the old way to an aggregator. I use SharpReader, written in .NET and pretty happy with it. I've noticed some bugs, but it does the main job. It's quite a refreshing approach.

5. Not much else I guess...

So where will I be travelling next?

2006-10-31T14:33:00.000Z

Well, in early december, New York. Finally the trip seems to shape up. It's confirmed between 8th - 19th of december, but the tickets are not booked yet. I'll have 2 weekends in New York which is really nice. Hopefully there might be some snow too. :-)

Between Christmas and New Year, I've just booked a trip to the Canaries Islands ... Gran Canaria to be more precise. Canaries Islands is a group of islands in the Atlantic Ocean, pretty close to Africa and on the same latitude with southern Morocco. Morocco was the first option, but then, as we couldn't make our minds up in time, it became more expensive then we would have liked. So in the end we settled for Gran Canaria, it's a package holiday as this was the cheapest way to go so late in the game. Flying on the 25th of December, returning on the 1st of January. The temperatures are likely to be around 20-25 degrees, so it will be New Year on the beach.

And then in January, a weekend in Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark. That's gonna be cold, oh yeah. This is booked.

And I'm thinking of carrying forward 5 holidays for the next year. If you carry them forward, you have to use them before the 31st of March. A trip to Dubai in spring would be nice, to visit Navid ;-). Or something else ... we'll see.

Amazon's 1-Click is Pure Evil

2006-10-25T16:20:00.000+01:00

1-Click is a Amazon solution for shopping with just 1 click. No one else can use as it's patented like it would be rocket science or brain surgery. Well, in fact it's dumb and can catch you out. Basically it adds a button next to an item and if you click that, it does everything in one step: Add To Basket, CheckOut, Purchase, Confirm, Thank you for purchasing! Of course, it only works if you have purchased on the site before and your details are on the file.

It was obviously designed to speed up things. And sometimes it does. But some other times in fails dramatically and it's better turned off. Which you can do from Your Account. Turn the damn patented thing off.

Here's how it can mess up. Imagine you haven't shop in a while and your details are changed slightly. Imagine your address is old. Your transaction completes immediately, you get the "Thank You" and the item is dispatched to the wrong address. You don't get any confirmation, you don't get asked if your details are correct... straight to the "Thank You", please!

And if you're using Amazon's Marketplace (which is a sort of market for 3rd parties where anyone can open up a shop and sell used books), then you're really in trouble. And this is because the order completes immediately, your details are sent to the Seller and YOU CAN'T CHANGE ANYTHING ANYMORE. You can't change you address, you don't have the seller's details (except the feedback others' left). At that point you realise that the seller’s slate is not immaculate, there were problems before with people trying to cancel. And these sellers are not regulated, they can be anyone, provide any quality of service they want. Still Amazon chooses to endorse them, by suggesting you should buy from them on their main website.

However, when you call Amazon's customer support (which by the way, it's all outsourced to INDIA) they'll tell you that they can't do anything about that and suggest you write an email to the seller. Needless to say these sellers operate from their own garages and no one can really know who they are and what they offer.

So there you are, knowing about the problem but not being able to do anything about it. In the end, the seller will send the items to the wrong address. It's an outrageous behaviour towards the customer. Claiming your money back can take months and you might never get your money back.

I am into this situation now. In the end, the frustration gets to you. I have decided not to use 1-Click or Amazon Marketplace ever again. And Amazon is seriously downgraded in my books (no pun intended!). Continue to use them at your own risk!

Monaco pics - part II

2006-10-23T13:59:00.000+01:00

Urban landscape, Monaco

Moi, with the Grand Casino in the back

Moi, in front of the Grand Casino

Formula 1 fans will recognize the famous Monaco tunnel. My fans will also recognize me in the same photo.

Pics from Monaco - part I

2006-10-23T11:48:00.000+01:00

The view of the port of Monaco

Fish in a tank at the Museum of Oceanography, Monaco

View from the top of the Museum of Oceanography in Monaco

Great view of the Museum of Oceanography in Monaco (Jacques Cousteau was the director for a long while)

Moi and Chris, in the Old Town of Monaco, next to the Palace

Change of guard at the Monaco Palace

The streets of Old Monaco Town

View of the port of Monaco, from the road to the Palace in Old Town

Same view as before

pics from Nice

2006-10-23T10:38:00.000+01:00

A nice view over the port of Nice, from the castle on top of the hill

A view of the main beach in Nice, with the Promenade des Anglais next to it, from the castle

Same Nice beach

Same Nice beach again, street level

Me and Chris in the market

Moi, in front of the train station in Nice

Moi and Chris

Moi in front of the main beach

People on the beach, you can see the pebbles (not sand)

Monaco

2006-10-19T10:30:00.000+01:00

On Monday, we decided to take a day trip to Monaco, as we realised it's too close to Nice to give a miss. And indeed, Monaco is located about 18 km from Nice and it's a 18-25 minutes on the train. A return ticket costs 6.20 euros. The train traverses a lot of tunnels that cut into the rocky shores, but in between the tunnels, you can admire the beautiful houses, right on the shores, built on rock, some of them right on the edge of the rock. It's a spectacular sight and I bet prices are spectacular too.
Monaco Monte Carlo train station is an underground station. In fact, it's a tricky one, as the lower level has an exit at the bottom of a rock, while the main exit/entrance is at the top of the rock. But the impression you get is that it's underground.

As you get out of the station, you're struck with awe. It's a very dramatic urban landscape. Because Monaco is basically built on a rock, and in layers, each layer higher than the other, from the sea up into the rocky mountains/hills behind. Everything is packed, the roads are narrow and buildings tend to be high and that can be a bit claustrophobic. It also exacerbates the problem of pollution, because cars transit the little state quite a lot. But the city is very very clean - it doesn't compare with Nice which I thought was a bit dirty.

As you get out of the train station, you walk to the right for a while and sooner or later you bump into the old castle of Monaco situated in the district called Monaco Ville. The castle is in a very good condition, and you can climb to it following a road in shape of an S. Once you get up there, the Palace is right in front. We watched the change of guard at 11.55. It's quick, it takes 5 minutes, but on a Monday there were about 300-400 people watching. I can't imagine what's it like in the weekend.

Next to the palace there's the old town, with narrow streets and a lot of restaurants, souvenir shops (a lot of Formula 1 souvenirs) and other touristy stuff. We had lunch there, a 16 euro menu including a starter (salad, pasta or one of the other 2-3 options), a main course (rump steak, escalope etc.) and a dessert. Not bad for the money.

The Oceanography Museum is just a stroll away from the Old Town and it's a famous place. The famous Jacques Cousteau used to be the director for many years. It's a sort of museum documenting a scientific expedition of Albert I, at the beginning of the century. It was in the north, close to the north pole. And then Albert 2nd followed in his father's footsteps. It's mainly how the museum started. In the basement however they have big fish tanks with a lot of fish from all over the world. They get the water straight from the Mediterranean sea with a system of pumps. From the top floor of the museum you have panoramic views of Monaco.

On the other side, there are steps taking you down from the castle, close to the marina. From there we took a walk to the other side of Monaco, it's a quarter called Monte Carlo. This is one of the 4th quarters of Monaco and it's famous for its Grand Casino (featured in James Bond film .. even in the next one: Casino Royale, which happens to be this Grand Casino in Monaco). Entrance to the Grand Casino sets you back 10 euros, so, as we weren't big gamblers we gave it a miss. Next to the Grand Casino there's another smaller casino with free entrance. It mainly have fruit machines. We wanted to try it out, and here's a funny situation. We only had a 50 euros note left, which was our money for food and bus back to the airport and everything. And we only wanted to spend 1 euro, or 2 euros. We didn't know how many chips we would get for 1/2 euros, but we imagined we could have fun even with such a small amount. Anyway, the guy at the office didn't speak English ... and he gave us straight away 25 chips of 2 euros each. He thought we want to spend all our 50 euros in one go. We tried to explain that all we want is 2 euros. But he kept understanding that we want 2 euros coins. Finally, he gave us just one coin, 2 euro coin and the change back. He probably thought: cheap bastards. Hehe. Anyway. We went to a machine and we were wondering how many games we would get for our 2 euros. We introduced the coin into a machine and we pressed reshuffle. 2 seconds later, it all stopped. We didn't win anything. And that was it. Game over. 2 euros in 2 seconds. That must be the most dramatic spending spree on this trip. How often do you spend a euro per second? If we were to continue at this pace, in one hour we would spend 3600 euros. So, we decided to stop at that point.

We headed back to Nice in the evening, got on a bus that took us to the airport and from there, London was 2 hours away. Au revoir France!

Nice

2006-10-17T12:44:00.000+01:00

Nice is lovely. And I don't mean only the beautiful sunny october days we had there, with 23-25 degrees, in stark constrast with the cold, foggy London. The beach is great, 2-3 kilometers in length (the main beach) and followed everywhere by a long and wide promenade, called "Promenade des Anglais". Presumably because it's swarming with british tourists? It's a great sight on a sunny day with all the people walking, skating, cycling, sitting on benches, watching the sea. With such a lovely weather, no surprise some people were swimming. I refrained from swimming as a strong breeze in the afternoon put me off and the idea of freezing after getting out of the water wasn't very exciting. However, we did lie on the beach enjoying the sun, doing nothing, in a true french style. :-)

The only slight disappointment is that the beach is pebble stoned, not sandy. I was expecting sand from the famous Cote d'Azur. But the colour of the water is great.

And you can see that from the castle on the hill, which offers panoramic views of Nice and of the port on the other side of the city. There are some steps to climb and there's some effort involved, but well worth it, as the views are beautiful. The top of the castle was where the old medieval town was, but in the 18-19 century, it was transformed in a large garden, where nowadays people play football, just relax in the sun, admiring the views or enjoy a coffee in a restaurant up there. There's also a waterfall and a cemetery to explore.

Descending from the castle, you're welcome by the Old Town, with its narrow streets and the buzz of tourists attracted by the many restaurants, souvenir shops, book shops, ice-cream shops and other little shops. It's a lovely area to explore and enjoy. You can buy a french baguette filled with all sorts of goodies for about 3.50 - 4 euros.

As you walk to the west, you bump into a street market, true french style. Full of people trying to buy, people shouting, advertising their own merchandise or inviting you to taste before you buy. The whole atmosphere is a very friendly one, but also very vibrant and familiar. It's no supermarket here, all these people care about their food and it looks like they put a lot of their energy into these home-made delicacies. And that's the feeling ... it's like your grandma was out there on the street trying to sell her home made cookies.

The whole trip to Nice was made so enjoyable by the ever present sun. Not a single cloud, clear and warm days, with a nice breeze that makes it not too hot.

On Monday we decided to take a day trip to the posh Monaco, a 20-25 minute trip that would prove to be an excellent choice. But all about Monaco, tomorrow...

2006-09-19T09:29:00.000+01:00

I've seen Little Miss Sunshine, the film. It's a good film, a sad story wrapped up into what it looks like a comedy, so in the end you keep laughing, but underneath, there's a drama happening in front of your eyes. Recommended!

Not much happening otherwise. I'm gambling at the moment on the stock market, buying gambling shares and hoping that the US won't introduce legislation this week to prohibit online gambling payments by credit cards. To win you have to take chances. To lose ... the same.

I'm waiting for my new PC to be delivered. It took 3 weeks already. Funny ... I sent them an angry email, telling them I don't think they can deliver in the timeframe they mentioned ... 12-15 working days. And asking them to tell me when they would deliver, otherwise I cancel my order and shop somewhere else. I get an email saying that the timeframe is given just for guidance. And cancelling would incur a 30 pounds admin fee. But what do you know ... 2 hours later, my PC is market as "Built" in their system. Surprise surprise! Needless to say it's in that state for 3 days now. I was hoping for somewhat quicker resolution. I start thinking that they just marked it in the system without actually building it.
Customer service is disastrous in this country.

I have to look for a warm destination for christmas ... so far Morroco and Tenerife on my list. Canary Islands might also be interesting. I'm not so keen about Egypt. It's not necessarily the history of bombs, but also I know they have tighter security there. If you want to travel around the country you usually travel with police tailing you. Not fun. And I'm no 007 - I sadly admit it.

2006-09-07T11:26:00.000+01:00

I'm a bit lazy to update this blog, I must say. That's one of my problems in general, an enthusiastic start withers as the routine settles in. So what happened lately?
I've been with Chris to the Reading Festival ... the Reading Festival is one of the biggest music festival in the UK. I didn't know about it, I only knew about Glastonbury. But hey, I never pretend to be anything but an ignorant when it comes to music. I stopped following the music scene for a long time. Now I feed with nibbles provided by friends, lately Maryam who gracefully lent me some music. Thank you!

Reading festival was a 3 day monster festival. And it looked like a monster, sheltering probably around 20-30 thousand people each day. Many many tents and a lot (and I do mean a lot) of rubbish. Everywhere, the litter bins were full, so people were throwing all the rubbish on the floor. I saw teenagers, rockers, dressed in dirty clothes, poor students, booze, guitars and crowds crowds crowds. Reminds me of the festivals in Romania. Just this one was better organised.

In the end we saw Placebo, Slayer and Pearl Jam, the most notable ones and some other little bands that I can't remember now. We went there for Pearl Jam in fact, as Chris waited for 15 years to see them live. Well, I remembered them from the 90s when they were on MTVs with hits like Alive, Jeremy and stuff like that. They were good. Now they're no longer on MTV, no longer commercial, they went underground, but let me tell you, they have a lot of fans.
Eddie Vedder, the lead vocalist, is a very kind person. He's not full of shit like most stars, he's very considerate to the fans, very friendly and you can tell he's a decent person. Judging by the lyrics of his songs and by his autobiography as sketched by others ... he had one helluva childhood. But hey, he seems to have conquered his demons.
Anyway, a good experience the Reading Festival, but I learnt I'm no longer so patient and accepting with crowds, rubbish and student lifestyle as I was when I was a student. Well, even when I was a student there was only for so long I could stand the Sighisoara festival for instance (Sighisoara - a medieval festival, combined with rock, booze and all the shit that spells disaster for a medieval town).

Life has been quiet otherwise. I've been to some films ... now trying to remember them I realise I can't. For me films are really what they were supposed to be ... entertainment. Meaning that for an hour or two, you're just entertained, transported into a different world. And that's it. An hour or two. Then you come back to reality and you soon forget about it. The intrinsic value was that of entertainment for the duration of the film. No point in hanging on to it and remember it and talk about it for ages. That's why I'm not good at remembering films. For me it's entertainment "now and here".

The latest toy is the stock market, I've invested some money and in a month and a half so far I've made about 1500 pounds. Not that bad actually. Of course today everything was down and I'm losing money, but it will recover. It's not an investment for faint hearted.

What else ... I was looking at flights to and fro Romania. Only one company, Wizzair is introducing so far flights. And only one from London to Bucuresti Baneasa. So it's totally useless for me. Some other flights to Arad and Targu Mures, but not from London. From Barcelona and Milan. Nothing to Cluj.

2006-08-18T10:13:00.000+01:00

One other thing that I've started recently was to invest my money in the stock market. London Stock Exchange. So, I invested in 3 companies and right after confidently putting my money into them, their stock plummeted. It's not a comfortable position, because you're expecting to make money, not to lose them. But that's the stock market, it's a long term investment thingy. And overall, on the long run, it outperforms other means of investment, like dull saving accounts.

And of course, I have a special fund for speculative investments. And let me tell you that right after the terror allert, that foiled bomb plot, what did I do? I invested into British Airways, as everyone was chickening out and their shares were free falling.
6 days after buying, I sold and made a profit of 105 pounds.
If I had waited 2 more days, I would have made 600 pounds. I'm pulling my hair out at the moment. But still, it goes to the archive of successful stories, just that it could have been roughly 6 times more successful had i had some more patience.

2006-08-16T11:03:00.000+01:00

As I didn't write anything lately, a lot of things happened lately, so I hope I'll earn your pardon without necessarily begging for it. I moved place, I can be found in New Cross now. New Cross is much better than the previous area, Elephant & Castle, a very cosmopolitan area (I wasn't the only white there, but barely), quite a rough area where regularly you could see signs "Someone was murdered here 2 weeks ago, we're appealing for witnesses". Well, living on the edge, a tumultuous youth. Nah, it's not as bad as it sounds. I lived there for 2 years and nothing happened to me there. But it was time for something quieter and lower profile. Enter New Cross.

I have 2 train connections to and from London Bridge, from New Cross and Deptford train stations. It's 5-8 minutes to London Bridge. From there, tube for about 5-8 minutes more, 2 stops on the Northern Line and I'm in the City. The City is a one square mile area in the heart of London. Door to door, it takes me about 30-35 minutes, once you start to account for delays, walks, etc. Not bad.

I also took a week in Greece with Chris, her uni friend and her uni friend's sister. The trip started with some glitches on the way ... we forgot one bag at home, so had to return to collect it. Then we got hit with extra 18 pounds, ticket difference as we landed in the 1st class on the Stanstead train. I wouldn't pay as the only difference between 1st and 2nd was the number and the pretence of more comfort. But a little scum ticket controller followed us after we left the train, threatening us with all sorts of crap. I decided to pay as we were late for the flight and he had our return tickets. Wanker!

We should have guessed by then that the trip will be pigmented with all sorts of misunderstandings...

Now that I got your attention... let's talk about something else... :-)

Ok, so Athens was good, we were driven around and showed places by Chris' uni friend. We stayed at her place. Athens is a crammed place but it's mainly made of houses, no more than 2 storeys, not the 13-storeys block of flats that sometimes sore the eye in London or other places, signs of a forgotten era.

We went to Acropolis, Parthenon, unfortunately it was cordoned off. It's all due to the minority of irresponsible travellers (or locals) that like to immortalise their names on pieces of national heritage, that all the old landmarks are cordoned off, you have to see them from a safe distance. So you guessed it, my name is not on the Parthenon. :-)

We also walked a bit around Athens which seems a bit crammed, the space being used very pragmatically.

On a monday morning, waking up at the early hours, squinting, we took a ferry boat from Pireus which holds the honour of being Athens' port. The 6 hours journey to Sifnos was boring at least. I also hated being in a smoking lounge. Which leads to one of my most serious complaints about Greece and greeks. They're heavy smokers and they smoke like old locomotives from the Industrial Revolution. Almost everyone there smokes and sometimes without consideration. I looked in the smoking lounge, there were mothers with little kids. How can they keep them in that smoky place? There's a sort of ignorance about smoking, with people lighting up while you still eat. There's a need of a major shake-up. The price of a cigarette packets being 2.80 euros doesn't help either. It's very affordable. In the UK it's 4.50 - 5 pounds. That works out around 7-8 euros per packet. And from next year, London pubs and restaurant will be smoke free as a ban will be enforced.

Sifnos is an island part of the Cyclades group of islands, along side Mykonos, Santorini, Milos (Venus of Milos anyone?). It's a rocky and dry archipelago, not much vegetation, which is also the case for southern Greece (I would assume). All the houses are painted in white, with narrow streets and people sometimes just lying on the porch enjoying what (I'm sure I'd convinced you by now) must be the national hobby: smoking.

It's still a touristy place, but not yet discovered by the cohorts of mass tourists coming down on a dirt cheap package deal and pissing on the place. Most tourists there were greek.

There are some sandy beaches, narrow though, but still ok. There are also some rocky shores where you can dive, even enjoy a bit of snorkelling as I did. The sea is very salty, much saltier than the Black Sea and Atlantic Ocean, for some reason. Hopefully it's not because people piss more in the Mediterranean :-)

Unfortunately our program wasn't an exact overlap with the program of our greek hosts. They were mostly waking up around 1pm and going to bed at 3am, after a bit of clubbing, or the pretence of it. The lack of adventure was also a major difference, as we were hoping to explore every corner of the island while our hosts were more conservative, choosing places they knew already. We soon fell off grace with each other over the differences. The last days unfortunately were quite tensioned and we were thinking of "how the hell can we get out of here".

Morale of the story: Always travel with people with the same travel ideas, same expectations roughly. Alternatively, go on your own! :-)

Some pics from Greece are coming up.

The food in Greece is good, the greek salad with feta cheese is omnipresent and other delicacies. The food is a bit fat. No wonder the greek men are the fattest in Europe, according to statistics.

Ok, enough about Greece. Once coming back, I realised I had to go again to the gym. Said and done. Me, Chris and Roberto we're all subscribed by now to a local gym, quite good, new equipment, air conditioned, no smells. We'll see how that goes.

We've also seen 2 films, as we felt bad about not using our film cards. We saw Cars and Monster House, both animation films. Cars is a very good film I thought, I liked it. Recommended. Monster House is an animation horror film. It's not for kids, although being an animation film. The animation I thought was very good, especially when it came to people movement and facial expressions etc. but the film failed to impress me much.

That's about it for now...

2006-07-27T15:05:00.000+01:00

Last weekend I moved ... I contacted a guy with a van who was advertising on a website. As discussed we came on sunday, mid-day. A shabby van, eons old, but the guy was cool. He offered to help, he was a big man. Nigerian, studying business management and making an extra buck on weekends by working as a removals van driver.

Who else helped me pack and carry on the day? Well here's the list: Marco, Roberto, Chris. I thank you very much, it all went smoothly because of you.
During the process a local kid helped too carry stuff. But also in the process, someone stole my chair somehow. I couldn't find it, although I was searching on all floors (there are 13). Well, in the end I gave up searching, consoling myself with the idea that I will need a new one anyway, the old one had the leather ripped in one place. The disappointment was when I came back after moving and I found the chair at the rubbish bin. Such sick people, stealing some other people's things just to bin them. I didn't take the chair from the rubbish bin if that's what you're thinking.

The rest was cleaning, cleaning and more cleaning. Chris did an awesome job by herself, helping a lot. We even hired a cleaner for 3 hours for the new place. Her name was Valentina, from Macedonia and had a degree in economics. 3 hours for 30 pounds.

I also started investing on the stock market. As soon as I put my money in, the stock that I bought plummeted. Well, these are the joys of the stock market. Anyways, it's a long term investment and in the end I'm sure it will pay off more than the interest I get from the bank.

And tomorrow flying to Greece, Athens and the island of Sifnos for a week, to unwind and forget about everything while roasting on the beach, swimming, snorkelling and generally not giving a damn.

back

2006-07-19T22:29:00.000+01:00

I've neglected this blog for a while and my excuse is that i had too many things on my mind. So what happened in the meantime, briefly as I don't want to bore you with my problems (hey, it's my blog, i can do that)

1. I was about to purchase a flat but the deal fell off as the landlady called me, after 5 months of impatiently waiting for the conveyance to finish, that she wants 5K more. I said no straight away. I hate to deal with muppets.But since i was planning to leave this place, i started to look for a place. Which leads to number...

2. Looked for a place in the New Cross (SE14 - SE8) areas. Found a place, tomorrow we're signing the contract and I'm moving on sunday. I'll be sharing with mister italiano, roberto.

3. Went to Romania to my cousin wedding where I must admit that I didn't do much for 2 weeks. Ate, drank, slept, talked to my parents, watched the worldcup ... which leads me to number...

4. Focused on the world cup, I had a website for score prediction. I must admit that I didn't win. I could have, but it wouldn't have been fair. The world cup absorbed all my attention and energy for a month.

5. Started packing, cleaning the flat, throwing away things from my current flat. It's amazing how much junk I gathered around me and that's because I hated throwing things away. The philosophy was ... don't throw away but keep it, you never know when you would need it again. In fact, I never needed these things again. Even more, I forgot that I even had them. So in the end, they were just taking space but as good as inexistent. So now, I've started throwing things away. And it's such a relief to throw things away, I feel the relief indeed. I'm sure a part of it has to do with the fact that I'm thinking that I'll have less things to move on sunday. But it's also being simpler. Do I need all this shit around me? And the answer is NO! I don't.Having less stuff also makes you lighter, more agile which is always good before you settled down somewhere "for good".

That's it for now.

goodbye tarom

2006-06-13T10:17:00.000+01:00

For those of you not familiar with Tarom, it is the Romanian national airline. It is also one of the worse airline I have ever travelled with. It's full of communist monopolistic attitudes towards passangers. They feel they're doing you a service letting you travel with them. They have no respect for travellers and they change their travel conditions as they see fit. "If you don't like it, you can cancel your travel with us" they tell you.

The stewards are so rude. I remember last time I travelled with them, one steward was explaining the meal menu to a passanger in front of me. I didn't catch exactly all of it and I asked her ... so what's on the menu... She answered, irritated ... What?! You didn't hear? I just told the other passenger...
I have stopped travelling by Tarom and hope never to travel with Tarom again.

1st of January 2007 is the date when we will all say good bye to Tarom. That's because Romania joins the EU and will have to sign the EU open sky agreement, allowing any airline to operate wherever they want in Romania. Tarom can't survive competition. They lose money now! In the face of low cost airlines they face total collapse.
It's an excellent news for customers!

Don't get me wrong, I love my country, I'd like to have the most competitive national airline in the world and the best economy in the world. But, at the same time, I hate being treated like shit. Prehistoric companies ought to die. And in a globalised world, people have to choose for the best options, no matter what nationality.

So goodbye Tarom, have a painful death. I spit on your grave! :-)

2006-06-06T10:33:00.000+01:00

A guy is going to his emigration interview, wanting to leave the country and emigrate somewhere else. The officer asks him:
- Why do you want to leave your country?
- Because of homosexuality!
- Really? How come?
- Well, during the Nazi rule, homosexuality was absolutely forbidden, punished by death. After that it was punished by prison time. Now it is permitted and even encouraged by law. I want to emigrate before it becomes compulsory!

Pro-Bono or Anti-Bono

2006-06-02T17:52:00.004+01:00

Have you ever heard of the Bono Probability Positioning System? BPPS? Well, it's an automated system that uses webcams in Dublin, facial recognition and Google Maps to give you the probability of locating Bono, the lead singer of U2. Here it is: http://www.stunned.org/bono/googlebono.htm
Quite funny!

But, as I was in Dublin last week, I really did spot Bono. Or did I?! There was a guy, looking like Bono (well, I've never seen Bono live) and he was staying in front of a pub and everyone was taking his pictures with camera phones. Was he the real Bono? I concluded NO to myself, he wasn't acting like a celebrity (he was enjoying the crowds and celebrity too much for that). Anyway, I took pics of the "fake" Bono for you to judge for youself.

So, now you know! What do you think? Is he the real Bono or a fake Bono? :-)

da vinci babble

2006-05-26T10:56:00.000+01:00

I managed to see the Da Vinci Code on wednesday. Having read the book before, the film didn't come as a surprise at all ... it's more or less exactly like the book. So it wasn't a film to be surprised by. Instead I could focus on the act. I must say the disappointment came from Audrey Tautou, a very good actress otherwise, her roles in Amelie, Les Poupees russes and The Dirty Little Things were good or very good. One of the explanation I could find ... she wasn't very comfortable with her English role and that affected the whole performance. Or maybe she was nervous acting next to Tom Hanks? Anyway, Tom Hanks performance was mediocre at best. So nothing much to say there. The best actors were Ian McKellen as Teabing and Paul Bettany as Silas, the albino.
I also don't like that much films shot in the dark (no pun intended) ... where everything is so dark. Harry Potter was like that too. Yucky!

What else? Ah well, tomorrow I'm flying to Dublin for the long bank holiday weekend. Let's hope the weather is not as shit as in the last week (with the exception of yesterday afternoon).