I'm in heaven...
Can't write right now :D

Lavender

Provence, maybe?

Noo... Washington :D

Angela's Ashes

It's a sad day for literature lovers around the world...
Frank McCourt the author of Angela's Ashes has died :( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_McCourt
When I first read his autobiography in 2003 I didn't know what to do - to laugh because it was written in a funny manner or to cry because it's the story of a sad childhood...
When I had the opportunity to buy it in English, I never hesitated and since then I have read it many times over and every time it works it's magic on me...
Below it's a small sample of his humour.
RIP Frank McCourt...

Green tomatoes and Walnuts Jam

2 kg green tomatoes, 2 kg sugar, 250 ml vinegar, 250 g walnuts, 2 slices of lemon

Wash and cut the tomatoes in quarters or smaller. Put them in a pan, cover with water (3 cm over them), add the vinegar and let them boil for 25 minutes. Drain well. Meanwhile make a syrup from 2 kg of sugar and 1/2 l water. Boil the syrup for 20 minutes and then add the tomatoes. After 15 minutes add the walnuts and the lemon slices. Boil for another half an hour and then put them in sterilised jars.

Lamb's Lettuce with Chickenbreast and Garlic bread

Wash 400 g chickenbreast and then cut them in stripes. Add salt and pepper. Heat 1 Tablespoon of olive oil and fry the chicken. Wash 250 g of Lamb's lettuce (Feldsalat in German ;). Wash and clean 1 red capsicum and cut it in thin slices. Peel 2 carrots and then finely grate them.

Make a dressing with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, 1 tablespoon of sweet bavarian mustard and 1 tablespoon of yoghurt. Mix all the salad ingredients and pour the dressing over. Add the warm chickenbreast stripes.
Garlic bread: Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil and fry 1 finely chopped garlic clove. Add 2 slices of bread cut into cubes and fry until they turn golden. Serve warm with the salad.

Baile Atha Cliath

What are the odds with less than a week to my trip to Ireland to see a documentary about Dublin on Tv?
100 to 1?
Neh, I tell you: 1 to 1 !!!
I just watched it on TVR 2 :)
This means I will have an amazing holiday starting on Wednesday...

Ice Age 3 3D!!!

Wow! Wow! and Wow again :D
We went today to see Ice Age 3D and we had a laugh, not only because the movie is brilliant but also because we were looking like mutants with our 3D glasses :))
What can I say - this is a movie you should definitely see in cinemas, the 3D experience is beyond words, it's a must see...
And the movie was sooo funny, with some new characters and some totally hilarious scenes - like the crashing of the pterosaurs (one of the best scenes of the movie) - loads of funny accents, really a treat for the whole family...

Vinete pe grill cu sos de iaurt

2 vinete feliate subțire pe lungime, ulei de măsline pentru prăjit, o lingură ulei de măsline extra virgin, 3 linguri iaurt gras, o lingură pastă jummus, o linguriță zeamă de lămâie, 1 cățel usturoi zdrobit, o lingură pătrunjel tocat, sare, piper

Încinge grill-ul. Unge fiecare felie de vânătă cu ulei de măsline. Prăjește-le timp de 2-3 minute până când sunt gata. Aranjează-le pe un platou și asezonează cu sare și piper.
Pentru sos amestecă restul ingredientelor și asezonează cu sare și piper. Servește feliile de vinete cu sos de iaurt.

Vodafone

Hey hey hey the new Vodafone commercials are here :)
Unfortunatelly I'm still an Orange girl, but they are really funny...

Mizil Eating Adventure part 2

Of course today we continued with eating and drinking, what were we supposed to do?

It was pissing rain outside...
No, we didn't eat raspberry but it's a nice picture :D
We ate corn on a cobb and watermelon... and nothing happened :)))

P.S. Did I mention we also drank beer?
Still nothing ;)

Mizil Eating Adventure

After almost a year in pleas from my family to visit Mizil, I finally decided to come ;)

They tricked me with promise of lamb barbeque but in the end the truth came out: it wasn't lamb after all but a kid (not a human baby!!! but a baby goat :P)
Of course the whole weekend consisted in eating and drinking and then drinking some more and eating again, at one point we were thinking we can roll over all the way to Bucharest :D

I am not going to tell anymore what happened, I will let the pictures do the talking...

Sunflower

Dream Garden

Every year I admire a small garden in the middle of the city - a sea of hydrangea in an ocean of concrete.

It makes me dream of an English Garden...

Can I have some water please?

I just became an Evian fan...
I mean who wouldn't after such an advert?

Musaca cu legume si telemea de vaca

2 ardei grași galbeni tăiați în bucăți, 2 cepe roșii tăiate in 6, 2 dovlecei tăiați in felii groase, 1 vânătă mare tăiată în bucăți, 1 lingură ulei de măsline, 100 gr telemea de vacă, 1 ou, 200 ml iaurt, o cutie de roșii pasate, oregano uscat sau propaspăt

Se încălzește cuptorul la 200 grade. Se pun legumele într-o tavă mare, se amestecă împreună cu uleiul de măsline, se asezonează, apoi se coc 25 de minute, până când se înmoaie. Se sfărâmă telemeaua de vacă și se amestecă cu oul, iaurtul, sare și piper. Când legumele sunt gata, se transferă într-un vas termorezistent și se adaugă piureul de roșii și oregano. Deasupra se toarnă compoziția cu ou, se mărește intensitatea cuptorului la 220 grade și se coace 20-25 de minute, până când toppingul se rumenește.
Se poate servi și caldă și rece.

Lady Gaga

If you are missing Eric from True Blood, here he is... in a new role ;)
There is some blood involved, but not the one that you might think :))

Post-It mania

You really have to be a fan of Post-It's to imagine something like this...

'Deadline' - A Post It Stop Motion @ Yahoo! Video

New 7 Wonders of Nature

On the official website you can vote till July 7th for the new 7 Wonders of Nature.
Among them is the Retezat National Park at number 12 of its category (and only the first 11 go to the final) and the Danube River.
So go vote :D
http://www.new7wonders.com/c1/

B'estfest Day 2

Having so much fun on Day 0 I decided I should try another dose of good music, regarding the weather...
Considering the fact that the ticket was 150 ron I decided to look around and find cheaper alternatives - usually I'm quite lucky when it comes to cheap concert tickets - but no one prepared me for this!!!
Everbody was selling 2 tickets not only one, so I started looking for someone else interested in going to see Ab4 and Franz Ferdinand. And I found a friend of a friend who said if the tickets are under 80 she will buy one.
So I started negotiating on the net for 2 tickets for today for 100 ron both. And I found a nice girl who was selling them for 120 and after extensive emailing she agreed to sell them both for 100.
I was soo happy, I called my friend's friend and surprise! surprise! she could't come anymore.
So now I was stuck with a ticket and with the gloom perspective of losing money. So I decided to come early to the venue and try to sell my ticket for at least 50 ron...
When I arrived there lots of people were selling their tickets with 100 ron a piece, so I didn't want to break the market and I found someone who was very happy to buy my ticket for 100 instead of 150!
Sooo it means I went to an amazing B'estFest day for free :D
Somebody upthere must rrrrrreally love me!!!
And the best part hasn't come yet!!!
The day started with AB4 which I wanted to hear them live since forever (actually since 3 years ago when George was playing their music nonstop at the office). They were really good, unfortunatelly it was quite hot outside and they didn't have a big crowd for their concert, but... they did have a special spectator: Alex from Franz Ferdinand who was sitting next to me and was listening to their music! He actually said their music was great. I think he is the nicest pop/rockstar I ever met - he gave autographs to everyone, stayed for pictures and didn't complain at all... - really a greay guy.
After AB4 concert I met the guys and they are really nice - I just thought that Doru would be taller - and we hang out for a while.
Oceana followed and she was quite surprising with a good show and a nice voice - a better version of Amy Winehouse maybe. She has more hair than Amy that's for sure!
Next on stage was Alternosfera a loud band from Moldavia who rocked the place (or should I say who hard rocked the place?)
After this noise Gabriella Cilmi came to soothe us with her songs. Everybody knew some of her songs and despite the heat everybody was singing along...
Next were supposed to play the Klaxons, but unfortunately their bus broke down and they couldn't perform and the organisers found US3 who was playing in the evening in Bucharest to replace them. It wasn't the most inspired movement, but what can you do on such short notice.
And finally the moment we were all waiting: Franz Ferdinand took the stage and made an explosive show, maybe the best show for this edition of B'estfest. They were amazing, and when Alex started talking in Romanian he conquered the crowd forever!!!





Afterwards Orbital played but who noticed anymore, everybody was talking about Franz Ferdinand...

Niece niece

I visited today my niece and her daughter, my niece niece :)

She is sooo grown up since I last saw her, she can actually smile, laugh and of course, cry ;)
Isn't she a doll!!!

B'estfest Day 0

Hurray B'estfest is here :)
Let the party begin and enjoy the good music.
We shall start with the Snails http://www.snails.md/ a band from Moldova who play very very loud - I thought that my eyes will pop out of their sockets - and they sing with a cute moldavian accent and you have trouble understanding them... apart from that they were OK.
Next it was Patrice http://www.patrice-music.de/ who reggaed his way with the crowd till he started singing Soulstorm and then all hell broke loose...
I mean it started raining, drop by drop in the beginning and then it started raining harder and harder and harder and harder till you couldn't see 1 meter in from of you. Unfortunatelly there were not many places where you could hide so the only solution was to try to take cover around the bars... but of course all the spectactors had the same idea so you can imagine the rest ;)
Now I can honestly say that I understand the word WET WET WET - after being rained for 2 hours I was dry only on the inside :(( but that didn't stop me from having a great time.
Next on the show were the guys from White Lies http://www.myspace.com/whitelies who rocked the place despite the rain...



Finally my friends arrived and we braced ourselves for the most awaited moment of the night: The Killers!!!
It is amazing to see a sea of people jumping around in spite of the rain, or maybe they were just trying to heat themselves?
Anyway the show was amazing, they even brought they own palm trees!!!

It was definitely a night to remember for ever and ever as the night
when the music defeated the rain ;)