Budapest

I went on a "shopping trip" to Budapest at the end of March. I must confess I didn't think we would really go, although we had the plane tickets (Wizz Air) and Diana kept sending us hotel links to check out :-)

The idea came up one day in the office. It was the end of February I think, and Diana was about to go to (or had just come back from?) Rome. We were talking about clothes, and designer's stores and shoes and stuff, and wondering what the closest shopper's paradise was - to Bucharest, of course. So Diana suggested Budapest, and Mih said she wanted to go, seriously now, she really did want to see Budapest and let's do it! Diana immediately opened a browser and found low cost plane tickets, so low cost in fact that a return plane ticket to Budapest cost less than one-way trip to most places in Romania by car/train. So we booked the tickets, Raluca announced she also wanted to go, we decided at some point that boys were to stay out of this "fashionista trip" and on March 30th, at 4:30 in the morning, we were on the Baneasa airport sipping coffee in plastic cups, all 4 of us sleepy and excited at the same time, playing with our IKEA finger-toys and waiting to get to Budapest!

The photos can speak for the rest:

1. sewer lids from the Austro-Hungarian Empire period
2. doors
3. urban furniture
4. others

Stuff I collected over time

1. A link to an interesting post:

How to make a successful blog

2. "The Career Manifesto" - I don't agree with more than half of the stuff there, though

1. Unless you’re working in a coal mine, an emergency ward, or their equivalent, spare us the sad stories about your tough job. The biggest risk most of us face in the course of a day is a paper cut.

2. Yes, your boss is an idiot at times. So what? (Do you think your associates sit around and marvel at your deep thoughts?) If you cannot give your boss basic loyalty, either report the weasel to the proper authorities or be gone.

3. You are paid to take meaningful actions, not superficial ones. Don’t brag about that memo you sent out or how hard you work. Tell us what you achieved.

4. Although your title may be the same, the job that you were hired to do three years ago is probably not the job you have now. When you are just coasting and not thinking several steps ahead of your responsibilities, you are in dinosaur territory and a meteor is coming.

5. If you suspect that you’re working in a madhouse, you probably are. Even sociopaths have jobs. Don’t delude yourself by thinking you’ll change what the organization regards as a “turkey farm.” Flee.

6. Your technical skills may impress the other geeks, but if you can’t get along with your co-workers, you’re a litigation breeder. Don’t be surprised if management regards you as an expensive risk.

7. If you have a problem with co-workers, have the guts to tell them, preferably in words of one syllable.

8. Don’t believe what the organization says it does. Its practices are its real policies. Study what is rewarded and what is punished and you’ll have a better clue as to what’s going on.

9. Don’t expect to be perfect. Focus on doing right instead of being right. It will simplify the world enormously.

10.If you plan on showing them what you’re capable of only after you get promoted, you need to reverse your thinking.

Grey's Anatomy

For those of you who haven't heard about it, Grey's Anatomy is a TV show broadcast by abc in the US and TVR1 in Romania (Tuesdays at 21:45). It follows the life and struggles of a group of surgical interns at a Seattle hospital and I really like it. I even took the test to see which character I ressemble and I came out as Callie. I don't know who she is yet; we've reached season 2, episode 2 here and she hasn't shown up yet. But she sure seems a lot like me :-)

Just thought I would share this with you.

the game of hazard

Sometimes I play a fun game:

I open one one or another of my favorite blogspot.com blogs , I read whatever there is to read and then I press the "Next Blog" button and read another random blog, then press next again... and so on until I get bored, or I'm late for wherever I'm going, or the Next button simply disappears (on customized pages).

My findings today are:

• Carlota Duarte - Sem imaginação - the musings of an 18 year-old religious girl from Portugal;
• Raedwald - A London blogger writing a boat's blog :-)
• Pala-pala - A French photo blog.
• Shelley's blog - A personal blog of a Canadian lady (I must read this one in detail, seems interesting).
• The Sociopath Daily - daily postings from the "crazy world" series.

...am I insane, or is it just normal human curiosity to always want to click & see what's NEXT?

The fatal moment - or the influence of Hollywood

Sometimes all I want to do is sip some coffee and watch an American movie "with beautiful people". The subject of the movie is irrelevant. All that matters are the characters: a beautiful girl, or an attractive couple; a friendly family of 6-12 members living in a huge house that is absolutely identical to all the other houses around, on a long street, bordered by chestnuts; a young girl with more problems than anyone could possibly take, but with a very cute and calm face... give me any of these people and I'm stuck on the sofa from the beginning till the end.

Whenever I'm tired of my "real life", of the normal people I meet every day and the routine that gets to you no matter what, I turn on the TV and look for a nice movie. The characters of the movie are, of course, supposed to be normal, everyday people. Yeah, right! Like I don't know they're actually perfect individuals that accept all the hardships the movie director sees fit to face them with, just to show us that they can beat anything with minumum effort, in about 2 hours. Always on a good hair day, always perfectly dressed and ready to cope with the hardest problems in the easiest way.

The treacherous moment is similar in all these movies and comes unexpectedly. Just as the boy is taking a difficult u-turn in the most important race of his life, and the parents are watching him with huge grins on their faces... just as everybody's at the peak of happiness, something happens. The boy's head falls on the wheel, the car leaves the racing lane, the parent's expression changes dramatically and your heart stops for a second, even though you know it's just a movie.

Well, it's all about this split second when something irreversible happens and you cannot control it. The second when you break your mom's most favorite vase; the second when your whole world comes apart and you're left to put the pieces back together. I've learned to fear this second. Even though vases can be mended, and lives too.

I still prefer the movies, where things end well all the time and at the end of the two hours there's no sign of the cracks whatsoever.

Equilibrium?

I have a green frog with red eyes on my desk. It's climbing a brown ladder (or rather going down a brown ladder, now that I look better!) over an orange background. It's beautiful and I got it for my birthday. It has tons of good wishes on the back :))

Alex B.'s Yahoo Mess picture today represents an old Chinese sage wearing a blue robe. He's standing in the snow and I like to imagine he's Lee, the old Chinese cook from Steinbeck's East of Eden, waiting for Caleb to come home, or maybe looking after Samuel, who has just gone home in his old wagon. Alex says he's not a Chinese cook, but a Japanese Samurai and he's well used to the snow so I shouldn't worry about him being cold. But I think he's Lee, thinking about the correct translation of the word timshel, that gave so much trouble to a number of old Chinese sages.

Now to the subject of this post, I first saw a bottle of Balance in Germany a couple of weeks ago. It's basically water with a fruity flavor and comes in all sorts of crazy combinations: apples, peaches, pineapple, cactus and aloe vera, oranges and rose petals; absolute madness with just 5 calories! :)) The first time I bought a bottle of Balance I was just thirsty and I had a sore throat. It was cold, so it took me some two days to drink the whole bottle (750 ml).

I don't remember what flavor I bought the first time, but the second time I bought the fruity water, I was in a supermarket called Netto and they had a special offer, so I bought a whole six-pack... for the road, since we were leaving for Bucharest the following day. The flavor was: pineapple-grapefruit-aloe vera. Times 6.

I finished it up all by myself, as my family refused to taste it. My brother said I might as well drink water from a dirty bottle of Fanta; it would taste the same!

I recently found out we have Balance in Romania! It's sold in the G'Market stores and OMV gas stations, costs well over a euro and I just bought two bottles!

... when I quit smoking I thought I was free of any possible addiction. Apparently I was wrong.