Ireland - England 14-13!

Yes, I had a party today because yesterday was my birthday! And no, I'm not going to tell you how was it, I'm just going to show you my birthday cake :)

Apart from the presents received from my family and friends I had 2 verrry special presents, both coming from the Green Isle:
1. First was U2's album - No line on the horizon! I know the album is on sale on Monday, but my friends from Ireland sent it to me beforehand. Honestly I can't tell you if I liked it or not, because I haven't made up my mind yet, I still have to listen to it, again and again and again...
2. and second - well, it's rugby time again and I was able to finally see a game on tv, Ireland against England! When it comes to team sports, nothing compares to rugby, really. What can I say: Brian O'Driscoll is GOD! I think I was having a stroke in the final 3 minutes of the game, when England scored 7 points in 2 minutes. I couldn't believe that Ireland would lose on my birthday - but it was MY day after all, and they finally won with a narrow margin 14-13! So they actually have a chance to win this year the Torunament - THAT would be a great birthday present :D

33+1=32!

U2 - Beautiful Day

The heart is a bloom
Shoots up through the stony ground
There's no room
No space to rent in this town

You're out of luck
And the reason that you had to care
The traffic is stuck
And you're not moving anywhere

You thought you'd found a friend
To take you out of this place
Someone you could lend a hand
In return for grace

It's a beautiful day
Sky falls, you feel like
It's a beautiful day
Don't let it get away

You're on the road
But you've got no destination
You're in the mud
In the maze of her imagination

You love this town
Even if that doesn't ring true
You've been all over
And it's been all over you

It's a beautiful day
Don't let it get away
It's a beautiful day

Touch me
Take me to that other place
Teach me
I know I'm not a hopeless case

See the world in green and blue
See China right in front of you
See the canyons broken by cloud
See the tuna fleets clearing the sea out
See the Bedouin fires at night
See the oil fields at first light
And see the bird with a leaf in her mouth
After the flood all the colors came out

It was a beautiful day
Don't let it get away
Beautiful day

Touch me
Take me to that other place
Reach me
I know I'm not a hopeless case

What you don't have you don't need it now
What you don't know you can feel it somehow
What you don't have you don't need it now
Don't need it now
Was a beautiful day

Courtesy of Bono, The Edge, Larry and Adam

Gustarica C & C

O reteta usoara usoara ptr un snack delicios cu castravete si creveti...

Avem nevoie de un castravete de sera, un tub de sos remoulade sau maioneza, putin marar si creveti

Se spala castravetele, nu se curata de coaja si se taie felii groase de 1 cm. Se lasa putin sa iasa apa din el. Intre timp se toaca mararul si se amesteca cu sosul remoulade. Se sterg feliile de castravete de apa si se spriteaza sosul remoulade peste ele. Se decoreaza cu cate 1-2 creveti/ felie si GATA!

Pofta buna :)

Freckles...

Have you heard of this Irish saying:
A face without freckles is a sky without stars...

I'm glad that I will never be without stars in my life, although when I was little I didn't enjoyed them very much...
But I just found out that freckles are fairies kisses!
Well, looking in the mirror the fairies must really love me ;)

The Script

I discovered a new band this week, they are brilliant, the lyrics amazing and the fact that they are irish it's just a coincidence... I found out about it after I listened to their album :)
Here is their website: http://www.thescriptmusic.com/ie/home/
"Break even" and "The man who can't be moved" are my favourites right now...
And tomorrow they are playing at the Muffathale/Ampere in Munich and on my birthday they are playing in Milano...
Hellooo, what about Bucharest!!! Bestfest, maybe?

Fasching

It's carnival time in Bavaria... 3 days of costume parties and of course beer, beer and more beer :) It's like Oktoberfest but only better - no japanese tourists or aussies to get drunk and pass out on the streets!
I haven't been to a Carnival in Munich in such a looong time, to see Marienplatz filled with people smiling and dancing and having fun, next year I'm definitely trying to get there in time...
Till then, all my friends there should party for me too!
If you speak german, read here about Fasching http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karneval,_Fastnacht_und_Fasching
If not... start learning it :)

And the Oscar goes to...

Wow! The Oscars tonight... it's my 19th edition live - waking up like a bat at 2 o'clock in the morning to watch it, wanting to be among the first ones who know who gets the Oscar... it's a happy feeling, even though not all the editions were spectacular.
I remember the one from last year, I was in Vienna, it was freezing, but I was lucky enough to watch the transmission in a cinema filled with people - and when Austria won the Foreign Film with Die Falscher and the whole cinema cheered, it was not something you forget easily...
This year I was soooo happy that Slumdog won, I jumped up and down the whole show, worrying that maybe Benjamin Button will win in the end, but I had nothing to worry about - it's such a hollow movie, with no feelings attached to it, it was like watching a documentary on Discovery Channel.
I am a little disappointed that In Bruges didn't win the Best Original Screeplay, but it's difficult to win when there is a gay screenplay nominated! Mickey Rourke lost his Oscar to Sean Penn for the same movie - Milk.
It was quite a predictable edition - Kate, Penelope and Heath Ledger won - Hugh Jackman did a good job at hosting the event, Slumdog won all the important awards - it was quite moving to see the whole crew, including the little actors taking the award for Best Picture.
Here are all the winners http://www.oscar.com/

P.S. And a special mention for Little Mountain and my niece Anca - yes, Robert Pattison was in the building, he introduced the Romance Movies of the Year together with Amanda Seyfried from Mamma Mia!, and you can also spot him when Mickey Rourke is nominated for his part, Mr. Edward freaking Cullen is standing right behind him :P

Concert James Blunt

Hurray, tonight I went to see James Blunt live at Sala Polivalenta with my niece :)
It was an amazing concert, it was the best concert I've seen this month (and the only one that I attended this month :P), the only problem was that it didn't last as long as we wanted - it started at 8 o'clock, no opening band and it ended around 9.30 :(
He has an unbelievable voice, and amazingly enough the acoustics were pretty good for the venue. It was an almost sold out concert and we were lucky to have the best seats in the house :)
At one point he came to the back of the venue to play Goodbye my lover at the piano there and he was only 3 chairs in front of us... and 3 meters high! He was on a platform, not that he is that tall, actually I think he's regular in height, but the hair is compensating the lacking in cm (or maybe he wants to advertise for the Foltene Shampoo that I am so fond of :P)
Great concert though, glad I was able to attend it!

Slumdog Millionaire

I'm trying to get in Oscar mood so I decided to watch tonight Slumdog Millionaire http://us.imdb.com/title/tt1010048/ to see what the fuss is all about...
What can I say - it's absolutely brilliant and it will deserve to be the biggest winner on Sunday night!
It's a moving story, well written and well directed, keeping you entertained the whole 2 hours. The children are natural at playing their characters, especially little Jamal - he is so cute and funny I wonder if Angelina & Brad will decide on adopting him :)
It's worth watching, so 10 thumbs up, although I have only 2 :P

Tropic Thunder

Movie night again...
I mean what can you do in a weather like this? Go for a walk in this blizzard? Nooo, better stay at home, drink some gluehwein and watch movies :)
The movie Tropic Thunder ( http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0942385/ ) already won several Awards, and it's actually nominated for Oscar's too for Robert Downey's perfomance as a white actor playing a black character in a fictional movie!
It's a funnny comedy - actually it's more like a parody of all the Vietnam War movies - and it's script is very well written, considering that 2 actors wrote it - Ben Stiller (who is also directing it) and Justin Theroux (Tropic Thunder is his first try, his second is actually Iron Man 2!).
Tom Cruise makes a special appearance and although I'm not his biggest fan, he is totally hilarious!
The last 5 minutes of the movie will make you laugh like crazy :)
Hope you will like it, it's a great weekend movie...

Bride Wars

It's Wednesday - it's Orange Day! We went in the same formula as last week to see Bride Wars - http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0901476/ - a funny and sweet commedy with Anne Hathaway (skinny as hell) and Kate Hudson (who looks more and more like her mom, even with the facial expressions!).
But the best part of the day was not the movie, but the M.A.M. photosession - I never knew we could be such gorgeous models....
Here are two samples :)
Aren't we all just fab?
I think I will kiss the mirror in the morning from now on...

Supa picanta de morcovi cu linte

Seria de gatit continua cu o supa crema de morcovi ffff. buna! Adica mie mi-a placut :)

2 lingurite seminte de chimen, sucul de la 1 lamaie, 1 praf fulgi de chilli uscat, 2 linguri ulei de masline, 600g morcovi, spalati si taiati cuburi, 140g linte rosie, 1 l supa de legume fierbinte, 125 ml lapte, iaurt natural si paine naan la servire

Se incalzeste o tigaie mare si se prajesc semintele de chimen si fulgii de chilli timp de 1 minut sau pana ce incep sa sara in tigaie si sa-si degaje aroma. Se scoate aprox jumatate din cantitatea de seminte si se lasa de o parte. se adauga uleiul, morcovii, lintea, supa si laptele in tigaie si se dau in clocot. se fierb timp de 30 minute, pana ce lintea se inmoaie si se umfla. se mixeaza supa cu un blender, pana devine fina (sau o puteti lasa cu bucati de legume daca preferati). Se asezoneaza dupa gust, iar la servire se adauga iaurtul si se presara semintele ramase. Se serveste cu paine calda naan.

Sos gros cu iaurt si verdeata

Azi e zi de gateala... Sosul asta se potriveste la cartofi copti, chipsuri sau alte saratele. Poate inlocui cu succes tzatziki-ul grecesc!

400g iaurt grecesc, 4 fire de ceapa verde taiate rondele subtiri, cate 1 lingura de marar si menta taiate marunt, ulei de masline, putina sare

Se amesteca toate ingredientele bine si se lasa 1 ora la frigider sa se patrunda aromele.

Nu-i asa ca nu e dificil de facut :P

Ireland - Italy 38-9

Hurray! Ireland won again, this time against Italy :)
I know that Italy it's not that great at rugby, but still... the nervousness was there!
I watched the game same way as the last time, through the Irish Times website, I'm becoming a pro at updating the site. Hopefully by the end of the tournament I would be able to watch one of the games live on tv!
What a great way to finish this amazing weekend :D

Busy, busy, busy

I don't know how it happens, but some days I have nothing to do, just linger around, getting bored by the minute and then some days I don't have time to breathe... but that's not a bad thing :)
I decided this morning to go to Sinaia, to see my castle in the snow, to take some pictures (because I have none with Peles in winter time), so bright and early (well not exactly early - 10 o'clock) I boarded the train to Sinaia. When I arrived there the weather was unbelievable - sunny and warm, like in the spring time... and the snow was ... amazing! I haven't been to Sinaia in winter for the past 10 years at least, and I am really glad that I decided to come today.
My castle was beautiful as a fairy tale castle and the atmosphere brought back loads of memories from my childhood - the bars from my bedroom window were still there (my dad fixed them there so I wasn't able to fall down when I went icicle hunting) - so I called Monica and Raluca to remenice the good old times, but none of them were around, both in Bucharest...
Luckily my brother and his wife, Buni and Mihai were also in Sinaia so I called them up and told them that I was in Sinaia! They were convinced that Anca was with me, but surprise - she wasn't - she decided to come with a later train! At one point we were joking that Vali should come with a later train and my mum should also come - to have the whole family together! Actually I really think I can predict the future - Vali came with a later train :D
If I could only guess the lotto numbers this way...
We decided to eat at Economat, I tried the papanasi and they were verrry good, although Dana said the best ones are in Predeal at Cioplea - I can't cofirm it, I have to go there and try them myself :)
The food was good, the prices were Ok for Sinaia, but the service was... communist at least - I had to wait for my beer for half an hour (the waitress forgot about it), I could have died of thirst!!!
Unfortunatelly I wasn't able to spend the night in Sinaia because I was supposed to go to a club/cocktail bar in the evening with Miki and Rucxandra and the rest of the gang! (now you understand what I said earlier about busy, busy, busy)
Luckily the train arrived in time, and I sweated like crazy till Bucharest - I think they wanted to fry us to death in the train, but I survived - I had a big night ahead!
The club/cocktail bar is called Interbelic and it's quite nice - of course it was full, because of St. Ballantine's but we made a reservation for a table of 8, although we were 12!
What can I say, I drank only 2 cocktails (a Swimmingpool and a Bull Frog) but I sampled at least 15! It was sooo funny to see how everybody was trying to taste the different cocktails. The music was also nice, we actually danced at one point! I know, it's a first this year - hopefully I will go dancing again soon, so I won't feel like a grandmother!
We stayed till 2 o'clock and we had a great time! Who wants to drink cocktails and listen to good music should go there http://www.interbelic.ro/

Amazing Australia

I was surfing the web today and I found this site
http://www.amazingaustralia.com.au/faq.htm
Read the not too frequently asked questions! The answers are totally hilarious, the aussies really have a wicked sense of humour :)

Light graffitti

Surfing the net I discovered an amazing photographer from UK http://www.michaelbosanko.com/
The way he plays with the light is absolutely mesmerizing...
P.S. Watch the videos too, they are worth it!

Push

So today is wednesday so... it's Orange day!
No, I'm not going to eat oranges all day, I'm going to the movies with the Orange Ticket :)
We are going in almost the same formula: me, Adinutza and Little Mountain but with a different guy (it seems no on can stand us for 2 wednesdays in a row - some are going to extreme measures to keep away - like going to Prague!)
We saw today "Push" with Chris Evans and Dakota Fanning http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0465580/
It was an ok movie, nothing too spectacular, Chris cute as ever, Dakota all grown up, some interesting filming technique and from time to time quite funny lines...(the olive it's a killer)

Sleeping beauty

Have you seen anything more endearing than this?
Courtesy of Richard Austin...

Nicolae Kirculescu - Moment muzical din Patru studii de concert pentru pian si orchestra

For nostagics from Romania... be patient and enjoy it :)

Lost for words...

I just finished Breaking Dawn and I'm lost...
Should I start again?

Ireland - France 30-21

Hurray!!! Ireland won!!!!
It's a great start of the 6 Nations Cup! Maybe this year it's an Irish year and they will finally win the Cup after ... 23 years!
It was a nerve racking game to watch, because I couldn't see it on tv, so I had to update the Irish Times website every 2-3 minutes to see the score. The last ten minutes were a complete nightmare, but all is well when it ends well!

U2 - Get on your boots

Finally, the new video from U2 - Get on your boots was launched today!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZ7zKeYhU_8
It's a very interesting video and I can't wait to hear the album on my birthday :)

Long way down

I was really busy today, I had to burn some dvd's, to free some memory on my computer. Why?
Because I found on torrents the WHOLE series of ER! (that's Emergency Room - with George Clooney and Goran Visjnic!!!) and it will occupy 160 Gb on my computer...
Unfortunately I have only 120 Gb memory on it :) so I really must make some room for it.
So I burnt dvd's with Long way Round and Long way Down series with Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman. Their adventures are amazing, and for someone who is not that keen on riding bikes, they really changed my mind. It would be great to be able to go around the world on motorcycles and forget all the everyday worries and just enjoy the ride...

Kidnapped

I saw last week on Tv one of the episodes of Kidnapped and I got hooked... http://www.nbc.com/Kidnapped/
Soooo I downloaded the whole series (which actually means 13 episodes) and I can't stop watching it! It's really one of the best shows I've seen lately. Sadly the people from NBC didn't see it's potential and after only 5 episodes cancelled it, so everybody watching had to go online to see the other 8 episodes :(
Unfortunatelly I have subtitles for the first 5 episodes, for the online ones there are no subtitles available, so I have to pay attention to what the actors are saying...
It's sad to see that good shows get cancelled and crap ones survive...
The creator of the show also wrote Lucky Number Seven and a new tv series My own worst enemy with Chriatian Slater - maybe I should check that one too!
Got to go, I still have 2 more episodes :)

Visual DNA

My cousin sent me a very interesting link: http://youniverse.com/statement/module/PersonalityModule/New_Personality_module !
You just click a photo that is representative to you and at the end of the quiz you find out what type of person you are (in case that you are more confused than usual and you don't remeber who you are :P)
There are other quizes also, so you can try them all if you are really bored or are at work and you're suppose to look busy...

Kings of Leon

I just listened to their 4th album - Only by the night - and it's brrrrrrilliant! Use Somebody and Sex on Fire are dynamite! The play alternative rock and they come from Nashville, Tennessee where people usually sing country music...
I must admit I haven't heard of them before this album, but they sound really good and I'm sure they can really rock the place - I should definitely try to see them live when they decide to tour Europe!
Check them out http://www.kingsofleon.com/

February...

February it's gonna be a month full of events :)
It starts with the Six Nations Cup - http://www.rbs6nations.com/en/home.php - hopefully Ireland will win this year, they haven't won in such a looooooong time, they just won the Triple Crown over and over again. That's not too bad actually, because that means they were better than England, Wales and Scotland! For the naive people who do not watch sports - I'm talking rugby here!!!
Then we have James Blunt concert in Bucharest on the 21st. Maybe I'll get lucky and find the cheap tickets that are already soldout :(
We continue with the Oscars on the 22nd, live on Pro 7! I will have to get up really early (3.00 in the morning! - but after 19 years of waking up to see them live, it's piece of cake)
And then, of course, the most important event this month - it will happen on the 27th of February - U2 are launching their album "No line on the Horizon"!!!! Can't wait to hear it!
Oh, yes, of course, I almost forgot - it's also my birthday - so that's a f***inkg great birthday present!