Getting ready

Ready, steady, go:

Conversation

Nephews... can't live with them, can't live without them ;)

- What are you doing?
- I'm busy, I'm watching Friends.
- Really?
- I'm not going to explain to you what Friends are, it's like explaining quantic physics to a fly!

Next day the conversation between his mother and him:

- Can you explain me quantic physics please?
- Who do you think I am? Little Einstein?

Out of reach...

After months and months of carefully planning, money counting and day dreaming I officially declare the Belgium Trip dead!
I couldn't find the cheap flight tickets I was hoping for, that means no opera for me this season - no Anna Netrebko, no Rolando Villazon, no more visits to the Chocolate and Chips Museums in Brugges...
I feel so blue :(
First the trip to Chisinau was cancelled - no more wine tasting at Cricova, and now this...
It means that my summer holiday must be something very special, to compensate for this - how about Ireland?
Maybe a U2 concert in Dublin with The Script as opening act?
That will cheer me up for life :D

Bridget Jones's Diary

I watched tonight Bridget Jones's Diary http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0243155/ for the 100th time. I still find it funny and refreshing, almost as good as the book :)
And the fight scene between Colin Firth and Hugh Grant is absolutely hillarious. One of the best fight scenes I ever seen...
If you haven't seen it, you MUST see it, you will never regret it!

Avem viata in sange

Earthquake

No comment...

The quirky origins of common phrases

Surfing the web you find interesting things to read. Like the origins of different phrases:

Blue Blood: After the Moors invaded Spain in 711, proud aristocratic families took pride in their pure Spanish heritage and the fact that they never intermarried with the dark-skinned Moors. They called the proof of their racial purity sangre azul for the way their veins tended to look blue under their pale skin, earning anyone from a noble or patrician heritage the nickname Blue Blood.

Best Man: In feudal days, weddings were fraught with the real possibility that a rival lord would try to break up the ceremony and steal the bride. To prepare for a possible battle, a groom would ask a friend with fighting skills to stand with him during his marriage and act as his Best Man, helping to defend his bride from possible kidnapping. Often, grooms would convince multiple friends and relatives to stand with him, and several peasant maids would be persuaded to stand with the bride, in the hope that if invaders came to disrupt the ceremony, they would be confused by the plethora of girls, and possibly kidnap the wrong one.

Sincerely: In ancient Rome, marble workers and craftsmen would sometimes cover up cracks and imperfections in their work with wax. Items that were whole and unblemished were, understandably, more valuable, so an artisan’s promise of sine cera, Latin words meaning “without wax” was an important personal and professional guarantee, and it’s why we now sign letters with the salutation Sincerely.

Burtica :)

My niece got married today :)
I wish her all the happiness in the world with her husband and a healthy baby daughter (or a boy, depending which way you look at the ecography)

P.S. I found out what honeymoon is all about - according to the Scandinavian tradition, the wedding couple was compelled to drink a fermented honeyed beverage for about a month after the wedding - from the time of one full moon until the next - for fertility and luck. This month of drinking and festivity was dubbed the Honeymoon.
So this is the explanation which I'm sure none of you knew it :)

Earth Day

Happy Earth Day!!!

Keane - Better than this

Just heard it today on the radio and didn't recognised them...
Shame on me!

Garfield

I think my cat is Garfield's biggest fan - whatever Garfield does, my cat follows...
For the last three days he's been in the sedentary mode :P

Discworld

I downloaded today almost all Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett (just 34 out of 36) and I am very happy to have them in my e-library :)
I remember when I first started reading them, borrowing them from the British Council, one novel at a time, always wanting more - and now I have them all to read again and again...
You don't know who Terry Pratchet is? Shame on you!
He is the forefather of JK Rowling and her Harry Potter!
He writes fantasy books about a fantasy world - the Discworld - a flat disc carried on the backs of four elephants astride a giant turtle floating through space, peopled by, among others, wizards, dwarves, soldiers, werewolves, thieves, beggars, vampires and witches.
Here is a link to his official website
http://www.terrypratchett.co.uk/books/appendix.php
Start reading one of his books and you will get hooked forever!

Waiting...

Waiting for the Easter Bunny :D

Goodreads

Surfing the net today I discovered a website where you can share your book knowledge with other people, to make lists of books you've read or you want to read in the near or far future.
I found it quite interesting, and I already copied the widget on my blog.
So now you know what I read at the moment and which books I consider worth reading ;)
The site is http://www.goodreads.com/
Enjoy!

Sinaia, mon Amour...

Considering the fact that today will be sunny and warm I decided to jump in the first train to Sinaia, to see my castle in spring :)

So, at 12.00 o'clock, after a 15 minutes delay I arrived safe and sound at Sinaia Train Station where my friend from P. Tapului, Monica, was waiting for me for a lovely day of memories sharing about the good old days ;) when we were little and carefree and running like crazy in the gardens of Peles...
The weather was amazing, and my meadow was filled with spring flowers, it was a dream!
We stopped also for some papanasi at Economat, we strolled on the alleys and had loads of laughs.
I picked some flowers for my mum, but of course till I got to Bucharest (with an hour delay thanks to SNCFR) they almost died, but I cut their tails and now they are alive again!

P.S. When we were in the gardens we noticed a pretty girl with a huuge dog - a Romanian Carpathin Shepherd Dog - he was almost asleep lying in the sun, and then some schoolchildren speaking hungarian came by, talking loudly. I though he was going to eat them alive, he barked at them like crazy and wanted to chase them, he almost dragged the girl to the ground :)
Maybe he understood what they were saying or he was a patriot dog :P

Thick as Thieves

Well, well, well...
We decided to go see Thick as Thieves http://us.imdb.com/title/tt1112782/ tonight...
Why? Two words: Antonio Banderas and Morgan Freeman! It seemed a sure hit with such good actors.
Was it any good? Two words: Antonio Banderas and Morgan Freeman! There was no spark between them, no connection, no nothing - it was really diasppointing :(
And there was no chemistry between Antonio and Rhada Mitchell, probably Melanie Grifitth was close by :) but you get a chance to see Antonio's naked bum for about 5 seconds, so... it's your choice!
The subject was interesting, about a heist of Faberge eggs, sort of Ocean's Eleven at one point, but still... there was something missing, like a good seasoning ;)
I really was expecting more from Mimi Leder, the director, but there are so many twists and turns in the last 10 minutes of the movie it makes your head spin...
So unfortunatelly this movie gets 2 thumbs DOWN!

Quiche cu ceapa și cheddar

Pe motiv de musafiri am făcut o tartă cu cașcaval și ceapă plus o salată de frunze de spanac și salată cu dressing de muștar... o nebunie :)

25 g unt, 5 cepe mici, 500 g în total, tăiate în jumătate și feliate subțire, 2 ouă, 284 ml smântână, 140 g brânză cheddar, rasă gros
Pentru aluat: 280 g făină, plus extra pentru presărare, 140 g unt rece, tăiat în bucăți, sare

Pentru a prepara aluatul, se pun făina, sarea și untul într-un bol și se amestecă până devin omogene. Se adaugă 8 linguri de apă rece și se amestecă cu mâna până se obține o cocă. Se formează o minge din aluat și se folosește imediat sau se păstrează 2 zile la rece. Aluatul poate fi congelat și păstrat timp de o lună. Se întinde aluatul pe o suprafață presărată cu făină într-un rotund cu 5 cm mai mare decât forma de 25 cm. Se așază în formă lăsând marginile să atârne. Se bagă la frigider sau congelator timp de 20 de minute.
Se încălzește cuptorul la 200 grade Celsius.
Cât timp se răcește aluatul, se topește untul într-o tigaie și se călește ceapa timp de 20 de minute, amestecând ocazional, până devine lipicioasă și aurie. Apoi se ia de pe foc.
Se înțeapă aluatul din loc în loc cu o furculiță, apoi se acoperă cu hârtie pergament sau folie de aluminiu. Se coace orb timp de 20 de minute. Se îndepărtează hârtia și bilele, apoi se mai coace timp de 5-10 minute până devine crocantă.
Între timp, se bat ouăle într-un bol și se adaugă gradual smântâna, se condimentează cu sare, piper și nucșoară. Se pune ceapa si jumătate din cantitatea de cașcaval în forma de tartă, se toarnă apoi amestecul de ouă și se presară pe deasupra restul de cașcaval. Se coace apoi 20-25 minute, până devine aurie. Se lasă la răcit în formă și se servește cu salată.

The Fray - Over my head

After listening it for the 100th time... I still like it :)

Florii

Happy Name's Day to my own personal Violet :)

Easter Fair

The whole weekend I'm at the Easter Fair from World Trade Center (Bucharest, not New York) with my friends from http://raftulcujucarii.ro/ and we are having such a ... lovely time!
Not that we have too many customers, nooo, we are actually thinking of playing Counterstrike online with all the participants at this fair!
But not everything is bad here, we order pizza's from Pizza Hut together with some of the exhibitors and we ended up sampling some Merlot from Chile! And it was very tasty :)

Stay tuned for more news live from WTC!

P.S. I told you I will come with updates...
We started a revolution like no other - Chisinau is nothing compared to this - we demand total refund for this fair due to the lack of customers! Right now we are writing our placards with our demands ;P
Please join in, or at least visit us...

Bucharest Interactive Map

Surfing the net today I discovered an interesting link with the interactive map of all the historical monuments in Bucharest.
Check it out at http://www.apmnir.ro/map.php

Moonlight

I just finished watching another vampire series - "Moonlight" http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0955346/ - a story about a detective/vampire who falls in love with a tv reporter - it was cancelled after just one season, due to the screenwriter's strike and poor ratings, but actually it wasn't that bad...

or I just say that because the lead actor is sooo cute?
His name is Alex O'Loughlin, he is australian and I predict better roles for him in the near future :)

A century of serbian paintings 1850-1950

I went today to the National Gallery for a special exibition: A century of serbian paintings 1850-1950
http://www.mnar.arts.ro/expo.php?id=145
and I was pleasantly surprised, especially by the paintings of the first female painter in Serbia - Katarina Ivanovic (1811-1882).
Her paintings are like pictures, so alive and beautiful, I was especially impressed by a portrait of a winemaker with a basket full of grapes, the bees on the grapes seemed so alive I had to check twice to see if they were moving or not...
You don't belive me? Go see the exhibition and then we'll talk.

Supa de cartofi cu praz si kaiser

25 g unt, 3 felii de kaiser, taiate bucati, o ceapa, cubulete, 400 gr praz spalat bine si feliat, 3 cartofi de marime medie, curatati de coaja si taiati cubulete, 1.5 l supa de legume fierbinte, o cutie de smantana, 4 felii de kaiser pentru garnitura

Se topeste untul intr-o tigaie mare, se adauga kaiserul si ceapa si se calesc pana devin aurii. Se adauga prazul si cartofii, se amesteca bine, se acopera si se lasa la foc moale aprox. 5 minute. Din cand in cand se amesteca ca sa nu se prinda. Se adauga supa, se asezoneaza, se acopera si se lasa la fiert aprox. 20 de minute pana se inmoaie legumele. Se lasa la racorit cateva minute, apoi se amesteca in blender cu smantana. Se condimenteaza dupa gust. Se presara cu kaiser crocant si se serveste cu crutoane.

There is still hope...

There is still hope for a better future for us...
Why? Well, let me tell you about what I witnessed today:
I was in a bus at lunchtime, of course the bus was full so I couldn't sit down and read my book so because I had nothing interesting to do I started observing the people around me.
I overheard 2 very interesting discussions: on my right there were 3 highschool girls (maybe 10th grade), with a lot of makeup, diva sunglasses and huge bags (the romanian name for them is pitzipoance) and they were loud, discussing the latest clubs and fashion trends, about boys with money and fast cars :P and on my left side were 2 highschool boys (also 10th grade) from a german highschool and they were talking about their trip in Germany, what they've seen there, they were discussing about the dumping prices in Africa, the industrial fishing around the world, about the environment and what they can do to improve the quality of life - I was really impressed!
That's why I think the future will not be as grim as predicted with the sole condition that there will be more boys like them and less girls like that in this world!

The Village Museum

Today was such a beautiful day, 20 degrees, sunny, a pleasure to go for a stroll in the park... but the plan was to play table tennis, not to walk!
Unfortunatelly all good plans have to fail somewhere, so here is how this plan failed:

Jiji wanted to take me and Adinutza to Herastrau Park to play table tennis, and he tried to convince me for almost 2 hours to come out and play ;) and I finally agreed and decided to meet at 16.00 in the park.
And... at 15.30 surprise - Jiji calls and tells us girls he is in another park with some friends and drinks beer and he can't make it to meet us! Can you believe it? We've been stood up, after being begged to come and play... He'll have to pay... dearly for this :D
So instead of doing sports we went for a walk in the park, but it was so filled with people we went to the Village Museum instead! Luckily I had my camera with me and we made some really beautiful pictures.
Oh yes, it seems now I have a personal photographer, because I couldn't get Adinutza off my back about taking my picture! But Muntzi told me she had the same problem, so... I'm a supermodel now ;)
After so much walking we needed a break and called Muntzi to wish her a nice trip to Paris... and we ended up in Hazard for a drink and met her parkour boys, some so young they seemed to be in kindergarden!
It was a lovely ending to a lovely day. Long live spring!

Russe, Bulgaria

I found out yesterday that my brother wants to go to Russe today... and he didn't invite me :((
I was soo upset I didn't sleep well at all. And at 8 o'clock in the morning he calls my mum and invites her to go with him and Dana and Buni to Russe, and not a word about me!!!
So my mum left and I was even more upset because I think everybody knows I'm always ready for a trip anywhere, I just need my passport and my photocamera :)
I decided to watch a russian movie with bulgarian subtitles instead! When I was little I loved the movie and when I was in Ruse last year I bought the dvd but never got the chance to actually see it. It's "A railstation for two" http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0084873/
But as I started watching it, my sister-in-law called me and asked if I needed a special invitation to come with them to Ruse or what? So I packed my camera and in 20 minutes I was at their place :) and off we go!
When the customs officer asked us where we were going and my brother answered we were going to Russe to drink coffee, the officer looked at us like we were crazy!
But we arrived in Russe without any problems and we went straight to a restaurant because we were sooo hungry! And it was only 12.00! It's such and interesting experience to eat in a bulgarian restaurant, because the menues are in romanian (or sort of romanian - I mean do you know what gat de porc is? It's ceafa de porc :). The food is really tasty and quite cheap, the portions are big - it's a pleasure to go to lunch in Ruse - I had a La valetta salad with spinach leaves and grilled vegetables - absolutely delicious!
After a stroll in the city center http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rousse we decided to do a little shoppping at the local supermarket where we were lucky enough to find Wurtze sauce (it's a sort of German soy sauce which you can't find in Romania), and of course we bought the bulgarian milk toffees that my sister-in-law is so fond of...
I think the vendor at the supermarket was a little bit shocked to see our shopping cart - 10 bottles of Wurtze and all the bags of toffees (20 pieces!). Next time when the custom officer asks us where are we going we know the answer - to Russe to buy milk toffees!!!
It was nice weather for a day trip and we also discovered the way to the Danube river, so next time we know where to go for a stroll...

Budinca de pere si ciocolata

Iar a dat gateala peste mine si am facut un fel de sufleu de pere care se poate manca si cald si rece :)

3 pere coapte, curatate de coaja, sucul unei jumatati de lamaie, 1 lingura zahar brun, 4 lingurite lichior Poire William sau coniac
Pentru topping: 50 gr zahar granulat fin, 1 lingura pudra de cacao, 25 gr migdale, 1 albus de ou

Se incalzeste cuptorul la 160 grade Celsius. Se taie perele in bucati mici si se pun intr-o tigaie cu sucul de lamaie si zahar. Cand incepe sa fiarba, se acopera cu un capac si se mai lasa timp de 10 minute. Apoi se ia capacul si se mai coace 8-10 minute pana ce sucul devine gros. Se pun in 4 boluri mici de ceramica a cate 150 ml fiecare si se adauga cate o lingurita de lichior.
Pentru topping, se pun zaharul, pudra de cacao si migdalele intr-un bol, se bate spuma albusul de ou si se amesteca. Compozitia se toarna peste pere si se baga la cuptor timp de 20-25 minute pana ce toppingul prinde o crusta. Se presara cu zahar pudra pe deasupra si... pofta buna :)

Home movies

Today was Buni's birthday and after eating the cake (which was delicious) we started watching old family movies...

We laughed and we cried watching Anca and Mihaita's kindergarden plays, family celebrations, trips abroad and to Constanta, it was a great way to spend a lovely afternoon.
When I was younger I hated when my dad wanted me to film the family parties, because I didn't see the point in doing it, I liked more filming landscapes and nice things, not my family eating and drinking and talking loudly. Now I wished I filmed more, because these are the only tangible memories you are left with...

The International

I know that today was April Fools Day, but despite that it's wednesday and of course we went to see a movie at our favourite movie theatre...
Unfortunatelly the whole gang couldn't make it (some people are going to Paris next week and they have no time for watching movies with normal people, who are staying in Bucharest... and that means no popcorn fight either because in 2 it's not exactly a fight, it's more like sharing the popcorn).
Luckily it was a serious movie so the popcorn fight didn't take place at all...
We saw The International http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0963178/ with Clive Owen (gorgeous as ever) and Naomi Watts and directed by my favourite german director Tom Tykwer. It's an impressive movie, not only because of the beautiful scenery (the Italian coast is spectacular, the chase on Istanbul roofs deserves a mention, and of course "la piece de resistance" ;P is the fight in the Guggenheim museum in New York - actually as you will see in the short movie below it's not exactly Guggenheim, because they would have closed it for renovations after this movie) but also because the subject it's extremely interesting and actually it was inspired after a true story (the BCCI scandal from the 1980's), which is quite scary!
A really good movie worth watching, so you should see it... even in Paris :)

P.S. As you can see I become better and better at posting short movies on my blog :)